Matt Drinkhahn | Playing to Your Strengths, Taking Action in Life, & Becoming an Eternal Optimist 😎

“When you have gratitude in your heart, it’s impossible to not be an optimist when you’re grateful for everything you have.” – Matt Drinkhahn

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Matt Drinkhahn, host of The Eternal Optimist Podcast, father of 3 daughters and husband to an amazing wife. He’s generated $130 million in career sales and coaches high-performers to ask better questions and level up their communication with themselves and their people. Matt works extensively in the entrepreneurial, financial services, and real estate spaces, and he has poured into communities such as Front Row Dads, XCHANGE, and Tribe of Investors.

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• Website: http://www.eternaloptimistpodcast.com/
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CORE THEMES, KEYWORDS, & MENTIONS:

God, Relocation, only child, military family, don’t quit, never quit, kidnapping, Adam Walsh, introvert, basketball, school, sports, athletics, church, religion, southern Baptist, Lutheran, Dave’s & Goliath show, surgeries, standing up for yourself, bullies, violence, empathy, emotional resilience, professional golfer, smoking pot, clearing the air, reconciliation, aortic aneurism, emotional intelligence, pride, restoring relationships, workaholic, pro Advisor coach, zip line accident, perspective changes, accepting what you can’t control, perfectionist, comebacks, hardships, on the bench of life, vision, the eternal optimist podcast, daily intentions, visualization, meditation, Bible reading, affirmations, journaling, Hal Elrod, The Miracle Morning, daily practice, gratitude, curiosity, self compassion, patience, grace,  Love, Bullies, standing up for yourself, violence, being prepared, getting back up, forks in the road

Transcript

Matt Drinkhahn | Playing to Your Strengths, Taking Action in Life, & Becoming an Eternal Optimist 

Moving 17 times in 21 years reconciling with your father and then he dies the next day almost destroying your back permanently in a zip lining accident and becoming an eternal optimist with miracle mourning. All this and more right now.

Hello, my Remarkable friend. I'm David Pasqualone and welcome to this week's episode of the Remarkable People Podcast, the Matt Drink K story. When you're [00:01:00] listening to this episode, you're going to be motivated, you're going to be excited, you're going to hear crazy stuff that's like mind blowing, and you're also going to hear stuff that touches your heart emotionally.

Stick through the whole episode. You never know what's going to be said, that's going to change your life forever. But I truly believe this episode with Matt has the potential to do so. He is a businessman. He's a coach, he's an author, he's a podcast host. He is just a great human. He talks about how he had forks in the road, you know, before that he talked about moving 17 times in 21 years, and how being a military family and an only child.

How that affected his journey. He talks about being bullied and overcoming it and balancing in sports and, and, and education. He talks about how once he was out of school, him and his father had a break, and they were both kind of stubborn, but thank [00:02:00] God the mom brought 'em together. But they both had a fork in the road just like we do so many times and we can make a choice of what we're going to decide.

Matt thankfully made the right choice to reconcile this father, because his dad died the next day. Okay? So we want you to live a glorious life in this world, but more importantly, an eternity to come. So listen to this episode. Do what you know you need to do from it. Repeat it each day so you, you're going to have a fantastic life in this world, but most importantly, an eternity to come.

Matt's going to talk to us about his eternal optimism. He's going to talk to us about how he got there with Miracle Mornings and he's also going to share highs and lows of his life so you can have a better life faster in your world. So I'm David Pasqualone. Welcome to the Matt Drink Han story. Enjoy it. Let us know how we can help you share it with your [00:03:00] friends.

Check out R PPP Plus 'cause there may be future conversations with Matt in that paid subscription service that we just launched. But more than anything, enjoy this, apply it. Tell your friends, and I want to see you thrive. Your friends thrive and I just want to glorify God. So let's do it together. Remarkable community.

Enjoy this episode with Matt right now. I.

Matt Drinkhahn | Playing to Your Strengths, Taking Action in Life, & Becoming an Eternal Optimist 😎:

Hey Matt, how are you today, brother? We are rocking and rolling.

Couldn't be better right now. David. Thank you. Awesome. Yeah, we just had a little bit of a conversation, you and I before the camera started Rolling. It's awesome to get to know you and get to be together today for this show. Been looking forward to it for months. I just told our listeners a little bit about you, just part of your story.

So whether someone's been with us for all four, all eight seasons, four years, or if someone's a first time listener, they know we're going to go through your life story from start to today. Then we're also going to go through the [00:04:00] lows, the highs, the everything in between. And more than anything, we're not going to just talk about what you were able to overachieve or you know, what the successes you've had in life.

But we're going to talk about the practical ways of how you did it so our listeners can too. But if there's a listener right now that's like, should I listen to this episode or not? At the end of this time, Matt, if there's one truth that you promise to deliver our audience one life lesson that they can start applying to their lives, what would that lesson be?

It would be very simple. And thank you for that introduction, David. And I'm excited to be here. It'd be very simple, not easy, necessarily simple, is that if I can do it, you can do it too. And when you hear the story and you hear some of the challenges today, I don't know exactly where we're going. And I can say this, that I've overcome some real challenges, and I hope that some of this can be used to inspire action and others, because if I can do it, truly, you can do it too.

So look [00:05:00] for those lessons. Look for those practical applications of how you can take yourself, whether you're on high right now and things are going as smooth as ever, or you're in a low and you're not seeing how to move forward, either place will show how to play to your strengths and how to take action.

So listen up my friends. I hope there's something of value for you today. Beautiful. I know there will be. So thank you for being here today. Matt. Let's start off basics. You know where we started. We don't want to dwell in the past, but we want to learn from it, right? That's why the Bible is two thirds Old Testament, one third New Testament.

So talk about your upbringing. Where were you born? What was your home life like? Highs, lows, everything in between. Brothers, sisters, cousin, uncle, you know boarding school, whatever it was. Where did Matt's life start? Well, we'll start, I'll, I'll go from the beginning and give you some high level, then we'll dissect and go deeper into it.

David. So first I was born in 1977, so I'm 46 years of age. [00:06:00] Today I was born to, I would say, a military family. My father was in the Air Force. My mother was an English school teacher, and when they got together and had me, she became a stay-at-home mom and he continued his Air Force career. So, a defining thing in my childhood growing up is that we moved 17 times in 21 years.

Wow. So we moved everywhere, all over the country. That's 13 different states. That's three different high schools in three different states in those first 21 years. So moving around every six months, every year was a very normal thing for me. Not knowing what roots are in terms of living somewhere that was, that was, that was normal.

Like every, every year it felt like we would move, right? When I would start to make some friends, if I had had any [00:07:00] friends, we would move and it became that same cycle over and over and over again. So that's one thing to start is that we moved often. Now was it brothers, sisters, or were you the only child?

I am the only child now. My mother had another child before me with her first husband, and that child died. So I ne I was not alive by the time that my, my sister passed, she passed in infancy, so I never met her. So I am the only child to my father and mother. I. Okay, so that's really interesting.

So what are some of the, you know, we're going to go chronologically through your story, and if you're like Dave, I'll answer that in 10 minutes. No problem. But after moving 17 times in 13 states and all these different schools, what are some of the takeaways that you learned from this that are positive that you can apply to your life today and our [00:08:00] listeners can too?

Well, I will share the first thing that comes to mind, David, is a challenging story. A takeaway of a place that was really a low for me and we've learned much from it. You remember that movie back, I think it was 1992 ish, Forrest Gump. Yes. And you remember that scene on the bus where Forrest gets on the bus for the first time and he's walking back and the kids say, you can't sit here.

Seats taken. I remember. The number of times that I moved from school to school, the last five in particular, starting in the seventh grade, on the last five moves, that same scenario actually happened to me twice. On the move into seventh grade it happened. And again, it happened into eighth grade.[00:09:00] 

And, and I remember those 'cause those were particularly challenging times. Those are the times where as a seventh or eighth grade boy, we're forming our identity. We're trying to fit in, we're trying to to make friends and compound that with, I'm moving every year, so I'm forced to make new friends.

I remember the seventh grade I moved from Fort Worth, Texas Borough Air Force Base to upstate New York, to Rome, New York at Griffith Air Force Base. And I remember going to Staley Junior High School in Rome, New York that very first day. I remember getting on the bus, and I've come from a, maybe a strictly regimented from my father's side, being the military man.

We're supposed to be at places on time. We're supposed to do things a certain way. And I remember getting late to the bus stop on the very first day of my seventh grade, second half to seventh grade year, and it's, there's snow, there's a foot and a half or two of snow [00:10:00] everywhere, which is commonplace.

Upstate New York, not so much in Fort Worth, Texas. So I'm freezing cold. I'm late for the bus, and I can see the bus pulling past the bus stop as I'm walking up to it. And I swear I am late for my very first day. This is, I don't have a, a cell phone to text a parent, Hey, can you take me to school if I don't hit the bus?

I'm stuck. My parents are working. I, I don't know where to go, what to do. So I've gotta catch that bus. So I run up to the bus and I start banging on the side of the door to let me in. Let me in, let me in. It's my first day. Come to find out, David, that it wasn't pulling away from the bus stop. It was walking, it was pulling into the bus stop, and all those kids over there saw this weird new kid banging on the bus door trying to get in, and it hadn't even come to the bus stop yet.

That was very embarrassing for seventh grade Matthew. And that was, that was the way that seventh grade year started. You know, and then when I got on the [00:11:00] bus I didn't have anywhere to sit. There was actually no spot to sit, and the, the cooler kids at the back did not move over. When I walked back, I asked if I could sit there and they said no.

And I didn't know how to push myself into the spot. So I ended up standing on the way to school that very first day. It compounds when you go to lunch. This is the, the part that I used to kind of fear and dread. When you go to lunch for the first time in a new school, and I know, 'cause this happened to me out of all those times, it happened to me pretty much every year.

Gotta go to a new spot at lunch. So you go and get your lunch and I got the school cafeteria lunch. I pick up my tray, I look around, where do I sit? And there's normally two places I might choose to sit. An easy out for me is I can go and sit with the nerds. 'cause I got these big glasses, I got big teeth, I got braces on 'em.

I have braces for five and a half years, from fifth to 10th grade. So I'm in the middle of braces time right now. [00:12:00] Probably have some rubber bands of multicolor in there too, right? Yeah. I got giant bottleneck glasses. So I, I can go easily sit with the smart kids and the nerds because I identified as that.

I also, because I was in this big growth spurt, right? I also go sit with the basketball players because I was a star basketball player and no one knew me yet though, right. I look like a big nerd. I'm really great at basketball, so I go and make my play to go sit with the basketball kids. I remember going over to that table and seeing them.

David, I don't, I didn't meet this person at that moment. I didn't know his name at the time. Turns out there was a guy named Steve sitting right there and there was an empty spot, and I went to put my, my tray down to sit there and just like a scene out of Forrest Gump, he said, can't sit here. And literally, I, I was shocked and I was really embarrassed.

That was the second major embarrassment of the day, and I didn't, I didn't lose it all right there in front of everyone. That was the only time in my life I actually [00:13:00] went and I had lunch in the bathroom, in a bathroom stall. I was so embarrassed and I was, man, I, I, I, I'm getting kind of choked up right now thinking about it.

That poor me at that time, feeling so desperate for someone to reach out and say, Hey, you can sit with us. It was a very painful day. And here's the, the bright side to the story. And I wish my father were alive today and we'll get to that later in the story. Yeah. To hear me share this, this story of the impact he had on me that day.

So I got home that day, David and my dad asked me what was wrong, 'cause something was obviously bothering me. I was upset and kind of kept to myself and I told him the whole story and he said, okay, and now what are you going to do about it? Like, what, what do you mean? Well, you have a couple of choices and you can let that happen.

You can go and figure out a [00:14:00] way to try it again tomorrow. It's your choice. You can choose from here how you're going to respond to that. And I don't think I really that as a seventh grader. And at the same time, I decided to get back up and try it again the next day. And it worked out well. 'cause I, I made my group the next day.

I met a couple friends and had some friends for the second half that seventh grade year. So it was the lowest of lows that first day. And it came back and my dad gave me some great advice that night and it, it inspired me to go back and try again the next day. And it worked well the next day. So that's the, the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about the school experience.

Yeah. And I thank you for, I thank you for answering that. I didn't mean to jump seven years in your life, but you answered it perfectly and that's great advice. When you went in that second day, did you change your mindset? Did you have anything in action that you did differently? What was the, the change to [00:15:00] share from the perspective of a seventh grader?

To the degree I could remember, I remember that going in that second day, my dad said, you've got to go in there and give it your best shot. So I took a big, deep breath here. Go again. We can do this. And that whole mindset of you can do this, you can do this, and saying that over and over again, that was something that I learned and I did.

And I remember hearing something, I think it was around this time, this is, the timeframe is around 13 years of age. This is around 19 89, 19 90. And I remember Tony Robinson was already kind of starting to come on the scene in the eighties around that time. And he had this tape out, this cassette tape, and I heard the tape, unlimited power.

And one of the things he talks about in the cassette tape was being able to affirm to yourself and say it out loud, I have unstoppable. And he would literally used to walk around and say to himself, I'm unstoppable. And he actually had some more colorful language in that. But he would say, I'm [00:16:00] unstoppable.

I'm unstoppable. So I learned to repeat to myself, you can do this. Get back up. Try it again. You can do this. Get back up, try it again. And that mindset was what I had going into that day. It was what I had going onto the bus, which itself was a win just to get on the bus and have a seat. The second day was a win to go to lunch and be able to sit with somebody, sit with some group.

And I remember the, the group that I sat with that second day, I remember 'cause of, we had this these little piece of bubble gum called Fortune Bubble, these little orange sticks of gum. This is the same year that The Simpsons came out. I remember pretty clearly the Cowabunga of Bart Simpson t-shirts were popular at the time.

So I go there to lunch that second day and I remember sitting with a young lady and another gentleman, her name was Stephanie. Stephanie Ludwig was her name, and the gentleman's name was Eric. And I could picture him clearly. I don't remember his last name. But I sat with Eric and Skylar Tout, I think his name was Skylar tt.

[00:17:00] And Stephanie Ludwig and Eric. I sat with them that second day. That became my friends, that group became my friends for that second half of second grade. It was all started with the idea that my dad planted the seed in my head. You can do it, get back up and try it again. You can do this. Get back up and try it again.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. That's biblically based. A just man fall seven times and rises up again, right? That's right. So we just keep getting back up and doing, not just thinking. So that's awesome that your dad could instill that in you. I definitely want to go back kind of 'cause of me jumped seven years of your life, right?

We went from birth to that story, or actually 14 years. But let me ask you a quick question, Matt, between your birth and this story, What other significant things that you had to overcome or things you achieved or things that really shaped you into the man you are. Did we miss anything? Because one thing that sticks out to me is, you know, a, I know a [00:18:00] lot of friends and we've had several guests we've interviewed on the show who were military and relocation is part of that lifestyle.

However, I'm not going to lie, I think you're the only one I can think of that was an only child. So to me that's really unusual. So not only did you have the isolation of moving, but even within the family structure, I'm sure your dad was busy. Your mom was busy, and there's Matt relocated. So not having friends is even harsher when you're a military transfer.

So I'm really interested to hear from your birth through that high school experience or middle school experience. Anything else We miss significant. Well, I can think of the, the moments of high and the moments of low. And, and the first thing that comes to mind is I remember in first grade living in Omaha, Nebraska, and I went to Bertha Barbara Elementary School.

My best friend was Tony Morris. I'm still connected to him and his family on Facebook today. And that's, [00:19:00] that's been a rewarding friendship. I remember we used to play with he-man figures and used to ride bikes. And somewhere in that time there was this national news happening about this kidnapping.

And there was the gentleman on the news, I believe his name was Adam Walsh, was the kid that was kidnapped and his father was all over the news nationally about stopping such things. And there was a major kidnapping that happened in our neighborhood right at that same time when I was in first grade.

So I remember my mom and dad would say to me, you know, they talking to strangers. That's like a, a common thing that we teach all of our kids. I remember one day that I was walking in our neighborhood and this car pulled up and was asking me for some directions. It was Dan asking me for directions right outside our house.

I didn't know who this was and it didn't look familiar. Come to find out my mom came running outside and [00:20:00] screaming, don't talk to strangers, don't talk to him. And he hit the gas and, and drove off. So I don't know what would've happened at that moment. I clearly remember my mom running outside and saying that, and that always had a, always had an impact on me, you know?

So I don't know if this was good or bad or indifferent. I do remember that I didn't go out and proactively talk to people I didn't know. I think part of that was for me to save myself from this kidnapping thing 'cause that was what I can remember from that year. That was a really harsh thing that happened in our community.

I also remember my mom protecting me that way. So it wasn't easy for me to go and talk to people. The only way David, I was able to actually go and speak with anyone was through the two things that I really have associated with. And that was number one is getting good grades and you know, being a good student so I could talk to people about school and that was easy for me.[00:21:00] 

And then number two is my dad was a a star athlete. See back in 1968 he was the national M V P for the National Champion Baseball Team for the N A I A collegiate ranks. And he was drafted to go play in the major leagues as a pitcher. And side note, he never made it to the majors 'cause he got drafted to Vietnam shortly after that and he got hurt over there.

Could never pitch again. I remember. My dad was always an athlete. He played basketball and he jogged and you know, of course he was a baseball star. So I was able to connect with people fairly easily around sports. You know, I've always been, if you can, and picture this listeners, I was always the tallest kid in the class.

I was always the skinniest. I always had big glasses. Right now I'm still the tallest person in almost every room. I'm almost six, seven, you know, and, and now I still work out pretty regularly. I remember that influence of being able to talk to people about sports and play sports. Always loved the [00:22:00] grades, always loved the sports.

So you're asking about what was that like before high school? I didn't know how to talk with people really Well. I could talk with people if it was around grades or around sports, and we moved all the time. So one thing I want to kind of bring into the picture here, because I don't think I've shared it yet, David, with our listeners, is that.

Our family was very religious around going to church every Sunday. And I remember that this was a place for me that I felt very comfortable. You know, I remember going to Sunday school and that first anxiety of trying to meet people still there, but once we got into the scripture, once we got into vacation Bible school, when I was with my mom's, 'cause she was Southern Baptist, or when we were up at dad's in Michigan, which was Lutheran, whichever church I was in, I always felt really comfortable being there.

It seemed to me that the people were a little bit nicer there [00:23:00] before high school at least. So that was one part I wanted to weave in because I know you've mentioned the scriptures a couple times and I wanted to share part of my journey was a strong faith journey growing up as well. Yeah. And I actually back to you.

No, no, no. This is just dialogue again, like two friends just hanging out. You remember when we were kids? 'cause I'm the same age. I was born in March. What month were you born in? April. April, okay. I beat you by a month. But you're old man. You're really old. I am. No, we're young dude. So age doesn't bother me.

It's like I feel young some days I feel old some days. But God will take me home when heti when he is ready, right? That's right. That's right. No, you remember Davian, Goliath? It was a claymation type cartoon and it was put out by the Lutheran church. But I really think that some of the most doctrinal morality that I learned that I kept, 'cause it wasn't like [00:24:00] I grew up in a, in a nurturing home where, you know, we believed there was a God but didn't go to church.

You know, nothing was there. But I remember the Lutheran church put out this fantastic series and I actually bought it, had my kids watch it when I raised my children. And I even recently, a few months ago, played it. I still have the DVDs for other people's kids and it's just rock solid bible doctrine from everything I've seen and can remember.

Did you remember at all that, at all growing up in a Lutheran home? Or was that not where you were at? I remember, I don't remember that one exactly. What I do remember though about growing up and being influenced by the Lutheran Reli religion, I remember Holy Ghost Lutheran, that was in Monroe, Michigan.

Still is. It's where my family's buried at that that grave site. I remember very clearly being a part of every Christmas play, being one of the wise men or Joseph or something of that nature. I remember my first [00:25:00] Bible, it was a red book. It was called Your First Bible that my parents gave me. We used to read together.

So I do remember parts growing up, not the claymation part. There, there was a strong influence of, of books and of the of the Christmas narrative, the Christmas nativity scene. I remember that my parents used to have this and, and my mom still has it all, and we would wrap 'em up in and paper cloth, paper towels every year, and we would set up our nativity scene, you know, and I remember good lessons we would have around the, the fire, the fireplace reading from the nativity and the Christmas story.

So yeah, there are some really good memories growing up. Yeah. And I wasn't trying to get Any kind of, what's the word? Get hung up on any kind of denomination. Because like to me, God's real, God's true. The Bible's a hundred percent accurate, relevant, and you know, that's our guidebook to life, right?

But then you have all these different, you, like you said, you got Southern [00:26:00] Baptist, you got Baptist, you got independent, fundamental Bible, even Baptist, you got Lutherans, you got, you know, all these different sects of people who say they believe the Bible. And I'm not trying to get any conversation or any argument or whatever, 'cause I believe God's word.

Right. But I did want to see how that tied into your, again, life. Just because traveling around, going to different churches, there's different takes, there's different opinions. You know, God's word's always true, but we as men make make gray sometimes. Yeah. So I was wondering how that played in and knowing it's a Lutheran background.

Then I was just curious, did you see David and Goliath? So, Yeah. Well, I think something that really resonates right now, David, is that I, when we were growing up, I remember it was about fifth grade on is when my dad got promoted. He got his stripes, became a colonel. And at that point on it was a different level in the military.

And I remember distinctly remember when he became the base commander in Texas, from that moment on, from fifth grade on, he was always kind of in charge. I didn't really know what that meant at the time. I do [00:27:00] know this, that whether it was a religious difference or a difference in, in race or ethnic heritage or any type of difference among people, my father taught me not to see the differences, to treat everyone equal.

Like we're all just people. We're all just humans trying to find our way to be kind to everyone. And kindness was, I feel, one of the big core virtues that my mom and dad instilled in me. And it, it shows up that my dad was a Lutheran, my mom was Southern Baptist. They married. And I remember even as the story I just shared in seventh grade, I ended up in upstate New York and I went to a, a Rome Catholic high school, you know, so I went to a Catholic high school for a year and a half.

I got a Lutheran dad, a Baptist mom, and we went to the Protestant service on base at a couple of the stops. So I didn't really see any specific religion other than the message I choose to believe from God is that just [00:28:00] be kind to people, be kind and generous to people. And, and that's one of the endearing lessons that I've learned over and over again is to be, be kind.

Yeah. I mean God, Jesus said that comes up. Love God, love others. That's the first two and greatest commandments. Yeah. So well said. Okay, so let's go back now and catch up between that second day on the bus where you went back, you're not giving up, you're not quitting, but between your birth and that day, is there anything we missed in your life, Matt, before you picked back up in your story?

I'd say that there are a couple more things to know. One might be that I had a total of seven surgeries of some kind up until that point. One of 'em happened the, the day I was born, I had a complete blood transfusion. I had what was called bad blood. That's a very scientific term bad blood. And I was literally going to die, and they had to take every ounce of blood out of me and put new blood in me.

All right. So that was [00:29:00] number one. I don't remember any of that, of course. And then from first grade through seventh grade, I had six more surgeries for various things. Some of them sports injuries, some of them just boys being boys and breaking things. But I remember having surgery, being around hospitals a little bit, you know, so that was a, a defining place.

I wanted to have empathy for people that are in the hospital. And I still, to this day, I don't want to go personally to a hospital and have any more surgeries unless I have to, to survive. So the chance of me having like any kind of elective surgery are going to be zero, like the size of my nose right now.

I am not trying to get a nose reduction surgery just because I don't want any more surgeries, David. So that was a part of growing up, is having surgeries and being in the hospital every once in a while that, that, that kind of comes up. And that does take its toll on you people who haven't had it.

You know, some things are minor, some things are extreme, but when you've had surgeries and you've had life, [00:30:00] I don't want to use the term threatening, but life altering, potentially dangerous surgeries. It does change your mindset. Mm-hmm. Even for things that you need, like, and especially with you coming outta military family, I'm sure it was like, just be tough, man it up.

You know, you broke an arm, suck it up, put a tree stump on, it'll heal. I mean, that's how I was raised, that's how I raised my son and daughter. But for you, it's like I could picture you just being like, eh, I tore my shoulder up, but oh, I can go another couple years. Yeah. That was exactly what it was like until I couldn't move anymore and excruciating pain, then we had to have the surgery.

So, yeah. That, that's exactly, exactly what it was like. Yeah. I just, that I didn't know about your surgery, so you go into your story and talk about that. But yeah, so that's, that's awesome. I think we'll get to the big surgery coming up 'cause there are some some things yet to reveal that may connect with the audience.

But being around health things, I mean, as a kid, all of these things are [00:31:00] terrifying. 'cause you don't know, right? So now I can look back, oh, it was only an arthroscopic knee surgery. Well, at the time you don't know if you're going to walk anymore. You don't know what's going to happen. So yeah, there were some, there were some tough times there.

I think there's two more very revealing stories that happened in childhood that might connect with the audience, David. One of them was when I made the move to second grade, and I remember in second grade, it's in the first week of school. The big thing back then was garbage pail kids, which by the way, are making a comeback nowadays, these garbage pail kids.

So I had a, a bunch of garbage pail kids. Oh yeah, yeah. They're, they're, they're back. They're back in a major way. And my kids saw someone, they liked them, so that's a different story. But I remember having the garbage pail kids, and the teacher, Ms. Fisher took 'em away from me on the first day of school.

And I remember going to the playground and I was upset about that, not paying attention. And I think I accidentally bumped shoulders with some other kid. And I remember very clearly, I won't say his last name. His first name was Kevin. And [00:32:00] I remember Kevin not liking that. And he turned around and just punched me.

And I remember this, the, this is like the first day of second grade. Remember halfway through the year, I moved again halfway through the year, first day, second grade, my garbage pill kits were taken away before lunch, recess. So I'm out at recess, I bump shoulders the D with Kevin on accident. I turn around and the dude slugs me.

Before you know it, Kevin and his two friends are on top of me trying to beat me up. I mean, this is the first day of school. I'm like, this is, this is crazy to me. And I remember at this point I tried to fight back and some teacher or some monitor came and broke it up. But that was my birth into the second, into the second grade, the first day of school in second grade.

Fast forward this would be the last one that I go into before before the high school. So I remember clearly in sixth grade in Texas, I'm there on the playground. I'm going to Stripling Middle School, [00:33:00] amazing school. I loved my experience there except for this. I remember getting cornered on the playground one time by these 15 kids.

Yes, 15 boys formed a circle around me, and they were the local, I guess you can call 'em a gang, right? They didn't have guns and knives. They still surrounded me and the leader, Daniel. He came right up to me and he smacked me again in the face. I remember my dad gave me some advice. He said to me, if a group of bullies ever gang up on you, you've got a couple of choices.

Option one is you can take it and if you take it, then they will continue to bully you if you allow them to do it. Option two is you can fight back right there and stand up for yourself. And if you do that, You're going to take a beating or you can take the offense and you can give the beating. Either way, [00:34:00] the choice is yours.

So I remember when Daniel smacked me, I wind back as much as I could, thinking about my dad, knowing I was probably going to about to get whooped, and I tried to punch him as hard as I could in his nose and I missed, and I hit him like on his chin and his teeth a little bit. It was enough to stun him and he kind of went down.

He didn't fall on the ground, but he kind of went down and was holding his face. And before you know it, all of them were looking up like what just happened? No one expected that to happen, so I did my best. At the time, Michael Johnson was the fastest runner. Or Carl Lewis. I did my best. Carl Lewis, I just ran, man.

I punched him and everyone was looking around, like kind of befuddled, and I just ran and they all ran after me. And I swear to you, I did the fastest lap around that track that I anyone's ever done in the history of running. I was probably faster than Hermes and Achilles themself on Olympus because man, I, I ran, I remember that the, the sixth grade quarterback of the middle school, Zach, was his name, tried to stop me to help these kids beat me up.

And I did a stiff [00:35:00] arm kind of push him down to the ground. And I, and I got away, but those kids never messed with me again. I don't know why. Because I ran, I still had the courage to stand up and that was a great lesson my dad had taught me, you know? And the lesson was you can take it and they'll probably keep doing it or you can stand up for yourself, in which case they may still give you a beating.

At least they may respect you and they'll probably stop. And they did stop. And actually I became friends with some of these dudes. Weird how that works. Didn't understand it. It worked. So that was the sixth grade lesson. With bullies, and that was the last time I ever had a bully, was the sixth grade.

So yeah, I agree. Yeah. Again, some people are, oh, no violence. No violence. Well, clearly you haven't read your Bible. There's violence all over throughout history because of men's depraved state. And there's also times where God says to go to war. So I am not against violence, but I tell my kids, if you get any conflict, try not to fight.

But if someone's going to gang up on you, yes, grab the [00:36:00] biggest one and beat them to a pulp, and all the other cowards will run away. And that's totally agree. That's what you gotta do. Yeah. And the thing is, at that time I was, I was skinny. I, I was still pretty tall, but I was skinny. I didn't have much muscle, but I was starting to grow.

And once they saw that happen, I was actually already bigger than everyone else. I just never come outta that shell and done anything about it and played in the offense or showed any aggression. And I'm not saying. Let's go and all be aggressive and just start fighting. And what I am saying is what you just said, David, is that be prepared for that situation.

'cause it might happen. And if it does, it's better to be prepared and stand up for yourself than just let the situation be dictated by someone else over and over again. So, yeah, a hundred percent all these gangs and all these, these people just doing horrific things 'cause there's no consequence.

Again, you have to deal with your life. I have to deal with mine. Our listener's going to deal with theirs. But like that's right. If someone's going to try to beat me I'm going to do what [00:37:00] I need to do on the way out to take care of my family. You know what I mean? It's just absolutely same thing for you. And if I'm by myself and the, I remember a time very similar in freshman year of high school, it's like all the guys, there's basketball tryouts and they got these ice balls and they're packing 'em and they're like, you, you know, you don't belong here.

'cause I was a wrestler and they start throwing ice balls at me and I just sat there. And they're all tough when they're together. But it was just basically, well, who's your leader? Who's the toughest of you? And they couldn't figure it out, right? So I'm like, when you can figure out who the toughest one is, then that's the one I'll take.

But if 15, 20, 30 of you want to throw snowballs at me, I was like, go ahead. And I sat there and took it, and they respected me, like you said, after it. But they were still always tools I should have just walked up, punched the biggest one in the face, and then all the other cowards were to piss themselves and left me alone.

But like, yeah, I'm not telling people what to do, but sometimes violence helps a lot. So, yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you popped. That kid is an interesting topic, [00:38:00] huh? Yeah. This is such an interesting topic because the, the whole predominant narrative right now is that violence is evil, violence is wrong, and at the same time, what are you supposed to do when someone steps to you and, and does something and bullies you or picks on you?

You know, the, the theory of just grin and bear it. Yes, I can understand that. And it's going to keep happening. So are you going to grin and bear it forever or are you finally going to stand up for yourself and do something about it? You know, my kids are in karate right now today just to learn self-defense and martial arts and you know, the discipline around that at the same time, oh, if something should ever happen, I've got all female around me, my daughters, I've got my wife, and I want them to learn how to protect themself.

I'm not around. So I am an advocate of learning self-defense, not to bully others, to be prepared to stand up for yourself when you need to. A hundred percent. Yeah, I agree with you completely. It's [00:39:00] never, I mean, violence is the last resort. But it's a tool in the toolbox and it's something that's right, you gotta do.

And if somebody breaks in my house, I'm not going to look at the 18 psychological reasons why they're doing it and how is their childhood. I'm going to get rid of 'em one way or another. I'm going to try to do it without hurting them, but if I hurt 'em, I don't care. They're in my house. You know, it'ss just, it's just, it's, and for people listening who are appalled, think about really, like Jesus is a great example.

Jesus never once got mad at anybody for attacking him. That is true. But Jesus got furious when they defied the Father and they commit blasphemy. Mm. Jesus loved the sinners, he loved the saints, but the people he wrath on was the hypocrites. So all these people who go to church and all these people who say they're Christ-like, and all these people who think they're better than others, and they live, they, they talk like they're godly and they live like the devil.

Those are the people that are the most [00:40:00] infuriating, infuriating in the world. But when you come down to, like you said, you have daughters and a wife, they need to know how to protect themselves. And I don't think any God is going to say, oh yeah, you just take a beating, let you get raped. No way. Beat their butts and teach them a lesson, because there's no court in America.

I'm not going to say any other country, but right now, I mean, what, you can disagree with me totally, Matt, but I feel like most punishments for murder are almost a slap on the wrist. But would it seem that way now? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If you beat somebody trying to break in your house, they're probably going to think twice before they break into another house.

So again, people can disagree with me and I'm not it today. I'm right. You go read your Bible for yourself, you know, study to show thyself approved or work on to God rightly divine. The word the truth. You know, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That doesn't mean there's different ways to be saved, but it means you work out your relationship with God.

You gotta, at the end of the day, we gotta be able to face God on our own. But for me, [00:41:00] and it sounds like you, I'm glad you punched that kid in the face 'cause that could have literally changed the whole course of your life. Yeah, and I, I'm not looking for it. I've, I've not ever started a fight and there have been several that I've ended that came to me and I didn't, I didn't want it.

I'm not looking for it and I'm ready. I. So, and, and one of the things now, I hang in some circles that love this ilian jiujitsu and love the training of martial arts and my kids are in it. So we're we're prepared physically in case something might happen. So, yeah, I, I think we're aligned there.

But the point is, yeah, the point is we're we're going from highs to lows and a whole life story. This is part of that, that beauty of life, is that there's been challenges and there's been wins, there's been everything. And being able to protect yourself or stand up for yourself, I cannot imagine where my life might be if I had just laid down every time, you know, someone tried to pick on me or someone tried to [00:42:00] take from me, you know?

And it even shows up nowadays. You know, in, in a different way. You know, if the government is trying to do something or force something, you know, then I have the ability to go and vote a different way. You know? Or if someone's trying to do something in, in a corporate sense if they're trying to blackmail or bully or lie or do something unethical, then I can stand up for 'em and call 'em on it, you know?

So being able to defend oneself, whether verbally, physically, emotionally, these are important life skills that I feel getting started and learning how to do it yourself. Learning how to practice these skills. It's important for success of anyone who wants to have a healthy, physical, emotional, spiritual life is to be prepared for these circumstances.

So that's part of my message, you know, is always being prepared, doing the best you can to be prepared for what could happen. So, yeah. No, that's excellent. So continue with your story, man. We've jumped around a lot, probably more than any episode out of four years, [00:43:00] so I apologize for poor leadership on my part.

Oh, no, it's good. This is great. This is great. You're talking to a d d man here. I go down the rabbit hole. Any different direction, any different tangent, David? So let's keep going on the tangents, man. This is the way it is life. It's just like splotches of paint here and there, and it's not always linear the way that things happen.

So I, I love the way our conversation's going. Where shall we go next? Well just go, let's go chronological. So you're in school, you have a couple things that you learn from kind of life lessons, just, you know. Yes. Just like if you're building a shed, you're building a house, you're building a mansion.

It's all scalability, same building principles. So you're learning, you know, you're being bullied in sixth grade. You might be bullied in college, you might be bullied in your forties, bullying's, bullying, and you stop bullies. So now you're moving through. You have this bus instance where now it's a second day of school.

There's still being tools on the bus. Where does your life go from there? Oh, let's, let's keep going forward. I think one re recurring consistent [00:44:00] theme is you're not able to see in the moment how this might benefit you down the road, but everything that we do right now can serve a greater purpose in your life.

And here I have the benefit at the age of 46 to see how when I moved around so much as a kid, it taught me emotional resilience. It taught me how to empathize with the kids who may be lonely with the other new kids, which I think informs me of why I was always so friendly with the foreign exchange students.

It's 'cause I knew they didn't know anyone and some of them didn't even know how to speak the language. So I always was able to make friends with the foreign exchange students. I always respected that. And, and the person who would do that to learn, I my experience of high school, Was in three different states.

It was in four different schools. And I remember, I'll, I'll, I'll jump forward to my senior year of high [00:45:00] school. My dad had taken a new job from active duty military to come down here to Clemson, South Carolina, you know, and I don't live too far from there today. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina today.

I remember going to high school at Daniel High School in Clemson, South Carolina, class of 1995. In my first day of my senior year of high school. It must have been you know, September of 1994. I remember opening up my locker their very first day and the very first day of school when I opened my locker for the first time inside of it was a flyer for a Kuku Klux Klan rally.

And that was my introduction to high school in South Carolina, day one is to see that. And not to mention I had the worst fashion sense in the world. So I'm wearing my multicolor. It does not look cool. Anyway, outfit so I'm trying to be cool. I'm trying to connect with the [00:46:00] basketball players and the golf team because I'm a star golfer by now.

And I get this flyer in my, in my locker and this shocks me and it kind of scares me. 'cause I've, I grew up my dad, military culture, the you know, the faith culture where we didn't really see that, that the color of people, you know, everyone. Yeah. One, one race, the human race. Yes, exactly. And to see that the first day of school, that was shocking and kind of scary, right?

So that was the first day. So I didn't really connect with that many people. In my senior year, I connected with the golf team. I chose not to play basketball, and I connected with the golf team. So, hung out there, hung out with my church group, made, made a really good church group there at at Clemson, first Baptist.

And had, had a really, a good senior year. And then, then I went off to Wafford College. Which is a small liberal arts school in Spartanburg, South Carolina. And man, that was culture shock and amazing. And I come to realize, I grew up with very overprotective parents. You know, [00:47:00] I didn't go out in high school.

I didn't go out to football games, didn't go out to parties. I never saw any drinking or drug. That was just not the thing that I was a part of in high school. Man, I got to college. That first week of college was eye-opening, man. It was, I saw everything you can imagine. I was straight up I, I was still at that time believing I need to wait until marriage before I you know, have sex for the first time.

So I get there and I'm seeing people sleeping over in dorm rooms. I'm seeing alcohol everywhere. I'm seeing drugs for the first time. It was culture shock that first semester in college. And that was a, that was a big, huge shift. Huge shift. I continued to go to church every Sunday and I had my first sip of alcohol.

And beer here that first semester. So it was just, it was a different culture shock, you know, and I will now fast forward through some of those details and get to where life shifted again. For me, [00:48:00] it shifted again my junior year in college when I have been preparing David to be the professional golfer.

You know, I'm going to be a pro one of these days. I'm going to be the best in the world. This is around the same time that Tiger Woods is the best player in the country and he's winning national championships as an amateur at Stanford, you know, so I'm watching this every year thinking I need to catch up with that guy.

And it started to become evident to me that I'm not there yet. By the time my junior year in college comes around, I'd waited tables at the Macaroni Grill and I'd worked in fine dining, I'd cut grass at the golf course in the summertime. I'd never made more than $205 in a paycheck for working about 40 to 45 hours at $5 and 50 cents an hour for the summer times.

So I didn't know what was going to happen when I graduated from college. My parents or my mom specifically is like, I need you to get a stable job. You know, [00:49:00] working at a bank, something like that, that's stability, right? My dad was like he was pushing in that direction too. He had tried to be an entrepreneur, he had tried to sell multi-level marketing, tried to sell Amway, you know, tried to be a, a financial planner, insurance agent, and sales and entrepreneurship was challenging for him.

So I didn't see success. I saw effort there, not success. So I came upon this job my junior year in high school, David, that changed my life forever. I got the flyer to go and sell knives and I got that job selling Cutco knives, man. Yeah. Yeah. And I had these big old bottleneck glasses still, and I was still oddly dressed as a huge nerd.

And I got this job selling Cutco knives and man, that changed everything. It opened up my confidence to a whole new level when I learned how to put on a presentation in front of people. So, how do I say it? I am eternally grateful for having the chance to go and sell Cutco, and I'm still a big, big supporter of that [00:50:00] company today.

I don't work there anymore, but I worked there for that year. My, my junior year of, of college. I ended up making like like $50,000 in commission that year, which was like, and you put that in perspective, you're talking the mid nineties. Yeah. And back then 50 grand was respectable for an adult, let alone someone in college.

Yeah. It was super cool. I got to go and do these presentations in home and I got to make good commission doing it. And the product is great. I still have like a ton of Cutco at the house today. So I'm sold on it. I love my Cutco experience and I wish that anyways, looking for a job to develop their people skills.

Go there. That's my plug for Cutco. So I had a, had a great experience there and then I get ready to get out and go into the real world. And like many people I think that I need to have it figured out. I didn't have anything figured out. Yeah. I wasn't going to be a pro golfer, so that was kind of, that was hurting me.

And what do I do, [00:51:00] right? What do you do when you get outta college? You have a little bit of debt and you're supposed to get your first like, real job and, and go away from the nest. And I didn't know what to do at all. So I went to that Cutco management training program and man, that was the best decision because over the next five and a half years I recruited.

About 2,500 people to work in the organization underneath me or the other teams that I developed. And we sold millions of dollars of these knives and impacted so many lives by doing that. And the, the job experience was amazing. This is where, you know now what I do today. You know, I coach seven or eight figure executives and I help them grow and scale their companies and work on their culture.

You know, I do executive business coaching with ProAdvisor coach this 25 years ago when I started selling knives. That was the foundation for what I do today. I lean on that experience frequently about interviewing and training, hiring [00:52:00] people, having hard accountability conversations, learning how to ingratiate and integrate culture with into people learning how to run team meetings and recognize people.

Everything that you want to know, running your own Cutco branch, that's what what did it for me. So I was in, I loved it. I loved, loved my experience, and that brought us up to around the age of 28, brought us up to around the age of 28, where, you know, just been been crushing it in a loving life and it was time to go out on my own and do something different, David.

So after five and a half years of cut go of being a district manager of just absolutely loving it and crushing it and making a ton of money and impacting a ton of lives, we decided that it was time to go and pursue that old dream again of professional golf and man. So here's where the biggest life changing to defining moment happened.[00:53:00] 

Somewhere along the way, I may have been seduced by the dark side of money, right? I had been away from my parents for most of college during the year. I was going to church regularly when I went to college. By the time I got out and been in business, I didn't make time for that anymore, and I hadn't been to church outside of the three major holidays.

I hadn't been to church in probably about three and a half years. Consistently. My influence now is driven by ambition and drive to succeed and earn a strong income, become a millionaire, all these, these things that were fed. And I'm excited now to go because I've been able to accumulate some wealth and do good in business.

I'm excited to go and try this pro golf thing. And I made the mistake when my dad called me one day and he congratulated me [00:54:00] on this success I was having in business. And I, I said something I still regret. I've got only two regrets in my life. This is one of them, is that I said well dad, I just had my biggest check.

Of my life. He said, well son, don't go and spend it all in one place and don't go celebrate and drink and drive. And I said to my dad the following, I said, well, dad, I don't drink and drive. I could tell you what I do, but I don't think you'd approve. I regret saying that. And my ego was speaking at that moment because I kind of wanted to show off a little bit, I suppose.

He said, what do you mean, son? Well, I don't drink, but I smoke pot. I said that to him. And that was a phase I was in in life at that time that I felt compelled to say that. And after I said that, he had a couple of choice words and then we didn't speak for a while, for months. And I regret making that statement to him.

I even [00:55:00] regret, I cannot say that I regret smoking pot at that time in life. 'cause it served a purpose to inform me of who I've become now because I don't do that now. At the time it was just where I wa where I was. I. I have a little patience and grace myself for this because we're all human and we all can make mistakes.

So we didn't talk for months and my mom bartered kind of got in the middle here and tried to get us together to, to chat. So she signed us up for a, a three day golf tournament over Memorial Day weekend 2005. And here's where it gets very joyful for me that I haven't talked to dad in months. And we got together.

And within moments of seeing him, I was able to get all my emotion out and share with him that I, sorry for saying what I said and sorry for setting a bad example. I just felt really bad about everything and, and he shared his similar thoughts [00:56:00] around everything and we were able to clear the air, David, and that clearing of the air was the best thing.

It felt so nice. Have you ever done that? Like had a chip on your shoulder or had. We'll call it beef or had an issue with someone and then eventually, like he cleared the air. That feeling, yeah, you have to have both parties wanting to do it, but it's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Was it, man, that was, that was it.

That was on Saturday, Memorial Day weekend 2005 that we cleared the air and man, after that, David, we, we played really good golf together. We ended up finishing second in that golf tournament. And I remember parting ways with my mom and dad that night. They lived just south of Atlanta, down in Warner Robins, Georgia.

And I remember parting ways that night that, that, that Monday night, Memorial Day, 2005, and I was on Cloud nine. Man, we cleared the air, we just played great golf and we were good again. And then the [00:57:00] unthinkable happened on Tuesday morning at 7:04 AM I get a call on my cell phone. And I, I missed it. So I called back 7 0 6, 2 minutes later, called back, talked to my mom.

She said, Matthew, come home. I'm like, why? What happened? What, what do you mean your father just died? And at that moment, like that was, that was the worst possible phone call. The worst possible thing you could hear. My father, the man I look up to, the, the person I aspired to be like, oh, kind my everything.

He, he died. He had an aortic aneurysm, had a clear bill of health and his physical, and somehow that morning of he he died suddenly. And I'm an eternal optimist and I'm grateful to God every day. It was hard for me to be grateful to be optimistic that day. That [00:58:00] was just a day that it's kind of a big blur.

I was in shock. I probably shouldn't have driven home. It's almost a two hour drive home, and I did it in about 85 minutes and I, I probably should not have that morning. And I remember walking into the hospital and seeing his body there for the last time and it was just such a painful and, and drink on then, you know, we're immigrated here in 1848 from Germany.

We're not taught to share, express or feel emotion, especially talk about it out loud. And I've since learned a little bit more about that emotional intelligence. So now I'm totally okay talking about it. And I may even cry. That's totally fine. Now. At the time I had so much pain built up inside, so much maybe suppressed pain over time that I'd never let out.

I just started to ball and I saw his body and I couldn't speak and I couldn't really do anything for, it must have been like a good 30 or 40 [00:59:00] minutes that I literally was just kind of blacked out and just cried. For, for some time. It was good to get that out and it was still David the worst day, you know?

So that, yeah, man, that was, that was like the hard time. I was 28 years of age, I lost my dad and that was, that was a really hard time. I feel real empathy for anyone that lost their dad at a younger time or lost anyone. I think there's a lesson here that I feel so lucky. I thank God for this all the time that we cleared the air that day before.

Can't imagine what my life would be like if I'd have regrets right now if we weren't able to clear the air before, because now I still look up that legacy of my father, and I'm so glad we cleared the air, David before, man, I, I don't know how I'd respond if, if we hadn't cleared that. Yeah. And that's why we have to take every day of life and restore every relationship we can.

I mean, it starts with our relationship with God, then ourselves and everybody else. But what a blessing it is that on this side of eternity, you [01:00:00] got to reconcile with your dad. And you know, as believers we'll go up and be able to spend eternity together. But man, it would've been a crappy, whether it's 30 days or 30 years or 60 years, be tough living with the guilt of knowing that just 'cause of pride.

You didn't talk to your, your parent or your brother or sister for you, yourself. It's hard to tell me that at 28 that it's ego or pride. 'cause you know, my dad was pretty successful at what he did. He was always a leader. And I've been pretty successful. I've learned from failures and gotten back up just a little bit more than most.

That's the only reason I'm successful. It's not 'cause I've possess any supernatural ability. I just kept getting up right and kept thinking, you can do it. Just give another shot. I learned that from him. And if I hadn't cleared that air, man, I don't know where we'd be right now, David. And that's, if there's someone out there that hears this and there's a challenge, if there's a RIF in the family, [01:01:00] whether you caused it.

Or someone else did. Somebody has the ability and you have the ability to go and do your best to try to clear that. That's my message from a personal place is try to clear the air. And I'm not judging anyone out there. If there are circumstances that are unfathomable, I know it's, it's hard and there's no exact playbook.

Can only speak from the experience that I'm so glad that I cleared the air. And my mom, I'm so grateful to her for bartering that conversation for us to get together and clear the air, because I don't know how I would respond or who I would be right now if we hadn't. So anyone listening, I'd encourage you to try to do your best to go and step up to that conversation, even if it is challenging, even if it's the hardest thing ever.

'cause that, that's made a world of difference in my life. I think that still inspires me every day. David, so grateful that happened. That was the age of 28. So, and then where, where's your life? Go from there, Matt. [01:02:00] I will jump forward. I'm still at this time single without a serious relationship, and I was in and out of some relationships over time, and some of them were maybe they, they, they were relationships where I was mostly into the relationship, not fully committed.

I don't mean I was like cheating on relationships. I never had that as part of my mo I did have, I would say work was my first relationship, but the one that took biggest priority, I was a highly functioning workaholic. And I figured that if I'm going to be this successful person that my future spouse would see, I'm doing all of this for them, for her.

And I. She would be grateful for that. I'm working all these hours, working hard for her, [01:03:00] for us, for our future family. Understand. Good luck. One. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good luck. Now we've figured out, we figured that out now, but we didn't figure that out in my twenties and we didn't figure that out in my thirties until like later in my thirties when we started to go from like I, I was used to working like six or seven days a week, week, like 80, 90, a hundred hours a week.

Because that's what it took to now, you know, totally different, totally different now. But at that time, you know, I think the listers might relate some of the, especially male listers might relate if you're a high achiever, maybe you might identify as a overachiever or a perfectionist, that there was only one speed and that was full speed and it was towards achievement accomplishment.

And that served with many, many purposes, David. And it also hurt the relationships. So, Fast forward. I had a couple stints in corporate America two, three year stints in corporate America where I would go and open up [01:04:00] offices or open up and develop sales teams for organizations build into profitability and then go and move on to the next territory.

I did this over and over and over again for three years in one company, and then I came and did a little bit of that in another company here when I ended up back in Charlotte, North Carolina. So I'm here in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's 2014, and I decided to make the leap into entrepreneurship again.

At this time, I've just turned 37 years old. I have a girlfriend now, and in fact, we just got engaged and the year that I left for entrepreneurship was the year we got married. So I figured out a little bit of this work-life balance thing. I'm not working seven days a week and we're only working five.

Not past 6:00 PM anymore, and I'm not going in at five 30 or 6:00 AM anymore. So kind of a more traditional like eight to eight to five type hours. [01:05:00] Right? And I'm doing it as an entrepreneur with my new bride in 2014, right? So that's when I got into executive business coaching. And I met a friend name is Rich Campy.

He's the c e o and the founder of ProAdvisor Coach, where I am a a coach now. And I've been a coach now for, since 2014. And I met Rich and he had a profound impact on my life. And also I've had Rich on my podcast, which I'll talk about in a little while. And he has a strong faith as well. So now I'm working with a leader that I believe in, I believe I can learn from, and he's got a methodology to help people in business, and I want to do that.

'cause I have a lot of skills and experience, and I've helped to build multimillion, in some cases, near billion dollar organizations. I've just been doing it for others for a while. So now I'm going to do it for myself and do it as an entrepreneur. [01:06:00] So that was nine years ago. And in that nine year span I've been able to serve companies that have generated many billions of dollars in revenue.

I run a successful top 1% in the world coaching practice. Now, you, our practice has become successful in a number of fronts. We've had community impact. We work with boards of education and we've had educational impact. We've worked in the financial services, the retail, the corporate real estate, the tech spaces, all kinds of places professionally.

So all, all those things have been great professionally. The thing I want to share though, is a, is a great personal example that I hope your, your listeners can relate to. I want to go back to Labor Day on 2015. I'm one year into coaching. We have not at this point built a thriving metropolis of a business yet.[01:07:00] 

We're still at the end of the first year and on Labor Day of 2015, I went to a party. There's about 20, 25 people there, and I know all of 'em pretty well. And there is a zip line at this function that we're at, and I've been down this zip line like 30 or 40 times, and there's no way that anything is going to happen in this zip line.

It's not going to break, heaven forbid that that's not going to happen. So I'm going down this zip line and fucking tragedy. The thing that you would think it, it only happens in the movies. It happened, the zip line broke when I was going down the zip line. And it's not 300 feet above the ground, like in Costa Rica.

I'm not doing it there. It is about 17 feet above the ground and by the time my body was hanging from the zip line, from the, the ground to my butt, it's probably around 12 and a half to [01:08:00] 13 feet. And a 240 pound man at the time who falls straight on his tailbone from 14 feet up in the air is cata Cata catastrophic.

It messed up my back so bad, David, that I literally ended up eventually getting up. It's like what happens in the, in the cartoons when a Wiley coyote has the giant anvil dropped on his head by the roadrunner and he sees stars. Literally, that's what happened. I saw stars when I hit the ground and I was knocked out for some period of time, probably not more than about five or 10 seconds.

I couldn't get up for a couple minutes. I wake up and I'm, I'm paralyzed. I cannot move, and I'm terrified that this is it. This is the end. My identity is gone. It's shattered. I'm the tallest person in every room. I'm an athlete. I'm a scratch golfer. I could do all this, and now I can't even move. I can't even get up.

I'm not able to walk anymore. And then all of this is going in my head in a split [01:09:00] second. Now, I'll, I'll jump to the to, to the, the punchline is that I was able to get up about two minutes later, but over the next nine months, my health deteriorated David to a place where I tried everything I could. We could afford a decent amount of options, right?

We tried hypnotherapy, we tried cryotherapy, we tried physical therapy, we tried acupuncture, we tried psychedelics even. I mean, we went to every possible place that we could find to try to find a solution. I went to the, a recommendation to the person that was there, Charlotte Hornet's therapist, sports, physical therapist, went to him, couldn't find any way to make this go away, stretching, chiropractic.

It all ended up getting these cortisone shots in the spine, which was also terrifying having shots in your spine that didn't work. So my dear friend, Marty McCarthy, who on a side [01:10:00] note helped us to found a school called Unity Classical Charter School, and Marty was a, a great pastor here at one of the largest churches in town.

He connected me to a man named Dan Brown, who runs one of the largest healthcare organizations in Charlotte, and he got me in to have a spinal surgery. With Dr. Alfred Ryan III on June 14th, 2016, nine months after the accident, and I went into that surgery in a place that I hadn't left the house three times in the last five and a half weeks.

I couldn't get upstairs anymore. David, I couldn't cook. I couldn't pick up my, literally my 25 pound daughter. I couldn't pick her up. I couldn't make love to my wife. I couldn't play basketball, golf, any physical activity. I needed help to go to the restroom and to sit down and to stand up. I literally slept in my office on the floor with my feet on the couch and my back on the ground.

And all this time, I'm in [01:11:00] the second year of my coaching practice where I'm still doing all of this through Zoom or GoToMeeting. At the time, virtually it got so painful and so bad I had to turn off the, turn off the webcam and through all of this, I feel God was talking to me and saying, Matt, you've been preaching this positive attitude stuff for all these years, and now it's time to really prove it and show it.

I had to show up. I had to show up or expose myself as a sham that I was just pretending. And we did our very best that we could to maintain that positive attitude. And when we went into that, or we went into that surgery and the doctor said to me, Matt, there's a chance you might never walk again. That was a very real possibility.

My wife and I cried over that, and man, I swear that was the moment that I feel I really had a change in my perspective and I feel I was in God's presence. The moment [01:12:00] that I accepted something I could not control was the moment everything changed for me. I was finally able to, through a real life experience, accept.

I cannot control everything. And that became the change in my life that I needed to become a recovering perfectionist, to develop my humility, and to come from a place of really genuinely being okay with whatever happens next. I can accept that. That doesn't mean I'm going to let roll over and let things happen.

That means that I can now accept the things that are out of my control. In fact, here might be a lesson that I coach all my clients to, that I feel is an important lesson in life and business. And any way you look at it is the things that you cannot control, the things that you are afraid of. When you can learn to love and accept those things, they will have less and less power over you.

And when I accepted that, I may not ever walk [01:13:00] again. I didn't like it. I can accept that if my calling is to serve people this way from this shell. Of a human body, whatever shell that is, that I am gifted, then I will do that. Now I'll do it to the very best of my ability and I will not feel sorry for myself.

I will do the best that I can with what I'm given. And we lucked out my friend David, man. Whew. We lucked out. We were able to get that surgery that discectomy, that L four, L five, all of these discs that I have that are bulging and that are herniated, they cleared all of that up. And to this day, I am very excited to say and humbled to say that I still play a scratch game of golf.

And I'm running in my first marathon here in November 4th, 2023 in the Charlotte City Marathon. And that's coming from a place where I was literally in a wheelchair and disabled in May of 20 16, 7 years ago. So that's, man, that's [01:14:00] crazy. Most people can't even take normal athletics and life and then run a marathon in their forties, and you're doing it after that kind of massive accident.

Why not? So that's use this gift, this second chance to the best of our ability. Why not? I mean, if God gave me this opportunity a second time, a second time, I lost my dad and I was taking those relationships for granted. So I learned something about relationships. So I got a reprieve, and I've done better with relationships since then.

And now I have this chance to share this story with the world about how some freak accident happened, and I can turn that narrative to one where now through the grace and glory of God and through never giving up and just being able to accept the things we cannot control, now we have a chance. To really serve people and to share that you can do it too.

You can make that comeback, [01:15:00] whatever it is. If you have hardship, you know what you can make, the comeback can do it. And that's, I felt compelled to share that. 'cause there's probably people out there right now that have excruciating pain or that are on the bench in life that don't know what they're going to do or where they're going to go from here.

And with a little bit of get a vision and take a little bit of action, just one step at a time, you can achieve and do anything you put your minds to my friend, whether it's personal, whether it's business, whether it's physical, spiritual, you can do all that.

Yeah. And I'm listening to your, I'm listening to your story and I'm thinking to myself, you know, you're obviously summarizing for time's sake, but. There's so much more that's in the actual practicality of everyday life in those situations. So I'm thinking to myself like, you know, obviously you just started a new business.

Well now you can't work as much and now when you don't feel good, you can't perform as well. So I'm sure there's financial [01:16:00] pressures that were going through your head. And I'm even thinking practically, you were at a friend's house and got hurt on the Zipline, did their insurance company pay? Did they say they shouldn't have a Zipline?

How did that all work out? Or did you have a severe financial pressures too from that? Or was there an insurance company that paid for everything? Well, a couple things. I'll, I'll start with the Zipline accident in insurance. No, there's no insurance around that. And no, I didn't sue anyone on that.

This was a zip line that had been around for years to my understanding, it had been around for more than a decade and it had had thousands of, of trips down the zip line. And I didn't sign any waivers, didn't think we needed to, and I was okay accepting the consequence from that, you know, so there was no, it, it was not a, a professional environment.

It wasn't you know, at Six Flags or Car winds, you know, it was [01:17:00] one that had been set up at a camp and had been there for some time. And I'd been down it a bunch of times. My kids had been down it a bunch of times. So I didn't feel compelled to to sue anyone over that. And it's not the way that I, I thought about it.

No, no, no. And that's not even what I'm saying. It's just insurance companies want to pass the buck. Oh, yeah. So I, I know most people are sue happy within most countries, but especially in America. But what I was saying is, you know, you did get hurt on that property. Did you have just insurance? Like insurance is a real thing.

Like I've been self-insured for years. Oh, yes. And it's not, not cheap. And when you're going through physical hardship and now you're, I mean, you're just fried sometimes. You don't have energy to live, let alone think and fight an insurance company. So that's why I was like, did they actually just pay as they should to help you?

Or were they fighting you all along the way? Oh, great question. Yeah. So most of the, the things that I just shared, with the exception of the psychedelic stuff, [01:18:00] which was a new thing, I never thought, I thought that was like a thing that college kids did. You know, so other than that, everything else was covered under the insurance plan that my wife's company paid for because we were married and she had the insurance for the family.

So all of the physical therapy and everything, I was covered under her plan. So, good question there. And yes it was all covered. We did meet the deductible that year, I'll say. Yeah, I can't imagine. So that happened. So now you have this major surgery, you know, there's always a riskier life, paralyzation, you know, you come out of it, things work out.

And between that day and today, where did your life go, Matt? I feel grateful. It's been some amazing places and, and I'd like to share a couple of practical applications of how we've gotten to where we are now. Because where we are now is, you know, we have a, a thriving coaching practice. You [01:19:00] know, we have you know, I'm working three and a half days a week on Monday through Thursday.

I've worked mostly virtual. I'll go eight times a year and facilitate ac company retreats or events in person. You know, I like You Have a top 2% podcast called the Eternal Optimist Podcast, where I interview successful people, ask 'em about the hardest stuff they've ever had to endure or overcome, and then what they're putting in the world now.

We have real estate holdings. Oh, in addition to that, I have a mastermind group around high ticket sales. So there are a number of different avenues that we've pursued that have been successful. So the business side has beens been amazing. I'm in a, a mastermind group right now called the Tribe of Investors, led by Mr.

Justin Donald and Eric Van Horn. And these are both very well-known people in the financial investing space. So I've been blessed to have thrived professionally. If there's a, [01:20:00] a takeaway or a practice that's helped. The businesses to thrive and our coaching practice to thrive. And in our marriage and our, our, our life to thrive personally I would attribute that to a couple of things.

And I also want to throw one more shout out there. I joined a group four years and a half ago called the Front Row Dads. Front Row Dads the founder of the front row. Dads is the Cutco alumnus by the name of John Roman. And front row dads is about family, men with businesses, not businessmen, with families, right?

So I joined that group and that's had a tremendous impact on now living in a yell free home where we don't yell at the kids specifically I don't yell. Used to have a little bit of a temper with I would be loud. So that's, that's been a, a great learning lesson. The two most practical things that I feel are very, very relatable and very doable.

And you could [01:21:00] start doing them today. Anyone at home? You can do 'em by yourself or do 'em with your family or do 'em with a small group of friends. There's two actions that I would invite our audience to take part in. Number one is every day I have a daily intention, and what I mean by that is I wake up every day and I will come down here to my study and I will engage in a practice where I meditate and pray to start every day.

After that, I will say some affirmations out loud, some positive affirmative statements. I say 'em out loud, takes me a couple minutes to do that. I then will sit here and visualize how I want the day to go every day and do this for about two minutes after I visualize how I want the day to go and think about if things go really well for me [01:22:00] today.

I. What does it look like? And I let that question guide me and I look at, here's what a successful day might look like. I thought about this podcast today, David, what a successful show might look like. And I thought, how might I be able to get through and serve some person who's blocked? Because there's a relationship that's blocked for them right now where they've gotta unclog it or help someone who is not able to take action 'cause they're uncertain.

This is how I learn to take action through uncertainty. You know, I visualize what a successful day looks like after the visualization. I'll pull out a passage and I'll read something and I'll, I'll read a different book probably every couple weeks, depending on what I'm looking for. I will read something.

Right now, I just happen to be reading a book called No Lock Doors by Gregory J. Smith, someone I had on my show a couple weeks ago. Right. So I'll [01:23:00] read. Need something that's inspiring or something that's educational for me to learn. And then last but not least, I will journal and I'll grab up my journal and I'll, I have it right here.

It looks just like this got a big like Game of Thrones looking, drag it on the front of it because I like fantasy stuff, lower the rings type stuff. So I got it right here. And I'll ask myself a question. And the question always has the same frame. And I encourage you, dear listener, to have your antennas up for this question because the framework of the question is what I hope makes an impact.

And the framework is every question starts with this. How might I, how might I, so the question that I used, just to give you an example, before I gave a speech to an audience of 50 last week, how might I learn to become unstoppable? How might I be proactive? I. Targeting more [01:24:00] referrals for my business.

How might I be the best husband and best father I can be? These are three examples of questions. As I randomly go back into my journal and look at something that's happened the past couple weeks, how might I strengthen my repetitions in the habits I do every day? I always ask a question with the frame of how might I, why?

Because how might I is a limitless possibility full of infinite possibilities? That's the type of question that is, there's infinite possibility of how might I notice? There's not a yes or no answer to that. It's only answers of resolve, answers of effort that can help you to get there. So I start to ask that question.

I will journal and have a, how might I question in my journal each day. I've been doing this [01:25:00] journaling daily. It's not perfect. It's not everyday team. Oh, it's probably 90% of the days in the last, about eight years now since July 20th, 2015. That's when I started this, this process I call The Miracle Morning that I learned from my friend Hal l Rudder wrote the book The Miracle Morning.

You actually know how I wrote or you just read the book? Well, I know, I knew who he was 'cause he was a top cut co seller. He's also a front row dad. He's become a close friend because of being in the front row dads together. I was practicing the Miracle Morning long before I met him personally. Became friends.

I didn't do Miracle. Oh, I didn't know that. That's in Yeah, he's, yeah, I've read his book and listened to his story. Super inspirational and, and love. Absolutely. You know, the concept of Miracle Morning, even though like the Mini Miracle Morning, like, all right, if you don't have the 40 minutes, just do a minute of each.

Yes. I, I really do think it's very, very powerful. Absolutely. Well, the, the gist of it is [01:26:00] every day you do something to work on your game, to work on yourself, to work on how you show up, to be intentional in the way you do things. And if you've ever heard of the Miracle warning, then you know that there's a formula.

If you've never heard of it, then instantly go and get the book, the Miracle Morning. It's changed my life when my dear friend Jamie King gave me that book in 2015, changed my life. So the daily question in my journaling has been a big one along with the daily intention, how I'm going to show up today and what a successful day looks like.

And did it work Miracles on day one? Heck no, it did not. Is this some woo woo fancy, wishy dreamy type stuff? I can most certainly guarantee you it is not. Why? Imagine that every single day. You read something that makes you feel good about yourself. Every single day you write something [01:27:00] that inspires or challenges you to show up as your best.

Every single day you show up and pray and you meditate and you say affirmative statements to yourself. What happens when you do that Every single day for eight years in a row? You start to believe it. And when you believe in yourself and you have some love for yourself, not self-love in the sense that it's egotistical and that you are the answer to everything, no, there is a sense of empathy and humility and grace to this love you have for yourself where you can genuinely learn to appreciate yourself that you are enough and you can do it right.

When you have that, you have it all. And that's what I would encourage our listeners to do is to have some type of daily practice where you can set that daily intention and have some strong questions that guide you. When you can do that, my friends, that's when [01:28:00] you can figure out how to do anything that you put your mind to.

That's the message. That's the message. Yeah. So I've been doing it for about eight years and it's made a huge impact. And in addition to, yeah, having met Hal throughout this, by the way, he is super down to earth and cool, you know, and he listens to music like, like the rest of us. And he talks smack and he is competitive and he is just a super friendly, cool guy to be around.

Right? So in addition to all that, this Miracle Morning stuff, call it Miracle Morning, call it the 5:00 AM club, call it whenever you want to. It's doing something intentional every day to give yourself a leg up or to give yourself an advantage to grow. And that's the, that's the feedback I wanted to offer today on how to help yourself get anything you want.

Beautiful. How does that connect to David? Wait, say that again. How does that connect with you? Any of that, that thought around Miracle Morning? Oh no, I love it. I love it. I think the, the things that are resonating, I have so many [01:29:00] questions and I know our listeners do too, and my mind's going off in about three major directions right now.

Two of 'em are maybe worth discussing on air, but one is when you were discussing how once you accepted your situation, things started getting better. And I don't know how to articulate that. I don't think anybody can articulate it any better than that. But there's something truly powerful how God created the world and the universe and us, that when we do truly accept our situation, you know, God never causes harm.

Not God never causes evil, but sometimes he allows things to happen 'cause it really will be beneficial to us and glorifying to him. And I know when I was at some of the lowest of lows in my life, physically, emotionally. Spiritually when I accepted, literally it was like a switch. Even though my health, like I remember one time I was [01:30:00] dying, I dropped down.

They didn't know what was wrong with me. I was sick for years. Dropped down to like 140 pounds. And I remember seeing a handicap young man being pushed by his mom. He was like in his teens and he will never have, quote unquote, a normal life. And I thought, man, I got to grow up. I got to have a great life.

I got to have children who are beautiful and amazing and if I die now I'm going to spend attorney with God. What am I complaining about? And it was like a switch in that moment. I just had peace and the pain cut in half, if not more immediately. And then, you know what happened? I start getting better. Matt, I.

I, I just star again better. So it's like what you're saying is resonating with me and I'm just trying to, I don't want to ever bring someone false hope and the experience that Matt had, ladies and gentlemen is real. The experience is I have is real, but [01:31:00] we both, for whatever reason, it's not because Matt did something right, or I did something Remarkable.

You know, it's just our journey. Our path was to get better. So I don't want to give people false hope and then they have disappointment. 'cause God will never disappoint you. And some people will die of cancer, some people will be paralyzed. But this life is short. And when we go to attorney, you're going to be perfect and whole.

But that acceptance that Matt's talking about, and Matt, maybe you can dig into that a little bit of how to accept the pain because I know as deep in my soul as I know God, Once you accept it like a switch, it changes for the better. So how do you encourage people to hang on to that hope but to accept that like, you know, just accept your situation.

Not it's right, not, you know, if you were raped, if you were abused as a child, there's no [01:32:00] freaking way in this planet that's okay. Right? We're not saying accept it or to continue abuse cycle or to give up. That's not what Matt's talking about. But to accept this is the situation I'm in, I need to move forward the best I can.

How do you connect? 'cause I want to do a good job, Matt, but I think that's as far as I can go with it. How do you take people to that next level? So there are, there's an equation I have for this and the equation is three parts. The first ingredient of the equation. And first of all, what are we optimizing for?

I would say that we are optimizing for inner peace. Or inner acceptance. Some might even say inner joy. But if we're optimizing and we're looking for acceptance of ourselves, acceptance of where we are a lot in this life, wherever we're at right now, then here is the equation that I would offer.

And there are three ingredients to the equation. [01:33:00] The first ingredient is gratitude. And gratitude can best be expressed in my opinion by looking at this. And you just said it, I mean, David, you were very eloquent the way you said it. Last night you know, the kids went down early and my, my wife and I are sitting there on the couch and, you know, I was just getting over a sickness and, and she had been with the kids all day for three straight days, pretty much.

So she, she wanted some time to decompress. So she's over there doing her thing on the couch, and I pull up YouTube and I watch the following video. The poorest city in South Sudan, what it's like to live there. It's like a 19 or 20 minute video. I just pulled it up and start to look at that. And there's this guy who's doing this video blog, and he is showing the inside of this tiny Hutt with a dirt floor, with two hammocks in it, that seven people living in there.

And I thought about that. They don't have running water in [01:34:00] there. There's not a toilet in there. And literally, millions of people live in this encampment, millions. And I'm thinking to myself, I, I didn't have the DoorDash show up at the time that it was supposed to know. And I think to myself, what do I have to complain about?

I, I am grateful for everything I have. So I look at others and I can see that, you know, I'm able to walk again. I'm able to see I'm healthy. I live in America. I have a loving wife and, and healthy kids. I mean, these, these are all things I'm incredibly grateful for. So I look around and I see the challenges that other people have, and that gives me perspective.

So gratitude is the first ingredient, and you might gain that from the perspective of what we have. Michael J. Fox recently did an interview, and it's a great video meme. It went viral. He talks about how when you have [01:35:00] gratitude in your heart, it's impossible to not be an optimist when you're grateful for everything that you have, right?

So ingredient number one is gratitude. Ingredient number two. This is, I've found a little bit more challenging to coach. And once someone gets it, they get it and it's, it's amazing. Grade number two is curiosity. And curiosity can best be described as what happens when something happens in your life.

Example, kids start to scream and yell as an example or someone, and your job takes credit for something that you did. Or you get slighted in some nasty email reply. All right. These are things that might be happening in 2023. If any of those things happen, what goes through your mind? Now, the person who is curious what goes through their mind is going to be a question, and I would coach them to have this question go through.

How might we be able to use this situation to our [01:36:00] advantage? How might we be able to use this circumstance right here as a guide? How might we learn from this situation right now? So when I have, for example, something that could be frustrating, a couple weeks ago I was facilitating a big event. There were a couple hundred people in the room.

The technology I'm showing up to present in front of a large number of people, and the big screen that we're supposed to stream to wouldn't work. So this big presentation I have to show to everyone can't show it to 'em. So at that time, I'm thinking to myself, well, poop. There goes the presentation. Ah, I know better though.

Oh, yeah. I have a question. The question is, how might I be able to use this to learn? How might I use this to my advantage? Right? So the question, curiosity is the second ingredient, and it can best be [01:37:00] described as the question that shows up when something happens. So pay attention to your listener when something happens that's a challenge for you.

What's the first question that comes to your mind? And if it's, why did this happen to me? I can't believe this. And if it's a complaint or if it's a judgment, I would challenge you to flip that script and turn it into a question. How might I, again, how might I, how might we. Use this to our advantage. So that's the second ingredient, is curiosity and best described in the form of a question, how might I, how might we use this to our advantage?

The third ingredient, ah, this is the hardest one for the recovering perfectionist out there. The third ingredient, self-compassion for yourself and for others. Self-compassion, what does it mean? Well, for others, what it means is that no one is ever going to be able to do things to the perfect standard that we might expect it to get [01:38:00] done.

They may be close and they may get it exactly right occasionally, but to think that everyone can get it exactly perfect and do it the way that you might want it to get done every single time, and they're going to drive the right way, they're going to turn that blinker air on at the right time. They're going to take that responsibility and do it on time in the way you wanted it.

It's I, it's not realistic to believe that everyone can be perfect the way that you think perfect should be. So allowing a little bit of patience and grace for others, especially if you're a parent and your kids are growing up and knowing that a four year old is not going to understand the importance of perfect manners and sitting still at the table, therefore, four.

So give 'em a little bit of patience and grace. The same might apply for oneself, is that we all make mistakes and we're all human, and I might be late for something and that might burn me up inside, or I might not have made that right decision and my own standard. I might have eaten Oreo cookies on the couch last [01:39:00] night and I was setting the train for a marathon.

You know what? A little bit of patience and grace with yourself when you make mistakes and F up, that's okay. It's okay to have patience and grace with yourself. So that's the third ingredient. When you put those three things together, gratitude plus curiosity, plus self-compassion for yourself and for others, that is the recipe.

For being able to have this inner acceptance, inner peace, and inner joy. I would challenge people with that, and that's the basis of the, what I would call the the under the waterline or the personal thinking, mental modeling coaching practice. I'll pause with that. All right. Well be, before we get to where you are today, Madden, where you're heading next, is there anything else between your birth and today that we missed or skipped over or any other thoughts like, you know what, I feel like we should talk about this.

Yeah. I would say, I would say this, that it took me until the age of 37 [01:40:00] to truly start living that old habit that you may have heard about in Stephen Covey's book, the Seven Habits of Highly Affected People. Mm-hmm. The habit is seek first to understand, then be understood. To try to see things through the lens of other people because we've not walked a mile in their shoes.

We don't know what hardships other people have had to endure. We may not agree with what their politics are. We not agree with what their faith decisions are. We may not agree with the way that they choose to speak or dress or act. We may completely disagree with everything and not but always and and is a building word and is the word of abundance.

We may disagree with everything that we see and hear from them, and we have not ever walked a day in their [01:41:00] shoes. Therefore, we can show empathy for that person because we truly don't understand them, and that's okay. Why I'm able to have a conversation with someone who, in this very politically heated world we are in right now, David, able to talk to someone who has a completely different perspective.

'cause I simply want to understand that doesn't mean that I'm going to change my beliefs. That means I'm open to hearing someone else's perspective because I want to understand through their lens. To be a great business coach, you gotta be able to see and understand what's important to the person we're serving.

To be a great spouse, we gotta be able to understand and see what our wife or husband is going through to be a great parent. We want to try our best to understand with some standards, understand what our kids are going through. That would be the last thing is I didn't learn that until I was 37. And if someone listening is far older than that, or younger doesn't matter, never too late to start [01:42:00] learning.

Never too late to be able to wake up and understand and really connect with people. So that would be the thought that I would end on is. Beginning to see things through the other people's lenses. That's where love and true empathy and acceptance, some others might begin. So those are, those are a couple things today, my friend.

Amen. Amen. So let's do this, Matt, where are you today and where are you heading? So our listeners can maybe connect with you, help you get to your next destination. So this could include, you know, your website, any kind of special offers you have, books, coaching programs, anything you want. Where's Matt today?

Where are you heading next? And how can our listeners connect with you? Best thank you, David. The first place is the Eternal Optimist Podcast. That's my show. If you watch this on a video form right now, you can see I got my logo on my shirt. On my microphone. Oh. The Eternal Optimist Podcast is the first place and all the major platforms for podcast.

If you wanted to connect with me [01:43:00] professionally around coaching, I. I mean, there are only, I believe, 12 people with my last name in the whole world drink on and I'm the only Matt. So find me on any of the major social media platforms and I'll be the one right there. You can connect with me there and I'd be happy to have a discussion or share with you.

One, the many coaches. We have an organization for that discussion, depending on what you're looking for, what, what the challenges you want to overcome. And last but not least, and I would say invest in yourself. My friends. Invest in doing a Miracle Morning. Invest in taking some action because you can do it.

We have set on all sides by challenges in the news, in social media even our own stuff that we might have grown up with. No matter where you're at right now, you can make progress and get what you want most in life. You can flip a new leaf over or you can make things even more amazing than they are right now.

Wherever you're at, it simply takes a vision and one step at a time. Action. [01:44:00] So feel free to connect with me on any of those social media platforms. Oh, as of the recording of this, David, for the past about 10 months, I've been doing a live stream every morning, Monday through Friday on my Facebook and Instagram accounts at 7:00 AM Eastern Time.

So I talk about various things from how to do these thinking time, how to have great questions that guide you. Been sharing my learning lessons every week. Yeah, so love the connected people out there. Pretty easy to find. So yeah, feel free to show up and I'll accept you, whoever you might be. I think that's, yeah, and like always we'll put links in the show notes, so if you want to get a hold of Matt, we'll make it as easy as possible.

But check out his podcast, check out his website, check out his morning. I, I don't want to call it devotional, what did you call it? Well, it's The Miracle Morning I learned from Buddy Hal. So the Miracle Morning, I do, and I have the a live stream that I do every day where we share some tips and tricks and just add a little bit of energy and some coaching every morning.

So yeah, check it out. 7:00 AM Eastern beautiful on my social. Well, [01:45:00] it's been a pleasure having you here today, Matt. I appreciate you very much and I know our listeners have got a lot out of this. I know I have a lot to think about, but more than anything, like our slogan says, like Matt said, like the Bible says, don't just listen to great content, ladies and gentlemen, but do what you know you need to do.

Repeat it each day so you can have a great life in this world, but most importantly, for eternity to come. So I'm David Pasqualone. This was our friend Matt. Matt, thank you again for being here, brother. It is a sincere pleasure and an honor to be here with you today, David, for you and your listeners. Just thank you.

God bless you. Love you. And just thanks so much man. It's been a good time. Oh, amen. Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, we love you letting Matt and I know how we can help you best share this episode with your friends and family. We know we're all, we have a community of. All over the globe, but let's continue to reach [01:46:00] more people with episode and stories like Matt's so we can see growth among each other and just help, help each other grow, glorify God.

We're not looking for fortune and glory. We're looking to help people grow, help you grow to glorify God, and then write Matt and I and let us know how this Miracle Morning changed your life. How Matt's life story changed your life, how just everything connected. You know, sometimes we have all the knowledge, right, Matt?

We have all the pieces, but sometimes the dots just connect, right? That's right. So that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So ladies and gentlemen, hopefully this helped you connect. We love you. We'll see you in the next episode. Until then, have a great life and let us know how we can help you. Ciao. 

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