Why Not? #author Matt Formston

Why Not?: Breaking Limits in Sport, Business and Life

Matt Formston AM is a multi-sport World Champion, Guinness World Record holder and Paralympian. Parallel to his elite sporting achievements, he has built a career as a senior corporate executive, board chair and executive coach. He is also blind.

None of Matt’s successes happened by accident. They were won through a system ― the eight Hard Standards ―that Matt forged at the intersection of professional sport and corporate leadership. He tested them over decades, inside fifty-foot Nazaré waves, on championship cycling tracks, freediving blind through shipwrecks and in boardrooms where the same principles had to hold.

Why Not? weaves those standards through every chapter. In Matt’s story, you’ll discover practical, immediately applicable principles for building clarity, discipline and accountability in your own performance.

Know when to plan, when to pull the trigger and how to tell the difference.
Audit yourself with brutal honesty before the world does it for you.
Build capacity now so your future self can perform under pressure.
Declare the goal before you’ve earned it, and do the work to deserve it.
Lead with empathy and understand what motivates others beyond the KPIs.

Why Not? is for anyone who wants to perform more consistently when it counts. If you suspect you’re capable of more, but keep finding reasons not to prove it, it’s time to stop saying, ‘I can’t.’ You need to start asking, ‘Why not?’

To connect with Matt ...
https://www.mattformston.com/books/why-not
https://www.facebook.com/mattformstonofficial/
https://www.mattformston.com/books-hub

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Good morning, Matt Formstrom. Welcome to Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Oh, it's my pleasure. Congratulations, Matt. Your latest book is out now. It's called Why Not? Matt, tell us all about the book.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Look, it's I suppose it's my memoir. It's a business book. It's self-help. It's uh it's it's lots of different things. Uh I am blind. I'm a paralympian, I'm a businessman, I'm a father. Uh, I've done lots of different things and I've learned lots of lessons, made lots of mistakes. So uh, you know, essentially the book is but the eight hard standards that I've boiled down, which uh took me from, you know, I had a hard life, I was bullied as a kid with disability, lost myself, lost my identity, ended up in pub fights, bad, bad behaviors, uh, nearly ended up dead or in jail, and I built these things to rebuild myself. And through building those things in myself, I've become who I am today.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yeah. And Matt, I'm not gonna skim over that. I'm gonna go back. This book focuses on like sheer your sheer resilience. You'd focus on, you know, that idea of accountability, as well as, you know, really, I don't want to skim over it, your high performance over the years, that dedication to that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, it does, but I think uh like there's mindset, there's all those things, but I think you can have great mindset, but if you sit in a chair and have a great mindset, the world's not going to come to you, right? Um, I I think more book is around the tools that you can actually use. There's a mindset, the why not is the mindset, right? Because I I if someone says you can't do that, I say why not? And I and I really get deep on clarity because the more you say why not, saying you I keep going deeper and deeper, you find the real problem, and the cloud more clarity you get on the on the problem, then you can actually build a solution. So that's the that's the mindset, which is you know, the whole book is called Why Not, but the eight standards are really the tools that you can use to go beyond just having a mindset to build to you know to build you know the best possible life. I've got an Order of Australian medal, a Netflix movie, multiple world champion in in multiple sports, you know, I've I've won all these business awards. They didn't all come from me having a good mindset. I mean, they that helped, obviously, but the the frameworks that I have is what helped me build those things.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

And I guess what the book really sets out is instead of like questioning um, you know, can I do something or is this possible? And then we put the word but in there, you just you're just like, why not? Like that's that's the focus.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

It is all I mean, a lot of it's my my parents gave me this. I wasn't allowed to use the word can't. Me and my siblings weren't allowed to use the word can't in our house. But I think other people, yeah, my dad said, Oh, my mum said that, or you know, I I had that from someone. But the I suppose the difference was my dad was a sales and marketing exec, he dealt with objections for a living every day. You know, he works in the alcohol industry, his team would give him objections, his clients would give him objections. So when his eight-year-old son came home and said, Dad, I can't do my homework, um the way he dealt with that was just what not rather than just saying no, you that you can get on with it, he'd say why not. And he'd make me actually answer the question and get more and get more like detailed around the problem. So by the time I'd finished explaining why I couldn't do something, I'd actually told him how I can do it.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah. And mate, you covered off on your you know, your life in the corporate world, sport, you know, but as well as like just ordinary life, getting getting through those, I guess, what breaking through limiting beliefs.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just it really is about getting back to basics, though. Like I think the last of my eight standards, there's all these different standards in the book. The last standard is trust. Um I think you know, there's a whole I'm working with a lot of clients now, Defense Force, big tech companies on on trust, because it's something that's eroding around the world. Um, and it I suppose the biggest trust lever that people want in business is is customer trust, right? Because when you've got customer trust, you can charge higher margins, you get uh better attention, less churn, all these great things. But I think all of that actually starts with self-trust. Like as individuals, we need to trust ourselves before we can then trust our teams, before we can build leadership trust. So I've got these five pillars of trust. So all the the whole book basically has these standards. Um, and I think they all layer up to being able to, you know, go from, you know, right now going, I have a goal, I want to do something, but not having any of the things you need and building all the elements you need to be able to then be the best in the world at that.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah. And Matt, can I ask about you as an author? I know you've written a previous book um regarding big wave surfing in the dark. Do you want to talk to us about you as an author? I mean, you've done some incredible stuff and you skimmed over it. You like big wave surfer, Netflix exposure, um, Paralympian, like, where do I stop? It's but you know, what's life like as an author? And tell us about that journey writing.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, uh, look, it was and uh to the point of the what the book's called, why not? Like I I spoke to uh part, I signed a deal with Ollie in November and they said, Can you get it done by February? I said, Why not? Yeah, uh and that was I I basically didn't see my kids through Christmas, so I owe them a huge for doing a road trip this year because of that, um, to pay for that. But it was it was really hard. Um, but it was really valuable. You know, well, I um I've been taught I've been standing on stages, you know, I speak verbally um and telling people for 15 years that trust is the most important thing. But writing the book actually helped me get really get clarity on what that is because I had to get my words down on paper. Um and so I've got this real clarity now around how I do help the people that I work with. Um and so that was really helpful for me to go through that process, but it was super challenging. And then you know, obviously, as a blind author, yes, uh, it was typing, listening to things with voiceover, there was a bit of a multiple hour models that I used, then working with my editor. Yeah, um, there was so many things, and my team obviously had their input as well. I had 20 ghost um like test readers that were giving me their feedback. Wow, and even that process in itself, like I had people giving me completely like one would say one loved one part, the other person would completely hate that part. So I guess making the decisions about what people like and don't like, and then you know, obviously it's making the call whether it stays or it goes.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah. Oh, look, thank you for sharing that. That's super interesting, that whole journey and and what that's like. And Matt, I mean, do you get to enjoy this one? Uh you're obviously a very busy human, but would you write again? Like, is do you think I mean there's is there things that you you know you might consider writing again?

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Oh absolutely, I absolutely um because obviously I got to the last chapter which was around trust.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Um, and obviously there's all those all the other, there's all these other standards in there, but in the trust one I'm super excited about. Um and I'm noticing now, like you know, we're losing trust in government, we're losing trust in the world, we lose trust in, we're just losing faith. We're all you know sitting on completely polar ends of the spectrum on everything these days as humans. And I think trust is something that's just underutilized. And I've I've developed through the writing of the book, I wrote I've developed a formula which is standards times consistency times time, which I call my business trust or personal trust formula. Um, and that that output is is multiple, the multiplication is the uh is like the most important part of that. It's not an addition, it's multiplication. So if any one of those three variables is zero, it's all zero. So you've got to have standards, you have to do it consistently, and you do it over time. So I'm right now gathering the data. I'm working with you know big logo, on that formula. So I plan to write a book in a couple of years that's gonna be all about trust. Um, and and and that what I said, the layering of you know, first having self-trust, how do you build that in yourself before you can expect it of others, all the different layers, and then bring logos and bring different CEOs in to help me talk about their journey of trust so I could share that with people. So yeah, I'm already thinking about it. Ah, love it. I'm already uh scared of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

So good. Well, look, I really enjoy Why Night. I think I I learned a lot about you that I didn't know. I mean, I was familiar with you from the corporate world and um you as a speaker. Um, but you know, enjoy some family time this year, and I would love to have you back when future books comes out. I'll happily continue to support you. Matt, it's been a delight. Matt, you've got a website. I'm gonna put that in the show notes. I'll put extra information in the show notes to help anyone listening anywhere in the world who might want to get curious about you and the book. Is there any other spaces you're on socials? Do you want to point us in a direction?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Uh no, just my website, mattformston.com. Uh, I'm on all socials. I'm not very good at it if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

You're too busy.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, I've got other things going on. But uh, yeah, just my my website's a great place to start.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Yeah, awesome. I'll do that. Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. All the best.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Really appreciate you having me.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Cheers.