86. Networking Natural Selection 2.0: Next Level Biotech Networking with Karl & Erum

[00:00:10] Matt: Hey, greetings to your listener. It's been a real pleasure serving you in this podcast for the past two and a half years. And I just want to say, thank you for listening. And if you haven't already subscribed, please do so. If you've not rated and reviewed our podcast on Apple or Spotify, then please take a moment and go and do so.

[00:00:29] Matt: It'll really help us get the podcast out there more and share this good energy out there. You'd be much appreciated for doing so. And if I ask one more thing, you wouldn't mind taking a moment right now, right? Taking your favorite episode of the show and sending it to someone that you feel could listen to it, someone that would find some inspiration in a story.

[00:00:49] Matt: I'd encourage you to do that. I appreciate you dear audience. It means the world to me that you would take your time and you would listen to these stories of people overcoming adversity, sharing their joy, their heart, and their challenge with the world. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much team.

[00:01:06] Matt: I hope you enjoyed this recording of me on another episode of someone else's podcast that we recorded some time ago. Team. Thanks so much and enjoy the eternal optimist podcast.

[00:01:18] Speaker 1: It's time now for Gina Gardner and Friends, the show that shares stories from inspiring people, from a wide range of expert guests, all focused on helping you live a happier, more successful, and fulfilling life. Gina Gardner is a multiple number one international best selling author, motivational speaker, business coach, and trainer.

[00:01:40] Speaker 1: She's the founder of Genuinely You. It has over 30 years experience of helping people step into their genuine, authentic power, personally and professionally.

[00:01:51] Speaker 1: And now, here's your host, Gina Gartner.

[00:01:55] Gina: Hello there and a huge welcome to this week's episode of Gina Gardner and Friends. And today I have a very special guest. His name is Matt Drinkum.

[00:02:05] Gina: He is the host of the Eternal Optimist podcast and he's one of the most positive people that I have ever met, but not in a a Pollyanna sort of way, in a really practical way. He helped CEOs, um, and leaderships team overcome their perfectionism and scale their companies. And he has this amazing podcast where his guests, and I've been very privileged to be one of his guests, share their story, but in the whole essence of it.

[00:02:36] Gina: Of it being to inspire, motivate and to support other people in their journey. So Matt, a huge welcome. Thank you very much for joining me today.

[00:02:46] Matt: It is a sincere honor and pleasure. Thank you, Gina. And I promise not to show up just in a Pollyanna way. I'll give you some real, uh, surreal positivity and some substance.

[00:02:57] Matt: So thank you for that introduction. That was glorious. Thank you.

[00:03:00] Gina: It's interesting, isn't it? How often people assume that people who are naturally optimistic, um, are not realistic. And I think it's one of the challenges, I think, is, is that people who optimistic, uh, and recognize how positive that is in terms of, of life's opportunities.

[00:03:23] Gina: Um, need to be aware that when people throw that at them, you know, you're not being realistic, that that's much more, I believe, about the other person's view of life, their perception that life is being done to them rather than for them. But anyway, before we get into any of that, please share with us a bit of your journey and how you come to be, um, creating a podcast around optimism.

[00:03:52] Matt: Oh, well, thank you for asking. And I would say I'd start with a moment ago, optimism and realism. Uh, when you get to the place where they merge and they're the same thing. As I have found, I found that it doesn't feel fake or Pollyanna or inauthentic. It's, it's genuine. It's real. I genuinely believe that when you see things through a positive lens and all the hard stuff that may happen with this.

[00:04:20] Matt: You can have it be a great teacher for you. You can learn from it. And that's what I call eternal optimism. And our podcast was started because we want to get something positive out there in the world, like your show. It's very uplifting. It's positive, inspiring, engaging. And I feel that we should have more of that in the world because the negative mainstream media, the negative social media things that are, they're always comparing each other.

[00:04:44] Matt: I feel those things can hurt us. And we need some more positivity. So why not put this out there? What happens if we do put it out there? And that's why we had the show to inspire hope and you can do a two attitude. That's where it started from.

[00:04:59] Gina: I think it's such an important message. I did some research.

[00:05:04] Gina: I was, I was doing a showcase about optimism, um, and speaking to a large number of people about how important it was to be optimistic. And are you generally, um, an optimism by, um, by birth or is it circumstances? Can you become an optimist when you start off as a pessimist? And optimists have greater life chances.

[00:05:30] Gina: They tend to be, um, get quicker and more lasting promotion. They do more, Um, with their lives in terms of being of service to other people, they're healthier, they live longer. And that's not down to me, that's actual research which demonstrates that people who live their life through an optimistic lens and see the challenges as an opportunity to learn, as you so eloquently said, actually do better in life.

[00:06:01] Matt: I would completely agree on, and here's, so I heard you ask three questions. I'd love to unpack a couple of one of them was, can I become an optimist? And, you know, there's the whole genetics is, is predetermining a lot for us. And then there's what we learned nature versus nurture out there in the real world.

[00:06:19] Matt: And I would argue that one can become an optimist when they find that if I'm an optimist, when I'm an optimist. I feel that may help me to be the person I might want to be or achieve something I might want to achieve. I found that we don't just get lucky or fall into optimism by accident with any clear intention moving towards optimism.

[00:06:44] Matt: If we have the intent to do it and we have the reason why it's so important to us, I believe we can make that shift. I believe that we can take where we are right now in our thinking and issue a series of a kind of like a computer. Your mind is a big computer. We can create an operating system or upgrade our operating system currently so that we can learn to take the hard stuff that's happening and use it to our advantage.

[00:07:10] Matt: And if I could take that a step further, here's what it looks like in real life. Okay. In real life, uh, I'll go back to Labor Day of 2015 here in the United States. You know, I live here in Charlotte, North Carolina, and on Labor Day, that's September of 2015, I was involved in a freak accident. So the freak accident was a zipline that broke when I was going down the zipline.

[00:07:32] Matt: So just imagine this, this happy, uh, smiling person who's having fun with the family, uh, kind of a vacation scenario. And I'm going down a zipline, which I've been down this zipline, Gina, probably like 30 or 40 times. No problem. However, the 41st time, uh, the thing broke and it sent me falling to the ground.

[00:07:53] Matt: I landed on my, my back and mess things up pretty good. And before you know it, nine months later, I am sitting in a wheelchair and I'm disabled. I'm not able to drive. I'm not able to go upstairs anymore. And all the things I took for granted or they're not here. My identity as. You know, a six foot seven athletic golfer, physically fit runs often, you know, 30 miles a week.

[00:08:18] Matt: I'm not able to do that anymore. In fact, I'm so disabled, uh, mentally, physically just really challenged this moment. I'm just, I'm in a real low spot.

[00:08:28] Speaker 1: Yeah.

[00:08:28] Matt: So. I get to this point to share with you the optimism at this moment, I can make a conscious choice to man, just be really down about it and blame and a zip line and the company that made this and point the fingers to all the stuff out there and let the external thing drive me, or I can go inside and I can ask myself, you know, what might I learn from this?

[00:08:56] Matt: How might this have been put in my way in my life so I can use it as a gift so I can use it to get better so I can use it to inspire others, right? So I can go either way and I've been I've been I've been an optimist for a long time. So instantly it was time to put all this positive attitude stuff. I got to put this to work.

[00:09:16] Matt: This is the real test. So I, was this just a bunch of malarkey or is it real? So we did some soul searching, had a good support group around me. And as a result, we have learned to use that in any of these challenging moments to our advantage and use it as a gift, I would say, because I have, have a faith I have a Christian faith.

[00:09:38] Matt: I would say that God put this as a gift here in front of me to be able to, you know, inspire others, right? And that's, that was an example of how optimism played out. And I accepted that, you know what, leading up until June 14th of 2016, when I actually had a spinal surgery, before that, I had accepted that I might be disabled for the rest of my life and I was, It'd be okay with that because we were going to find a way and we were going to see this as a way that we could still inspire and use it to serve others.

[00:10:10] Matt: It may not have been easy and still going to find a way to use it to our advantage.

[00:10:15] Gina: I find it, I mean, very interesting that we have very similar stories in the sense that an accident put us both into a wheelchair. But for me, the gift of that was the capacity to look at how I was going to develop other people.

[00:10:31] Gina: Within my school at that time, a principal head teacher in a very different way. And when I look back mine, goes back 1983, February, the 19th, 1983, when I look back at that. And I recognize what a huge gift that has given me, and I find it interesting that you use the word gift, as do I. that's been the bedrock of the work that I've done in, in so many different contexts.

[00:10:59] Gina: But the thing that I think that really, is important to draw out in this is you made a conscious choice. And I think so many people drift along, life happens to them, and at times it's icky, it's challenging, it's painful, it's dark. But even in those moments, even when you can't change the situation, you still can make a conscious choice to change the way in which you respond to it.

[00:11:28] Gina: And you're given a perfect example of that.

[00:11:31] Matt: Absolutely. Here, here's a, here's an imperfect example of that. That just happened today. it literally just happened like two minutes before we start to record. , this is spring break week coming up, starting on Friday for my kids school here where I live and my wife and the three kids are going out of town.

[00:11:47] Matt: And because of, I need this virtual setup to do my work. I'm not going with them. So I'm going to be with just. Me Saturday through Thursday. Well, I've got a round of golf set up with clients on Saturday morning. I'm going to go watch the master's golf tournament with a group of people. I was invited to go and see them on the afternoon, on Sunday morning, I'm playing golf again.

[00:12:09] Matt: These are things I don't have the luxury of doing when my family's here, because I coach soccer teams and we go to church. I don't, I don't have the ability to just. Go play golf and just do play stuff all the time. Well, I share it now because right before this call started, uh, the weather forecast for Saturday is a hundred percent chance of rain and 45 degrees, we had to cancel the golf and pivot that to go play top golf, which is, you know, kind of a big high end experience, but it's covered, it's sheltered.

[00:12:39] Matt: the afternoon, the master's watch party, my friend who organized it all, email our whole group and said, guys, I'm so sorry, but on Saturday, I'm going to Virginia to see my dad. Cause he's not, feeling really sick. the party's canceled. So it might stink that I can't go to a master's party with my friend, but that's not where my heart is.

[00:12:58] Matt: My heart is. Thinking about him and how can I support him? So it's a pivot and it's okay. How can I show love to my friend? Sunday morning, same thing. 90 percent chance of rain. Golf is canceled. So all this stuff, not a big deal. We're going to figure out what we can do from here. And that's the whole idea behind internal optimism.

[00:13:19] Matt: If you have a plan and something shifts in, how might we take this and use it to our advantage to serve others? how might we use this as a learning lesson? And it's evident in every situation that happens when you work on it.

[00:13:34] Matt: you asked a series of questions that really resonate. One of them was, how can I become an optimist? And I would answer that.

[00:13:41] Matt: And for those who are listening, I would share here's why you might want to become an optimist. I'll answer the question with. Why you might want to become an optimist. So here's the equation that I would offer our listeners on how you might practice this and how it might help you to turn the tide. If you're feeling low or down about some challenges recently happened or conversation, you're not looking forward to, or just in general, a tough situation you're in right now, here is.

[00:14:11] Matt: A practice that you can use practically, they can help you to make forward progress towards optimism or towards just solving your problem, right? So here's, here's an equation that might serve you, friend. So if you're driving, then don't start driving or pardon me. Don't start writing this down while you're driving.

[00:14:29] Matt: Uh, but I will invite you to take a note here if you are stable or stationary somewhere. So here's the equation. Uh, I'll say it out loud and then we'll go back and unpack it. Equation is. Gratitude. Absolutely. Plus, yes, gratitude, plus curiosity, plus self compassion, equal the opportunity for inner peace or happiness.

[00:14:54] Matt: So let's unpack it. Gratitude. Here, here's gratitude. So there's like 7 billion people on the planet. And if you are someone who is fortunate enough to be listening to Gina's show right now, then you at least have the resources. To be able to watch or listen to this. That probably means that you're in the top billion, uh, of people that have access to resources.

[00:15:19] Matt: So gratitude wise, there are many people out there who have far less than us, less opportunity, less everything. So I would say I'm grateful just to be where I am, to be talking to you right now, Gina and your listener, this is, this is gratitude. That's step one is gratitude. Step two, uh, is curiosity. Yeah, we've been talking about curiosity when the challenge happens, when the tragedy strikes, when the uncomfortable or inconvenient pivot has to happen.

[00:15:50] Matt: Curiosity, when you have a way to trip wire curiosity into your thinking, into the way that you respond, then you're might have a chance of being on this path. Curiosity is. How might I use this to my advantage? How might I see this moment right now as an opportunity to learn something? If I'm frustrated right now, then how might I use this moment to learn something new so I might overcome my frustration, right?

[00:16:17] Matt: So curiosity is the second part of this cocktail that we're creating together here. The third ingredient is self compassion. And I find this is the toughest one for a lot of people. Gina self compassion is, I would define it as patience. And grace with oneself and others, patience and grace, oneself and others.

[00:16:40] Matt: That's really, really hard for, uh, many people who might be a perfectionist or a highly functioning, uh, uh, workaholic to give a little bit of patience and grace for their coworkers or their boss or their employees. It can be hard for high performers to give that for themselves. I would say, you know, we all make mistakes.

[00:17:00] Matt: No, one's perfect. And a little bit of patience and grace yourself. Yes. You may have yelled at your child, apologize, learn from it, move forward. Yes. You may have made a mistake and said the wrong thing in a conversation, tweeted the wrong thing, put the wrong picture up and it offended someone. Take it down or apologize, or you can move through it.

[00:17:23] Matt: Be open to patience and grace yourself, right? Patience, grace yourself. Same for others. Same for others. Those three together. Gratitude, plus curiosity, plus self compassion, which is patience and grace to one's self and others. Put those together, and you have a cocktail that when you drink that, and study that, and practice that, what's going to happen is that you have the opportunity to have inner peace or happiness.

[00:17:45] Matt: And any person who's optimistic and learns to use optimism to their advantage in their life, they'll find that inner peace and happiness. At least they will give themselves a great chance at finding inner peace and happiness. I

[00:17:56] Gina: think the equation works incredibly well. And if you think about it, for me, gratitude is one of the most powerful emotions.

[00:18:05] Gina: I talk to clients about collecting gratitudes, and those who've listened to the show, you'll know that I bang on about these. Taking the opportunity, moment by moment, to be grateful for the small things that make up your life. And one of the things about that is you have to live in the moment to be grateful.

[00:18:23] Gina: You can't be worrying about the past or anxious about what might never happen in the future. And what it does is it recalibrates your brain, your way of thinking, these habitual patterns of thinking. So gratitude for me, collecting those and then scanning the day and, you know, reliving those gratitudes before you go to sleep is a really great way of recalibrating your brain from something where you look for the negative.

[00:18:51] Gina: So starting to look for the positive

[00:18:53] Matt: so much wisdom there. I love that the way that you calibrate the day you look for it and and to go one step further always building on a great idea. One way that I practice gratitude that really works well for me is every morning. I have a journal and I think about 15 and 20 minutes, 6 days a week that I write in the journal and the 1st thing I write every day.

[00:19:15] Matt: Three meaningful magical moments from yesterday and it really trains the brain to look for Here is magic in the moment and I write down the smallest smallest things, you know, it can be Traveling to the cul de sac Which is about half a mile away on my road I live on traveling to the cul de sac While walking with my girls who are all very young seven six and four just traveling the cul de sac with them on their scooters You Just watching them play, you know, it's, it's having a conversation with you today and being totally in the moment and present with you in the moment and being inspired by you and being able to share a story with listeners.

[00:19:56] Matt: That's a magical moment.

[00:19:57] Gina: It can be a great cup of tea for me, the start of the day, a hot shower, having good plumbing, having clean water.

[00:20:06] Gina: Matt, you talked about curiosity. And one of the things that strikes me is that if you are talking about curiosity, then you are talking about The neuroplasticity of right brain thinking. When you are left brain thinking, you're illogical, which is often an either or choice.

[00:20:26] Gina: You are likely to catastrophize, because you only have, it's either going to be great, or it's going to be dreadful. When you put yourself into right brain thinking, and you can do that so easily by just thinking, taking some deep breaths, which affect the vagus nerve and take you into right brain thinking, then that's where your curiosity, your creativity, your solution finding capacity lies.

[00:20:52] Gina: And so when you talk about having an approach, which is about being curious, how can I learn from this? How can I use this, situation to move me forward, to grow, to be a better person that you are putting yourself in the most resourceful place that you can possibly be as a human being.

[00:21:13] Matt: I love what you've shared.

[00:21:15] Matt: The breathing is a major part. Getting centered, getting focused, just slowing things down and being present. I love that. And I love the question. So I love that you delineated the right brain, the left brain. And I think this is super important because we can get, especially as entrepreneurs or business people or as parents, or as anyone who's used to being very reactive and making decisions, just moving all the time, which I think is happening more and more in our society nowadays, you can get to the point where it's just.

[00:21:46] Matt: React, react, react, react, and be very logical left brain. I like to bring out the right brain, bring out the creativity by asking a very specific question. And the question always starts the same. It's always, how might I, how might we, I like to ask that question. How might I take this moment and use it as learning opportunity so I can inspire others, how might I take this chance?

[00:22:11] Matt: Right. I'm going to take this moment where I just lost my temper and I yelled at my, my child. How would I take this moment and pause and then somehow use it so I can become a better parent next time? ? Now, curiosity for me starts with being present in the moment. So the breathing exercise and asking a question, how might I use this moment to my advantage?

[00:22:44] Matt: Use this moment to learn. That's how I practice curiosity is that question so often.

[00:22:48] Gina: I think it's really interesting that we're talking about something that many people find very difficult, but giving a gateway. giving people a simple strategy using the how might I or how might we question. For me, it's the difference between pushing on an open door rather than pushing on a locked door.

[00:23:11] Gina: And that if you're open to what, to explore what's behind the door without a preconceived blueprint of how it should be, then you give yourself the biggest and best opportunity to grow and learn. A

[00:23:26] Matt: billion percent. Yes. Yes, totally agree. And, again, always building on really good ideas. To build on that, I like to ask the how might I question because when I ask how might I, think about the brain and what happens in the brain when you ask What do I need to do next versus how might I, what do I need to do is strict logic, get to the point, but you in solve mode, creativity comes from that limitless question that we asked.

[00:23:52] Matt: So how might I is one of those questions. So I liked the question for that reason. All right. And in practicality for listeners out there, you know, I've tried that Matt tried that, you know, I've tried asking creative questions and I didn't get anywhere. Well, consider this, consider that you're on a timeline, your life's on a timeline.

[00:24:13] Matt: And at any given one moment in time, if you ask the question right now in the moment, it may work. It might not work, but if you expand the timeline and you look at using it now, and again, tomorrow, and again, the next day, and a few times a day, and before you know it, you used it for six months. What was once really challenging and didn't work when I just tried it one day now over time it compounds and it works An example I shared with you a very real life example for me I used to have a temper where I would yell in our house and I would yell specifically when we were on zoom I'm running a coaching call or running a keynote speech and I hear a child saying something three rooms away in the house And I mute the zoom and I go, Lucy, quiet.

[00:24:58] Matt: Now, I feel really bad for that, right? And I've, worked on that. So it may have been like two or three times in a day over time by practicing this. How might I learn to live in a yell free home? How might I practice patience as a father? It came less and less. It was then once a day, and then it was a couple times a week to the point after practicing this for well over a year and a half, we now live in a yell free home.

[00:25:26] Gina: We're running out of time and there's so much more to talk about. , and I don't want to miss the opportunity for to ask you, how can people get hold of you?

[00:25:35] Matt: Great question. They can find me on Instagram. Facebook at Eternal Optimist Podcast. They can find me on YouTube at The Eternal Optimist. You can see my name, Matt Drinkon.

[00:25:49] Matt: It's a very unique name. There's only 13 people in the world, that last name. So Google that, and you'll find me all over the place.

[00:25:55] Gina: Matt, thanks very much for joining me. Thank you for listening. Love to hear from you. Please email me at Gina G I N A at Gina Gardiner, G A R D I N E R and friends. Being great to have you with us.

[00:26:12] Gina: Please join me on the next show. Thanks

[00:26:15] Speaker 1: for listening to Gina Gardner and Friends, the show that helps you live a happier, more successful and fulfilling life. To learn more about Gina Gardner, go to genuinely u. com. If you would like to work with Gina or book her as a speaker, email her at gina at genuinely u.

[00:26:35] Speaker 1: com.