Get to know

Matt Sherman

Your transformation guide and pocket healer.

Whatever the issue is, we can handle it together.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the day-to-day side quests that we lose sight of our goals and dreams. We start to feel like we aren't growing as fast as we want to, or like we aren't good enough yet.

And when things get tough—when life gets hard—that can make us feel like something is wrong with us.

But the truth is: nothing is wrong with us! We just need to translate the amazing adventures from in-game stories to IRL personal development.

We need to remember how much fun it is to stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zone; to learn something new every day; how much freedom there is in creating your own reality; how much joy comes from having a purpose greater than yourself; how much fulfillment comes from doing what makes us feel activated.

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My mission is to help you harness your passion for gaming and geek culture and use it as a tool for growth and change.

I believe that there's a hero inside of each of us, waiting to be unlocked.

All it takes is awareness, a plan, and determination, and you can become whatever you want to be!

That's right! You don't need a magic sword or a special wand or even superpowers. The only thing standing between where you are today and where you could go is YOU and the story you tell yourself.

Your dream life starts with you taking a small step in the right direction. And guess what: If everyone took one small step every day, imagine how much better off the world would be!

The world needs you to step up and into your destiny. No more playing small because you're just one quest away from living a life beyond your wildest dreams.

Whether you want to learn how to unleash the superpowers of your personality type, find your spark in life, start to date someone who loves you for who you are, or stop all that negative thinking, I'll be your transformation guide through the process.

I definitely didn't always have the drive, focus, and self-value that I have now though.

In fact, quite the opposite...

I was asleep to my emotions.

It all started when I was 7 years old. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be loved. I felt I had to be loved

and accepted as a "good boy" to be happy. If I wasn't, then I'd be abandoned or left on my own with nowhere to go and nobody to help me.

So, I’m downstairs in the basement playing "the floor is hot-lava" with my neighbor. I'm just about to rescue the princess and I get summoned by my father. "Matt... can you come up here for a second?”

I go upstairs and see my parents sitting on the living-room sofa.

"Matt, your mom and I are getting a divorce..."

Part of me wants to maintain harmony at all costs, repressing my own negative emotions…so I'll be loved. Part of me wants to be myself and actually express those feelings.

"Ok. Can I tell my friend?" "Oh... we didn't know anyone was over... but ok..." So, I go downstairs and, with a smile, say "Hey Matt! his first name is also Matt My parents are getting a divorce!"

I remember playing basketball in elementary school... I'm in the gym practicing with the rest of the team. I really liked basketball. I take a shot and miss. It wasn't even like I bricked it and missed completely. I just missed. And one of my teammates starts yelling at me. "Sherman! You suck! You can't even make a shot!"

What would you do in that situation? Would you get angry back? Shrug it off? Flick him off? Take a guess about what I do in that moment.

I quit. "Ok, I quit." His friend comes up to me right after and says, "You're not quitting because of what he said, are you?" "No... I'm just quitting." Complete bullshit by the way. But I didn't just quit basketball. I quit soccer, baseball, and boy scouts as well.

Every instance of conflict solidified this idea that my influence on a situation would be a problem. My actions make people angry. My actions make people sad. Even loving someone will cause them problems because eventually, like my parents, the gods that brought me into this world, relationships will end in separation.

By middle-school I'm having thoughts of suicide. I'm sad. I cry randomly... during lessons. I have a goal of never living past 30 years old. Like, that's the cutoff point. I'm fat because I quit all the sports. The one girl that I had somehow managed to get close to moved to another state.

So, I realize the solution. Just shut off. I turn off all the emotions I can. I put my true self to sleep through games, TV, and daydreaming. I also began studying people to figure out why the hell they're so different than me.

FACING THE WORLD

Carl Jung once said, "What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.”

The more I studied others to make some sort of logical sense why I am the way I am, the more my desire to be true to myself and act based on how I really feel about things grew.

I had to eventually accept the illogical nature of these scary, unsettling, and deep-seated feelings within me. In my endless search to understand the right and wrong thing to do, there was a voice inside prompting me “how do you know what right is? You need to experience it.”

So just out of high school, in a moment of heroic courage that would forever change my life... I move to Japan.

But even then, there’s still a part of me that wants to keep me safe and do what I've always done. I should just stick with the games and fantasies that have always worked. This voice keeps reminding me "You were hurt in the past, you'll get hurt again if you let someone in. Don't stretch yourself too far,"

In the end, I’m in Japan, I have no idea how to do laundry or cook. Everything is new and I'm essentially helpless - unable to communicate through anything but body language…

But this is also one of the first moments in my life that I felt alive.

All of this came because I listened to this repressed voice inside me that wanted me to explore more of my potential. Since then, I convinced myself to continue to follow the Explorer's advice.

Did it always come easily? Not at all.

I've had so many misadventures and nights crying, punching the wall out of frustration with myself, altercations with the yakuza, threats on my life, too much alcohol, lost love, thoughts of giving up...

But I persisted.

To continuously push myself out of my comfort zone, I had learned to acclimate to going out every weekend. I learned to talk to people. I learned to speak in Japanese and English in front of crowds of 350+ people. I worked at a bar where customers paid me to drink with them. I've been on TV in Japan. I've been on a billboard in Korea (where I lived for a year). I've sang karaoke with professional singers. And I also continued playing a lot of games.

All the struggle was necessary for the good. It was the cost I had to pay to live the life I wanted.

Flash forward 15+ years later, through a lot of searching, ups and downs, and here I am at my wedding day... in Japan.

As I look out over the podium, I see everyone I love and care about in the same room.

My parents, brother, stepmother, friends who I've known throughout my journey, people from all over the world... all gathered in this one room to celebrate together.

I recently had a falling out with one of my best friends and he chose to not come. And I realize here that this room is a microcosm of what's going on inside all of us.

I feel that people are genuinely good. Each person has positive intentions, but sometimes those intentions get brought out in negative ways. They fight, they go different directions, they hurt each other, but they can also align and support each other.

How they work together, or don't work together, forms a larger whole.

It just clicked. I started clearly seeing people as different character classes in a game. Some people are more lively and “offensive” while others are more in the back lines (like I was) and “defensive.” Some people are more experience focused. Some track ideas like prey. Some follow their head, and others follow their heart. Some try to control the world, and others try to control themselves.

Although I dabbled for a long time in studying personal growth, this was one of the turning points in my story of truly understanding myself and the parts within. This is when it changed from "an interest" to "my life's quest."

Love, unity, and peace come from understanding each other and having the ability to empathize with their journey. And this can only happen when you put in the effort understand people, and yourself, at a deep level.

CHANGING THE RULES OF THE GAME

I believe that all problems come from lack of empathy, Personality awareness unlocks the skill of empathy. If we all understood ourselves better, we'd understand how other people are different and we'd be able to respect their strengths and forgive their weaknesses. We'd see where we struggle and where they succeed. We'd see how they can teach us life-changing skills, and how we can help improve their lives.

My purpose is to help people appreciate and align the different characters within them so they can face the same direction and embrace love, and life. Helping finally become who you are meant to be while helping change the world. Because changing one person's life will change another's, which transforms another person's life. The impact is endless.

By taking the same games and fantasies that I used to distract myself from facing my own feelings, I began to use them as the tools to awaken self-awareness.

RPGs have an ability to let us slip into different worlds and see ourselves as powerful heroes - accessing the hidden potential within. So, by loosening the rigid structure of personal growth, I was able to use metaphors and analogies to link Jungian psychology and many extremely beneficial growth concepts to RPG elements.

Life is a game, my friend, and I'm here to help you find your true character and level it up so you can play life better.

Life is a game, my friend, and I'm here to help you find your true character and level it up so you can play life better.

COME JOIN MY WORLD

Catch me on YouTube

Learn about self-development and personality type from me on YouTube! I'm a geek, so I like to use analogies from video games, movies, and books to explain things.

I'll teach you how to understand your personality type, how to get better at communicating with others, and even how to align your life with your purpose.

Say hi on Instagram

I tend to release a lot of art and short stories on Instagram. It's a quick and easy way for me to explore the different parts of myself and let my curiosity take the reins. If you want to see more of what I'm up to, feel free to follow me there!

If you want weekly encouragement, join my Q.U.E.S.T.Y. email list.

If you're a geek, you probably know that the best way to get better at something is to do it. A lot.

But it can be hard to stay motivated, especially when you're busy working on other things or have other commitments taking up your time.

That's where my Q.U.E.S.T.Y. email list comes in! It's like a buddy who asks you an insightful Question, shares an Uplifting message, talks about something Entertaining, tells a Story, teaches you something and gives you a Task for personal development, and then updates you in case you missed any of his YouTube and social posts.