Chapter VIII: "Uncovering Counter-Advantages To Your Difficulties" with Matt Fore

00:00:02
Welcome, everybody, to another episode of from Adversity to Abundance podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman, and I'm excited today to speak with a friend of mine, Matt, for ice cream with investors, his podcast. Matt, how are you doing today? I am fantastic and so happy to be excited to be here. Awesome.

00:00:24
So, Matt, for our listeners, um, you know, the two listeners who are unfamiliar with you, everybody else knows who you are. Um, but if you could give us a little bit of context as far as who you are today and what you're up to. Yeah. So, um, I guess I'll start with saying that I'm a leader at a Fortune 50 company today and sales organization. Um, and that's really fun.

00:00:45
I get the chance to lead ten people and interact with an organization of about 50 and co lead some of those folks. Um, but on the side, I'm also an Ironman triathlete. So for your listeners that might be unaware of that, that's a 2.4 miles swim, 112 miles bike, 26.2 miles run. Yes. It's all in a single event, all in a single day.

00:01:04
And then also, if that wasn't enough, I also invest in real estate and host the podcast ice cream with investors. Awesome. So the closest I've gotten to an ironman is watching my sister do an Ironman distance triathlon, which we've talked about. Um, we drove there. I went out to lunch, watched a movie, went out to dinner, and then she was still, still doing the event.

00:01:29
So I've basically done the same thing. But, yeah, but no, it's a. I wanted to have you on the show. I mean, because, you know, we've chatted a bunch of times and you were on the good deeds show with Chris and me, and I know you've been through some adversity, uh, just like we all have. Um, and all of our stories are different.

00:01:48
Um, and we're going to get into that. But I know you've kind of rebounded in a lot of ways and gotten to an abundance mindset, and you're always growing and looking at opportunities for growth and you love real estate and investing and small business and podcasts, and we have a lot in common. So I'm excited to get into it. So for the, the listeners out there, can you get into your background a little bit for us? Yeah, sure.

00:02:11
So I'll give you the short and sweet, and you take me wherever you want me to go. But I grew up in a really, really small town in southern west Virginia. Not West Virginia, southern western Virginia. And it's a town of about 10,000 people. I mean, it was a good place to live, as people would know it, if that's the town's slogan.

00:02:29
But also, it was really tough. I mean, it is a town that has been blasted over by globalization. There was a big coal mining community in that area, and as we have continued to find different alternative sources of energy, it has definitely just been left behind in globalization. So I was very fortunate to grow up in that environment and with two parents that absolutely loved me, but it also showed me what the other side of life is like beyond that. I grew up dyslexic, and I am a twin, and my twin brother was valedictorian.

00:02:59
He was valedictorian of his law school at From Adversity to Abundance Podcast. He's been a part of a couple supreme Court cases at this point in his career. So when you grow up dyslexic, and that's who your twin brother is, it also put, like, a little bit of context over how unfortunate I felt being dyslexic. But also, I had a sister that was mentally disabled as well. So I'm sure we'll get into this part of the story.

00:03:20
She tragically passed three and a half years ago now at this point. But I was very fortunate to have a family that loved me and kind of moved over to Knoxville and went to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast after that, and then started at my w two job in Nashville, Tennessee, back in 2009. The rest, they say, is history. Yeah, I don't know if I knew some of that. That's.

00:03:40
That's interesting about. I didn't know that about your brother. Um, what's. Can you give me his contact information? No, I'm joking.

00:03:48
He is smarter and better looking than me, but my mother loves me more, so kind of doesn't win. There we go. So you mentioned your sister, and, you know, it's always touchy on this. On this show. I don't want to, you know, drill into topics that are too difficult.

00:04:05
But you did bring up that topic on our previous show on the good deeds show, and I know that was obviously a situation that was not easy for you. Could you talk about your relationship with your sister and how that went? Yeah, sure. So my sister was eight years older than me, so she was always a constant in my life growing up. She was always in the house.

00:04:31
Um, and I always knew Whitney was different, but I don't really remember the specific. Well, I don't remember how old I was. I remember the specific moment where I. I finally figured it out that Whitney was different than others, and it was due to, um, uh, a slight tension, temper tantrum she threw in toys r us. Um, but my sister was, um, a very memorable part of my life.

00:04:54
And I think when you grow up with somebody that is mentally disabled and who has difficulty with the normal cognitive tasks that you take for granted every day in your life, it puts things in perspective that maybe I should be grateful for the fact that I can wash my own hair, tie my own shoes. I can make the decision to be out in the car and drive myself to go get coffee or something like that. So, yeah, I don't know where you kind of want to take it from there, but, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, you know, and so she was eight years older than you, and then you said she passed away three years ago. I mean, what did.

00:05:31
What did you learn from your relationship with her? Yeah, I remember.

00:05:40
I learned that no Matter how big your difficulties are, there's always a counter advantage to your difficulties. So I'll say that Whitney had the best memory of all time. And I remember taking her to go get Starbucks one time and to get her favorite coffee, which was a grande decaf with three equal packets. And the GPS in my system had me going straight through the light. She's like, we need to turn left.

00:06:02
We need to turn left. And I was like, no, Whitney. The GPS says we need to go straight. But since we were at a red light, I pulled it up, and she was absolutely right. We need to go left.

00:06:11
So even given my profession in technology sales, it always taught me that humans can be smarter than technology. There you go. Especially if you have a dumb human like myself that can't work technology, but more importantly, that people Matter more than things. Whitney didn't get excited about the glamorous purses or things like that. She got excited when you got excited, when you got excited to see her, when you accomplished something, when she hadn't seen you for the first time in a long time.

00:06:40
And I think that's just some of the lessons that I've. I've taken from her along the way. That's. That's really good. I mean, I did an interview today.

00:06:49
Should be out, you know, I'm guessing a week before this one, but with Fuquan Bilal, and he. That was one of the themes that came out of that episode as well, is that people, he's had ups and downs and financial success and material success, but at the end of the day, it's people and relationships that really Matter. So that's really good. Go ahead. I don't know if it's just because I grew up in a small town, but I mean, I like material things.

00:07:20
More importantly than anything, I like really good food and really good bourbon. Like, I mean, a good bourbon and steak is just a nice thing to enjoy. Um, but I've never really been driven by materialistic things. It's always been about, for me, helping someone get to where they want to go or achieving your own goal that you thought at the outset of that goal was impossible. That's, um, really driven me.

00:07:40
So, um, to his point, the people and the things. People Matter more than things. Definitely. What's your favorite bourbon? Um, so.

00:07:48
Oh, dude, give me, give me a. Good, give me a good bourbon. Just, I mean, well, you can give me one as well. I'll give you my address, but tell me a few good bourbons. Put it that way.

00:07:58
I, um. So part of my sales territory is Kentucky. So I will tell everybody right now that I am bourbon illiterate. If you are in that part of the country, probably very bourbon smart if you're not. Yeah.

00:08:08
Um, and we went to do a bourbon tasting. Okay. Uh, with a customer over the weekend. It's a small place in Newport, Kentucky, called Newberry's coffee company. They're only open on Friday and Saturday nights from six to nine.

00:08:23
And they have 6000 different bottles of bourbon in the place. I mean, and it's the largest bourbon bar in North America. And so through that, we got to taste some very, very rare pappy papi 23, heaven hill 27. Some of the top end bourbons. But if you had to ask my like, staple go to angels envy rye, if I can find it, is probably my favorite.

00:08:43
Okay, nice. Awesome. That's a high rye bourbon or that's a rye. It's a rye. Okay.

00:08:49
Yeah. All right. Just making sure. We did the Kentucky bourbon, uh, trail, uh, a few years ago for my sister's birthday. That was really fun.

00:08:57
Um, and I've learned a little, little bit over the, the last five or six years myself. But let's get offline. It's getting expensive though. Yes. Yes, it is.

00:09:07
Why? You don't want to take the whole time to talk about bourbon? I mean, we could, but my knowledge is limited. I might be out of set talking points in the next two to three minutes. Got it.

00:09:18
So we talked about your sister and that's, I mean, I can't totally relate to that. It's just what you must have gone through over the years and then with her passing. But it sounds like, you're living your best life to honor her and live with those takeaways of people being more important than things. What are some other examples of adversity that you've dealt with? Yeah, there's two.

00:09:44
As we were chatting before this that I kind of wrote down that we can chat through is one, I grew up dyslexic, and really dyslexic, I feel like is a catch all term for you've got an eight year old that doesn't really like, doesn't really like schooling. But as I started to scale, I really feel like that was a challenge for me because I remember when I was in 11th grade, I was reading at a 6th grade level. And so, um, not in this screenshot right here, but in future screenshots that people have seen me on YouTube, you can see I have stacks of books out there. And the reason why is because every time I read a book, I never throw it away. Growing up, dyslexic was a very big obstacle for me when I was growing up.

00:10:27
But my mom used to always tell me about all these famous people that were dyslexic, specifically Henry Ford. Um, and so I just use that as, you can take that as an obstacle and be pushed down because of it, or you can take that and use it for your advantage. And how I kind of had used it for my advantage is I became decently good with technology. I kind of understand technology better than probably most, and really just trying to interact with people. I was always outgoing.

00:10:52
I was always the athletic kid growing up and things like that. And while I still am not great with people all the time, do have a limited patience, but use that for your advantage. So, um, there's that, and then we can talk about the commission check story if you want to as well. But those are the two ones that came to mind. So how do you use the dyslexic thing to your advantage?

00:11:13
You just. Can you drill down on that a little bit more? Yeah, I think it's because when I was a kid, I wasn't, I didn't really care about books and magazines and things like that. I used that time more to be outside and athletic and engaging with other kids. Got it.

00:11:29
And so because of that, I always felt like I had a more outgoing personality than most. Um, and I got really good. Not today, but really good at, like, public speaking. And so I've used those skills. It's funny how when you, when you do something as a kid and you kind of find interest in it and you never know where that's going to take you, how you end up using that skill when you're a future.

00:11:49
Um, so, public speaking, I was a bunch of. Part of a bunch of theater, a bunch of, um, uh, public debate and teams like that growing up, and. And that's essentially what I do today, is I go around and publicly speak, uh, for sales motivation, teams and things like that, but also to customers and on a podcast. So, yeah, I was going to say your podcast. Yeah.

00:12:07
I feel like the word dyslexic gets thrown around. Like, it's, you know. You know, a lot of people say they. They have that condition, but probably not. Yeah.

00:12:17
So, um. Yeah, I can't. I get. That's definitely a real challenge, but it sounds like you just basically didn't. Just to simplify it.

00:12:25
I mean, it's at the risk of glossing over real adversity, but it sounds like you just didn't focus on that as a. You focused on your other strengths and, you know, catered your activity toward those strengths that you had and developed those. And now you're in sales and run your own podcast. Yeah. I like to think of strengths and weaknesses in a couple different buckets.

00:12:48
Strengths are the things that you're naturally good at. Weaknesses come into two different buckets. They're the weaknesses in that you're naturally bad at, and it doesn't make sense for you to ever spend time getting better at it. And then there's weaknesses where you're naturally bad at. But if you spend some time evolving, you can become decent at it, or at least serviceable.

00:13:07
So, for me, for instance, I'm not a drawer. I'm. I'm. I'm colorblind. I'm a terrible.

00:13:12
Me, too. I'm colorblind. Yeah, there you go. So, I'm terrible at art. I was never going to be an artist and things like that.

00:13:18
Even if I spent countless hours going down that path of trying to be good at that, I would ended up like Rudy. I would have had one play where I did something great, but then ultimately had this skillset that wouldn't have serviced me for what my career ended up being. Um, where reading, I feel like, is something where I. I'm still a very slow reader. I mean, it takes me a very long time to get through a book or a PDF or something like that, and that's maybe why I listen to a ton of podcasts and videos versus reading.

00:13:44
Um, and there's some advantages and disadvantages there, but it. It made sense for me at the age of 21, 22 is when I really started becoming a reader to get good at that skill, because that is something that helps me mentally process critical think. And everything is done in, in written form. So if you don't know how to read or can't quickly analysis, analyze something based off of written form, then it. Yeah, you're going to be stuck behind.

00:14:09
That's really interesting. I actually have. I don't think I've heard that before. As far as. Cause know, I do actually run into that myself.

00:14:16
As far as, you know, Tim Ferriss and the four hour work week. It's like, don't. And I don't actually think I read the book to be fair to Tim, when he listens to this. Sorry, Tim. But you know, it's like, do you.

00:14:31
I think that the general theme is that you shouldn't focus. You shouldn't focus on getting better. You know, just focus on your strengths and only focus on what you enjoy doing, what you're good at. But I've always struggled with that because, you know, why not improve on some of your weaknesses? That's, that's really interesting that you, you divide the weaknesses into two different buckets and decide which ones you're going to focus on as far as improving and which ones you're going to.

00:14:58
Hey, just let go. It's okay. Yep. Yep. There's, there's things that you need to outsource and there's things you at least need to understand at a high level or have some kind of competency in if it's a weakness.

00:15:09
Now to the other one that you mentioned on our good deeds show, I think early on in that episode, your commission check. Let's talk about that. Yeah. So I want to clarify before I tell the story that this is not the company I work for today. So quick disclaimer, if you find me on LinkedIn, this is not the company I work for today, but I worked at a previous technology company where we were a part of a huge net new acquisition account.

00:15:33
And it was a $10 million deal. And I did some quick math because being dyslexic, I'm a little bit better with numbers than I am with, uh, with words. I did the math and my eyes started lighting up on the commission check I was about to receive. And how I got into investing was, I was like, man, that's life changing money. I can't have that sitting in a checking account somewhere.

00:15:52
Um, because if I do, then I'll just end up spending it. So I went down the path of figuring out, like, what investments I could do. And I looked at whole life insurance policies, I looked at, um, annuities, I looked at stocks, and I ultimately landed on real estate. But then I got that faithful call the week of Christmas from my vp that said, you werent going to get this commission check. Instead I was going to get paid two cent on the dollar.

00:16:14
And ive never publicly said the number, but it is a life changing amount of money. And so I asked at the time, I was like, well, wait a minute, what happened here? And they said, Matt, how much money have you made this year? And I told him and he said, well, isnt that enough? And it was at that point that I realized if I wanted to achieve the goals that I wanted to achieve, if I wanted to give back abundantly to the causes that I care about, if I wanted to go pursue the activities that give me passion in life and things like that, then I was going to have to find a supplementary income that would at least offset this kind of incidents ever happened to me again.

00:16:49
That is. Yeah. And Matt shared with me the number, so I'll put in the show notes. No, I'm kidding. But that is, yeah, I mean, that's so.

00:17:01
And how long were you expecting that? Like, how was it six months that you were looking forward to that commission check? Oh, yeah, yeah, at least six months. Because we get paid on shipping and all that kind of stuff. So we had booked the deal, it had to ship.

00:17:13
And then I knew it was going to go through some kind of exception policy because every big corporation says basically at any time they can change how much you get paid, change your quota, change your territories, all that kind of stuff. So I knew there was going to be an exception process on that. I just didn't expect the $0.02 on the dollar commission to check that in. And the fact that your boss, right, said that to you, that's nuts. I mean, it's just clearly saying we don't care about you as a human.

00:17:42
So you're not saying they did anything illegal per se, but I'll put words in your mouth. Probably unethical, immoral, definitely not. It's not model behavior, in my opinion. That's my opinion. And look, we were chatting before where I grew up.

00:18:02
Even the amount of money that I was paid and commissioned was disappointing, but it was still a good deal of money and I'm not upset with them. They made a decision that that money was worth more than my contribution. And I think that's okay. That was their business decision at the end of the day, I drained them for resources, networks, people, skill sets. I took a bunch of trainings on their dime afterwards and things like that.

00:18:28
So I think pain, when viewed in the right light, can be a motivator, and you should look at the things that you can balance out in the situation. And maybe that's the theme of this. This podcast is when you have some kind of a issue that happens to you, look at some others form that you can at least salvage it and get some goodness out of it. Yeah. So the reason you were getting into looking at alternative investments like real estate was you were going to get a good chunk of change, we'll say, but that didn't happen.

00:18:58
So then did you immediately say, well, I don't need to do anything in real estate, or how did you move forward mentally and with action? Yeah, that train was far past after I decided to get the news. So I was already looking at properties. I had done a bunch of podcasts and a bunch of reading and figuring out what I wanted to do. So I actually, four months after that instance, made my first down payment on a real estate property.

00:19:24
And the down payment on that was, it was a $210,000 home, so it was $42,000. I think I only put 20, not 25% down. And I remember during that time, a lot of folks saying, like, weren't you worried? Aren't you worried about 2008? Aren't you worried about losing it all?

00:19:39
What if the tenant calls you in the middle of the night? All that sort of stuff? And as I've joked about in the past, $42,000 is about the cost of an MBA at a public school these days. So I figured, hey, if I lost all that money, which I don't think you'll ever, real estate will never go to zero. So I didn't think I was going to lose all of that money.

00:19:59
But I think when I thought about it in that lens, it's like, okay, well, I will learn a lot more about how to buy a property, how to evaluate a property, how to run a property, how to manage it, all the different things that go into it, and that is at least as good worthy as an MBA. Sure. So then, as you were. So that was four months after the basically non existent commission check. How were you viewing that non existent commission check at that point and going forward?

00:20:29
Yeah, I'm still a little upset. To say that I'm not bitter about it would be a lie. I wish I was a big enough person that said I forgive and forgot, but I'm not. I definitely thought about how many multiple properties I could have bought with that same commission check. In fact, what was upsetting about the situation is different people on the deal got paid different amounts.

00:20:51
So while I got paid two cent on the dollar, somebody got fully paid and another person got $0.50 on the dollar kind of thing. And I know that that person ended up going out there and buying two different apartment complexes with that money. So I've definitely thought about that in the past. But hey, ultimately one of the books I remember reading when I was a kid in 7th grade was how to invest in the stock market book. And I remember finishing the book.

00:21:14
It was the only book I ever read in middle school, might have been the only book I read until I got to college kind of thing. And I found that very interesting. So it was very, its kind of interesting to look back at your life and say, hey, this interest that I had as a kid investing, now that im an adult and can go do some of this stuff, how it scratches an itch and how im actually more interested in that. So I view it as a positive that it led me down this rabbit hole that I'm currently on. Yeah, no, that's awesome.

00:21:43
And then how did your real estate investing progress? If you could give us the short version to where you got where you are today, that would be great. Yeah. I'm not sure when this will air, but today I'm invested in 550 units across the southeast and part of your real estate note fund and part of a couple of different fix and flip funds as well. So I lend out private capital to folks that want to go out there and fix and flip and then hypothecation of a note.

00:22:09
So what I found interesting about the real estate space is when I first got into it, I thought it was buy and hold a property or buy it and then fix it up and flip it. I had no idea that it was so much more than that. And I mean, we are talking about a multi trillion dollar industry in the United States alone. And there's so many different facets of getting involved in it that I think that's what I love about it. It's not a cookie cutter approach.

00:22:33
You can be as creative as you want to be and there's so many sub niches within the niche itself. Yeah. And I, and I love that you can do, you know, someone like you, you're not a full time real estate investor. You do well at your w two job and you enjoy that job and, but you're able to do it passively, or at least as a side, you know, side hustle kind of thing. I say that almost every podcast episode that I'm on is that I just love that it's not a one size fits all, you can fit real estate, investing, node investing, or even just small business in general.

00:23:09
You can fit it into your lifestyle, and there's so many ways to approach it. And what you're doing right now is it's going to look drastically different in ten years for both of us. So I love that part of it as well. Robert, 100%. And one of the things, to your point about investing passively and things like that is I think once you figure out the money problem in your life, you can start living intentionally.

00:23:32
And what I mean by that is by the age of 31, I was quote unquote financially free, which just as a simple definition, meant that I could pay for my bills and eat ramen noodles and never take a vacation for the rest of my life. That's not personally the life I choose to live. But certainly at the age of 31, solving the money problem helped me be more intentionally with the things that I wanted to do. For instance, started taking money out of my paycheck to make sure that the organization that took care of my sister was receiving some of my benefits that I got throughout my life from having her in it, for instance, being more intentional, like having podcasts and getting to have interesting conversations with interesting people and grow my network, I wouldn't have been able to do that. But also, I think it's like showing up intentionally for your spouse, your kids, and at work.

00:24:17
I mean, I think all of us have been put in a situation where we felt a little compromised at a work situation. How do you react when that, in that situation, when you know you have to have that to have the money coming in to survive, versus how would you react to that, knowing that if the decision you made left you without a job, you would at least be financially safe to have a roof over your head and food on the table. And I tell the story all the time. In 2020, in March of 2020, when my equity portfolio was down 45% and I was watching folks that I had known for years get laid off both inside and outside of organizations that I was a part of, I wouldn't say I wasn't nervous, but at the end of the day, I was able to sleep at night because I knew that my home, I had enough money coming in from my investments to have a home over my head and food on the table. Yeah, that's great.

00:25:09
About how much time do you spend per week on your investment stuff? Not your podcast, but your investments? Less than an hour. That's awesome. Yeah.

00:25:18
I mean, it is. Not a ton at all. That's awesome. Hardest part is doing the books. Yeah.

00:25:23
Oh, I'm staring at folders of books right now that I, my bookkeeping. Yeah. Yeah. It's not my favorite thing, but if you're making money, it can be a little more exciting at least. Yeah.

00:25:38
All right, well, as we start to wrap up here, are there any other instances of adversity you wanted to talk about? We could go into a whole, a whole bunch of them around Iron man, and we were joking before the podcast. And let me just phrase that I think everybody's adversity is different. Right? For sure.

00:25:57
To some of your guests on the show, I haven't had any adversity, and I'll be the first person to say that. I mean, the fact that I was born in America meant that I had the odds stacked in my favor. So I just want to phrase that. But because of that, I got really interested in Iron Man's because I wanted to find a way to proactively find my limits and test myself and to push myself out there. And I like to tell people, when I tell them Ironman, they're like, oh, my gosh, I could never do that.

00:26:24
How long have you been doing that? What's your time? All that kind of stuff. And I'm like, look, the longer I do this and the faster I get. It doesn't get easier, you just get faster.

00:26:32
And, I mean, I've been on several rides of 100 miles where I feel like I am in tip top state shape and the best shape of my life. And then you get towards the end of that ride and you're like, man, this stinks and I've got nothing left in the gas. I would encourage everyone out there to find little parts of their life that they can disrupt to make themselves mentally sharp and agile for those situations. And if you don't know one, I'll give you one right now. Try brushing your teeth with your left hand or your non dominant hand.

00:26:59
Try switching the mouse over your non dominant hand. Try standing on 1ft and brushing your teeth. Like those little actions seem small. And in the grand scheme of the adversity of the guests that you have on your show are small, but there are situations and things that you can do that will better set yourself up to be resilient in those times of adversity when you have them. Yeah.

00:27:19
That's really good. Yeah. I mean, the truth is, like, with the show, this is, I think, my fifth episode, and what I'm finding is, whether intentionally or not, I'm looking around, kind of measuring people's adversity and then measuring their abundance, you know, how much hardship has Matt for gone through? Does he meet the threshold of being on my podcast? And is he living in an abundant life enough to be on my podcast, you know, and.

00:27:45
But it's, at the end of the day, it's like, like you said, we all. We all go through adversity, and that's kind of the point of the show, is everyone is. Is guaranteed to go through hardship, and everyone's story is going to be different. So, yes, we will compare. It's human nature and, you know, it's.

00:28:04
We all have relative thinking. We think in a relative way, but there's. But just because you haven't been shot five times, like Fuquan Bilal, that doesn't mean you haven't been through hardship. Yep. So, yeah, I mean, that's.

00:28:20
I love the. I don't love that you had to go through hardship, but I love how you've reacted to it and handled it. And you do have a growth mindset. Every time we interact, it's always, like, a positive and inspiring interaction for me. So I appreciate that.

00:28:37
I'm just going to fire off a few quick questions for you, and we'll see what. See where it goes, and then we'll wrap it up. Sounds good. If you could have coffee now, this is like your ice cream question. I think.

00:28:49
If you could have coffee with any historical figure, who would you choose?

00:28:56
I'm going to give you three Martin Luther King, junior, Nelson Mandela, and Dick Winters from band of brothers. Oh, nice. Okay, awesome. I always wanted to make the joke. When I listened to your show and you say dead or alive, I want to say, I'll choose alive.

00:29:18
I don't think a dead person would be great to have helped you with. You know who. I didn't mention. Let me throw a fourth in there. And since my last name four, I get.

00:29:25
I get this opportunity to do that. Not historical. Still alive. Dave Chappelle. Oh, nice.

00:29:33
Dave Chappelle is wicked, wicked smart. The way he tells stories, the way he sets up a joke. Like, I'm just a student of comedy. I love how people communicate their art form, and I think he's the best in the business by far. Yeah, my wife and I enjoy his netflix, you know, whenever he has a.

00:29:50
Show on there and a man who had everything and out of principle said, I'm not going to do this anymore, and then came back on his own terms to still be at the top, like, that's incredible. That's awesome. All right, if you were given $10 million tomorrow, what would you do with it? Um, make sure my parents are taken care of. I think they are at this age in their life, but, uh, you never know what could happen.

00:30:13
Uh, and then I'm boring. I would probably invest it and then continue to work and do the things that I do. Um, I would make sure that I invested it so where my basic needs were taken care of, but I would still work. All right, then I'm not going to give you 10 million. Up that to 100 million.

00:30:29
Now we're talking. You have a different story? Yeah. All right. What's a book you would recommend for my audience?

00:30:34
You already mentioned one, but any others that come to mind? I have a ton, but I'll recommend the one that's always sitting at my desk. It's the last lecture by Randy Posh. And if you don't know the story, I'm going to just give a high level summary. When you're in academia and you retire, you give the last lecture, you give the things that you learned, you tell funny stories.

00:30:54
And remember that time Jamie went to the women's bathroom instead of men's because he was so drunk? Like, just stuff like that, right? Randy Posh is giving his last lecture, and he is 35 years old, and the reason why he's giving is because he has pancreatic cancer and he's going to die in eight months. And he starts out that story, and then he goes through and he's like, and you shouldn't be sad for me because everything I wanted to do in my life, I got a chance to achieve. I got to go into space.

00:31:21
I got to be an imagineer in Disney. I got to have a family, all these different things, and it's just got these really random nuggets along the way of, like, talking about things, not people, not things of his son spilling a cup of ice cream in his brand new car that had leather seats and convertible and all this kind of stuff. And he looked up and he saw his son with, like, just the scared look on his face, like he know he did something wrong. He knew he did something wrong, and daddy was going to get mad, so all he did was turn his ice cream up and throw it on the seat as well to show him that it's okay. It's okay.

00:31:55
That we have nice things, but it's okay. Like, you Matter. Your relationships Matters more to me. So I would highly encourage the last lecture. And if you're not a reader, go watch the YouTube video of him actually giving the last lecture.

00:32:06
Cause make you laugh, make you cry and leave you inspired. Well, knowing you, I think you'd be more worried about the ice cream than anything else. That's good, though. I'll have to check that out. What is one question I have not asked that you wish I had?

00:32:27
I really like Tim Ferriss's. If you could put anything on a billboard, what would you put? Or the best pit of advice people received? Because I don't know. I just always find it interesting what people say when they have that question.

00:32:41
What would you put on a billboard? I knew you were going to say that, so I almost stopped myself saying, maybe I shouldn't do this. Or best piece of advice, pick one. Or any. It doesn't have to be the best, but just another piece of advice.

00:32:53
You've already given a ton. Yeah, you know, I can't just give one, so I'm going to give two. One is empathy will be the skill that separates you in the future. And what I mean by that is when we all become technologically advanced, AI driven world machines are running us more than we're running machines, which I'm an optimistic. I don't think that's a scary thing.

00:33:14
I think there's plenty of examples why empathy will separate you from a skillset, from a career, from a personal standpoint. So I encourage everyone to sit there and think, what is this person saying? But why are they saying it? What's in their history? To make them be where they are and saying nothing.

00:33:31
And the second thing is the best piece of advice I've ever received in my career, which is meet people where they are. And I think what that means is physically, emotionally, intelligently, whatever it is, if somebody is at a different place than you are when you're trying to communicate with them, don't shout at them, don't tell them they're wrong. Try to meet them where they are and then bring them wherever you're trying to bring them. So I guess, Emily. Yes, I am listening to both of these pieces of advice.

00:34:02
I know how to spell empathy, so that's the start. That's better than me because I'd have to click it or throw it in the Google. Gosh, that's good. Those go hand in hand, I think. Very well.

00:34:16
All right, Sir Matt, this has been great. Where can our listeners reach out to. So you can go check me out at icecream with investors. I'm on all your favorite podcast apps, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, Apple. You can also find me on LinkedIn.

00:34:33
I am Matt four, based in Nashville, Tennessee. You'll see my ugly mug up there and then also check out the website. We're still building it out right now, but icecreamwithinvestors.com dot, that's a really look. There aren't that many podcasts that I listen to. I listen to a lot of podcasts, but I skip episodes.

00:34:53
I'm human, right. But I do listen to yours regularly, so there must be something about it that draws me in. I really, it's lighthearted, but there's a ton of really good information. And you have a lot of different types of different angles of investing, and the human element is definitely there as well. So I really enjoy it and I encourage our listeners to check it out.

00:35:14
So thanks for having. Thanks for coming on, Matt. I appreciate you joining us and spending your time with us today. Absolutely. We'll have to do it again.

00:35:23
Absolutely. For the listeners out there, please go out and give us a rating and review, and we appreciate you spending your most valuable asset with us, your time. Thanks, everyone.