Welcome to a revealing episode of the Justin Ryan Bizzarro Show. In this insightful session, our host, Justin Bizzarro, and widely acclaimed voice coach, Matt, delve into the latter's fascinating journey. From his early years in San Antonio, Texas, to becoming a prominent figure in coaching business professionals, Matt's life trajectory is nothing short of inspiring.
The episode provides glimpses into Matt's experiences as an entrepreneur and his passion for music. Matt's transformation from a student wrestling with academics to a successful voice coach brings in unique insights, personal growth anecdotes, and valuable entrepreneurial lessons.
Transitioning from a managerial role in a telecom company to becoming a renowned voice coach, Matt recounts the turning point that led him away from the corporate world. Battling personal challenges, Matt's perseverance and dedication towards his venture, Voice by Matt, are nothing short of impressive. The episode also covers Matt's journey of personal transformation through discipline and spiritual adherence.
In the midst of unexpected turns, Matt finds his purpose and core strength within himself. His love for people and his desire to help others find their voice make up the foundation of his business, 'Voice by Matt'. Despite obstacles, his life aligns with God's path, sailing him into a promising future.
For more on his work, reach out to Matt directly at voicebymatt@gmail.com or visit www.voicebymatt.com.
Entrepreneur interested in being on the show: https://calendly.com/justin-bizzarro/podcast
IG: @voicebymatt
Coaching and Mentoring Entrepreneur [CME]: Matthew Berthot
Hosted By: Justin Ryan Bizzarro (IG: @justinbizzarro)
Who is Justin Ryan Bizzarro? – Justin Bizzarro is a serial food, restaurant, technology, media and marketing entrepreneur, who helped build a 24-year-old group of food and restaurant related businesses, he created with his father and business partners out of his family’s basement, in 1998. He is a highly desired business management, personal and athlete growth, free market, food diversity, and entrepreneurial leadership speaker. Justin’s expertise are in human growth, motivation, leadership and management development, health foods and beverages, global lean manufacturing facilities, vertically integrating businesses, food marketing and advertising, supply chain creation and management, direct to consumer fulfillment, transportation and distribution, personal brand building, restaurant development and construction, and entrepreneur acceleration. Justin received his BA in International Business and Management from Dickinson College, in 2002, and his MBA from University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, in 2014. He is currently pursuing his Master of Divinity in Leadership from Denver Seminary. His leadership and entrepreneur podcasts have positively impacted millions of people across the globe.
Free Podcast. No Advertisements. The stories of Entrepreneurs and how their failures led to the successes in their lives and in their business. What does the future have in store for the freedom fighting and legacy building entrepreneurs in this World?
THE JUSTIN RYAN BIZZARRO SHOW
Email: justin.bizzarro@gmail.com
Instagram: @justinbizzarro ( #bizzarroworld )
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:18):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Justin Ryan Bizarro Show.
I'm Justin Bizarro. I'm your host. That's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
For anyone who's out there that's trying to find me, you can find me on Instagram
at Justin Bizarro. Again, that's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
Thank you, everyone, for your support.
Thank you, everyone, for your patience and your kindness as I took a leave of
(00:39):
absence from podcasting over the last six months to get my life together,
other, to sort of rebuild myself, to allow God to do a transformation within
me. It is possible through the Holy Spirit.
God will transform you. He will regenerate you.
He will redeem you. And he will restore you to whatever it is that he wants you to be repurposed in.
(01:01):
And that is what's happening to me right now. So thank you guys for the last
six months, all the text messages, the the DMs, the emails, all of that stuff.
I love the support and the love and the kindness. It means a lot.
And your patience with me as I took that time off. I think it was almost seven months, actually.
But either way, I've gotten restarted. Thank you for listening to the new episodes.
(01:25):
We have a couple more we're uploading and just hitting the ground running now with a new energy.
That's how I would describe it. And if you like this show or you want to listen
to Justin and the Food Entrepreneur Show or the Centurion Leadership Battalion,
you can find all of those on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
So with that being said, I have a very special friend, Matt,
(01:49):
voiced by Matt from Winfield, Kansas. How are you doing today, Matt?
I'm great, Justin. How are you, man? I'm doing okay. One day at a time, for sure.
Never been more true in my life. But yes, one day at a time.
And, you know, the audience doesn't know I'm in seminary right now.
So I'm just trying to keep from drowning in theology school,
(02:11):
which an entrepreneur in theology school is like an elephant on a horse farm.
That's how I would describe it. That's how I feel.
So it's a pretty similar situation going on there. But, you know, I'm learning.
This is my first semester. I'm almost done, but I'm doing well.
How's everything going with you? How's life going for you?
(02:33):
You know, it is going really well, actually.
We are getting ready for Unmute in Madison, Wisconsin, and that is June 6th
at at Josh Cosnick's Farm, Five Bridges Farm.
And then I will be the MC of the unofficial Arate Syndicate meetup this following
(02:54):
day. So I'm very excited about that.
Angela has been helping me plan that and build that. Been doing a lot of traveling lately.
I have about 20 to 30.
Business clients that work with me on their voice work and Helping my clients
have more clarity in their voice confidence connect to people in a deeper way,
(03:19):
Communicate more effectively and then have the courage to say what we're supposed
to say and I do that with craft which is voice technique.
Artistry, which is storytelling and performance magic getting people to feel
what you want them to feel and so So, you know, you're in seminary right now
and, you know, the Holy Spirit, God, energy,
(03:42):
whatever you want to call it, that's kind of my secret sauce.
That's what I really, the gift that God has given me, that is my gift,
is helping people find their voice so that they can share and connect their
voice in a very real way so people can trust them and love them.
(04:04):
And, you know, it's I've been doing that for about the last five years with
business professionals.
And I've been coaching private voice for 20 years.
I love it. So Matt, let's go back. This is about telling your story,
this show, and sort of the adventure of being an entrepreneur and your journey,
(04:27):
the ups, the downs, the bads, the goods.
So let's go back to baby Matt, and let's sort of dive into your history and
your story and how you got to where you are.
All right. The mic's yours.
Yeah, I was born in San Antonio, Texas, lived there.
(04:48):
I mean, I don't even remember how long I lived there. I was only there for a
year, I think. My dad was in the Air Force.
He worked on monkeys when they were doing the monkey experiments down at the
Air Force Base in the Colleen area.
(05:08):
And we moved to Kansas, I think, when I was about one or two.
And this is where I grew up in Kansas at Arc City.
I was a three-sport athlete, wrestling, football, and baseball.
Always loved music, loved singing music. I played the drums growing up.
(05:29):
Really tight family. Grandma and Grandpa Bertho, Grandma and Grandpa Clements.
My mom and dad were you know
always together my mom didn't miss any
of our events my dad was working a lot and he you know had odd jobs that he
would do like welding or he was a machinist at Rubbermaid he did some welding
(05:56):
but he you know he he taught us how to play catch catch.
He coached us in wrestling and baseball.
Growing up, huge sports fan.
I loved the Chiefs. My grandma and grandpa had Chiefs season tickets when I
was in third or fourth grade.
It took me to my first game and just fell in love with Arrowhead and that whole environment there.
(06:24):
I didn't have to try real hard in school. I never really studied.
And then middle of my junior year of high school, I dated this girl for about
two and a half years and we broke up.
And my counselor, Bob Tessman, he said, Matt, what do you love? And I said Kylie.
(06:45):
And he said, no, what do you love that you're not doing right now?
And I said, well, I don't I don't know what you mean.
He was like, well, what makes you happy? And I said, I like helping people.
And he said, okay, well, what are you doing that you're not doing right now?
And I said, oh, I like to sing a little bit in the shower, in my truck.
(07:08):
And he enrolled me in choir and if
he wouldn't have done that i wouldn't be talking to you
right now i fell in love with singing choir music music theater you know i listened
to garth brooks and boys the men and bon jovi i really fell in love with the
musical les miserables and i just i I liked it.
(07:33):
I liked being on stage, and I had really good rhythm because I played the drums.
I had that in my background, but I remember also, you talked about entrepreneur.
We would always do the fundraisers, right?
The band would sell something, and I remember the band sold something,
(07:54):
and I sold the most out of the whole band program.
There's like 150 kids in the program i sold the most and i think i got like
i don't know 100 bucks cash or something,
and i remember one of my home ec teachers mrs bonfi she came up to me and she said matt you,
(08:15):
are an entrepreneur and i was like what is that i have no idea what you're talking about up.
But that was the first time I ever heard that word. My mom, we grew up about middle, lower class.
My mom worked at a temp agency editing books and publications for grammar and stuff like that.
(08:42):
And like my dad, I said, he was a machinist.
We went to church every Sunday. I grew up Missouri Synod Lutheran, very conservative.
I went through confirmation, had to memorize a bunch of stuff that never really
talked about exactly what it meant. it.
We were just supposed to memorize it. And this is just the way it is.
(09:05):
So we never really got into why, which I had a lot of questions about.
I was always into the supernatural, aliens, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, all that stuff.
I thought I was always interested in the magical part of our existence, our universe.
(09:27):
I never really read any books.
Like I said, I didn't have to study that much in high school.
I got like a 3.6 grade point average without studying.
When I broke up with my girlfriend junior year also, I became a state champion
wrestler that year, 172 pounds.
I remember going into the finals match, my record was 20 and 10.
(09:51):
And everybody was kind of counting me out probably like, there's no way this
kid is going to do this. And I did.
And I even shocked myself because part of me was like, I didn't think I could do it. And I did it.
And then my senior year, I took fourth because I choked on the first match and
got beat 11 to one because I was in my head because there was that girl,
(10:14):
Kylie, she was in the stands watching me and I got in my head about it.
So I went to college at Friends University. Actually, I went to one year at
Cali County Community College and kind of just wasted my time there.
Didn't learn a lot. I won homecoming king.
Then I went to Friends University, and they put me in music theory three,
(10:37):
and I just got my butt kicked.
There were all these music nerds in there that could play the piano, that could read music.
Man, I just felt completely out of place.
And I failed music theory three. They put me back in music theory one and it
was very humbling and it was really hard and it made me feel stupid every single day.
(11:03):
And it got so hard that I quit music education as my major and I went to voice
performance because I could sing really well.
And then I realized I
was gonna have to learn a
foreign language and I felt stupid
(11:23):
then so I quit doing that and then I I was a religion major for a year and you
know I worked kind of behind the scenes at a couple of churches as a music minister
and I didn't like what went on behind the scenes because all
that I witnessed was these elders and the pastors and all these people talking
(11:49):
about money. And it was like, it was a business.
And I was like, this is not, this is not, I don't think what Jesus intended for church to be.
And I went to a thing called American Legion Boys State every year and that's
a simulation government of city county and state and we put the the top 10%
(12:13):
leaders and athletes and.
Intelligent kids from Kansas at Goodenow on Marlatt Hall in Kansas State University.
For like a week at the first of June.
And for three years, I got to be a county counselor. And what that meant is
I got to be in charge of 90 going to be seniors in high school.
(12:36):
And every year I would start with them in our first meeting and I would ask
them, you know, who are they and what makes them tick.
But the thing that I would always tell them is that there was no ceiling on their potential.
And if they're supposed to be the best in the state of Kansas,
(12:58):
then they should just prove it to themselves.
Don't prove it to me or anybody else. Prove it to yourself.
And they did. And my counties would just destroy the other nine counties every
single year and in that time you can only be a county counselor for three years,
and i remember after my third year i was really devastated
(13:20):
it was my third year and i was going to be done but
that third year made me drive home and go up to the music ed department chair
dr john taylor because i was kind of a jerk to him and i told him i said you
know what i'm supposed supposed to be a teacher.
(13:41):
And I'm going to do whatever it takes to be a teacher. And he said,
Matt, you have to pass math for liberal arts with a C or better.
And you have to write a paper on why we're even going to let you back into the education program.
Because I was a complete jerk, man. I basically told Dr. Taylor to F off. He pissed me off so bad.
(14:03):
I was not in a good space.
You know, I should say this too.
My sophomore year or junior year, my grandpa Bertho, he committed suicide.
He shot himself in the chest.
And that was the big blow of the family.
And after that happened, we didn't go to the farm anymore for Christmas or any kind of meals.
(14:29):
And eventually my grandma sold the farm. arm.
So that was very tragic. And my dad never really dealt with that real well.
He struggled with that. And looking
back on it too, my dad was kind of an entrepreneur and so was my mom.
I kind of forgot that my dad did a lot of little odd jobs here and there.
(14:50):
And my mom sold the you know, the multi-level marketing stuff.
I think, what was it? Spark.
I forgot what the vitamins were then, but it's always kind of been around me.
But obviously, I finished the paper. They let me back in the program.
(15:13):
I was working at CompUSA selling computers because I never had a computer.
And I wanted to work at CompUSA so I could buy my first computer.
And I did. It was an old Compaq. And I souped it up. It was awesome.
And I was lead salesman at CompUSA within three months.
And I worked there for almost two years.
(15:34):
And in that time i was finishing my
music ed degree and then i was a stupid college kid and this lawyer offered
me some extra money on the side to come help him set up his network at his house
and so i took the money and did that and this lawyer came back into comp usa and said that I did that,
(15:57):
and I got fired because it was essentially moonlighting.
And after that, man, I was super depressed, drinking all the time,
not going to class, super overweight.
I think I weighed like 250 pounds at that point.
And Andrea was my girlfriend at
the time. She said, you need to go to therapy. And so I went to therapy.
(16:21):
And that's where this amazing therapist finally said, Matt, how does your mom and dad have a conflict?
And my dad would drink and just kind of go out and cook.
And my mom would go into the bedroom and lock herself in there and cry and then just come out.
(16:43):
And this therapist said how do you handle
conflict and I realized that I did
the same thing and then she said well how
do you want to handle conflict and I said I want to attack it I want to attack
conflict and so that's what I chose and you know therapy was really good for
(17:05):
me it really helped me a lot I mean it saved my life for sure.
And I graduated and I started working at SC Telecom, which was an internet help desk.
So I had to help people that would call in how to get their dial-up set up or
how to get their DSL connected, their internet connected.
(17:27):
And eventually I outsold everybody and I became a manager of SC Telecom.
And it was graduation. It was the day before graduation. I was a baccalaureate,
and the speaker looked out over the graduates and said, the best thing you can
(17:48):
do in your life is help somebody else.
And in that moment, I knew that I was done with business,
because I also had an offer to run an ethanol plant for Ethanol Corporation
in Wichita, because one of my first voice students, he's the CEO of it.
His name is Bob Casper. He was taking voice lessons with me.
(18:11):
Now it's kind of God doing a little tricky move by saying, hey,
these CEO clients and these presidents, these business clients,
they're going to be your clients in the future.
Here's a little taste though with Bob.
And so I've turned Bob down and I quit SC Telecom and I took a job at Winfield
(18:32):
High School in Winfield, Kansas.
About that time, I got married to now my ex-wife, Andrea, and I taught at Winfield
High School and coached wrestling and football and eventually was up for Grammy Teacher of the Year.
I built a show called Vikings on Broadway, another show called Blue and White
(18:54):
Starry Night, where we did commercial songs outside.
Vikings on Broadway was like a best of the
best of music theater that I would
just create a kind of a review of
sorts I did some
performing in 2009 or
2008 I made it a goal I was
(19:17):
watching stranger than fiction the movie with Will Ferrell the lady kind of
writes this story and I weighed like 272 pounds at that point and remember I
weighed 172 when I wrestled and I watched that movie and I just cried in my chair at home.
And I remember telling Andrea, I'm such a fake. I'm such a phony.
(19:39):
I got to change. I got to do something.
And the next day I wrote on Facebook, wake up the run. This was 2008.
And my goal was to get down to 190 pounds.
That was my goal. and I did it and then we had my first son Max in 2009 in October
(20:02):
and I didn't want to leave I quit working out and I basically gained all the
weight back like the 240 250 pounds.
And then 2016, I went to the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia,
and I got to see teachers really being their best self.
(20:24):
And I brought back all this energy and all these ideas to Winfield High School.
They didn't want to hear anything of it.
And that was about the time I noticed that the teachers started getting a little
bit jealous and envious of me and kind of the way that I did things.
Also, I should say, I had about 30 to 40 voice students a week that I would
(20:47):
meet after school from 3.45 to 6.45, Monday through Friday.
And then Saturday and Sunday, I would teach from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
So I was constantly working with the voice.
But it kept me away from my family. and you
(21:09):
know my my students became my
family a lot and you know they graduate and I
get sad because they'd leave and it
was just this constant cycle in 2017
I went to my first Estill voice training and that was a game changer for me
it's how I teach the craft of the voice right now that's how I teach the technique
(21:32):
of the voice and that was the first time in my life as an adult that I realized that I could still grow.
And then in 2018, I passed my first certification with Estill.
And Kim Steinhauer, the president of Estill International, looked at me and
she said, Matt, you're the magic guy.
(21:53):
You're going to talk about magic. You're going to talk about.
This magic in london at the next summit and i was like whoa what and so in 2019 that january,
i just started listening to a guy based on a recommendation of my chiropractor
(22:16):
doug swanson he said you need to start listening to ed my lead and then you
need to start listening to Andy Frisella.
And I started listening to these guys and I was like, man, they really talk like me.
I want to be around these guys.
What does that look like? I want to be around more people like that.
(22:36):
And it was about April, May, about right now in 2019.
And we had a car payment finally finish up.
And I asked Andrea, I was like, man, I really want to be a part of this group,
this Arte syndicate, can I please join this?
Because it's about the same amount of money and I can make it work.
(22:56):
It's only $397 a month. Can I do this? I just want to be around more people
like me." And she said, yes.
And so I went to London and presented with a team of 15 people on Performance
Magic, which is what I teach my business clients today about.
And it's obviously grown.
And And this all was reinforced by the book Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza.
(23:24):
That changed my life. The phrase energy is frequency and frequency carries information.
It changed my life forever. That's why we're on this call right now, Justin,
because in that moment, I knew how to teach people how to get into flow state
quickly so that people can feel
(23:45):
emotionally what we want them to feel and see what we want them to see.
And so I presented in London. It was a standing ovation.
The kids sang. We put this presentation together.
I was weighing at that point at like 167, something like that.
(24:05):
I was in the best shape of my life.
And I came out
of that experience and I knew my
life was about to change forever like I felt God going okay you're done with
public school but that was 2019 and so then in 2020 we know what happened COVID
(24:28):
or 2019 March COVID happened and shut school down and it took my dream away
It took my kids away, man.
I was at home and we got two boys.
Andrea and I are not used to being in the same space for that long amount of time.
(24:49):
I'm loud and I'm doing lessons and I got my keyboard hooked up and it's just so different.
I should have put stock in Zoom a long time ago when I knew about it.
But, you know, kids, some kids came over and took lessons and some didn't,
(25:10):
you know, COVID just kind of really made everything so weird.
And, you know, it literally took my first dream away in a way.
And then coming back to school was really shaky.
I continued to grow. I continued to read, doing 75 hard.
I'm about to finish my ninth time of doing 75 hard.
(25:34):
Every single time I've done it has been different. But that first time you do
it, it's a game changer, big time game changer, especially for people that don't
read at all like me. I didn't read anything.
That was a long time ago now, 2019, it's thousands of books later, right? Yeah.
(25:54):
And so I finished all that.
And every year after that, you know, my dad in 2020, June of 2020,
he passed away. He had a heart attack.
That threw me off. I started getting panic attacks, became emotionally unstable.
Andrea couldn't handle it. My therapist, he did the best he could.
(26:19):
I was so messed up because of that, because I realized, you know, I'm next, right?
And I started getting kind of targeted at school as a toxic male.
And all of that being said, all my clients, like business clients, it was going amazing.
(26:45):
Everything that was voiced by Matt that was new was amazing.
Everything was going great.
So we took in a student in 2021 and helped her with college.
She just had some family issues she was going through. And I started really
(27:06):
super focusing on helping her.
And so a lot of my energy and focus was to everyone else and not to Andrea, Max, and Leo.
And very just busy all the time. And I had an assistant at the time.
We started working on Unmute in New York.
(27:28):
And I was in Austria last August, August 5th, and had a disagreement with the
kind of daughter that we took in that was on the trip with me.
And I called my wife at the time because we were having some issues and we got
(27:50):
on the phone with our merits counselor and on a Zoom call on August 5th,
she told me, we're getting divorced.
And I muted myself on Zoom and it was just carnal rage and the worst thoughts ever, man.
(28:11):
And that, you know, on top of that, I got my keys taken away in May of last
year because two little girls said that I targeted them and bullied them,
which I did not. I did not do that at all.
All and so that was the moment I went all in a voice by Matt and so voice by
(28:33):
Matt was something that was an idea that happened in 2019 at the arete live event in st.
Louis and now it's my full-time gig.
But the challenge of losing my dad, the challenge of losing my job,
the challenge of divorce, you know,
(28:54):
and it unmute in New York without my assistant, without a lot of help.
God just kept saying, you got to do this. You got to do this. You got to keep going.
And all my clients at the time were like, you know, you don't have to do this.
Like you could we understand.
But God was like, no, do it, do it, do it. and
(29:14):
Angela was the first one that
signed up for unmute and I was
trying to talk to this girl on messenger
and she wouldn't call me she wouldn't talk to
me on the phone she said I'm not going to do that I'm just going to talk to
you in real life and I was like well that's weird and so we get to New York
(29:34):
and I meet her and she's so awesome
and such great energy and the event happens and then And, you know,
the Chiefs were playing the day after Unmute.
And I was like, Angela, do you want to hang out and walk the game with me? She was like, yeah.
(29:54):
And so we did. And then, you know, that was September 24th of last year.
And the rest is history. I've been with her ever since.
She's actually here now at my house. And she's helping me build.
She's helping me build Voice by Map. Yeah.
You know, losing a father, losing a grandpa, losing a job, going through divorce.
(30:17):
I don't I don't wish that on anybody. It's it's it's hard.
You know, I got to meet you, Justin, at Evolve, and that was Angela's brainchild.
And it was really cool. I got to emcee that and do some teaching in that also.
So, but like right now it's, it's, it's huge.
(30:38):
Like Voice by Matt is, it's bigger than I think I ever thought it would be.
And it's, it's only getting better.
Angela and I are building an event and that's a new company kind of that we started.
A&M, what's it called? A&M Entertainment Productions, VIP Productions.
(30:59):
And we're building an event in Nashville for Mike Sherrard and Louie Gault at
the Municipal Auditorium.
It's a huge space. And so we've been having a lot of fun putting that together.
My podcast, Voiced by Matt, has been going really well. Had Justin on my podcast,
(31:20):
that'll be coming out later.
But I think the hardest part for me right now, Angela and I were talking about
this morning, is being present when I'm around people all the time.
I think when you go through that kind of pain and hard stuff that I've been
through, it's hard to trust people.
(31:43):
And so I'm getting better at it, but I have to put my phone away and I have
to be completely present with people.
That's hard. It's hard for me to do that It's just you know,
I think it was years of ignoring the actual problems and the actual pain But
(32:05):
you know, this is this is stuff.
I teach my clients is how to how to verbalize Emotionally like because I know
your listeners are gonna hear this and be like dang, man,
But the positives are I'm healthy Angela's healthy max is healthy Leo's healthy,
I'm helping people find their voice so their soul can come out and say hello.
(32:27):
But I know that any journey, any great journey, there's going to be tough stuff that happens.
And it's not just puppy dogs and ice cream and unicorns and rainbows every day. Like it's hard.
It's hard to live the life that you're called to live by God. It's so hard.
(32:48):
And I'm excited about Unmute in June. I'm excited about the new clients coming my way.
And excited about all the future speaking gigs and MC gigs that are coming.
That's kind of where I'm at right now. Yeah, that's good. I'm definitely going
to have to have you on for a part two because I wrote down, I have 22 questions
(33:10):
for you actually, and so definitely not going to get it through today.
But I am a curious human. Everyone's like, Justin, how do you always have all these questions?
Like your mind is just constantly going, because I'm naturally curious about the human condition.
I and I generally want to help grow people. I'm really good at it,
(33:30):
actually. I'm amazing at unlocking human potential.
That's the gift that God gave me.
I want to reflect on a few things first before I ask the question.
One of the things I will say to you, I started 75 Hard as soon as it came out in 2019 as well.
I had to stumble. I think I was about 10 days in and tore my calf muscle and
(33:54):
then gave it about two weeks.
And then And then, you know, I did the 75 days and it changed my life.
Then I did it a second time and then a third time.
And by the third time, the mental, physical, spiritual shift in who I was was so significant.
(34:18):
Now, you know, you're already an entrepreneur. Or you're already doing hundreds
of millions of meals a year in food service and working with restaurants and
big stores and food trucks and long-term care homes and farms around the world.
But then all of a sudden you take something like that and add a discipline, that's not what it is.
(34:40):
And disciple is the same as discipline. They mean the same thing, basically.
A disciple is a person of discipline.
Okay? And what happened in 75 Hard is it changed who I was.
It unleashed my own potential so much that it broke my surroundings.
(35:04):
Yeah, absolutely. And after 24 years in business,
going out on lunch breaks, doing my 45-minute walk with my weight vest in front
of the whole company in a food company where everyone just wants to eat, drink, and be merry.
All of a sudden, and I'm in a health food company, by the way,
(35:25):
but even in a health food company, we suffered from health issues.
It was the hardest thing for me watching my employees come into the food industry
and then gain all this weight because I had executives that wanted to eat,
drink, and party all the time when they traveled.
And they would take the managers and the supervisors out to do this versus being
(35:45):
in shape, living a healthy lifestyle, and being a good role model.
And in the process, unintentionally, it broke everything.
It, it, it gave me such clarity that the way I looked at everything and the
way I saw the world around me change.
(36:05):
Like I'm a kid who got abused as, as a kid, sexually abused. Okay.
And for 40 years, 39 years, I didn't see how people used me.
And I didn't understand relationships in the way that I do now,
oddly, until I did 75 hard.
Two things happened. 75 hard and in the middle of 75 hard, that first 75 days,
(36:32):
the first time I did it in 2009,
and I've always been a spiritual person, Catholic school, religious,
going to church, all of those things.
It was like God hit me with a two by four.
Jeez. Because all of a sudden, the way I saw the world was intense.
And let me tell you, I didn't know how to handle it. I tried to bury that.
(36:59):
I literally, I tried marijuana just to, and I don't drink, so there wasn't that.
But I tried marijuana just to numb, just to turn down the amount of noise I
was hearing from God in my life.
And the amount of transition, because what was happening to me is if I did that,
(37:20):
I was scared. I didn't know what was going on.
My life was kind of falling apart while growing during COVID because if you're
in the hospital food business, you're growing.
I didn't know how to handle it. And I kept doing 75, still doing 75 hard right now.
But all of a sudden, I had to tone it down because I didn't have the skill set
(37:43):
or the capacity to handle what was breaking in my life, you know?
And to your point, my employees didn't like it. My business partners didn't like it.
My surroundings didn't like it. My family started not liking it.
And then once my surroundings started changing, add in the marijuana,
(38:03):
then I'm starting to have panic attacks on a daily basis.
Yep. and I have a therapist who's, bless her heart, helped me as much as she
could, but there was nothing to do.
There was nothing she could do because my world was falling apart, and I knew it was.
I knew deep down inside I was going to lose my family, eventually lose my businesses,
(38:29):
and eventually lose my life as I knew it.
Because when you go through that type of transformation and your environment
doesn't change, but you do, you don't fit into your environment anymore.
And the only thing I can explain or give any audience for any hope is that God,
for some reason, was right there with me the entire time. The entire time.
(38:54):
And I don't know why. I don't know what made me different or what his plan is
for me still or what his purpose is.
Everyone says they know what it is for me. I don't have that confidence.
I don't have that. I have trust in God. I have faith in God,
but I've been through such a hard time with so much loss over the last two years
(39:18):
that I don't understand it, that I can't emotionally, spiritually,
mentally, and even physically even begin to understand why everything was stripped
away from my life that I love and cherish.
And so to you, God did it quickly for you. And I think that that's amazing.
(39:42):
And I think that's the way it is for most humans.
And we talked about this when you and I were on your show, is that yes,
God has repurposed me, put me in theology school at Denver Seminary.
Where that goes, I don't know. It's a longer.
(40:10):
Yeah, man, for sure.
Losing your job, meeting Angela, who did Matt become?
(40:34):
Because the Matt of old in 2019 that walked into Arate in St.
Louis is not the same Matt as we have here right now. No. No.
That's a good question, Justin. It's a hard question.
I think I've always been the same guy. I get excited about the smallest things.
(41:02):
I think I'm more careful now with the negative emotions that come out of my
mouth and what I share with people.
I'm a little bit more mindful about not just being water hose of letting people
know and feel all of the dark that I have inside me.
(41:24):
I know there's a time and place for that now. And that's one thing that I've learned.
The truth of if I believe I can do it, I will do it.
I know that that is really, really, really true. through.
I know you've been through it too.
(41:48):
When you constantly feel like you've had so many hard things happen in a very
short amount of time, you start to lose hope a bit.
You start to doubt your capabilities, your skills, and the things that you're
the best at. So, my resilience has been challenged big time.
(42:16):
You know, I think everybody goes through life and they have like a moment to
where you question, you know, am I supposed to be on earth anymore?
Like, does the world need me here anymore?
And you know I went through that
in college and then
you go through it and you're like okay I'm good like that
(42:39):
I was sucked that was that was horrible to
go through that moment right and you never think
you're gonna ever go through anything remotely like
that again and then you do but the
fact that I'm still alive right now after all
of those things that have happened i
(42:59):
mean i'm tough
like it it shows my character is tough i do have faith and i don't give up easily
even though i want to give up sometimes because it just would feel better just
to lay in bed and go crawl in a hole but that's It's not who I am.
(43:20):
And so I think my love for people and my drive to help people find their voice and share their soul.
Think I'm a lot quicker at helping people now, Justin. I think it doesn't take
me as long as it used to take me to help people and help them get to that point
(43:43):
to where they feel confident in their voice, to where they can share their soul.
But it's definitely, this whole experience has taught me that I am very tough,
that I am not going to end my life, that if I made it through this, which I did.
I did make it through this. I'm finally on the other side of it.
(44:08):
There's weird things like Angela's at the house and I was worried about how
Max and Leo would handle that.
But that's normal. I mean, anybody's going to feel that way.
It's not anything specific towards me. It's just part of the new life, right?
So Angela was telling me this morning, actually.
(44:31):
She said, Matt, you did this number in your first year and most people in their
first year would do anything to get that number that you got.
You are a success going full-time in your first year since last end of April to this April.
You have done incredible in your Voice by Matt business going full-time because
(44:57):
it was part-time for five years, Justin. It wasn't full-time.
The LLC started in November of 2019, but I've been coaching private voice for 20 years.
That's what I said to her. She goes, well, yeah, but you had a job that you
went to school from 8 to 3.35, Monday through Friday.
(45:19):
You knew your breaks. You knew your lunch. You knew what you were going to do
from 3.45 to 6.45 with your voice lessons.
You knew your activities and your concerts.
And you had a schedule. You had a plan.
And they would load you back up with students every week or every year you'd
(45:40):
get new batch of students. I was like, yeah.
She goes, well, now you don't get that.
You've got to go find your clients. You've got to go find your work and get
your word out there and get people to sign up with you.
So the fact that you did that going full time for one year and you did what
you did in one year is incredible. And so I think I'm really hard on myself, Justin.
(46:07):
I don't give myself enough credit. I don't celebrate a lot of my successes and wins.
I tend to look at the negative a lot and the problems a lot instead of the positives.
And that's something I want to change. I think in 2019, I was just like a little
(46:27):
newborn kid into the world of what's possible.
And now, a lot more seasoned. And so I know what I'm capable of,
but kind of I still don't know exactly what I'm capable of.
So, you know, I hope that answers your question. I know that what I'm doing
(46:54):
is very important to God and God's work.
And it's a big responsibility.
And that's why I think I'm so serious about it.
And that's why I think I'm so serious most of the time is, you know, I got to be on point.
You know, I got to make sure that I'm ready for my clients when they get on that Zoom call.
(47:19):
But my schedule, I'm still figuring that out.
One week I have the kids, one week Andrea has the kids. Still trying to figure that out.
Still trying to figure out how to travel and be where my feet are.
I know that people understand that I've traveled a lot.
(47:42):
The biggest thing for me is I know that I'm on God's path for me now.
And for five years, I said, no, God, I'm not going to go all in on Voice by Matt.
I'm going to teach in public school or college.
And this business coaching, helping business professionals with their voice
(48:05):
is going to be a little part-time thing.
It has been for five years.
And then God said, nope, you're going all in, brother.
And here we are. Where can they find you online, Matt?
How can they reach out to you if they're interested in Voice by Matt?
How do they find you online?
How does the audience get in touch with you?
(48:27):
You can go to www.voicebymatt.com. You can send me an email at voicebymatt at gmail.com.
You can find me on Facebook, Voice by Matt.
But the majority of the communication and the people that I talk to that I work
with find me on Instagram, and it's just voicebymatt.
(48:49):
And that's where you can get a hold of me.
Or you can just reach out to Justin and say, Hey, keep me in touch with Matt. Yeah, there you go.
I, yeah, I don't mind doing that. And thank you, Matt, for coming on the show.
I'm definitely going to ask you to get on the calendar and sign up for another one.
Cause like I said, I have 20 more questions left after the 21 I wrote.
(49:11):
So, cause I, there's some deep things that I think that are important to explore here.
And also just the credibility that you have and in the way that you touch humans.
I just want to show that to the world for sure. And anyone in the audience,
you can already feel Matt's authenticity and his vulnerability and the journey.
(49:31):
And, you know, I think a lot in life, we used to call these things midlife crisis,
where our lives completely change, or we go buy a car to make ourselves feel
better, whatever it used to be.
But now with the way the world is, and we're going to talk about toxic masculinity
because I understand being called that.
(49:51):
Especially during COVID where that whole craze came out of nowhere on top of
everyone else already feeling like crap and, and locked in.
Then we want to go and start attacking people on top of it. So that, that's awesome.
And so we're going to dive into all that.
But one of the things that I would say that happens is the transformation is for God's kingdom.
(50:15):
If we choose to follow him and pursue him and build a relationship with him.
Yep. And, you know, that's where we're going to go, you know, on the next episode.
And my questions are around that journey for you, for sure.
Plus just some diving into the personal things, diving into the business things
and really starting to talk about what it is that Unmute is trying to do and
(50:40):
what Voice by Match trying to do.
And I really want to get into the weeds and the details on that because I think
it's important Because I think you can help a lot of people,
eventually hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people,
and that will ripple into hundreds of millions generationally.
(51:00):
Wow, I can't even say the word this morning. That's all right.
Everyone in the audience, I thank you guys. I love you guys.
Thank you for listening in.
Again, you can find us on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
And you can find me on Instagram at Justin Bizarro, B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
Thank you always for the love and support. I love you guys.
(51:23):
Even when there was a time I didn't love myself, all of you still love me.
So that's pretty awesome.
And we're going to call it. Thank you getting in.
Music.
Music.
(00:18):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Justin Ryan Bizarro Show.
I'm Justin Bizarro. I'm your host. That's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
For anyone who's out there that's trying to find me, you can find me on Instagram
at Justin Bizarro. Again, that's B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
Thank you, everyone, for your support.
Thank you, everyone, for your patience and your kindness as I took a leave of
(00:39):
absence from podcasting over the last six months to get my life together,
other, to sort of rebuild myself, to allow God to do a transformation within
me. It is possible through the Holy Spirit.
God will transform you. He will regenerate you.
He will redeem you. And he will restore you to whatever it is that he wants you to be repurposed in.
(01:01):
And that is what's happening to me right now. So thank you guys for the last
six months, all the text messages, the the DMs, the emails, all of that stuff.
I love the support and the love and the kindness. It means a lot.
And your patience with me as I took that time off. I think it was almost seven months, actually.
But either way, I've gotten restarted. Thank you for listening to the new episodes.
(01:25):
We have a couple more we're uploading and just hitting the ground running now with a new energy.
That's how I would describe it. And if you like this show or you want to listen
to Justin and the Food Entrepreneur Show or the Centurion Leadership Battalion,
you can find all of those on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
So with that being said, I have a very special friend, Matt,
(01:49):
voiced by Matt from Winfield, Kansas. How are you doing today, Matt?
I'm great, Justin. How are you, man? I'm doing okay. One day at a time, for sure.
Never been more true in my life. But yes, one day at a time.
And, you know, the audience doesn't know I'm in seminary right now.
So I'm just trying to keep from drowning in theology school,
(02:11):
which an entrepreneur in theology school is like an elephant on a horse farm.
That's how I would describe it. That's how I feel.
So it's a pretty similar situation going on there. But, you know, I'm learning.
This is my first semester. I'm almost done, but I'm doing well.
How's everything going with you? How's life going for you?
(02:33):
You know, it is going really well, actually.
We are getting ready for Unmute in Madison, Wisconsin, and that is June 6th
at at Josh Cosnick's Farm, Five Bridges Farm.
And then I will be the MC of the unofficial Arate Syndicate meetup this following
(02:54):
day. So I'm very excited about that.
Angela has been helping me plan that and build that. Been doing a lot of traveling lately.
I have about 20 to 30.
Business clients that work with me on their voice work and Helping my clients
have more clarity in their voice confidence connect to people in a deeper way,
(03:19):
Communicate more effectively and then have the courage to say what we're supposed
to say and I do that with craft which is voice technique.
Artistry, which is storytelling and performance magic getting people to feel
what you want them to feel and so So, you know, you're in seminary right now
and, you know, the Holy Spirit, God, energy,
(03:42):
whatever you want to call it, that's kind of my secret sauce.
That's what I really, the gift that God has given me, that is my gift,
is helping people find their voice so that they can share and connect their
voice in a very real way so people can trust them and love them.
(04:04):
And, you know, it's I've been doing that for about the last five years with
business professionals.
And I've been coaching private voice for 20 years.
I love it. So Matt, let's go back. This is about telling your story,
this show, and sort of the adventure of being an entrepreneur and your journey,
(04:27):
the ups, the downs, the bads, the goods.
So let's go back to baby Matt, and let's sort of dive into your history and
your story and how you got to where you are.
All right. The mic's yours.
Yeah, I was born in San Antonio, Texas, lived there.
(04:48):
I mean, I don't even remember how long I lived there. I was only there for a
year, I think. My dad was in the Air Force.
He worked on monkeys when they were doing the monkey experiments down at the
Air Force Base in the Colleen area.
(05:08):
And we moved to Kansas, I think, when I was about one or two.
And this is where I grew up in Kansas at Arc City.
I was a three-sport athlete, wrestling, football, and baseball.
Always loved music, loved singing music. I played the drums growing up.
(05:29):
Really tight family. Grandma and Grandpa Bertho, Grandma and Grandpa Clements.
My mom and dad were you know
always together my mom didn't miss any
of our events my dad was working a lot and he you know had odd jobs that he
would do like welding or he was a machinist at Rubbermaid he did some welding
(05:56):
but he you know he he taught us how to play catch catch.
He coached us in wrestling and baseball.
Growing up, huge sports fan.
I loved the Chiefs. My grandma and grandpa had Chiefs season tickets when I
was in third or fourth grade.
It took me to my first game and just fell in love with Arrowhead and that whole environment there.
(06:24):
I didn't have to try real hard in school. I never really studied.
And then middle of my junior year of high school, I dated this girl for about
two and a half years and we broke up.
And my counselor, Bob Tessman, he said, Matt, what do you love? And I said Kylie.
(06:45):
And he said, no, what do you love that you're not doing right now?
And I said, well, I don't I don't know what you mean.
He was like, well, what makes you happy? And I said, I like helping people.
And he said, okay, well, what are you doing that you're not doing right now?
And I said, oh, I like to sing a little bit in the shower, in my truck.
(07:08):
And he enrolled me in choir and if
he wouldn't have done that i wouldn't be talking to you
right now i fell in love with singing choir music music theater you know i listened
to garth brooks and boys the men and bon jovi i really fell in love with the
musical les miserables and i just i I liked it.
(07:33):
I liked being on stage, and I had really good rhythm because I played the drums.
I had that in my background, but I remember also, you talked about entrepreneur.
We would always do the fundraisers, right?
The band would sell something, and I remember the band sold something,
(07:54):
and I sold the most out of the whole band program.
There's like 150 kids in the program i sold the most and i think i got like
i don't know 100 bucks cash or something,
and i remember one of my home ec teachers mrs bonfi she came up to me and she said matt you,
(08:15):
are an entrepreneur and i was like what is that i have no idea what you're talking about up.
But that was the first time I ever heard that word. My mom, we grew up about middle, lower class.
My mom worked at a temp agency editing books and publications for grammar and stuff like that.
(08:42):
And like my dad, I said, he was a machinist.
We went to church every Sunday. I grew up Missouri Synod Lutheran, very conservative.
I went through confirmation, had to memorize a bunch of stuff that never really
talked about exactly what it meant. it.
We were just supposed to memorize it. And this is just the way it is.
(09:05):
So we never really got into why, which I had a lot of questions about.
I was always into the supernatural, aliens, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, all that stuff.
I thought I was always interested in the magical part of our existence, our universe.
(09:27):
I never really read any books.
Like I said, I didn't have to study that much in high school.
I got like a 3.6 grade point average without studying.
When I broke up with my girlfriend junior year also, I became a state champion
wrestler that year, 172 pounds.
I remember going into the finals match, my record was 20 and 10.
(09:51):
And everybody was kind of counting me out probably like, there's no way this
kid is going to do this. And I did.
And I even shocked myself because part of me was like, I didn't think I could do it. And I did it.
And then my senior year, I took fourth because I choked on the first match and
got beat 11 to one because I was in my head because there was that girl,
(10:14):
Kylie, she was in the stands watching me and I got in my head about it.
So I went to college at Friends University. Actually, I went to one year at
Cali County Community College and kind of just wasted my time there.
Didn't learn a lot. I won homecoming king.
Then I went to Friends University, and they put me in music theory three,
(10:37):
and I just got my butt kicked.
There were all these music nerds in there that could play the piano, that could read music.
Man, I just felt completely out of place.
And I failed music theory three. They put me back in music theory one and it
was very humbling and it was really hard and it made me feel stupid every single day.
(11:03):
And it got so hard that I quit music education as my major and I went to voice
performance because I could sing really well.
And then I realized I
was gonna have to learn a
foreign language and I felt stupid
(11:23):
then so I quit doing that and then I I was a religion major for a year and you
know I worked kind of behind the scenes at a couple of churches as a music minister
and I didn't like what went on behind the scenes because all
that I witnessed was these elders and the pastors and all these people talking
(11:49):
about money. And it was like, it was a business.
And I was like, this is not, this is not, I don't think what Jesus intended for church to be.
And I went to a thing called American Legion Boys State every year and that's
a simulation government of city county and state and we put the the top 10%
(12:13):
leaders and athletes and.
Intelligent kids from Kansas at Goodenow on Marlatt Hall in Kansas State University.
For like a week at the first of June.
And for three years, I got to be a county counselor. And what that meant is
I got to be in charge of 90 going to be seniors in high school.
(12:36):
And every year I would start with them in our first meeting and I would ask
them, you know, who are they and what makes them tick.
But the thing that I would always tell them is that there was no ceiling on their potential.
And if they're supposed to be the best in the state of Kansas,
(12:58):
then they should just prove it to themselves.
Don't prove it to me or anybody else. Prove it to yourself.
And they did. And my counties would just destroy the other nine counties every
single year and in that time you can only be a county counselor for three years,
and i remember after my third year i was really devastated
(13:20):
it was my third year and i was going to be done but
that third year made me drive home and go up to the music ed department chair
dr john taylor because i was kind of a jerk to him and i told him i said you
know what i'm supposed supposed to be a teacher.
(13:41):
And I'm going to do whatever it takes to be a teacher. And he said,
Matt, you have to pass math for liberal arts with a C or better.
And you have to write a paper on why we're even going to let you back into the education program.
Because I was a complete jerk, man. I basically told Dr. Taylor to F off. He pissed me off so bad.
(14:03):
I was not in a good space.
You know, I should say this too.
My sophomore year or junior year, my grandpa Bertho, he committed suicide.
He shot himself in the chest.
And that was the big blow of the family.
And after that happened, we didn't go to the farm anymore for Christmas or any kind of meals.
(14:29):
And eventually my grandma sold the farm. arm.
So that was very tragic. And my dad never really dealt with that real well.
He struggled with that. And looking
back on it too, my dad was kind of an entrepreneur and so was my mom.
I kind of forgot that my dad did a lot of little odd jobs here and there.
(14:50):
And my mom sold the you know, the multi-level marketing stuff.
I think, what was it? Spark.
I forgot what the vitamins were then, but it's always kind of been around me.
But obviously, I finished the paper. They let me back in the program.
(15:13):
I was working at CompUSA selling computers because I never had a computer.
And I wanted to work at CompUSA so I could buy my first computer.
And I did. It was an old Compaq. And I souped it up. It was awesome.
And I was lead salesman at CompUSA within three months.
And I worked there for almost two years.
(15:34):
And in that time i was finishing my
music ed degree and then i was a stupid college kid and this lawyer offered
me some extra money on the side to come help him set up his network at his house
and so i took the money and did that and this lawyer came back into comp usa and said that I did that,
(15:57):
and I got fired because it was essentially moonlighting.
And after that, man, I was super depressed, drinking all the time,
not going to class, super overweight.
I think I weighed like 250 pounds at that point.
And Andrea was my girlfriend at
the time. She said, you need to go to therapy. And so I went to therapy.
(16:21):
And that's where this amazing therapist finally said, Matt, how does your mom and dad have a conflict?
And my dad would drink and just kind of go out and cook.
And my mom would go into the bedroom and lock herself in there and cry and then just come out.
(16:43):
And this therapist said how do you handle
conflict and I realized that I did
the same thing and then she said well how
do you want to handle conflict and I said I want to attack it I want to attack
conflict and so that's what I chose and you know therapy was really good for
(17:05):
me it really helped me a lot I mean it saved my life for sure.
And I graduated and I started working at SC Telecom, which was an internet help desk.
So I had to help people that would call in how to get their dial-up set up or
how to get their DSL connected, their internet connected.
(17:27):
And eventually I outsold everybody and I became a manager of SC Telecom.
And it was graduation. It was the day before graduation. I was a baccalaureate,
and the speaker looked out over the graduates and said, the best thing you can
(17:48):
do in your life is help somebody else.
And in that moment, I knew that I was done with business,
because I also had an offer to run an ethanol plant for Ethanol Corporation
in Wichita, because one of my first voice students, he's the CEO of it.
His name is Bob Casper. He was taking voice lessons with me.
(18:11):
Now it's kind of God doing a little tricky move by saying, hey,
these CEO clients and these presidents, these business clients,
they're going to be your clients in the future.
Here's a little taste though with Bob.
And so I've turned Bob down and I quit SC Telecom and I took a job at Winfield
(18:32):
High School in Winfield, Kansas.
About that time, I got married to now my ex-wife, Andrea, and I taught at Winfield
High School and coached wrestling and football and eventually was up for Grammy Teacher of the Year.
I built a show called Vikings on Broadway, another show called Blue and White
(18:54):
Starry Night, where we did commercial songs outside.
Vikings on Broadway was like a best of the
best of music theater that I would
just create a kind of a review of
sorts I did some
performing in 2009 or
2008 I made it a goal I was
(19:17):
watching stranger than fiction the movie with Will Ferrell the lady kind of
writes this story and I weighed like 272 pounds at that point and remember I
weighed 172 when I wrestled and I watched that movie and I just cried in my chair at home.
And I remember telling Andrea, I'm such a fake. I'm such a phony.
(19:39):
I got to change. I got to do something.
And the next day I wrote on Facebook, wake up the run. This was 2008.
And my goal was to get down to 190 pounds.
That was my goal. and I did it and then we had my first son Max in 2009 in October
(20:02):
and I didn't want to leave I quit working out and I basically gained all the
weight back like the 240 250 pounds.
And then 2016, I went to the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia,
and I got to see teachers really being their best self.
(20:24):
And I brought back all this energy and all these ideas to Winfield High School.
They didn't want to hear anything of it.
And that was about the time I noticed that the teachers started getting a little
bit jealous and envious of me and kind of the way that I did things.
Also, I should say, I had about 30 to 40 voice students a week that I would
(20:47):
meet after school from 3.45 to 6.45, Monday through Friday.
And then Saturday and Sunday, I would teach from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
So I was constantly working with the voice.
But it kept me away from my family. and you
(21:09):
know my my students became my
family a lot and you know they graduate and I
get sad because they'd leave and it
was just this constant cycle in 2017
I went to my first Estill voice training and that was a game changer for me
it's how I teach the craft of the voice right now that's how I teach the technique
(21:32):
of the voice and that was the first time in my life as an adult that I realized that I could still grow.
And then in 2018, I passed my first certification with Estill.
And Kim Steinhauer, the president of Estill International, looked at me and
she said, Matt, you're the magic guy.
(21:53):
You're going to talk about magic. You're going to talk about.
This magic in london at the next summit and i was like whoa what and so in 2019 that january,
i just started listening to a guy based on a recommendation of my chiropractor
(22:16):
doug swanson he said you need to start listening to ed my lead and then you
need to start listening to Andy Frisella.
And I started listening to these guys and I was like, man, they really talk like me.
I want to be around these guys.
What does that look like? I want to be around more people like that.
(22:36):
And it was about April, May, about right now in 2019.
And we had a car payment finally finish up.
And I asked Andrea, I was like, man, I really want to be a part of this group,
this Arte syndicate, can I please join this?
Because it's about the same amount of money and I can make it work.
(22:56):
It's only $397 a month. Can I do this? I just want to be around more people
like me." And she said, yes.
And so I went to London and presented with a team of 15 people on Performance
Magic, which is what I teach my business clients today about.
And it's obviously grown.
And And this all was reinforced by the book Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza.
(23:24):
That changed my life. The phrase energy is frequency and frequency carries information.
It changed my life forever. That's why we're on this call right now, Justin,
because in that moment, I knew how to teach people how to get into flow state
quickly so that people can feel
(23:45):
emotionally what we want them to feel and see what we want them to see.
And so I presented in London. It was a standing ovation.
The kids sang. We put this presentation together.
I was weighing at that point at like 167, something like that.
(24:05):
I was in the best shape of my life.
And I came out
of that experience and I knew my
life was about to change forever like I felt God going okay you're done with
public school but that was 2019 and so then in 2020 we know what happened COVID
(24:28):
or 2019 March COVID happened and shut school down and it took my dream away
It took my kids away, man.
I was at home and we got two boys.
Andrea and I are not used to being in the same space for that long amount of time.
(24:49):
I'm loud and I'm doing lessons and I got my keyboard hooked up and it's just so different.
I should have put stock in Zoom a long time ago when I knew about it.
But, you know, kids, some kids came over and took lessons and some didn't,
(25:10):
you know, COVID just kind of really made everything so weird.
And, you know, it literally took my first dream away in a way.
And then coming back to school was really shaky.
I continued to grow. I continued to read, doing 75 hard.
I'm about to finish my ninth time of doing 75 hard.
(25:34):
Every single time I've done it has been different. But that first time you do
it, it's a game changer, big time game changer, especially for people that don't
read at all like me. I didn't read anything.
That was a long time ago now, 2019, it's thousands of books later, right? Yeah.
(25:54):
And so I finished all that.
And every year after that, you know, my dad in 2020, June of 2020,
he passed away. He had a heart attack.
That threw me off. I started getting panic attacks, became emotionally unstable.
Andrea couldn't handle it. My therapist, he did the best he could.
(26:19):
I was so messed up because of that, because I realized, you know, I'm next, right?
And I started getting kind of targeted at school as a toxic male.
And all of that being said, all my clients, like business clients, it was going amazing.
(26:45):
Everything that was voiced by Matt that was new was amazing.
Everything was going great.
So we took in a student in 2021 and helped her with college.
She just had some family issues she was going through. And I started really
(27:06):
super focusing on helping her.
And so a lot of my energy and focus was to everyone else and not to Andrea, Max, and Leo.
And very just busy all the time. And I had an assistant at the time.
We started working on Unmute in New York.
(27:28):
And I was in Austria last August, August 5th, and had a disagreement with the
kind of daughter that we took in that was on the trip with me.
And I called my wife at the time because we were having some issues and we got
(27:50):
on the phone with our merits counselor and on a Zoom call on August 5th,
she told me, we're getting divorced.
And I muted myself on Zoom and it was just carnal rage and the worst thoughts ever, man.
(28:11):
And that, you know, on top of that, I got my keys taken away in May of last
year because two little girls said that I targeted them and bullied them,
which I did not. I did not do that at all.
All and so that was the moment I went all in a voice by Matt and so voice by
(28:33):
Matt was something that was an idea that happened in 2019 at the arete live event in st.
Louis and now it's my full-time gig.
But the challenge of losing my dad, the challenge of losing my job,
the challenge of divorce, you know,
(28:54):
and it unmute in New York without my assistant, without a lot of help.
God just kept saying, you got to do this. You got to do this. You got to keep going.
And all my clients at the time were like, you know, you don't have to do this.
Like you could we understand.
But God was like, no, do it, do it, do it. and
(29:14):
Angela was the first one that
signed up for unmute and I was
trying to talk to this girl on messenger
and she wouldn't call me she wouldn't talk to
me on the phone she said I'm not going to do that I'm just going to talk to
you in real life and I was like well that's weird and so we get to New York
(29:34):
and I meet her and she's so awesome
and such great energy and the event happens and then And, you know,
the Chiefs were playing the day after Unmute.
And I was like, Angela, do you want to hang out and walk the game with me? She was like, yeah.
(29:54):
And so we did. And then, you know, that was September 24th of last year.
And the rest is history. I've been with her ever since.
She's actually here now at my house. And she's helping me build.
She's helping me build Voice by Map. Yeah.
You know, losing a father, losing a grandpa, losing a job, going through divorce.
(30:17):
I don't I don't wish that on anybody. It's it's it's hard.
You know, I got to meet you, Justin, at Evolve, and that was Angela's brainchild.
And it was really cool. I got to emcee that and do some teaching in that also.
So, but like right now it's, it's, it's huge.
(30:38):
Like Voice by Matt is, it's bigger than I think I ever thought it would be.
And it's, it's only getting better.
Angela and I are building an event and that's a new company kind of that we started.
A&M, what's it called? A&M Entertainment Productions, VIP Productions.
(30:59):
And we're building an event in Nashville for Mike Sherrard and Louie Gault at
the Municipal Auditorium.
It's a huge space. And so we've been having a lot of fun putting that together.
My podcast, Voiced by Matt, has been going really well. Had Justin on my podcast,
(31:20):
that'll be coming out later.
But I think the hardest part for me right now, Angela and I were talking about
this morning, is being present when I'm around people all the time.
I think when you go through that kind of pain and hard stuff that I've been
through, it's hard to trust people.
(31:43):
And so I'm getting better at it, but I have to put my phone away and I have
to be completely present with people.
That's hard. It's hard for me to do that It's just you know,
I think it was years of ignoring the actual problems and the actual pain But
(32:05):
you know, this is this is stuff.
I teach my clients is how to how to verbalize Emotionally like because I know
your listeners are gonna hear this and be like dang, man,
But the positives are I'm healthy Angela's healthy max is healthy Leo's healthy,
I'm helping people find their voice so their soul can come out and say hello.
(32:27):
But I know that any journey, any great journey, there's going to be tough stuff that happens.
And it's not just puppy dogs and ice cream and unicorns and rainbows every day. Like it's hard.
It's hard to live the life that you're called to live by God. It's so hard.
(32:48):
And I'm excited about Unmute in June. I'm excited about the new clients coming my way.
And excited about all the future speaking gigs and MC gigs that are coming.
That's kind of where I'm at right now. Yeah, that's good. I'm definitely going
to have to have you on for a part two because I wrote down, I have 22 questions
(33:10):
for you actually, and so definitely not going to get it through today.
But I am a curious human. Everyone's like, Justin, how do you always have all these questions?
Like your mind is just constantly going, because I'm naturally curious about the human condition.
I and I generally want to help grow people. I'm really good at it,
(33:30):
actually. I'm amazing at unlocking human potential.
That's the gift that God gave me.
I want to reflect on a few things first before I ask the question.
One of the things I will say to you, I started 75 Hard as soon as it came out in 2019 as well.
I had to stumble. I think I was about 10 days in and tore my calf muscle and
(33:54):
then gave it about two weeks.
And then And then, you know, I did the 75 days and it changed my life.
Then I did it a second time and then a third time.
And by the third time, the mental, physical, spiritual shift in who I was was so significant.
(34:18):
Now, you know, you're already an entrepreneur. Or you're already doing hundreds
of millions of meals a year in food service and working with restaurants and
big stores and food trucks and long-term care homes and farms around the world.
But then all of a sudden you take something like that and add a discipline, that's not what it is.
(34:40):
And disciple is the same as discipline. They mean the same thing, basically.
A disciple is a person of discipline.
Okay? And what happened in 75 Hard is it changed who I was.
It unleashed my own potential so much that it broke my surroundings.
(35:04):
Yeah, absolutely. And after 24 years in business,
going out on lunch breaks, doing my 45-minute walk with my weight vest in front
of the whole company in a food company where everyone just wants to eat, drink, and be merry.
All of a sudden, and I'm in a health food company, by the way,
(35:25):
but even in a health food company, we suffered from health issues.
It was the hardest thing for me watching my employees come into the food industry
and then gain all this weight because I had executives that wanted to eat,
drink, and party all the time when they traveled.
And they would take the managers and the supervisors out to do this versus being
(35:45):
in shape, living a healthy lifestyle, and being a good role model.
And in the process, unintentionally, it broke everything.
It, it, it gave me such clarity that the way I looked at everything and the
way I saw the world around me change.
(36:05):
Like I'm a kid who got abused as, as a kid, sexually abused. Okay.
And for 40 years, 39 years, I didn't see how people used me.
And I didn't understand relationships in the way that I do now,
oddly, until I did 75 hard.
Two things happened. 75 hard and in the middle of 75 hard, that first 75 days,
(36:32):
the first time I did it in 2009,
and I've always been a spiritual person, Catholic school, religious,
going to church, all of those things.
It was like God hit me with a two by four.
Jeez. Because all of a sudden, the way I saw the world was intense.
And let me tell you, I didn't know how to handle it. I tried to bury that.
(36:59):
I literally, I tried marijuana just to, and I don't drink, so there wasn't that.
But I tried marijuana just to numb, just to turn down the amount of noise I
was hearing from God in my life.
And the amount of transition, because what was happening to me is if I did that,
(37:20):
I was scared. I didn't know what was going on.
My life was kind of falling apart while growing during COVID because if you're
in the hospital food business, you're growing.
I didn't know how to handle it. And I kept doing 75, still doing 75 hard right now.
But all of a sudden, I had to tone it down because I didn't have the skill set
(37:43):
or the capacity to handle what was breaking in my life, you know?
And to your point, my employees didn't like it. My business partners didn't like it.
My surroundings didn't like it. My family started not liking it.
And then once my surroundings started changing, add in the marijuana,
(38:03):
then I'm starting to have panic attacks on a daily basis.
Yep. and I have a therapist who's, bless her heart, helped me as much as she
could, but there was nothing to do.
There was nothing she could do because my world was falling apart, and I knew it was.
I knew deep down inside I was going to lose my family, eventually lose my businesses,
(38:29):
and eventually lose my life as I knew it.
Because when you go through that type of transformation and your environment
doesn't change, but you do, you don't fit into your environment anymore.
And the only thing I can explain or give any audience for any hope is that God,
for some reason, was right there with me the entire time. The entire time.
(38:54):
And I don't know why. I don't know what made me different or what his plan is
for me still or what his purpose is.
Everyone says they know what it is for me. I don't have that confidence.
I don't have that. I have trust in God. I have faith in God,
but I've been through such a hard time with so much loss over the last two years
(39:18):
that I don't understand it, that I can't emotionally, spiritually,
mentally, and even physically even begin to understand why everything was stripped
away from my life that I love and cherish.
And so to you, God did it quickly for you. And I think that that's amazing.
(39:42):
And I think that's the way it is for most humans.
And we talked about this when you and I were on your show, is that yes,
God has repurposed me, put me in theology school at Denver Seminary.
Where that goes, I don't know. It's a longer.
(40:10):
Yeah, man, for sure.
Losing your job, meeting Angela, who did Matt become?
(40:34):
Because the Matt of old in 2019 that walked into Arate in St.
Louis is not the same Matt as we have here right now. No. No.
That's a good question, Justin. It's a hard question.
I think I've always been the same guy. I get excited about the smallest things.
(41:02):
I think I'm more careful now with the negative emotions that come out of my
mouth and what I share with people.
I'm a little bit more mindful about not just being water hose of letting people
know and feel all of the dark that I have inside me.
(41:24):
I know there's a time and place for that now. And that's one thing that I've learned.
The truth of if I believe I can do it, I will do it.
I know that that is really, really, really true. through.
I know you've been through it too.
(41:48):
When you constantly feel like you've had so many hard things happen in a very
short amount of time, you start to lose hope a bit.
You start to doubt your capabilities, your skills, and the things that you're
the best at. So, my resilience has been challenged big time.
(42:16):
You know, I think everybody goes through life and they have like a moment to
where you question, you know, am I supposed to be on earth anymore?
Like, does the world need me here anymore?
And you know I went through that
in college and then
you go through it and you're like okay I'm good like that
(42:39):
I was sucked that was that was horrible to
go through that moment right and you never think
you're gonna ever go through anything remotely like
that again and then you do but the
fact that I'm still alive right now after all
of those things that have happened i
(42:59):
mean i'm tough
like it it shows my character is tough i do have faith and i don't give up easily
even though i want to give up sometimes because it just would feel better just
to lay in bed and go crawl in a hole but that's It's not who I am.
(43:20):
And so I think my love for people and my drive to help people find their voice and share their soul.
Think I'm a lot quicker at helping people now, Justin. I think it doesn't take
me as long as it used to take me to help people and help them get to that point
(43:43):
to where they feel confident in their voice, to where they can share their soul.
But it's definitely, this whole experience has taught me that I am very tough,
that I am not going to end my life, that if I made it through this, which I did.
I did make it through this. I'm finally on the other side of it.
(44:08):
There's weird things like Angela's at the house and I was worried about how
Max and Leo would handle that.
But that's normal. I mean, anybody's going to feel that way.
It's not anything specific towards me. It's just part of the new life, right?
So Angela was telling me this morning, actually.
(44:31):
She said, Matt, you did this number in your first year and most people in their
first year would do anything to get that number that you got.
You are a success going full-time in your first year since last end of April to this April.
You have done incredible in your Voice by Matt business going full-time because
(44:57):
it was part-time for five years, Justin. It wasn't full-time.
The LLC started in November of 2019, but I've been coaching private voice for 20 years.
That's what I said to her. She goes, well, yeah, but you had a job that you
went to school from 8 to 3.35, Monday through Friday.
(45:19):
You knew your breaks. You knew your lunch. You knew what you were going to do
from 3.45 to 6.45 with your voice lessons.
You knew your activities and your concerts.
And you had a schedule. You had a plan.
And they would load you back up with students every week or every year you'd
(45:40):
get new batch of students. I was like, yeah.
She goes, well, now you don't get that.
You've got to go find your clients. You've got to go find your work and get
your word out there and get people to sign up with you.
So the fact that you did that going full time for one year and you did what
you did in one year is incredible. And so I think I'm really hard on myself, Justin.
(46:07):
I don't give myself enough credit. I don't celebrate a lot of my successes and wins.
I tend to look at the negative a lot and the problems a lot instead of the positives.
And that's something I want to change. I think in 2019, I was just like a little
(46:27):
newborn kid into the world of what's possible.
And now, a lot more seasoned. And so I know what I'm capable of,
but kind of I still don't know exactly what I'm capable of.
So, you know, I hope that answers your question. I know that what I'm doing
(46:54):
is very important to God and God's work.
And it's a big responsibility.
And that's why I think I'm so serious about it.
And that's why I think I'm so serious most of the time is, you know, I got to be on point.
You know, I got to make sure that I'm ready for my clients when they get on that Zoom call.
(47:19):
But my schedule, I'm still figuring that out.
One week I have the kids, one week Andrea has the kids. Still trying to figure that out.
Still trying to figure out how to travel and be where my feet are.
I know that people understand that I've traveled a lot.
(47:42):
The biggest thing for me is I know that I'm on God's path for me now.
And for five years, I said, no, God, I'm not going to go all in on Voice by Matt.
I'm going to teach in public school or college.
And this business coaching, helping business professionals with their voice
(48:05):
is going to be a little part-time thing.
It has been for five years.
And then God said, nope, you're going all in, brother.
And here we are. Where can they find you online, Matt?
How can they reach out to you if they're interested in Voice by Matt?
How do they find you online?
How does the audience get in touch with you?
(48:27):
You can go to www.voicebymatt.com. You can send me an email at voicebymatt at gmail.com.
You can find me on Facebook, Voice by Matt.
But the majority of the communication and the people that I talk to that I work
with find me on Instagram, and it's just voicebymatt.
(48:49):
And that's where you can get a hold of me.
Or you can just reach out to Justin and say, Hey, keep me in touch with Matt. Yeah, there you go.
I, yeah, I don't mind doing that. And thank you, Matt, for coming on the show.
I'm definitely going to ask you to get on the calendar and sign up for another one.
Cause like I said, I have 20 more questions left after the 21 I wrote.
(49:11):
So, cause I, there's some deep things that I think that are important to explore here.
And also just the credibility that you have and in the way that you touch humans.
I just want to show that to the world for sure. And anyone in the audience,
you can already feel Matt's authenticity and his vulnerability and the journey.
(49:31):
And, you know, I think a lot in life, we used to call these things midlife crisis,
where our lives completely change, or we go buy a car to make ourselves feel
better, whatever it used to be.
But now with the way the world is, and we're going to talk about toxic masculinity
because I understand being called that.
(49:51):
Especially during COVID where that whole craze came out of nowhere on top of
everyone else already feeling like crap and, and locked in.
Then we want to go and start attacking people on top of it. So that, that's awesome.
And so we're going to dive into all that.
But one of the things that I would say that happens is the transformation is for God's kingdom.
(50:15):
If we choose to follow him and pursue him and build a relationship with him.
Yep. And, you know, that's where we're going to go, you know, on the next episode.
And my questions are around that journey for you, for sure.
Plus just some diving into the personal things, diving into the business things
and really starting to talk about what it is that Unmute is trying to do and
(50:40):
what Voice by Match trying to do.
And I really want to get into the weeds and the details on that because I think
it's important Because I think you can help a lot of people,
eventually hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people,
and that will ripple into hundreds of millions generationally.
(51:00):
Wow, I can't even say the word this morning. That's all right.
Everyone in the audience, I thank you guys. I love you guys.
Thank you for listening in.
Again, you can find us on Spotify or wherever else you grow yourself through podcasts.
And you can find me on Instagram at Justin Bizarro, B-I-Z-Z-A-R-R-O.
Thank you always for the love and support. I love you guys.
(51:23):
Even when there was a time I didn't love myself, all of you still love me.
So that's pretty awesome.
And we're going to call it. Thank you getting in.
Music.
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