Matt Moran: The need for meaningful connections in the gay community led him to create The Gay Men's Collective.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Background

03:02
Life in California vs. Nashville

05:59
Growing Up in Minnesota

08:51
Coming to Terms with Sexuality

11:45
Experiences with Conversion Therapy

15:01
Finding Community and Connection

17:57
Creating the Gay Men's Collective

20:56
Navigating Relationships and Vulnerability

23:56
The Importance of Meaningful Connections

35:30
The Importance of Connection and Respect

36:14
Reflecting on Past Relationships and Self-Discovery

38:35
Memorable Connections and Energetic Relationships

39:07
Navigating Dating Apps and Open Relationships

41:08
Embracing Single Life and Personal Growth

43:34
The Journey into Coaching and Teaching

47:30
Connecting with Amy Grant and Personal Heroes

50:57
Family Dynamics and Discovering Siblings

01:01:12
Life Lessons and Personal Philosophy

Summary

In this conversation, Matt Moran shares his journey from growing up in Minnesota to navigating life in Nashville and California. He discusses his late realization of his sexuality, experiences with conversion therapy, and the importance of community for gay men. Moran emphasizes the need for meaningful connections and vulnerability in relationships, ultimately leading to the creation of the Gay Men's Collective, a platform for gay men seeking authentic connections. In this engaging conversation, Matt Moran and Wilkinson explore themes of connection, self-discovery, and personal growth. They reflect on past relationships, the importance of energetic connections, and the journey of being single. Matt shares his experiences with coaching and teaching, as well as his connection with Amy Grant, a significant figure in his life. The discussion also delves into family dynamics, including the discovery of siblings and the complexities of personal history. Throughout the conversation, they emphasize the importance of understanding others' stories and the lessons learned from their own experiences.

Sound Bites

• "I didn't have any clue that I was gay."
• "I want to be like these guys."
• "I realized I'm still gay."
• "I started sleeping around."
• "I never ever had gay friends in my life."
• "I definitely prefer some element of connection."
• "I didn't jerk off until after I was married."
• "I have a guidepost that feels kind of internal."
• "I would rather struggle with loneliness single."
• "I love teaching and engaging with participants."
• "Amy Grant was a lifeline for me growing up."
• "He told me everything I don't want him to know."
• "We probably have more siblings out there."

Bio:

For the past two decades, Matt Moran has coached people from all walks of life across the globe, helping individuals and teams to present themselves, both internally and to the external marketplace, with excellence and precision. Through his training and one-on-one coaching, Matt has worked with Fortune 500 companies in nearly every industry, transforming the often daunting task of public presentation into one of simplicity and confident ease.

In addition to his work as a professional coach, Matt Moran has dedicated his expertise to guiding individuals and teams on a transformative journey toward self-improvement, self-acceptance, confidence building, spiritual growth, and overall personal well-being. His passion lies in fostering connectedness, empathy, and authenticity, empowering individuals to unlock their true potential and find genuine fulfillment.

http://www.matt-moran.com

http://www.gaymenscollective.com

Contact Wilkinson: BecomingWilkinson@gmail.com

Transcript

Wilkinson (00:00)
Good morning, Matt Moran. How are you buddy? It's great to see your smiling face. We've chatted on Facebook for a long time. Finally made this happen. Yeah. I screwed up the first time we messed up, but well.

Matt Moran (00:03)
I'm good. How are you?

Thank you. Yeah, we have. It's finally here. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for having me.

That's okay. a time. I have that happens to me all the time with the time difference. It's a regular thing for me. So don't feel bad.

Wilkinson (00:21)
Yeah.

Why don't you move somewhere like civil, like California? Really?

Matt Moran (00:27)
I used to live in California. I lived in Santa Barbara for five years

and loved every single minute of it except the traffic and the taxes. But other than that, the weather and the people, I loved living out there. We were right on the beach. It was incredible. Yeah. I miss it a lot. I left, I left, well, the relationship that I was in ended. So.

Wilkinson (00:35)
Right.

⁓ and you left out?

Matt Moran (00:49)
I moved permanently back to Nashville. We had a home in both places. So I took Nashville and he took our Santa Barbara residence. So yeah, that's what happens when you don't want to be in the same city. Nashville's pretty great, but I do miss the ocean. Yeah, yeah. I won't lie there.

Wilkinson (00:49)
⁓

I think he got the better of the deal here. Right, I do too. ⁓

I used to be on the water up north of Seattle. had a mid-century salt waterfront triplex.

Matt Moran (01:12)
that's awesome. Yeah.

Wilkinson (01:13)
Gray

on gray on gray, but man, those two months were so good.

Matt Moran (01:17)
I I think we're like,

we're part of, when I lived on the water, it was like, my body loves this. Like just being that close to the water and the mountains in Santa Barbara, you're like right in between them. So it's like, just, my body felt at peace all the time. It was just great. And then I would come back to Nashville and it'd be like, this is great, but it's not, you know, it's not California. So in Nashville, very.

Wilkinson (01:40)
Are you happy there?

Matt Moran (01:43)
Very, I moved here in 1998 after I graduated college. And other than, you know, having a place in Santa Barbara, also lived in my partner and I at the time I was with a partner for eight years and we had a place in Milwaukee, which is where he was from here in Nashville. And then we had our California place. So we kind of floated, we floated and then we had some cabins in Northern Wisconsin that we floated to too. we, we floated around between four different places. It was,

Wilkinson (02:00)
Wow.

Matt Moran (02:08)
It was an experience. It was exhausting. Never knowing where your pants were, like your favorite pair of jeans, but it was fun while it lasted. You know, I'm thankful for it. yeah. Yeah. He's a very well-known architect. yeah. And we together kind of built his business to a really, really solid place. So yeah, we had a lot of fun. We got to do a lot of fun things. We got to go to Oscar parties and Grammy parties and LA. And it was just, you know,

Wilkinson (02:12)
Right.

Matt Moran (02:32)
hobnob with some really, you know, fun people that I never would in my life have thought I would ever get a chance to meet. And that was fun. Yeah. Yeah. You know,

Wilkinson (02:41)
All right, Mr. Matt, so I will talk about some of your professional stuff, what I want to hear about. I want the dirt on you. So you didn't grow up in Nashville then,

Matt Moran (02:48)
Okay.

No, I was born in Minneapolis and grew up really primarily in Bloomington, Minnesota, which is where the Mall of America is. Minnesota. Everybody repeats it back to me like that when I tell them I'm from Minnesota. Though I've pretty much lost most of my Minnesota accent. It left years ago. But yeah, I was raised.

Wilkinson (02:58)
Minnesota.

You mean

I'm a cliche saying the same thing everybody says.

Matt Moran (03:13)
I mean,

I don't want to say it out loud, but that's what everybody says. Whenever I say I'm from Minnesota, people go, oh Minnesota. And I'm like, yes, I've heard that a thousand times. Yeah.

Wilkinson (03:17)
Minnesota Minnesota. that better? I hate,

I hate being a cliche. ⁓ anyway. Anyway. So you move from Minnesota to where?

Matt Moran (03:27)
It's alright. You're allowed. It's okay.

to Nashville, but that wasn't until I was 22 years old. So I grew up in Minnesota. It was really cold and I'm not born built for the cold. So I left when I was, well, I left when I was 18 to go to college and then left the Midwest altogether and went to Nashville. But yeah, I was raised, born to a single mom. By the time I was born, my dad had already split. He was, let's just say he was not the best of humans. So he took off five months.

Wilkinson (03:36)
Okay, okay, okay.

Matt Moran (04:00)
in my mom's pregnancy. And while she was pregnant with me, she befriended someone who was a very strong Christian in a very fundamentalist Christian evangelical church. And so my mom got saved for anybody that knows what that means. And I was raised in the church, I went to private Christian school up until seventh grade. And that was really my, you know, identity, in a lot of ways was, was being raised in that church. So was a musical kid. So I did a lot of singing.

As a kid, started singing. I started doing a lot of work for radio and TV when I was about eight years old, primarily singing, but also doing some hosting of children's programs and did that up until about my teen years and then sort of just went through high school and did the normal high school experience. And yeah, but I'm kind of a rare breed. At least I found this to be true in that I didn't have any clue that I was gay as a kid. I didn't even know that I was different.

Wilkinson (04:32)
Wow.

Matt Moran (04:51)
I can look back now and see all of the signs. mean, you know, I'm old enough to remember the Dukes of Hazzard when it was on Friday nights. And I remember being, you know, enamored with Bo, with Bo Duke. In fact, I have a funny story, quick story. I ran into him at a musical event. It was a place here in Nashville about three years ago. And he walked by a table I was sitting at and I literally said, what is his name? I'm forgetting his name at the moment.

anybody who's watching this is probably screaming his name out, but I forgot anyway. I said his name out loud and he said yes. And I stood up and I said, uh, I just gotta tell you, I should have known I was gay at six years old because I was enamored with you. And he was so sweet. He gave me this huge smile, which about floored me. And he said, can I give you a hug? And I was like, yes, yes, you can. I just said, make it a really long one. So he gave me a nice like 15 second hug, which is great. So

Wilkinson (05:18)
Ha ha.

wow, yeah.

Wow.

Matt Moran (05:44)
I haven't showered since. Anyway,

Wilkinson (05:44)
Wow. That's great.

Matt Moran (05:49)
that was fun. But yeah, I didn't have any clue that I was gay until I was literally 22 years old. And, you know, I look back now and I realized that I think, and I only have sort of a suspicion of this, but I think it was because I grew up in such a Christian bubble. The only exposure I had to gay people

was via the five o'clock news. And it was seeing, you know, a video of gay men in Speedos in a parade walking down the street in San Francisco. And I didn't relate to that at all. That wasn't part of my makeup. You know, wasn't, I wasn't, you know, I was just one of those kids who just didn't relate to that. And so I never stopped to think, oh, I must be gay. What I do remember thinking is I want to be like these guys. I want to be like.

Bodouk, I want to be like, you know, so and so. And so I think I just wanted to emulate them. And I didn't have a father. So that sort of resonated with me as accurate, you know, because it was like, I don't have a dad to look up to. So I look up to these other figures. I didn't realize that, you know, I actually was romantically attracted to these people. So and I had, you know, I had girlfriends up through, in fact, I've never said this publicly, but I

I was a big fan of movies from the time I was little. And I think seeing people make out in movies, I was like the make out king of my kindergarten and first year class. I mean, with girls, with girls, I love to make out their their fathers, if they ever hear this, well, I won't say names because they'll probably want to murder me. But yeah, I was every father's nightmare for his little girl back then. I mean, just making out. That was all it was. And it was probably a joke to looking back on it now. But anyway, so that that I never sort of questioned things.

And then when I was finishing up college, I realized that I had attraction to men and it sent me reeling. I immediately started having intense panic attacks in class. I would shake while trying to sleep at night and spent, I mean, my second semester of my senior year was a nightmare. I barely slept. It's amazing. I graduated college. So

I made it through that. But in the process one night got up in the middle of the night. I remember it was 2 36am. On the clock there was a snowstorm outside but it was one of those snowstorms where the snow was just kind of gently falling but it was a ton of snow. And I got up and I walked about a mile and a half to a bridge that I knew that other people had jumped off and ended their lives before because the the water underneath was known for having a strong toe to it. I climbed over the edge and hung

hung from it fully prepared to to let go. But I remember looking up at the sky and it just was full of different colors, even though it was nighttime. And I remember thinking if I do this, my mom, who loved me more than anything on the planet, would never know what happened to me. And I thought, I can't do it this way, because that will just torture her and I can't do that to her. So I, I climbed back up over the railing and thought I have to think of something else. Yeah, yeah.

Wilkinson (08:17)
Wow.

Were you literally hanging like this?

You're kidding.

Matt Moran (08:41)
Middle

of the night, yeah. Yeah, mean, closest I've ever come to that. But I really thought, like so many gay men who are raised in Christian homes do, that I had to choose between being gay and being acceptable to God. And I didn't know how to make that choice. I felt like it was a lose-lose. And so I thought, well, there's no point in going on anymore because I can't.

Wilkinson (08:43)
⁓ wow.

Matt Moran (09:04)
That's not a choice I can make. Both are, you know, equally as valid. Equally valid. climbed back up over the railing, made it through the rest of my senior year. And then when I went back home that summer, before I moved to Nashville, I, tracked down, I told my, I told my pastor at church, he, he met me for coffee at McDonald's. The first time I'd ever admitted this out loud.

And I basically said to him, I have, we called it same sex attraction back then, right? Yeah. Right. So you get it. So I told him that and he said, well, that's not shocking to me. Like there's places you can go for that. And he made it sound like it was just sort of like, there's a place you can go and get fixed. And, I was like, great, sign me up. Like the sooner the better. So he put me in touch with a counseling center, which then referred me to one in Nashville when I moved.

Wilkinson (09:29)
yeah, I've been through the whole thing.

Yep, done.

Matt Moran (09:52)
here to Nashville and I started working with a therapist in a group counseling scenario, which would now be considered ex-gay therapy. And we were together for about seven months and I just realized I'm doing a lot of talking. Is this okay that I'm taking it on this road? Okay. All right. So I spent seven months with those guys, built some great friendships, but I remember very vividly walking out of the front door of that office building on the final day. And I...

Wilkinson (10:04)
absolutely, yeah, no.

Matt Moran (10:17)
I don't know why this is such a vivid memory for me, but I remember that the sun hit my eyes and the thought that went through my head was, I'm still gay. Like I'm still the same. What the hell am I going to do? And at the time my faith was still very important to me. So I kind of just threw up my hands and dove into, for lack of a better word, just debauchery. Like I just started sleeping around.

And I kind of gave up my faith for a while and just let go. was 20, I was 23. 23, yeah.

Wilkinson (10:48)
Now you are how old at this point? Still 20, 23. Okay,

so now that we paused for second. So was there something specifically that triggered you that made you a 22 that said, I'm gay? What caused that?

Matt Moran (10:56)
Sure.

Yes,

I noticed that I was having an attraction to a really good friend of mine. And there was one experience where his girlfriend long story, but his girlfriend basically got in between us at some point. And I felt very threatened by her. And I remember just feeling filled with rage. In that moment, it was the first time that I ever just experienced like extreme jealousy in that way.

I was cooking dinner on the stove. was cooking spaghetti. I remember this like it was yesterday and I was stirring the spaghetti with a fork. And I remember looking up at the clock and literally uttering, whispering out loud, oh my God, I'm, I'm gay. And yeah, and it hit me like a ton of bricks, ton of bricks. It does. It does. That hit me like a ton of bricks too. More so today than it did back then. But yeah, so that was the beginning of me

Wilkinson (11:29)
Yeah.

Right.

Really?

You know, spaghetti does that. Wow. ⁓

Matt Moran (11:54)
sliding down into really just panic attacks and full on misery. It was hell. really genuinely mean it when I say that I'm surprised I made it through that year of school because I was such a disaster mentally. So anyway, yeah, fast forward to back to Nashville, went through my first round of therapy, conversion therapy and

Wilkinson (12:04)
Wow.

Matt Moran (12:16)
came out and was like, well, screw it. This didn't work. So I might as well just, you know, go nuts. So my first real experience sexually was, was that a gym in a steam room? I will actually backtrack. I know that I'm probably the only, probably the only gay guy who's ever experienced that before, but yeah, it actually did happen. I'll backtrack really quickly. It's interesting because in therapy, I've sort of uncovered this.

Wilkinson (12:28)
I'm, I am shocked.

Right.

well.

Matt Moran (12:41)
in high school when I was a sophomore, I started working out at the gym and the locker room was in the basement of the gym. And then there was a sauna located in the back corner. And I remember looking back on it now, my mom, God love her, she was incredible, amazing mom. I thank God for her almost every day when I think about it. But she didn't have a husband and I very much felt like I had to be her sort of surrogate spouse. And that felt like a lot of pressure.

And I remember escaping to the gym a lot and down into that sauna because it felt like a safe place that was as far away as I could get from that pressure from her and never had an experience in there. But I remember very much liking that there were naked guys coming in and out, you know, and didn't put two and two together for whatever reason. Again, I think I just thought I wanted to be like them, you know, but

that was kind of how that started. And then when I moved to Nashville and went through conversion therapy, it didn't work. think my quick thought was, I'll just go back to the locker room because that felt like a safe place for me. And as a coach today, you know, I've learned that we develop coping mechanisms as kids to survive. Right. It's one of the things my therapist said to me years ago was like, I'm so glad you had that sauna to go to because it provided you some sort of relief, but

Wilkinson (13:50)
Right. Right.

Right.

Matt Moran (13:57)
Moving into my twenties, then that scenario became my safe place. And I would literally go to the YMCA, hang out in the steam room for three hours at a time. In and out, in and out, in and out, walk out so dehydrated, I could barely walk. But I was just looking for some sort of connection, some affirmation that I was enough, you know, that I was attractive, that I was wanted. And so, you know, a lot of stuff went down there.

Wilkinson (14:17)
Right. Right.

Matt Moran (14:23)
And it lasted for gosh, probably about two years. I went through that, but within that two years, I realized like, feel this is fun, but it feels empty. Like I don't get any real sort of fulfillment from this. And at that time in my life, I didn't really see the option of being in a partnership with someone that was life-giving and fulfilling and

Wilkinson (14:38)
Right.

Right.

Matt Moran (14:47)
⁓ monogamous, which is

what I've always kind of been about. And so I thought, well, this, this must be what it's like to be gay, just kind of hopping in and out of people's beds. And this doesn't feel good. So I enrolled in my second round of gay conversion therapy. And while the first one, yeah, at my church, they had a program that was put on by Exodus International, which you're probably familiar with. ⁓

Wilkinson (15:01)
at a different location. Okay. Okay.

It's funny

because I had one of the leaders, the guys really involved in that two weeks ago on my podcast. Yeah. John, John Smith. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Moran (15:15)
Did you? Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ that name sounds familiar. Yeah. Yep. And

that was that was really a turning point for me in a really tough way because that group was very much focused on you're broken, you're broken, you're broken. You need to be healed. And, you know, they literally had a night where they tried to cast demons out of us. It was really, really heavy.

And I remember for the four months that that program went on, I cried every single day at home and not just cried, but sobbed. I look back on it and I had to have been immensely dehydrated during that time, especially after two years of spending so much time in the steam room at the gym. But yeah, I sobbed every day and I eventually sunk into a really deep clinical depression.

to the point where my best friend at the time said to me, you need to go on medication because you're not okay. My body shut down. I stopped being able to digest food. just wouldn't, everything would go right through me. I would sleep like 16 hours a night. I just couldn't get enough sleep, really depressed. And so I eventually had to move home to back to Minnesota to be with my mom because I just couldn't even support myself. And it was then that I

told her, confessed to her over dinner one night that I was same sex attracted. And that did not go so well. She had a, you know, probably could be compared to a pretty close to a nervous breakdown over it. It hit a lot of buttons for her and was very triggering and activating for her on a lot of levels. She felt like God had failed her as a, you know, as a father to the fatherless, which she always said and ⁓ felt like her faith just went into the toilet.

Wilkinson (16:48)
Right.

Matt Moran (16:52)
and felt like I'd lied to her for all these years. So it really put a wedge between us in a way that I'd never experienced before because she was really one of my very best friends. So that was really hard. When I finally got out of gay conversion therapy, I was so depressed and so messed up physically that I remember sitting at my kitchen table one day. God, these memories are so vivid for me.

Wilkinson (16:59)
Wow.

Matt Moran (17:13)
I sat at my kitchen table and I said to God out loud, I was alone at home and I said, this isn't working. Like I, my body's a disaster. My brain is completely jacked up. I can't imagine this is how you want my life to be. I remember saying to him, have to God, have so much to give the world and focusing all my attention on trying not to be gay is sucking all of the life.

out of me, literally. And I said, you know what? I'm just going to starting today, choose to believe that you made me gay, that you're okay with it and start living my life as if that's true. And I did and never look back. Now, over the course of the next several months and even years, I started reading books by theologians who had a very different take on scripture.

Wilkinson (17:36)
Right.

Hmm.

Matt Moran (17:58)
than the one I had been raised with. And I started to realize through, you know, authors like Richard Rohr and Peter Enns, that there were, there was a whole other progressive idea of scripture and how it's meant to be read. That is in direct contradiction to how I was raised that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. And so that along with my own personal struggle,

Wilkinson (18:05)
Right.

Matt Moran (18:22)
helped me sort of move into a new kind of understanding of God and faith. And that's continued to evolve over the years for sure. But it really, it really set me free. My body started to heal again. I had a couple relationships that were about, you know, by six months long, and they were really good relationships. Didn't, didn't work out. We stayed friends. I'm still in contact with them to this day, but, but it showed me that like a healthy relationship within

the confines of a gay lifestyle, quote unquote, is possible. You know, it's possible. So from that point on, things started to move in a really healthy direction. And since then, I've really started sharing my own journey and experiences of healing and for lack of a better word, restoration with other people who are still going through the same thing because there are still so many, especially in middle America, who are still experiencing

Wilkinson (18:52)
Right, right.

Matt Moran (19:12)
rejection from parents, rejection from families and friends, rejection from their church, you know, and they're left in this place where they don't know what to do. And so, you know, my hope is that just my experience along with, you know, hopefully them hearing other people's experience can shed some light on their own story and help them move to a healthier place. But I will say fast forward to a few years ago, one of the things I've always noticed in sort of quote unquote, gay culture,

Wilkinson (19:19)
Right.

Right. Right.

Right.

culture

is that.

Matt Moran (19:39)
is that,

you know, the bars can be a fun way to let off steam. the apps can be fun and interesting. I've, you know, I did, I did a Ted talk on sort of reading my life of shame and that's been monumental for me. But, because of that, I have no sense of shame around those things, even being promiscuous. It's like, you know, it's a choice and everybody I think needs to go through that at some point.

Wilkinson (19:53)
Right.

Matt Moran (20:04)
to figure out what they really are about. I think it's really important to of write a passage, but I realized that there were a lot of gay men, including myself, who wanted more than just the bar scene and the apps. They felt lonely in a gay bar. They would come out feeling empty and more lonely than they were when they walked in. The apps is just a brutal

Wilkinson (20:06)
Right.

Right.

Right.

Matt Moran (20:26)
place. mean, there's so much ghosting and rejection and, you know, judging people based on appearance. And, you know, gay people are human beings like straight folks. So we want more connection than that. And I realized there's a lot of guys talking to me, they're telling me they want more authenticity, they want more connection, they want real conversations with gay men, not just conversations about dicks and, ⁓ you know, partying. And so I

Wilkinson (20:33)
way.

Right.

Matt Moran (20:53)
I don't attend church, but I'm really good friends with a minister and his wife who run a very progressive gay affirming church. In fact, there are a lot of atheists that actually go there. It's more like a community than it is a church. Yeah. But he encouraged me to start a book club for gay men. And I thought, well, that would be kind of a cool idea. So I had read years ago, back in my early 20s, I'd read The Velvet Rage.

Wilkinson (21:05)
Wow. Wow.

Matt Moran (21:17)
And have you read the Velvet Rage? I'm guessing you have. Okay, yeah. I mean, for anybody that's listening and hasn't read the Velvet Rage, it's a little dated now and even the author has said that, but it's still in many ways rings true. I decided to do a book club and I put a post up on Facebook about it. It said, for any gay men that'd be interested in doing this virtually, I figured maybe, you know, I'd be lucky if eight or 10 guys signed up. Within five hours, 86 men signed up for this book club virtually from all over the country.

Wilkinson (21:19)
I did a book study on it. ⁓ yeah.

Matt Moran (21:44)
So every week we would jump on to zoom and talk about different chapters of this book. And it was so life-giving for all of us, myself included. And at the end of it, we were finishing out our last session and one of the guys, you know, on the camera raised his hand and he said, can I just say, I don't want this to end. Like this has been really awesome and I need this kind of connection in my life. And another guy raised his hand and he said, I'm in agreement.

Wilkinson (21:52)
Right, right.

Right.

Matt Moran (22:10)
And you know, everybody else started chiming in and said, can we just continue this in some form or fashion? So we ended up turning the book club into a Facebook group called the conversation. And it was just for gay men. And we would meet once a month for about a year and a half to discuss various topics that would bring in guest speakers. And it was awesome. had, over a hundred guys in the group and you know, we'd jump on zoom and have these amazing conversations about stuff that just never got talked about in bars and on apps.

Wilkinson (22:27)
Wow. ⁓

Matt Moran (22:37)
And even these guys would say, don't talk to my gay friends about this stuff. It's so nice to have a place where there are like-minded gay men who want to talk about things like vulnerability and the hard parts of dating and sex and shame and et cetera, et cetera. So that went on for about a year and a half.

Wilkinson (22:44)
Right.

Matt Moran (22:54)
That was during COVID actually, which I'm sure helped grow it. But when COVID ended, I kind of felt like I had to get back into my work, which I'd taken a little bit of a pause from. So the group, I said, we got to of disband this guy, so I can't keep it going. So we disbanded, but I always had in my head, like, if I were to ever start something up again, it would be something like that. And so, you know, five years later, this had been last about a year and a half ago.

Wilkinson (22:56)
wow. Right, right.

Matt Moran (23:20)
I started doing some research on how to start a community platform. I found this platform called Mighty Networks, which hosts, it's almost like a Facebook, but your own private Facebook for whatever group of people you invite to it. And I decided to create a group called the Gay Men's Collective. And it really is just for gay men who are seeking out meaningful connection and an opportunity to grow alongside other gay men. That's our two pillars, is meaningful connection.

and personal growth. And, you know, guys started signing up. It's a subscription based thing. I get some pushback for that. It's 27 bucks a month, but we meet eight to 10 times a month on zoom. There's a platform that guys share on every day and share their lives with each other. it's become, I can't even put into words what a beautiful community this has become.

the reason I charge for it is because what I was finding with the conversation, the Facebook group is that guys would join just to join and they would come in and they'd use it for trying to hook up. And if you don't have some sort of guard rails on the front end, people join and then never show up or they use it for the wrong, for reasons that it's not designed for. So I was like, we need to have some guard rails here that allow guys to just really want to be here for the reason this group exists. And that's what it's done. It's created an opportunity for guys who.

want to talk in a respectful way about sex, want to engage, on all sorts of topics that we all face in really vulnerable, meaningful ways. And this community, I mean, I had a guy the other night, burst into tears. He was literally, I mean, tears pouring down his face. And he just said, I never ever had gay friends in my life ever. It's never bonded with the gay community. And he said, I now have all of you guys that I text with and talk with every day.

Wilkinson (24:52)
Wow.

Matt Moran (24:57)
And he just said, I can't believe this is my life now. I just can't believe it. the challenge that we have.

Wilkinson (25:00)
Wow.

Is that around

the same size as your other group, the 100 guys? Okay.

Matt Moran (25:05)
We've got about 70 guys right now.

It ebbs and flows. I have found that there are. There's there's a how do I say this?

It's daunting, I think, for a lot of gay men to come into an environment where vulnerability is exercised and celebrated. Because vulnerability, by its very definition, means opening yourself up to potentially being hurt, right? And a lot of us have been wounded so many times, not only by our families and friends, but by other gay men, that to sign up for a group and say, I'm going to try and be vulnerable and honest sounds terrifying. So

I think it can take guys a little while to drum up the nerve to even sign up for it, much less put their credit card in and then show up to a group meeting. There's a lot of hurdles that kind of have to get past, but once they do and they realize what this group is like, they're usually sold if that's something that they want in their life. Not everybody's ready for it. Not everybody wants it, you know?

And it's okay that it's not for everybody, but for the guys that really want that sort of thing in their life, it's been a beautiful, beautiful thing. I'm continually blown away by what we've built together and by how it's affecting the guys who are in it.

Wilkinson (26:13)
Sounds good to me. I told you I signed up yesterday to try it out.

Matt Moran (26:14)
Yeah. How was that?

I'm so glad and I hope that anybody who's watching this, if that sounds intriguing to them, they'll give us a shot, you know?

Wilkinson (26:25)
Yeah,

we'll put all the links in the episode notes, by the way. So I have a question for you. So I watch your TED Talks, right? ⁓ I watched the one on Jane. How many are there?

Matt Moran (26:29)
Beautiful. Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah, well more than one.

Shame. Yeah.

There's just one. I've only done one Ted talk. Tedx talk.

Wilkinson (26:43)
okay, all right. I thought, I

thought I was, you got me excited. I thought there'd be more. Okay. All right. So anyway, I saw, I watched that, but something I was intrigued by it. You talked about your religious background and then, you know, the gay life and you talked about sex and you said you liked hooking up with somebody and having connection.

Matt Moran (26:47)
No, just one. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Wilkinson (27:02)
How does that work when you're just hooking up? Cause yeah, I've evolved to the point in my life where if I don't have connection, I'm just not interested period. Boom, boom, that's it. That's it. Which means I'm not very connected. Cause a lot of, mean, I'm in Palm Springs and I'd say at least half the guys here are partnered or married or whatever. And they're not monogamous. Let's just put it that way.

Matt Moran (27:10)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

Right. Yeah, they're open. Yeah. Yeah. I spent, I spent time in Palm Springs.

Wilkinson (27:30)
In my, on, one,

yeah, you talked about the apps, I think it was on Scruff, but probably one of my favorite things I've ever seen on there. The guy put monogamously coupled play together or separately.

Matt Moran (27:42)
Huh.

I'm not sure if he knows what monogamous means.

Wilkinson (27:45)
Well, you know what I thought? Well, you know, if I could see it, if he, if he said only play together, that still wouldn't be monogamous, but I'd get what he was saying, but together or separately like, huh? But anyway, go back to your connection thing. Cause I, I guess I know what you mean, but talk a little about.

Matt Moran (27:55)
Right.

Right, yeah.

Well, I think first of all, I'm a big word guy. So I think we have to define what we mean by connection, right? Because I think that word probably carries a lot of meetings for a lot of people in different ways. for me, connection is probably a combination of chemistry, but beyond that, it's also feeling like there's a safety with someone, which is really important to me.

Wilkinson (28:18)
Right.

Matt Moran (28:31)
feeling like I'm safe with that person, like emotionally. So, you know, in the past when I've hooked up with someone who, you know, if we're messing around and they start, you know, even jokingly insulting me to a certain degree, that to me feels a little bit like, I'm not sure that I want to be in this scenario, you know, or just really antagonistic. I don't really click too well with gay men who are overly bitchy and caddy.

I can appreciate it in a bar setting, but in a romantic or sexual setting, it does not work for me. That doesn't feel safe to me. So someone who is really kind feels connective to me. Someone who's thoughtful, inquisitive is really connective to me. Someone who cares about the experience that I'm having as opposed to just there treating me like a body to get off with, that's important to me. So that is how I define connection.

And, you know, if I'm really honest, have I had hookups that are completely just there for both using each other to get off 100 % and I don't necessarily think there's anything quote unquote wrong with that. It's not where I'm at today just because it doesn't really resonate with who I am at this stage of my life. But, you know, it definitely did at one point. I much prefer

Wilkinson (29:37)
Right.

Matt Moran (29:45)
a date today than I did, you know, probably 10 years ago. ⁓ D-A-T-E. Yeah, I'm not even sure that word's in the dictionary anymore. But yeah, I prefer, like I have a date tonight. I think it's a date. I'm not sure. It could be a friendship thing. I'm not sure. But works to going to dinner, right? And I'm looking forward to that. Like getting to know somebody. And I found...

Wilkinson (29:48)
A what? ⁓

Huh.

Matt Moran (30:07)
that when there's a connection established, the physical part, I mean, it's so much better, at least for me. Now, are there moments where a hookup that has some kink involved to it, where it's like you don't know each other and that's the hot piece of it? Yeah, there's an element of the hotness to that too. I mean, whatever anybody's into, as long as it's consensual and age appropriate, I'm all for.

But for me, where I'm at today, I definitely prefer some element of connection and respect and something there that makes me feel like that I'm a human and seen as a human being as opposed to just a body. So.

Wilkinson (30:41)
When we were chatting a little before we started, I think I told you I was doing energetic work. And I told, I also told you I have an ex-wife, three ex-barbers and an ex-COVID boyfriend. I tell my, I joked around with my friends and I said, I think my picker is broken. My picker, not my pecker. But so now where I'm at is if I don't have an energetic connection, it's, it's.

Matt Moran (30:55)
⁓ No, you're Picker, yeah.

Wilkinson (31:07)
just not gonna happen. And looking back at my life, because I came out way mid-life, with a Christian background, the same thing. It was December of 99, middle of it, after a trip to Europe, ended up being by myself, I came out to myself. Similar to you, I looked at my whole life, and it's like,

Matt Moran (31:08)
I get that.

Wilkinson (31:29)
Well, what I said was, duh. Starting with kind of funny, six years old, right? My cousin Harry came to live with us and being the entrepreneur that I always was even at a young age, I paid Harry in crackers to show me his dick.

But all of those little things through my life, was like I was oblivious. And again, I was in the church bubble. I didn't even know what gay guys did. mean, honest to God, did, it was like, you know, plus the whole totally repressed everything from my Christian background. It's like, it's all bad. Don't go there. Don't look there. You know? I mean,

Matt Moran (31:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember

it well.

Wilkinson (32:09)
My friends do not believe this, but it's the honest to God truth. I didn't jerk off until after I was married to the woman. That's how fearful I was of everything. That's how, yeah.

Matt Moran (32:19)
Wow.

That's fascinating.

Wilkinson (32:22)
And

my parents never said the word penis. It was a go-go. Is that a riot or what? Yeah, it was a go-go. Yeah.

Matt Moran (32:27)
Your penis was a go-go?

God, I wonder where they got that name.

Wilkinson (32:32)
I don't know.

Matt Moran (32:33)
Maybe your mom looked at your dad and said, you want to go go? And that was where it came from. don't know. Wow.

Wilkinson (32:35)
⁓ Well,

My mother was an underwear model before she met my father. And after they were married, she got saved and blah, blah, blah. She became a radio preacher. So it's like, rare, you know, like, so, anyway, so look, I mean, look for me looking back is like I had one friend that I had sex with.

Matt Moran (32:43)
wow.

wow.

Wilkinson (32:59)
And looking back, we had an energetic connection that was like out of this world. And it was one time and I still remember that. It was like probably the best ever in my life. But it was, was the energy of it.

Matt Moran (33:06)
Yeah.

It's great when that happens. And it doesn't happen as much as, you know, we would like, I think. But when it happens, it's pretty special. Yeah. I've had a few of those experiences as well.

Wilkinson (33:12)
Yeah, yeah.

No.

So you're not on the apps,

Matt Moran (33:23)
Yeah.

You know, I've floated in and out of them to be totally transparent. hooking up is not on my radar as much these days, but I have actually met several great people on Grindr and Scruff who to this day are people that I call to hang out with. So I have floated in and off of Grindr and Scruff.

Wilkinson (33:33)
Right.

Right.

Matt Moran (33:47)
kind of to leave myself open for that possibility, you know? And you know, I'm not gonna lie and say that if an opportunity for what seemed like a potentially great hookup came along, I would say no, I wouldn't. But...

Wilkinson (33:50)
Right.

Well, I'm

sure you'll get some offers on here, so.

Matt Moran (34:03)
Yeah, we'll see. I'm sort of out of the window

now of gays that are like, you the wanted gays age wise. So I've passed that. now it's now it's mostly

Wilkinson (34:12)
Are you, wait,

stop. No, you're a very hot, you're a hot young daddy, come on.

Matt Moran (34:14)
bro, I'm almost... I'm 49.

Lord. I've been called daddy a few times. That's for sure.

But yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm approaching 50. So I'm not in that, you know, under 35 hot, sexy window anymore, but, yeah, I, know, I'm, I just try to stay open to whatever might come my way that fits with what resonates with who I am today and, and not closed down to blacks and whites, you know, meaning, like to rigid boundaries.

Wilkinson (34:39)
Right.

Matt Moran (34:45)
around, I'll do this and I won't do this. It's sort of, you know, I have a, I have a guidepost that feels kind of internal. And if something resonates with me, great. If it doesn't, I sort of try to take note of that and go, hmm, this doesn't quite resonate with where I'm at energetically. So I think I'm going to say no to that. And I try to listen to that a lot more today than I probably did even five, 10 years ago, because I found that that inner guidance system really does serve me. So

Wilkinson (35:10)
So you've

been single how long now?

Matt Moran (35:12)
I've been single six years. I was in a relationship from 2011 to 2019 that I thought was gonna last throughout the rest of my life, really. And it did not. He, at the end of the relationship, decided he wanted to be in an open relationship. And for me personally, that just wasn't something I was willing to do. And so we parted ways and it was devastating for me. But I've really come to...

I've come to learn how to appreciate being single in a way that I don't think I ever did before in my life. mean, there's, you know, granted, there are so many aspects to being single that are really wonderful. mean, down to like, nobody tells me when to get up in the morning. Nobody tells me when I have to go to bed at night. I get to hold the remote and pick all my own television shows. I get to cook whatever meals I want. Like, you know, we, we overlook those things when we're in a relationship. but, but there are a lot of great things to being in a relationship too. So.

Wilkinson (35:51)
Right. Right.

Matt Moran (36:04)
If and when it comes along and it knocks me over and I'm like, wow, this is too good to say no to, then I would definitely explore that. But I am at a point in my life where unless it is so right and just lines up with me in a really great way, I would rather be, I'd rather struggle with loneliness single than struggle with being lonely in a relationship any day of the week.

And I definitely struggle with loneliness at times. I'm a big touch person. Physical affection is my number one love language. So that piece feels like it's glaringly missing from my life. But I have a great dog who loves to cuddle. She doesn't quite measure up to skin, but she's great on a rainy day.

Wilkinson (36:46)
I just spilled my glass of water all over my sofa. No, it's fine. It's water. It's water. So let's talk about your coaching. How'd you get into that?

Matt Moran (36:49)
I'm sorry. Do you have to clean it up? Okay. Okay.

Yeah. Well, like I said, I started working in the entertainment business when I was eight and did that really up until about 13, 13 or 14. And then when I went to college, I went to become a filmmaker. thought I was going to make films, graduated, moved to Nashville and became a songwriter. So entertainment in various forms has always been a part of my life. And being on stage has always been something that's

been very, very comfortable for me. My dad was a recording artist and performed for a living. So I think it was just in my blood, even though I wasn't raised with him. And yeah, I did. that's a story. That's a story. Yeah. I don't know if you want to hear that story, but it's a good one. Okay. So yeah, being on stage has always been one of the safest places for me ever.

Wilkinson (37:32)
So stop it. Did you ever meet him?

We'll come back, we're coming, yeah, yeah, we do, we do. Let's come back to that.

Matt Moran (37:46)
I just feel immensely comfortable in a spotlight. And I've done theater and acting and all sorts of on camera work as well as hosting television programs and on stage. So that's always felt really comfortable for me. So when I realized that songwriting was not something I wanted to keep pursuing full time, I decided that I would pursue teaching other people how to be on stage because I recognized there were a lot of people who struggled with public speaking and performing. And so

Wilkinson (37:47)
Right, right.

⁓

Matt Moran (38:13)
via a number of avenues, I became a coach for a company that I contracted with, where I would go out to companies and I would teach people how to construct and deliver all sorts of speeches and presentations, et cetera, et cetera. And it was immediately like square peg square hole. It just fit me like a glove. I realized that I have a deep desire to teach. I love teaching. love engaging with participants and clients in that way. So about four years after

Wilkinson (38:25)
Right.

Right.

Matt Moran (38:40)
I started working for that company. broke off and started my own coaching company called Matt Moran Presentations. And to this day, I coach executives and their teams, as well as performing artists, recording artists, etc. on how to construct presentations and how to speak to media, how to give keynotes, how to give TED Talks, how to communicate more effectively with their teams, if they're leaders. I work a lot with teams on how to

make collaboration more effective, impactful, anything that has to do with how to communicate more effectively to get to a specific result. That's my shtick. So I've been doing that for, well, my own now for the past 15 years, I guess, 14 years. And I love it. I love it. But since Gay Men's Collective has come along, I've realized that I've really enjoyed the opportunity to move into

Wilkinson (39:21)
Okay.

Matt Moran (39:30)
Talking not just about communication, but also just about how we as humans can thrive better and So I do because I've done so much work on myself via therapy through meditation through all sorts of means I now do a lot of videos you've probably seen them on Just how to thrive more effectively how to work through conflict how to meditate how to eat, right? ways that we can just start looking at ourselves with a

Wilkinson (39:36)
Right.

Right.

Matt Moran (39:56)
with a lens that is not viewed through shame and make our lives better, you know, make them more fruitful and more fulfilling. So I'm sort of moving that direction. My dream of dreams is to host a television program that allows me to bring on guests, celebrity guests, know, gurus of all type and engage with an audience, live audience in discussion on things like this.

Wilkinson (40:04)
Right.

Matt Moran (40:21)
because that's where I just find that I thrive the most.

Wilkinson (40:22)
Wow. Now

on Facebook, let's see, you were doing an interview or something with Amy Grant, right? So what was the context of that? I didn't quite get the whole thing. You were interviewing her for what?

Matt Moran (40:28)
Yeah!

Well, so Amy

Yeah, so I'll just give you the backstory to that. So Amy Grant was a lifeline for me growing up. You know, growing up in Christian music, if somebody grew up in Christian world, they know that name well. And then she sort of exploded into the pop world in the early 90s. And I followed her career from the time I was about six years old. I sang all of her songs at Christmas concerts and, you know, spring concerts at school. I was kind of known for like bringing Amy Grant to the stage in my grade school years.

And ⁓ well, now she's 64. I she's a very young 64, but no, yeah, yeah. She acts like a 30 year old, but she's 64 with grandchildren. So fast forward, you know, when I moved to Nashville, I got involved in the Christian music scene and had many friends who were close to her and our worlds kind of collided a few times. It wasn't until about 10 years ago that we actually got to spend some quality time together and just really clicked.

Wilkinson (41:03)
Now wait, how old is she now?

Wow, I still think of her as like 30. ⁓

Right, right.

Matt Moran (41:30)
And, you know, they say never meet your, your heroes, but I'll tell you, she has in every way surpassed anything I could have imagined about the kind of person she is, just from a character perspective. So ⁓ her family kind of adopted mine, she and Vince, Vince Gill is her husband, they kind of adopted me as their, I don't know, surrogate. So I spend all of my holidays with their family. ⁓ Yeah, and they're, they're

Wilkinson (41:40)
Right.

Really?

Matt Moran (41:55)
Vince's daughter is one of my very best friends, we started a video production business together. And then I'm close to all of her kids. And they're, you their kids now call me gunkle Matt. So it's, it's become my Nashville family, which has been really amazing, just for my heart, because I'm not close to my family who are in Minnesota, geographically, I'm not close to them. So it's great to have a family like that here. But yeah, so Amy's manager asked me several weeks ago, they were hosting a fan event at Amy's farm.

for fans to fly in from all over the country. And Amy was gonna, you know, have them come out to her farm and they would do like a Q &A and bring in one of her producers, Heath Thomas, who's produced Everyone Under the Sun, along with Amy. And she asked if I would interview them in front of the fans. And so I did an interview with them, which was really amazing. I texted Jennifer, who's Amy's manager this morning, and I said, it was really wild for me because having now been

Wilkinson (42:23)
⁓

⁓ okay, alright.

Matt Moran (42:45)
friends with Amy for the last 10 years, I don't even really see her as Amy Grant anymore. I just see her as my friend Amy. And to be in that setting with her around all of her fans, as a fan, and be asking her questions about her career, which she and I don't talk about very often. It was, I almost felt like I was talking to a stranger, right? It was like, my gosh, I'm talking to Amy Grant and I spent all my holidays at her house. It was very weird, but really wonderful at the same time. It was like the little boy in me was jumping up and down.

Wilkinson (42:51)
Right.

Right.

Right. Wow.

Matt Moran (43:13)
So really fun. Yeah, yeah. And if you wanna watch that, people can go, somebody posted the whole video of it on the Friends of Amy Facebook page. So Friends of Amy Grant, yeah, somebody wants to watch it. Yeah.

Wilkinson (43:13)
Wow.

Okay, friends of mine, okay. All right.

So your dad, what's the story?

Matt Moran (43:27)
Oh gosh, my dad. Yeah, okay, so my mom had pictures of him taken for the two and a half years they were together. They were together two years, they got engaged two years into their relationship. She got pregnant and then five months into the pregnancy, he said, I can't be faithful to you and he left. So they were together two and a half years.

I really never, I had one interaction with him when I was young, maybe two, but it was so young, I didn't remember it very well. I was 25, 26, I think I was 26. And I said to my mom, know, I want to meet my dad. Like I want to meet him as an adult and just know what he's like. I've never had a connection with him. So she was able to track him down. He was still in Minneapolis and still performing. And we agreed to meet for lunch. Now we had known

that he had met and married another woman after he left my mom and she had a baby from another man. So he kind of raised that child as his own son, right? So it was really strange because we decided to meet for lunch and his wife showed up at the lunch. I thought it was really odd. Like I thought it would just be him and me. So we're having lunch and it was

really pretty great, a little awkward, just as you might expect, but at some point he drops into the conversation that I have a half sister. I had no clue this was a thing. I didn't realize I had any half siblings. And he said, yeah, she lives in Colorado. And I said, well, I would love to connect with her. And he said, well, she wants nothing to do with you because she wants nothing to do with me. So that's not possible. And I was really disappointed, but I was like, well.

I guess, you know, he probably abandoned her too, so I can guess, I can guess why.

Wilkinson (45:06)
Now,

was she the offspring that you mentioned a little while ago? No, because that wouldn't have been a half sister of yours. So how did she be, what's the deal?

Matt Moran (45:11)
No, good question. was. No, she was.

He had hooked up with a woman prior to my mother and gotten her pregnant and also left. I found this out later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it gets better. It gets better. So the lunch continues and I happened to drop into the conversation the fact that he and my mom were engaged when they were together and his eyes just like hit the table. Like his whole head just dropped. Like I had dropped a bomb.

Wilkinson (45:24)
So this was kind of a thing for him. Okay. ⁓ okay.

Matt Moran (45:43)
on the table and I was like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that in front of his wife. And she reaches across the table and she puts her hand on my hand and she says, honey, your parents were never engaged. And I was like, yeah, yeah, they were for five months. I've known this ever since I was a little kid. And she said to me, verbatim, that's just something your mother told you so that you wouldn't feel bad about the fact that you were the product of a one night stand.

Well, I was deer in headlights and didn't want to create a scene, but I knew for a fact that wasn't true because my family knew my father well when he was around all the time. He would come to parties and he would bring his guitar and play. And my head started spinning and I didn't really ask any questions. So we left that day, had each other's phone numbers, said we would stay in touch. And I got home that day. My family was all waiting eagerly. They were having a 70th birthday party for my grandma and they were waiting so excitedly to find out how it went.

My mom ran up the front door and she said, how'd it go? And I said, well, can I talk to you for a second? She said, okay. So I pulled into the room and I told her what he, what the woman had said. And she started sobbing. And when she did, I thought, Oh God, maybe, maybe the woman was right. My mom had lied to me all these years. Well, my grandma walked in the room and I told her, and she said, that rat bastard. She said, he lied to you. He was around all the time. And so my mom cried for a week. She was so devastated that my father who had just left.

her and me by the side of the road essentially, waited 26 years to throw her under the bus to me, like she was a one night stand, which she very much was not. So I called him about a week later. I'm sitting on my bed. was, yeah, back before we had cell phones. I literally called him on an old dial up, punch the buttons phone and I said, look.

Wilkinson (47:18)
Wow.

Matt Moran (47:25)
I've pretty much figured out that you probably told your wife that I was the product of a one night stand a long time ago in order to keep from having to tell her that you were with someone for two and a half years, got her pregnant and then ditched. And he was dead silent. So I knew I was right. And I said, my mom deserves a whole lot more respect than that for raising me by herself with no support from you. So I said, you need to tell your wife the truth.

Wilkinson (47:38)
and left.

Matt Moran (47:50)
And there was, I mean, gosh, probably 10 seconds of silence, which is a long time on a phone call. And he whispered, I can't do that. And I literally said, then you do not have a son. And I hung up the phone.

Wilkinson (47:55)
Right, right.

Wow.

Matt Moran (48:03)
So 10 years go by, I'm 36 years old. And I said to my mom, you know, I don't really wanna talk to my dad again, but I do wanna know my health history because that's not something we discussed. And he's probably not gonna be around for much longer. He was a heavy smoker. And I was like, I need to know kind of what I'm dealing with as I get up into, you know, I'm heading toward 40. So she got ahold of him again, got ahold of his phone number and I called him. I was in my kitchen in a condo that I owned.

back then and, he was jovial. Like we'd never had this hard ending to our conversation 10 years earlier. Talked about my family, my health history. He told me everything I don't want him to know. And he said, I said, by the way, you mentioned I had a sister 10 years ago when we met. He said, yeah. And I said, I really want to meet her. And he said, well, let me call her and see if she's willing to talk to you. I said, great. So hang up the phone about 10 minutes later. He calls me back.

And he said, she said it was okay for me to give you her phone number. And I was like, my gosh, this is amazing. So I hang up, I immediately call her. She's so excited to hear my voice on the phone. I could tell right away. Her name is Carrie. And I said, I gotta be honest. I'm kind of blown away that you're excited to hear from me because, you know, apparently you wanted nothing to do with me for a while. And she said, what are you talking about? And I said, well, Nico, it's our dad's name.

wouldn't give me her phone number 10 years ago because he said you wanted nothing to do with me. And she said, he told me that you wanted nothing to do with me.

Wilkinson (49:23)
brother.

Matt Moran (49:23)
So that came out. Yeah, he's he's a bit of a narcissistic liar. So then she said, well, the web, the plot thickens, she said. We have another sister from another woman. Yeah. Yeah. She said, who's even older than me? Two year, two or three years older. Her name is Jane. And she said, I just connected with her recently on Facebook. And she was also abandoned by him.

Wilkinson (49:24)
Wow, what tangled webs we weave. Right. ⁓

What?

Matt Moran (49:46)
So three, three kids, he just, you know, zipped up a zipper and walked away. So I contacted her and within 30 seconds of talking to her, I was in tears because you know, I'd never had siblings before, but I could tell immediately that we were blood relatives. And to this day, she is one of the people that I feel the most kindred of spirits with.

And I realize what it's like now to have a sibling, even though we didn't grow up together, we just get each other on every level we get each other. And it's like, wow, this was meant to be. So I'm actually going to visit her next week in Lansing, Michigan.

Wilkinson (50:20)
So she's in Michigan.

Matt Moran (50:21)
She's

in Michigan and Carrie is in Canada, actually. She lives there with her husband and kids. So yeah, it's been a real amazing blessing to just add two sisters to my life who I probably don't talk to as much as I should, as much as I wish I could, but we love each other and we try to get together. We've taken several trips together and have a blast. yeah, yeah. We actually flew, my dad's Mexican.

Wilkinson (50:39)
So you've met both of them in person. ⁓

Matt Moran (50:45)
He has passed away, but we actually took a trip down to Mexico, the three of us to meet all of his family. And it was fascinating because, you know, there are many of them we resemble. mean, it was crazy to see these people that we looked like, you know, and they were blown away. I walked in the room and they were like, you're obviously Nico's son because you look exactly like him. So, yeah, it was really, it was really wild. It was really wild. We stayed in touch with them on Facebook. So, yeah, we always say we should write a screenplay about the story because there's probably more of us out there.

Wilkinson (50:52)
Wow.

Wow.

Matt Moran (51:13)
Given he was a traveling performer, I would imagine more than three women got pregnant and probably had children. So we probably have more siblings out there that we're not even aware of, but yeah, crazy. Life is crazy. So yeah, yeah, crazy, crazy.

Wilkinson (51:22)
Wow

One of my podcast, I'll tell you this briefly. So I had a, the guy's name is Adam. He was 17. His Jewish mother says to him, Adam, are you gay? Yes, mom, I'm gay. She goes into absolute hysterics, Carries on, carries on. Finally she comes down and then she says to him what you want your parent to say, which is you're my son. I will always love you, blah, blah, blah, right?

Matt Moran (51:33)
Yeah.

Wilkinson (51:50)
Then she says, well, since we're telling secrets, your father's not your father and he doesn't know.

So leave it to the Jewish mother to upstage your sons coming out, right? And there's way more to the story. goes on and on, but somebody can look it up if you wanna check it out.

Matt Moran (52:00)
Yeah, wow.

I,

it's funny you say that because I've heard from two different people who have mothers have confessed to them with their dad is not actually their dad. Yeah. It's like the whole milkman, you know, story. So, crazy how that works. Yeah. Anyway, I've told you my whole life story. mean, gosh, what else do you want to know?

Wilkinson (52:16)
Huh.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah, turns out that's it.

Come on, let's

have a little dirt here. Come on, no, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Well, you're a ton of fun.

Matt Moran (52:36)
Thanks for giving me this opportunity. this will come out. How long will it take you to put this together?

Wilkinson (52:40)
It'll come out on Sunday. It'll be on Facebook. And I'm hoping you will share this with your peeps. Cool. Well, this has been as great as I thought, but I have one more question. So I usually ask my guests, so what do you live by?

Matt Moran (52:42)
wonderful. Okay, will you you'll shoot me the link?

Perfect. Love it. Of course I will. Yes, absolutely I will. Yeah. Happy to.

Okay.

What do I live by?

Wilkinson (53:01)
Yep.

Matt Moran (53:01)
Ooh. Give me a second to think about that. What I live by?

Hmm. mean, I could think of several answers, but I want to give you a good one. ⁓

Wilkinson (53:10)
You

can do a couple. That's fine.

Matt Moran (53:12)
You know, I think one of the things, one of the things that I live by these days is that we just truly never ever know what someone else's story and experience of living has been. And I feel like I'm continually learning this lesson is just to lay my judgments down because I'm quick to judge.

And I feel like the universe has been teaching me to let go of that need or penchant because people's stories are so complex and why we behave the way we do is made up of so many different things and triggers and catalysts and who's to say that if I hadn't had their story I wouldn't behave exactly the same way. So that's one of the big lessons I'm learning in life.

and have been learning probably for the past 10 years is just to really give people grace because you just never know what they've been through. That's definitely one of them.

Another thing I live by is that there are no, this is going to sound overly woo woo, but I really believe that there are no neutral thoughts. I believe that we are either thinking thoughts that move us in the direction of the places we want to go in our lives, or we're moving backwards. They're taking us away from those goals. I don't think we often are just in neutral land. And so I have become very conscious and conscientious of

Wilkinson (54:11)
Ha

Right.

Matt Moran (54:35)
becoming the ruler of my own thoughts in my head, realizing that I get to decide what I spend time thinking about and I get to decide what thoughts move me closer toward the direction, the true north that I want to be moving toward. And if things don't line up with that true north, then I do my best to let them go. And I, you know, I fail at that every day, not perfect, but I'm in a very different head space than I used to be.

Wilkinson (54:49)
Right.

Right.

Matt Moran (55:00)
I was a very negative thinker for many, many years. Just it was like default for me. And I'm just not that person anymore. And it's taken a lot of work, but it's wonderful to become sort of the master of your own mind in that way and realize that I do get to decide how my day looks. I get to decide how I respond to everything that comes my way. You know, I get to set my course every morning and decide where my true north is and line up my compass in the direction that I want to line it up in and and

Wilkinson (55:19)
Right.

Matt Moran (55:28)
and walk according to my own value system. You know, and it doesn't need to be anybody else's value system. At the end of the day, it's just, it can be mine and that's enough. So those are two.

Wilkinson (55:38)
That's great This has been a pleasure Yeah, I really I was looking forward to it and you did not disappoint Yeah, yeah

Matt Moran (55:41)
Thank you for having me, Wilkinson.

I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. That means a lot

to me. Well, have yourself a wonderful afternoon. And I, I look forward to seeing this. All right.

Wilkinson (55:52)
I will. Yes, sir. ⁓

So we will be in touch.

Matt Moran (55:58)
Sounds good my friend. Have a good one. All right, bye bye.

Wilkinson (55:59)
Thanks.