123. Matias Barnes | Author of Warning May Be Habit Forming

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better.

In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Matthias Barnes, author of Warning: May Be Habit Forming. Matthias is a former construction employee turned author who managed millions of dollars of projects and contracts. He overcame huge obstacles from addictions to negative thoughts controlling his outlook on life, yet he didn't let it stop him from achieving big goals. Throughout this episode, you'll learn how Matthias reprogrammed his mind to remain positive and how he became a conduit of positivity. Why it's so important to understand the mechanics of positive thinking, how you can change your life through better thoughts, and what you can do today to start reprogramming your mind to work for you instead of against you. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with Matthias Barnes.

Matthias, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you feeling today? You ready to get rolling?

Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, we're excited for this conversation. So for our audience, for members of our audience that are not familiar with you or this brand new book, Warning, Maybe Habit Forming, what a title. Why don't you introduce yourself to everybody? Tell them a little bit about you, why you decided to write the book, what your expectations are for it. Why don't you kick us off there?

Yeah, sure. My name is Matthias Barnes, and I actually worked in the construction industry for over a decade and worked in marketing and did some other different things. And long story short, my position that I was in for, like I said, well, the last one I was in was, I don't know, 2 years or something. The position ended and the company was like, hey, you want to do this other job? And I was like, anyways, long story short, I stopped working there and I had already started writing this book, which was just basically about positivity and applied positivity. And, you know, I had discovered some different things in my own life and in reading some different things. And I thought, man, these are, these are important notes for people to understand. And, and I saw all around me You know, people suffering, and I, I mean, I still do to some extent. People suffering, you know, living inside of prisons of their own creation. You know, for example, you know, some of the, some of the self-sabotage, like when people say, "Oh man, I hate it when I forget to blah blah blah," and you hear that and you're just like, "Oh my gosh, I can help you." Like you can phrase your, your self-talk better so that you can live a better life. And so I had sort of started. Tooling around, I probably had a chapter and a half put together in an outline. And Lisa said, "Hey, don't write your resume; write your book." And I was like, "Okay, yeah, I can. I can do that." And so I really threw myself into it. And you know the name of our company, G Blitz Creative. That's the company we're publishing under in Amazon through Amazon currently. But G Blitz Creative—that's shortened down for Geistesblitz, which is a German word that. Basically, it's like that moment where you just have like that clear intuition, just like a eureka moment, you know what I mean? And that's really what the book was, you know, every step of the way. I didn't know what I was doing, you know, and I've never written a book before, but I researched, and that's probably the biggest thing I took away from the job that I did for the past decade was you can do anything. You just have to figure out how and then do it, you know, just get out there and grind. And so I did. And honestly, I didn't even know when I was writing it kind of what shape it was going to take. I had written probably about half of the book before I did the interview That chapter 2 came out of. And as happens when you're writing a book, I mean, some stuff got thrown out, other stuff came in, you know, things were clarified, rephrased, and it was a, it was an exciting ride. But really, ultimately, the purpose of the book, you know, for me is to spread positivity and to help people understand how to think and live positively and ultimately improve quality of life through better thought. Gosh, I wish I could remember the quote exactly, but Oprah said something about this where she said, you know, the most powerful thing is the ability to change your life just by changing your thinking. That in a nutshell is what I bring to the reader in this book. And I keep it super duper simple. And there's, having read chapter 4, Take Command, if you read the book, having understood that, you'll see that the whole book is littered with positive programming to literally impact the reader and create lasting change in their mind without, I mean, I mean, even, even this, you know, this graphic that I put together. Unlock your potential. That's a quote from the book. Unlock your potential and take the training wheels off your mind. Those are commands. Those are embedded commands. And the entire book is designed to impact the reader and to reprogram them to think in a way that is more to make them happier, really. And I do, I have huge goals for this book. One of the things that I do daily is I gratitude journal, you know, and I write the format that I gratitude journal. I don't talk about this in the book, but if you do the 30 days, I teach you how to do it. And I gratitude journal every single day for positively impacting 1 billion people through this book. Now that's a lot, but it's also very achievable and it, that doesn't mean selling a billion copies. Because changing one person to be positive can impact many people.

Do you think ultimately, sorry, go ahead. No, just jumping the gun a little bit here. Do you think that you were a positive person like from the start, or is it something that you had to learn as well over time to become this positive person?

You know, there were, there were, I wanted to be a positive person. But I didn't understand the mechanics that were holding me back. And ultimately, that's what this book delivers is the mechanics, because I wanted to be a positive person, but I suffered just like most people do from unhelpful programming, you know, much of it, right, instilled in childhood and through education and through You know, movies and TV and, and some of these unhelpful ideas and unhelpful phrasings. You know, people, people like to quote movies. They, they say movie quotes, but you need to pay attention to the verbs in your movie quotes that you're saying because you are literally programming yourself to do that. You know, and so I, I feel like as I discovered some of these things, like, I was like, oh man, everybody should know this. Everybody should know this. Yeah, that's amazing.

I know we live in such a world that we grow up with a lot of negative programming. I know something that I've worked on really hard over the last few years is becoming a more positive person because I was, you know, I grew up with a lot of scarcity mindset and all those things that you grew up with and just major negativity in my own mind. And it's taken a lot of work to get to the point where I can actually consider myself now a positive person. And it, like you said, it is really, really life-changing. And I'm excited that you wrote a book that takes people through that process of finding their positive that's within them, right? Because, you know, even for myself, I wish I had your book just like 3, 4, 5 years ago when I was starting my journey, because it would've shortcutted a lot of the things that I had to learn on my own. So I'm thankful that you took the time to do that. Why do you think that we grow up With such a negative mindset? I feel like that tends to be more natural than the positive mindset, or maybe it's not natural and it's learned. What are your thoughts around that?

I think it's learned. I think it's perpetrated. Listen, my, my mom is German. My name, Matthias, that's a German name. I spell it the Spanish way, but my mom is German. Do you know how many thousands of times I heard the word, I heard the phrasing, don't forget blah, blah, blah? Do you know how, how much work it was to unlearn that? I mean, you do because you just told me that you do. And I think that a lot of it is cultural. I think a lot of it depends on culture. I think a lot of it is peer-driven, which of course is all media-driven and social media-driven these days. Movies and TV have a huge impact, but so does all the scrolling. The scrolling has a huge impact. You know, I I read, I read somewhere, I was, I was doing some research on something and I read somewhere that the typical 16th century, just villager, just Catholic villager in, you know, in the 16th century saw less images in their entire day than you as a modern person see in the first minute of opening your phone. I mean, it's— and you think about all of those words, all of those words. And yes, the images have great impact too, but all of those verbs, all of those commands assaulting you. And that's why, you know, I talk about in the book, that's why I talk about paying attention to your inputs and trimming your inputs because You become your inputs.

So what are some examples of commands that people might be subconsciously receiving as they scroll through social media that they're not aware of that are negative?

I mean, I, you know, kind of put me on the spot there, but pretty much any present tense verbs, right? You know, so I, I follow a lot of like positivity stuff online and sometimes it makes me cringe when I'll see like a, a You know, one of those little quotes or whatever, and then it'll say like, "Don't be afraid," but it's like negative, negative phrasing, right? So "don't be afraid" contains the embedded command "be afraid," and so yes, you're getting "don't be afraid" on the conscious level, but you're also programming yourself, and you're creating that. You're instantly creating that internal misalignment with phrasing. That is conflicting, right? And it's everywhere. It's everywhere. And it's, it's, I think trimming your inputs is super duper important, but also using the antidote because you can't block it all out. You can't block it all out. You know, it's not even possible. And I'll tell you right now, being a full-time book marketer, which includes a lot of playing on TikTok and playing on Instagram and blah, blah, blah. You have to use the antidote. You have to consciously, intentionally counter some of the phrasing that you encounter because you're not going to be able to filter it all out, you know? So, yeah, I don't know. That's, that's basically— I don't know if that answers your question, but it does.

So what's, for somebody that's listening today and they go, okay, warning, maybe habit-forming sounds like it could be the antidote to all of the negative commands that I subconsciously get on social media. What's an example, an actionable example of an antidote to the negative stuff that we consume out there. You want to give like a little preview to everybody?

Absolutely. You know, just back, back to that motivational quote that I mentioned earlier, don't, do not be afraid, right? You know, if I see that, I'm going to instantly say, be courageous. I'm going to say it out loud right now because I don't need that and I do need this.

Yeah, I love that. Be courageous. Yeah. And so, Warning, Maybe Habit Forming. Yeah, I can, I can see.

I didn't even know the title, Nick. I did not know the title of this book. I don't know if you've, I maybe if you scrolled back and looked at some of my old Instagram videos, there's a video where I talk about that. But when I was writing this, I was like, I don't know what the title is. In fact, it wasn't until I completed chapter 6 that I realized that it was going to be a 30-day transformation. With like daily programming. I didn't even know that I was going to do that. But, you know, the book isn't really about habits, but if you read it and you do the exercises, you will pick up some habits and you've been warned it's in the title. But it's, you know, that's not, it's not like, hey, let's work on your habits. There's another book I'm seeing on social media recently, which I haven't picked up a copy of yet, but Goal Getting Journal. And you know, that one from some of the imagery I've seen, it's like very focused on like, you know, I, I'm gonna get these goals. My book isn't about getting goals. It's not about forming habits. It's about transforming the way that you think and therefore transforming the way that you live.

Yeah, it all starts in your, it all starts in your mind, comes down to the mindset. And I think it's so cool that you wrote a book that is, is doing that, is helping people start with their mindset because That's where you begin, right? Oh, crazy. When you, when you were writing this book, you said, you know, you didn't have the title until chapter 6. So what was your, what was your, what were your thoughts around all the stuff that you were putting into it? You said that it, you weren't even sure if it was gonna, how it was gonna come out. Like, what were you thinking as you were putting this into a book format? All these thoughts that are coming through, like, What was going through your mind? Were you, were you worried about the outcome of serving a billion people? Or are you just like, I just need to get this out because the universe is telling me, like, what were your thoughts around that?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the whole book is Geistesblitz. Like, I didn't even write any of it. I mean, I did, but like, I feel like I've, if you look at my LinkedIn profile, I have on there that I'm a conduit of positivity. And that's what I feel like. I feel like this isn't even me. Like, I'm just the messenger, guys. And I, you know, I finished drinking it now, but my favorite coffee cup here says, life is my favorite adventure. Okay? And that is literally where I'm at. I'm like, like, you got to understand how crazy this is. Like, I quit my job. I spent my whole 401 funding this. Okay? Like, I burned bridges plus. Now, that's not to say that I don't know I could go and get a job for $100K tomorrow if I wanted to. I could, but that's not the path that I've chosen. And the path that I've chosen is to be this conduit of positivity and to bring that, you know, and I'm doing it in the most ethical way that I can possibly do. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't do a second book that you have to buy that you have to write in and, you know, the workbook. I didn't do that, right? I didn't set it up so that you're going to buy another journal from me after you finish the 30 days, right? I'm not selling another product. You know, one of the questions Nick had for me was, what are you going to offer to your super clients, to the people that like really, you know, really dig it, right? But this is not a lead getter. I don't care about that. I don't need people to— I don't want to do conferences. I don't want to talk in front of a million people. I want people to get this programming into their minds and to live better as a result.

Have you been scared? Like, have you been scared in this whole process?

No, no, not at all. One of the things that I do, that I do daily, One of the things that I do daily is, um, I sit in silence. I like to sit in silence. I usually can only handle about 10 minutes at a time, but I'll sit in silence with the lights off and just listen, you know? And a lot of stuff comes to you when you do that. I'll tell you what, the, you know, you think the internet is full of everything. No, the, I don't know what it, you call it, is full of everything. And if you sit in silence, you can access it.

Yeah, I used to listen to podcasts and books on my daily walk with my dog because it's out in the woods and there's nobody around. But I've started to walk without headphones and just observe my own thinking. You know, I'm still walking, so there's more inputs than sitting in a quiet room by myself, but it's a walking form of meditation and I've really enjoyed it. And yeah, I was going to point out, you know, there's a lot of opportunities to write right inside the book and I took full advantage of that and I thought it was a lot of You know, it's nice to, it's nice to be able to journal inside of the book and not have to purchase a second journal.

Totally, totally. Because I'm not about the commercialism. I don't care. I don't care. And in fact, I do know that this book is going to be huge and I do know that there will be, you know, money that comes with that, but I'm going to use that to do good too. You know what I mean? Like when it comes to like having money, my hero is that Patagonia guy. Just, just do something good with it.

Have you read any of Steven Pressfield's work, Matthias?

I haven't.

So he has a book called The War of Art where he talks all about the muse, like, which is essentially this idea that there's this external consciousness, you can call it whatever you want. And essentially, as an author, when you're ready, you can download information from this external consciousness, let it pass through you onto paper. And then distribute it for the positive good. And it sounds like that's kind of what happened when you decided to write this book.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And to be honest, it's not even that I decided to write this book. What the real decision was, was that I decided to become an author. And so this is just the start. I'm going to grind out a few other books. You know, I have a lot of material to write from. I am, you know, I don't know. Well, I guess this is as good a time as any to be public about this. I spent a fair amount of time addicted to heroin, and I've got a lot of life experience to write from. You know, I've seen a lot of crazy stuff. You know, and I there, like you said, you know, you you plug into the Geistesblitz into the G Blitz. And, and you don't have to think about it. It comes out of you.

Now, you just opened a can of worms for us to go a little bit farther into, I think. Because it's not often that an author is that vulnerable, which is, which is good, because I think that our listeners will get to know you even better and form a better connection with what you're talking about now. So how long have you been sober from the heroin addiction?

5, 6 years maybe. I don't know. I don't keep track. I don't celebrate that. It's part of my past. And I'll tell you what, I thank my past self for making those mistakes, right? I thank my past self for doing that. And I appreciate my past self for the, you know, $100,000 plus that I spent on heroin. You know, that's not to say that I recommend it to anyone. I don't, but I've been working hard to improve myself over time. And yeah, I got off of the junk and I got, I got off of the cigarettes. I haven't smoked cigarettes for like 2 years. You know, I smoked cigarettes for like 20 years. I don't recommend that either. We used to drink, we used to drink, uh, after getting off of the heroin, we used to drink a half gallon of vodka every other day. Not Again, not something I would recommend to anybody, but you know, I've been, I've been like, okay, I know who I want to be and I'm going to just be that person and checking off boxes along the way. And I lost like 50 pounds. I started eating keto and lost like 50 pounds like 2 years ago. You know what I mean? These are all things where I was like, okay, I started working out like 2 months ago. I started working out. I never worked out a day in my life, Nick. Never. Never, ever, ever. I thought people who work out are chumps, but they're not. They're right. And if I want to enjoy this body, this rented car that I'm in, right, then I should take care of it. I should change the oil.

One final question for you, and I see Luke's unmiked himself, so he's unmuted, so he wants to ask some questions too. What do you think the biggest difference in daily self-talk mindset is today versus, let's call it, 6 years ago.

You know, like I said, I wanted to be a positive person. I did. I wanted to be better. I wanted to make improvement in my life. And it's been a journey understanding how to do that. There was a lot of unhelpful programming which I had to overcome. You know, there were, there were ideas that I had, like, you know, Luke mentioned scarcity mindset. There were ideas I had to dump. One of the things I posted on Insta not too long ago and TikTok was something about opinions, right? And so an opinion is something that you believe to be true, but you cannot prove it. Okay? And I had a lot of opinions that were not helpful. Right? Like I heard someone say the other day, oh, I'm not a good reader. I heard somebody say that and I thought to myself, why? Why did you cast that spell on yourself? What's wrong with you? You know what I mean? So I think, I think understanding the mechanics of it has made the biggest difference.

Going back just a little bit. Sure. You, You were able to overcome your addiction to heroin, and I'm just really curious because that is— that's such a hard one to get off, at least from my experience. I have a brother-in-law who died from a heroin overdose. I've known several other people that have, um, have fought with that and been plagued with that. What drove you to, to stop, to stop taking, to stop using heroin? Like, what's— what drove you?

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Well, it always starts with a decision, right? And once you decide to go on the journey, then you gotta put your shoes on and you still gotta walk all those steps. And when I decided to, you know, was really when Lisa and I got together. I decided like, you know what, I gotta be done with this. And I didn't know how, I really didn't. And I, I, I thought I just gotta find a way. And just like anything else I've done, You know, you just decide. And really it's a 4-step process, which isn't in my book, but it'll be in a future book. Decide— no, actually imagine, decide, plan, which includes research, and then execute. And that's what I've done with everything in my life. And so I, I was like, oh well, I guess I'll, I guess methadone's the way. And so I was on methadone for like a year, which I hated that. Oh, it was terrible. But it all— it starts with a decision. You have to decide, you have to want to, you know, you have to want to, you have to want to be the— and it's not— I think people get hung up on like, oh, I want this thing, or I want this blah, blah, blah. No, don't do that. Don't do that. Be the person that has that. And besides, wanting things is just telling the universe that you don't have them. And that's not helpful anyway.

I like that a lot. Wow.

Maybe that's the YouTube thumbnail too. Wanting things is telling the universe you don't have them. Yeah. It's like an affirmation that you don't have anything. Yeah.

It really is. It really is, right? Because when you want something, you're just like pushing it away. Why would you do that? Why would you push it away?

Man, this is getting me so excited listening to you talk, feeling the energy. I know that a lot of our listeners are gonna feel super encouraged listening to this. So thank you for sharing this story because it's a, it's a powerful one. It reminds me of, there's this guy who's really big right now on social media, Alex Hormozi. He talks about kind of a similar concept, but he says be, do, have. And it's very similar to that. Like you have to imagine you are that person or that whatever it is that you want in your life. You can't say, oh, I want it, but You have to actually just manifest that and be that person. If you want to be that healthy person, go out, be a healthy person. Don't say I want to be a healthy person, but be a healthy person. And I think you're a testament to that for sure.

That's why I wear the author pin, bro. That's why I wear the author pin, because I'm freaking serious about the identity that I've created.

I need one of those.

I'm super serious. I'm not playing any games.

Yeah, the first time, Matthias, I ever read about that was in Jim Kwik's book Limitless. And he says, I am are the 2 most powerful words in the English language. And I agree. Once I said, I am a reader, I went to Barnes& Noble and I got a little like membership card and I carried around in my— I carried that around in my wallet because I said, that's what a reader would do. A reader would have this in their wallet at all times, right? So I am a reader. I had a lot to reprogram myself when I first started.

No, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. What would an author do, right? You know, it's what would a book marketer do?

So let me ask about that. What has been the most successful strategy that you've implemented so far for book marketing?

You know, I I think what is going to have the biggest returns is quite simply the micro influencers. So I am working with a website that connects you with influencers and basically, you know, I'm doing a gifted program where I'm sending them copies of the book in exchange for them to say, hey, You know, look, I'm reading this, right? And, you know, there's a lot of components that go into it. You know, a big part of it is, is sellability, right? And so when someone gets to the Amazon page, it has to be something that they can buy. You know, like one of the things that I'm working on right now is reviews. You know, I, people expect to see a certain number of reviews before they click buy. You know, I don't know what that number is and I think it varies from person to person. But, you know, it's been very interesting dissecting and learning the book marketing piece and it's like, okay, like we, this is like, I think our third, no, fourth book. I don't have them right next to me, but we wrote a couple of other books first, you know, to learn the process, you know, and Like we did a his and hers. Gosh, I wish I had them handy. We did a his and hers, like be the champion of your relationship, right? And so that was a paperback, had like 60 ideas of like nice stuff you can do for your significant other. Lisa published one that was Love Is Everywhere, You Just Have to Look for It. And it has like a bunch of like different pictures of, you know, whatever. But the marketing part is the most interesting part. And Part of what we've learned with the other books is how to use Publisher Rocket and how to do some of the Amazon ads and some of that stuff. But again, gotta have a sellable product. And so making sure that the right people are reading it and getting reviews up right now is a big part of the strategy.

Yeah. Well, I love to hear that. It's an impossible game with millions of different variables, but it's something that We're always learning and trying to improve, and you just put the book in front of good people and you keep, you keep putting it out there and eventually you sell some books.

Absolutely.

And I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't need to know the how because I didn't know the how for any of this. Every step of the way, every step of the way has been like, I'm gonna just do this. And Like that copy that you have, that you guys have. Hey, sorry about the typos, guys. Like the first 100 copies had some typos. Oh, well, you know what though? My editor, it was his first time. Me, I'm the editor. Hey, and now you love that though. It's, it's just truth, right? Like I have nothing to hide. Like my whole brand, my whole identity is transparency.

I love how you are, to me, the embodiment of the universe is conspiring for you. I don't know if you've heard that term, but it's from— Sure. Yeah. The Alchemist. The Alchemist. That's right. I always get that one confused with The Four Agreements. I don't know why, but yeah, The Alchemist. And I think you're just living proof that the universe can conspire, does conspire for you. You just have to step into it. And it's very cool to see that you're doing that actively. As we're watching it unfold.

You know what people, what people don't realize is that the universe is already conspiring to do your bidding, but you're just a bad boss that doesn't know how to tell the universe what to do. You know what I mean? I mean, not you personally, but you know, that's, that's what I found. And that's what I learned, that I was telling the universe to screw me over. Why? Why did I do that?

Do you have any tips for people listening? Like, what's the, what's one thing they can do today that can change the way they get from the universe and make things show up for them? I know you have a whole book full of that, but it's—

I mean, if I distilled it down to like just one thing, just read.

We're doing something right, Nick.

Read books, read books, right? And, and now I know that that could be counterproductive if you're reading things that aren't helpful. That could happen. But if you read, you're thinking like you're thinking on a level that people don't usually think on when they're just talking. Like, like even this, right? Like, I didn't plan for this. I didn't write anything down. I didn't, oh, I'm going to make sure I'm going to mention that. I didn't even know what I was going to talk about. Doesn't matter, right? Because I'm just plugged into the Geistesblitz. I'm in the zone. I'm in the DAO, right?

The Geistesblitz. I gotta, I gotta remember that. We're gonna, I'm gonna have to look up the spelling of that and everything. Maybe that's a new tattoo, Nick, or maybe that's my first tattoo. I don't know. I like that a lot. Such a cool concept for sure.

Yeah, I love it. Well, I also have German heritage too, Matthias, so.

Totally. I just figured, you know, for the company name, we were like, let's just call it G Blitz because we don't want to, we don't want to trouble people. I'll tell you, tell you, on my birth certificate, my name is actually spelled M-A-T-T-H-I-A-S. But since my parents had it changed on my passport, they won't spell it that way anymore. So I actually spell it the Spanish way because it's easier for people, right? And, you know, one thing I learned is It's not— it's best to avoid creating obstacles for people, right? I agree with you.

The customer always says no.

Man, I'll tell you what, I worked 10 years before I worked in construction. I worked 10 years at a grocery store.

Matthias, I'm curious, what are the biggest lessons that you learned working at a grocery store?

I'm an introvert. And I have worked very hard to be good at people. And I don't— still don't consider myself awesome at people, but I have worked really hard. I've come a long way. And that was, that was the first job that I had. And I really had to learn how to interact with people and be friendly. Right. And so I think people that came and shopped at the grocery store when I worked there, and, you know, when I was a manager, people that worked with me, and I think that they they felt that positivity, which I like, it was inside of me, but I just didn't have the wherewithal. I didn't have the mechanics to really be the person that I am now. But yeah, I mean, that was the, that was probably my biggest takeaway was learning how to interact with people in a positive way.

Well, you're doing a great job. I wouldn't have guessed that you were, you're introverted. You seem like, like just your energy that you put off is, is extroverted to me, but So you're doing a good job. What has been, what has been the, the biggest challenge in getting your book out? What has been the biggest challenge for you that you're trying to, to overcome or that you overcame?

Oh man. Well, she's not gonna watch this, but you know, my wife ha— doesn't have the same level of like, I just know, right? Like, like beyond a shadow of a doubt, like I just know. That this is what I'm supposed to do and I'm doing it. For her, she's like, oh, okay, well, we've got enough to get through this month and the bills. And I'm like, you know what she told me the other day? She told me, she said, it's costing you more money to have your books in Canada on amazon.ca than what you're making. I was like, so why are you even telling me this? Listen, I understand how this goes. The book goes like this. Well, backwards maybe for you. I don't know, whatever. But it goes viral, right? And when you look at a, when you look at a graph of something going viral, you can't look at a point and think that you know anything about the next point. You just can't. Right?

Sure.

And so I think that's been my biggest challenge is maintaining being nice in the face of facts-oriented thinking, if you will. Because the thing is, you can, you can always like look at like what happened in the past. And I, and this isn't in my book either, but I'm gonna tell you right now, if there's something that's not positive, always describe it in a past tense. Right? So like, for example, oh, my stomach was really hurting. Why would you say my stomach really hurts? That doesn't make any sense because now you're creating a reality that you don't want to live in. Right. But if you always past tense it, then you're distancing yourself.

Yeah, that's a good point. And yeah, you're right. Hindsight's always 20/20. And if somebody tells you they knew what was going to happen, they're, they're not telling the truth.

No, right? They're not. Because you decide, you decide every minute with your thinking.

We're, we're cut from the same cloth as far as that's concerned.

Yeah, I mean, And, and I'm just gonna slide this in here real quick. You know, one of the things that I find very interesting is multiple world interpretation, right? And I don't know if you guys know about this, but basically, some of the people at the CIA think that it's like quantum physics, like multiple—

We speak that language a little bit, for sure.

Right. Right. And so, and so basically, Through your thinking, you're just pulling yourself into this reality or that reality, whichever one, whichever universe in the omniverse that there is. And I don't know if that's exactly how it works, but it sure looks like it.

Yeah, Jordan Peterson said once, I heard him say, there are billions of future realities in every single minute, the choices that you make determine which one that you end up in. And that's kind of the way that I think about it. There, there's a reality where My hand went up 1 second faster and went down 1 second faster, which is different than the one that we're currently sitting in. And so, there are very bad realities in your future, but also very positive ones too. And you get to make the choice which one you want to live in.

Absolutely. Absolutely. A tagline that didn't make it into the book, but which I particularly enjoy is You know, you create your own reality, create one you want to live in.

Yeah, I have a tattoo right here that says reality is negotiable, if you can see it. So you get to negotiate, you get to decide, it's up to you.

Very much on the same page with that. And I think there, I think that there are, there are a fair number of people that are on the same page, but it needs to grow. It needs to be almost everybody, you know, and I figure there's 2, there's 2 billion English readers on this planet. And some of them probably can't afford to buy a book. Just true facts, right? So that's where I came up with my 1 billion number. You know, I, I figured if I can get half of the readers, then, you know, that's pretty, that's pretty good.

I would say so. That'd be the bestselling book of all time right behind the Bible. So you'd be right there.

Oh no, don't get me started. You know what my BHAG is, but my big hairy audacious goal is to Write a positive programming edition of the Bible.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, the Bible, the Bible is, by the way, and like, you know, I'm, I don't need to go into what my personal faith is. That doesn't matter. But the Bible is actually littered with unhelpful programming. There's so much, so much. Every time an angel appears, don't be afraid.

It's, it's be courageous.

Right, right. And, and, you know, I know there's like 1,000 versions of the Bible, but most of the versions of the Bible include all kinds of conflicting and unhelpful programming. And I know, you know, some people would say, oh well, you got to be accurate to the word or whatever. No, I don't. So that's my BHAG, is eventually— and I'm going to need help for that. I'm going to need like an army of people to help me with that, but I'd, I'd love to produce a version of the Bible that is 100% positive programming. And so as you enjoy reading through it, you know, you're also, you're also feeding yourself.

Luke, what are your thoughts on that?

Well, I, um, I'm actually getting kind of emotional here, but, uh, which is, is kind of typical for me, but, um, It's so interesting because, you know, I grew up in a, in a conservative Christian home, and a lot of the Bible I was taught was extremely negative. Like, it was only the negative that was, that was brought up. Like, that was it. So, uh, we actually just worked with an author recently who had a very different outlook on the Bible than I under— ever understood, which was just extremely positive. All the positive verses she was pulling up. And I think it would be so incredible To be able to have, even if it like a church literally on Sunday that was opening this Bible that was actually positive and wasn't just putting people down and making— people are already negative. We're already like having a— we already have a hard time in life. And then a lot of times you go to these churches and it just makes your life that much harder and that much more negative, which why, why are we doing that? So it got me excited when you said this is your big, this is your big goal. I mean, I love it. I'm in support of it for sure. Count me in.

Yeah.

Yeah. So cool.

You know, it, I, I, I want, I want to help people wake up. You know, I want to help people to, to want— kidding. I am going to help people wake up. Right. I, I am going to see a huge mindset shift in this country. In the UK, in the, I'm going to be huge in the UK. I've got like 40 micro influencers over there, most of whom haven't even received their books yet, guys. Like the stuff that I've been working on, the stuff that's about to hit the frying pan, there's a lot, there's a lot. And I'm excited to see it happen, right? But I also have to temper that with like, okay, but there's more. Right? You know, one of my next goals, I want to write a book called Culture Warrior. Now that one came title first, right? Oh no, sorry. Culture Ninja. Culture Ninja. Take it back. Culture Ninja. That one came title first. You know, I, I had this job where I, I built and I ran a call center and I'm sorry if I'm going over on time or whatever, but I working for this construction company. Okay. One of the things that they did is they franchised and so they sold Franchises, like you can have your own construction company like us. You know, you can have our logo and blah blah blah. Well, the franchisees needed some help managing their leads, and so they were like, Matthias, you know about handling leads. Build us a call center, right? So I did it, right? I built the flow. I built. I wrote all the scripts. You know, I I hired and trained the people. Blah blah blah. Anyways, because we had a lot of East Coast. franchisees, I had to start at like 5 in the morning. And because I had to like unlock the door and like let people in to, you know, to— this was before COVID got all crazy and everyone worked from home. But, you know, and so I would get there at like 5 in the morning and technically I was going to be there for like a 12-hour day. And so I started developing this like Culture Ninja program Where I would find ways to improve the life of my coworkers and the morale of the whole office. You know, like one of the things I did was I would do an environment focus, and that could be as simple as like, hey, this one trash can hasn't been taken out and it's going to overflow. Knock it out, right? Oh man, it looks like this area over here could use a little bit of vacuuming, right? Or oh man, you know, so and so left this on or whatever. I'm going to turn that off for them. You know what I mean? Whatever the case was, right? After I stopped working there, Lisa still was working there for like two, two months, three months after something like that. One time I went there with her, and I went out. I went around, and I put Post-it notes with just a smiley, no words, just a smiley face on. everybody's desk in here. One of the things I have you do is hide nice notes for people. Why? Because everything nice you do for someone else is actually for you. So I'm excited. I'm going to crank that out. You know, I, other things on the horizon, a keto restaurant. You know, Lisa and I've been eating keto for like 2 years. And we fell in love with Pismo Beach, California. And so I want to open a keto restaurant and I will open a wildly successful keto restaurant in Pismo Beach, California. 2 million visitors per year. Beautiful town. So I'm gonna, I'm got that coming up and I don't know, I think I'm gonna write a novel too. I think I'm gonna write a novel and I'm gonna just just basically make it so heavily programmed that when you read it, you'll just be like smiling the whole time. You'll be like, oh man, I just feel great.

Well, if talking to you is any indication, I think that'll happen very easily.

Oh yeah, right? Because it's, it's the same thing, right? Just imagine, decide Plan and execute. That's that's what it is, right? That's literally all that life is, and you can do whatever you want in this life.

Just decide. It's negotiable. You just decide. Right, Matthias. We've got to wrap up here in a minute. Luke has a famous question that we end all podcasts with now. So Luke, you want to hit him with the question?

Yes, I do. All right, Matthias. Here it goes. So you pass away. Unfortunately, and all the stuff that you've left behind disappears, but you're allowed to leave the world with one single piece of advice. What would it be?

Ouch. Oh man. Now I, now I got to get one of those engraving machines and print my whole book in stone.

There you go.

Oh man. If I could only leave, if I could only leave one thing, maybe I'll bury a copy next to the Georgia Guidestones. There you go. Oh, if I could only say one thing, I think I would take it back to that tagline that didn't make it into the book. And that's, you know, that you decide your own reality, you know, you create your own reality, create one you want to live in. I think that's the fundamental essence, right? And the book just is the how. There's a lot of the how. You know, how do you do that? Well, you do that through using the right vocabulary and you do that through using the right sentence structure and you do that through, you know, using present tense journaling. I am so happy and I'm so grateful to be a book author right now. That one's already true. So I don't know. I'm so happy and I'm so grateful to impact 1 billion people to live and think more positively. You know, that, that's just the how, you know, the sitting in silence for 10 minutes. That's just the how. But the what, the what that is, you create your own reality. You're responsible. Be responsible. I like it. I do.

Well, one more thing we should, we should, one more thing we should ask is that where can we find you? What can people do? Where can they go to get your book? How can they find out more about you? Sure.

Yeah, I've got warningmaybehabitforming.com. I actually, it's crazy. I was not even surprised that it was available because it was such a Geistesblitz moment, the title. So I was like, ah, it's probably .com. Oh, yep, there it is. warningmaybehabitforming.com. You know, I've got that. I'm on Instagram, matthias.barnes.3. You know, I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook and TikTok, you know, all that good stuff. The book is currently for sale on Amazon. So amazon.com, amazon.ca, .uk, .com.au. It's available in Germany, but Yeah. But, you know, one of the things that we did and what we found in our research was that in order to put ourselves in the best position, we went and bought our own ISBNs. You know, we created an LLC, we bought our own ISBNs. We're doing everything the right way. You know, everything has to be done the right way in order to have excellent results.

Very good. Well, I look forward to getting this episode out for our listeners. It's gonna be, it's It's gonna be life-changing. And you know what? Hopefully we get at least 1,000 positive thinkers in this one so we can add that to your billion lives changed.

Luke, Nick, it's been excellent. I really appreciate you guys. Thank you for taking the time and I like what you do.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers Life Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website www.bookthinkers.com or send us a direct message on Instagram at book. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, go read something.