Matt Matros. Battling Demons and Building Post-Exit Dreams
Episode - 18
Matt Matros. Battling Demons and Building Post-Exit Dreams
Matt Matros. After selling his healthy-food chain 10 years ago, Matt battled depression, anxiety, regret, and alcohol addiction. Yet, he didn't stop. He built and sold two more businesses, started a family, traveled the world, and became a highly respected voice in the business world. How did he overcome his struggles? With his signature humor and crystal-clear insight, Matt opens his heart to share with us the mental frameworks that propelled him forward.
What We Discussed:
00:01:24: Welcome
00:01:30: Discussion on Post-Exit Journey
00:03:00: Details on Selling the Business
00:04:49: Struggles with Comparisons and Success
00:05:37: Reflection on Post-Exit Successes and Shortcomings
00:07:25: Regrets and Advises to Other Founders
00:09:09: Loss of Identity Post-Sale
00:10:52: The Impacts of No Longer Being the Owner
00:14:47: The Aftermath of Selling Protean Bar
00:16:02: Changes in Lifestyle Post-Sale
00:17:04: Personal Struggles and Mistakes
00:18:13: Learnings and Reflections on the Journey
00:21:29: Transitioning from professional life
00:23:26: Insights from globe-trotting and psychedelic experience
00:26:11: Confronting and overcoming alcoholism
00:31:03: Balancing work life and personal life
00:33:44: Exploring sense of purpose
00:35:50: Building social networks and audience
00:37:24: Discussion on five love languages
00:39:04: Tools for self-discovery
00:45:33: Fulfillment and personal growth
00:47:47: Lessons from business exits
00:50:50: Motivation for starting businesses
00:53:06: Success in execution
00:54:29: Transitioning to a new venture
00:55:15: Discussion on happiness and money
00:57:10: How Matt wants to be remembered
00:57:27: Final thanks
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Matt Matros: [00:00:00 - 00:00:11]
You don't like your environment? Move. You don't like your job, get better skills to get another job. You don't like your relationship status, leave him or her. We all can still choose that.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:00:11 - 00:00:39]
Matt Matros. After selling his healthy food chain ten years ago, Matt battled depression, anxiety, regret, and alcohol addiction. Yet he didn't stop. He built and sold two more businesses, started a family, traveled the world, and became a highly respected voice in the business world. How did he overcome his struggles?
With his signature humor and crystal clear insight, Matt opens his heart to share with us the mental frameworks that propelled him forward.
Matt Matros: [00:00:41 - 00:01:15]
Most people think therapists tell you what to do. If they do, they're therapists. I got a basket of issues. Let's start with alcoholism. I was unlucky in that my dad died when I was eleven.
Dropped dead. Heart attack, middle of the night. Money is a lubricant to happiness. I'd just done the psychedelic drug. I'd just seen 17 countries done cool experiences.
Business models are very rarely created. They're usually just borrowed or applied or evolved from others. And that's also true of human psychology, which is why we can kind of predict the future, because it rhymes with the past.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:22 - 00:01:23]
Hi, Matt.
Matt Matros: [00:01:23 - 00:01:23]
Good morning.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:23 - 00:01:25]
Nice to see you.
Matt Matros: [00:01:25 - 00:01:30]
Thanks for having me here. I've been told I have a face for radio, and now I know exactly what people are talking about.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:30 - 00:01:53]
You don't. You look wonderful. I'm really excited to talk to you today about your post exit journey, because your first life changing exit was ten years ago, which means you had enough time to process things, and I know you process them quite deeply. You wrote beautiful pieces about your thoughts, and I'm very inspired to dig deeper today into those.
Matt Matros: [00:01:53 - 00:01:58]
I'm happy to. I'm an open book. Is it okay if I occasionally drop a cuss word?
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:59 - 00:02:01]
Absolutely. You do whatever you want.
Matt Matros: [00:02:02 - 00:02:06]
It's visceral to me sometimes. I don't mean to, but sometimes it just comes out.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:02:07 - 00:02:17]
So can I take you back to that moment when you sold your company and you were free to do whatever you wanted? How did it feel?
Matt Matros: [00:02:17 - 00:02:20]
I'm kind of sweating just thinking about it. Sort of PTSD.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:02:20 - 00:02:21]
Good.
Matt Matros: [00:02:21 - 00:03:00]
It was October the first, 2013. I had been working on protein bar, which was a chain of restaurant, or it started as a smoothie shop that I turned into a restaurant, that I turned into a chain of restaurants or fast casual restaurants, opened 25 of them across the country, sold a majority of the business to L Catterton, which is the premier consumer focused private equity firm. So I felt incredibly fortunate that I was able to not only sell my business, but to sell it to a partner that I wanted to continue to grow with. So I sold about 60% of the company. At the time, I owned about half of the business now, which the cap table hasn't changed much.
Matt Matros: [00:03:00 - 00:04:49]
I'm about 15 or 16% of the business. So I personally went from owning about half to owning 16. Everybody in the business sold 60% and it was a $25 million transaction, which in 2013 was a huge number. Now it seems nothing. It's almost like the inflation of venture and PE, but in 2013, 25 million was a pretty large number. A good amount of it went to the balance sheet and a good amount of it went to what's called a secondary offering. So me and our existing 60 or so shareholders took cash out. So I'll never forget, it was October 1, 2013. I went out to a celebratory dinner with my first investor and his girlfriend, and my girlfriend at the time, and we toasted Justin isosceles Cabernet and we toasted to the future. And I was rolling 40% of my equity. So I was staying in control and thought I was essentially given a gas can of kerosene to pour gasoline on the fire to really roll the things out. But unfortunately, things just didn't go as planned for me or for the business, or even really for Caterton, to be frank. And I've had to deal with that ever since. It's my therapy Thursday, which I literally have every other Thursday with my therapist since 2015. But there's a struggle.
And I like to say that I invented imposter syndrome, or I had imposter syndrome before it was cool, before everybody sort of said they did. Because I oftentimes, and by often I mean like every day, look back at that experience as a failure. And the failure is because I didn't take that business protein bar from a to z. I wasn't Bill Gates who started it, started Microsoft in his dorm room at Harvard, took it to what it is today. I'm not Mark Zuckerberg who started Facebook in his dorm room at Harvard, took it to what it is today, or Elon Musk.
Matt Matros: [00:04:49 - 00:05:37]
So it's taken me a while to recognize the fact I'm just not those guys, or those gals like Sarah Bleakley to take it from a to z. And it's been a tough thing to deal with, especially in today's age of celebrating wins. And you only see the wins, you tend not to see the losses, or you tend not to recognize that the wins come after an amalgamation of many losses. So that's sort of what I've been deciding to do within the social media sphere, specifically with the content that I'm putting out, is to kind of try to tell the truth a little bit about what happens, either both for startup founders building businesses, or for folks after they have on the outside from a facade perspective, seems like it's such a life changing exit.
Matt Matros: [00:05:37 - 00:05:57]
And don't get me wrong, it was, and I'm very grateful. It certainly was. It just wasn't what I thought, and it wasn't what I had planned, and it wasn't what on October 1, when I toasted that Justin isosceles Cabernet, which I still miss, I just didn't think it would go as the next ten years went. And that's okay.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:05:57 - 00:05:59]
Did you regret selling your business?
Matt Matros: [00:05:59 - 00:07:01]
I get asked this a lot, and this is part of my, I'm sweating again thinking about it. This is part of the daily therapy that I have to do. Hindsight is easy to say that I regret, right? So it's easy to look back and because things didn't go as planned, you have regret.
But it doesn't mean at the time is what I have to remind myself every day at the time, I made the greatest information or greatest decision with the most amount of information possible. So certainly no regret. In fact, I was on the top of the world, and arguably I kind of sold at the peak. So that's the part that's fortunate for me when I look back in the hindsight of timing and I look back at the hindsight of the cash that I was able personally to take, quote unquote, off the table. So I'm very lucky.
So I don't regret it. I guess my only regret, and this is what I counsel founders on. And in my instance, I was selling a majority of the business. So I always tell founders, if you're going to sell a majority of the business, just sell as much of it as you can, because you're giving up.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:07:01 - 00:07:03]
Rather not be involved at all after you.
Matt Matros: [00:07:03 - 00:07:25]
Less about being involved, but more just knowing that so much of my future economic value was controlled by someone else. Now, sure, I was the CEO of the business, but I didn't control the business. I didn't control the future of it. I couldn't control the capital, I couldn't control the financing, I couldn't control. I basically had a boss, right?
Matt Matros: [00:07:25 - 00:08:02]
So for founders who are contemplating usually some sort of liquidity event, and they're thinking about, oh, is it minority? Is it majority? I typically tell them, don't do what I did, which was sell 60, sell 85%, and you can still roll a bunch, you can still be involved, still be the CEO, but just try to take as much of it out as you can. Obviously, it's easier said than done. And I'm an N of one who, looking back ten years ago, I guess at this point, be ten and a half years ago, what the decisions that were going into it, what I would do different but every founder is different, and it's subject to their circumstances.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:08:02 - 00:08:12]
So the negative feelings you have about selling come from the fact that you compare yourself to people whom you consider, I guess, role models, or you respect them a lot.
Matt Matros: [00:08:12 - 00:09:09]
I think there's a twofold negative feeling that happens. I don't necessarily have a negative feeling about selling per se, because I certainly sold at the peak, and it has been a life changing opportunity for me because I've been able to do other stuff, which perhaps we'll talk about. So it's not about the regret of selling, it's more the two things that sort of happened since. One was, as I mentioned, just sort of, I gave up so much control to other people, and that's not bad that they're the most reputable people you'd want to give up control to. But it wasn't me.
So I had a boss, right? So that was sort of like the first vector of it. And then I guess I would say, and it's sort of hard to talk about this one necessarily. I guess the second one, as it relates to it, is more just sort of around my own identity with the business. Once I sold it, I wasn't that guy anymore.
Matt Matros: [00:09:09 - 00:09:32]
So it was less about the act of selling and more just about sort of the circumstances that have followed since. And because of that identity thing, it's led to my own personal insecurities, it's led to my own personal self worth. It's led to my own personal demons, if you will, relating to it. So it's not that I hate selling, it's just I hate the ten years that have been since. That's my doing.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:09:32 - 00:09:43]
You lost half of your identity. Really? You were CEO and founder, and then you were still the CEO of the company, but not the founder. Founder a bit was more important for you, you found?
Matt Matros: [00:09:43 - 00:10:52]
Great point. Yeah. I always say for a guy like me, founder is always the most important thing, and I'll always be the founder. You'll never take it away. If Protein Bar has 20 units or 2000 or 200,000 units one day, I'll always be the founder. Now, that may be worth nothing except a hug for my son, but from a founder's pride perspective, it's important, even to this day.
The business actually is in a good position now, so it has an opportunity to live on for a very long, long time. I live in New York now. We're opening a location in LaGuardia, so that'll be exceptional for me and my family from a street cred perspective, but less around the identity of me being tied to the brand and more just around me waking up and controlling my own destiny. Right. So that's why entrepreneurship was my calling, and it may be for most founders, is that you wake up and you control the outcome by your actions.
And it's your actions and luck and timing and circumstance. But by and large, they always say, the harder you work, the luckier you get. And then the second I sold, I didn't control those anymore. Yeah, sure, I went to go perform, but it was a job. It wasn't me.
Matt Matros: [00:10:52 - 00:11:02]
That's more kind of what I mean about the identity linking to it. It's sort of a eat what you kill type mentality to now I'm just a soldier for someone else.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:11:03 - 00:11:19]
So once it became a job, you lost control. How did it affect you in any different way? Like, for example, could you still channel your creativity through your business? Or that also changed because you suddenly became an employee rather than the owner.
Matt Matros: [00:11:19 - 00:12:52]
Yeah. So it 100% changed. And again, it's not me versus private equity or me versus anyone else. It was more I had a vision for what I wanted the business to be. My private equity partner had an underwriting plan. Those are different than a vision, right. A vision is ethereal. And I wake up and go to sleep, and I think about this vision, and it's touchy feely. And an underwriting plan is just the backbone or the nuts and bolts of that vision. Those two things are different. So I found that instead of building towards a vision, I was really trying to build towards achieving an underwriting plan, which you're probably thinking to yourself, or maybe the viewers are thinking to themselves, well, it's still a business, right? So you have to follow a plan. Don't get me wrong. I had a plan. But once you have someone else's plan, it's just different. Especially one that has a plan for a specific goal. And in the instance of private equity, there is a specific goal. We're giving you money because people gave us money. Take that money and turn it into three to infinity times more than it was when we gave it to you. Oh, by the way, do that in five to seven years. Yeah. We really want you to do it in two to three years. Everything changes, et cetera. Instead of looking at something in the future, working backwards towards it, you're looking at something in the future and trying to build up to it. And that was a big difference. Yeah. Not right or wrong, just different for me.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:12:53 - 00:12:55]
Did you feel like your dream was taken away from you?
Matt Matros: [00:12:55 - 00:14:02]
Wow. I'd never been asked that in that perspective. I don't think so, necessarily, because I was given a gift of money. Right. So it wasn't free, it was an equal exchange or a fair exchange. So nothing was taken. It was transacted. So, no, I never have really thought about it like that. And interestingly, as I mentioned, I had opened 25 units through COVID and this and that, and the business is at 16 units, with another several on the way. So it's contracted in ten years, but it's also healthy. The business is healthy. Not that it wasn't ten years ago, but it's in a healthy position, and it has an opportunity to continue to thrive. Nothing was taken. No dream was taken. The original vision could still be the plan that the existing management team is running against, which is changing the way people eat on the go. Gosh, I haven't said that in so long. But that was, like, the original mission. Here's the way people eat on the go.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:14:02 - 00:14:03]
Yeah.
Matt Matros: [00:14:03 - 00:14:08]
And it's still there. We're opening airport locations, which is where people are on the go. So it's still there.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:14:08 - 00:14:11]
So how much time do you spend on that business now?
Matt Matros: [00:14:11 - 00:14:47]
Like, 0.1% of my time. There's a great management team. Catterton owns it. Every now and again, the management team will call me with some sort of a question. Usually it's tactical in nature, like, tell me about this landlord that you signed a lease with.
Or I did have a board position. I'm no longer on the board. That was my choosing, but, yeah, zero involvement. And now I don't even live in Chicago, so it's even less involved. I moved to New York, so I'm just not around all the stores.
Matt Matros: [00:14:47 - 00:15:03]
When I'm back in Chicago, I'll be a customer, so I'll walk in, and sometimes people are like, oh, that's Matt. And sometimes people will just think I'm some chavel, but no real involvement. Day to day. I'll be excited when we open in New York, in LaGuardia airport this spring or summer.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:15:03 - 00:15:05]
That's where you live. Now, right? In New York?
Matt Matros: [00:15:05 - 00:15:08]
Yeah. I moved to Brooklyn about a year and a half ago.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:15:08 - 00:15:15]
So how did you sustain motivation after you no longer were an owner, but you had to run the company?
Matt Matros: [00:15:15 - 00:16:02]
I don't know that I did. Yeah. I think in hindsight, I lost some mojo. October 1, 2013, we toasted that Justin Osalis Cabernet, which I'll talk about a lot, but I love that I've since quit drinking, so I very much miss Cabernet. And my whole life changed.
And everything specifically that following year, when I still ran the company. Everything changed after that. So the three biggest changes were, one, I actually had money. As someone who grew up with not really much, and someone who started working as an 18 year old for a sports agency, and someone who went to work at Craft Foods, which was a perfectly fine job, I never really had lots of money. But now, all of a sudden, I did.
Matt Matros: [00:16:02 - 00:17:04]
So I became a millionaire. Right? As proverbially, people would say. So that's thing that happened. Number one, I think that happened number two is I had a boss, right? It wasn't me waking up doing whatever I thought was best for the business. It was me waking up, doing what those guys thought was best for the business. And then third, my own ego that came with the transaction, either because I had money or because I had a big public transaction. I started running a little bit in the wrong crowd.
Crowd of high flying entrepreneurs that are great humans, but just aren't really me. I was dating a very toxic woman who was sort of money and tangible things centric, and that was a bad sort of relationship. So it was like this year of muck that sort of followed between my own bad decisions that came from having money, like buying a freaking condo. I didn't need to. I mean, it's beautiful.
Matt Matros: [00:17:04 - 00:17:37]
And I made money when I sold it, don't get me wrong, but I just didn't need to do it. And running with this girlfriend and running with a crowd of high, fond entrepreneurs, it just wasn't in my nature to do that. I think in hindsight, if I could do things that were more in my nature, in my DNA, I would have. But I was trying to punch above my weight class, trying to do what I thought guys that just had sold their business for millions of dollars did. But it wasn't me.
And that's kind of the big deal.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:17:37 - 00:17:40]
How did you find this road back to yourself?
Matt Matros: [00:17:41 - 00:17:44]
I'm still on it. What are you talking about? How did I find it? I haven't found it yet.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:17:45 - 00:17:48]
It's been ten years, you made some progress.
Matt Matros: [00:17:49 - 00:18:13]
True? Yeah, it's been ten years. But to be frank, only recently, recently within the last several months through therapy, have I started to zoom out on the situation and think of my experience with protein bar, and then my subsequent experience with limitless and selling to Kurt Dr. Pepper, and then my next one of Shopflix executive QVC. Like zoom out.
Matt Matros: [00:18:13 - 00:18:50]
And thinking of it as a small period of time in my life, even more existentially, a small period of time in the history of sort of me and the world and the world and humanity. So just recognizing that these are sort of small blips, and then if you picture a stock chart, right, if you look at the one day stock chart, you see lots of up and downs, but if you zoom out on it in the lifetime, you don't see as much. It tends to smooth out. So that's sort of the approach that I'm trying to take now, especially as I'm 44 and I'm kind of thinking I'm at that middle point of my life. So trying to make the back half as strong as possible.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:18:51 - 00:19:34]
I talked a lot to people who exited their companies like a year two ago. And when I mentioned to them that statistically it takes a decade to get over a life change and exit, they get shocked. Yet every time I talk to someone who exited ten years ago or more, they totally understand what I'm talking about. And my first big exit was 13 years ago, and it was about 10-11 years when I really started feeling okay. Now I'm out of that cycle. Now I've learned my lessons. Now I know what I'm going to do next. But it's not what people expect at all. They think, oh, a few weeks, a few months, and I'm ready. But usually it's not the case.
Matt Matros: [00:19:35 - 00:20:07]
Yeah, and I guess it certainly depends on the level of trauma that folks experience, right? So I would say I had a quote unquote more traumatic experience with buy exit just because I rolled so much equity and it didn't go as planned versus selling it for gobs of money and now just being completely out or whatever the other circumstances are. So I'd be curious if yours had an amount of trauma related to it. I also have deep rooted insecurities. Right?
I guess we all do. But mine are actually.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:20:07 - 00:20:08]
Don't we all? Exactly.
Matt Matros: [00:20:08 - 00:20:46]
Some of the deepest. My dad died when I was eleven, so that creates a lot of abandonment issues and trust issues and superiority and seniority issues that I have. I grew up the fat kid, so the ridicule and bullying that came with that. There's just lots of my own basket of insecurities. But I could see how that ten year point, maybe that's a good point.
So about a year ago is when I left the board of protein bar, where I was just like, what am I doing here? So perhaps that is a good data point in favor of or to support or corroborate your point. About ten years.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:20:46 - 00:20:48]
So what prompted you to start therapy?
Matt Matros: [00:20:49 - 00:21:29]
Gosh. So I sold protein bar, ran it for a year, then got fired. I say I got fired. Catterton jokes, they're like, Matt, we didn't fire you. We just asked you to take some time off and then replaced you. I'm like, potato? So we found someone to replace me at Protein bar and a gentleman who came from Chipotle and then just take a quarter off. So to me, this was in November and our first board meeting, or our next board meeting was in April. So basically I had from November to April off. I didn't really know what I wanted to do.
Matt Matros: [00:21:29 - 00:22:28]
I just knew I needed to leave Chicago. I couldn't be around the stores. I couldn't be the protein bar guy. I called Stanford and said, hey, I want to come do an exec ed program. They're like, great. Yeah, we have six month exec ed programs. They start in January. I'm like, dang, I have from November to April. So then I traveled. I booked around the world pass, which is the single greatest deal in travel, 14 grand all the way around the world, business class. It was remarkable. And left and just did a sort of an eat, pray, love style trip all to myself. Spent a lot of the money that I just made and then came back in April, and protein bar was like, great, we want to have you back in, and we'd love to have you do some of these things. And I was good. I was like, no, I'm good. I want to go do some other stuff in the world. So this is the gift. Part of the gift of selling the business was that I didn't have to go back. I had choice, and I was able to choose to do other things.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:22:28 - 00:22:33]
What, that globe trotting experience give you?
Matt Matros: [00:22:33 - 00:23:25]
Separation. I also experienced psychedelic drugs for the first time. I took a drug called ibogaine, which was, psychedelics are in vogue now, which is, I think is great. And I think everyone should experience psychedelics, particularly if they've had something, a traumatic experience. They're sort of mind expanding. So I used this drug. Ibogaine in Mexico where it was legal and it allowed me to sort of come back and realize that all the anxieties that we have in our life, we create them ourselves in our own head. So if something causes you anxiety, and as I'm saying this, I'm trying to remind myself of this every day, if something is causing you anxiety, just get it out of your life in some form or another. Whether it's a bad human that's in your life or it's a bad behavior, just change it. And we all have the power to control those behaviors. And that's how I've been living ever since.
Matt Matros: [00:23:26 - 00:25:56]
Some days great, some days lots are great, but by and large, most days, great. So when I came back from the globe trotting experience, I was riding high. Everything was great. I'd just done the psychedelic drug. I'd just seen 17 countries, done cool experiences, Israel, Africa, Bali, and can keep going. So things were good, and I wanted to keep them good. I also wanted to try to develop better behaviors. So one of my best friends in the world, gentleman named Pete Caden, said that he was working with a wonderful therapist and that he really trusted. Unfortunately, he couldn't see her anymore because of his life circumstances geographically. So I said, great. Sounds like a great recommendation. And we hit it off. And fortunately, she made room in her life for me, Dr. Neera. And she's wonderful. So it's been every other Thursday since, gosh, April of 2015. It works out to about ten sessions a year, or, no, about 20 sessions a year, because there's some days or some weeks I can't see her. For example, this week I couldn't see her. But the best part about therapy is, and this is also contrarian to what most people think. Most people think therapists tell you what to do. If they do, they're shitty therapists, right? The beauty of therapy should be hearing yourself say things, all these things that have been bunched up in your head, actually putting them out into the universe and then listening to how those sounds and then realizing, like, wait a second, that's either incongruous with what I want to do, or it sounds a little bizarre. And then having that sort of hit home, and then this therapist just holding you accountable to those things and just reminding you that two weeks ago, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, you said this thing. How's that working out for you? And that's the role that Dr. Neera has played for me. And that's what I encourage folks to find. And I do think that if someone's going through therapy and they're not having transformational experiences with it. Just try something new. It's okay. You shouldn't bunch all therapists into one bucket. Some are better than others, just as some pair of genes fit better than other pairs of jeans. So try. But ultimately speaking, and I've seen this with people close to me, you have to want to have that level of help. You have to want to have that level of support. And if you don't, you're just going to phone it in and you may end up getting nothing out of it.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:25:57 - 00:26:07]
Is there a particular example you could give me of an issue you worked through with your therapist? And it was like a really important, life changing.
Matt Matros: [00:26:11 - 00:31:03]
I got a basket of issues. But let's start with alcoholism. I never really thought of myself as an alcoholic. Right now I'm in my 40s, but I was in my early 30s, single, urban, had money. So my alcohol consumption sort of centered around social life, right?
I'm a dude hanging out with my buddies, watching games, going to bars, trying to meet women. You do. And we were having fun, and we were really good at having fun, whether me and my crew, we were just really good at having fun. So what that meant was very high volume of alcohol consumption, mostly centered in the weekends, right? I was a high performing post MBA brand marketer at, you know, so I could really only consume alcohol during the weekends. And then I moved on to be an entrepreneur, and then I was kind of making my own schedule, so consuming alcohol sort of whenever I wanted. But I was also single, so I was dating a lot. And the cornerstone of early courtship tends to be alcohol, unfortunately. And then in 2006, I had viral meningitis and it turned into shingles. And it was a very rare thing for someone at my age.
I was, gosh, I was 25 or 26 to get. And I never forget, I'm sitting in this hospital in north Shore Chicago, and these doctors come in and they're all trying to figure out how did this 25 year old healthy triathlete guy get shingles and viral meningitis. It seems so unusual. And all they could really come up with in the course of asking and interviewing me was my alcohol consumption. So they'd ask me the questions like, do you drink?
Do you smoke? I'm, oh, no, I don't smoke. Do you drink? Sure. How much you drink?
Ten to 15 cocktails. Every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and some days during the week. And they're like, oh, in total? No, each night, each rate. This is a high volume of consumption.
Long story short, because I could probably go on forever. I always knew that I had a problem with it. And every time a primary care physician or every time a therapist or every time a doctor would say, hey, maybe you should look into this, I would always go, do those quizzes, am I an alcoholic? And they'd have ten questions, and there'd be maybe two or three of them that I would get wrong or right, depending on your perspective. So it was like, oh, I'm not an alcoholic. I didn't get ten out of ten because there's these two or three, and usually the two or three that I didn't answer were, do you wake up first thing in the morning needing alcohol? No, that was never me. I never woke up, like, needing it. And the second one is, do you need alcohol throughout the day to sort of maintain a normal lifestyle? It's like, oh, no.
So because of those two questions and maybe a third one, I was like, oh, I'm not an alcoholic. So I denied this for years. Denied it for years. And I'd always go see Nero, and I'd always talk to her about it, and she'd always say, I knew I needed to make a change. But this was many years. I knew I needed to make a change. And it wasn't a topic in our therapy every other week, maybe once every couple of weeks, or usually maybe related to a story I was telling. Then, as I was aging, I was starting to consume it more frequently. Six, seven nights a week, and pretty high amount. I was starting to behave not like myself. And she always had this book behind her shelf. In fact, sometimes I keep it here because it really changed my. It was called under the influence. And finally, after about two and a half years of seeing her, I asked her about this book near, what's this book? Under the influence.
And she says, here, you want money, you read it. So I read this book, and this book made me realize that brains can perform well on alcohol, but at some point, it crashes, and at some point, there's a precipitous decline, which is usually marked by some sort of tragedy, right? You get a dui, you hit someone, God forbid you kill yourself or you harm yourself or harm others. And I was just nervous I was coming to that. So because of her support and her not pushing, not nudging, and being there, I was able to commit to quit drinking in October of 2016. And she's been my copilot, I guess, for that now. The interesting thing is, yes, I've quit drinking, and it's been a wonderful success, at least for me. Personally, it's a very difficult thing to do. Folks that suffer from addiction are diseased and it's hard for us. I think about California cabernet every day, but I do know that that was a pretty remarkable win for me.
So I always reflect back on that and I always say, well, if I could do that, I can do this, definitely. So that's an example of one where it was a pretty big breakthrough and I've now used that as a way to apply to other things. Whether it's changing my sleep habits. Well, I know if I can quit drinking, changing my sugar consumption, changing my caffeine intake, I know if I can quit drinking, I can do this.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:31:03 - 00:31:21]
Amazing. That's such a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing. So, talking about your dating and personal life, how do you think your whole post exit experience changed the way you look at that side of your life?
Matt Matros: [00:31:21 - 00:33:30]
I'm lucky, right? I see folks who start businesses who have family or children, and I don't envy them for that. I'm starting two businesses right now and it's hard with the balance. Fortunately, it's offset by not being eating ramen like I was when I started my first company. So having a family in this stage of my life, it just puts things a little bit in perspective. Now I'm lucky, right? I have a little bit of money in the bank and not a lot, right? I still need to do stuff. Like, it's like I'm retired, I still need to do work, but because I have that situation, I'm able to separate the two, business and personal. I also, though, do always like having entrepreneurship as a way to model hard work for my son. He's three years old, but I want to show him what entrepreneurship is. I just so happen to block twelve to two on my calendar every day so I can have lunch with him when I'm home and I try to be there at his nighttime. But I also want to model hard work for him. So Saturdays and Sundays and trips that I'm taking help do that. So I guess, again, the pro is that I have a family that helps me think differently and help me put different perspective on things. The con is that I recognize not everybody is in this position to be able to balance. I'm pretty lucky. The other part of it too, that I've always said is all of my businesses are consumer businesses. Well, now I have two that are b to b. But it's like we're not saving lives, we're not a doctor, right? Like nothing is that urgent. I'm making burritos or selling limitless sparkling water or selling lipstick on my video shopping startup, nothing is that life changing or that you either have to be a jerk or that you have to prioritize things differently. It's consumer. So I'm pretty lucky in that by contrast to maybe friends who are in cybersecurity or defense or health tech.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:33:30 - 00:33:31]
Do you have a sense of purpose?
Matt Matros: [00:33:31 - 00:33:43]
This is something that I'm starting to work on right now, more so around that ikigai concept, if you're familiar with Ikigai. So four concentric circles. What are you good at? What can you get paid for? What do you enjoy?
Matt Matros: [00:33:44 - 00:35:50]
And then what does the world need? All four of those sort of mashing together and then finding that central purpose for me. My purpose exclusively is to support my child and my wife so that they can live their greatest dreams. Now, second to that, to help support that is this ikigai concept, which for me I've really started to learn and it's evolving. But I really feel like what I'm really good at, what the world needs, what I could get paid for, and what I enjoy is supporting other really good founders, other really good operators to help them be better versions of themselves. Almost like their copilot, using my 15 years of mistakes as rubric, but also reminding them that they collectively, for the operators or founders, are pretty awesome too, right? And that it is hard and that you are going to have psychological issues. You are going to have mental health issues. So learn from me. And if alcoholism is an issue, learn for me. Or if balance is an issue, learn for me ways to make them be better versions of themselves. So right now my purpose is really my son, making him happy and healthy like every parent would say. And then secondarily to that is finding and supporting entrepreneurs that have growth mindset. Third to that is, I recognize I was very fortunate just by the zip code I was born into and the color I was born into. Being a white male born know Los Angeles, California gave me inherent advantages. And I also recognized there was a number of invisible hands along the way that helped me. Whether it's Mrs. Jones, my kindergarten teacher, or all the PTA, or all the little league coaches, or Michael Bailey, my science teacher in 6th grade. The circumstances that I encountered along the way that got me to where I am. I'm trying to be that invisible hand for as many people as possible, especially for those who don't typically have access to opportunity for whatever reason, either because of the zip code or their economic situation, or because of the color of their skin.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:35:50 - 00:35:53]
So you're sharing your experience on social networks.
Matt Matros: [00:35:53 - 00:36:42]
That's where it starts. Yeah, that's really where it starts. And if people want to listen to it, great. If they don't, that's fine too. I never really thought of myself as someone who'd be a content creator. In fact, it still sounds a little weird. So I don't necessarily think of myself that way. I'm in a group of other men and women who are trying to build their audience. And I guess one thing that's different for me is while yes, of course I want to build my audience, I don't think about it as much. I don't really follow some of those content creator rules that you want to follow. Sure, I try to make the best stuff possible, but I try to do one post a day, and sometimes they're stinkers and sometimes they're great. So for me, it's really just about delivering the truth based on my experiences. And if people care about it, great. And if they don't, that's fine too. So it's almost purely selfish. I hate to say it. It's like my own catharsis.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:36:45 - 00:36:57]
Isn't it perfect, talking about icky guy, that it works for you, but it works for other people as well. That's great. That ticks the boxes. I follow you. I think lots of people follow you.
So it's working. You're doing the right thing.
Matt Matros: [00:36:58 - 00:37:24]
It's been rewarding. It's something that I didn't expect is how many people out of the blue are sending me notes just in appreciation. So if you know the five love languages, I'm like, definitely a words of affirmation kind of guy, right? So when send me messages or if I run into them at the gym or whatever, or see them at trade shows and like, oh, I love where you're. I'm like, thanks, I appreciate that. It's affirming, right. For me.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:37:24 - 00:37:29]
Do you want to talk about five love languages and how it affected your life?
Matt Matros: [00:37:29 - 00:37:49]
I am a believer in the five love languages. Whether or not folks think it's hokey, I think it can be applied to all parts of human psychology and all relationships because it is so deeply psychological. I don't necessarily have them all recited off the top of my head, so if I tried, perhaps I would butcher it. But maybe let me try.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:37:50 - 00:37:56]
I'm just curious how it helped you, if you have specific examples or why you believe in it.
Matt Matros: [00:37:56 - 00:38:57]
Where the five love languages has helped me, both personally and professionally is just knowing what I need and what I don't need, right? And then finding folks that supply what I need. Here's a good example. Communication. I'm such a communication person.
Now, I know this doesn't necessarily relate to love languages, although maybe it does, because words of affirmation is my love language, and communication is you need to communicate words of affirmation. So I've just found that if I don't click with someone purely on a communication perspective, it doesn't matter how smart they are, it doesn't matter what their vision is. And by the way, I'm not saying I'm better or worse. I'm just saying we don't have a rapport. Then it becomes almost a non starter. Whatever that relationship happens to be, whether it's an employee, employer, or whether it's a partner, a vendor, or someone I want to do business with, if I don't have a communication that jives with them, it's game over. So that's a big deal for me. So that's actually a perfect example of how five love languages has been a framework that I've used in other parts of my world.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:38:57 - 00:39:04]
Are there any other tools that you discovered that were very helpful in your self discovery journey?
Matt Matros: [00:39:04 - 00:40:57]
So the tools that I sort of use are, we mentioned therapy. We mentioned psychedelics, which, again, I don't take psychedelics all the time. It's only been twice, twice in my 44 years and two times within the last eight years. So it's not like it's that frequent. Those are tools that I use. I'm a pretty low need kind of guy. Like, I have my seven to eight really deep close relationships, of which two or three are exceptionally close. And I think the thing that I need out of those folks is that they know me almost better than I know me, and they call me out on my stuff, especially if they think I'm putting up a facade. So that's really tool number one. Or the next tool is people that will call me out on my stuff. My wife is that for me. Now, this is by contrast to my mother, who thinks everything I do is perfect, right? I could do no wrong for my mom. So it's tough to talk to my mom about certain things because she thinks that I am the best. I am perfect, right?
So I can't tell her a situation about work because she'll immediately poo poo, whoever that is, or I am the best. But having people in my life to support me. Goal setting, small or big, daily goals, weekly goals, yearly goals. I grew up always having goal setting unfortunately, it was to my detriment, because for the first 25 years of my life, I had singular goals. First it was, I want to go to USC, then I got to USC. Then it was, I want to be a sports agent. Then I became a sports agent. So then I got it, I was like, what's next? Then I want to go to business school, then I want to get a job in consumer marketing, then I want to start a business, and so on. So those are really my tools.
I really wish I read more. I'm not a reader.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:40:59 - 00:41:09]
That's great. You don't need many. I just wonder what, through actual experience, you found helpful. So somebody in my audience may say, oh, I'll try that, maybe it will help me.
Matt Matros: [00:41:09 - 00:42:33]
I like thinking in terms of frameworks too, whether they're frameworks I make up or they're frameworks that other people use. And I know LinkedIn and social media is great right now for the dissemination of frameworks, so I like using them. One framework that I use when I start any business is it's in my own head, is you're either a manufacturer, distributor, or retailer. So tell founders you can be one of those things. You can't be many. And we don't need to use this whole time talking about that, because that would be an entire entrepreneurship lecture that I would give one day. Yeah. Trying to think in terms of frameworks. The other tool I always use is knowing that nothing is ever really created. Business models are very rarely created. They're usually just borrowed or applied or evolved from others. And that's also true of human psychology, which is why we can kind of predict the future, because it rhymes with the past. In other words, fashion trends. The next ten years will probably resemble some fashion trends of the last 30. This is true for all sort of things. I also believe that the pendulum stock market geopolitics. Stock market geopolitics, regression to the mean. Everything swings back. Right now, America's politics is swinging very far over here. Not right or left, but it's just far from a divisive perspective. But pretty soon it'll swing back. It just a matter is, does that take ten days, ten months, ten years or ten decades? But it'll swing back, it always does.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:42:33 - 00:42:37]
How do you think about personal growth? What's your overall direction?
Matt Matros: [00:42:37 - 00:43:31]
I do think about this a lot. It's really just, was I better this time last year? Looking back at a calendar year is actually very easy. And I'm also really good with dates, so I'm always able to say, okay, cool. It's today. Where was I last year? And even if I don't know the exact date, I knew roughly what I was doing. Was I happy with what I was doing this time last year? This time last year, I was sort of wrapping up my project with QVC. It's kind of done. I realized I didn't really fit in as a public company officer. I'm more of a founder. I also had a few business ideas, of which the two I've about to kind of go public with. So I've done those. So I always just, look, where was I last year? Am I better than I was? And if I'm not, which happens, it happens, then that's usually an inertia to make a big change.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:43:31 - 00:43:49]
So soon after you sold your company ten years ago, did you feel you were wearing the mask, pretending to be someone that people expected you to be? And then where are you now in terms of being authentic, vis-a-vis other people?
Matt Matros: [00:43:49 - 00:44:33]
100%. Yeah. I mean, it was, here I am. I sold this business at the peak protein bar, was hot. Sold to private equity, big valuation, big number. I personally took money in the bank. I started running with a crowd of other CEOs and founders that were high level, very successful humans that love them to death. They're just not me. Sort of like billionaire types and 100 millionaire types. That's just not me. I'm kind of a zero to one grinder. So, yes, I 100% was doing things that I thought others want. I also had that relationship that I mentioned where I thought I needed to present this air of success and gravitas, but I really don't see to do what's true to me, and it's taken a while.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:44:33 - 00:44:38]
On a scale from zero to ten, how would you rate your level of fulfillment?
Matt Matros: [00:44:39 - 00:44:42]
A 9.9. Yeah.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:44:42 - 00:44:45]
Oh, my God. Never heard that before. Awesome.
Matt Matros: [00:44:45 - 00:445:32]
I'm pretty fulfilled. I'm the luckiest guy on the planet. I got the best son, I got the best wife. I got to do what I said. I always wanted to be a sports agent, and I got to do it right. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? That's what I wanted to be, and I got to do it. It turns out I didn't vibe with it and didn't stick with it. Four and a half years of it was enough for me. But I sold a company that I started. I get to wake up every day doing whatever I want. I'm a white male in America, right. That's probably the biggest advantage that I have that I didn't even choose. Do I wish our society was behaving different ways? Whether it's social media consumption or youth insecurities or income inequality, sure.
Matt Matros: [00:45:33 - 00:45:42]
But personally, I'm quite fulfilled. So, yeah, 99. Kind of like on the top of that Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I'm kind of right there.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:45:42 - 00:45:44]
You feel you're self realizing.
Matt Matros: [00:45:45 - 00:45:52]
Yeah. Now it's like, what do I do with it, right? What is the next 44 years? God willing, I'm able to live 44 more years. What does that mean?
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:45:53 - 00:45:54]
So what does it mean?
Matt Matros: [00:45:54 - 00:46:24]
I don't know. I'm thinking about it every day. To me, to be frank, it's really everything revolves around my son and making sure. I don't even know what I'm making sure of, but just making sure that he knows he's loved every day, and then trying to live as long as possible so that I can be there for him if he needs it. I was unlucky in that. My dad died when I was eleven. Dropped dead. Heart attack. And I don't want to do that for Simon.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:46:24 - 00:46:26]
You better take care of your health.
Matt Matros: [00:46:26 - 00:46:38]
Yeah. Worked. Doing all the things sugar weren't so chemically addicted. Man, I'd be in great shape. But yes, you're absolutely right.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:46:39 - 00:46:43]
So you would say your three year old son is the main source of your motivation at the moment?
Matt Matros: [00:46:43 - 00:47:39]
It sounds cheesy because I used to always think that when people said, I do this all for me. I don't do things for my son, I do it for me. But I know that the things doing for me are aligned such that he can enjoy his life and he can be in the safest cocoon and bubble possible. There are certain sacrifices that you now make as a father and as a parent that you wouldn't normally have, where you live, what you go to. I hate the fact that I'm paying for school.
Dude's three years old and I'm paying for preschool. That's just crazy to me. But I grew up public schools. But that's what you got to do here at this part of Brooklyn, at this age that he's. It's just so I pick up some more hours with my McKinsey work, or I try to make a better investment or whatever it is. I make sacrifices here. And, yeah, it's all for him. And then my wife as well. She's the best.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:47:39 - 00:47:47]
So, just to summarize things a little bit, what are the most important lessons you've learned since your big exit?
Matt Matros: [00:47:47 - 00:49:01]
Billion dollar question? I would say kind of tactically, and then more sort of ethereal in nature. Tactically is just, if you're going to sell, sell as much as you can. Don't make the mistake that I did where I sold. But the expression is ruled equity, right? I put so much of it forward. I rule too much equity in both instances, to be honest. Protein bar. And with limitless, limitless. I had a big earn out with career Dr. Pepper. So, tactically speaking, if you're going to sell, sell, or, sorry, if you're going to give up control, just give up control and get paid for it. And then secondarily to that sort of on, like, the personal touchy feely side is we all still control our own outcomes. We all still can change how we feel. You don't like your environment? Move. You don't like your job? Get better skills to get another job. You don't like your relationship status, leave him or her. Right. We all can still choose that. This is hard to remember. We all think that we're victims. I'm a victim of it myself. Right? I think of it for myself too. But we're not. We can choose. Just choose. We all have choice.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:49:01 - 00:49:20]
So you said that soon after you sold your business, you felt quite depressed. Now you're saying that your fulfillment is pretty much, your rate of fulfillment is pretty much ten out of ten. So how did you get from that low point to such a high point?
Matt Matros: [00:49:20 - 00:50:35]
Well, to be clear, I don't think fulfillment and depression is on the same spectrum. A good example is I suffered wild depression this last year. I was fighting with QVC over my buyout. It was getting very ugly. It took me some time to figure out what I wanted to do next.
That fight kind of made me feel like I was not the person that I really am. So it caused some pretty deep depression. Still fulfilled. Right. Still working on a very large settlement, but feeling feelings of depression so the two can coexist. The fulfillment, I think, to me, is really more around reflecting on the past and where you're at in the present. And the depression, I think, is sort of around the hope for the future, which is sort of maybe the delineation that I had. And the depression was caused by this muck of not being certain about the future. Once that went away, both by having a settlement and then also by my own thinking and then focusing on me controlling the future, I was able to get back to that level of fulfillment.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:50:36 - 00:50:41]
Okay, so it temporarily went down, and then now it's back up again.
Matt Matros: [00:50:41 - 00:50:50]
Yeah. If we had to chart it out. Yeah. I would say that the fulfillment was paused or the fulfillment was always there. I was fulfilled.
Matt Matros: [00:50:50 - 00:51:35]
It was just on hold while we, frankly, worked through a settlement on my buyout. When I left that company to go do some other stuff. And there's going to be those blips, right? There's going to be temporary blips, whether it's, God forbid, my son or my wife or myself gets sick or. Two weeks ago, I hurt myself at the gym, and it meant two weeks I couldn't do my workouts that I wanted to be. So there are all these little temporary blips, but I'm still fulfilled. I get to do whatever I want. How dope is that? I live in one of the best cities in the world. I got an amazing wife, amazing son. I got to wake up, do whatever I want. I'm around people that love me. My mom's still alive. My sister and niece are doing great. Like, pretty fulfilled.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:51:36 - 00:51:42]
So when you started your first business, what was the key motivation why you did it?
Matt Matros: [00:51:42 - 00:52:38]
Yeah. Every business I've ever started that I've been successful at was when I solved a problem for myself. So, protein bar. I was doing triathlon. I was working for kraft foods.
I was going to the little smoothie shop in the gym after working out, and they would sell these protein shakes for $8 and put tiny amounts of protein in. So I started bringing protein to them, and they'd blend it up for maybe $2. I was like, oh, there should be a healthier food option. So I started it limitless. Caffeinated sparkling water was. There's coffee and cold brew, lots of caffeine. And then there's diet soda. A little bit of caffeine, just enough just for a little perk, but filled with chemicals. So I just solved it myself, sparking a lot of caffeine. So those have always been the best sources for me of new ventures, is just solving problems for myself.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:52:38 - 00:52:45]
So, on a personal level, things like proving yourself or achieving financial freedom were not as important.
Matt Matros: [00:52:45 - 00:53:05]
No, I don't think about that as much. It's really solving my problem and knowing that, not to sound arrogant, I can kind of execute better than a lot of people. I'm not smarter. I'm pretty smart, but I'm not the smartest guy. There's definitely smarter people in the world, but I can execute.
Matt Matros: [00:53:06 - 00:53:28]
And execute, obviously, is a catch all expression for kind of getting stuff done, like breaking out walls, being resourceful. I'm kind of one of the best in the world at that. That's something I would have said ten years ago. I don't want to sound like I'm not humble, because there's certainly humility with it, but it's sort of an appreciation for who I am and what I've become and what I'm good at.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:53:28 - 00:53:35]
Well, you build three successful businesses by the age of 44. You execute as wealth by any.
Matt Matros: [00:53:35 - 00:53:46]
To be clear, it was two successful businesses, and the third one was kind of okay, but got me to queue. Wish me luck on the exact one.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:53:46 - 00:53:51]
So you started your second business three years after you sold the first one. Why did you do that?
Matt Matros: [00:53:51 - 00:54:27]
Yes, I sold protein bar, traveled around, wanted to get into beverage, wanted to get into coffee. So I started a coffee business, 2016, by doing wholesale coffee kegs into offices. This was during the cold brew craze. It was also during the time when a lot of these big offices didn't want beer on tap because it was a liability. So they had all these keg erators.
So we would replace the kegs of beer with kegs of cold brew. Our first customer was the Chicago Cubs. On opening day of the year, they won the World Series. So that was pretty awesome. Right into the clubhouse, and then we landed. We worked on the lake.
Matt Matros: [00:54:29 - 00:55:06]
Yeah, I was a coffee roaster and cold brewer. I had a cold brew facility, but then I started making mistakes. I started doing bottled coffee into grocery stores, which was a huge mistake. People don't buy coffee in grocery stores. They buy it at Starbucks, Dunkin donuts, McDonald's, or one of the hundred thousand local coffee shops across the world.
So that cost me gobs of money. I opened coffee shops that were very pretty but burned cash. There's some PTSD with that. And then, fortunately, though, I was able to pivot to sparkling water, and that's what was a big success.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:55:06 - 00:55:14]
How did your view on money and wealth changed after your exit comparing to before?
Matt Matros: [00:55:15 - 00:55:44]
I'm just now starting to get into this, but it's the concept of having enough. I have to have enough. And again, this was where the insecurities and the comparison to either my friends or peers or guys like Bezos and Musk and Gates using wealth as the scorecard. Sure, they win, but there are other metrics on the scorecard. Fulfillment is one of them.
Right. I kind of just have enough, but it's taken me. Gosh, what is 2024 now? It's taken me gobs of years to figure that out.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:55:45 - 00:55:47]
Did money make you happy?
Matt Matros: [00:55:47 - 00:55:57]
Money allowed me to do things that made me happy, yeah.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:55:58 - 00:56:00]
So, indirectly
Matt Matros: [00:56:00 - 00:56:28]
I think Scott Galloway is one of, my know, talking heads. He says that money is a lubricant to happiness. I certainly believe him. One striking thing, on my global tour, I remember being in Bali, and Indonesia is probably the poorest country or one of the poorest countries in the world. And the Balinese were the happiest people I ever met, man. They're super poor over there. Really happy. It's when you introduce desire and things is when money turns into unhappiness.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:56:29 - 00:56:38]
Oh, that's true. I had a similar experience going to Cuba for the first time. I thought they were the happiest, the poorest people I've ever met.
Matt Matros: [00:56:38 - 00:56:41]
Isn't that nuts? Yeah, I've heard a lot about people say that about Cuba.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:56:41 - 00:56:45]
Yeah, yeah. So who do you want to become when you grow up?
Matt Matros: [00:56:45 - 00:56:50]
The best dad to Simon and the best husband to Beth ever.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:56:50 - 00:56:51]
That's wonderful.
Matt Matros: [00:56:52 - 00:57:10]
I've already got to do what I always wanted to do. Like I said, be a sports agent, start a business. I have to support them, right? But I tell my wife, I'm like, babe, I'll always be able to make money. I'll always find a way to put food on the table.
And they don't need a lot, right? They just need a safe, warm house. So just be the best husband and father to those guys.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:57:10 - 00:57:12]
And how do you want to be remembered?
Matt Matros: [00:57:12 - 00:57:25]
Gosh, this is a tough question, right? This is sort of like the legacy question or what is your eulogy? Who reads your eulogy? Just as a good person. It's a kind guy, guy who cared, tried to make a difference. That's it.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:57:25 - 00:57:26]
Matt, thank you so much.
Matt Matros: [00:57:27 - 00:57:35]
Tried to answer my last question. Thank you. This was fun. Can you join me for therapy Thursdays? I bet Dr. Nero would love to have.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:57:38 - 00:57:39]
Maybe I should. I really enjoyed it.
Matt Matros: [00:57:39 - 00:57:58]
Well, I'm grateful that you give entrepreneurs like me and others and yourself a forum to talk through these things that maybe not many people know, especially when the world is filled with messages that are primped and prepared and designed to make people look their best. So this is great forum.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:57:58 - 00:58:11]
Well, you certainly intrigued me by your posts. Like, I could feel there is more there that I really wanted to dig into, because obviously, if you just make a post on LinkedIn, you can't say quite as much as you can in an interview like this.
Matt Matros: [00:58:11 - 00:58:22]
That's fair. Gosh, I could write for hours. I've had to cut those down. And, I mean, if you and I had eight more hours, this would be the longest podcast in the history of podcast if we had allowed it to be.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:58:23 - 00:58:30]
Let's do it again soon. How about that. We'll see how your thoughts developed in a couple of years.
Matt Matros: [00:58:30 - 00:58:33]
I would love that. I'm at your service whenever.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:58:33 - 00:58:38]
Thank you so much again, Matt. Really wonderful conversation today.
Matt Matros: [00:58:38 - 00:58:39]
Thank you. All right.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:58:39 - 00:58:40]
You have a wonderful day.
