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Matt Aaron: Money, Pressure, and Passion
45 Plays8 years ago
Matt Aaron is a food entrepreneur, cofounding Andes Fruits in Colombia. They ship exotic Colombian fruits to the United States. He's also the creator of the Food Startups Podcast, a show dedicated to demystifying the confusing food business.
But he wanted to talk about something else today - money, pressure, and passion. More importantly, how do you balance these three forces in your life in a way that's truly authentic to you? It's not easy, and Matt's not claiming to have all of the answers, but he certainly has some interesting insight that I think you'll enjoy.
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Transcript
Introduction to Matt Aaron's Journey
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of the Art of Authenticity. Thank you so much for joining. I'm Laura, your host. Today we have Matt Aaron joining us. Matt is the co-founder of Andy's Fruits in Columbia, and it's a company that ships exotic Columbia fruits to the United States. He is also the host of
00:00:39
Speaker
Food Startups Podcast. Matt came on today's show to chat with me about a subject that he felt needed to be unpacked, this question of money, pressure, and passion. All of us really want to make money. All of us want to follow our passion, but what does that mean?
00:00:58
Speaker
What does it mean for each of us individually? How much money is enough? What does it mean to have the passion in your life?
Balancing Passion and Financial Success
00:01:06
Speaker
Where's that balance between doing what you love, earning a living, being responsible, and this third thing of pressure? How much pressure can you take
00:01:17
Speaker
how much pressure makes sense for your life because obviously the more you're working, the more you're taking on, the more the pressure, anxiety, and stress builds up. So how do you manage it all? Matt had a bunch of thoughts on this and building his company, Entrepreneurship, really great show. I know you're going to enjoy listening. If you have any questions, you can reach out to me, laura, at lauraco.com.
00:01:39
Speaker
I love hearing from you and thanks again for tuning in. Welcome to this week's episode of the Art of Authenticity. Today we have Matt Aaron joining us. Hey Matt, how's it going? I'm doing great. Living the dream.
00:01:52
Speaker
There you go. Matt and I were just chatting before today's episode and we have a really awesome topic that we want to dive into specifically that Matt brought to my attention. I thought you guys would love, but before we do, I just thought Matt could give us a little background, what he's been
Early Entrepreneurship and Corporate Escape
00:02:08
Speaker
up to, what his story has been. Matt, I know I read your bio, but you were the co-founder of Andy's Roots in Columbia. Can you tell us a little bit about your company and what inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
00:02:20
Speaker
Sure. So two questions. What inspired me to become an entrepreneur and then one on districts, Columbia. So I'll start with the present on districts. Columbia is a partnership between myself and a Belgian guy named Johan, where we ship exotic Colombian fruits, fresh produce and dried, usually organic to the United States. So our goal is to kind of spread the word about exotic Colombian fruits and share them with the U S market.
00:02:49
Speaker
And our main fruit right now is the golden berry, which many of you probably are not familiar with, but that's going to start to grow in the U.S. It's already pretty popular in Europe. And the golden berry is the cousin of tomatillo. It's like a tart and super fruit. You can find it dried pretty much any like health food store, but the fresh is just entering the market. Nice. And I've actually heard of it a little like it's kind of like tart, like a raisin almost, but like, um, but even tartar. Is that right?
00:03:17
Speaker
It's one of those love or hate fruits. It's polarizing, right? So if you're into sweet tarts, you're gonna love it. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And so when did you start this business? How long has it been going?
00:03:30
Speaker
So this business, and just to clarify it, fresh produce is completely different world that I jumped into after doing dried and freeze dried golden berries for about a year and a half importing them to the United States. But teaming up with my partner, that started in, our first shipment went out July 28th, 2015. So, you know, a year and four months.
00:03:51
Speaker
Awesome, and what got you excited to be an entrepreneur? Is it been something, a lot of entrepreneurs I talked to, they were like, well, when I was 12, I tried to start my first babysitting business. Is it something that you've always wanted to do or did you come into it recently? So yeah, I'm one of those guys that has like a bunch of like stories and you know, I remember even doing like garage sales when I was like six years old. I'll tell you a funny story, Laura. Yeah. I've never shared this before. When I was five,
00:04:19
Speaker
me and my best friend at the time, I said, let's have a yard sale. I said, we're going to sell. I said, marbles. And I told him, listen, let's sell them at $100,000 each because we sell 10 marbles, 11 million dollars. And so I actually put a sign in front of my house and for some reason my parents didn't stop me and cars drove by and they're like, oh, these kids are they selling lemonade? No, marbles, $100,000 apiece. That was my first business. Nice.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah, I've had a lot of jobs. I was in high school and in college as well. And then I lasted about seven months in not even the corporate world, like the small startup world. But when I was 23, I went on my own and I've been a full-time entrepreneur ever since. What motivates me? It's sometimes it's difficult to understand the subconscious intentions, but I think I like the control over my life. I like freedom. And I think those are probably the driving energies behind it.
00:05:10
Speaker
So funny, I just was watching Shark Tank and I heard Mark Cuban, he goes, entrepreneurs are the only people in the world that would give up 40 hours of work a week for 80 hours and call it freedom. Exactly. You know what I mean? It ends up being a lot of work to be an entrepreneur and you kind of lose a lot of freedoms because you're working so many hours, but to just not have to check in or check out somewhere is worth it.
The Food Startups Podcast: Purpose and Impact
00:05:34
Speaker
I thought that was such a cute way of saying it. Awesome. So you then moved over to
00:05:39
Speaker
doing your fellow podcaster, The Food Startup Podcast. Can you tell me a little bit about the podcast and how you decided to venture into that? Sure. Just to clarify, The Food Startup's plural podcast? Yes, sorry.
00:05:55
Speaker
No worries. So the reason I started that was in 2013, it's been three years now, amazing. I started that because, and with my buddy at the time who's, remains a great friend and has a chocolate company in Medellin, Colombia, who recently left the show about a year and a half ago because he was too busy. But him and I started it because we were like, wow, I come from a tech background and in like coding and Google SEO, all that type of stuff, there is a tremendous amount of free and quality information in forums.
00:06:24
Speaker
Online that you can learn but starting a food business. It's very opaque. It's it's old-school it favors the large companies a lot of the quality control organic certifications import export and there's also a lot of people that are very successful but they don't even know how to use excel and they have a hotmail email address and So so people that are like young Millennials trying to get involved. There's not that much information out there so I try to kind of create a place to hang out and bring in and
00:06:50
Speaker
top performers, people that are, you know, in various cycles of the, of the food startups world, authors, et cetera, et cetera. And kind of just share that and create a little bit of transparency in the community and democratize the information. It is interesting. There's certain sectors where it really is still so old school. I was in the healthcare sector and, you know, doctors' offices and labs and all that stuff. It's amazing.
00:07:17
Speaker
There was 350,000 tests flown every night in the business that I ended up, we sold our company to. And you would think there'd be this incredible system behind it. And it was like taped together. It was, it was unbelievable. I mean, when you say hot mail accounts, it literally makes me think of the whole company. And a good litmus test, like for an industry, if they're using like a fax machine more than once per month, it's probably old school.
00:07:45
Speaker
No, I mean, they didn't even have a centralized IT system. I mean, it's amazing just to tape together. You just don't believe that's really possible anymore with everything you see on the internet, but so many industries are still pretty old school. And so have you found that bringing these people on, they're sharing their
00:08:02
Speaker
information about the food industry has helped you grow your business. And second question has helped people starting their own food businesses find a way to do it in a new, modern style. Yes. And yes, it's so cool. I'll first thought the coolest thing, well, actually definitely the coolest thing for sure is when people are like, Hey, I really enjoy your show. Cause it's a lot of work putting one out every week. Yeah.
00:08:29
Speaker
There's a lot you have to face all that's great you have to be very authentic face a lot of self doubt hearing your voice you know not every episode be amazing there's me. Production audio quality issues but at the core delivering value and getting that feedback really feels great and now i feel like i have a community have people that regularly talk to you and it's so cool that connected guest on the show that are working together on projects and yeah i'm incredibly grateful for that.
00:08:55
Speaker
That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, I want to jump in because most of the people who reach out to me want to come on the show. They have something that they're promoting.
Exploring Core Themes: Money, Pressure, Passion
00:09:05
Speaker
And I'm sort of pushing you to tell us about your story and everything. But in truth, you had a really cool agenda when you reached out. You were like, I just want to talk about money pressure and passion. So I just want to dive in here because I think that's so awesome that you came with such a specific
00:09:24
Speaker
conversation that was on your mind. Obviously, this show is about creating a life that's successful and meaningful, and it's a question of money and passion. How does that all work? Can you tell me what was on your mind when you reached out with this particular subject?
00:09:41
Speaker
Sure. So I'll do your show. I mean, I started out with Sebastian and Carlos, and I wanted to think of, you know, how can I add value to the show? Because, you know, I wanted to be part and expose myself to your audience. That doesn't sound like expose myself to your eyes, but you know, like, I want to know who I am and especially if they're in food, it would be great. But regardless, though, I chose the topic. And actually, I have to put one more disclaimer for the audience here.
00:10:07
Speaker
I'm not coming to you with the answer for this because I've worked on for five years and I've gotten so close the last couple of months and I feel like I'm in a good spot with my relationship to this. And as you know, Laura, you never make it, right? So you can have an amazing startup, sell it and then all of a sudden,
00:10:24
Speaker
Six months or even six days your life can be turned upside down But what I'd like to listeners will come out of the episode with is what are the questions that can be asked? And also some concepts to consider that can get you to your personal answer because it's different for everybody We're all different to me of different chemical levels in the brain and interest etc etc So the reason is I think that these are like money pressure and passion money and passion these are are
00:10:50
Speaker
two sources of anxiety, stress anxiety, as well as pleasure for people that are trying to live an authentic life. Interesting. So anxiety, stress, and pleasure. So right, because you're working towards your passion, you're making money, but then what this causes stress and pleasure at the same time, is that what you're
00:11:14
Speaker
Let's break it down a little bit. Let's start with money. Money and passion. I work in healthcare doing some type of consulting and I make 10 grand a month. I love art. Should I stop my healthcare business and do art full-time? Art's my passion, but I don't make any money. In fact, it costs me money to buy the art supplies. That's one example. What's another common one?
00:11:36
Speaker
Oh, so how do you balance it? Yeah, how do you balance all that? And also how do you how do you find that but also like the the press and the pressure comes in it the pressure is interesting because I all of a sudden I started my own business. I'm doing my art. I believe in this full time. But is that responsible? You know, maybe you have a family or other people that you want to look out to. And so how does all of this fit together?
00:11:58
Speaker
Right.
Discovering Passion and Managing Pressure
00:11:59
Speaker
So how do you think about this? Because the question of how do I think about money and what does money mean for me and when is enough enough and how much passion is critical for me in my job versus in my life. And we think of these things in such
00:12:15
Speaker
I think really basic, I did basic terms, you know, like make money. Well, I never said, well, here's the dollar figure that I need to make, and then I feel pretty comfortable. I never define that, right? I want passion in my life. Well, how much passion? Because no matter what you do, I love what I'm doing, but there's a bunch of stuff that's grunt work. So how do you, how do you start to walk through that? Do you have, do you have thoughts on how to approach those subjects? Sure. Let's start off with the passion and I want to dispel
00:12:44
Speaker
There's some exceptions here, like any good rule there, it can be broken by certain people. And I think of like the artist that was drawing from like six years old and, and they continued, but, uh, and I got this from Cal Newport, which I would imagine a lot of listeners know the whole idea of like this. Intellectually thinking about what your passion is and like, just thinking about it. It's like, what's my passion? I'm going to do it.
00:13:04
Speaker
Not gonna work. Much more likely to work is you try different things. Some you like, some you don't. You get good at something. And what you get good at or some you have an interest in that you'll probably start liking it and that will become your passion. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. But there's like that one tricky thing where you're really good at something and you don't like it.
00:13:23
Speaker
Okay. So then if that happens and it's not your passion, but I would say, and tell me if you agree, I think they're, I think you're more likely to be good at things you're passionate about or be great at things you're passionate about for sure.
00:13:35
Speaker
I think that's the real question, right? Is there a ceiling on your interest and your motivation to continue to grow and develop? Because I was really good at healthcare tech entrepreneurship, but I actually had no passion for the product. I was doing really well in a bunch of areas and continuing to grow, but there was a piece that I just couldn't get myself to.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think absolutely. The things that you are driven towards and you feel excited by, you tend to get more talented at. What about the person though that is driving towards it because they just think, well, I just want to buy another Bentley or something.
00:14:16
Speaker
Well, I mean, it's probably not, it's probably not going to work out. It's interesting. I was just in the Miami area and I was around some of those people where, you know, they have on the money side, they're much more successful than me and they have like bent knees and so forth. And I'm not judging them, but it seemed like they were kind of like toys. That was like a side effect of having business success. But if they weren't passionate about the business that they were spending 80 hours a week on, uh, you could tell they were lacking in other areas of their life.
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah, so how do you start to balance these things and deal with how much money do you really want and how much pressure are you willing to also take on, right? Because the more you're working, the more money you're making, but you also, what about your family?
00:15:02
Speaker
Sure. So I think one answer is, and it's, I've had people on my show, like the founder of honest tea, he had a family, but he's like, I have to go all in so that to answer this, or it it's again, there's no right answers. You have to understand who you are and you can test this and we'll talk about that in a second. But the honest tea founder, Seth Goldman, right? You got Bob, Bob, Coca-Cola, blah, blah, blah. He like, he had to go all in. Cause he's like, if I didn't go all in.
00:15:26
Speaker
I don't know, I wouldn't have the motivation to do it, but other people go all in and they're crushed by the pressure, they're paralyzed by it, and they feel all this type of stress. So I think you can always start off keeping your job and doing something on the side. I think that's most likely the best way to start out, but then energy-wise, you can
00:15:47
Speaker
You might hit a point where you're just really feeling it and you know that just like procrastination, soul crushing when you start thinking about that job that pays your bills and you have a little bit of a runway. But you just be like, oh my gosh, I don't want to do the weekly call for my healthcare tech company.
00:16:04
Speaker
Or you wake up and you have a great morning, Laura, and I don't know, you have breakfast with your husband, your wife, you go for a walk, everything's good. And you're like, oh man, at 4 p.m., we have that weekly status call. And your body language changes, you drink. It's like that might be the time to leave. That's right. That's right. So was this part of your journey? How do you think about balancing money and passion in your business, in your podcast?
00:16:32
Speaker
Sure. So it's definitely been a source of stress over the years because, wow, there's no guarantees in what I'm doing and there has to be a little bit of blind faith. And Laura, it's quite difficult because
00:16:44
Speaker
I'm like the only guy that has a, well, I have a couple of friends kind of, but I'm the only person that does podcasting that has exotic fruits from Columbia. You know what I mean? There's not like, it's not like following like a lawyer where you can start a law firm, right? So I'm kind of even going to uncharted territories because my business partner, who also has a company in Europe that's successful,
Taking Risks and Learning from Pressure
00:17:04
Speaker
right? But he's sold to Europe and you know what I mean? So it's like, those are some of the things that I have to deal with. And so I would say, I want to,
00:17:12
Speaker
I'm gonna stop for one second here on the pressure cuz I mentioned pressure testing this will relate to what we're talking about I had to take a leap of faith and basically take on the debt of a container of fruit which is worth $80,000 that more than doubled what I had in my bank account last year and I went through that stress of having like a huge debt and trying to sell on that and I learned a lot about myself.
00:17:33
Speaker
How do I balance that? I made it through and that decision changed everything because that was what built trust with my current business partner who's much more established than I am. This was with dried fruit to give me a chance with the fresh golden berries. If I didn't take that chance, it would not have worked out.
00:17:51
Speaker
And how did you balance that pressure and that passion to do it? Was it a moment where you just said, I'm doing it? Or was it a process where you sat down and really journaled for a couple of months? What did that look like for you?
00:18:05
Speaker
Sure. A combination of journaling, meeting up with friends. I do a lot of masterminds. So masterminding where we share our life and I share and it's like, should I do it? And I got enough like pluses. And then at one moment I was in rural Pennsylvania. I had gone up to meet this ukulele teacher, this legend in border town, Pennsylvania, and I met up with my buddy and he like drove down and we're like, let's meet up for the night and hang out. And I told him, and I remember right there, he told it to me. I was like, yeah, like you combat provided like
00:18:32
Speaker
Life is short. It's time to like, it's time to go on like enough. Like this is, this is it like has my talent level. You have to act before you're ready, but I think my talent level got to a point where talent level, I'll say experience where it's worth trying. And it's, I'm in a spot right now where like things have leveled out and now our business is growing, but I can actually, by take on investment, I can enter that space again.
00:18:56
Speaker
And it, and almost like, just like chilling in Florida last week and relaxing. I, I kind of learned, okay, you're something, you can't always be in that state. Like the pressure, like, yo, like a lot of money or, or have a huge responsibility all the time. So it's like ebbs and floats, but I can handle it for, you know, sustained period, especially if I go through like a relaxation period. In fact, Laura Sebastian introduced, okay.
00:19:21
Speaker
Sebastian and I are both close friends with Shannon Mann, who I think you should know. And she's a coach as well. And Shannon's
Importance of Rest and Future Goals
00:19:28
Speaker
my coach. She's been my coach for four or five years. And so after I sold that container, Laura, I was like,
00:19:34
Speaker
This is my email. I'm going to send you a screenshot of the email. I said, hey, Shana. And I'm very obsessed with self-development, et cetera, et cetera. I said, Shana, the last three days, I've just been lying in my bed watching Netflix. I love it. Chase closed off from the world. I was like, but I need to get back into it. I need to get the health, blah, blah, blah, business. And she's like, Matt, just ride this out. This is good. This is an important period of downtime in your life.
00:20:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I love to like, full circle to what we were talking about a few minutes ago, it's what works for you, right? If like, there becomes a moment where it is critical to your, you know, constitution to go get in bed and watch Netflix for three straight days. So be it, right? Like, I had Dr. Shefali on the show, who's, you know, been on Oprah now three times and you look at her and you think, Oh my God, she's probably like,
00:20:26
Speaker
going going going and she's like no I just spent three weeks I took I went off the grid completely and I didn't even answer an email so I think this myth that you know you just keep going and this idea of heads down and just you know pounding through nobody can live their life in that kind of way I mean there are a handful of people I I know one guy he's
00:20:49
Speaker
You know, he's insanely successful. He's got like a several billion dollar fund, but I've known him since high school and he never needed more than four hours of sleep. Right. So it's like you have to take these kind of super humans and put them aside and say what works for me and stop, stop looking to other people for your, for your model. I think we can share in.
00:21:06
Speaker
in ideas and different ways of looking at the world. But I love that you're like, I'm just going to get in bed and watch some Netflix because that's what I need at this point, right? And did that give you the motivation to kind of pop back out and feel more energized for the next phase? Yeah, I'm in that phase now. And I just we just had our annual trade show, which for our industry is like, it's like the Super Bowl of produce. And I saw the year on year growth and had a really good perspective where we're at. And now
00:21:36
Speaker
And this is where the pressure comes in. I have some money now, not a ton. But is it time to go for that next level, which involves a little bit more pressure that you'd have to channel going forward? And the answer is yes, and I'll tell you why. But it's interesting to feel that. And the power of downtime as well, one more thing, Laura, with downtime is when you turn off your phone for 24 hours or even 48 hours,
00:22:05
Speaker
And and more it's really funny my coach and i love the link to the show she's great as well and she was like one thing she told me Sebastian told me this is all she they're like matt here's what you need to do when i was at a state of flux in and journaling i found to be very effective but they said that you need to go to a cafe for like three hours with just notebook and a pen no cell phone and like journal about this one thing.
00:22:25
Speaker
And and then shannon put in princesses which you probably can't do and which i probably can't do it took me like three months and i remember sending her emails like hey shannon just let you know tomorrow like saturday i'm going to this cafe i'm gonna do it and then like after six weeks i finally made it i did it for an hour and a half and then i check my phone that's actually did do it what do you could do it because because sitting for three hours is just too too painful to do.
00:22:50
Speaker
So Laura, so digital discipline is a big thing in my life that I haven't tackled, but you've probably noticed with the younger generation, they're always on their phones and the stimulus of information in the internet. So for me to sit in a cafe with no internet, no phone, just a pen and a paper for three hours, I would get anxious. I couldn't finish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I look, I have to say I'm 45. My friends, we all started off
00:23:15
Speaker
pre-internet, pre-cell phones, but everybody's got a bad case of it now. You get fidgety and anxious because you feel like you need to touch some kind of electronic. It's pretty crazy. So you finally did it. You sat down. You did three and a half hours. How did it feel when you got to the end?
00:23:34
Speaker
Oh, it felt great. To be honest, I can't even remember what I came out of with that information because I do a lot of journaling, but I remember coming out of it and I felt a lot more clarity. It was primarily focused on the podcast, but a lot of clarity coming out. And one thing I want to say about journaling and growth in general, a lot of times you may not be able to consciously realize your growth, but you've
00:23:56
Speaker
gained like in like food and food entrepreneurship. You might have like 130 soft skills like just how to recognize when not to work with a person, etc, etc, that you have, but you can't even like write them down on paper. And so coming out of that, I think that got me in the habit of journaling, probably like four or five months ago, where
00:24:18
Speaker
Now, I can get that, like, you know, stimulus reward, that reward from journaling and downtime, and I can come out with big ideas. And the fact that I'm speaking with you about this, when I go into a hyper-connected state, meaning, you know, touching emails twice, looking, starting the day reactive, like starting the day with email, things like that, I think I'll remember, wow, it's time to shut everything off. And I can feel now inside that I'm going to get, like, guidance in the inevitable
00:24:48
Speaker
obstacles that will come in my path going in the future. Yeah, no, it's a really interesting thing to consider. And so when you think going forward now with your podcast and your business, what are your plans and how do you continually think of how to balance these components and your future goals?
Journey to Self-awareness and Authenticity
00:25:11
Speaker
So Laura,
00:25:12
Speaker
Okay, I want to mention one thing and this is a concept that I had about three years ago. I'm 32. So I just when I was about 29 and
00:25:20
Speaker
What tends to happen if you take the off beaten path is you compare yourself to your friends, not in, not from a point of jealousy, but from a sense of fear, at least in my case, like I'm happy that some of my friends back home are doing great. But I was like, but when you see like, wow, like 2014, like I made minimum wage or it's like a hundred thousand, 105,000 in revenue and then cost like 96,000. Yeah.
00:25:44
Speaker
Oh, wow, I made $7,000 last year. And like, I like, you know, I've worked a ton and it's like, it really, it really checks your fear. So I think about like rock climbing, or if you have fear of heights, like don't looking down, like don't look down, if that makes sense. So it's I kind of got into that just like, Matt, just be in your space. But don't you think so few people in entrepreneurship set you up for this one piece? And I should probably say this
00:26:10
Speaker
constantly every chance I can, that even when you're a successful entrepreneur, it doesn't mean that you have profits to take home because you're reinvesting into the business. And so I went through a phase two. My friends were all making money and they started making more and more and more and they were getting raises and I was happy for them, but I'm like, damn, I'm still making 30,000, right? But I have this big business. It can be humbling in that moment, right? Or you think, what am I doing wrong? Oh, humbling. Yeah, great word. Been humbled a lot of times.
00:26:39
Speaker
And Laura, I'll say one thing. One is the survivorship bias, right? Like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg. So not only people that survive that keep their businesses going, right? The five to 10% that even have success with their startup, and then the top 0.001% that get all the attention, right? So there's like the survivorship bias. Yeah, yeah. And then two is, here's a great question. So in the entrepreneurial space, it's
00:27:05
Speaker
It's usually like, how big is your business? Like, how big is it? Right? But a better question, I got this, I can't from some other author, I can't remember. But if I do, I'll send it to you. But it should be how healthy is your business? And that's not so it's like, you know,
00:27:18
Speaker
profit margin, but overall, how are you connecting with your employees, with your customers? I think a better question to ask is how healthy, not how big, is your business? Because a $1 million funding round doesn't really mean anything. That just means you're taking on $1 million of someone else's money, it's time to double down.
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, look, the beginning phase, trying to get money, trying to figure out the product, trying to figure out if there's a market, it's all really difficult. And I applaud anybody for trying to do it. But getting from there to profits is a whole other world having employees, dealing with 10 employees.
00:27:52
Speaker
going from 10 employees to 30 employees? That's right. Those are the questions you should be asking. Am I building a sustainable, solid foundation of a business that can grow for 10, 20 years, or is it really just a house of cards?
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, and being honest with yourself helps. And so I have my notes here because I went over your questions before the interview, Laura. And so I'm going to enter and define authenticity the way so it took me a while to come up with this. And the way I define authenticity is awareness, seeing things for what they are. Yes, yes. So so seeing things for what they are, like that you're being truthful with yourself.
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah, and just saying like, Oh, I have this like business and being honest with your motivations. Like I'm doing this business because it makes a lot of money and it gets me a lot of Facebook likes or I'm just making an example here, but being truly, truly honest, because there's a lot of businesses that like say they're like social responsible, but that's not why they're doing it. So, so they say that on their about page and.
00:28:55
Speaker
And I don't say that it's wrong, but by, and the brain can be very tricky. You can rationalize a lot of decisions, but the closer you get to understanding, like seeing things for what they are, the more power you have. I got to bring this in now. So this is the quote and from 50 cents and Sebastian, or not Sebastian, not Carlson. I love the 50th law by 50, 50 cent and Robert green. And so this is a quote by 50 cent. And I'm going to read it now. Um, that relates to this. And so it's really, it's really powerful for me. And so here we go. Reality is my drug.
00:29:25
Speaker
The more I have of it, the more power I get and the higher I feel. I love that. I love that, right? Very beautiful. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful. And it's interesting because a lot I've noticed a lot of people judge 50 cents because maybe because of some of the messages in his music, but an incredibly sharp person and amazing entrepreneur like he invested in vitamin, vitamin water to other companies as well. You mentioned the authentic life and what it means to you, but
00:29:53
Speaker
Was your path to having an authentic life one that started young or did you have like a big turning point moment where you felt you were in a deeply inauthentic place and had to make a change?
Handling Stress with Mindfulness
00:30:04
Speaker
Growing up, I was like a gifted and talented kid and I was in the fixed mindset, not growth mindset. So I was not really into school at all.
00:30:12
Speaker
Minimum viable work, you know, and I didn't really start thinking about self-development I was like 25 and I think I was like 25 26 when I moved to Columbia and it all changed when I started reading So that was the moment I got into books I think Ryan holidays blog and I was reading Ryan holiday when he was like 20 or 21 years old just he's like 30 31 nights, but have a kid and I remember reading his stuff and that was probably a big life-changing point and
00:30:38
Speaker
The second life-changing point was, so I got into it, but there's different levels. It's not like you can get advice from a top performer, as you know, and then all of a sudden you live out that advice. It takes a while to get there, right? It takes a lot of self-doubt and homeostasis, right? You're gonna have these poor habits. You're not gonna root them out, and it's taken years to root out a lot of habits, and I've made a lot of progress and still plenty to improve. But the second point was when I turned 29,
00:31:07
Speaker
I read a guy by Sebastian Marshall and I read that book Laura and it's just like I was like first off Wow Sebastian Marshall really interesting guy as we both know and it's a episode on Laura's podcast which everyone should listen to and So very very unique person that you can learn from and he's not like everybody but he teaches you a lot and then so after reading that Laura I would I got like hyper obsessed was like self-improvement if I'm waiting in any line I'm listening to an audiobook like not wasting a moment and
00:31:35
Speaker
And I did that for a while. And I had to kind of dial it back because, you know, that's just not me. That's just not how I'm built. But I still like read a ton and and and so forth. And I love audiobooks. But I just kind of had to balance that out. Yeah. Yeah. Because it can become extreme. And all of a sudden it's like you're just consuming it. And it's really about taking these ideas and bringing them into your life. And it can, you know, too much of it can feel feel a little crazy. So when you're facing like a stressful moment and
00:32:03
Speaker
Things get really intense and we talked about an example with your business. What do you do to, you mentioned you talked to a bunch of friends, you tried journaling, to not make that inauthentic decision. Yeah, so let me give you my last stressful moment and I'll walk you through it because I've gotten better at that. I've had times where I just go crazy and send an email like pure impulse, right? Right.
00:32:25
Speaker
I think I've probably had natural pulse of tendencies, like I like gambling, right? So I've gone through that, right? Not the best look. And the more you stress out the worse it gets. So just being able to calm yourself and understand it. So here's the story. This was Sunday night. Today is Wednesday. Sunday night, Laura, I'm in Florida flying back to Columbia Monday at
00:32:48
Speaker
8 a.m. and I'm three hours from the airport. So meaning I get back like Sunday night at 1 a.m. with my buddy from his car and I'm gonna have to drive in about two hours from
Maintaining Balance: Daily Practices and Reflection
00:32:57
Speaker
like at 3 a.m. I'm gonna have to drive, return the car, fly to Colombia. So we get back to his place and we park. I look to the side and I see the rental car and there's like this huge dent in it and I was like, wait, that can't be my car. And sure enough, it's my car. So I'm like, okay, it's a very quick situation because I only have a couple hours here, right? So option A.
00:33:17
Speaker
Is just take off, return the car. Um, I don't have car insurance. Do you have like, I do have like the collision damage waiver. I could decline that and I have it like the visa or mastercard, but I don't know about this stuff. And I always have this fear with insurance. Like I'm going to, they're going to find some way or I'm not going to do something right. And then I just kind of like took any breath. I was all right. Well, you got to laugh at this. And then I also thought, because it was just such a meaningful trip with my buddy and spending time with him who.
00:33:39
Speaker
Ironically, he was the guy, the last person I was with when I made that decision to take on that container of dried fruit, the huge debt. And I said, wow, dude, even if I have to pay $4,000, which still hurts to say that, if I have to pay $4,000 for this dent, this was an amazing vacation. I'm so glad we got to hang out. And I really felt that. But then he's like, yeah. And then we started thinking about it. So talking to a friend, he was like, OK, here's what you need to do. You need to delay your flight. I wanted to get back to Columbia. He's like, delay your flight a day. So I basically.
00:34:07
Speaker
JetBlue and thank you so much JetBlue for waving the change fee after hearing my story. So call JetBlue and then whether you call JetBlue and then call the rental car company to extend for a day. Give myself 24 hours, right?
00:34:18
Speaker
And like, go to bed and then figure it out in the morning. And then just going through the logic, you know, do I need to police report? What should I tell? I'm always like, I'm always hesitant to tell like insurance companies. Like I don't want to tell them anything because it's like, they can always use it against you. But anyway, I was, so I basically, I gave my, I bought myself time, 24 hours to figure it out. And I feel like I'm in pretty good shape and I'll be able to file the claim this week and hopefully get it back. But Laura, if it doesn't work out, I know that my strategy was good and you know, I accept that. Yeah. Very cool.
00:34:45
Speaker
No, it's really like talking to friends and just trying to calm down and think with logic because when you're charged with emotion, that's when you have the least amount of logic.
00:34:54
Speaker
Absolutely. And it's like, there's nothing wrong with emotions, but just try not to take major serious actions. You know, everybody's had that email where it's like you have a big emotional spurt or you're pissed off and you're sent and it's like, Oh, no, I want to take that back. And it's gone, right? So yeah, just trying to refrain from from big actions. So now that you're in a place of authenticity and success in your life, what are your daily practices or habits to stay authentic? You mentioned journal journaling, what else do you do to
00:35:24
Speaker
Do you meditate? Do you go for long walks? What else do you do to stay in a good space? I do
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:35:29
Speaker
a combination of things and I'm not perfect. I break some of these habits. I like going for long walks. There's a mountain near my house that I can climb like hike. It's not like mountain climbing. I like journaling. I like the five minute journal. So I'm just going to name a bunch of things I do. I like reading. I almost every Wednesday I have like go to this cafe and I tell like all my friends in Bogota, I'm like, I'm just going to be at this cafe four to six writing and reading.
00:35:53
Speaker
Besides that, yeah, those are the things that come to top of mind. I also like to exercise like swimming or gym, et cetera, et cetera. I love that. I love having a Wednesday date with yourself to write and read. What a fun thing to do. Well, Matt, thank you so much for coming on today's show. I think your story and your ideas will resonate with a lot of people. If people are looking to hear more about you, find out about you. Where can they find you?
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah, the easiest way is if you go to foodstartupspodcast.com, I'm sure this will be linked in the show notes, fellow podcaster here and click on the contact page, send me a message. And any, if you, I'll tell you the listeners, if you can like, give me your, your situation, right? You know, I'm not an expert. Like I said, this was just about the right questions. Send me what it is. I can give you my two cents to consider. And also I've read probably since.
00:36:44
Speaker
25 in the last like seven years, I probably read 400 to 500 books. So I think I can give you, you know, one to 10 really good book recommendations that you could read and that can maybe help.
00:36:54
Speaker
In all 400 of those books, are they all self-help or do you go on? No. I have an insecurity about this because when people are like, they're like, oh, I love this Russian author, but you probably just read business books. I'm like, no. I read all sorts of books. So I love philosophy, history. Bastian got me into history, to be honest, in Ryan Holiday. I like biographies, self-help, psychology. What was your favorite book in the last couple months?
00:37:23
Speaker
Ooh, great question. Maybe Status Anxiety by Alanda Bhutan. Very cool. Awesome, Matt. Thank you so much for coming on today's show. Oh yeah. Hold on. I just want to say one thing that's really interesting from Status Anxiety. Okay. So the formula in there for self-esteem, right? Cause I think authenticity, it's hard to have, it's hard to be authentic with low self-esteem. Feel free to argue that, but I feel that way. And so the formula for self, for self-esteem,
00:37:52
Speaker
is success divided by pretension. Success divided by pretension. Interesting. Pretension. Yeah. So because think of all the like Robin Williams who tragically passed away. So it's you can be really successful but unhappy as you as you kind of alluded to. And I feel like that's like a shortcut for self esteem.
00:38:11
Speaker
Very, very cool. I have to check that book out. I have not read that one. All right, Matt. Well, thank you very much for coming on today's show. And for anybody interested, check out Matt at Food Startups with an S podcast.com. Thank you so much, Laura. I'm so happy to know you, first of all, and to be on the show. Thank you.