October 7, 2024 • 36 mins
Matt Towner thought his troubles were behind him after a horrific motorycle accident that should have killed him. He thought he was experiencing something incredibly romantic, when a woman he'd only been on one date with surprisingly volunteered to help him rehabilitate. But his troubles were only just beginning.
You can learn more about Matt by reading his books:
Crazy Sh*t in Asia
https://au.newhollandpublishers.com/catalog/product/view/id/2488
Abroad, Broke & Busted
https://au.newhollandpublishers.com/catalog/product/view/id/2041
Allegedly is a production of Voyage Media. The series is produced by Nat Mundel, Robert Mitas and Dan Benamor. This episode, A Nightmare Romance, was written and directed by Dan Benamor. Executive Produced by Matt Towner. Watch this space for a link to Matt's upcoming book, Positivity.
Starring Jonathan Regier and Laura Bellomo. Edited, sound designed and mixed by James Scully.
If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you're listening.
You can learn more about Matt by reading his books:
Crazy Sh*t in Asia
https://au.newhollandpublishers.com/catalog/product/view/id/2488
Abroad, Broke & Busted
https://au.newhollandpublishers.com/catalog/product/view/id/2041
Allegedly is a production of Voyage Media. The series is produced by Nat Mundel, Robert Mitas and Dan Benamor. This episode, A Nightmare Romance, was written and directed by Dan Benamor. Executive Produced by Matt Towner. Watch this space for a link to Matt's upcoming book, Positivity.
Starring Jonathan Regier and Laura Bellomo. Edited, sound designed and mixed by James Scully.
If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you're listening.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My name is Matt Towner.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
And when I nearly died in a motorcycle accident and
a girl that I'd only just met came to my
hospital bedside, I thought it was the start of a
beautiful love story, but in fact it was the beginning
of a nightmare. I was forty years old when the
(00:24):
global financial crisis hit. I was a very successful real
estate agent and a beautiful beachside town Byron Bay in Australia,
making one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, surfing
and playing golf and being social. Then the global financial
crisis hit. In that first year, I made seven thousand
(00:46):
dollars one sale. Byron Bay is pretty much a luxury item,
and no one was buying luxury items. Some friends and
I had purchased fifty acres overlooking the beach and the mountains,
and we were in a lot of trouble in terms
of trying to pay our bills, as were people all
over the world. The bank basically said if we didn't
(01:08):
sell up, they will, so we had to sell and
we bought a property for three million dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Honey felt like three days.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Was probably three months before the Global financial crisis, but
we'd held on for a year and we just couldn't
hold on anymore and sold for just over one and
a half million. We all walked away with absolutely nothing.
By the stage, we were just ready, all of us
to do something. Before we considered whether we had to
declare ourselves bankrupt or not. We went to Thailand and
(01:43):
we wanted to go on an adventure and get it
far away from civilization as we could. The night before
I left my home in Byron Bay, Australia to go
on a motorcycle adventure in the Jungles of Thailand, actually
went on a first date with a gorgeous girl and
it went very very well.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Have you ever thought about politics?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I try not to.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
You have a face for it, and the I I'd
vote for you hardly, don't be modest?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Why are you single?
Speaker 6 (02:23):
Just haven't found the right person? I suppose I could
ask you the same question. I want someone doing something
with their lives. Most men, at least the men i've met,
I'm very happy not to.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
You need a better class of companion.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
The search continues. How will you know when you find
the right person.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
I think I'll just know right now. I'm at a
weird point in my life. A lot of things I
thought would be my life have changed. I'm still finding
my way to be honest.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Not a good time to be alone, sounds like.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
No, I suppose not.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
From everything you've told me, sounds like you've already accomplished
a lot. I'm sure you'll find your way through this.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
No, so.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
If you know so, it'll happen.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
That easier it can be. Yes, you're a very positive person.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Life's too short to not go for the things we want.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
And what do you want tonight? Your trouble, good trouble.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'd promise that when I returned from my motorcycle adventure
after two weeks, we'd go on our second date. Sadly
that didn't happen because.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I had an accident.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Literally on the first day of motorcyculd adventure. Hired some
dirt bikes and went from Bouquet up over the mountains
and into the forest and found a little bar on
the beach and sat and watched the sunset. It was
a beautiful way to get away from the world, but
(04:25):
on the way back I was certainly being way too
wild and free, careless and carefree. No helmet, no shoes,
board shorts, singlet and as I came over a hill
I got some are I could still see the pothole
that I knew I could not miss. As I landed,
(04:46):
the whole bike turned sideways and the handlebars went through
my stomach and came out the back of my spine,
and I went down the mountain with the bike basically
inside me. By the time I landed at the bottom
of the hill, I knew that I'd broken my.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Back straight away. It was classic Thailand. There were people
all around me. I didn't know where they'd come from
out of the jungle.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Basically couldn't speak because I'd broken my ribs perforated by lungs.
I'd fractured my skull, my spine, my ankle, my knee,
my shoulder, my elbow, broken three ribs, and.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Had a brain hemorrhage.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
My friend who was behind me, by the time he
got to me, there were people all around me, and
he didn't want me to see the look on his
face because he says I was in four pieces. I
kept saying my back, my back, don't touch me. But
there was someone in a uniform there. I still do
this day, don't know whether it was police or security,
(05:43):
and he said okay, okay, ambulance, and just as I relaxed,
they picked me up and put me in the back
of a flatbed truck.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I spent forty minutes in.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
The back of a flatbed truck where the broken spine
and broken everything from head to toe on the right
end side of my body. My skull was split white,
my eyes kept filling with blood. They were holding me down,
four people basically, one on each limb, waving smelling salts
under my nose to bring me back into consciousness, back
from death, and every part of my body was moving
(06:15):
as the truck was moving. The crazy thing is that
doctors specialists have explained to me that people who end
up in a wheelchair, it's not because you have a
broken spine, it's because you have a broken spinal cord.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I spent forty minutes on that truck, being held down,
going in and out of death, and.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
My spinal cord still didn't break, which your spinal cord
is like a string of toothpaste. It was explained to
me that's how fragile it is. So it was certainly
a miracle. I have a rugby upbringing That's how I
(06:58):
first started traveling. Contracted at twenty one to play rugby
for San Diego, and I remember it was like when
you're running on or off a rugby field and there's
a tunnel of people either side of you cheering you on.
It was like that with the opposite friends and family
saying goodbye as I was going towards those pearly gates,
and then the smelling salts had bring me back.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
They took me to a public.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Hospital first because I had flashbacks of something like a
Vietnam war movie. But I was still conscious or in
and out of consciousness, and again with hardly being able
to speak, I kept.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Saying, insurance, I have insurance.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I woke up three days later coming out of a
coma in a five star private hospital which was brand new,
the Bangkok Hospital Pouquette, and they'd stitched me all up,
but they couldn't operate until I signed waivers because there
was no guarantees I was ever going to be able
to walk again. Lucky that I was alive. My head
looked like a football with the stitches for the laces
(07:57):
all the way down the top that had to shave
my head. They had not yet put metal in my
spine or metal in my ankle, but I still have
both of those today. And I was in traction there
for weeks, and then I was in that hospital for
months before I could be flown back to Australia, and
then in a wheelchair and.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
On crutches for about twelve months.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It was literally day by day process to learn to
walk and talk again.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I am very lucky to be alive.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
The first thing that came to me when I came
out of my coma was a voice.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It was my voice, but.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It wasn't me strange to say, but whatever you believe
in the bigger picture of things, this voice, my voice, said,
this is going to be the best thing that ever
happens to you.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And I truly believe.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I know that if I had had the opposite voice
or mantra to that, I would be either dead or
in a wheelchair. It was that poar of positive thinking
that got me to where I am today. I've been
through a lot of healing therapies, rehability with a lot
of people who have had a lot lesser accidents than me,
but a lot less positive spirit.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And I see them still with.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Either serious physical issues or painkiller addictions and things like that,
which I truly believe. Everything has its place, but the
power positive thinking can be more important than anything else.
I find everything funny. A lot of people don't find
that funny, but I have to laugh. I was being
way too careless and wild and free. That's what we
were going there to do. But I was an extremist.
(09:29):
Or it's have been, always will be.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But I needed a.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Slap, and I, or the universe or whatever, I gave
myself a serious slap. Dave, who was traveling with me,
was not only one of my property partners. That we
purchased fifty acres overlooking Byron Bay with waterfalls and forest dwellings,
and it was a paradise. But we'd certainly overextended ourselves,
(09:58):
especially as the world thenmpletely changed. We just couldn't keep
up with the payments. But at the same time, we'd
gone back a long way. We were best of friends.
I owned a nightclub in Byron Bay and then a
real estate agency, so I joked that I knew everyone
and all their dirty secrets, and Dave and I were
partners in that nightclub, and he also owned the local cinema.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
We were the best of friends and still are to
this day.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I think, to this day he's still more in shock
than I am because of what he had to experience
in terms of seeing me in pieces and then following
that truck, not knowing if I was going to make
it or not, then even the days that I was
(10:47):
in a coma, and then the time to wait to
know whether I could walk again, which it was close
to that two week mark before I not only I'd
first phoned another great mate of ours who was in
charge of all of my insurance. I'm now the biggest
fan of insurance, which is one thing I espouse in
my books. And I will hear that my travels picked
(11:09):
up my two hundred thousand US dollar hospital bill in
countries like Thailand, in many countries, if I hadn't had
that insurance or a credit card to be able to
pay for that, I would have been left in a
waiting room and I would not be alive. So insurance
was a lifesaver. Those villagers were a lifesaver. That brand
new five star private hospital was a lifesaver.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
All of that was a lifesaver.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And Dave was there to support me until I made
the decision to firstly phone my friend who was in
charge of all of the insurance. Again, I could hardly speak,
so he then phoned my parents to let them know.
I didn't want to phone anyone until I knew that
I could walk again. I wanted to know the seriousness
of the situation rather than people worrying from afar before
(11:53):
anything was confirmed. And then I felt obliged to ring
the girl who I had been on a date the
day before I had the accident, to explain that that
second date wasn't going to be two weeks, it was
going to be.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Two months or more.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I was in shock because I was really being a
gentleman and being polite to postpone a promise, but she
immediately offered to jump on a plane and fly to
my hospital bedside. I was speechless. I was speechless anyway,
I could really hardly speak, so I immediately thought that was
(12:34):
either beautifully sweet or incredibly strange. But I wasn't really
in any position to argue, so yeah, she flew to
my hospital bedside, and for pretty much that first week
that out of coma and out of surgeries, I had
three different serious operations would metal and pyronic bits into me.
(12:55):
I then had someone i'd only just met on a
first date. But it'd been a beautiful state in my
hospital bedside, attending to me as well as the TI
doctors and nurses were so yeah, I wasn't complaining. I
had a morphine drip, which I think by the time
(13:16):
she arrived, I had already overdone that and asked them
to take that away because I got so carried away
that I remember one night I was still in traction,
so I was in a hospital bed, but I had
metal coming out of me everywhere, wires, so I was,
let's almost raised off the bed because of my broken spine,
tubes coming out of to get the fluid off my
(13:36):
lungs and all sorts of things. It was like I
really wasn't like a scene out of The Bionic Man
or some crazy movie. And I had gone so much
on the morphine, which was unregulated, that I was hallucinating
that I was sword fighting with dragons. And that's the
night I thought, right, that's enough of the morphine and
the nurses. The next morning I was I take that away,
(14:00):
and I slowly but truly weaned myself off that intense
a pain killing situation. I was still having to rest
a lot when she arrived. One of the most painful
things was redressing wounds, which they had to do every day,
which was like tearing goreze off open patches where literally
I could see bone, I could see some of my toes,
(14:22):
I could see through my knee from my elbow, you
could see. It was very bizarre, but she was there
as well. She immediately jumped into the role of my
girlfriend after a first date, being there supportive and caring
and loving in that stage while I was in and
out of a purple haze of pain. She was very convincing,
(14:48):
one hundred percent hook line and sinker in every way.
She immediately jumped into not just girlfriend like roll, a
wifelike roll, cheering me up in every way. She was
being very romantic but also being very much my naughty nurses,
which when I look back, was really eccentric.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
But I am a bit eccentric, so that was really sweet.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
What are you wearing? That's some man's coat, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
You've been so glum now.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
It's not as if I stubbed my toe.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Fair enough, but I thought you needed something to cheer
you up.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
You caught me a coat.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
No, oh, we need to check your vitals. Mister Twner.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
I'm not sure I can.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Oh I think you can.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
Oh my.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Oh oh, mister Tanner, I'm just being professional. Here are
you staring at me? I might be that's inappropriate.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Oh, I apologize.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
This is a hospital regulation outfit, sir.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
I might have gotten one a size or two too
small and pouring out of it, aren't.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
I It would be ungentlemanly to say you just went back.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Mister Tawner. You need your rest. We wouldn't want you're
getting too excited.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
No, certainly not tell me. If you see the nights coming,
I will.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Wipe that smile off your face.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
I'm a professional, sir. Yes, ma'am, ha ha. Hands to yourself,
mister Turner.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I don't want to get in trouble with my supervisor.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I won't tell him.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
If you want a little secret then.
Speaker 7 (17:43):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Uh huh.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Oh ah oh my.
Speaker 7 (17:53):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
This was you didn't have to do this.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Stay in the moment, mister Towna.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Don't go all gushy on.
Speaker 7 (18:09):
Me now, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I had a lot of very professional care, but it
was also nice to have some affectionate care, even in
funny nurse's uniforms and things that she would dress up
that was fun and funny. She was already pitching me
not only this white picket fence of my recovery and
her nursing me back to health, which by I said,
(18:46):
we knew was going to be a twelve month process,
but then getting me onto some seminar circuit speaking about
the power positive thinking and being able to sell this
program that she was involved in, which then allowed people
to also start to have stepping stones to be able
to do the same. I've always been a seminar junkie,
(19:08):
even from when I was in my early twenties.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I was going to Anti Robinson, Dan Millman, and I've
done all of.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Those full theories, the way the peaceful worry out through
to unleash the power within and raba kusaki.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
You name it. I've done them all.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And then I'd been into a position where I was
speaking the property investment seminars throughout Australia and Asia about
the power of positive thinking in terms of cash flow,
positive properties. It was all about positive investments. I had
a database of over thirty thousand property investors that I'd
been helping to buy cash flow positive properties over a
(19:44):
decade and I was the perfect patsy for that at
that stage. So like a seminar speaking multi level marketing
business where you had to pay ten thousand dollars just
to go to one of the seminars, for example in
a or in the Caribbean. It was an American based scheme,
but it had just arrived in Australia. There was already
(20:06):
a woman on the Gold Coast who'd made a million
dollars in the first year of doing this system just
by introducing people who were paying ten thousand dollars a time.
But it was very much a classic Ponzi scheme, but
there was always an ulterior motive and I didn't really see.
(20:27):
I guess my senses were down and also numbed, not only.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
By pain but by pain killers and by the accident.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
My brother and my sister still laugh, but they weren't
laughing at the time because obviously, when I landed back
in Australia after three months in intensive care and Thailand,
we went immediately from the airport to my sister's house.
My brother was there, my parents were there, obviously, very
keen to see me and I was wheeled in by
(20:56):
this woman who they immediately saw red flags all over.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
And they still talked to this.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Day that they didn't know what to say, or they
were just glad that I was alive. At that stage,
I was still in a wheelchair, but they still laughed
this day that it was like.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Something out of a misery.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
It was a misery moment for my family, but they
know what I'm like and they let it play out.
After three months in hospital and Thailand, I spent three
months in a wheelchair in her house, going back and
forth from hospital for treatments and all of the things
(21:39):
that I needed to do.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And again she was very much assisting me with that.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
But by this stage, because she was pitching me from
my hospital bed about this whole business model, and at
that stage I was on the verge of bankruptcy from
just having lost my property. I was open to a
new career path. I was now incapacitated, and she was
offering to use my email database of over thirty thousand
(22:03):
people and create a cash flow positive income just from
my story of survival, I became sort of the poster
boy of this Ponzi scheme, which again had all the elements.
Now that I look back on it and learned more
about these sorts of things, all of these cult like
(22:24):
especially the churchy based then business aligned pyramid schemes, have
a very similar thing in common. They immediately indoctrinate. By
this stage, we were tens of thousands of people. It
was expanding all over the world, so there would have
been hundreds of thousands of people. In fact, the seminar
that I was wheeled to, she flew me to Hawaii
to a seminar which can I paid for again out
(22:47):
of the bottom of the barrel of any income that
I had. There was this whole idea that don't read
the media. You had to go on a total media
block for while you learn about listen to what we're
saying about the power positive thinking and how this model works,
and how it's different than a whole Western world and
the capitalist system. It becomes like your own church and
(23:10):
then your own economy. Don't believe anyone who is a
negative thinker is going to just put it down and
you can disassociate from them, and a lot of your
friends and family won't believe you, but they're going to
be left behind. And it very much created this even
within my little community. The people that she was starting
to recruit, some of them were friends of mine. It
(23:33):
became their own network that then you weren't sort of
associating with anyone else, only people that were in this
tupwar style club that were meeting for meetings. And then
as soon as I got back to her place, it
was very much a strict regime. I was certainly being
fed and taken care of, but instead of being a
(23:55):
very beautiful way, it was pretty harsh. She was a
very hard task whist and basically it was her way
or no way.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Matt, Matt, from here.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
You drank all the milk.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I had some cereal.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Now I've got no milk for my tea.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
We talked about this before. When you finish something, you
tell me.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I forgot the medication. Makes me a bit loopy. You
know that's an excuse. I would get you more milk
if I could.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But you can't.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
I get the groceries every week, and had I known
we were out of milk, I'd have gotten it. Just
a word or two, that's all I am. As I
care for you morning, and no is there anything I
don't do for you?
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I guess not.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
Then, is this too much to ask for for this
basic courtesy?
Speaker 4 (25:13):
No? Sorry, I forgive you. Ah, thanks, just don't do
it again.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
All right? Okay, we need to do your exercises.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
I'm a bit tired at the moment from.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
What all you do is sit around.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
I didn't sleep.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
It won't get better if we don't do your exercises.
It's best to get them done straightway. Okay, don't give
me that look. This is for your own good. All right,
After we do your exercises, I want you to have
a look at this email that I'm sending out about
(25:58):
the program.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Perhaps you should slow down on those. People don't like
being bombarded with a lot of emails.
Speaker 7 (26:06):
In short order.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Bombarded you've sent three in three days.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
This program will help people. We're not selling steak knives here.
You should be dead, Matt. The power of positive thinking
is the only reason you're alive right now? Don't you
want to give that gift to others?
Speaker 4 (26:28):
I just think a breather would be good.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Are you saying you won't help me?
Speaker 4 (26:36):
No? I guess not. Huh?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
All right?
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Then?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
She was very focused on, especially once she had the
access to my database on just constantly following this model.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
That was all.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
This was very much early days of these online systems.
You followed the leader, and that's literally how it worked.
So the person above her would tell her what to do,
and then she would get people under her and tell
them what to do. And I was one of those,
even unbeknownst to me in some ways, I was just
being told what to do, but then pushed my wheelchair
(27:17):
out of the way, whilst she could do everything and
had access to all of my social media, which was
pretty early in those days, but still after thirty thousand
people on an email database, I think I had close
to ten thousand social.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Medias, which again then went horribly wrong.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
There were times when I was being treated like a
disabled child in a wheelchair and I had a very
grumpy matron hitting me.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
With a wooden ruler.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It was when I remember, literally she wasn't letting me
out of her sight.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
For forget. It was probably three months.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I've done three months in intensive care in Thailand, and
I was three months in her house and still in
a wheelchair.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
But there was a moment when I was left.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Alone, and again there had been all these rules, but
there was no watching any news, No reading newspapers, no,
you know, this whole cult like Ponzi scheme. You weren't
allowed to even google the company. You know, there was
very strict rules about just had to stay focused on
this whole goal and this model. But I took the
(28:28):
opportunity to stray outside that and as soon as I
started googling, because so this stage, it had been in
Australia for three months, so there had been cracks had
started to show, firstly back in America where it had
been going for a year or more, and there were
multi millionaires from again anyone at the top.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
That's how those things work.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
But then I sort of realized the reality of what
it was and that there were people who were going
to get burnt because basically it was especially Australia is
nowhere near the size of America. And I then realized
what she was sending out to my database. That I'd
(29:06):
offered cash flow positive properties to for a decade and
had some very successful clients. In fact, I'd ridden the
boom of Australian real estate and made people very happy,
which was always my goal. It was then that I
saw the issues. Then I sent an email myself. I
was at a point that I'd wean myself off morphine.
(29:28):
I'd gone from being on intravenously in the hospital, then
on painkillers when I was in the wheelchair. But I
was slowly but truly weaning myself off those to the
point that I was even trying to not take as
many as she was giving me. Yeah, it was then
after that three months mark that I decided to get
out of there. So I sent an email to my
(29:51):
database to say that these emails aren't coming from me,
and it's not a property investment. A lot of the time,
you would just get really angry if I ever suggested
due diligence, because he was such right down that rabbit hole,
which a lot of people were. That's how those churches,
(30:12):
those cults, those business models work. And I rang Dave,
my friend who had been with me in the mozarcle acts,
and he came and picked me up and we got
out of the house.
Speaker 8 (30:27):
Your car has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Matt Chawner is.
Speaker 7 (30:32):
Not available at the town. Please record your message. When
you have finished recording, you may hang up or press
one for more options to lead your callback number, Press five.
Speaker 8 (30:44):
Matte, I don't know where you've gone or what you
think you're doing. But I know you couldn't have gone
far on your own. You know, after everything I've done
for you, this is what you're doing. I was there
for you. What other woman on planet Earth would do
for you, the things I did upturn their entire life
(31:05):
to care for you. I let you in my home.
How could you do this to me? You're the most
ungrateful man I've ever met. I thought you were special.
I thought that you understood what I'm trying to build.
I thought we could do it together. I guess I
was wrong. Good luck Without.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Me, we were literally making a run for it and
getting out of there, and I remember feeling such a
sense of freedom, and we actually went for a beer.
It was the first time I had a beer after
(31:48):
three months in hospital and three months in nurses care.
It was then that I got the phone call from
a friend of mine who used to run a lot
of my business online thing I never forget.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
She said, are you online? And I said, no.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I'm back where Dave and I had had our nightclub
for the first time, celebrating that, and she said, someone's
hacked in and is posting everything to everyone that you're
not only bankrupt, but you're on child sex charges and
suggesting that's you. I can still remember the feeling of
(32:28):
the ball in.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Your throat that it's.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Like what we went straight from the bar to the
bar and by police station. And again, the more that
I've looked into this since it's classic textbook again from
those sort of cults, churches, Ponzi schemes. As soon as
anyone starts to discredit their more point fingers, the first
thing they do is create a smear campaign to discredit
(32:53):
that person immediately. It's wrong that people can do this
without any evidence. Beat me to the police station and
told the police that I had sent her hundreds of
threatening text messages and emails.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I hadn't sent one. I didn't even I'll have access
to them.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Basically, I then couldn't do anything because the charge has
already been put against me, which was hilarious but not
funny at all. I then went down the road of
enlisting a lawyer fighting these Navy Oh it's called an
Australian apprehended violence order against me by this woman who
was basically just trying to discredit me, because by this stage,
(33:33):
all in the same afternoon, while I was enjoying my
first beer my freedom and thinking that I had nipped
it in the bud, sent an email saying, this isn't
a positive investments email that's coming from me.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Do your own due diligence.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
I wasn't doing anything to the level that I didn't
expect where it.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Would go next.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I just said, Okay, that's me taking charge of my life,
of my database, of my business. But the email that
she then sent was to thirty thousand business contents that
I'd created over a decade, as well as posting all
over social media five thousand people on Facebook and thirty
thousand people on.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
An email that she'd sent this email from me as
if it was from me.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Even wording this whole sad story that I had to
tell people that I was bankrupted on child sex changes,
which we then took to court. She didn't even turn up.
There was no evidence of any threatening emails or text messages.
The case was thrown out of court. It cost me
eight thousand dollars in legal fees. My lawyer, I remember,
(34:43):
said well, where's the retribution of my client's costs?
Speaker 1 (34:46):
And the judge said, well, you know, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Like that, which again sadly is a problem with the
legal system in some ways that people can just make
accusations with no evidence whatsoever and then walk away.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And I haven't seen her since.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
All we could do is go back to the pub
and have another beer. Dave and I did that, and
again watch the sunset in our beautiful town of barn Bay,
but this time after one more beer before sunset.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Instead of jumping on motorbikes, we got a taxi.
Speaker 7 (35:34):
Allegedly is a production of Voyage Media. The series is
produced by nat Mondel, Albertmidus, and Dan Benimore.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
This episode, a Nightmare Romance, was written and directed by
Dan Bennimore, Executive produced by Matt Towner.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
You can learn more about Matt's slave by reading his
book Positivity, available now.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
A link is in the show notes, starring Jonathan Riguier
and Laura Balomo. Edited sound designed and mixed by James Scully.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a five
star review on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you're listening, and
subscribe now for future episodes.
My name is Matt Towner.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
And when I nearly died in a motorcycle accident and
a girl that I'd only just met came to my
hospital bedside, I thought it was the start of a
beautiful love story, but in fact it was the beginning
of a nightmare. I was forty years old when the
(00:24):
global financial crisis hit. I was a very successful real
estate agent and a beautiful beachside town Byron Bay in Australia,
making one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, surfing
and playing golf and being social. Then the global financial
crisis hit. In that first year, I made seven thousand
(00:46):
dollars one sale. Byron Bay is pretty much a luxury item,
and no one was buying luxury items. Some friends and
I had purchased fifty acres overlooking the beach and the mountains,
and we were in a lot of trouble in terms
of trying to pay our bills, as were people all
over the world. The bank basically said if we didn't
(01:08):
sell up, they will, so we had to sell and
we bought a property for three million dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Honey felt like three days.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Was probably three months before the Global financial crisis, but
we'd held on for a year and we just couldn't
hold on anymore and sold for just over one and
a half million. We all walked away with absolutely nothing.
By the stage, we were just ready, all of us
to do something. Before we considered whether we had to
declare ourselves bankrupt or not. We went to Thailand and
(01:43):
we wanted to go on an adventure and get it
far away from civilization as we could. The night before
I left my home in Byron Bay, Australia to go
on a motorcycle adventure in the Jungles of Thailand, actually
went on a first date with a gorgeous girl and
it went very very well.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Have you ever thought about politics?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
I try not to.
Speaker 5 (02:11):
You have a face for it, and the I I'd
vote for you hardly, don't be modest?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Why are you single?
Speaker 6 (02:23):
Just haven't found the right person? I suppose I could
ask you the same question. I want someone doing something
with their lives. Most men, at least the men i've met,
I'm very happy not to.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
You need a better class of companion.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
The search continues. How will you know when you find
the right person.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
I think I'll just know right now. I'm at a
weird point in my life. A lot of things I
thought would be my life have changed. I'm still finding
my way to be honest.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Not a good time to be alone, sounds like.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
No, I suppose not.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
From everything you've told me, sounds like you've already accomplished
a lot. I'm sure you'll find your way through this.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, I hope so.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
No, so.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
If you know so, it'll happen.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
That easier it can be. Yes, you're a very positive person.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Life's too short to not go for the things we want.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
And what do you want tonight? Your trouble, good trouble.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'd promise that when I returned from my motorcycle adventure
after two weeks, we'd go on our second date. Sadly
that didn't happen because.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I had an accident.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Literally on the first day of motorcyculd adventure. Hired some
dirt bikes and went from Bouquet up over the mountains
and into the forest and found a little bar on
the beach and sat and watched the sunset. It was
a beautiful way to get away from the world, but
(04:25):
on the way back I was certainly being way too
wild and free, careless and carefree. No helmet, no shoes,
board shorts, singlet and as I came over a hill
I got some are I could still see the pothole
that I knew I could not miss. As I landed,
(04:46):
the whole bike turned sideways and the handlebars went through
my stomach and came out the back of my spine,
and I went down the mountain with the bike basically
inside me. By the time I landed at the bottom
of the hill, I knew that I'd broken my.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Back straight away. It was classic Thailand. There were people
all around me. I didn't know where they'd come from
out of the jungle.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Basically couldn't speak because I'd broken my ribs perforated by lungs.
I'd fractured my skull, my spine, my ankle, my knee,
my shoulder, my elbow, broken three ribs, and.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Had a brain hemorrhage.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
My friend who was behind me, by the time he
got to me, there were people all around me, and
he didn't want me to see the look on his
face because he says I was in four pieces. I
kept saying my back, my back, don't touch me. But
there was someone in a uniform there. I still do
this day, don't know whether it was police or security,
(05:43):
and he said okay, okay, ambulance, and just as I relaxed,
they picked me up and put me in the back
of a flatbed truck.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I spent forty minutes in.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
The back of a flatbed truck where the broken spine
and broken everything from head to toe on the right
end side of my body. My skull was split white,
my eyes kept filling with blood. They were holding me down,
four people basically, one on each limb, waving smelling salts
under my nose to bring me back into consciousness, back
from death, and every part of my body was moving
(06:15):
as the truck was moving. The crazy thing is that
doctors specialists have explained to me that people who end
up in a wheelchair, it's not because you have a
broken spine, it's because you have a broken spinal cord.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I spent forty minutes on that truck, being held down,
going in and out of death, and.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
My spinal cord still didn't break, which your spinal cord
is like a string of toothpaste. It was explained to
me that's how fragile it is. So it was certainly
a miracle. I have a rugby upbringing That's how I
(06:58):
first started traveling. Contracted at twenty one to play rugby
for San Diego, and I remember it was like when
you're running on or off a rugby field and there's
a tunnel of people either side of you cheering you on.
It was like that with the opposite friends and family
saying goodbye as I was going towards those pearly gates,
and then the smelling salts had bring me back.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
They took me to a public.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Hospital first because I had flashbacks of something like a
Vietnam war movie. But I was still conscious or in
and out of consciousness, and again with hardly being able
to speak, I kept.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Saying, insurance, I have insurance.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I woke up three days later coming out of a
coma in a five star private hospital which was brand new,
the Bangkok Hospital Pouquette, and they'd stitched me all up,
but they couldn't operate until I signed waivers because there
was no guarantees I was ever going to be able
to walk again. Lucky that I was alive. My head
looked like a football with the stitches for the laces
(07:57):
all the way down the top that had to shave
my head. They had not yet put metal in my
spine or metal in my ankle, but I still have
both of those today. And I was in traction there
for weeks, and then I was in that hospital for
months before I could be flown back to Australia, and
then in a wheelchair and.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
On crutches for about twelve months.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
It was literally day by day process to learn to
walk and talk again.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I am very lucky to be alive.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
The first thing that came to me when I came
out of my coma was a voice.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It was my voice, but.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
It wasn't me strange to say, but whatever you believe
in the bigger picture of things, this voice, my voice, said,
this is going to be the best thing that ever
happens to you.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And I truly believe.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I know that if I had had the opposite voice
or mantra to that, I would be either dead or
in a wheelchair. It was that poar of positive thinking
that got me to where I am today. I've been
through a lot of healing therapies, rehability with a lot
of people who have had a lot lesser accidents than me,
but a lot less positive spirit.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And I see them still with.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Either serious physical issues or painkiller addictions and things like that,
which I truly believe. Everything has its place, but the
power positive thinking can be more important than anything else.
I find everything funny. A lot of people don't find
that funny, but I have to laugh. I was being
way too careless and wild and free. That's what we
were going there to do. But I was an extremist.
(09:29):
Or it's have been, always will be.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
But I needed a.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Slap, and I, or the universe or whatever, I gave
myself a serious slap. Dave, who was traveling with me,
was not only one of my property partners. That we
purchased fifty acres overlooking Byron Bay with waterfalls and forest dwellings,
and it was a paradise. But we'd certainly overextended ourselves,
(09:58):
especially as the world thenmpletely changed. We just couldn't keep
up with the payments. But at the same time, we'd
gone back a long way. We were best of friends.
I owned a nightclub in Byron Bay and then a
real estate agency, so I joked that I knew everyone
and all their dirty secrets, and Dave and I were
partners in that nightclub, and he also owned the local cinema.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
We were the best of friends and still are to
this day.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I think, to this day he's still more in shock
than I am because of what he had to experience
in terms of seeing me in pieces and then following
that truck, not knowing if I was going to make
it or not, then even the days that I was
(10:47):
in a coma, and then the time to wait to
know whether I could walk again, which it was close
to that two week mark before I not only I'd
first phoned another great mate of ours who was in
charge of all of my insurance. I'm now the biggest
fan of insurance, which is one thing I espouse in
my books. And I will hear that my travels picked
(11:09):
up my two hundred thousand US dollar hospital bill in
countries like Thailand, in many countries, if I hadn't had
that insurance or a credit card to be able to
pay for that, I would have been left in a
waiting room and I would not be alive. So insurance
was a lifesaver. Those villagers were a lifesaver. That brand
new five star private hospital was a lifesaver.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
All of that was a lifesaver.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
And Dave was there to support me until I made
the decision to firstly phone my friend who was in
charge of all of the insurance. Again, I could hardly speak,
so he then phoned my parents to let them know.
I didn't want to phone anyone until I knew that
I could walk again. I wanted to know the seriousness
of the situation rather than people worrying from afar before
(11:53):
anything was confirmed. And then I felt obliged to ring
the girl who I had been on a date the
day before I had the accident, to explain that that
second date wasn't going to be two weeks, it was
going to be.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Two months or more.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I was in shock because I was really being a
gentleman and being polite to postpone a promise, but she
immediately offered to jump on a plane and fly to
my hospital bedside. I was speechless. I was speechless anyway,
I could really hardly speak, so I immediately thought that was
(12:34):
either beautifully sweet or incredibly strange. But I wasn't really
in any position to argue, so yeah, she flew to
my hospital bedside, and for pretty much that first week
that out of coma and out of surgeries, I had
three different serious operations would metal and pyronic bits into me.
(12:55):
I then had someone i'd only just met on a
first date. But it'd been a beautiful state in my
hospital bedside, attending to me as well as the TI
doctors and nurses were so yeah, I wasn't complaining. I
had a morphine drip, which I think by the time
(13:16):
she arrived, I had already overdone that and asked them
to take that away because I got so carried away
that I remember one night I was still in traction,
so I was in a hospital bed, but I had
metal coming out of me everywhere, wires, so I was,
let's almost raised off the bed because of my broken spine,
tubes coming out of to get the fluid off my
(13:36):
lungs and all sorts of things. It was like I
really wasn't like a scene out of The Bionic Man
or some crazy movie. And I had gone so much
on the morphine, which was unregulated, that I was hallucinating
that I was sword fighting with dragons. And that's the
night I thought, right, that's enough of the morphine and
the nurses. The next morning I was I take that away,
(14:00):
and I slowly but truly weaned myself off that intense
a pain killing situation. I was still having to rest
a lot when she arrived. One of the most painful
things was redressing wounds, which they had to do every day,
which was like tearing goreze off open patches where literally
I could see bone, I could see some of my toes,
(14:22):
I could see through my knee from my elbow, you
could see. It was very bizarre, but she was there
as well. She immediately jumped into the role of my
girlfriend after a first date, being there supportive and caring
and loving in that stage while I was in and
out of a purple haze of pain. She was very convincing,
(14:48):
one hundred percent hook line and sinker in every way.
She immediately jumped into not just girlfriend like roll, a
wifelike roll, cheering me up in every way. She was
being very romantic but also being very much my naughty nurses,
which when I look back, was really eccentric.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
But I am a bit eccentric, so that was really sweet.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
What are you wearing? That's some man's coat, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
You've been so glum now.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
It's not as if I stubbed my toe.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Fair enough, but I thought you needed something to cheer
you up.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
You caught me a coat.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
No, oh, we need to check your vitals. Mister Twner.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
I'm not sure I can.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Oh I think you can.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
Oh my.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Oh oh, mister Tanner, I'm just being professional. Here are
you staring at me? I might be that's inappropriate.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
Oh, I apologize.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
This is a hospital regulation outfit, sir.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
I might have gotten one a size or two too
small and pouring out of it, aren't.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
I It would be ungentlemanly to say you just went back.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Mister Tawner. You need your rest. We wouldn't want you're
getting too excited.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
No, certainly not tell me. If you see the nights coming,
I will.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Wipe that smile off your face.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
I'm a professional, sir. Yes, ma'am, ha ha. Hands to yourself,
mister Turner.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
I don't want to get in trouble with my supervisor.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I won't tell him.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
If you want a little secret then.
Speaker 7 (17:43):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Uh huh.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Oh ah oh my.
Speaker 7 (17:53):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
This was you didn't have to do this.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Stay in the moment, mister Towna.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Don't go all gushy on.
Speaker 7 (18:09):
Me now, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I had a lot of very professional care, but it
was also nice to have some affectionate care, even in
funny nurse's uniforms and things that she would dress up
that was fun and funny. She was already pitching me
not only this white picket fence of my recovery and
her nursing me back to health, which by I said,
(18:46):
we knew was going to be a twelve month process,
but then getting me onto some seminar circuit speaking about
the power positive thinking and being able to sell this
program that she was involved in, which then allowed people
to also start to have stepping stones to be able
to do the same. I've always been a seminar junkie,
(19:08):
even from when I was in my early twenties.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I was going to Anti Robinson, Dan Millman, and I've
done all of.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Those full theories, the way the peaceful worry out through
to unleash the power within and raba kusaki.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
You name it. I've done them all.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And then I'd been into a position where I was
speaking the property investment seminars throughout Australia and Asia about
the power of positive thinking in terms of cash flow,
positive properties. It was all about positive investments. I had
a database of over thirty thousand property investors that I'd
been helping to buy cash flow positive properties over a
(19:44):
decade and I was the perfect patsy for that at
that stage. So like a seminar speaking multi level marketing
business where you had to pay ten thousand dollars just
to go to one of the seminars, for example in
a or in the Caribbean. It was an American based scheme,
but it had just arrived in Australia. There was already
(20:06):
a woman on the Gold Coast who'd made a million
dollars in the first year of doing this system just
by introducing people who were paying ten thousand dollars a time.
But it was very much a classic Ponzi scheme, but
there was always an ulterior motive and I didn't really see.
(20:27):
I guess my senses were down and also numbed, not only.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
By pain but by pain killers and by the accident.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
My brother and my sister still laugh, but they weren't
laughing at the time because obviously, when I landed back
in Australia after three months in intensive care and Thailand,
we went immediately from the airport to my sister's house.
My brother was there, my parents were there, obviously, very
keen to see me and I was wheeled in by
(20:56):
this woman who they immediately saw red flags all over.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
And they still talked to this.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Day that they didn't know what to say, or they
were just glad that I was alive. At that stage,
I was still in a wheelchair, but they still laughed
this day that it was like.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Something out of a misery.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
It was a misery moment for my family, but they
know what I'm like and they let it play out.
After three months in hospital and Thailand, I spent three
months in a wheelchair in her house, going back and
forth from hospital for treatments and all of the things
(21:39):
that I needed to do.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
And again she was very much assisting me with that.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
But by this stage, because she was pitching me from
my hospital bed about this whole business model, and at
that stage I was on the verge of bankruptcy from
just having lost my property. I was open to a
new career path. I was now incapacitated, and she was
offering to use my email database of over thirty thousand
(22:03):
people and create a cash flow positive income just from
my story of survival, I became sort of the poster
boy of this Ponzi scheme, which again had all the elements.
Now that I look back on it and learned more
about these sorts of things, all of these cult like
(22:24):
especially the churchy based then business aligned pyramid schemes, have
a very similar thing in common. They immediately indoctrinate. By
this stage, we were tens of thousands of people. It
was expanding all over the world, so there would have
been hundreds of thousands of people. In fact, the seminar
that I was wheeled to, she flew me to Hawaii
to a seminar which can I paid for again out
(22:47):
of the bottom of the barrel of any income that
I had. There was this whole idea that don't read
the media. You had to go on a total media
block for while you learn about listen to what we're
saying about the power positive thinking and how this model works,
and how it's different than a whole Western world and
the capitalist system. It becomes like your own church and
(23:10):
then your own economy. Don't believe anyone who is a
negative thinker is going to just put it down and
you can disassociate from them, and a lot of your
friends and family won't believe you, but they're going to
be left behind. And it very much created this even
within my little community. The people that she was starting
to recruit, some of them were friends of mine. It
(23:33):
became their own network that then you weren't sort of
associating with anyone else, only people that were in this
tupwar style club that were meeting for meetings. And then
as soon as I got back to her place, it
was very much a strict regime. I was certainly being
fed and taken care of, but instead of being a
(23:55):
very beautiful way, it was pretty harsh. She was a
very hard task whist and basically it was her way
or no way.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Matt, Matt, from here.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
You drank all the milk.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I had some cereal.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Now I've got no milk for my tea.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
We talked about this before. When you finish something, you
tell me.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I forgot the medication. Makes me a bit loopy. You
know that's an excuse. I would get you more milk
if I could.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But you can't.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
I get the groceries every week, and had I known
we were out of milk, I'd have gotten it. Just
a word or two, that's all I am. As I
care for you morning, and no is there anything I
don't do for you?
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I guess not.
Speaker 5 (25:09):
Then, is this too much to ask for for this
basic courtesy?
Speaker 4 (25:13):
No? Sorry, I forgive you. Ah, thanks, just don't do
it again.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
All right? Okay, we need to do your exercises.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
I'm a bit tired at the moment from.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
What all you do is sit around.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
I didn't sleep.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well.
Speaker 5 (25:37):
It won't get better if we don't do your exercises.
It's best to get them done straightway. Okay, don't give
me that look. This is for your own good. All right,
After we do your exercises, I want you to have
a look at this email that I'm sending out about
(25:58):
the program.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Perhaps you should slow down on those. People don't like
being bombarded with a lot of emails.
Speaker 7 (26:06):
In short order.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Bombarded you've sent three in three days.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
This program will help people. We're not selling steak knives here.
You should be dead, Matt. The power of positive thinking
is the only reason you're alive right now? Don't you
want to give that gift to others?
Speaker 4 (26:28):
I just think a breather would be good.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Are you saying you won't help me?
Speaker 4 (26:36):
No? I guess not. Huh?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
All right?
Speaker 5 (26:40):
Then?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
She was very focused on, especially once she had the
access to my database on just constantly following this model.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
That was all.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
This was very much early days of these online systems.
You followed the leader, and that's literally how it worked.
So the person above her would tell her what to do,
and then she would get people under her and tell
them what to do. And I was one of those,
even unbeknownst to me in some ways, I was just
being told what to do, but then pushed my wheelchair
(27:17):
out of the way, whilst she could do everything and
had access to all of my social media, which was
pretty early in those days, but still after thirty thousand
people on an email database, I think I had close
to ten thousand social.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
Medias, which again then went horribly wrong.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
There were times when I was being treated like a
disabled child in a wheelchair and I had a very
grumpy matron hitting me.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
With a wooden ruler.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
It was when I remember, literally she wasn't letting me
out of her sight.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
For forget. It was probably three months.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
I've done three months in intensive care in Thailand, and
I was three months in her house and still in
a wheelchair.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
But there was a moment when I was left.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Alone, and again there had been all these rules, but
there was no watching any news, No reading newspapers, no,
you know, this whole cult like Ponzi scheme. You weren't
allowed to even google the company. You know, there was
very strict rules about just had to stay focused on
this whole goal and this model. But I took the
(28:28):
opportunity to stray outside that and as soon as I
started googling, because so this stage, it had been in
Australia for three months, so there had been cracks had
started to show, firstly back in America where it had
been going for a year or more, and there were
multi millionaires from again anyone at the top.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
That's how those things work.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
But then I sort of realized the reality of what
it was and that there were people who were going
to get burnt because basically it was especially Australia is
nowhere near the size of America. And I then realized
what she was sending out to my database. That I'd
(29:06):
offered cash flow positive properties to for a decade and
had some very successful clients. In fact, I'd ridden the
boom of Australian real estate and made people very happy,
which was always my goal. It was then that I
saw the issues. Then I sent an email myself. I
was at a point that I'd wean myself off morphine.
(29:28):
I'd gone from being on intravenously in the hospital, then
on painkillers when I was in the wheelchair. But I
was slowly but truly weaning myself off those to the
point that I was even trying to not take as
many as she was giving me. Yeah, it was then
after that three months mark that I decided to get
out of there. So I sent an email to my
(29:51):
database to say that these emails aren't coming from me,
and it's not a property investment. A lot of the time,
you would just get really angry if I ever suggested
due diligence, because he was such right down that rabbit hole,
which a lot of people were. That's how those churches,
(30:12):
those cults, those business models work. And I rang Dave,
my friend who had been with me in the mozarcle acts,
and he came and picked me up and we got
out of the house.
Speaker 8 (30:27):
Your car has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Matt Chawner is.
Speaker 7 (30:32):
Not available at the town. Please record your message. When
you have finished recording, you may hang up or press
one for more options to lead your callback number, Press five.
Speaker 8 (30:44):
Matte, I don't know where you've gone or what you
think you're doing. But I know you couldn't have gone
far on your own. You know, after everything I've done
for you, this is what you're doing. I was there
for you. What other woman on planet Earth would do
for you, the things I did upturn their entire life
(31:05):
to care for you. I let you in my home.
How could you do this to me? You're the most
ungrateful man I've ever met. I thought you were special.
I thought that you understood what I'm trying to build.
I thought we could do it together. I guess I
was wrong. Good luck Without.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Me, we were literally making a run for it and
getting out of there, and I remember feeling such a
sense of freedom, and we actually went for a beer.
It was the first time I had a beer after
(31:48):
three months in hospital and three months in nurses care.
It was then that I got the phone call from
a friend of mine who used to run a lot
of my business online thing I never forget.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
She said, are you online? And I said, no.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I'm back where Dave and I had had our nightclub
for the first time, celebrating that, and she said, someone's
hacked in and is posting everything to everyone that you're
not only bankrupt, but you're on child sex charges and
suggesting that's you. I can still remember the feeling of
(32:28):
the ball in.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Your throat that it's.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Like what we went straight from the bar to the
bar and by police station. And again, the more that
I've looked into this since it's classic textbook again from
those sort of cults, churches, Ponzi schemes. As soon as
anyone starts to discredit their more point fingers, the first
thing they do is create a smear campaign to discredit
(32:53):
that person immediately. It's wrong that people can do this
without any evidence. Beat me to the police station and
told the police that I had sent her hundreds of
threatening text messages and emails.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I hadn't sent one. I didn't even I'll have access
to them.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Basically, I then couldn't do anything because the charge has
already been put against me, which was hilarious but not
funny at all. I then went down the road of
enlisting a lawyer fighting these Navy Oh it's called an
Australian apprehended violence order against me by this woman who
was basically just trying to discredit me, because by this stage,
(33:33):
all in the same afternoon, while I was enjoying my
first beer my freedom and thinking that I had nipped
it in the bud, sent an email saying, this isn't
a positive investments email that's coming from me.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Do your own due diligence.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
I wasn't doing anything to the level that I didn't
expect where it.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Would go next.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I just said, Okay, that's me taking charge of my life,
of my database, of my business. But the email that
she then sent was to thirty thousand business contents that
I'd created over a decade, as well as posting all
over social media five thousand people on Facebook and thirty
thousand people on.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
An email that she'd sent this email from me as
if it was from me.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Even wording this whole sad story that I had to
tell people that I was bankrupted on child sex changes,
which we then took to court. She didn't even turn up.
There was no evidence of any threatening emails or text messages.
The case was thrown out of court. It cost me
eight thousand dollars in legal fees. My lawyer, I remember,
(34:43):
said well, where's the retribution of my client's costs?
Speaker 1 (34:46):
And the judge said, well, you know, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Like that, which again sadly is a problem with the
legal system in some ways that people can just make
accusations with no evidence whatsoever and then walk away.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And I haven't seen her since.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
All we could do is go back to the pub
and have another beer. Dave and I did that, and
again watch the sunset in our beautiful town of barn Bay,
but this time after one more beer before sunset.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Instead of jumping on motorbikes, we got a taxi.
Speaker 7 (35:34):
Allegedly is a production of Voyage Media. The series is
produced by nat Mondel, Albertmidus, and Dan Benimore.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
This episode, a Nightmare Romance, was written and directed by
Dan Bennimore, Executive produced by Matt Towner.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
You can learn more about Matt's slave by reading his
book Positivity, available now.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
A link is in the show notes, starring Jonathan Riguier
and Laura Balomo. Edited sound designed and mixed by James Scully.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a five
star review on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you're listening, and
subscribe now for future episodes.
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