In this exciting conclusion of our interview, our guest, Matthew Roda, shares how dangerous choices led him to a choice he had to make in order to ultimately achieve the successes both personally and professionally in his life. Not only does he discuss how this wraps into his budding speaking career and his book, but it also shapes how his mindset of wanting to help everyone, especially fathers and husbands all around, to become the best versions of themselves. This interview's exciting conclusion leads to something never done before in Speaking From The Heart that you have to listen to!

Guest Bio

Matthew Roda is the founder and co-owner of RODAmarketing.com - a digital marketing agency that serves clients nationwide. He's also the co-owner of Signer57.com - a pro-America and pro-freedom apparel and lifestyle brand. Matthew is also the founder of TheBattlefieldAlliance.com. He has one published book called "How To Take Down Goliath & Unleash Your Inner Hero". Matthew has a loving and beautiful wife, Helen, and four precious children - Caroline, Amelia, Lily and Miles. They also share their home with their two energetic dogs Athena and Buddy Boy. When Matthew isn't spending time with his family, or working on his businesses, you can find him in his home gym training, or out running trails.

Matthew's Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/917680869527118

Matthew's Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/matthewroda

Matthew's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebattlefieldprojectpodcast

Matthew's Website: https://matthewroda.com/

Visit Our Website: https://speaking-from-the-heart.captivate.fm/

Visit Our Business Website: https://www.yourspeakingvoice.biz

Support The Mission Of The Business! Donate Here: https://speaking-from-the-heart.captivate.fm/support

Intro/Outro By: Michael Dugan, Podcast Host: Voice4Chefs

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

This is Speaking From The Heart.

Welcome back to part two of episode 26 of Speaking From the

Heart, and we left part one with such a cliffhanger with Matthew Roda, our

guest, that I was even dropping my mouth open and had to hit the pause button

on the recording so that we could talk about the fact that this was such an

incredible interview that we had so far, and I never knew that when he shared that

last part with me, how open that he was.

Now to recap, if you weren't part of part one, Matthew Roda is the founder

and co-owner of rodamarketing.com, which is a digital marketing agency

that serves clients nationwide.

He's also the co-owner of signer57.com, that's S I G N E R 57, and

that's a pro-America, pro-freedom apparel and lifestyle brand.

He's also the founder of thebattlefieldalliance.com and has a

published book called How to Take Down Goliath and Unleash Your Inner Hero.

His loving and beautiful wife, Helen, along with his four children,

Carline, Amelia, Lilly, and Miles are all individuals that we talk

about in this pivotal second part.

I will say this, when I entered into this interview, even in part one, I would've

never imagine in a million years that I would connect with somebody that has

been through so many different things and has still gotten to the other side,

given all those choices that he made, and what we talk about with this is

digging into who actually saved him, who actually provided the opportunity then

to move on to give himself a speaker role, and even how he got to get his

book published, which are all aspects in which we were able to discuss.

I had never felt the feeling that I did once I got toward the end of

this interview and I do something that I never thought I would ever do

in any podcast episode, which you're going to hear in this interview.

With that, let's go on to part two of my interview with Matthew Roda.

So wait a moment, Matt, you just said to me that in the last question about using

drugs and especially before you turned 30, so now it's starting to all come together

to me, as I'm listening to you, because now you're doing all these things, you

have this awesome family that right off the start you said that it was part of it.

What the heck led you the drugs and things like that in the first place?

Yeah.

If you would've asked me that question six months or a year ago, I wouldn't have

had a good, clear answer on it, but I've done a lot of inner work and had some deep

conversations with some people I really trust and helped me figure that out.

I grew up, pretty much an athlete, like I was the team captain with baseball and

basketball travel teams and I was really good, fifth grade to eighth grade, and

then I went to high school and I went from being in a big fish in a small

pond of like my grade school to all of a sudden, I was one of the best, but

there was other one of the best from the different schools coming in and we were

all the best now creating this team.

Now looking back, I realize I had like a life decision, a fork in the road at

that point in my life, which was now I'm going to have to work to be the best

because it was just natural for me to be the best, you know, through grade school.

Now all of a sudden it's like, "Oh shit.

I'm surrounded by people who have as much skill as me and they're

working hard, so if I want to keep up with them, I got to work hard."

I could work hard and maintain that sports mentality and persona that I

had created growing up and made my parents so proud, or I could choose

not to do that because it was too hard.

Unfortunately, I chose not to do that because it seemed too hard

and too daunting and I just did not want to pour myself into that, so,

end of freshman year, sophomore, beginning of sophomore year, I started

smoking weed with some buddies.

I still played basketball through high school, but I went from starter team

captain to starter sophomore year to didn't play junior year, rode the bench

senior year and had a sophomore come in and take my spot, like just at the

time, devastating stuff, but it was all a product of my own bad decision, so

high school, let's just say I did more drugs than I didn't do when it comes to

the different drugs that I was doing.

I was involved in a lot of different stuff.

I got arrested when I was 17 for a stupid decision that I made about taking

someone's credit card and going to an ATM machine and pulling money out.

Wow.

By the grace of God, I did that when I was 17 years old, and 358 days, so

I was seven days away from turning 18, and my attorney said if I would've done that

when I was 18, I would've been charged with a felony as an adult and I probably

would've spent a couple years in jail, or at least like a few minimum years with

probation, so it was like seven days made the difference between the direction that

my life could have taken, and when I was doing it, obviously I didn't think that

through, like, "Oh, now's a good time."

It was just dumb luck that I made the bad decision when I did.

Then in college, same stuff.

All the drugs.

Added a couple more drugs into the mix.

Was selling drugs in college.

Got arrested for selling drugs in college.

Got kicked out of college, got let back into college.

Graduated in four years still, which is a miracle because you got kicked

out but I got back in before any time went by because it luckily it was the

summertime, so again, by God's grace, I made terrible decisions, but I didn't get

punished that hard cosmically, and then went from college, went out to San Diego.

Stopped doing most of the drugs because I didn't have access to them, but I was

still smoking weed all day, every day.

That was my story until I went on a blind date with my now wife, like

three or four dates into it I mentioned to her that I was still smoking weed

pretty much every day, and she was a teacher at the time and she was like,

"Well, you have a decision to make, like you're either going to continue

to date me or you're going to continue to smoke weed, but you don't get both."

I've for years and years and years and years prior to that,

I tried to stop smoking weed.

It was successful for three days a month and then I'd go back and I just couldn't

break the habit because I didn't have a big enough reason to break it, and then

she came in as my guardian angel, as my angel from heaven and like basically

was like, "Hey Matt, this has potential and we knew that pretty early on, but

you got to make a big decision," and it was the easiest decision I've ever made.

I drove home, gave the little bit of weed that I had left to my cousin,

and just made the decision right then and there that this is the life

I want now moving forward and it's been smooth sound since then, man.

My mouth is dropped open from just the last two minutes of what you have

shared as what a incredible adventure-

it has been.

I mean, I've had my run-ins with the law and I haven't really talked

about that in any episode yet, and I was thinking about doing a monologue at some

point relating to that and how that has really helped to change my perspective,

and that was because of kids picking on me because I was obese growing up-

yeah.

And just not seeing the value in myself, but now I understand a

lot more about your family and why you value that, so my question to

you is, your wife was really your savior when it came to all of this.

What would you say to someone that is maybe going through, not just recovery,

maybe somebody that's listening, knows somebody else that's still struggling with

that they have somebody in their family.

We have a crisis in our world right now when it comes to mentorship, and I'm not

just talking about having people that are surrounding you and give you good advice.

I'm talking about parents; having a father, having a mother, having

anybody, a guardian, if you will, that will help to groom our youth.

Obviously you have kids that you're raising too that relate

to that, and they're obviously, as you shared, one in three.

What would you say to someone that is making these poor choices

and you want them to get back on the path of redemption?

Yeah.

Because this is a, this is a redemption story for me now, and

my mouth continues to be wide open with what maybe this response will

be from you, but I'm curious, what would you share to somebody with that?

Yeah, so for me, my wife, yes she did come from wherever she came

from the town over, but like cosmically, she came into my life at just the right

moment and was exactly what I needed, but, if I would've said, "Okay, I made

that decision because of you, and that's the only reason I did it.", my gut says

I would've stuck with it, but I know me well enough to know that now all

of a sudden I had a void in my life.

It went from literally smoking from the time I woke up multiple

times throughout the day to the time I went to bed, to, "Oh crap.

I got to change my routine.

I got to find something else that gets me excited on a daily basis, or gives me a

reason to push through the day", because now all of a sudden I don't have the

crutch to go and just be like, "I'm bored.

I'm going to smoke weed.

Oh, I'm bored.

I'm going to smoke weed and watch a movie.

I'm bored.

I'm going to smoke weed and pretend like I'm doing work.", like I didn't

have that thing to fall back on anymore.

That is the same time when I pretty much dedicated myself to fitness, so if you

would've met me, I don't know, seven years ago, eight years ago when I was

still smoking and just kind of like, I worked out a little bit here and there.

I was a completely different looking dude; like, I was like a string bean.

My wife always says, she's like, "when I met you, like, your arms weren't big."

,and I'm like, "Thanks, I guess, but like now thanks to her, I lift

all the time, but for someone who's struggling, similar to like how do

you make decisions like know who you want to be, so same thing with food.

We had a conversation earlier about the food stuff, have an understanding of what

it is you're putting in your body and is it helping you operate at peak potential?

If no, then you probably want to cut it out.

Why do you want to cut it out?

Because you've done the work to paint a picture of who you want to become, and

every choice you make has to support becoming who you want to become.

It really, man, like it's all so connected.

It blows my mind that so many people struggle with it, but I get why they

do because society's a tough place to function because every commercial is

fast food and you go down the street and it's fast food and you turn on TV

and it's drama TV with junk trash TV and most of the movies are bad content, so

I understand why people get beat down, confused, feel kind of like hopeless

and all that stuff, but you have to be extremely mindful of the content that

you consume, and that's food, that's television, it's movies, it's music or

podcasts like you have a choice on a daily basis, many, many, many times to

do what's right, which would serve your bigger purpose and help you become the

person you want to become, or you have a chance at the exact same moment to

choose something that you know intuitively you shouldn't be choosing and is not

going to get you closer to who you want to become, and then it's really up to

you as a human being to say, "Okay, I've got option A, option B, I know who

I want to be and where I want to go.

If I make this one, it gets me closer.

If I make this one, it takes me further away.

Which option do I choose?", and it has to be that clear to you that every

single decision you make either takes you forward or backwards, and when you

have that clarity, like it's why it becomes easy, like air quote, the word

easy because it's not easy, every single day, I, like I was talking about being

on my couch today, multiple times per day, I want to make a lazy choice, but

that choice would not get me closer to who I want to be or who I need to stay

to be and continue to be,, so choice.

I got up, grabbed my water bottle, went out, I was like, "I'm going to get my

45 minutes in.", and then I know I'm going to go eat my dinner and feel much,

much better because I stayed consistent.

I stayed disciplined.

I stayed true to the format of my day, the routine of my day that got me closer

to who I want to be, so tomorrow now I wake up even more empowered because

today was a successful day for me.

One thing I say on social media a lot of times to people who talk

about moving forward, building their dreams, it's brick by brick.

It's literally, to me, it's every single option.

You have to lay another brick to your foundation.

You have to make that good choice.

Take that brick next to the brick that you just laid earlier today, and by

the end of the day, you got two rows and you're like, "Okay, I'm starting

to build the house that I want to live in.", wall by wall, brick by brick, you

continue to build what you want to become.

Matt, and I said this all along so far, is that I'm impressed by what

you've built because you have so many different avenues that you touch people

in, and you making the analogy earlier when we're talking about fitness with

fuel, this is essentially the fuel that helps us to get started on our day.

It helps us to keep us going throughout the day and, yeah, we do need to make

sure that we're fueled up before we go to bed because our body is still

working to keep us alive even as we're asleep, and that's important too, but

all those things, the physical, the social, the mental, the economical,

all of those things tie in together.

I want to pivot now because I know that you are also a speaker, and I want to

talk about that for a little bit because, for me, I'm also trying to get more into

speaking and also I've been doing that my audience knows about Toastmasters

that I've been doing for over a decade.

Toastmasters has really changed my life to get me to where I'm at, for those

that are interested in checking out Toastmasters, I know I sound like a broken

record because I bring it up every time, I'm going to throw a link in the episode

notes relating to Toastmasters in case you ever want to check out a local club

to get yourself started with building that self-confidence, but Matt, I'm curious.

When you are asked to be a speaker or you are going to speak, what are some of

the things that run through your mind, especially when you are thinking about the

topic that you are asked to talk about, and you can share with us maybe what some

of those topics are, because some people might be interested in actually booking

you too, which we'll get into a little bit later on how they can contact you.

Yeah.

But, kind of curious, what makes you motivated to be a speaker too?

Full transparency, I've spoken on one official stage, and

then I've had a couple of what I would call more like presentations

in rooms of small groups of people about marketing and stuff like that.

The reason I call myself a speaker, and I appreciate you bringing this up and kind

of having this conversation, again, fully transparent, I have the imposter syndrome,

which everybody has to some degree.

Oh, we've talked about that quite a lot with all the- Yes.

Yeah.

And I'm not surprised to hear from yet another one.

No, no.

The one, I mean, you say like, "You're a speaker", and I'm like,

"oh, I'm not really a speaker."

Like, I don't want to, I'm a fraud for even talking about this, but-

No, you're not.

No, you're not.

Deep down.

I know.

Yep.

That being said, I'm a speaker because I have a message to share.

I'm willing and able to get on a stage and share that message because

I want to positively impact lives, so in that context, I'm built for it.

I'm ready for it.

I'll continue to work at a way where I bring that more into my reality and I get

more of those opportunities, so I feel confident in saying that I am, but if

you looked at my resume, you'd be like, "This dude been on one official stage,

like what qualifies him as a speaker?"

The topic that I spoke about on stage last October was the five pillars of personal

excellence, and I came up with the word apply, A P P L Y, and each one of those

letters represents one of the pillars, and I basically intertwined my story from

childhood through my troubled years into the life that I'm living now, and how

those five pillars all played a role and why those five pillars are so important,

but beyond that, why living a life of personal excellence means so much to me.

Why do I speak about that?

Because I'm super passionate about wanting to see other people succeed,

wanting to see other people wake up happy, ready to go, excited to embrace

the day, eager to seek opportunity, like it pains me on a pretty deep level, like

soulful level, to see people struggle.

I feel people struggle when I said earlier, I'm like a sensitive human being.

I feel other sadness and sorrow, so, what do I do to like combat that?

Do I just go, "Ugh, like, ugh", and I drag myself through the day with

that heavy energy, or I use that as fuel to say, "okay, it is what it is.

Like the world is a tough place to navigate, the

society is somewhat difficult.

What can I do to change that?", and for me, that's again, back to my purpose,

leading by example and lifting others up.

Those two pieces of the puzzle match perfectly.

When my time comes for the first stage in the stages I'll experience

in the future to get up there and share that message, because it's

what I embody every single day.

It's not a scripted, I wrote this or I had artificial intelligence, like, "what

would be a good speech about personal development?", this is coming from my

entire life experience and I'm super passionate about it now because I lived

the life for two and a half decades, almost three decades of not living a

personal, excellent life, and now I have for the last five or seven years, and

I can tell you, once you get a taste of it, and once you wire yourself to expect

that and to have that in your life, I can't see how you could go back, like

there's no going back because it's like, "Oh my God, like it, it feels so good

to be alive", and I'm so grateful for everything that I'm creating and have

created and will create, brick by brick.

Every single decision I have to make has to lead me to that house of personal

excellence, and I want to share that message with as many people as possible,

and I feel like on stage, it's a different experience, like this podcast, I hope

touches some lives and like people, it resonates with people and it speaks to

people, but being in the same room with somebody and seeing them and feeling

and seeing their energy and passion come out while they're speaking, it's a

little bit, hits a little bit different, so the more I can do that, I feel like

the more I'm living my purpose, which is why I've been put on this Earth.

I will tell you, as somebody that is a speaker and has been working

on his craft for over a decade, you've done a very good job with setting it

up and you have stories to back it up, so I'm going to give you those-

No problem.

Kudos, and I know for me, when I work with clients, I tell them,

"What's" your story behind it?", because if you don't have a good story, or it

isn't about having a good story per se, don't take that in literal sense-

mm-hmm.

But if you don't have a story in which it's captivating to the point

that you're trying to make, it also might make you a little bit of a fraud.

Yeah.

And you definitely don't want to have that illusion, especially being

a paid speaker, so, congratulations, you passed my sniff test.

Thank you.

That means a lot to me, man.

Trust me.

It means a lot.

It does.

It does, and I think that this leads into my last question, because I want to

give you a few minutes to talk about all these awesome things that you're doing,

is that I know you have written a book and the name of the book is How to Take

Down Goliath and Unleash Your Inner Hero.

Can you tell us a little bit about the book itself and why should I go pick

it up, because again, it's one of those things of imposter syndrome of, "Well, I

don't know if I'm really a good author, but I'm going to write something that

might be appealing to other people", but I'm kind of curious if you could

tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, so I wrote that book 15, 16, 17 years ago.

15, 13 years ago, a long time ago, like it's like-

So, so wait a moment.

This happened after all these drug things that were going down-

It was during it.

Oh yeah.

It was during it?

Yeah, it was during it.

Oh man.

We should have asked that earlier, but, oh, that's okay.

That's okay.

Full transparency, I would wake up when I lived in San Diego, I'd

smoke weed, I'd sit on my couch and I opened myself up to messages being

shared, and it was just content pouring through me and wanted to my fingers

on the paper, on the computer screen.

I wrote it and I had a guy coach me through the process who had written,

helped people write a lot of books and he was like, "That was the quickest I've

ever seen anybody write," however, I mean, 30,000 words or whatever it was, he's

like, "That was incredibly fast", and I was like, "I just had it in me and I had

to get it out", and it just came out.

Eight's my favorite number, so I kind of went into the book with that number in

my head, so I talk about eight heroes, so eight different things that each one

of us has inside of us and then I talk about eight different Goliaths that

are basically society driven, internal struggles, all that kind of stuff, so

you've got this battle of eight heroes, call them "David's Eight Demons" that

you're fighting on a daily basis; call it Goliath, and again, it's which ones you

pour your energy into, it's which ones you pay more attention to, it's which ones

you feed are going to eventually overtake the other ones, so if you're letting the

Goliaths beat you down on a daily basis, you're going to live a pretty mediocre

"eh" life, because you're letting Goliath constantly knock you down and win, whereas

if you focus on those heroes, and you live and breathe those philosophies and

those ways of living, you're going to live a great life because you're focused

on that and then Goliath shrinks and eventually you knock them down with that

stone to the forehead as the story shares.

Where can you find it?

I don't even think it's available for sale, to be honest with you, like it was

one of those things I did 15 years ago and I had a box of them that I brought

back from California and I think I gave the last one away maybe a couple months

ago, and it's one of those things, like we talked, we just recently started

talking about the imposter syndrome, I'm like, "I really want to print more

and talk about it because like, who wants to buy my book?", like, it's

not an Amazon bestseller and I don't care to do the push for Amazon like,

what's the point, so you bringing it up tonight is probably just another

sign from God that it's like "Matt, at least make it available to people

because I did write it from my heart.

I do believe it can help somebody with something that they're dealing

with, whether it's one paragraph or page or whatever.", so I hear you God.

Well, God must be answering your question because as you were

answering that, I thought, "Hmm, let me go see if it's actually available",

and believe it or not, I found it.

It's on Amazon Kindle only.

You can buy it for $2.99, and I'm going to put a link into the episode

notes in case anybody is really interested in downloading it onto

their Kindle and reading that book.

Yeah.

I can't believe I found it because you saying, "Oh yeah, I don't

have any copies of it anymore."

Well, guess what?

That's what happens when we're in the electronic era.

Yeah.

Yes.

There you go.

So God was answering that question for you, sir.

Matt, I want to give you a few minutes.

At this point, I want you to pitch anything that's on your mind about

everything that you have said, and well, not only what you said, but what

you want to share with your audience because you've been incredible.

I want to make sure that I wrap this up appropriately, so I'm not going to

say anything else and just let you sell yourself a little bit for a few minutes

because I think that you're an incredible person from what I've learned so far, and

I want people to know what you do, what as a recap, how they can get in contact

with you and anything else that's worthy.

This time is all yours.

Go for it.

Well man, I appreciate the kind words, first and foremost.

The imposter syndrome is a real thing.

It's not something I battle on a daily, daily basis, but I'm connected with a

lot of high level achievers and sometimes I look at them, I'm like, "God, they're

late years ahead of me," and then that diminishes my own self-worth, and like,

"what am I really doing on this earth?

Is it a big impact as I want it to be, et cetera?", so I appreciate the kind

words, man, and you having me on and pulling out of me content that I don't

get to normally share on podcasts.

Yes.

I mean, what I do, Roda Marketing is the main business that I run with my brother.

It's what we've been doing for 13 years.

It pays the majority of our bills.

It's our revenue source, so that's a full service digital marketing agency.

We help small to medium size business owners who know they need marketing

but don't have an internal team to do it, so they outsource it to us.

We have about 25 independent contractors that we work with as our team, then we

have a leadership team of three, which is my brother, myself, and his wife.

We love what we do.

The greatest feeling is knowing that we're helping other business owners

create more success in their lives, and then that positively impacts their

family, so it's just this ripple effect that we create from services that we

provide, so I really enjoy doing that.

That's rodamarketing.com.

The other thing I'm working on right now, which I'm really, really proud of,

it's called thebattlefieldalliance.com.

I have two business partners in that business that is basically a networking

group, I hate using that phrase, but it's basically we coach, we lead, so it's

connect, grow, and lead is our tagline.

We're doing our best to help business owners, entrepreneurs,

leaders, fathers, wives, basically anybody that wants to lead in this

world, helping them to level up.

Between the three of us and our leadership team, we have a wealth of experience in

different areas of our lives, so it's not just, we'll help you grow your business,

it's if you're working yourself through a divorce and you're not sure how to

navigate this tough times afterwards, we're helping people level up in their

business, their personal lives, their spiritual lives, whatever that looks like.

We just want to positively impact lives of others, so you

can get in and join the group.

We have guest speaker calls.

We have once a call a month, where we kind of poured you with like a

life lesson or a business lesson, so it's a really cool dynamic group.

We all support each other, we all wanna see each other succeed so

business gets passed back and forth.

Signer 57 is that Lifestyle Apparel brand: Signer 57.

The number 57seven.com.

Pro Freedom, pro-America.

Long story short, with that is there were 56 patriots who signed the Declaration of

Independence, and we are now, basically, we want to create a world of signer 57,

so that 57th person that says, "If I was alive back then, I would've grabbed

the paper, I would've grabbed the pen, and I would've been signer 57 on that

constitution to let people know that this is what I stand for, this is the ideals

that I have, this is the America I want to build form of future generations."

I feel like those are the three big things right now, I'm slowly starting to unveil

the Battlefield Brotherhood, which is just a group of men leading men, connecting

with men, fathers, husbands, and just kind of getting that masculinity back into

the world, and when I say masculinity, some people immediately attach the word

toxis or toxic to it, because that's what society has kind of thrown down our

throats for half a decade or a decade at this point is men who think they're men

are toxic; I highly disagree with that.

Men who are masculine in the essence of what a man is meant to be, which

is strong, caring provider, defender, like all those good qualities.

I want to get as many men together in that group and just again, lead by example.

I feel like I'm probably missing something.

Yeah.

But then besides all that-

I was going to say tell us about your podcast too.

Oh, yeah, so I have the podcast, the Battlefield Project Podcast, where I

invite guests to come on, and basically share some kind of battle that they

have experienced in their life, whether it's, again, personal, professional,

spiritual, whether it happened yesterday or when they were four years old.

I don't care.

I just want people.

I want my audience on that podcast to understand that every single human

being on this Earth fights their own battle, and it might be a temporary,

it might be a lifelong battle.

We're all facing battles on a daily basis, and I always say the difference

between people who are living a happy, fulfilled life and the difference

between people who are living like a mediocre, down in the dumps life, the

people that are happy and fulfilled, they will fight their way through those

battles on a daily basis, knowing that there's brightness on the other side,

there's light at the end of that tunnel.

You have to fight those battles.

You have to beat those battles.

You have to win those battles.

You can get knocked down because we all do, but you got to pick yourself back

up and fight that battle the next day.

That's a passion project for me, basically to plant seeds of positivity

and again, just to show the world that like none of us go through life untouched.

Every single person has some kind of battle that they're dealing with,

and the sooner you realize you're not alone in those battles and someone

else is experiencing what you're experiencing, I think that's empowering

for people to understand that, "Okay, Matt struggles with imposter syndrome.

I never would've guessed that.

Okay, so I'm not on an island that I think like I'm a fake too sometimes", there's

that connection that we all struggle, every human being struggles, it's part

of life, so I want to connect people on that level and not just have the social

media, rainbows, butterfly success, great life, beautiful wife, nothing is wrong.

I live a perfect life a hundred percent of the time, like that's not

the case, so the podcast is basically showcasing that and shining a light

on my guest to come in and share those kind of messages with the audience.

I think that's it, dude.

I was pausing there just in case you needed to take a

breath and say one more thing.

Yeah, I think that's it.

I can't think of anything else right now.

Matt, I normally don't do this, I usually save this for the wrap up,

which my audience gets to hear, but I want to share something with you

that I learned today after listening to this awesome conversation, which,

first off, I want to say this, and I really authentically mean this.

I have never said this to the guest yet, okay?

You, sir, are the most authentic, Speaking From The Heart guest I have not ever had

at this point that I don't know if anybody will ever take that crown, and if they do,

I will make sure I call you and say, "I found somebody that can challenge you."

Yeah.

Because-

I want to become friends with them, so please do.

I want to be friends with them too, because here's the thing:

sometimes in life we are often faced with a lot of different things that we

can say yes, no, maybe, I don't know.

We can ghost them.

We can say, "Screw you Creepo.

I don't want anything to do with you.", or I can say, "You're an asshole and I don't

appreciate anything that you have to say.

I don't care that you've been through drugs.

I don't care what your background is, you're just a terrible person."

Here's the thing, you don't do any of that.

You could easily say that to me right now and we, you could easily say that

to anybody else, you could be just like any other of these Joe Schmos out there,

and I keep telling people in my own life, "you don't have to be like them.

You can create your own path."

Mm-hmm.

But you are the first person that has come on this show and has

really articulated with me about why all this ties together with family,

with your wife, Helen, which thank God, thank you, Helen, for saving this

guy's life and putting him back on track because look at what you've done.

I don't know if you even hear yourself, because I find it so incredible that

you're doing all these things to touch other people, to touch other people's

lives, to help each other, just get through some of the thick and thin, and

you make me think of all the people, which I'm not discrediting any of my other

guests, but you represent what this is all about, which is not only just about

the heart, but it's also about changing what's up here in our brain that I'm

pointing to, and it's also changing about those big muscles that you have that I

keep on staring at for the past hour, and I keep thinking, "How does he do

that?", and I'll might talk to you more about it, but Matt, I really mean this.

Thank you, sincerely, for Speaking From The Heart with us today, I

really appreciate this conversation and there's so much that you have

changed my life just by listening to everything that you had to say.

I appreciate you, man.

Those words mean a lot to me, and yeah, I appreciate you, brother.

Yeah, I appreciate you too.

Thanks again for being on the show.

My sincere pleasure.

I want to thank Matt so much for being part of this show because he

really embodied what this is all about, and what I heard during the second part

of our overall interview that lasted over an hour is something that I told him

afterwards when we hit the stop button that I will never forget how much he's

impacted me by being so open and being so generous, not only with his time, but also

his dedication to helping others, even though he doesn't have to, even though

that he doesn't have to be reaching out to people, making them feel comfortable about

themselves, or even helping each other realize what their true destinies are.

It doesn't need to happen, but Matt genuinly cares, and that really showed

in this second part of the interview.

I mentioned during the interview about Toastmasters.

I would encourage you to go check that out.

I will leave a link into the episode notes that you can take a look at, and

I'll also put a link into his book that I also mentioned as well, and I think

that those are going to be awesome things that you can check out to start

a journey of your own similar to Matt's, but let's be honest for a second.

We know that we're never going to be a Matt because we didn't live those

experiences possibly, and if you have lived those experiences like Matt has,

I'm sure that he would love to hear you and hear from you and be able to have

that conversation as to how you did it too, so that he can compare notes with

you and be able to take that best version of himself and yourself to that next

level, but that's what it's all about.

It's about making a choice of what pushes us throughout the day because

we can easily say, "I'm going to go ahead and smoke weed, and I'm going

to continue to smoke weed until I not feel anything anymore, and I'm going

to let this be the rest of my life."

I could have also smoked all kinds of other drugs.

I could have done all kinds of different things that were not needed in this world.

I could have engaged in sexual activity that was promiscuous in nature.

I could have done all kinds of alcohol and tried to be this goody two shoes

that everybody else wanted to see in me.

Helen, his wife, saw something completely different, and she gave him a choice:

it's either me, or it's the drugs.

Aren't we always faced with a choice between what one thing

we could have over another?

We always making those choices every day.

It doesn't matter what time of the day it is.

It could be when you get up in the morning, what kind of

outfit you're going to wear.

It could be where you're going to stop to get your coffee, whether

it's at a local restaurant or one of the chain restaurants.

It could be who you're interacting with.

Who you decide to send a message to, who you actually converse with during

the morning hours, where you go for lunch, what you eat, what you consume,

what you actually do to help grow and fuel your brain, as we've been literally

talking about for the last several episodes with this interview and having

that good content, as I mentioned in the previous part, is really an

important facet of it, but now let's take it to the level that Matt took it.

When you realize that you are going down a path that isn't healthy whatsoever,

and you have two choices and you know that one could kill you and the other one

isn't going to kill you, it's going to bring you back to salvation, you start

to rise up, and I really understood more when my mouth dropped open during that

part of the episode, and when she did just share all these sins and I said, "Wow.

This really happened to you?", I started to realize that the problems that we

have aren't necessarily from the drugs.

It was really about who we really wanted to be.

Matt had really good influences in his life, which demonstrates

the fact that it doesn't matter if you have good influences or not.

It all depends on what your mindset is and how you continuously change that, how you

create that content for yourself, whether you are marketing that brand, whether you

know what you want to be and operating how you want to be operating, but as

Matt said, it's all about laying bricks.

I don't know what kind of bricks we typically use when it comes to

digesting the news, digesting people's opinions about each other, even about

ourselves, but Matt said something to me even afterwards that made me

resonate with his viewpoint that I want to share with all of you.

Matt said to me that it's not about what these people are saying to you.

It's about what they are influencing you to be, and I thought that was really

interesting and I had to take a step back and think about all the people

that were influencing me as opposed to what the words were that were being

used, and I started to realize that this conversation that we continuously

have with each other and maybe with people that don't agree with us, is all

our selfishness.

Selfishness can be good and bad.

Selfishness can be a motivator in itself in which we're able to create some of the

best things that we would ever imagine and help us create the opportunities

that we often seek, but it doesn't mean though, that we should walk all

over the relationships that we form.

That's the main reason why I think it's important to have those confidants, to

have those coaches, to have those mentors, to have people that speak from the heart

in order to have a context in which we're able to share so much and be able to be

willing to open up, and that's what I essentially said right before we stop the

episode because of having all this great content and being able to say this because

I could as a podcast host, say, "Matt, thanks for sharing this content with me.

Have a nice evening.", but I didn't.

As a matter of fact, the next morning after that interview, Matt messaged me

and said, "this was the most impactful interview that I've ever been on, and

you have changed me.", and as a podcast host, hearing that from one of my guests

that is saying that and making me feel like I'm a million dollars when I know

that we both gave each other 10 million dollars worth of content to help each

other, not only in our lives, but in the things that we will do, my world exploded

in such a positive and good way that I think we often don't realize that we can

use the pillars of excellence that he talks about as being a speaker, the APPLY

method, which you need to book him to know more about what that is, but, it's

all about, I think, fighting the demons that you are feeding and saying, "No.

You are not going to get anything else from me, and it's time to move on."

That is the most strongest, powerful thing you can ever do, and some

people are never ready to do that, and I'm going to tell you, as of this

recording, I struggled with that.

I continue the struggle with that.

My hand is on the door of opportunity, and I told Matt this too, that I'm about

ready to walk through it and I'm really afraid of what that will look like

for me, and I really don't know where that will take me on the other side.

Yes, me as a small business owner in this world, living in Carlisle,

Pennsylvania, also feels that way and I know that for many of us, that

can be quite a struggle, that we have to continuously push ourselves to

realize that we're not those people.

We are not going to be stricken down, pushed aside, making us think that

we're all tough, but we don't need to be an asshole about it, and I love

that his tasteful way of saying it made me think that "Yes, we have to go

back to the center, because we are not the ones that should be dictating."

When we start to dictate, we start to make people feel unsafe.

They don't know how else to talk, and maybe they don't then say anything

because they have silence, and sometimes we have people that go through life

and they're thinking that maybe I should say something, but I'm going

to go through it in a very mean way and I'm going to say it so that it's

really loud so everybody else can hear.

That's verbal violence and we can no longer tolerate this in this world.

If you are one of those people that goes after others online and attacks

others, I want you to stop before you write that next comment, and I

want you to ask yourself a question.

What would that other person feel when you make that comment?

How are you reacting to this?

Is this coming from a position of love, compassion, trust?

Do you really feel that way, or are you really reacting to something

that really isn't true and it doesn't need to be reacted that way?

I'll say this.

This was one of the best interviews yet, and I know for myself, and maybe even for

you, my listeners, we can all take lessons no matter where that you are when it comes

to providing that opportunity for others, but also providing that opportunity for

yourself to stop and think about what we're doing, because when we actually

reflect on that, we can become the best version of ourselves, and that often means

working with people that we might not like, but we can have the respect, knowing

that we can have dignity in working, providing, and creating some of the best

things that we never thought possible, all because we woke up one day because

of someone or something, and said that, "We will not be part of this anymore."

Matt exemplifies the fact that for all of us, even myself, we can definitely

have that conversation as long as we are willing to speak from the heart.

Thanks for listening to part two of episode 26 of Speaking from

the Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Thanks for listening.

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