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This site is designed to help people expand every area of their life simultaneously.I use myself as the guinea pig and present my progress and findings in video form. Similar to a 30-day diet, but each area of life. Challenging one’s self to expand in a balanced way.
Children: Aidian 3 (pronounced “ADN”), and Kaiya 22 months
Favorite Places: San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina | Vernazza, Italy (Cinque Terre) | Lahaina Maui
Passionate About: My family & family time. Ingenuity, efficiency, mystery, possibilities
AKA: Peter Mathews – Far from Haggersville
Supports: Casas por Cristo (home building for the poorest in Juarez, Mexico)
Fun Fact: We haven’t paid for our housing 8.5 of the 11+ years we’ve been married. Not living with relatives, taking in roommates or government subsidized.
My name is Matthew Peters. I am a father of two toddlers and a husband of 11 years. I have spent the last twelve years of my life as a multimedia producer – winning two national awards for video production, seven years in residential real estate. I’m a songwriter, filmmaker (yes film too), world traveler and student.
Recently after applying many things I have learned through studying Tony Robbins and reading Tim Ferriss’ book, The Four-Hour Work Week, I renewed a challenge to expand my life while streamlining it.
If you want to know more of why I am who I am, read on.
Growing Up: (I promise there is a reason to this)
I grew up on a dairy farm miles from a small town (pop.1,200) in southern Wisconsin. Being raised on a farm didn’t leave much time for “family time” other than by the proximity of us working in the barn together. Having so little time with my father growing up was something that I didn’t want to replicate when I grew up.
I believe that after all is said and done, relationships are all that matters – not the huge house, expensive cars, the 70 hour work week away from the family “all for the sake of the family’s welfare.” Less can be more.
Between first and fifth grade, I attended an actual one-room schoolhouse (like Little House on the Prairie) with 42 kids from first to 12th grade all in one room. We all worked quietly on our own… well, they did.
From the very beginning, I was a dreamer. I was distracted while staring at a cinder-block basement wall for six hours a day – it wasn’t easy for me. I daydreamed and drew pictures for hours. I was actually graduated/moved from the second to third grade and from third to fourth grade by a very gracious teacher – even though I fell way behind the others, I was a good kid who behaved. The curriculum was workbook-based and we all sat quietly at our desks working on them throughout the day – all of my six classmates were months ahead of me in their school work. While my friends were working away, I would draw up cars and inventions and make things out of paper.
My parents had us pick sweet corn from a small patch designated for us kids. We placed the corn in bushel baskets, loaded them into the back of the family pickup truck and would park it by the highway. My younger brother and I (5 and 7 years old) would play for hours near the truck – waiting for a customer. Passersby would see our sign and pull over and buy a dozen or two for a couple dollars. We split the money that we collected. To say the least, we were happy campers.
I have to admit that when I was in school, I didn’t do any schoolwork. All of that “free time” soon led me to explore a “black market” of selling things to classmates. I found a need and filled it.
In second grade sold shiny rocks, stickers, candy, etc. All deals had to be in hushed tones, in back corners and empty rooms. One such venture was to have kids page through an Empire Strikes Back coloring book and choose pictures that I would then color in with iron-on crayons and have my mom iron them onto a white T-shirt or in one instance a pillow case.
After a few months, I was ratted out and then closely watched to make sure I didn’t sell any more stuff to classmates. I just took it to the DMZ of the public school bus after that. Entrepreneurship should have been encouraged not squelched.
I moved to a small town school in 6th grade – 35 kids in my class. Day one, assignment one – we were asked to write down as many of the states and capitals that we could on a paper. I had no idea as to what they were talking about. The teacher gave me a hint, “um.. like Wisconsin…” I then wrote “Wisconsin… Millwakee…” 10 minutes later that is what I had. Fortunately, no one else in the class knew this at the time – this is the first “outing” of that previously classified information.
I was also asked to read aloud. I know kids don’t like to read aloud in class, but I had severe dyslexia and I couldn’t keep my eyes on the right lines. It was total embarrassment and humiliation. I was also asked to write the answer I just gave on the chalk board. The answer was “death” – I wrote “deth”.
I think you get the picture. A lot of you are like me. You see, each one of those vivid memories are about being told “no”, failing, not being on the same playing field as peers or some sort of humiliation. What did each one of those memories trigger me to do? Play it safe, don’t try that again, keep quiet, keep to yourself, behave and you’ll be liked by authority, figure things out on your own because you won’t understand how they teach.
Hmmm. There is a lot of good there too – if you know how to find it.
Today: The Complete Self
I am a man who is on a quest to find my limits by testing them. The strange thing was that when I tested them, I found that it was far past what I ignorantly thought it was or that there wasn’t a limit there at all.
My limits started when I was in first or second grade and continued to about June of 2009. I was challenged on multiple occasions to read Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Work Week, a couple years before, but after seeing his program on the History Channel (Trial by Fire) I decided to read it. I was amazed. I decided to test a limit I had placed on myself years ago:
Limiting Belief #1. I am a night owl. I realized that in just one day I changed from staying up until 1:00 or sometimes 2:00 AM and getting up at 8:00 to 8:30AM, to developing a morning routine of going for a walk at 6:30 AM. I now stay up until 11:00 PM and get up at 5:30 AM – some nights with several interruptions from my children.
5:30AM I am up and ready to go for my walk/jog/run/walk. I have a detailed routine found on this page. The secret was… I made a DECISION & I followed through with my plan. You know day 2 it rained and I decided to get up early and exercise anyway. Now it is dark as night and about 35 degrees – cold and dark. It doesn’t matter, because that is now who I am. One such day was 7 degrees below zero. I chose to not let weather be an excuse. I was a pansy before, but not anymore.
Limiting Belief #2. I hate exercise. I was fortunate enough to pair this one with the first one. I now identify myself with being an athlete. I have shifted my identity from hating something to being a proponent of it.
Limiting Belief #3. I have to play it safe. It is one thing to be risky and another to take a calculated risk. It is like skydiving – the calculation should help o realize that it is quite safe, but you don’t do it because it isn’t something that a safe person like yourself does.
Chose a little risk and a lot of adventure and you will lead a much fuller life. My father once told me of a conversation he had with his investment manager that was retiring. My dad asked a great question, “What would you have done differently?” The investment manager said, “I wish I would have taken more risks.” That statement form a very fiscally-conservative man really struck me and I have lived differently since then.
