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VoiceAmerica 0:04
One problem facing people at many levels of business is how to make time for a work life and a personal life. Do you find that one seems to keep getting in the way of the other? This is the work life balance with Rick Morris. Even if you're not involved in the business world, you'll have a lot to gain by tuning into today's show. Now, here's your host, Rick A. Morris,
Rick A. Morris 0:26
and welcome to another edition of the work life balance. So happy to be live with you guys. Again, sorry for the the replays. But all for good reason. One was my birthday. And that was good. And the other one was because of the annual tradition of the Tennessee alabama football game. So my buddy Carrie, and I got to get out. And we didn't actually go to the game for the first time in several years. But we still made a weekend out of it. So excited to be back with you excited to have everybody back online with us and look forward to a fantastic conversation. I want to talk to our guest today who's the CEO and co founder of insurance. It's an insurance platform that protects your most valued gear and equipment. He's an internationally known professional speaker, author and consultant. With over 30 years of entrepreneurial experience. He's been credited with the reinvention of the modern camera store. However, his greatest achievement is having raised five successful children to adulthood as a single dad. He's a frequent national TV and publication contributor and has the number one best selling book leader of the pack how a single dad of five let his kids his business and himself from disaster to success. So let's bring him on right now. Matt sweetwood. How you doing, sir?
Matt Sweetwood 1:37
Rick, I am thrilled to be here. How are you today? Happy birthday.
Rick A. Morris 1:40
Oh, thank you a couple a couple of weeks, right. But But yeah, I'm still celebrating
Matt Sweetwood 1:44
you go, just let it go slow. And then the age slower.
Rick A. Morris 1:47
That's what it is, we stopped counting quite soon. So it's good to be 23 feeling feeling solid about that. So my first thing, while Matt, thank you for the gift of your book, and that really should come with the disclaimer that says, you know, don't expect to be super happy. When you're done. It's quite a story it's in makes me really just want to kind of dive in and start talking to you about the book, talk to me about, you know, leader of the pack writing the book. And we'll get into and curious as well. But I want to hear about the book and what led you to write that and tell the story. And, and I don't want to shy anybody away from the book itself. When I say it should come with disclaimer, it's just incredibly raw and real and straightforward. And so lead me through your decision to do that, and why you felt like you needed to tell that story.
Matt Sweetwood 2:41
You know, I appreciate the raw thing. You know, I'm a jersey boy originally and you know, Jersey guy who's just, you know, we just put it out there, whatever it is, you know, it's uh, that's just the way it is. I think for the book for me it was you get to a point in your life, and you're like, there's no way all of this stuff happened for no reason. It happened because there's a story to tell. And what happened was, it was actually sort of a indirect, you know, you always say everybody always says they have a book to write, you know, not many actually do it. But I think it was a situation where I was running a company at the time, and I was trying, I was an early adopter of social media, I got a point for this. And I was trying to build my personal brand that was like an original personal brand, or, you know, using social media or early adopter and everything. And I found that when I talked about my business, people were a lot less interested than when I would talk about life as a single dad. And I started, you know, writing articles posting things I started talking about. And then what I discovered was, the more raw I was the more you know, honest, just, this is how a man feels raising children. This is what a man feels like when he goes through divorce when his wife leaves. And when all of those things I started, I started attracting big audiences. And I had people come to me and say, you know, that message really resonates with me, both men and women. And then as I sort of looked back on the craziness of my life, you know, I had a Supreme Court case that came out of my divorce and the journey of raising children and going through very, very difficult times when men didn't do this. And women didn't leave their children, and things like that, I really felt it was a story worth telling. And so I went out, and I went to write a book. And of course, you know, being a math major in college, I didn't do very well on my first try and threw away about a year's worth of work and then restarted again and wrote that memoir, which is ultimately what you read, which is really just story after story. And I kind of let the reader come to their conclusion about how to get yourself out of really bad jams and why it's okay to make mistakes and how God stands there for you at some point and you know, pulls you out of it, and it's a story of how you can overcome anything. And I think to me, the most rewarding thing about the book is if you go out on Amazon, for example, there's like 130, something five star reviews, and people talking about how the book changed. Just airlines. I just had somebody say that to me, wrote me on Facebook, I didn't even know the person. They said, I read your book, it changed my life, it made such a difference to me. So to me, that's what it's really about. I really feel like, you know, even the difficult times I went through, I got to pay back in that book and got to sort of express myself and you know, do something worthwhile on this earth.
Rick A. Morris 5:19
Yeah, so the word there too, is authenticity. Right? When when you're authentic, if we can change raw for authentic, right, when you're authentic, and just who you are, that does resonate much more on social media, then, you know, hey, look at my beer. I'm having a great time. But I'll tell you, there's there's a lot of personal parallels in your story in mine, in what I'm going through now, right? And so it was it was interesting timing for me to to get the book and to read through it. And I think, well, well, and I'm going to give people an inside joke here. So they have to really listen to it after they read your book. While my current is more of a Charlotte than a Marnie. Right. It's, it's, it's, it, it's still resonating with a lot of stuff. But there was, I mean, there was parallels. So to tell the story, you know, you originally were married several kids, then you got remarried. And it was almost a repeat, right? And I love the fact that you, you had to hire her whole family and 30 others and that kind of stuff and support them. But so let's, let's talk about the first one, and then we'll come come to Marnie. So, what what, and not without getting into the details, but what were some of those key lessons you felt like you've you've taken forward as a benefit from from Charlotte,
Matt Sweetwood 6:41
I think that, um,
if you go into a relationship with and by the way, this he anything, I say you could almost make a business parallel, I really want to emphasize that because they know we talked about working life here. So you can almost draw a business parallel. And one of the things that I teach what I coach men, now I help man I've helped men and women actually coach both, is I tell them that you have to learn to love being alone. And when you don't learn that lesson, and you're desperate for companionship, you make mistakes, you know, and the other thing that I think you really walk away from that is that everything counts. You don't overlook things in people's past, they become part of the whole person that they are. And I think, you know, I was very naive and young when I married Charlotte, and I got drawn in, and things didn't go so well. Because of that, because I was really just desperate to not be alone. I didn't I just ignored things that were happening. And I think there's a third thing. And this I'm going to shout out to the whole audience. Under no circumstances is anybody? should anybody accept abuse? under any circumstances? It's any
Rick A. Morris 7:49
kind of abuse, right? Any verbal, psychological?
Matt Sweetwood 7:53
Absolutely. And abuse comes in many forms, you know, abuse can come from just being ignored. You sit at the dinner table, and your significant other doesn't look at you, ignores you, it could be putting you down, it could be passive aggressive. No, I'm not saying every human is perfect. And we all sometimes get mad at other people. That's what I'm talking about. When it becomes you know, a regular thing or it's pervasive, or you're in fear in your own home and all of those things. That's not okay. And it's okay to say it's not okay. And it's okay to walk away from it.
Rick A. Morris 8:24
So when in the story, and this is just part of this is just proven that I actually read the book, just just to be that clear, but not just
Matt Sweetwood 8:34
usually, by the way, I've been on many podcasts, and people usually say, I'm going to read your book. And then I know when they're telling me that they're just going to read like read the first chapter. Skim read the last guy. Yeah, right. But my book is very hard to put down. I know that yeah. Yeah, for sure. And to get through
Rick A. Morris 8:49
it. So what so you say with with Marnie, your second wife, so you know, start to go with her. At first, when she says, Hey, you know, let's not have the kids at the ceremony. You know, you're thinking that's a romantic gesture. But now you you realize, in hindsight, that's more of a divide and conquer type of strategy. But you said that she almost instantly changed the before the ink was dry on the wedding certificate.
Matt Sweetwood 9:12
Yeah, I think that people, you know, without giving away too much of the book, I think that individuals that have disorders, particularly personality disorders, they have a skill set. They know how to find vulnerable people. They know how to draw them and get them to fall in love with them, get them connected to them legally, emotionally, physically, in every way. And that's at that moment, they're able to do what it is that they need to do. And in the case of these people, these people are feeling extreme pain themselves, not not from anything you've done, even though they make it something that you've done, but they themselves are wounded individuals and they suffer from you know, a great amount of internal pain. And when they have somebody locked in either because they're in love with them. The other person is in love with this disordered person, or they're married or whatever they have them locked in, they unload their pain on them. And that's essentially the way they all operate, it's really made me a very, very good coach. Because when I speak to people I, like I'll meet somebody for the first time. And they'll start to describe their situation to a man or woman with their husband or wife. And I'll start to tell them what the other person has been doing to them before they tell me because believe it or not, they actually all operate in a very similar manner. And it's simply because they themselves go through an extreme amount of internal pain. And for whatever reason, God made it like this, the best way for them to expel the pain is to abuse other people, it makes them feel better.
Rick A. Morris 10:41
Wow, that's incredible. So I, it makes it makes a tremendous amount of sense. What I want to be able to do, and I'm teetering here, because we're right up against a break. And so I don't want to launch into this until we get into break, but I want to get into what are some of those tips and tricks in items that you've picked up through these two marriages? If there was somebody out there listening right now, that was like, I'm in a marriage, I know, I shouldn't be in. I've already kind of made that decision. That kind of stuff. But I'm afraid to take that first step I'm, you know, what's life gonna be like afterwards? What about the kids? What about all those things? I'd love to get some tips and tricks, and I'm gonna have you answer that question. Just on the other side of this break. You're listening to Rick A. Morris and the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 11:35
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to you voice America business network.
You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790. If you'd rather send an email, Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.
Rick A. Morris 13:55
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon visiting with Matt sweetwood, who's the co founder and CEO of a startup insurance as well as author of leader of the pack and right before break. Matt, we kind of tease into it. So what advice would you give somebody that, you know, at this point, they've kind of made the decision or the think they've made the decision? Or They just know that they're not happy? What advice would you give them in how to get started or what they should do?
Matt Sweetwood 14:24
Um, well, okay, those are a couple of different circumstances there, sir.
Let me let me just sort of say this, you know, they say divorce is the most painful and expensive process you can go through, and it's worth every penny of it. Okay, you know, we've all heard that or maybe it's pretty popular expression. So here's what I would say. Obviously, if you're unhappy in the relationship, and you know, you're thinking about getting divorced, you know, this is the time to seek help of some kind. Whether that means you know, really being honest with your partner, if you don't feel you can do that. Obviously seek a coach or a counselor or something like that, and really decide that that's what you want to do. But I am, you know, I coach people and in many times, I'm really forward with it. I'm like, I think divorce is really the best option for you. And you know, the only thing to fear is fear itself. This is one of those things, it's not necessarily an easy process. But your alternative is living in an unhappy life. And, and that's not a way to live. That's not the way God put us on this earth. And when you're unhappy, if you have children, the children know you're unhappy, you're not going to be productive or creative, you're going to stifle your career, you're going to do all of those things. So the sooner you get out, the better it is. And I'm saying that with certainly exhaust possibilities of trying to make the marriage work. I believe marriage is a worthwhile institution, despite my best selling book about two very difficult marriages. It's a worthwhile institution worthwhile making a really fair attempt to save but if it's irreconcilable, you're being abused. You're been unhappy for a long period of time, you need to take that step, find the courage, and take that step because you have your whole life on the other side. And the sooner you begin, the sooner the process ends, and the sooner you can start to heal and move on with your life at any age.
Rick A. Morris 16:14
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And so again, we're being personal. But I stepped away after 24 years of marriage, my first marriage, and it certainly was time probably, maybe I should have done it if you're 18 or 19. Right. But, but I think what happens with people is, first of all, there's the social pressure, right? There's the people of like, Look, you know, especially, you know, I live in the Bible Belt, very religious area. And, you know, once you're married, that's it. I was like, but I can't see where God says, This is my path. This is where I'm supposed to be dealing with this every day, because I made a decision when I was 21. Right? They just did just
Matt Sweetwood 16:52
exactly. Yeah.
Rick A. Morris 16:55
So coming up some of the kind of darker conversation there. You as well, though, are very successful business person. And you're dealing with all this turmoil and and essentially paying for, you know, all this, this turmoil on it, we won't get into the settlement things that I read in the book, because going through that conference right now scares me reading that stuff, but
Matt Sweetwood 17:16
and you shouldn't.
Rick A. Morris 17:20
But the fire was not my favorite part of the book.
Matt Sweetwood 17:27
That was, that was two or three years is what after
Rick A. Morris 17:31
was, or a shot. But um, so. But how did you? How did you maintain? And what did you take into your business, based on some of these things that you that you went through?
Matt Sweetwood 17:44
I think that it was really ultimately, when I look back love of my children. The mother walked away, when they were young, the youngest was 18 months still in diapers, the oldest was eight, imagine five kids 18 months through a, I had a business that was in a very difficult industry electronics industry that had major technological revolutions, one after the other business models change was very, very hard business, low blow margins. And I think ultimately, you look at these kids, they're looking at me, they're looking up at me, and they're like, Dad, what's next, you're in charge. You know, and that just, it really gave me the motivation to go and just make it all happen. And you know, at first I was scared out of my mind, I don't totally terrified, I looked at it, like, Oh my gosh, I have these five kids in jail sins, you know, I'm gonna have to raise them for whatever and I just want to work and play and watch football on the weekend and do whatever it is I'm going to do and be a daddy and you know, show up at home, pat the kids on the head, throw the ball with them a little bit. And I think you just it grows you It grows you as a man, I'm the person I am today, because I manned up was almost the title of my book, by the way, it was called the man up. And it's just a question of Manning up and wanting success for yourself. And your and your business and your children enough. I developed a personal motto which I follow all the time out of that, which is how badly do you want it. And I looked at my kids, I'm like, I don't want them on the street. I don't want them in jail. I don't want them on drugs. I want them to be successful. I need to make money, I need to pay all these x's I need to run a business and grow this business and I was desperate. I was desperate enough to make it happen. I put my head down. Fortunately, God gives me a lot of physical strength because physical strength is the foundation for emotional mental strength. So if you're going to get through these things mentally, and emotionally, I always tell that by the way, when I counsel people or help people, I always start by putting them try to get them in physical shape. But if you're going to go through divorce, here's a tip. Make sure you're really good physical shape, because it makes you It allows you to handle those stresses much much better. And I think it was just that will to be successful and will for my kids to make it and be happy and give them a happy life. prevented me from quitting, and allowed me to use all of my energy and that strength to make it happen. I think that's at the base level. That's really what it's about. I mean, on a day to day basis, obviously you struggle, and sometimes you have doubts, and you have those things. But when I look back over the 25 years, I was doing it. That's really what's the driving force? And you there's certainly a fight or flight scenario there. Right? So yeah, do do I continue to, but but at the same time, pre divorce, you're doing the same thing anyway, right, you're killing yourself. And it's all, you know, exiting in a different direction. You're not getting into the benefit of it anyway. That's right. When you go through divorce, you're in decomposition, destruction mode. The second your divorce is over, that's when you can start building. Yeah, and we all the same amount of like, the point you made is a great point is that you're expending all of this energy during the divorce phase. And it's just negative, it's pulling away from you, the energy is coming away from you. The money is coming away from you, everything is coming away for you. And then when you move outside, that's when you can start your life again, for sure.
Rick A. Morris 21:01
Yeah. So what what were you what was the business then that you were doing?
Matt Sweetwood 21:06
Um, that wasn't electronics business. It was a camera store, and electronics, distribute distribution business. It was quite a large business. We, I exited that business. And we were it was 100 million dollar business, I get to claim on my business profile, I grew a business from 1 million to 100 million. And it was a tough business. Really? Yeah.
Rick A. Morris 21:25
So what led you then to this new startup that you're working on now?
Matt Sweetwood 21:28
Well, after I exited that business in 15 2015, after working every day, literally at home and at work for balance, you know, your work life balance? The scale was? Yeah, like that heavyweights had bent to scale like this just then. And I said, You know what, I'm going to be Austin. Because I'm a little bit of a type A personality. I remember the day I signed the agreement. The next day, I woke up in the morning, like you're an employee, you're a loser. So I actually went out, that's when I finished and I wrote the book. And I've been doing consulting. And speaking in between there. I've written a lot of articles, hundreds of articles, literally, from entrepreneur, the good men project, the Huffington Post, my own blog, in sweetwood, calm I just, I've been very prolific, I acted as interim CEO, for two companies, to startups along the way, to help them sort of get themselves going. And then just two connections. Recently, I landed with this product and curious, which I am thrilled with. The irony is that the product is going to allow me to sort of step back into the photo industry, which thought they got rid of me a few years ago, because what insurance does is it provides equipment insurance for life's disasters, which doesn't exist, you take your laptop, or your camera out of your house, it's lost, stolen, broken, whatever it is, we can cover it seven minutes or less, for a very small premium. There's no product like that in the market covering for earthquakes, floods, terrorism, anything that basically can happen to your equipment, from golf clubs, to tennis clubs, to bikes, to cameras to that kind of thing. For about 12 and a half dollars a month, you can get about six grand worth of insurance. And you can do in about seven minutes or less. Don't speak to anybody, that site should be alive by the way, we're just starting it up right now should be live in about a week or so a week, two weeks tops.
Rick A. Morris 23:24
So there's certainly a competitor to the market. Right?
Matt Sweetwood 23:27
So there is actually there is nobody in this place. There are policies which touch elements of what we do. You know, there's some writers you can get on existing policies. But people one of the issues, you know, when you go out into the market, you have to make people realize that their homeowners does not cover this. Right. What
Rick A. Morris 23:46
about like at the register when they when they try to sell me the equipment protection program? Right. So how do you differ?
Matt Sweetwood 23:53
Okay, so here's how this is actually a really good question. Because when you if anybody, have you ever tried to claim those insurances? Oh, yeah,
Rick A. Morris 24:01
yeah, I never get them never get.
Matt Sweetwood 24:03
Never get them. But that's really the point. So that's because they're designed like that. They're designed very easy. We have a very easy claim process. It's through a very large insurance company, you'll it's really about the process, you make a claim, you'll be paid very, very quickly. In our scenario, and the claim process is very easy. It's not a you know, it's not harder than divorce, let's put it.
Rick A. Morris 24:27
But so do you have to submit, send the equipment back Are you know, you just have to,
Matt Sweetwood 24:33
you have to provide some sorts of proofs, depending upon what happens with the equipment, but the claims process is much, much simpler. You go right online, you click it's not like you ever do one of those things where you can't even find where to make a claim. Oh, absolutely. And you have to call some 800 number, press 17 digits, wait online and then don't get through. Yeah. And then you get to the person and the person tells you you have to then go to this website. You know, something, something that claim structure You are five nine type. This is just go online, enter a few pieces of information will process your claim relatively quickly. So the claims process is easy and the insurance doesn't have a lot of loopholes in it as you would say. No, which is what they do with the policy is extremely straightforward. And to me, that's really what it's about. And it covers a lot of things. And But once again, people do not have this kind of coverage coverage. For example, when you buy that equipment insurance most of the time, if it's the stuff stolen, you don't get it's not covered. Right, it's usually covered against accidental damage. That's typically what they cover. We even have coverage that if you drop it, it drops in water, we'll cover it. Try that with your laptop. That's one of the one of the big stores, right?
Rick A. Morris 25:48
Yeah, so it's accidental, but but we get to turn what an accident.
Matt Sweetwood 25:53
You know, there's all sorts of you know, anybody who's done them as you so we have a very we call it It's seriously easy insurance, you go up, sign up, enter your credit card, you're insured. You know, you insure bikes, you know, bikes are very expensive, very front, you know, stolen item a lot. Cameras are actually the number one stolen item, it's going to be the first market, we're going to go heavily marked into the marketplace. When we go in and advertise I'm going to be like Cameron Street. That's what it was back.
To close, all the doors are gonna close and they're gonna go run it.
Rick A. Morris 26:24
So again, we've mentioned your your father of five. And so I think when we come back from the break, I'd love to get into the difference between parenting and say, leading a company. Right, I think that that'd be interesting for us to get through. So we're gonna do that just on the other side of this break and listen to Rick Morrison the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 26:47
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When it comes to
business, you'll find the experts here voice America business network.
You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email, Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.
Rick A. Morris 29:07
And we're back on the work life balance is Friday afternoon visiting with Matt sweetwood, who's the co founder and CEO of a new startup insurance and also author of leader of the pack. Matt so tell you a quick little anecdote here and I want to get into my question but I get to work with in hang around john Maxwell quite a bit. And he tells a story about he got approached right after Enron and all those things with Danny get approached by his publisher to write a book about business ethics. And after looking at it, he says I can't write that book. And they said you know why not? It'd be great. It's a perfect time for your voice and he goes because there's no such thing is business ethics. It's just ethics you either have them or you don't. And that story is always stuck with me and it's so as you're going through a lot of these hardships with the divorce but being very successful with companies and running these companies. The question becomes how do you? How did you manage them? And what's the difference between you know, leading your family versus leading your company?
Matt Sweetwood 30:11
Okay. might be my favorite question of all time about that. So I wrote, you know, I talked about I wrote an article, I wrote an article, actually, I published it before, I suppose, you know, a lot of these platforms, I published it on LinkedIn, called what's the difference between great parenting and great leadership? The conclusion I'll, I'll give you the conclusion. And then back into it again, the conclusion is that the skill set is basically the same. And the things that the really powerful lessons we learned at home, and being at home and running home and caring for children, really help you in business, and certainly some of the things that you learn in business, some of the things that you learn in business really can make the home run in a much more efficient fashion. You know, I think that when you apply a little bit of fathering, which I can say, to your staff, I think that that sometimes has a, a really beneficial effect. And I think that when you apply an organization, and business life skills to the way you run a home and sometimes pull the emotion out, you can be better. And I can give you really concrete examples of how that you know, really comes to play. So first of all, from a time management perspective, I was an original Palm Pilot owner, and really
Rick A. Morris 31:26
damn this little green box. Oh, you don't have to tell me I know. Exactly. Well,
Matt Sweetwood 31:30
so that allowed me to put all of my personal and business information together. And it was great, you would see President of Fuji 11 o'clock call, you would see soccer practice four o'clock, you know, you would see these kinds of things in there and mixed in there. And I became, I was always a pretty organized person. But having to manage these two businesses really turned me into an Uber organization. And in fact, you can call me up, I have a bunch of videos that I've done and stuff like that people tell me I should give a course in organization. So that's rule number one, you want to be good in both, you'd be really organized and manage your data, manage and be on top of everything, because otherwise, life will spiral out of control. But from terms of leadership, I'll give you an example from home. So when the children's mother left my eye, each of the children you know, had effects of that, one way or another. And my, my middle son, I won't name him here. So he doesn't get embarrassed, people don't go Google him and stuff. My middle son, his reaction to all of this was he sort of became a little bit ADHD. And he became very, very quiet, wouldn't speak, like people thought he didn't speak. And I'm talking about, you know, a six year old kid 656 years old at the time. And I kept getting calls from the school, he wasn't sitting still in school, you know, it wasn't it was causing trouble. He just wasn't doing his work. And you know, I'm going to try to manage all of this, you know, it's imagine the craziness, right? getting calls from the school you work and the thing and the divorce and the oil, okay? So I kept getting and they kept putting pressure on me, you know, he needs to be medicated. They should put them on Ritalin, they should do this. And that. And I'm like, you know, I had like a business moment. Um, you know, when you run a business, you're like, you're listening to advice. And you're like, I'm not doing that. I'm not putting my kids on drugs. There's got to be a better solution. So what do you do at work? When you're faced with this thing? You come up with a solution, right? That works for you. So what I decided to do was I put the kid in soccer. I said, I'm going to drag his button, I'm going to figure out a way to get there and I'm going to put them in soccer. Why did I put them in soccer? Because they run them like, you know, I was in a town with a competitive Soccer League. And they he was a good athlete. Even though all of those things I put the money made that like the traveling team right away. And they ran him like five miles a day. Well, trust me, you run a kid five miles a day, eight miles a day. And he was a little kid too. So he got smacked around. You know, he had to listen to the coach. He had to talk to his other teammates that made him talk. He spelled his energy, he started to build some self esteem. At first he hated it. It was like he was looking at me with daggers in his eyes. The end of that story is this boy ended up playing on the high school championship team of New Jersey, he became an all state player and got a soccer scholarship to college. And that went from giving them real and and I believe that that's a business principle that you apply you, you. You think out of the box, you come up with a solution and you execute that solution for long periods of time. unrelentingly, that's a business. That's a business philosophy. And then I can give you an example at work. I had a I had a young man who actually I had hired him but he was hired as an accounting clerk. He had an visual problem, but he assured me to come to work and then I didn't really pay attention. It wasn't my area of the company. And he worked for a couple years. I knew a really, really nice guy, very honest, really liked him. I only heard pretty good things about him and eventually Our accounting manager left his boss left. And my human resources person put an ad and said, We need to hire an accounting manager. So it's like, okay, of course, that's what we're gonna do. So I went in, and I talked to him, I asked him how he's doing and so on. And I noticed that he was like, like, looking, I'm sorry to do this to you, but he was like, looking at the screen, like, two inches away. And I'm like, gentlemen, why are you doing that? He goes, Well, I'm gonna be honest with you, because you know, I'm really legally blind. And I'm looking at him like, you're legally blind. I'm like, how do you because I asked you figures, you, you get them for me right away, he goes, I memorize them all. Wow, I looked at him. I shook my head, I walked into my human resource office, I said, here's what we're going to do. He's going to be the finance manager, I walked back down, we helped him we got him, we gave him a little bit of love, a little bit of special equipment, got him set up. And he became the finance manager was in that position for 10 years, became like a vice president of the company. So there's an example where you show your staff member a little bit of love a little bit of care, sort of pay attention to them like you would your own child, and you can maybe end up with a good results. So I think that those kinds of leadership skills, that you can exhibit your homework, they just sort of overlap, you apply it, you understand the mindset, in those cases is basically the same. I believe they are, you know, it's this sort of like reading and being fearless and doing what you got
Rick A. Morris 36:27
to do. So back to the point of the the anecdote itself, right? There's no such thing as his business leadership and family leadership. It's just leadership.
It's just leaders, just leadership.
So what's some advice you could give them to an entrepreneur that might be listening right now that you think is going to help them you know, lead to success?
Matt Sweetwood 36:49
The meme, you haven't failed until you quit. I'll balance that with sometimes the first loss is the best loss. So you analyze if you down the wrong path, feel free to shift or quit, it's okay. Don't Don't keep piling, you know, on top of bad ideas or bad principles. But ultimately, success in business comes down to how badly you want it. If you want something badly enough. And if it's not working, you should ask yourself that question. I do that to myself. Sometimes, when things don't work, right. I say to myself, Matt, do you really want that badly enough? Are you doing everything you can? So that's what I always say to an entrepreneur, and entrepreneur, right? This is, I love this saying an entrepreneur works 80 hours a week, so they don't have to work 40.
Rick A. Morris 37:39
That's right.
Matt Sweetwood 37:41
And if you go into it with that attitude, that you are going to do anything and everything. It doesn't matter how many people say no, it doesn't matter whether the banks will give you money, nobody will loan you money, it matter if you believe in what you're doing, and you want it badly enough, you are going to every step of the way, make it happen. And I don't know too many entrepreneurs that haven't been turned down that haven't had failures that haven't had that, but just pick themselves up and just keep going and going and going and going until they cross the finish line. So that's it, a young entrepreneurs, starting out entrepreneurs have to realize that if you want to be successful, you got to be in it to win with 100% of your effort.
Rick A. Morris 38:18
Yeah, in fact, is for those of you that that most of you can't see the video, but if you can see this guy right up here on my screen, that's my Sisyphus. And so I have a saying in something that I've worked on in my speeches is everybody has the want to succeed, but do they have the will. And so to me, that is my visual representation. And I've written blog posts and articles on that too, that the emails, the distractions, the nose, all this stuff, that's the rock, I got to push up the mountain. And if I quit for a second, it's gonna push me back down the mountain, I got to start all over again. So it's about building that momentum and going after and I have a visual representation that I can see, especially when I'm doing zoom meetings all the time, I can see my sister face hanging in there, telling me you know, keep pushing, keep grinding. But I think the other interesting principle around that is, don't give up. Do you want it bad enough, but be careful what you define as what you want, right? So your definition should be success, your definition should be happiness, but not this exact product going this exact way. Because that's what like if you're all in on that and you're afraid to pivot, then then you're going to lose as well.
Matt Sweetwood 39:26
That's right. I couldn't agree with you more you have to be flexible. You know and when you go in and you know, Ben like the read you know, snapped like or whatever. I think that that whatever that expression is that I just completely butchered but you want to bend like the read and the winds, you know, sort of be able to maneuver like that very swiftly. Don't get so rigid, because you definitely will break it. I don't know of I know a very few successful businesses, the even the biggest ones that that ended on exactly the same idea they started.
Rick A. Morris 39:58
Oh, for sure. Yeah, and I'll give you a quick anecdote we'll take, we'll take a break here. But I, I'm a big fan of thinking Grow Rich Love, love the book, was mentor to the book by by a great mentor, and had to come up with a mantra. And if you haven't read thinking Grow Rich, the people listening, haven't read, Think and Grow Rich, you have to develop a specific mantra, a specific amount of money, the action and a timeframe. And the mantra that I created was $2 million of free and clear in the bank account, from the sale of online products by March of 2023. That was my mantra. When I wrote that the full intention was my own products, I write books, I've got information products. So I go in, I mean, just heads down, full out, blow all that stuff out, right, you finally start to launch the ads. And now you're just waiting for the registers to ring and it was crickets. I missed the mark. I absolutely missed the mark. And it's very discouraging. But May of last year, I'm running an event that Mickey Mouse Club, 30 year reunion, and it hit me said who said it had to be your products. So my mantra is exactly the same. But what I realized is through that I learned how to do the podcast, how to build the online products, how to do the advertising. And so many people are just like, I want to write a book, but they don't know where to how to get started, I want to do a podcast, but they don't know how to get started. I was like, Okay, so I've switched that, that model to where now I'm helping other people do it, and starting to generate revenue that way. But my mantra the point of that is the mantra is exactly the same. Just the definition of how I got there change slightly
Matt Sweetwood 41:32
after businesses need reinvention to survive. It's as simple as that.
Rick A. Morris 41:37
And and if you don't believe as that as Kodak. So we know they invented digital cameras, and didn't see the market.
Matt Sweetwood 41:48
You're taking away when I give my keynote talk. I actually talked about I talked about that, because I was in the boardroom of the CEO of the Eastman Kodak company when they showed the slow decline of film how it was going to play out. And you know, they gave you this nice, you know, nice slope like this. I'll tell you something else that was as ironic as it can get. And that is Kodak had something called the Kodak gallery. Yep, it was an online storage for photos where you could display your photos. And they had like 50 million users had no idea what to do with it. About a month, three months after they went through their first chapter 11 they went bankrupt. A small startup got a billion dollars worth of financing from Facebook called Instagram, Instagram with less photos online and less users than Kodak had with their photo gallery and didn't know what to do with it. They could have been Instagram.
Rick A. Morris 42:48
That's unbelievable. So we're gonna take a break right here, we've got the question we ask every guest on the other side of this, you're listening to the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 43:02
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When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here voice America business network.
You are tuned in to the work life. To reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790. If you'd rather send an email, Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.
Rick A. Morris 45:24
And we're back for the final segment of the work life balance on this Friday afternoon. We've been visiting with Matt sweetwood. He's the author of leader of the pack. And so Matt, how do people find the book? How do they find you?
Matt Sweetwood 45:35
I'm easy. I was an early social media guy. So I am m like and Matt m sweetwood.com. And add m sweetwood. Everywhere Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever you can find em sweet, calm, you can go there find the book. The book, of course, is on Amazon with its glorious hundred and 30 plus five star reviews.
Rick A. Morris 45:56
Nice. So the question we ask everybody that attends the shows, what's some of the best advice you've ever received?
Matt Sweetwood 46:03
Um, so that's interesting question. I think I probably should have listened to my dad who said never get married.
That's what you
Rick A. Morris 46:14
I, that one got me. Right, that one got okay.
Matt Sweetwood 46:17
I think given given our first segment here, I think that that was that was apropos. That was apropos. Exactly. I think, you know, if you'd asked me this question, while I wouldn't answer it differently, but I I read a book recently called relentless by Tim Grover. And that book was very, very good for me, because it reminded me It's okay to be different and lead at the end, go your own way. In other words, have trust in yourself. And when you don't never let your level go to other people's levels, bring your team to your level. And to me that always keep that in mind that when you see people struggling, or even if they're unhappy, or they're unhappy with you, and the tendency to try to please them and change yourself to their level is not good. You bring them to your level. And then when you get everybody up to your level, this is the magic that he tells you is raise your level again. And I try to keep that in mind with almost everything I do. I'm always trying to raise my level. And so to me, that's don't get complacent. Don't think you've crossed the finish line. And he does a very good job in that book of describing how the best athletes that ever lived are like that. They win the NBA championship. They walk off the court and they're like, time to practice for next year. Yeah. And it's that attitude that I think really helped me It sort of reminded me I need to keep always keep pushing forward. So best advice is bring everybody to your level up to your level and when they get to your level raise your level again.
Rick A. Morris 47:58
Yeah, the best the the Kobe's the the Jays the Tigers. I mean, it's the amount. It's what they do in the offseason. And what they do at night when nobody else is looking is what made them so good. That's right. My hero
Matt Sweetwood 48:11
was jack Nicklaus. Yeah. And I used to watch I used to like jack Nicklaus and Cal Ripken.
Rick A. Morris 48:18
Those were two of my Oh, come on. A huge calcium. My I was like a 13 year old baseball team was the Orioles and I played shortstop. So of course, I was a Cal Ripken fan, right.
Matt Sweetwood 48:27
Yeah, I was more of a third baseman and a centerfielder. But nevertheless, um, you know, I look at those guys. And the longevity and the consistency and the continuous pushing the level of what they did. Always really stuck with me. And so I really think that that's a good lesson. It's good lesson for entrepreneurs, is that never be satisfied with the level you've gotten yourself to always keep pushing ahead pushing it. You're not dying until you're dead.
Rick A. Morris 48:55
Yeah, I grew up three miles from Bay Hill in Arnie and so we we used to be able to go down and play and hang out with Arnold and I always talked to the kids you know, he was but the big Bay Hill Invitational i think is the Nestle now is what they call it. But yeah, good times. Well, listen, man, we certainly appreciate having you on the show and you hanging out with us. And again, getting into it all. I appreciate you. Let me just fire off in that first segment. Let's just get into the nitty gritty.
Matt Sweetwood 49:24
Yeah, it's a pleasure. That's the best mix for the best. The best talk.
Rick A. Morris 49:28
For sure. For sure. Yeah, but no, no, no pandering questions on this show. No,
Matt Sweetwood 49:34
chocolate chip cookies and milk.
Rick A. Morris 49:37
Any final thoughts for the audience before we wrap up?
Matt Sweetwood 49:40
Now go out there and get it right. Stop sitting around if you want to be successful that power is totally within everybody. success lies within each individual. Just a question on how badly they want.
Rick A. Morris 49:53
Amen to that. So coming up on the show, you know next week's gonna be really fun getting it For a lot of you that are john Maxwell team followers, we're gonna have Jana on and Jana and I are both john Maxwell team members. In really, we're gonna get into a discussion of overcoming an introverts fear in entrepreneurial ism. And she and I had a pre meeting today for that show. And it's super, super excited to have her on. We've got Michelle back. So that'll be coming up on the 13th. She's a repeat guest with us as well as Simone Vincente is going to be with us on the 20th. So we've got some really, really exciting guests coming up. We're booked out through the rest of the year. So I think there's only one more replay left, which is going to be right around the holidays. But otherwise, we're going to be live with you every Friday. Right here on the work life balance. You can always reach out to me at Rick A. Morris on Twitter, on LinkedIn on Facebook. And of course we hope always that you're continually living your work life balance, and we will talk to everybody next Friday.
VoiceAmerica 51:16
Thank you for joining us this week. The work life balance with Rick Morris can be heard live every Friday at 2pm pacific time and 5pm eastern time on The Voice America business channel.
