Car Crash Spurs Lawyer’s Transformation to Entrepreneur: Matias Salom Transformation Case Study

29 Oct Car Crash Spurs Lawyer’s Transformation to Entrepreneur: Matias Salom Transformation Case Study

Posted at 10:00h in Life on Your Terms Interviews by

 

Before Scott left for Africa, he was putting the finishing touches on this second LYL Transformation Story.

In the first Transformation Story (Alyssa), Scott explained that part of the change he’d kicked off in LYL in late 2014 was a focus on YOU, the members of the Live Your Legend community.

And these LYL Transformation Stories are a double-whammy: these stories are for you, Living Legends, and about you.

Scott said it best:

“… it is the stories from all of you that can make our impossible not only start to feel possible, but normal. And that belief creates the ripple that can change everything.”

So without further ado, here’s our second Transformation Story: Matias Salom.

Meet Matias Salom

Matias’ story begins much like many of yours. He was a successful attorney, well paid and well respected. And yet in the back of his mind was the nagging feeling that something better was out there, if he could only figure out what it was.

So Matias began his search.

But it took a near-fatal auto accident to propel Matias into pursuing his passion for habits and creating a business with some awesome people (his girlfriend, brother, and sister) that would allow him to live his legend…

And here are some highlights in Matias’ own words, describing his incredible journey over the past few years…

Life Before LYL

To most people around me, I appeared to be a really productive and successful person, but I didn’t feel the same way. I felt empty, and that troubled me. I knew I wanted something else but didn’t know what (much less how to get it!). This is just a taste of what I was experiencing:

  • Nearly dropped out of college due to exam pressure.
  • Found a different gear in my studies; entered law school, graduated, and got a “nice job.”
  • Became a published, prizewinning author and teaching assistant at college.
  • Miserable, monotonous daily existence. Felt a lot of insecurity and anxiety about the future.
  • Read multiple “passive income” books, which only increased my frustration.
  • Knowing there had to be a better way… but not knowing how to find it.

The Wake-up Call

Flying through the air during a car crash, I thought about my girlfriend and all the plans we had that were going to just become nothing.

  • Survived, and replayed my life for 36 straight hours without sleeping.
  • Realized I had too many regrets. I spent a lot of time “achieving” what others expected, being afraid of failure, and postponing what really mattered to me.
  • Committed then to a life without excuses or fears. Realizing that everything might end at any moment gave me a new sense of purpose, gratitude and focus on what’s important.

Enter LYL…

Before starting this journey, I was constantly afraid. What if I lose my job? What if I don’t earn any money? Now I know it’s up to me to create and spread value, and if I do so in the right way, there’ll always be a way to make a living out of it.

  • Stumbled on Scott’s honest post about the workload required to build passive income. I had worked hard for stuff that didn’t feel important, and realized that the key was to put the same effort and focus into the stuff that did.
  • Took the Free Toolkit with me on vacation and reflected about myself and what my passions/talents were.  So when the car crashed, I knew exactly what I was postponing and why it hurt so badly.
  • The Live Off Your Passion Guided-Discovery Course was in my mind as I sat in the police car after the car crash. A couple weeks later I also joined How to Connect With Anyone for more guidance and company.
  • Loved the weekly newsletters for ongoing encouragement. This especially helped to feel that the ideas were real and possible. With so many stories and tools, I started to realize it was my responsibility to do something with them.
  • Became a LYL Local Host. This one act took things to another level, because we went from being lonely to leading a local community, building confidence and credibility by doing so.

Bumps in the Road

I often felt like what I knew or had to bring to the table had no real value. I had to overcome the fear that I wasn’t “expert enough”.

I had no experience with online platforms, hangouts, subscribers or email marketing, payment methods, memberships sites and that kind of stuff.  I came to realize that I had a lot to learn about writing, speaking, creating and selling products.

  • Postponing my dreams to fit my friends’ and family’s expectations.
  • Feeling alone without mentors or “road partners.” Everyone around me was either unhappy because of or happy despite their job. I grew up thinking that a job was something you did in order to pay for the stuff you really loved.
  • Not knowing if what I had to bring to the table had any real value or how to be credible. Used to think: “Ok, I might do this when I have enough money/formal titles”. That’s one of the reasons I kept postponing.
  • Not knowing about creating products, the tech side of the business or how to shape my passions into products or services that people would pay for.

Legendary Wins

matias-post2

Two years after the car crash I found myself working everyday on a business that I believe in and with people I love. I´ve traveled a lot and constantly get new opportunities to use my passions to help others through writing or speaking. We’ve grown from a team of four in a small city in Argentina to a community of more than 2,500 people around Latin America and Spain. I can’t even count how many passionate and amazing people I’ve met or how many new things I’ve learned.  Every morning I wake up at 5 AM, prepare some yerba mate, put on my earphones and sit down to write—with a deep sensation of gratitude and purpose.

  • Starting a business of my own – with my girlfriend, brother and sister.
  • Selling their first products. When I received the first payment (for an email course) I thought to myself: “Wow. It´s possible.  Now all I have to do is to learn how to reach more people and create better products”.  I knew I wasn’t going back to a full-time job ever again. A year and a half later that turned into a mentoring service, live workshops, a membership site and a book in the writing.
  • Becoming an expert on a topic that changes people’s lives. Nothing is as exciting and crazy as helping people through something you created, and seeing how real the impact and ripples are.

The LYL Advantage

LYL really helped me by constantly pushing me into action, eliminating excuses, showing me how real people were doing this kind of stuff, and giving me the first group of inspiring people I met after my original team through the mastermind group on CWA.

I think it’s really cool to see how the steps work. If you feel lost, you go through the  Live Off Your Passion course and say, “Okay, now I know what I want to do and have an idea of how to do it. But I could really use help.” And then there’s the Connect With Anyone course. So you start it and get help from peers and get in touch with amazing mentors. Now that I already have a business,  LYL has been a way for me to keep moving forward, tweaking and improving. Solving your problems one at a time gives you a permanent growing sensation. It’s a really cool step-by-step, day-to-day, growing process. Some of my favorite tools/courses/sources of information and inspiration:

  • How to Connect With Anyone (I still get together with the Mastermind group once a week)
  • Start a Blog Challenge
  • Passionate Work Toolkit
  • Weekly articles
  • Live Your Legend Local (Host)

Connect with Matias here:

Superhabitos Website

And for the comments… Matias is happy to answer your questions, so please post some good ones below!