July 16, 2025 • 42 mins
This episode has one of the best comeback stories ever! It's filled with genuine emotion and inspiration and will have you thinking about the purpose of your next swim. Matt Moseley — a man whose life is fueled by purpose, storytelling, and water. From boardrooms to backstrokes, Matt is not just a world-record open water swimmer, but also a strategic communications expert, environmental advocate, and author of his recently released book, Soul is Waterproof.
By day, Matt runs the Ignition Strategy Group, guiding high-stakes campaigns for clients like Johnny Depp, the Colorado Senate, and American Rivers. By sunrise, he's logging record-breaking swims through some of the planet’s most challenging waters — all with a mission: to protect our rivers and reconnect us with what truly sustains life.
In this rich and emotional conversation, Matt shares:
- How he uses extreme swims to raise awareness for clean water and river conservation
- The story behind his 25-mile Lake Pontchartrain swim and the jazz musicians who accompanied him from a boat
- His inspiring recovery from a devastating leg injury and painkiller dependency
- Why open water swimmers are uniquely positioned to be powerful advocates for our planet’s water
- His work overturning Colorado’s felony murder statute and collaborating with Hunter S. Thompson and Johnny Depp
- How mental conditioning and purposeful goals helped him conquer some of life’s darkest moments
Matt’s message is clear: We’re not just athletes—we’re ambassadors. Whether you’re swimming 25 miles or simply wading into a local stream, your story can ripple outward and make a difference.
Resources & Mentions:
- Matt Moseley’s new book: Soul is Waterproof
- Learn more about American Rivers: www.americanrivers.org
- Dear Dr. Thompson (Matt’s book about Hunter S. Thompson’s advocacy and legacy)
- The WOWSA (World Open Water Swimming Association)
- The Ignition Strategy Group: www.ignitionstrategygroup.com
Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo
podcast, where we celebrate theextraordinary stories of adult
athletes who inspire us withtheir passions, comebacks and
stories we can all relate to andlearn from.
I'm your host, kelly Pallas.
I am so excited today for ourspecial guest, matt Mosley, a
(00:22):
powerhouse of purpose whose lifehas been shaped by three
interwoven pursuits by day.
He's the principal and CEO ofthe Ignition Strategy Group, a
communications consultancy thathas guided major campaigns in
high-stakes public affairs,including work for Johnny Depp,
the Colorado Senate and AT&T,just to name a few.
(00:43):
But by early morning, matttransforms into an extreme open
water swimmer, pushing humanlimits in rivers, lakes and seas
.
Matt's three world recordadventure swims read like a call
to arms for the planet, from a25-mile solo across Lake
Pontchartrain in almost 15 hoursto pioneering swims through
(01:03):
canyon lands and across theCaribbean.
His feats have been turned intodocumentaries and recognized by
the World Open Water SwimmingAssociation, or WOWSA for short.
His new book Soul is Waterproofis both a love letter to water
and a clarion call.
We are fish that live on land.
Going back to the water is notsecret.
(01:24):
We are fish that live on land.
Going back to the water is notsecret Beyond the swims and
stories.
Matt is an author of threepublished works Ignition,
superior CommunicationStrategies, dear Dr Thompson,
and public policy.
As a co-chair of the SouthwestRiver Council for American
(01:47):
Rivers and an advisor at theUniversity of Colorado, his
mission is ambitious yet simpleto use storytelling in the
boardroom or the briny deep toignite change.
I'm thrilled to welcome MattMosley to Champions Mojo.
Welcome Matt.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Thank you very much.
Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, I'm a big fan and there's so much to cover.
First, just kind of tell uswhere you are in the world and
what is the main thing going onin your life right now.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, you talked about in the intro.
I basically have three jobs inmy daily life.
I'm the president of a publicaffairs consulting firm and in
that work we do a lot of workwith water, and some of my
clients include American Rivers,the Water and Tribes Initiative
, the Colorado River District,the Colorado Water Trust, and
(02:42):
I'm also running communicationsfor the Upper Colorado River
Commission and we're involved insome very high stakes
negotiations between the upperbasin of the Colorado River
Colorado, utah, wyoming and NewMexico and the lower basin,
which is California, nevada andArizona.
And so I like to try to use myswimming as a way to tell
(03:06):
stories about water and justfinished a 17-mile swim through
Moab to raise awareness aboutthe Colorado River and some of
the challenges that it's goingthrough.
You know it's a really lowwater year, really low water
(03:28):
year.
We've had great snowpack butbecause of the way climate
change and aridification, theground is drier, it soaks up
more moisture and so we've someof the rivers are only about 30%
of where they should be rightnow.
So you know, I feel like theColorado River holds a real
special place in my heart and sowherever I can combine kind of
my work and my pleasure and mylove of swimming.
(03:51):
That's a real sweet spot for me.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Beautiful.
So this work that you do, is itbased through your
communications company?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Correct, yes, through your communications company.
Correct, yes.
And you know, one of the thingsI like to tell folks is that we
have a water problem, but Ialso think that we have a huge
communications problem aroundwater, in that I feel like
people have lost theirconnection to what water really
means to their lives and whyit's so critical to our survival
(04:26):
as a species and a planet.
You know, some people thinkthat oil and gold are the most
critical issues of the day.
I think water is the mostcritical issue of our time right
now.
We just haven't realized it yet.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Wow, that's so, so powerful, that statement.
What do you think we could belooking at like as kind of a
worst-case scenario that mightget us all moving?
I mean not that we like to talkabout that in general, but you
know, sometimes that's amotivator.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Well, no, it is, and you know I don't.
I think you know I grew up inSouth Louisiana.
I live in Boulder, colorado.
Uh, I think generally peoplethink if water is coming out of
the tap, then everything is fine.
Um and you know my work with thewater and tribes initiative, uh
, shows us that.
(05:20):
You know large, largepercentages anywhere from 60 to
70 percent of people on Indianreservations and Native American
tribes don't have access toclean drinking water.
And you know, we sort of takeit for granted that that the
taps are always going to flowand that clean water is always
(05:40):
going to be available.
But we know from climate changearound the world that clean,
fresh water is becoming scarceand more scarce and it's, you
know, it's kind of an issue forthe world, I think.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Absolutely for sure.
So your stories that you wouldtell what are they in, soul is
Waterproof.
I know this book is kind ofbrand new so I have not even had
a chance to read it, but tellus what.
What is Soul is Waterproofabout and what might we glean
from it.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Sure, and so I track a number of different swims and
tell stories through these swimsaround the world and, for
instance, swimming across theCaribbean, we were doing some of
the first testing for plasticsthis is about 11 years ago down
there and and working with thefive gyres foundation to
(06:40):
actually do real time testingfor plastic content in the water
.
As I was swimming and, uh, youknow, trying to use my swims in
in those kinds of ways, and, um,you know, I swam across Lake
Pontchartrain.
It was 25 miles.
Uh, that's where I'm from andwhenever I was growing up,
(07:02):
people wouldn't even put theirtoe in there.
Whenever I was growing up,people wouldn't even put their
toe in there.
It had been ruined literally byagricultural runoff, dredging
for shells.
There were oil derricks outthere, cultural center of New
Orleans, especially in thesummer for the hotter months,
(07:24):
and people could go and go toPotch Train Beach and it was a
beautiful place, it was really apart of the city, and then they
decimated the lake, so anorganization had spent 25 years
cleaning up the lake and gettingit back to a really pristine
body of water, and so I swam toraise awareness that hey, here
(07:46):
is this resource, here is thiswater that we should really be
appreciating a lot more and whatit means to the city of New
Orleans.
And so that was 25 miles for 25years and you know, my mom was
like what are you doing?
You know, because it was,people wouldn't even put.
You know, there's alligatorsand bull sharks and all kinds of
(08:07):
stuff in there.
But uh, it was a.
It was a fantastic swim and andI like to um, you know, Kelly,
I'm a little bit different fromother open water swimmers who I
I love open water swimmers butthey're fairly serious and
they're pretty, you know, prettydour sometimes, and so I really
(08:31):
like to have a lot of fun.
I like to have a great supportcrew on the New Orleans swim who
had played with the Beats andDizzy Gillespie and is a
composer in residence at the NewYork Philharmonic, playing jazz
, composing jazz for 14 hoursand 56 minutes while I swam, and
(08:53):
he was joined by a Congo playerfrom Professor Longhair's band,
Uganda Roberts, and then blueslegend Papa Molly, and so we had
a little trio on the supportboat playing music while I was
swimming and I couldn't hear itin the water.
(09:14):
But you know it's happening andthe support crew is dancing on
the boats and having a blast andit just makes me appreciate
that moment so much.
And I had been swimming fornine hours in Pontchartrain and
the uh.
I swam through the night, uh,and I wanted to minimize my sun
exposure and I'm swimming intoit.
(09:35):
The morning is coming, the fullmoon is setting, the sun is
rising and David Amram isplaying this Chinese flute that
is sort of resonating across thewater and, you know, I think
back on that moment.
It's just so beautiful and sotranscendent.
(09:55):
You know, that's why I do thesethings and it's to use that as
this bigger moment.
That's much more than justmyself.
It's about the team, it's aboutthe purpose and the cause and
bringing all of that together inone swim, you know, and it's
(10:15):
only 15 hours of my life, youknow, and I try to just be so
grateful and love the place thatI'm in.
And, you know, as an enduranceathlete, we ask for these things
, right, Like we, you know, andyou can't be surprised when it
gets really hard.
I mentioned the sunrise, youknow, and David's playing the
(10:38):
Chinese flute.
Well, you know, I had six morehours of swimming and that's
when things got really hard.
I had six more hours ofswimming and that's when things
got really hard was when the suncame up and it's fracturing in
my goggles and I had nauseaissues and different things.
I do a lot of mentalconditioning and was preparing
myself for that moment.
When you know it's going to behard, right, and you might be
(11:01):
crapping on yourself andvomiting, and how are you going
to react in those kind ofsituations.
Are you going to be hard, right, and you might be crapping on
yourself and vomiting, and youknow how are you going to react
in those kinds of situations.
Are you going to pull out?
Are you going to quit?
No, how do you cope and getyourself mentally prepared for
that space and smile, you know,and enjoy it because it's a
(11:22):
beautiful thing and this is yourdream that you're living.
So just trying to be reallycognizant and present in that
space while while I'm swimmingand when things get going really
tough.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And how do you deal with that when, when the pain
comes, what's, what's yoursecret?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, so uh.
My longtime paddler, markWilliams, also is a mental
conditioning coach and workswith a lot of veterans.
He was a former F-16 fighterpilot in the Iraq War and you
know what is the last person tosee hand-to-hand combat in the
air when he was chased by aRussian MiG bat in the air when
(12:06):
he was chased by a Russian MiG.
But he is, you know, has workedwith me over the past 15 years.
You know where we do thesemental conditioning exercises.
It's like going to the gym inyour mind and it's not really
just meditation and blitzing outon the pillows, but these sets
of different things to reallytune you into your awareness and
(12:27):
to be able to process and todeal with these things when,
when things go tough.
And part of that isvisualization.
You know we'll dovisualizations of the swim and
and Mark will lead me throughlike okay, it's not sunny and
calm anymore.
You're, you're vomiting onyourself, you just got chased by
(12:52):
an alligator.
What's, what's your space?
Let's walk through that and andprepare for these different
scenarios because you know a lotof times we, you know I like to
swim at the Boulder Reservoiron Tuesdays and Thursday
mornings at 6 AM and it'sbeautiful.
It beautiful, it's placid andit's just the sun's coming up
and you know it's really calmand just perfect conditions and
you know, as an open waterswimmer, it's rarely like that
(13:14):
in the real world.
Right, and when you go out foryour big swims and I got a race
across Lake Tahoe on July 19thTahoe has the potential to be
anything on any given day.
Right, it could be choppy, itcould be cold, it could be rainy
.
You've got all three of them.
Um, so it's just, and that'sone of the things I love about
open water swimming is thatvariation of it is never the
(13:38):
same, ever, ever.
Uh, you know it, that's part ofthe sport is rivers, lakes and
oceans present these reallyunique challenges that you don't
find in a pool.
In fact, I tell people, openwater swimming is a little bit
like running in the mountains,you know, trail running as
(13:59):
opposed to running on a track,whereas swimming in a pool is
like running on a track, youknow, and, and I think swimming
in the open water is like trailrunning, it's free, you know
there's, you're really justdoing it on your own time and
your own space, and you know Iwill mention that, um, you won't
(14:20):
see in my swimming history anyof the you know English Channel
swims.
Now I want to do Gibraltar andCatalina and I've tried to do
the race around Manhattan andhaven't been able to get into
that yet.
But you know, the EnglishChannel to me I mean, look great
, love Channel swimmers.
(14:41):
But you know it's like theEverest of swimming.
It's expensive, it's cold.
It's cold, it's gnarly, it'sjellyfish, there's ships.
You know how about?
Let's go to a place like theColorado river, through Moab and
Canyon lands, where you feellike kind of phelpsian when
you're swimming.
That it's just long and you'regoing with the.
(15:02):
You know the river's moving atabout a mile per hour in this
kind of strong current and theeagles are flying over the head,
the canyons are rising up andyou're you're following this
beautiful river that's ancient,that has carved these canyons
through the millennia and it's,you know it's cold, it was just
snow melt right and it's it'sthat silky feeling on your skin
(15:27):
that's cutting through these,these torching canyons in the in
a blazing hot desert, and thatkind of juxtaposition that just
you know, I love it, I just loveit.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
So, and it it sounds like you have this cause, this
kind of mission, pushing you toswim in these different bodies
of water, and what would you saythat the swimmers out there
that are listening, what can wedo to help our water, to help
save our rivers?
What can we do?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I'm so glad you asked that, kelly, because I think
that open water swimmers are ina very unique position to be
ambassadors for water, that weare not just swimmers but we are
spokespeople for the water thatwe swim in and to keep it clean
and to keep it healthy.
Now, there's a number of thingsthat people can do and you know,
(16:19):
know, I've chosen to use myswimming for this purpose of of
raising awareness about waterissues.
American rivers is the uh, thelargest uh river advocacy
organization in the unitedstates.
You know is is how do wesupport them and their work and
and what they're doing on thehill?
And uh, they have a goal tosave and restore one million
(16:44):
miles of rivers by 2050 and totake down 30,000 dams.
And you know, clean,free-flowing rivers are a threat
in this country.
They are under threat and youknow it's something that we
should be using our sport to saylike, hey, this is important.
We need to keep these watersclean, protected, healthy and
(17:10):
and for future generations, andnot just because it's something
pretty to look at, but becauseour very survival as a species
depends upon it.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So who are they under threat by?
And tell me why dams are bad.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Not all dams are bad.
I don't want to say that.
I think dams that have outlivedtheir time, dams that are
broken, that don't generatehydropower anymore.
You know American Rivers wasone of the spearheaders of
taking down the Klamath Dam.
That you know.
Now, just after one year,you've already have salmon
(17:48):
respawning.
You have tribal members justdid their first.
They had, I think, 100 NativeAmerican youth that floated and
did a kayak trip, multi-daykayak trip through the canyons
there.
And you know, one of the thingsthat I'm so glad to see that
(18:11):
happened just last week and overthe weekend was that the public
lands sell-off was strippedfrom the budget bill and you
know 20% of our rivers andfreshwater comes from public
lands, so selling those off.
Then you know 20 percent of ourrivers and fresh water comes
from public lands, so sellingthose off.
Then you know the Clean WaterProtection Act, the Clean Water
Act that protects wetlands, andyou know those things are all
(18:33):
under threat and you know themoment that we start tearing up
wetlands, drying up rivers andstreams, polluting them.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
It's a real threat to humanity.
So I'm hearing we can beambassadors, we can support
organizations that protect ourrivers and lakes and estuaries
and things.
What else?
How would I be an ambassadorother than hosting you on my
podcast?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well, I think you know there, um, you know, every
day in the swimming worldsomebody is going out and doing
these great swims in bodies ofwater and and using those
stories to tell people whythat's important.
You know, I would say, for meat least, swimming with a
(19:28):
purpose is very, very importantto me.
You know I'm on these longswims and you're almost 17 hours
crossing the Caribbean and youknow there's a time when you're
like what am I doing here?
Why am I doing this?
And I'm sure I know you'vetalked a lot about this on the
Champions Mojo podcast, aboutwhy.
You know that big question,what drives us?
(19:49):
Why are we there?
And for me, I might you know,after seven or eight hours, when
kind of the fun's over and I'vethought about everything I can
think about, you know I mightget out Like what's.
You know why do I need to dothis?
And for me, drawing on thatpurpose of being an ambassador
(20:14):
for the water and that, whensomebody, like American Rivers,
has put themselves on the linefor you and is raising money and
creating awareness, I'm notgoing to quit.
You know I am going to.
That is dry.
That purpose is driving me downthe river and across oceans and
you know it's very, veryimportant to me, uh, why I do it
(20:36):
?
And that's another kind ofreason why you know English
Channel is great but it'sgenerally not associated with
any purpose.
It's just kind of ego and Ithink I don't you know, I've got
a pretty healthy ego, but it'snot enough for me to really put
myself in dire straits unlessthere's a bigger purpose
(21:00):
involved in it, and so thatpurposeful swimming to me is
very, very important.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I love that.
So one of the things thatyou're obviously you know doing
great things for advocacy andyou're a winner, you're a
champion in life in so many ways, from your business to your
books, to your swims and we loveto talk about kind of what
(21:27):
you've been through personally,not just you know, these are the
things that you've done forhumanity.
But if we just drill down alittle bit on Matt Mosley and
what you've overcome, you knowit's just so inspirational for
me to hear people who are reallyout there killing it and what
(21:49):
you've gone through.
Do you have some stories of acomeback or something that you
know you were really knockeddown in life and how did you get
back to the surface mentally,emotionally, physically?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
That's a great question.
Yes, I have overcome some realtragedies in my life.
The biggest one that spurred meinto long distance swimming was
I'd already, you know, I swamas a competitive swimmer in high
school.
I wasn't going to get a collegescholarship, I wasn't fast like
that.
And then in graduate school, atCU, I kind of came back to
(22:23):
swimming.
You know, I remember showing upwith the board shorts at the
pool and, like you know, just afew laps and I started.
My wife gifted me a canoe whenshe was in law school and I was
in graduate school and it camewith a trip down the Colorado
River and that was the.
I brought my swim goggles andit was the first time that I
(22:44):
swam open water like that and itjust something clicked and I
just loved it and, um, I starteddoing 5k races and this is back
in the early two thousands kindof late nineties uh, 5k races.
And then I signed up for a 10krace across, uh, the horseshoes
reservoir and um was doing theseraces.
(23:05):
So we go on this canoe trip,right, and we have my kids and
this is, uh, you know, 10 or 12years after I'd gotten the canoe
and we're coming back and I uh,in a place where I have cliff
jumped maybe, you know, for 12years or something before that
and when I jumped off the cliffI hit a sandbar and um shattered
(23:28):
my whole right leg.
So I had my right leg lookliterally like the Eiffel Tower.
There were, um, I had fourplates and 17 screws holding it
all together.
Um, and it was Kelly.
It was the darkest time in mylife I, you know.
First of all, I felt like areal dumbass because I had done
it to myself and you know therewasn't some kind of car accident
(23:51):
I could blame on somebody else,it was me.
And um, you know, my kids areall going off skiing in the
winter and I'm sitting on thecouch and feeling sorry for
myself and it took 13 months forthat to heal.
And then the you know Icouldn't live with that stuff in
my leg and so we got it alltaken out and that was another
(24:12):
eight or nine months of of ofrecovery, so, all told, about
two years of of.
I couldn't even drive barelybecause it was my right leg.
And um, you know that was atime that they were just
throwing around painkillerspretty liberally and I enjoy my
white wine in the evenings, andyou know it's a pretty dangerous
(24:32):
combination, to tell you thetruth.
After a little while and uh, itwas in that convalescence and in
some of the darkest times thatyou know, I set the goal that we
had gone down to LakePontchartrain for a number of
years before and we're swimmingto raise money to rebuild the
lighthouse that was destroyed inHurricane Katrina, and this is
(24:55):
a lighthouse where De La Sallebasically stood and claimed that
the new world for spain.
And uh, right at that point,and you know, the lighthouse was
destroyed so we were raisingmoney for that.
But during my recovery is whenI set the goal to swim poncho
train and it took another threeyears to kind of come back right
(25:17):
and I got a coach for the firsttime since I was in high school
, this fiery Puerto Rican guynamed Randy Soler, who you know
really believed in me.
And so, you know, coming back,I felt like, you know, there
(25:38):
were two kind of divergent pathsI could see in my life, like
one was going down this paththat I didn't want to be.
I didn't want to be, you know,addicted to painkillers and an
alcoholic and drinking andsitting on the couch and feeling
sorry for myself and gettingfat.
I wanted to come back.
You know, I felt like in theend when I stood up in Lake
(26:06):
Pontchartrain.
When I stood up in LakePontchartrain and threw my hands
over my head, it wasn't, youknow, it wasn't just the swim,
it was basically like I had comeback as a better person, like
all around and, you know,discovering this kind of higher
(26:26):
purpose in swimming, my friendsand family.
Yeah, sorry, I'm getting alittle emotional about it, but
you know, kind of I hadn'treally thought about that time
for a while and it was in thisvery real sense, kind of
overcoming this tragedy andbecoming a better person through
(26:48):
it.
And that's something I reallyencourage people when I speak
and I try not to be amotivational speaker living in a
van down by the river, but I,you know, try to tell people
this example because you know,kelly, when you're our age,
things happen in life.
You know, try to tell peoplethis example because you know,
kelly, when you're our age,things happen in life.
You know injuries, cancer,deaths, all kinds of things, and
(27:08):
how we deal with those isreally the mark of our character
, not if they happen, but whenthey do.
How do we respond as a personand so that was my response and
I felt like, you know, it workedand I came back better and then
, after Pontchartrain, there wasno stopping me.
I, you know, then went to theCaribbean and then, you know,
(27:29):
went back to Canyonlands andswam the Colorado River and then
, you know, sea of Galilee.
And you know I'm not done yet.
I've got so much more.
I mean, there's so many swims Iwant to do right.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I just don't have the time or the space.
I could see you going back inyour mind.
I could see you literallyvisualizing yourself through the
accident and through you know,maybe the self-blame and the you
know, all those things that weterrorize ourself with, and so
could you share with us, like,obviously so if somebody's in
(28:18):
that dark time, because we'reall in that dark time, and if
it's not, if you're not in thatdark time, then it's coming and
I know people used to say thatto me and I hated it, but I
really believe that we have waymore of an ability to endure
things that we think know.
(28:41):
Obviously you set the goal.
What else?
What like if?
If you're, if you go back tothat dark time on a daily basis
for almost two years of probablya lot of pain and a lot of
struggle what were, what wereyou doing that got you up?
What?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
were you doing that got you up, you know when, the
first?
I remember when I first startedcoming back into the pool.
You know, I I always lovedswimming but I did not realize,
you know, how much it meant tomy life until I couldn't do it
anymore.
Right, and I think you know, Iremember coming back to the pool
(29:23):
and I was starting to do somedry land exercises on the side
of the pool and I was, you know.
So this guy, randy, comes over.
He had just moved from PuertoRico to Boulder and he was
coaching the, the Bouldermasters team, and he comes over
and he's like, hey, what youdoing, you know, are you
training for something?
And I kind of told him he'slike, well, if you keep doing
(29:44):
what you're doing, you're goingto hurt yourself.
It's like, how about if I helpyou with a couple of things?
And you know it started prettycasually and he would just give
me these few things and he wasreally, you know, my, because of
my injury, my leg would kind oftwist out a little bit.
It was, it was weird, you know,but he he was very, very focused
(30:05):
on form and technically beingcorrect in the exercises and you
know, posture and using.
You know he was also.
You know he used to tell me toswim from the belly.
You know, swim from your core,not just using your shoulders.
Like a lot of open waterswimmers are very shoulder heavy
, you know, and they're pickingup and they're sighting and
(30:27):
doing all this stuff.
And um, you know he was likeswim from the belly, I want your
butt high in the air, but youknow just that technically
correct form.
And then he made me do a lot ofsprints, which I was like what
are you talking?
Why are we doing these sprints?
I'm a distance swimmer and he'slike no, but you got to go fast
to go far.
You got to go fast to go far,man.
(30:48):
And so it he was right, hereally did.
You know, getting that speedback really helped my strength
and overall ability for swimmingand you know, just having
somebody that believes in you,it was really special and I, you
know, I hadn't had a coach inmy life since I was in high
(31:10):
school, right, so it was verydifferent.
And you know that accountabilityand you know, hey, I'm going to
be there at 6 am for dry landand then we're swimming at 7.
You're going to be there, right, and so having that was, I
think, the key element to mysuccess.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Was that, and you know, having a great family and
supportive team great family andsupportive team, right, yeah,
yeah, I think I think all thosethings just to kind of you know,
summarize what I'm hearing youhave a goal, you have somebody
that's really supporting you,that you're accountable to.
I'm also hearing movement, likeI just believe that people,
(31:49):
when they're injured or they'resad or they're depressed or
they're, you know, you got tomove your body and even if it's
you know the littlest thing, youwalk from here to the mailbox
and then you walk from themailbox to the next mailbox and
just movement and certainly thecommunity of people that are
that are supporting you, butthat, that passionate purpose of
(32:13):
I want to swim and and make adifference.
So beautiful, beautiful, okay,matt.
So again on your intro, I wasso impressed with the books that
you've written and one thatjust intrigued the heck out of
me and I saw one of yourspeeches to you actually spoke
to Google.
For goodness sakes, I didn'teven put that in the intro, but
(32:34):
I loved your Dear Dr Thompsonbook and I'm just going to throw
that out there for people tocheck that out.
Check out your Google talk.
I don't want to go into it herebecause we'll be on for two
hours, but essentially,essentially what that book
taught me is people who becomechampions make good choices, you
know.
And so what are your thoughtson how we can make better
(32:59):
choices to reach the things thatwe want in life and have a
better life?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Well, it's interesting that we talk about
making good choices and workingwith the author Hunter S
Thompson in the same sentence.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, and you know.
And why don't you tell peoplewhy that's a terrible choice?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And Hunter.
Yeah, hunter is the, the famousauthor of the book Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas andinvented a form called Gonzo
journalism, and so just a realcharacter.
And he used to call my swimmingGonzo swimming.
So but just, you know, if youwant me to summarize real
(33:42):
quickly, that there was a woman,lisa Allman.
She was ended up climbing inits car with the guy she didn't
know.
He ended up being a skinhead ina stolen transam, high on meth
and with a bunch of guns.
He ended up killing a cop andthen he killed himself.
She had never touched the gun,had never met the guy, had no
(34:04):
idea what was going on.
But they, uh, convicted her forfelony murder and she spent um.
She was in prison for, you know, life without parole and had
never even touched the gun, infact wasn't even there.
When the officer was shot shewas already in police custody.
So she's in prison for fiveyears.
Writes a letter to Hunter SThompson from prison saying your
(34:27):
books aren't available in theprison library.
Can you send me something?
He miraculously reads a letterand then responds and says hey,
I followed your case.
I was horrified by it.
You were in the wrong place atthe wrong time.
Maybe I can help.
He writes a thing about it andI had been following this case,
living in Denver at the time,and, um, in fact, I had worked
(34:51):
for president Bill Clinton atthe time and we were doing an
event in Denver where he met thewidow of the slain officer that
I was at that meeting.
So you know, I'd been followingthis case and I ended up writing
Hunter a memo saying here's howyou could change the narrative
of this woman's case.
She was, you know it was.
She didn't have anyrepresentation.
It was really badly framed forthe public about what happened.
(35:15):
But she didn't do it.
She wasn't even.
She had no intent for anybodyto get murdered.
So he calls me, I'm at thestate Capitol and I get to see
this number and this is a guy Iyou know there was one person I
could have dinner with.
It would be him.
You know, he was a real hero inmy earlier life because he made
politics sound like it could beso much fun and so real and
(35:37):
it's why I ended up a career inpolitics, um, and so, you know,
we end up working together.
Uh, the last point of the memowas um, let's hold a rally on
the west steps of the capitolwhen her appeals brief was filed
with the supreme court.
And so he says, son, let's holda rally, and do you mind if I
(35:58):
bring Warren Zevon Like?
Well, of course you know.
So we ended up holding therally.
It does change the narrative ofthe case.
It goes to the Supreme Court,they overturn the case, remand
it back to the Denver court,which 10 years later couldn't
put the same case together andshe walked out of prison a free
woman after 10 years in jail.
(36:21):
And then the governor ofColorado just recently signed a
law overturning the felonymurder statute.
So very big sort of changethere, using this one woman's
case as a test case foroverturning the felony murder
law around the country.
And it really worked.
And Hunter had already killedhimself at the time when it was
(36:43):
at the Supreme Court.
He committed suicide.
And that's when I ended upbeing hired because I'd worked
with them for about seven years.
So I knew the family very well,I knew his world, I knew him
and was hired by Johnny Depp tobe the communications director
for Hunter's funeral.
So we blasted his ashes out ofa 157 foot tall gonzo fist in
(37:07):
Aspen.
It was pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Well, it sounds like this is a.
You love changing the narrativeon things and I think that's
really powerful.
And you know, besides,obviously don't get in a car
with someone you don't knowwho's a skinhead.
How, how else can we make goodchoices, just like in life?
(37:32):
Have you?
Have you narrowed that down?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
just like in life?
Have you?
Have you narrowed that down?
You know, I don't know if wecan say good choices, you know,
for everyone all around, like,is going out and swimming 25
miles a great choice, you know,for some people not so much.
But I think that the sweet spotin life is generally when we're
doing something that's greaterthan ourselves, when we are
thinking about ways that ourlife can make the world a better
(38:02):
place, make just the peoplearound us better, to be a better
friend, to be a good colleagueand to find for me, to find work
and issues that I really deeplycare about and like water,
where I can use my full passion,my full self, and bring it to
the table to create change andmove public opinion.
(38:25):
You know I've spent mybasically my whole career in
sort of managing issues andpublic opinion.
And how do we get people to,you know, support things like
water or education oroverturning the felony murder
law, things that really impactpeople's lives?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Well, that is a great place to kind of start to wrap
this up.
If you had a magic wand, whatwould you want to see happen
with your most recent advocacy?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
I would love to see a seven-state deal on the
Colorado River, I mean, first ofall, just because you know
that's my world.
But in general, I would love tosee us, as a sport, using our
our sport to be waterambassadors and to to really
speak from the water.
And you know I mentioned thatearlier, but you know, in the
(39:25):
same, I mean fishermen kind ofstand on the side of the river
right, surfers are on top of it.
Uh, you know scuba divers.
Yes, they are also ambassadorsfor the water.
But you know we're in thisunique place where we are in it.
You know, we feel it, we tasteit every day when we're in these
(39:46):
bodies of water.
So how could we, you know, makeit where our sport is much more
on the front lines of advocacy?
And you know it doesn't have tobe to the level that I do it.
You know I'm I'm probably afreak of nature in this, in this
way, but you know, just to goand dip your toes and take a
(40:07):
cold plunge in the Boulder Creekor in in any river, the Gauley,
you know, in West Virginia, orsomething where you show people
why you love it and why you careabout these places and bodies
of water and why they'reimportant.
So it doesn't have to be thatyou have to go out and swim 25
(40:28):
miles.
You can just go dip your toe init, but tell that story and so
that other people see it andappreciate it.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
That is so beautiful, beautiful.
Um, before we go to thesprinter round, which is just a
little list of fun questions forlisteners to get to know you
better, is there anything that Ihave not asked you that, uh,
you'd like to share that I?
Speaker 2 (40:54):
have not asked you that you'd like to share.
No, I think we've covered quitea bit.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Okay, yeah, and of course your book Soul is
Waterproof is available.
The Matt Mosley story, it'savailable.
You're holding up a copy there.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
They can get it on Amazon or anywhere books are
found, I would imagine right,absolutely, absolutely.
I did a 35 city book tour.
Somebody's like, well, whydidn't you write a book?
I'm like, well, to go on booktour, of course.
But yeah, I love getting outand talking about these things
and talking to audiences andsharing sort of this unique
passion that I've, that I'vefound, you know sort of this
(41:38):
unique passion that I've found.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
You know, Okay, Wonderful, Wonderful.
Well, I will put in the shownotes how you know all this info
that people can find.
Are you ready for some fastquestions?
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Well to mention to you, I'm not a sprinter.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I know I'm not either , so that's why just do the best
you can, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
You got to go fast, to go far.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yes, if your life had a soundtrack, what?
Speaker 2 (42:06):
might be a song that you would play while you're
swimming.
I love the Grateful Dead, soScarlet Fire, Scarlet Begonias
might be something that I do.
I also I love funk music, sothere's some Devil Brothers
songs that I that I love to playand then there's this great
(42:27):
zero seven song called Swimmers.
That sometimes gets in my headand you know I like to to kind
of hum it while I'm swimming.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Oh, I'm going to write that one down.
I haven't heard it.
Okay, um, if uh soul iswaterproof, the Matt Mosley
story became a movie.
Who?
Who do you want to play you?
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Uh, oh gosh, that's a funny one.
Uh know it.
Brad Pitt maybe, I don't knowuh, tatum Channing Chris Farley.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Oh gosh, I love Chris Farley, you're yeah, that's too
humble or um, yeah, willFerrell.
Will Ferrell.
Oh Will Ferrell, that would bea good one.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
I think Will is great , yeah and he'd make it kind of
funny, which I like to be.
You know, I like to have a lotof fun and tell jokes.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And you know we've all seen him in a Speedo already
, so that's kind of you knowhe's in a Speedo in a couple of
his couple of his movies.
It's funny, all right.
What is your pump up ritualbefore Big Swim?
Speaker 2 (43:38):
What is your pump up ritual before a big swim?
I usually eat shrimp.
Pasta is kind of my go to mealbefore a big swim because it's
got that heavy protein.
I don't eat a ton of the pastabut the shrimp is very good to
digest.
Um, I like quiet space.
Uh, you know, usually like.
(44:01):
So I had 18 people on a supportcrew for this moab swim and I I
usually have to designatesomebody that's the person that
to deal with the crew, likeanswer all their questions and
what are we going to eat, howare, how do how do we pee, like
all these things like havesomebody else deal with this.
So I like to just be reallykind of focused and just ready,
ready to swim.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Okay, awesome, okay.
Um, if you can gain one newskill, just instantly poof, what
would it be?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Fixing cars or working on my house.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Oh yeah, fixing cars.
How great would that be.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
I'm just not a.
I'm just not a handyman.
I wish I was.
I was, in fact.
I was going to go take a classin like Greek mythology at CU
and my wife was like how aboutyou learn how to fix the kitchen
sink first?
Speaker 1 (44:49):
That's great, all right.
Last question when you are inthe water, what?
What is a one word that youthat describes how you feel?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Gratitude.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Gratitude.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Oh, I love it, I love it I found gratitude for just
the space, the water, the people, my life, all the little things
that bring you to that moment.
It's just profound gratitude.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
That is beautiful.
Matt, thank you so much forspending this time with us today
.
You were awesome and best ofluck in everything.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
What a treasure I loved talking with you, kelly.
Thanks, great questions andjust a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Thank you.
Hello friends, welcome to the Champions Mojo
podcast, where we celebrate theextraordinary stories of adult
athletes who inspire us withtheir passions, comebacks and
stories we can all relate to andlearn from.
I'm your host, kelly Pallas.
I am so excited today for ourspecial guest, matt Mosley, a
(00:22):
powerhouse of purpose whose lifehas been shaped by three
interwoven pursuits by day.
He's the principal and CEO ofthe Ignition Strategy Group, a
communications consultancy thathas guided major campaigns in
high-stakes public affairs,including work for Johnny Depp,
the Colorado Senate and AT&T,just to name a few.
(00:43):
But by early morning, matttransforms into an extreme open
water swimmer, pushing humanlimits in rivers, lakes and seas
.
Matt's three world recordadventure swims read like a call
to arms for the planet, from a25-mile solo across Lake
Pontchartrain in almost 15 hoursto pioneering swims through
(01:03):
canyon lands and across theCaribbean.
His feats have been turned intodocumentaries and recognized by
the World Open Water SwimmingAssociation, or WOWSA for short.
His new book Soul is Waterproofis both a love letter to water
and a clarion call.
We are fish that live on land.
Going back to the water is notsecret.
(01:24):
We are fish that live on land.
Going back to the water is notsecret Beyond the swims and
stories.
Matt is an author of threepublished works Ignition,
superior CommunicationStrategies, dear Dr Thompson,
and public policy.
As a co-chair of the SouthwestRiver Council for American
(01:47):
Rivers and an advisor at theUniversity of Colorado, his
mission is ambitious yet simpleto use storytelling in the
boardroom or the briny deep toignite change.
I'm thrilled to welcome MattMosley to Champions Mojo.
Welcome Matt.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Thank you very much.
Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, I'm a big fan and there's so much to cover.
First, just kind of tell uswhere you are in the world and
what is the main thing going onin your life right now.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, you talked about in the intro.
I basically have three jobs inmy daily life.
I'm the president of a publicaffairs consulting firm and in
that work we do a lot of workwith water, and some of my
clients include American Rivers,the Water and Tribes Initiative
, the Colorado River District,the Colorado Water Trust, and
(02:42):
I'm also running communicationsfor the Upper Colorado River
Commission and we're involved insome very high stakes
negotiations between the upperbasin of the Colorado River
Colorado, utah, wyoming and NewMexico and the lower basin,
which is California, nevada andArizona.
And so I like to try to use myswimming as a way to tell
(03:06):
stories about water and justfinished a 17-mile swim through
Moab to raise awareness aboutthe Colorado River and some of
the challenges that it's goingthrough.
You know it's a really lowwater year, really low water
(03:28):
year.
We've had great snowpack butbecause of the way climate
change and aridification, theground is drier, it soaks up
more moisture and so we've someof the rivers are only about 30%
of where they should be rightnow.
So you know, I feel like theColorado River holds a real
special place in my heart and sowherever I can combine kind of
my work and my pleasure and mylove of swimming.
(03:51):
That's a real sweet spot for me.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Beautiful.
So this work that you do, is itbased through your
communications company?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Correct, yes, through your communications company.
Correct, yes.
And you know, one of the thingsI like to tell folks is that we
have a water problem, but Ialso think that we have a huge
communications problem aroundwater, in that I feel like
people have lost theirconnection to what water really
means to their lives and whyit's so critical to our survival
(04:26):
as a species and a planet.
You know, some people thinkthat oil and gold are the most
critical issues of the day.
I think water is the mostcritical issue of our time right
now.
We just haven't realized it yet.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Wow, that's so, so powerful, that statement.
What do you think we could belooking at like as kind of a
worst-case scenario that mightget us all moving?
I mean not that we like to talkabout that in general, but you
know, sometimes that's amotivator.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Well, no, it is, and you know I don't.
I think you know I grew up inSouth Louisiana.
I live in Boulder, colorado.
Uh, I think generally peoplethink if water is coming out of
the tap, then everything is fine.
Um and you know my work with thewater and tribes initiative, uh
, shows us that.
(05:20):
You know large, largepercentages anywhere from 60 to
70 percent of people on Indianreservations and Native American
tribes don't have access toclean drinking water.
And you know, we sort of takeit for granted that that the
taps are always going to flowand that clean water is always
(05:40):
going to be available.
But we know from climate changearound the world that clean,
fresh water is becoming scarceand more scarce and it's, you
know, it's kind of an issue forthe world, I think.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Absolutely for sure.
So your stories that you wouldtell what are they in, soul is
Waterproof.
I know this book is kind ofbrand new so I have not even had
a chance to read it, but tellus what.
What is Soul is Waterproofabout and what might we glean
from it.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Sure, and so I track a number of different swims and
tell stories through these swimsaround the world and, for
instance, swimming across theCaribbean, we were doing some of
the first testing for plasticsthis is about 11 years ago down
there and and working with thefive gyres foundation to
(06:40):
actually do real time testingfor plastic content in the water
.
As I was swimming and, uh, youknow, trying to use my swims in
in those kinds of ways, and, um,you know, I swam across Lake
Pontchartrain.
It was 25 miles.
Uh, that's where I'm from andwhenever I was growing up,
(07:02):
people wouldn't even put theirtoe in there.
Whenever I was growing up,people wouldn't even put their
toe in there.
It had been ruined literally byagricultural runoff, dredging
for shells.
There were oil derricks outthere, cultural center of New
Orleans, especially in thesummer for the hotter months,
(07:24):
and people could go and go toPotch Train Beach and it was a
beautiful place, it was really apart of the city, and then they
decimated the lake, so anorganization had spent 25 years
cleaning up the lake and gettingit back to a really pristine
body of water, and so I swam toraise awareness that hey, here
(07:46):
is this resource, here is thiswater that we should really be
appreciating a lot more and whatit means to the city of New
Orleans.
And so that was 25 miles for 25years and you know, my mom was
like what are you doing?
You know, because it was,people wouldn't even put.
You know, there's alligatorsand bull sharks and all kinds of
(08:07):
stuff in there.
But uh, it was a.
It was a fantastic swim and andI like to um, you know, Kelly,
I'm a little bit different fromother open water swimmers who I
I love open water swimmers butthey're fairly serious and
they're pretty, you know, prettydour sometimes, and so I really
(08:31):
like to have a lot of fun.
I like to have a great supportcrew on the New Orleans swim who
had played with the Beats andDizzy Gillespie and is a
composer in residence at the NewYork Philharmonic, playing jazz
, composing jazz for 14 hoursand 56 minutes while I swam, and
(08:53):
he was joined by a Congo playerfrom Professor Longhair's band,
Uganda Roberts, and then blueslegend Papa Molly, and so we had
a little trio on the supportboat playing music while I was
swimming and I couldn't hear itin the water.
(09:14):
But you know it's happening andthe support crew is dancing on
the boats and having a blast andit just makes me appreciate
that moment so much.
And I had been swimming fornine hours in Pontchartrain and
the uh.
I swam through the night, uh,and I wanted to minimize my sun
exposure and I'm swimming intoit.
(09:35):
The morning is coming, the fullmoon is setting, the sun is
rising and David Amram isplaying this Chinese flute that
is sort of resonating across thewater and, you know, I think
back on that moment.
It's just so beautiful and sotranscendent.
(09:55):
You know, that's why I do thesethings and it's to use that as
this bigger moment.
That's much more than justmyself.
It's about the team, it's aboutthe purpose and the cause and
bringing all of that together inone swim, you know, and it's
(10:15):
only 15 hours of my life, youknow, and I try to just be so
grateful and love the place thatI'm in.
And, you know, as an enduranceathlete, we ask for these things
, right, Like we, you know, andyou can't be surprised when it
gets really hard.
I mentioned the sunrise, youknow, and David's playing the
(10:38):
Chinese flute.
Well, you know, I had six morehours of swimming and that's
when things got really hard.
I had six more hours ofswimming and that's when things
got really hard was when the suncame up and it's fracturing in
my goggles and I had nauseaissues and different things.
I do a lot of mentalconditioning and was preparing
myself for that moment.
When you know it's going to behard, right, and you might be
(11:01):
crapping on yourself andvomiting, and how are you going
to react in those kind ofsituations.
Are you going to be hard, right, and you might be crapping on
yourself and vomiting, and youknow how are you going to react
in those kinds of situations.
Are you going to pull out?
Are you going to quit?
No, how do you cope and getyourself mentally prepared for
that space and smile, you know,and enjoy it because it's a
(11:22):
beautiful thing and this is yourdream that you're living.
So just trying to be reallycognizant and present in that
space while while I'm swimmingand when things get going really
tough.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And how do you deal with that when, when the pain
comes, what's, what's yoursecret?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, so uh.
My longtime paddler, markWilliams, also is a mental
conditioning coach and workswith a lot of veterans.
He was a former F-16 fighterpilot in the Iraq War and you
know what is the last person tosee hand-to-hand combat in the
air when he was chased by aRussian MiG bat in the air when
(12:06):
he was chased by a Russian MiG.
But he is, you know, has workedwith me over the past 15 years.
You know where we do thesemental conditioning exercises.
It's like going to the gym inyour mind and it's not really
just meditation and blitzing outon the pillows, but these sets
of different things to reallytune you into your awareness and
(12:27):
to be able to process and todeal with these things when,
when things go tough.
And part of that isvisualization.
You know we'll dovisualizations of the swim and
and Mark will lead me throughlike okay, it's not sunny and
calm anymore.
You're, you're vomiting onyourself, you just got chased by
(12:52):
an alligator.
What's, what's your space?
Let's walk through that and andprepare for these different
scenarios because you know a lotof times we, you know I like to
swim at the Boulder Reservoiron Tuesdays and Thursday
mornings at 6 AM and it'sbeautiful.
It beautiful, it's placid andit's just the sun's coming up
and you know it's really calmand just perfect conditions and
you know, as an open waterswimmer, it's rarely like that
(13:14):
in the real world.
Right, and when you go out foryour big swims and I got a race
across Lake Tahoe on July 19thTahoe has the potential to be
anything on any given day.
Right, it could be choppy, itcould be cold, it could be rainy
.
You've got all three of them.
Um, so it's just, and that'sone of the things I love about
open water swimming is thatvariation of it is never the
(13:38):
same, ever, ever.
Uh, you know it, that's part ofthe sport is rivers, lakes and
oceans present these reallyunique challenges that you don't
find in a pool.
In fact, I tell people, openwater swimming is a little bit
like running in the mountains,you know, trail running as
(13:59):
opposed to running on a track,whereas swimming in a pool is
like running on a track, youknow, and, and I think swimming
in the open water is like trailrunning, it's free, you know
there's, you're really justdoing it on your own time and
your own space, and you know Iwill mention that, um, you won't
(14:20):
see in my swimming history anyof the you know English Channel
swims.
Now I want to do Gibraltar andCatalina and I've tried to do
the race around Manhattan andhaven't been able to get into
that yet.
But you know, the EnglishChannel to me I mean, look great
, love Channel swimmers.
(14:41):
But you know it's like theEverest of swimming.
It's expensive, it's cold.
It's cold, it's gnarly, it'sjellyfish, there's ships.
You know how about?
Let's go to a place like theColorado river, through Moab and
Canyon lands, where you feellike kind of phelpsian when
you're swimming.
That it's just long and you'regoing with the.
(15:02):
You know the river's moving atabout a mile per hour in this
kind of strong current and theeagles are flying over the head,
the canyons are rising up andyou're you're following this
beautiful river that's ancient,that has carved these canyons
through the millennia and it's,you know it's cold, it was just
snow melt right and it's it'sthat silky feeling on your skin
(15:27):
that's cutting through these,these torching canyons in the in
a blazing hot desert, and thatkind of juxtaposition that just
you know, I love it, I just loveit.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
So, and it it sounds like you have this cause, this
kind of mission, pushing you toswim in these different bodies
of water, and what would you saythat the swimmers out there
that are listening, what can wedo to help our water, to help
save our rivers?
What can we do?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
I'm so glad you asked that, kelly, because I think
that open water swimmers are ina very unique position to be
ambassadors for water, that weare not just swimmers but we are
spokespeople for the water thatwe swim in and to keep it clean
and to keep it healthy.
Now, there's a number of thingsthat people can do and you know,
(16:19):
know, I've chosen to use myswimming for this purpose of of
raising awareness about waterissues.
American rivers is the uh, thelargest uh river advocacy
organization in the unitedstates.
You know is is how do wesupport them and their work and
and what they're doing on thehill?
And uh, they have a goal tosave and restore one million
(16:44):
miles of rivers by 2050 and totake down 30,000 dams.
And you know, clean,free-flowing rivers are a threat
in this country.
They are under threat and youknow it's something that we
should be using our sport to saylike, hey, this is important.
We need to keep these watersclean, protected, healthy and
(17:10):
and for future generations, andnot just because it's something
pretty to look at, but becauseour very survival as a species
depends upon it.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So who are they under threat by?
And tell me why dams are bad.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Not all dams are bad.
I don't want to say that.
I think dams that have outlivedtheir time, dams that are
broken, that don't generatehydropower anymore.
You know American Rivers wasone of the spearheaders of
taking down the Klamath Dam.
That you know.
Now, just after one year,you've already have salmon
(17:48):
respawning.
You have tribal members justdid their first.
They had, I think, 100 NativeAmerican youth that floated and
did a kayak trip, multi-daykayak trip through the canyons
there.
And you know, one of the thingsthat I'm so glad to see that
(18:11):
happened just last week and overthe weekend was that the public
lands sell-off was strippedfrom the budget bill and you
know 20% of our rivers andfreshwater comes from public
lands, so selling those off.
Then you know 20 percent of ourrivers and fresh water comes
from public lands, so sellingthose off.
Then you know the Clean WaterProtection Act, the Clean Water
Act that protects wetlands, andyou know those things are all
(18:33):
under threat and you know themoment that we start tearing up
wetlands, drying up rivers andstreams, polluting them.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
It's a real threat to humanity.
So I'm hearing we can beambassadors, we can support
organizations that protect ourrivers and lakes and estuaries
and things.
What else?
How would I be an ambassadorother than hosting you on my
podcast?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well, I think you know there, um, you know, every
day in the swimming worldsomebody is going out and doing
these great swims in bodies ofwater and and using those
stories to tell people whythat's important.
You know, I would say, for meat least, swimming with a
(19:28):
purpose is very, very importantto me.
You know I'm on these longswims and you're almost 17 hours
crossing the Caribbean and youknow there's a time when you're
like what am I doing here?
Why am I doing this?
And I'm sure I know you'vetalked a lot about this on the
Champions Mojo podcast, aboutwhy.
You know that big question,what drives us?
(19:49):
Why are we there?
And for me, I might you know,after seven or eight hours, when
kind of the fun's over and I'vethought about everything I can
think about, you know I mightget out Like what's.
You know why do I need to dothis?
And for me, drawing on thatpurpose of being an ambassador
(20:14):
for the water and that, whensomebody, like American Rivers,
has put themselves on the linefor you and is raising money and
creating awareness, I'm notgoing to quit.
You know I am going to.
That is dry.
That purpose is driving me downthe river and across oceans and
you know it's very, veryimportant to me, uh, why I do it
(20:36):
?
And that's another kind ofreason why you know English
Channel is great but it'sgenerally not associated with
any purpose.
It's just kind of ego and Ithink I don't you know, I've got
a pretty healthy ego, but it'snot enough for me to really put
myself in dire straits unlessthere's a bigger purpose
(21:00):
involved in it, and so thatpurposeful swimming to me is
very, very important.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
I love that.
So one of the things thatyou're obviously you know doing
great things for advocacy andyou're a winner, you're a
champion in life in so many ways, from your business to your
books, to your swims and we loveto talk about kind of what
(21:27):
you've been through personally,not just you know, these are the
things that you've done forhumanity.
But if we just drill down alittle bit on Matt Mosley and
what you've overcome, you knowit's just so inspirational for
me to hear people who are reallyout there killing it and what
(21:49):
you've gone through.
Do you have some stories of acomeback or something that you
know you were really knockeddown in life and how did you get
back to the surface mentally,emotionally, physically?
Speaker 2 (22:01):
That's a great question.
Yes, I have overcome some realtragedies in my life.
The biggest one that spurred meinto long distance swimming was
I'd already, you know, I swamas a competitive swimmer in high
school.
I wasn't going to get a collegescholarship, I wasn't fast like
that.
And then in graduate school, atCU, I kind of came back to
(22:23):
swimming.
You know, I remember showing upwith the board shorts at the
pool and, like you know, just afew laps and I started.
My wife gifted me a canoe whenshe was in law school and I was
in graduate school and it camewith a trip down the Colorado
River and that was the.
I brought my swim goggles andit was the first time that I
(22:44):
swam open water like that and itjust something clicked and I
just loved it and, um, I starteddoing 5k races and this is back
in the early two thousands kindof late nineties uh, 5k races.
And then I signed up for a 10krace across, uh, the horseshoes
reservoir and um was doing theseraces.
(23:05):
So we go on this canoe trip,right, and we have my kids and
this is, uh, you know, 10 or 12years after I'd gotten the canoe
and we're coming back and I uh,in a place where I have cliff
jumped maybe, you know, for 12years or something before that
and when I jumped off the cliffI hit a sandbar and um shattered
(23:28):
my whole right leg.
So I had my right leg lookliterally like the Eiffel Tower.
There were, um, I had fourplates and 17 screws holding it
all together.
Um, and it was Kelly.
It was the darkest time in mylife I, you know.
First of all, I felt like areal dumbass because I had done
it to myself and you know therewasn't some kind of car accident
(23:51):
I could blame on somebody else,it was me.
And um, you know, my kids areall going off skiing in the
winter and I'm sitting on thecouch and feeling sorry for
myself and it took 13 months forthat to heal.
And then the you know Icouldn't live with that stuff in
my leg and so we got it alltaken out and that was another
(24:12):
eight or nine months of of ofrecovery, so, all told, about
two years of of.
I couldn't even drive barelybecause it was my right leg.
And um, you know that was atime that they were just
throwing around painkillerspretty liberally and I enjoy my
white wine in the evenings, andyou know it's a pretty dangerous
(24:32):
combination, to tell you thetruth.
After a little while and uh, itwas in that convalescence and in
some of the darkest times thatyou know, I set the goal that we
had gone down to LakePontchartrain for a number of
years before and we're swimmingto raise money to rebuild the
lighthouse that was destroyed inHurricane Katrina, and this is
(24:55):
a lighthouse where De La Sallebasically stood and claimed that
the new world for spain.
And uh, right at that point,and you know, the lighthouse was
destroyed so we were raisingmoney for that.
But during my recovery is whenI set the goal to swim poncho
train and it took another threeyears to kind of come back right
(25:17):
and I got a coach for the firsttime since I was in high school
, this fiery Puerto Rican guynamed Randy Soler, who you know
really believed in me.
And so, you know, coming back,I felt like, you know, there
(25:38):
were two kind of divergent pathsI could see in my life, like
one was going down this paththat I didn't want to be.
I didn't want to be, you know,addicted to painkillers and an
alcoholic and drinking andsitting on the couch and feeling
sorry for myself and gettingfat.
I wanted to come back.
You know, I felt like in theend when I stood up in Lake
(26:06):
Pontchartrain.
When I stood up in LakePontchartrain and threw my hands
over my head, it wasn't, youknow, it wasn't just the swim,
it was basically like I had comeback as a better person, like
all around and, you know,discovering this kind of higher
(26:26):
purpose in swimming, my friendsand family.
Yeah, sorry, I'm getting alittle emotional about it, but
you know, kind of I hadn'treally thought about that time
for a while and it was in thisvery real sense, kind of
overcoming this tragedy andbecoming a better person through
(26:48):
it.
And that's something I reallyencourage people when I speak
and I try not to be amotivational speaker living in a
van down by the river, but I,you know, try to tell people
this example because you know,kelly, when you're our age,
things happen in life.
You know, try to tell peoplethis example because you know,
kelly, when you're our age,things happen in life.
You know injuries, cancer,deaths, all kinds of things, and
(27:08):
how we deal with those isreally the mark of our character
, not if they happen, but whenthey do.
How do we respond as a personand so that was my response and
I felt like, you know, it workedand I came back better and then
, after Pontchartrain, there wasno stopping me.
I, you know, then went to theCaribbean and then, you know,
(27:29):
went back to Canyonlands andswam the Colorado River and then
, you know, sea of Galilee.
And you know I'm not done yet.
I've got so much more.
I mean, there's so many swims Iwant to do right.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I just don't have the time or the space.
I could see you going back inyour mind.
I could see you literallyvisualizing yourself through the
accident and through you know,maybe the self-blame and the you
know, all those things that weterrorize ourself with, and so
could you share with us, like,obviously so if somebody's in
(28:18):
that dark time, because we'reall in that dark time, and if
it's not, if you're not in thatdark time, then it's coming and
I know people used to say thatto me and I hated it, but I
really believe that we have waymore of an ability to endure
things that we think know.
(28:41):
Obviously you set the goal.
What else?
What like if?
If you're, if you go back tothat dark time on a daily basis
for almost two years of probablya lot of pain and a lot of
struggle what were, what wereyou doing that got you up?
What?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
were you doing that got you up, you know when, the
first?
I remember when I first startedcoming back into the pool.
You know, I I always lovedswimming but I did not realize,
you know, how much it meant tomy life until I couldn't do it
anymore.
Right, and I think you know, Iremember coming back to the pool
(29:23):
and I was starting to do somedry land exercises on the side
of the pool and I was, you know.
So this guy, randy, comes over.
He had just moved from PuertoRico to Boulder and he was
coaching the, the Bouldermasters team, and he comes over
and he's like, hey, what youdoing, you know, are you
training for something?
And I kind of told him he'slike, well, if you keep doing
(29:44):
what you're doing, you're goingto hurt yourself.
It's like, how about if I helpyou with a couple of things?
And you know it started prettycasually and he would just give
me these few things and he wasreally, you know, my, because of
my injury, my leg would kind oftwist out a little bit.
It was, it was weird, you know,but he he was very, very focused
(30:05):
on form and technically beingcorrect in the exercises and you
know, posture and using.
You know he was also.
You know he used to tell me toswim from the belly.
You know, swim from your core,not just using your shoulders.
Like a lot of open waterswimmers are very shoulder heavy
, you know, and they're pickingup and they're sighting and
(30:27):
doing all this stuff.
And um, you know he was likeswim from the belly, I want your
butt high in the air, but youknow just that technically
correct form.
And then he made me do a lot ofsprints, which I was like what
are you talking?
Why are we doing these sprints?
I'm a distance swimmer and he'slike no, but you got to go fast
to go far.
You got to go fast to go far,man.
(30:48):
And so it he was right, hereally did.
You know, getting that speedback really helped my strength
and overall ability for swimmingand you know, just having
somebody that believes in you,it was really special and I, you
know, I hadn't had a coach inmy life since I was in high
(31:10):
school, right, so it was verydifferent.
And you know that accountabilityand you know, hey, I'm going to
be there at 6 am for dry landand then we're swimming at 7.
You're going to be there, right, and so having that was, I
think, the key element to mysuccess.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Was that, and you know, having a great family and
supportive team great family andsupportive team, right, yeah,
yeah, I think I think all thosethings just to kind of you know,
summarize what I'm hearing youhave a goal, you have somebody
that's really supporting you,that you're accountable to.
I'm also hearing movement, likeI just believe that people,
(31:49):
when they're injured or they'resad or they're depressed or
they're, you know, you got tomove your body and even if it's
you know the littlest thing, youwalk from here to the mailbox
and then you walk from themailbox to the next mailbox and
just movement and certainly thecommunity of people that are
that are supporting you, butthat, that passionate purpose of
(32:13):
I want to swim and and make adifference.
So beautiful, beautiful, okay,matt.
So again on your intro, I wasso impressed with the books that
you've written and one thatjust intrigued the heck out of
me and I saw one of yourspeeches to you actually spoke
to Google.
For goodness sakes, I didn'teven put that in the intro, but
(32:34):
I loved your Dear Dr Thompsonbook and I'm just going to throw
that out there for people tocheck that out.
Check out your Google talk.
I don't want to go into it herebecause we'll be on for two
hours, but essentially,essentially what that book
taught me is people who becomechampions make good choices, you
know.
And so what are your thoughtson how we can make better
(32:59):
choices to reach the things thatwe want in life and have a
better life?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Well, it's interesting that we talk about
making good choices and workingwith the author Hunter S
Thompson in the same sentence.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, and you know.
And why don't you tell peoplewhy that's a terrible choice?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And Hunter.
Yeah, hunter is the, the famousauthor of the book Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas andinvented a form called Gonzo
journalism, and so just a realcharacter.
And he used to call my swimmingGonzo swimming.
So but just, you know, if youwant me to summarize real
(33:42):
quickly, that there was a woman,lisa Allman.
She was ended up climbing inits car with the guy she didn't
know.
He ended up being a skinhead ina stolen transam, high on meth
and with a bunch of guns.
He ended up killing a cop andthen he killed himself.
She had never touched the gun,had never met the guy, had no
(34:04):
idea what was going on.
But they, uh, convicted her forfelony murder and she spent um.
She was in prison for, you know, life without parole and had
never even touched the gun, infact wasn't even there.
When the officer was shot shewas already in police custody.
So she's in prison for fiveyears.
Writes a letter to Hunter SThompson from prison saying your
(34:27):
books aren't available in theprison library.
Can you send me something?
He miraculously reads a letterand then responds and says hey,
I followed your case.
I was horrified by it.
You were in the wrong place atthe wrong time.
Maybe I can help.
He writes a thing about it andI had been following this case,
living in Denver at the time,and, um, in fact, I had worked
(34:51):
for president Bill Clinton atthe time and we were doing an
event in Denver where he met thewidow of the slain officer that
I was at that meeting.
So you know, I'd been followingthis case and I ended up writing
Hunter a memo saying here's howyou could change the narrative
of this woman's case.
She was, you know it was.
She didn't have anyrepresentation.
It was really badly framed forthe public about what happened.
(35:15):
But she didn't do it.
She wasn't even.
She had no intent for anybodyto get murdered.
So he calls me, I'm at thestate Capitol and I get to see
this number and this is a guy Iyou know there was one person I
could have dinner with.
It would be him.
You know, he was a real hero inmy earlier life because he made
politics sound like it could beso much fun and so real and
(35:37):
it's why I ended up a career inpolitics, um, and so, you know,
we end up working together.
Uh, the last point of the memowas um, let's hold a rally on
the west steps of the capitolwhen her appeals brief was filed
with the supreme court.
And so he says, son, let's holda rally, and do you mind if I
(35:58):
bring Warren Zevon Like?
Well, of course you know.
So we ended up holding therally.
It does change the narrative ofthe case.
It goes to the Supreme Court,they overturn the case, remand
it back to the Denver court,which 10 years later couldn't
put the same case together andshe walked out of prison a free
woman after 10 years in jail.
(36:21):
And then the governor ofColorado just recently signed a
law overturning the felonymurder statute.
So very big sort of changethere, using this one woman's
case as a test case foroverturning the felony murder
law around the country.
And it really worked.
And Hunter had already killedhimself at the time when it was
(36:43):
at the Supreme Court.
He committed suicide.
And that's when I ended upbeing hired because I'd worked
with them for about seven years.
So I knew the family very well,I knew his world, I knew him
and was hired by Johnny Depp tobe the communications director
for Hunter's funeral.
So we blasted his ashes out ofa 157 foot tall gonzo fist in
(37:07):
Aspen.
It was pretty crazy.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Well, it sounds like this is a.
You love changing the narrativeon things and I think that's
really powerful.
And you know, besides,obviously don't get in a car
with someone you don't knowwho's a skinhead.
How, how else can we make goodchoices, just like in life?
(37:32):
Have you?
Have you narrowed that down?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
just like in life?
Have you?
Have you narrowed that down?
You know, I don't know if wecan say good choices, you know,
for everyone all around, like,is going out and swimming 25
miles a great choice, you know,for some people not so much.
But I think that the sweet spotin life is generally when we're
doing something that's greaterthan ourselves, when we are
thinking about ways that ourlife can make the world a better
(38:02):
place, make just the peoplearound us better, to be a better
friend, to be a good colleagueand to find for me, to find work
and issues that I really deeplycare about and like water,
where I can use my full passion,my full self, and bring it to
the table to create change andmove public opinion.
(38:25):
You know I've spent mybasically my whole career in
sort of managing issues andpublic opinion.
And how do we get people to,you know, support things like
water or education oroverturning the felony murder
law, things that really impactpeople's lives?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Well, that is a great place to kind of start to wrap
this up.
If you had a magic wand, whatwould you want to see happen
with your most recent advocacy?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
I would love to see a seven-state deal on the
Colorado River, I mean, first ofall, just because you know
that's my world.
But in general, I would love tosee us, as a sport, using our
our sport to be waterambassadors and to to really
speak from the water.
And you know I mentioned thatearlier, but you know, in the
(39:25):
same, I mean fishermen kind ofstand on the side of the river
right, surfers are on top of it.
Uh, you know scuba divers.
Yes, they are also ambassadorsfor the water.
But you know we're in thisunique place where we are in it.
You know, we feel it, we tasteit every day when we're in these
(39:46):
bodies of water.
So how could we, you know, makeit where our sport is much more
on the front lines of advocacy?
And you know it doesn't have tobe to the level that I do it.
You know I'm I'm probably afreak of nature in this, in this
way, but you know, just to goand dip your toes and take a
(40:07):
cold plunge in the Boulder Creekor in in any river, the Gauley,
you know, in West Virginia, orsomething where you show people
why you love it and why you careabout these places and bodies
of water and why they'reimportant.
So it doesn't have to be thatyou have to go out and swim 25
(40:28):
miles.
You can just go dip your toe init, but tell that story and so
that other people see it andappreciate it.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
That is so beautiful, beautiful.
Um, before we go to thesprinter round, which is just a
little list of fun questions forlisteners to get to know you
better, is there anything that Ihave not asked you that, uh,
you'd like to share that I?
Speaker 2 (40:54):
have not asked you that you'd like to share.
No, I think we've covered quitea bit.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Okay, yeah, and of course your book Soul is
Waterproof is available.
The Matt Mosley story, it'savailable.
You're holding up a copy there.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
They can get it on Amazon or anywhere books are
found, I would imagine right,absolutely, absolutely.
I did a 35 city book tour.
Somebody's like, well, whydidn't you write a book?
I'm like, well, to go on booktour, of course.
But yeah, I love getting outand talking about these things
and talking to audiences andsharing sort of this unique
passion that I've, that I'vefound, you know sort of this
(41:38):
unique passion that I've found.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
You know, Okay, Wonderful, Wonderful.
Well, I will put in the shownotes how you know all this info
that people can find.
Are you ready for some fastquestions?
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Well to mention to you, I'm not a sprinter.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I know I'm not either , so that's why just do the best
you can, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
You got to go fast, to go far.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yes, if your life had a soundtrack, what?
Speaker 2 (42:06):
might be a song that you would play while you're
swimming.
I love the Grateful Dead, soScarlet Fire, Scarlet Begonias
might be something that I do.
I also I love funk music, sothere's some Devil Brothers
songs that I that I love to playand then there's this great
(42:27):
zero seven song called Swimmers.
That sometimes gets in my headand you know I like to to kind
of hum it while I'm swimming.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Oh, I'm going to write that one down.
I haven't heard it.
Okay, um, if uh soul iswaterproof, the Matt Mosley
story became a movie.
Who?
Who do you want to play you?
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Uh, oh gosh, that's a funny one.
Uh know it.
Brad Pitt maybe, I don't knowuh, tatum Channing Chris Farley.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Oh gosh, I love Chris Farley, you're yeah, that's too
humble or um, yeah, willFerrell.
Will Ferrell.
Oh Will Ferrell, that would bea good one.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
I think Will is great , yeah and he'd make it kind of
funny, which I like to be.
You know, I like to have a lotof fun and tell jokes.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And you know we've all seen him in a Speedo already
, so that's kind of you knowhe's in a Speedo in a couple of
his couple of his movies.
It's funny, all right.
What is your pump up ritualbefore Big Swim?
Speaker 2 (43:38):
What is your pump up ritual before a big swim?
I usually eat shrimp.
Pasta is kind of my go to mealbefore a big swim because it's
got that heavy protein.
I don't eat a ton of the pastabut the shrimp is very good to
digest.
Um, I like quiet space.
Uh, you know, usually like.
(44:01):
So I had 18 people on a supportcrew for this moab swim and I I
usually have to designatesomebody that's the person that
to deal with the crew, likeanswer all their questions and
what are we going to eat, howare, how do how do we pee, like
all these things like havesomebody else deal with this.
So I like to just be reallykind of focused and just ready,
ready to swim.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Okay, awesome, okay.
Um, if you can gain one newskill, just instantly poof, what
would it be?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Fixing cars or working on my house.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Oh yeah, fixing cars.
How great would that be.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
I'm just not a.
I'm just not a handyman.
I wish I was.
I was, in fact.
I was going to go take a classin like Greek mythology at CU
and my wife was like how aboutyou learn how to fix the kitchen
sink first?
Speaker 1 (44:49):
That's great, all right.
Last question when you are inthe water, what?
What is a one word that youthat describes how you feel?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Gratitude.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Gratitude.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Oh, I love it, I love it I found gratitude for just
the space, the water, the people, my life, all the little things
that bring you to that moment.
It's just profound gratitude.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
That is beautiful.
Matt, thank you so much forspending this time with us today
.
You were awesome and best ofluck in everything.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
What a treasure I loved talking with you, kelly.
Thanks, great questions andjust a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Thank you.
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