Blaze Your Own Trail - Why Continuous Learning and Self Awareness Are Crucial with Matt Drinkhan

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Takeaways Growing up in a military family and moving frequently can teach adaptability and resilience. Bullying experiences can shape a person's character and drive them to protect others. Practice is key to success in sales and any other endeavor. Continuous improvement and personal development are essential for long-term success. Having a positive mindset and being an eternal optimist can lead to a fulfilling and successful life. Practicing silence and meditation can help cultivate optimism and provide peace of mind. Reading affirmations daily can reinforce positive beliefs and behaviors. Continuous learning and self-awareness are essential for personal growth and development. Clearing the air and resolving conflicts can lead to stronger relationships and personal growth. Being an eternal optimist means seeing the good in challenging situations and striving to leave the world better than you found it. Chapters00:00 Introduction and Background02:01 Adolescent Years and Growing Up05:04 Facing Challenges and Overcoming Bullying07:37 Lessons from Moving Frequently12:40 Blazing Your Own Trail: From Cutco to Coaching23:23 From Bullied Kid to Eternal Optimist26:16 Clearing the Air and Resolving Conflicts29:26 Lessons in Sales, Leadership, and Personal Development36:27 The Power of Eternal Optimism40:09 Cultivating Optimism: Tips from Matt Drinkhahn42:31 Continuous Learning and Self-Awareness..Thanks for listening to the episode!..Listen to Matt's Podcast: The Eternal OptimistPurchase a copy of Matt's BookConnect with Matt on LinkedInSubscribe to Matt's YouTube ChannelConnect with Jordan:LinkedInInstagramTikTokJoin Jordan's weekly Group Coaching Community Risk Free   Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host. I've got a very special guest today. His name is Matt Drink-on, also known as the Eternal Optimist. So excited to have you here, brother. If you can just share a little bit about who you are and what you do today. Awesome.

And thank you, Jordan, aka not known as Pepe Mendoza. That's a side story that we will talk about offline. It's a real pleasure to be here. Matt Drink-on is my name. And here are a couple bullet points for our friendly listeners at home. I'm a father of three young daughters who are nine and seven and six. I've been married for 10 years to the woman of my dreams, my beautiful Julie. I have several businesses, the biggest one of which right now is my executive coaching business.

You know, where I coach seven and eight figure entrepreneurs to grow and scale the business. And I'm an author. You can see the book in the background. I've got a top 1% podcast also called The Eternal Optimist podcast. And they love to play scratch golf. So those are a few things to get us started. Awesome. Appreciate you sharing that context.

And I am terrible at golf. I've played, I think, two times. The first time was in Augusta, not at the national, but just at some random golf course for a bachelor party weekend. And then the other time I did a charity event. You almost broke my heart right there, by the way, George. Oh, my God, you played at a golf. He's played at Augusta.

Gotcha there, yeah. So then I played at this other place for a charity tournament. You know, it was a good cause. and I'm very good at miniature golf, but regular golf, like you don't want to see me out there. So my favorite part of the show, Matt, is really taking a rewind because I think it's super important that we get context into people, right?

We're all humans. We all have been through situations and things in life. And so sharing some of those stories and being able to reference back into times, really that helps shape and mold us. To me, that's a big value add to our listeners. And so if you can just take us back, let's kind of dive into adolescent years,

elementary, middle, to high school here. So we're going to rewind. Just tell us where you're born and raised. What kind of kid were you? What type of things did you get into? And by the way, I'm also in an eternal optimist. So we have some synergy there. Well, heck. Yeah. That's exciting. Thank you. That gave me a little bit of pep right there. So to take you back in time here, here's the picture, my friends. First of all, I grew up in a military family where my dad was in the Air Force. He got drafted to Vietnam. So he was there. And and after that he got out and he went full-time career military in the Air Force.

My mom was an English school teacher. And when I was born, she stopped teaching and became a stay-at-home mom. And my childhood in a military family was noticeably changed every year or two when we moved. And we moved 17 times in 21 years. And that includes four different schools that were high schools. It includes all over the United States of America from California to Michigan. Michigan over here to New York, down to Florida, Alabama, Texas. And I ended up graduating high school in South Carolina.

And that led me after that, that led me to do college. Before I get to college, though, let me give me some more context. I am probably the tallest kid in every class I was ever in. I had the biggest glasses and the giant buck teeth until I got to sixth grade, where I got braces and I had them for five and a half years. and yes, all you very eager listeners, my first kiss, I did have braces on and so did she, and we did not get stuck together like the old legend might say, no, that didn't happen. So, yeah, growing up, I would say that I was two, there was two parts, right?

There was this nerd part of me that always wanted to get the good grades because my parents laid it to me straight. They said, Matthew, when we grow up, if you're going to go to college, you've got to figure out way to pay for it. And to do that, you've got to have great grades. So get great great. That's your job is to get great grades. And that was doctrinaided into me at a young age in elementary school. The other part of me, following my dad's footsteps, was the athlete. And I played every sport, every season, every year through high school, played every sport. So growing up, it was nerd, it was sports. It was one or the two. And my self-defense mechanism,

was humor and I was always quick to have something funny to say about it. Before I grew bigger than everyone else, I mean, I'm six, seven now and I'm pretty fit. Before I grew bigger and more fit than most, I was bullied. I was picked on for being a nerve, the big glasses and the big, you know, braces and big all that. So then one summer, I grew four inches in three months and hit the six foot mark and just continued to grow. And then the bullying stopped. And I guess I became the protector of nerds at that point. And I still identify heavily with that, trying to shield and protect people

that might get picked on. Awesome. Appreciate you, Sharon. That's great that you were able to stick up for other people. Yes. And as we are talking live, your people on the car ride right now

can't see this. But another opportunity to pivot. My internet is working, but my camera just shut off. So we'll flow and pivot with that. It'll turn back on. Hopefully it stays. So continuing, you know,

I love public speaking. course. I love math courses. To be honest with you, though, when I went to college, I slept in every single class, every class for four years, except for public speaking and philosophy class. Did you pass the ones you slept in? I passed almost all of them. I went into college with a 4.0, and then I got to college. I got a 3.5 after three years. And then I found my first real job ever. Now, I had waited tables to pay for college. I'd had the summertime job cutting grass and working at the golf course. And throughout all that, I never had an opportunity to have an entrepreneurial type job

where I controlled my own hours and had a real chance to thrive like that. So I was stuck in the employee mindset, if you call it that. I feel I was stuck in it. I was making my $5.50 an hour or making my tips. And $100 in a tip night was good. And then I found what would be a big game changer for me after my junior year in college, I found Cutco, also known as vector marketing. A lot of my best friends are still in.

some way, shape, or form involved with Cutco, but I found Cutco. And then I sold a lot of knives. In fact, I bought a bunch this week and gifted it to clients. I'm still involved with Cutco in the sense that I love the product. I gift it to people all the time. But that training that I received in Cutco changed my life. And that was where I really started to blaze my own trail. If you look at it, Jordan, I had done everything the way I was supposed to. I had been a real big rule follower. And then I found Cutco and I got my first dose of really having the chance to earn what you're worth or, you know, performance base. It's performance based out here, right?

Totally performance based. And if you don't sell, then you don't make much. And you don't eat, right? You don't sell, you don't eat. I love it. Yeah, we have a lot of similarities. So I moved 14 times from birth to 14. Wasn't in the military.

We were just broke, getting kicked out and evicted, you know, from different places and grew up in humble beginnings. But you learn a lot when you move a lot, right? You learn how to adapt. You learn how to deal with change and you understand new environments and new cultures. And so I'd love to just get a couple lessons from you that you learned along that 17 move journey. You know, because you were moving from different parts of the country. You got different accents.

You got southern draws. You're up in all these different places. So what was that like for you? And did you notice how helpful it was that you had experienced that while you were in it? Or did it actually happen later in life as you started? to blaze your own trail, step out in your own. Now you're doing door to door. You're doing Costco's maybe, you know, selling knives.

And that's really where the training ground begins, folks. If you've never done any type of sales, I highly recommend you go knock on 100 doors and see what you're made of. Because you're going to find out, you know, what real adversity is when you wake up a baby, when you knock on a door and they say no soliciting. You know, when you do all those things, that's actually where the fun starts to begin because you have to learn how to think on your. your feet. You've got to learn about situational awareness and what am I going to say if I see this flag in the driveway? I can relate it back to the customer. So I'd love for you just to share a little bit of context on the traveling journey and some lessons there. And then also how pivotal in your career was that door-to-door sales, that everyday grinding, hitting the pavement, out in the

elements. And you could sit on the curb and cry about it, but you're going to be broke. So I love for you to give the audience context there. I'll share this, that it was incredibly challenging in the seventh grade when we moved. And what you may have seen, that movie, Forrest Gump, back in the 90s, when he got on the bus and the kids said, seats taken. Well, that actually happened to me in the seventh grade where I thought people were past that. So I get to the school. It's in upstate New York. I go to the first lunch, and there's this gentleman named Steve.

He's calling him a gentleman. It was a big stretch. And I try to sit down at the table and he says, you can't sit here and seats taken. And I'm like, are you serious? There was a wide open seat right there. And he was sitting with the basketball players. And that's what I was at the time. I didn't know anybody yet.

I literally was my second day living in the state of New York. And it's my first day of school. I don't get to sit down. That was the only time I ever had breakfast in a lunchroom. I actually had it in the bathroom stall. Right. And that was a tough day. I remember two days growing up for my entire time from middle school through the end of high

school, two days, that I was sad. And one of those days was that day, right? And the lesson that I learned from it when I got home and shared this with my parents. My mom was highly empathetic, never a stranger in any room could talk to anybody. And, you know, I cried with her and she gave me a hug and she said, it's going to be okay. I share with my dad. He said, well, son, when stuff like that happened, you got a couple choices on what you can do. You can go and you can sit. You can do what you did and have in the bathroom. That's fine. You can do that. Another choice you can make. It's your choice is you can stay in a lunchroom. You can find somewhere else to sit and you can do that.

It's simply a choice. Make it and learn either way you go. Okay, great. By the way, the second example that I have that my dad taught me something amazing was when I was getting bullied that same year that I was living in Fort Worth, Texas. I'm on the playground at my Stripling Middle School, which I love the school. I'm on the playground, Jordan, there are 15 kids around me, 15 Mexican kids. This isn't a slight towards Mexican, a lot of Mexican friends.

They just happened to be this Mexican gang that was here at the school. And Daniel, the leader of this group, they got me in a circle and they surrounded me. He came up to me and smacked me in the face in front of everybody. All these guys are laughing. And I remember my dad's advice here because it was stuck in my brain. He said, son, if you get bullied and you get into a fight, then you got a couple options. If you accept whatever it is they give to you, then they're going to keep bullying you and you're going to have to take whatever they give you for the rest of your time there.

The second thing you can do is stand up to the biggest bully. And the only way that I advise you to do that is to go up to the biggest bully, like the leader of the group and hit him as hard as you possibly can right there in his teeth. You can hit him right there as hard as you can, right there in his teeth. Then they'll be able to respect you. They may give you a beat down right there. Chances are you won't have the same level of bullying because you're not an easy target anymore. So he smacked me in the face, Daniel did, and I smacked him right back.

And every single person in that circle stared like what the heck just happened. And then, of course, I was taller than everyone. And so I ran. And I ran faster. Everybody, Jordan, man, I got off that playground. And I ran so fast I could have been the next Noah Liles before Noah Liles was there. So that was what was happening. Those two times.

But it was great, it was great experience now to look back and say that, yeah, that toughened me up. That toughened me up. We didn't grow up with means. So we were poor growing up. I didn't grow up like in a place that I had to fight for lunch money every day. I mean, it wasn't that type of environment. It was just a place that we shop to the thrift shop. We got by.

right? And we had, I see, we were rich in love. Like we had a lot of care and a lot of heart in our family, just not have any money, right? Yeah. So those are some lessons that I carried forward into the very first day. So try and get back to the, how did the blazing your own trail begin? For me, it began with the very first time that I had to face the phone and make my first phone call. And that was on day two, a Cutco training. And I sat there and stared at that phone. And man, I had all the reasons not to make that call. But the reason that got me to make the call, I did. didn't want to let down the people at the office that were counting on me to do what I said I was going to do. This is a recurring theme in my life. It's a standard I live by. Do what you say you're going to do. Right. And I said I was going to go and do it. So I wasn't going to make an excuse and back down. So I did it. And I don't want to say the rest of his history. The path began right there, that first time staring at the phone. Do you remember that for you the first time making a cold call or making a call even to a war market prospect? Yeah. That first time, I remember. It was hard. It was terrifying. I did a lot of telemarketing in high school,

and I did really well at it, right? Because once you understand communication and dialogue and how to break the ice with people, that's really when the magic begins. And so I'd love for you to share what were some things that helped you, you know, because on the first day for any salesperson, everybody here has had a first day somewhere. There's not a single listener that hasn't been the new person. And when you're the new person, the benefit of being new, is that you can say you're new. You know, that's something I tell my clients all the time. I'm like, hey, you put out a new offer? Tell them it's new. Tell them that it's brand, like, explain that to them.

And people will say, I remember being new. I remember when I did this new thing. And you'll probably actually get a lot more people that are bought in. So what was the training like for you? Did you have good coaches and mentors and people that said, hey, you've got this, read the script. If you do this enough time, someone's going to say, yes, there's a law of averages. I'm sure there was little seeds that they were planted.

to help you have a more positive mindset, you know, to help you use different techniques that you could say rebuttals and, you know, objections that you could overcome. So what were some of those things that you ended up learning? And then do you think that that really has helped you even today and everything you're doing? So from a 10,000 view, 10,000 foot view, I would say that thing I learned the most is to practice. That's about as simple as I could say. How many salespeople out there go and read a script one, two, three, times and then think they're ready to go out there and do it. Maybe they are. And maybe some people need to get their training frontline trial and air right there in the front. And I tried that. And it worked crash and burn, crash and burn, crash and burn, crash and burn, crash and burn,

over and over and over again. And I found the key for me was to go and do field training, like shadow people that are really good, right? That's number one. Number two, I found it incredibly helpful was just to memorize it and then practice it in game conditions. So every organization, I ever ran every time, even my own companies I'm doing right now. I practice. We do role play every single day. I even did some role play this morning and I'm 47 years old. I don't need to practice role play anymore.

But then again, that's when you think that you've got it when you don't need to. And that's why you have to every day. So I think Mike Tyson said it. He said, you do what you don't want to do. Do it like you love it. And then you'll be a master at it. So I still role play on a daily basis. So that was trained into me by Larry Manley from Cutco on Day.

day one and I'm still doing it to this day. It has helped me become successful and wealthy. If I can say that, some people think that you don't talk about that on the air. Well, people want to know. If you've earned it, you've gotten there,

then how'd you get there? And I would say that the simplest, the simplest, hiding in plain sight, the simplest answer right there in front of us is simply practice. Practice until you can't get it wrong. Not until you get it right.

Nick Saben said it practice to you. Can't get it wrong. So we practice. we can't get it wrong. And I still do that to this day with my golf game, which is why I'm a scratch golfer with three kids and I don't play very often because I practice for 17 minutes a day here in the home office. I put between calls, right? There we go. Practice golf. Practice being a parent. Every morning, my good friend Hal Elrod, he wrote a book called The Miracle Morning, right? So I practiced a miracle morning. 98% of my day since, you know, 2015 July. I do the Miracle Morning. I practice

me every day. I don't know if there is a shortcut to success. other than refine yourself, work on yourself, be the best version of self. Some version of that, I'd get it through practicing every day, Jordan. Yeah. That's my secret sauce. It's all about the reps. You know, there's a thing that I've been posting. It's like, you know, action creates momentum.

Momentum creates consistency. Consistency creates habits. Habits turn into the results, right? So it's all about the daily reps, you know, showing up, putting yourself out there, not being afraid to fail. I did a live stream earlier on Facebook today. I was testing Riverside Live. I've never tested it.

And you just, I'm like pressing buttons and people are probably like, what is this guy? Do you know what he's doing? I'm like, yeah, I don't. I'm figuring this thing out because I want to see if I want to start doing things live. But it's like you got to be able to put yourself out there. Don't take yourself too seriously. And you're going to have a lot more success fumbling your way through, you know, because the success is on the other side of all the things that didn't work.

You know, when I first started coaching people on LinkedIn in 2019, I don't know, didn't know half the stuff that I know now, right? But over time, that information compounds and the system changes, the algorithms change, the platforms change. And so we just have to be ready to adapt and evolve with it. Because if you're not, then you're just going to be left behind on the wayside. And I actually was at this event I spoke at in April in Dallas. And there was a speaker there named Ben Newman. He wrote a book called The Standard.

And he worked with Nick Saban in Alabama for five years. And he just talks about the standard. These are the things that you do that you said you're going to do. And if you do this, this is how you get the wheel to turn, right? So it's very similar to exactly what you said. So take us through you're with Cutco, you're in college. You got this first, you know, job, right, where you're starting to bring in revenue. And you mentioned that you're still part of it.

You grew in it. Can you just explain for people that maybe they don't know Cutco? Maybe they've never heard of network marketing or direct sales. Explain to them the process in which you went in. And I'd love to know how long did it take you to start training and coaching other agents and other people in the field? Because I can only imagine if you grew, you had to have gotten so good that now you're actually helping mentor and coach other people.

Yes, to all those things. It starts in this business model with Cutco. It's when I started in 1998. The model was you call on people that you know first to do a. appointments just to get to practice. Some of them might buy, some of them don't. And when you finish doing the people that you might know and doing practice appointments for them, then you go up the one little caveat, folks. When he's saying calling, you got to call them and you're doing and explain the process, right? You have to call them context. And ask them to do an appointment with you

live in person where you're bringing knives to them in their home. And you want to see people together. You want to see them in the evening or see. See. someone that might be at home in the day. You want to book as many of these appointments as you can based on your goals and your schedule. And let's be real. When you're starting this, you just want to get any appointment you can and just get through the first few phone calls. The challenge in anyone in any sales capacity ever knows this is that once you get through people that you know, then you've got to go and see people you don't know. And you can see them through referral or you can see them through cold call or you can hope that somehow they call you, which never freaking happens when you're new at

anything, at least not when you're in commission and you're flexible and you're an entrepreneur. So if you're going to call people that you know, you have to have the courage to call them, you have a list to call. And I didn't have the courage to call really. And I didn't have a list of people a call. I wasn't in my hometown. I was in my college town. So I had a couple of challenges right away. Get over yourself and then get over and not thinking you have anybody to call. Right. So that's what happened for me. And I went, oh, for 13, my first 13 demonstrations, Jordan. I never trained anybody that was worse than me at that. Right. I was the worst person in the history of my own company is not making any sales at the beginning.

Then I went on field training. I saw somebody else do it. It wasn't a memorized script. It was more just read the person and be there with people. I didn't get that because I was robotic and I can memorize everything. So now I had to add a people component. So step one for me was memorizing a script and I did that well. Step two was learning how to be around people.

I did not do as well at that and I need a lot of training. If I would have quit after 13 appointments, I probably would be in some software job or something doing technology. Nothing wrong with that. I would love that if that were my path. It's not my path, though. I decided to learn how to do the sales by learning how to be around people. And it went great.

So you ask, how long did it take before I turned into a manager, leader, a top performer? I was a top performer about a week after. I figured out how to actually do a presentation and connect with people. Right. So I finished number three in my office that summer, number six in our division. There were like 12,000 people. There's a lot of people in a division. I don't know how many people were in the division.

It was a lot. It was multiple thousands of people and I was number six. So finished up that summer. I ended up becoming the assistant manager. A year later, I wrote my own office. Now, when I was an assistant manager, here's some cool stuff. I learned how to do interviews. I interviewed over a thousand people in that first eight months of being an assistant manager.

And I recruited successfully about 200 of those people and they sold a bunch of knives. So it was good first training. And throughout the course of that year, by the way, cool side note. I made more money in commission than probably anyone that was working at my college, right? I made just a little bit over six figures in commission. And I think back in the late 90s, I think that was a, I don't know, I think that was about the highest that you made when you were working at a college. That's great.

So I was doing pretty well financially. I never had any money before. So I was very excited about it. It was pretty cool. I never had a credit card before. I never had a car that I bought myself. My parents bought my first car for me at $3,000. I got my first car.

So a lot of cool stuff happened in my copy. confidence is growing, my social skill is growing. So all kinds of stuff is happening right there in that year. That's awesome. A lot of growth. And the good news is, is today you still have all 10 fingers. I think that's a bonus, bonus working for cutco. But any cuts, either you or customers during any of these presentations? I never cut a customer and I never cut myself, knock on wood. I did see some of my teammates cut themselves. And here's the, here's the interesting thing about cut go is if you do cut yourself. It's got a strength. edge, even the one that looks serrated, makes a straight, clean cut. So you won't have any scars. It'll grow back nice. Hopefully fingers can regenerate, folks. So let's talk a little bit about what was the next step.

So you do this throughout college, you know, making more than, you know, the teachers that are trying to teach you the information to go do business, which is pretty interesting. So what did you end up doing after that? You know, and I know you're still involved and you mentioned offline. You're still getting these things for clients because that's how much value the business. business the company added to you. My cut coach running was six years. It was a it was a year, my senior year in college as a rep. And it was the next five years, five and a half years as a district manager running in office, developing people. I recruited over a couple thousand people, you know, in that time and, you know, did, you know, countless numbers of interviews, countless number of hiring and development of people. A number of people I coach and developed are successful

now in business. They're, you know, millionaire, multi-millionaire people that run big companies. So it was a, It was a successful experiment at that time. And now 20 years removed, it's actually even, it's proven itself to be worth its weight and gold and many, many times over. After Cutco, something very interesting happened in my time on Cutco. I decided that, you know what, I don't want to do this for a career. I love the people. I still love the product.

Both are the best in the world. Love them. And I didn't want to do this forever. So I stopped doing Cutco and adversity stress. truck. My dad died out of nowhere. I hero, my best friend, the guy I looked up to, man. That was hard. I was 28. He just died. Here's a story that may serve some of our people out there in a different lens is that I've always been strong-minded or strong-willed. And my dad was the same way. He was always a leader. He was always in charge. He ran the biggest air base in the Persian Gulf War over in Oman. So he was always in

charge in a military capacity, right? So I looked up to him for that. And he had a wealth of knowledge and information. And guess what, Jordan? I couldn't hear most of the things he had to say because I was stuck in my own ego as a 20-something year old who was cocky. Right. So I said something to him one time that he didn't take nicely. It wasn't mean. It was just a statement about some of my habits. and he didn't care for that, so we didn't talk for a long time. And Labor Day or Memorial Day weekend in 2005, my mom brokered a golf tournament for us. It was a father-son, she put us together in a tournament.

I came home to where they were living in Middle Georgia to play a tournament with them. Within a minute of seeing him face-to-face, we hadn't talked in months. I had a tear coming to my eye. I never cried in front of my dad. This is the only time ever. I had a tear come to my eye, and I just said, Dad, I'm so sorry. I've, and I couldn't say anything else.

And I never saw my dad cry, but twice at the funerals of his parents. And I saw his argue a little bit red. And in about two minutes, we clear the air. And it was a beautiful three-day golf tournament. We finished second. But the whole time, it was amazing, man. I look back on it finally. I leave their house at 8.45 p.m. that night, drive back to my house in Atlanta.

7.06 a.m. the next morning, I talked to mom and dad just died. suddenly out of nowhere. Wow. Glad you're able to have that final chat. That would be the learning lesson that didn't have any chip in the shoulder because of that. I hasten before I say it further. But man, if I didn't have that conversation, I don't know who I'd be right now, Jordan, because that was a major blockage clearer.

If I had the arteries blocked and, man, those things were cleared after that conversation. Of course, yeah. So my plea to any of the listeners is if you have stuff, whether it's your fault or someone else's fault, clear the air and get it off your chest while you can. And even if it's the most challenging egregious thing, if you can think it and you think it might be worthwhile, test that uncomfortable feeling and try it because you will not regret that you try that you could regret that you didn't do anything about it while we could. Yeah, 100%.

I just want to get that to people. So hopefully. Yeah, we appreciate that access. And sorry for the loss. I tragically lost my mom 12 years ago. and it's one of those kind of didn't happen as fast as your dad, but it happened over three months and lots of flights back to Oregon. And, you know, she was born with one lung in the 50s and did really well with the hand she was dealt,

lived to 54, wasn't supposed to have kids, had five boys. So she kind of took the jokers, made a full house and, you know, had an early exit, unfortunately. But, man, man, mom was very similar to your mom. Showed us a lot of love, was the heart, you know, was the empath, you know, had a great sense of humor. And even though she couldn't work, she was never a victim of her circumstance. She never would say, hey, I can't do anything. She would go play bingo or go to the dog race and try to find ways to make money so that we could get involved in sports.

And we could do the things that we wanted to through scholarships and things like that. So yeah, my mom was like best friend. So when she called me that day that she fell in a parking lot at the hospital and she said, it's okay. I'm going to be fine. I'll call you later. And that was the last time I heard her voice. And that was, it's tough. And so I agree, Matt, you know, if listeners are out there, if you have somebody in your life that maybe the last conversation didn't go well.

You may not be able to have the next one. You never know. Our time on this planet is not guaranteed. And so if you can reach out, send a text, send a note. You say, hey, I'm thinking about you. It could make a world of an impact. So, again, appreciate the access there. And, you know, what would you say is maybe the biggest lesson you learn from, from, from,

your dad. I know there's a lot of them and I know it's probably hard to kind of pinpoint one. But if you could kind of just think back to something that is big that he shared with you, that maybe you're going to pass down to your daughters, you know, you're going to pass down to your grandkids down the road. Well, it's my number one core value. I've already stated. I'll say it again now in a different way is do what you say you're going to do. My dad, it was always big on integrity and big on if you say you're going to do it, you follow through. And to me, what it means is I don't have to keep inventory in my brain of all of the intricate lies and games that I'm playing with people. I just tell transparently what happened and what's going on.

And that it's a game that to play at a game like that, you've got to be immune or at least aware that other people may have judgments. And Jordan, one of the things that I love about coaching is I love to figure out what is someone's greatest strength with their superpower. And I know mine very well. Mine is that I'm immune to this idea of other people's opinions. So the judgment of others does not cast any spell over me and any person out there who has been bullied, who has overcome that and found some sort of success and they've worked through that. Then that's a special place to be. That's your superpower. So mine is that.

So in hearing the stuff from dad, it's other people are going to have their thoughts and their opinions. Just follow through and do what you're going to say and live with integrity. Those are the things that have served me really well because people know, especially in a coaching capacity, that I can be their confident. I can be the person that's not going to talk about someone behind their back. And if anyone out there is listening to this knows me and can think back to conversations we've had at dinner table or we've been in a group, it's easy to remember that Matt's not the guy that was, you know, piling on and talking about people. Because when I talk about someone and it's unfavorable, then the words are, hmm, we have a different lens on that. or he has an interesting perspective or she did this and had an interesting perspective on that. I don't talk smack with people behind their back.

I'll talk it to their face, but not behind their back. So that's one thing. And I'm serious about that. That doesn't mean that I'm confrontational and mean to people. No, I want to do everything with empathy, empathy, and respect. At the same time, it's possible to do with love, empathy, respect, and be direct with people. 100%. And I feel that is one of the keys of strong leadership.

Well, it's actually a big difference that I see between business in Europe and business in the United States. In Europe, culturally, they want to get to whatever the conflict is. And let's put it on the table. Let's hash this thing out because we need to be able to move forward. But I feel like in the states, it's counterculture. It's like, let's not say that we made a mistake because we don't want to be judged. We don't want to be found out that we didn't do it. Does that make sense? And so if we can kind of shift the lens a little bit and let's think about like what if it's okay to make mistakes what if it's okay to say that something came up and don't be shy to do it there's there's so many problems in in our society

that could be solved if people just said it was me i'm the bog you know i'm the cog in the wheel i'm the knucklehead that made this mistake like i take full responsibility let's keep moving this train down the down the train track you know but we try to hide behind that stuff and it just doesn't serve you well, like you said. So let's talk about six years district manager at Cutco. What made you jump into the next thing? Because I know you've done a number of different businesses and now you authored the book. So what was the next step for you? Well, my mom, I went to a deep depression after dad died at 28 and my mom snapped me out of it by reading my dad's diary to me. And she never read that. She saw it. She said, you find this interesting. His only regret in life

was that he didn't get a chance to caddy for me on the pro golf tour. And I let go with a pro golf degree when I got into business because I was hungry for money and development and ambitious. And I wasn't any good at golf in college, at least not enough to make the travel team. It was on the team in college. I didn't make the team in college. So it didn't make sense to go into pro golf

because I didn't have any money. I didn't have any sponsors. And I wasn't good enough, right? So all that happened. And then I decided to try to play pro golf for 30 months. once, Jordan. And I got cut from every tournament, didn't make any money, but I learned some valuable lessons that business savvy and understanding all that. It didn't translate to lack of practice in golf. A lot of business lessons served me well on the road. So, in any event, after I did the

failed pro-golf experiment, I got to work again. And I did it for three years at one company and then three years at another company. Now, my only two corporate gigs I've ever had working for, you know, the big corporation. And both those were the same job, just different industries. is go build a team from scratch, you know, teach them how to sell, you know, build it so that it's profitable, and then hand it over to whoever you develop and move on to the next territory. And I did that repetitively for six years. And it was awesome. And I loved it until I didn't love it. The reason I left both companies, I mean, first, the first company I left, it was clear or clear wire.

I love the company. Love the people I worked for. But I was the highest paid person in every office I was in because I was the person running the office. I got laid off. I got laid off a house of cards episode one season one style I had to lay off my whole team then a month later regional major walked in a laid me off so that was that was an interesting corporate lesson uh so that happened you know after after nearly a hundred million dollars in sales we we we got laid off and then the next company you know went to a time wear a cable business

class down here in south Carolina North Carolina did well at that you know recruited a team built the team, you know, millions of dollars of sales and then I had to leave because I was tired of putting up, I think I put up my last six years in these two companies. I put up about 130 million in sales for other companies and I was paid a salary at a tiny commission. So here I am. I mean, wo is me, the high paid business executive, make it a quarter million dollars a year with all the benefits of perks and I don't like what I do. And I didn't. So I left. I left to start a coaching company under the pro-advisor coach logo that I'm wearing right now with my partner and friend Rich Campi. And I've been doing that for the last 10 years. And I've been serving the seven,

eight-figures, entrepreneurs, and CEOs help them grow and scale their companies. Love it. Yeah, love it. And in the midst of all that, we wrote a book, started a podcast, developed a real estate portfolio, and had three kids got married and coach a bunch of soccer teams and all that. Love it, love it. So let's talk a little bit about the book and, you know, the eternal optimist. You know, this is something that I've said this to people over the years. Like, hey, I'm an eternal optimist. It's like, hey, we'll figure out something that good that's going to come from this. I'm always trying to look at the positive side of things. And I've never looked at it as a bad thing. But there might be some people that say, like, it's not all sunshine and rainbows out

there, Matt. Like, why would you be eternally an eternal optimist? Like, what does that even mean? So what does it mean to you? And then what does the book do for people that? to pick it up and then actually consume the content. Great question. And I'm going to invite the listeners to lean in a little bit to this answer. Because the game that all of us are playing some kind of game, I would consider our lives a game. What is the game?

You could be at a spiritual game in a faith walk. You could be in a game to be the best parent. You could be at a game just to survive. You could be at a game just to stop the suffering, whatever it is. My game, as an eternal optimist, is simply to leave the world better than where I got here. Leave it better. Leave everything a little bit better. And to play a game like that as an eternal optimist, first, let's define eternal optimism. Optimism, some would say, is that rainbow unicorns thing you're talking about.

Everything is always positive. Maybe, maybe that's what an optimist is, but I don't think that's what an eternal optimist is. My definition of eternal optimism is being able to see the good in things, being able to see that, yeah, this is really challenging right now, and some good can come from this if I find it. I was talking to Matt King, the CEO of Go Abundance on a show. I was recording with him a couple days ago. We were talking about, you know, a gift in the moment. So there's actually a gift in the moment that my father died.

I couldn't see it at the moment. That was the worst day of my life. There's no amount of eternal optimism is going to make that a good day, period. Expand the timeline, however, and a lot of good has come since then. You know, I'm closer to my mom than I've ever been. My dad, I got pictures of them all over the office, and I think about him every day. I aspire to leave a legacy like he has. So much good has come from that.

that. Eternal Optimist believes that things can and will be better in the choices up to me. So this book, The Eternal Optimist, It's Never Too Late, is my life story. I change the names in the locations to protect the innocent for privacy reasons. That's my life story. So the opening story that happened, that really happened. Right. So I think about all the things that happened in that book and the journey of a man who grew up bullied, grew up moving around, and grew up with loving parents, and he overcame his own ego and his own lust for power for money. Now he's playing a game for the betterment of the world with heart involved and without ego,

more love is involved. And now the biggest game that I can play is I can offer something to someone who's also sitting and struggling in silence. I can offer it to a CEO or an owner of a company who wants to grow in skill. And they don't know who to talk to you about it. They don't have a confident to talk to you about it. someone who's proven they can do it over and over again. They don't have that person yet. I would insert me and the people on my team. So why I read the book is if you've ever struggled with ego, you've ever struggled with, eh, it's never enough. I feel less than sometimes.

If you ever struggle with your marriage or you struggle with being a parent who's present, while you're also a hard charging workaholic who wants to grow and have ambition, if any of that realm connects to any of our entrepreneurs or any of our people who feel like they're stuck in corporate America or anyone out there that simply wants to have a side hustle level up a little bit. If any of those things connect with you, then check out the book. Check out the book. You won't regret it and it can probably help you. Love it. Yeah.

And we're definitely going to link that in the show notes. So that way, folks, you can go grab a copy of it, send Matt a message, let him know you heard him on the podcast and you checked out his book. And so I'd love for you just to give a couple tips for you that have personally helped you become that eternal optimist. So what would you say? Maybe someone's like, you know what? I've been pretty pessimistic my whole life. And I would love to wake up and have a different outlook. You know, what would be maybe the first three things that they could do?

Well, if I had to take it to just three, I'd say that number one, and this is going to sound so frou-frew and soft. and good because if you feel that way, then you've not done it or you've not done it well, or you haven't figured it out yet. Number one is I sit in silence every day. Every single day for the past almost 10 years now, I have sat in silence for at least 10 minutes a day. I love meditation. Some call prayer. Yeah. Yeah. I just sit in silence. Just practice breathing. I don't have to practice breathing. Matt, I don't know how to breathe. Yeah. If you know how to regulate your nervous system, and how to slow it down. Because I imagine we're talking to a lot of people right now, Jordan, that are hard charging,

that are always on, right? This soothes your soul. It lets your nervous system slow down. So step number one is learn how to meditate or how to sit in silence with yourself. If you can do that, you're winning. Number two is every single day I read affirmations out loud to myself. Yes, I do that. Yes.

I learned howl from Tony Robbins and my friend Hal. So how to do an affirmation. I have a marriage affirmation every day. I read that every single day since Q1 in 2019. It makes me show up for my wife, Julie. Because if I don't, my default mode is go business. Go do work hard business. Period.

So I affirmation. I read out loud every day to make sure I'm the best dad I can be, to make sure I'm a present husband, to make sure that I'm patient and graceful for myself and my kids. So number two is I have affirmations that I read. I'll send those to you if you want to link them in here, you can. Number three, I know.

Oh, every day I read something. Every single day I read something. You know, and I'm looking right now, and there's the book I've got out because I'm a parent. I read this book by Jonathan Hayde. I heard him on Rogan, you know, about four months ago, the anxious generation, something around screen time and social media,

how it impacts the development of kids' brains. So I'm reading that as a parent. You know, I'm getting ready to lead a facilitated group of 62 soon. We're going to focus on this one-minute manager meets the monkey, you know how to effectively delegate and empower people versus dump on them or versus take it all yourself so i'm always reading something one two three you ask for three things one sit in silence every day two i say to myself out loud in the mirror with some enthusiasm affirmations for about seven minutes a day and then number three i read every day that's it love it love it great

tips great info for everybody make sure you guys connect with matt after this episode and a couple things just to recap here, Matt's story and journey, to become an eternal optimist, to become consistent optimist, you know, it's going to take some recognition, right? It's going to take some recognition and understanding who you are, you know, Matt, one of the things that he's done really well is he's become very self-aware, and self-awareness is massive. When you can understand how you operate, how you are wired, and how you show up in situations, it's a lot easier for you to be able to help other people. And so one resource, again, I'd share this with a lot of my clients. When I was doing training and development, I did a lot with Emotional Intelligence 2.0, a lot with

strength finders. I got certified in MBTI, Myers-Briggs. And so a lot of those resources and tools are helpful, but they are just tools. And the more that we can invest in learning about us, again, it's going to help us in our workplace. It'll help us in our relationships. You've got three daughters. I've got six kids, right? Four boys, two girls. And it's a lot to navigate, folks. And if you want to be a good navigator, you got to get a compass, you got to get a map, you got to get all the resources that you need. So, Matt, if you can share, you know, what's one thing you're up to that might be helpful for people that listen to this episode? Could be that group that you're talking about, reading the book, could be an event that you're hosting. I'd love for you just to kind

of plug something that you're up to. Yeah, I'd say two things because I'm an overachiever and one's not enough. So number one, I say I'm a part of the front row dads. If you want to level up your game as a dad, maybe even as a husband, we are family men with businesses, not the other way around. So if you want to go from businessman to family man, this is the path, front row dads. The second, listen to the podcast. I interview people and I ask them on the Eternal Optimus podcast, what's the hardest thing you ever been through? And then what did you learn from it? How'd you overcome it? And where are you now in your journey and what you're passionate about now? So listen to people tell their hard stories. Listen to the person from 9-11 who was the driver of an emergency ambulance and who was in charge of a team on the ground. That's Rabbi Ezra Max. You know, listen to my friend Philip Stutz, who has an incurable disease. And he was told by the Mayo Clinic that this is incurable. We can't do anything for you. So he went outside of them, went to different doctors and now has created something that's a path to cure people of the disease that he has. He's still alive.

Right. So listen to those stories. At the end of the day, team, if you have any resistance inside of you, if there's any stress built up, if there's like a ticking time bomb inside of you or this anger or frustration or emotion, not sure how to deal with. Eternal optimism is a path to peace of mind. If you desire or want peace of mind, reach out to me and I will show you how I've found it and helped many people find it. And that's worthwhile, my friends, that peace of mind. So, Jordan, thank you so much for having me on today. Yeah, my pleasure. And thank you.

Of course, my pleasure. Great having you on. Hey, folks, the inner game controls the outer game. You might want to write that one down because it's so true. If we can control our mindset, you know, the things that are happening in our mind, especially when we're dealing with stuff that we don't like, you know. I remember doing landscaping in the D.C. fall when I never thought we would get every single leaf because it was windy and all the leaves. and I have earphones on and all I want to do is talk to humans, right?

So there's going to be days that you're uncomfortable. You're going to be put in situations, and that is where you're going to meet yourself. You know, adversity is when we actually start to meet who we really are, and it's going to help shape you and mold you and enable you to look through a different lens that you would have never been able to look through before. So, Matt, thank you so much for coming on the show. Keep blazing your own trail. We're going to make sure that everyone has all the access to all you,

your info down in the show notes. Any parting words, my friend? I tell you what, team. If you ever go down a zip line and it breaks, you fall to the ground, then join the club. If you want to know more about that story, reach out to me. And team, it's been a real pleasure. So thanks a lot, Jordan. It's been a real, real pleasure, team.

See you.