Walking the Path of Leadership: Courage, Growth & Transformation

In this episode of Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, host James Ainsworth speaks with Matthew Liam Gardner, founder of the School of Living Myth. Matthew is preparing for a transformative journey—walking the length of the UK along the Spine of Albion. This epic endeavor is more than a physical challenge; it’s a powerful metaphor for personal growth, integrity, and living with purpose.

🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✔️ How walking into the unknown can unlock your purpose and potential.
✔️ The role of myth and storytelling in modern masculinity.
✔️ Why discipline, courage, and taking action lead to real transformation.
✔️ How to navigate fear, uncertainty, and self-doubt on your path.
✔️ The power of mentorship and community in building resilience.
✔️ Why reconnecting with nature and movement can heal and inspire.

💡 Who This Episode Is For:
→ Men feeling stuck, searching for purpose, or craving clarity.
→ Those struggling with fear, overthinking, or a lack of direction.
→ Leaders who want to guide others with authenticity and wisdom.
→ Anyone drawn to self-discovery, growth, and redefining what success means.

🎧 Subscribe & Listen Now to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning for honest, actionable conversations about modern masculinity, overcoming fear, and creating a life aligned with your values.

Transcript

0:00

In this episode, we take a deep dive into sacred leadership. We talk about what sacred leadership is. How it differs from modern unconventional leadership. And how you can start to embrace sacred leadership. in your life right now. Welcome to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose, and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear Embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes. Get practical advice and powerful insights. Struggling with career, relationships or personal growth? We've got you covered. Join us on Man Quest to Find Meaning. Now, let's dive in.

James: 0:57

We each have a role within the ecosystem of life on Earth. One of the great missions of our lives is attuning to that role and living it. Good morning, Matthew. What do you mean by that statement?

Matthew: 1:12

Hello, brother. Lovely to be here with you. So the Earth is an ecosystem and we are all here a part of it. And I think one of the, one of the wisdoms that's been lost is that we arrive into the world With, uh, like the role that we play within the ecosystem actually seeded inside us, you can say it's seeded in the DNA. You can say it's part of the soul of each of us individually, but it's part of the life journey of each of us to find our way to building our relationship with that role within the ecosystem. And you can think about it through like a ecosystem. You know, the animal lens, like, the badger has a role within the ecosystem of life. The elephants have a role within the ecosystem of life. The trout has a particular role. They all have a player place. They all have a place and fit into a role within kind of the greater story. And we have that as humans, but we also have that as animals. as individuals, as individual kind of unique threads within the greater whole. So I love that your podcast and the exploration here is all about meaning because I feel like that's a real awakening on earth right now is, you know, what is the meaning that already Lives inside me. You know, what's, what's the meaning that's already here that I get to kind of grow to attune to over time?

James: 2:32

Yeah. That's, um, so I feel as though we all have this, we all have this soul inside us. And that soul, when we attune to it with its intuition, whatever you wanna call it, is almost our, it's our guiding compass. And when we trust our intuition, our compass is able to direct it. But when we kind of get caught up in the outside world, it almost becomes hard, it almost becomes overwhelming and hard to actually understand and to decipher. Our direction.

Matthew: 3:06

Yeah. Yeah. I really hear that. But the way that it sits, you know, we all kind of find our way to metaphors that work for us individually. And one of the metaphors that really works for me is almost it's almost like the river of destiny and we're always on the river of of destiny. All of us in every in every moment are on the river of destiny. It's just the depth of the river that we've found our way to. It's the quality of ourselves that we've found our way to. And. Over a lifetime, if we really stay the course and, you know, spiral deeper into ourselves and go through these journeys of transformation and remembering and courageous stepping forward, I feel like we touch deeper layers of the river. We kind of come into deeper expressions of ourselves and, you know, someone might be on the surface. There's still an expression of like. Kind of the core of who they are, but there's a quality that, that becomes more apparent when we go into the deeper, the deeper meaning, the deeper self, you know, the, the expression of ourselves at the core of it all.

James: 4:12

It just brings, it just rings a bell now, actually. I remember when I went to South America doing white water rafting, and I was caught in a swirl underneath the water. And it's almost like I almost feel like, now you mention that, the swirl, the deeper you go, the, you get a swirl. And underneath that swirl, it's almost like it shakes you up, shakes the old version of you, to help you to unleash the new version.

Matthew: 4:36

Yeah, totally. One of the, I love that. I love that. I would love to hear about that story sometime too, by the way. Um, for me, it's, it's almost like the, the depths of the river are like, we're kind of going into the unconscious. So we're going out of what we think we are into like the deeper truth of ourselves that we have to awaken to. And it's quite a radical thing to really, Contact who we are at the core of ourselves, particularly because we've been conditioned by the world. So so strongly and we kind of come with layers of trauma. And so when we contact when we contact those deeper parts of ourselves, it's a real radical thing. And one of the ways I like to talk about it is. You know, if we want to swim in the depths, we're going to have to learn to breathe water. And that's a transformational process. Like we have, it's almost like going from the one that floats on the surface to the one who grows gills and becomes a whole other being. So there's this transformational, almost this mythic transformational process where we become Something that we don't, we wouldn't originally recognize necessarily, but it is so innately the truth of what we are. And I just, I love that idea of having to become something else, but that something else is actually like the deeper truth of us.

James: 5:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I hear you wouldn't I? Yeah, it was, it was quite a terrifying experience, the, uh, whitewater rafting, but it was, it was fun overall. Can you tell us about yourself? Who, who are you, shall we

Matthew: 6:06

say? Yeah, so my name, my name is Matthew Liam Gardner. I have, um, you could call me a teacher and a mentor. I'm something like that. Uh, I I, I lead, I founded and I lead a mystery school or a wisdom school called School of Living Myth and this is our second year now. I've been mentoring and teaching for two decades now at kind of increasing levels of quality along the way. It's been a really long journey of kind of finding my way to where I am now. Yeah, the school has been my kind of the thing I'm dedicated to the last couple of years. Um, it is a space where some of the forgotten wisdoms come through and some of the emergent ones arise as well. So, you know, we're connected to the threads of ancestry and ancestors. We're connected to threads of like the great cycles of time and the story of humanity and the story of us individually. destiny and embodiment, all kind of woven in together, purpose, you know, all of that woven in together. That's where I spend my days. And we just, we take it from a bit of a, you could say I come in from a bit of a, it's almost part esoteric, Len, a part esoteric side, but it's also part indigenous. Um, I think a lot of what I'm holding point for in the world is almost like, uh, In some ways, it's European people or Caucasian people or white people remembering that they have a seat at the fire as well and, and remembering what it takes to like, find our way to that seat. Um, you know, when we say culture, often when someone says culture, often they point away from themselves, culture, it's over there, you know, like indigenous is over there. And there's this reclamation process that is a long one, and it's very nuanced, but it's about coming back to pointing at ourselves and saying culture, pointing at ourselves and saying indigenous or at least belonging and everything that comes with that, which is a real, you know, it's a real kind of deep humanity journey that we're on right now. Oh, and I'm also doing this walk. I'm about to go, and I'm about to walk. Roughly 900 miles, somewhere between 900 and a thousand miles thereabouts we think it's going to be from the Isle of Wight up the up and along the spine of Albion which is a Like a sacred site, ley line, energy portal, magic, all along the, like, straight up the middle of Britain, all the way to Durness in Scotland's far north, and it's a bit of a personal pilgrimage, a rite of passage, and a community stirring at the same time, a bit of a cultural renewal, a call for cultural renewal at the same time, and I begin in like nine days, so I'm right in the thick of it right now, brother.

James: 8:53

Nice, um. I would love to hear, how did you actually get onto this path? What was it that, because I don't know if you're like me, but it took me probably a good 20, um, 28, 30 years to really, to get rid of, not get rid of, to kind of realize that there's more to life than what I was living. How did you get onto this path, this journey?

Matthew: 9:19

Yeah, I feel like I started really young in a subtle way because I, I was the oldest brother and I was in the fatherless household and little me, like really, when, when, when dad left, I made it mean, you know, You know, it's, it's my job to be a leader for my brothers and it's my, and I kind of had a sense of things, you know, I could fit as a four year old. I used to go up to people at traffic lights and say, why are you fat? Or I'd go up smoking. I'd be like, do you want to die? Why are you smoking? You know, I'm just like, I was this kind of really direct straight shooter, four year old. Um, and I had this sense that the world was something wasn't, wasn't quite right. Like right is the way I would maybe describe it like there was a there was some stuff kind of the world was weird And I I not everything was as it seemed I kind of got that one pretty early on And so my love for my brothers really set me on a journey of like finding my way to you could say truth or what is real or what is actually sustainable or what is actually love And that just catalyzed me into You early days, personal development, Tony Robbin world, you know, like, um, just really journeying through those realms. And eventually I got to a point where I was old enough and I started doing workshops and then I started doing my own retreats and then I've kind of journeyed quite far along those, along that road, that road. And I've just found myself in a space now where, cause the road continues, you know, like the spiral continues. There's always, you know, everything that we think we want to be, we kind of one day get there. Uh, and then. Eventually it spirals into the next thing as well and you know like the like that fish in the water Like we don't know what comes after we get there And so I kind of got to some places and then have spiraled into the next stage So i've just been following the thread my whole life and To be honest, I'm a little, I love it. There's like, it's, it's just such a rich and exciting adventure. Like if, if I'm going to be a human being and living on earth right now, I'm going to be on the quest of becoming myself and I'm going to be on the adventure of like learning everything that I can and, um, becoming everything that I can in this lifetime. So it just, to me, it feels like a great adventure and like the only game. Like, they're only big game really worth playing, so I want to play it.

James: 11:46

Yeah, nice. It's um, it's one of them, one of them journeys that once you start and you realize, yes, it's hard, but you wouldn't, I, I would never go back. I would never go back to where I was 10 years ago, simply because the changes that you kind of incorporate into yourself are life changing. And it's this idea that when you start to discover who you actually are, there's a sacredness to it. And that sacredness is where we can really discover what we're actually meant to do here. And as you said, you know, you have this idea that I'm going to be this new version of me, but you get this new version. And you've got another new version, and another new version, and it's always like layering up. You're like a computer game, you know, you, you battle one thing, and you level up in the game, and you're like, yes, next one. But yeah, it's this, this journey that of explore, exploring ourselves to really, I reckon sometimes to drop the outer layers.

Matthew: 12:54

Yeah, so just just hearing you share that what I was feeling was this journey of, you know, one day you and I are going to be in our 70s. And I don't know about you, but for me, I'm never going to retire. Like that's not my journey. I'm like, this is, this is about so much more than money or, you know, this, this is like a way of being and a life to be lived. So the 70 year old me is going to be very different to the, to who I am right now. You know, there's going to be. The Adelaide is that will peel off and I'll probably be a lot slower. I'll probably be a lot, a lot more graceful, not so fiery and, you know, pokey all the time. And I suppose what I'm saying there is, yeah, the Adelaide is fall off. And in some sense, as we come deeper into life, like the kind of that squidgy inner being reveals themselves like the grace and the innocence and the needing help. Sometimes, you know, it's, you know, that the whole idea of like, The deeper into life we get, we kind of come back to being a child and, you know, the like really kind of integrated elders also deeply embody their child and allow themselves to receive support and still powerfully stand in who they are. Um, but that's who I think is this full circle that we go on. Um, yeah, shedding those skins as we do.

James: 14:12

It's, um, you tend to get told as a, as a teenager. That, stop being a child, grow up, then you get to probably your 30s if you're lucky, 40s definitely, and you're told, and you know, you learn that, do you know something, I want to be more like a child, so you kind of have this idea that you get told not to be a child, and then you get told, and then not get told, you kind of learn to be a child again, and when you start to learn that, to be that child again, there's that um, That childlike playfulness and that lightness, so almost that sense of surrender. You can't control what's happening. And so I think a lot of children just kind of roll with it.

Matthew: 14:55

Yeah. It's, it's, it's just about, you know, finding our way to being ourselves while also, you know, that becomes brings back that river of destiny, you know, we're still floating on the river, you know, and there has, there does have to be a surrender along the way, because like the current's got us and we can either fight it or like go with it. And the going with it is trust. You know, like there are times to forge our path, but even that is a trusting, you know, to like this walk, for instance, I, it doesn't make sense, but I have to trust and there is a forging in it, but it's still me just kind of surrendering to the deeper call and there is a deeper call, you know, the, I said the deeper call, but it's the, it's almost like what compels us. What, what compels us, even though we can't necessarily make sense of it, we don't need to really. It's just, if it, if it calls us so powerfully that we have to answer it's for us, you know, there's almost no doubt around it.

James: 15:56

Yeah, definitely. You talk about sacred leadership. What is sacred leadership?

Matthew: 16:04

Yeah. So one of my mentors is a, is a man called Mack McCartney and he's, I think he's I think his next birthday is 74. I think so. Something like that. And I consider Mac to be one of the key elders here in the UK, in Britain. And one of the things he says I really love, it's, you know, everyone has the pieces that they take with them and say it over and over again, and this is one of his. So I want to, I don't just want to say it, I want to let people know this is his. He says. When you know what you most deeply and profoundly love, you have in a sense defined what is sacred to you. When you know what it is that you most deeply and profoundly love, you have in a sense defined what is sacred to you. And so there's lots of directions we could go talking about sacred leadership, but I feel for today that probably the most important part is just to acknowledge that it is, it is. letting ourselves be penetrated and changed and grown by what we most deeply and profoundly love and really trusting that what we deeply and profoundly love is our sacred work in the world. It is our, it is what we're called to and It almost shows the way in some ways. So it comes back to this really simple and it's and it's in its simplest way it comes back to this simple idea of like okay like what do you like love so much that it brings tears to your eyes and what is so profoundly real for us that it Just it just changes us like what I see some of my brothers when they have a child and they hold that child in their Hands for the first time and then it changed like they are changed in that moment. Something goes Like and now we're in a whole other timeline, you know They are grown by this almost initiatory moment and it's the same for like what we love but I know this is part of why I love what you're up to because Us attuning to what we really love like and because we have to be set where sense making beings we have to make sense of the feelings in the polls and I don't know if all that many people take the time in their lives to really spend time resting into what is it that I most deeply and profoundly love and can I give my life to that can I be courageous enough to give my life to And that's the beginnings of sacred leadership. It's, it's that the willingness to, to be the love that we are in the world. And, you know, when, when we love something so much that it brings tears to our eyes that activates. It that activates and initiates those deeper layers of us, you know, it calls upon the strength all of a sudden where we're moving through the world charged with a love and a Courage, you know, I don't know about you but In some in some sense for me going back to my brothers in the beginning. It was my love for my brothers That became my life path And then my brothers are now my human family And so it's that same love still that compelled me to begin this journey with my brothers that's actually got me walking this walk. You know, it's, it's my love for the change. It doesn't even make sense necessarily, but it's my love for the, the change and the evolution of all of us and us coming into the next chapter together, beginning to do this better together. So, yeah, what, what do you most deeply and profoundly love? I soaked in those words for a couple of years and I tell you what, it changed me. There's no other way to say it. Just sitting with, you know, I like to sit with particular things for a few seasons. Some, some things are like for just a moment or just a day. Other things are like for a couple of years and that one for me was for a couple of years. And those were the years where I transitioned into the school transitioned into, um, what I would call a bit of a deeper path. And I began to my experiences. I began to embody. Something that I could always feel was possible in my life, but like my poetry, for instance, I could all read people's poetry or their writing and I'd be like, how does that person write so well, like, you know, I could, I would try, but I could never quite get my soul into my words, you know, it was very, it was very mindy in a lot of ways. Ends. Over those years being connected to what I most deeply and profoundly love, it brought through my love into my words. It brought my soul into my words. And so my writing matured and it grew. And so this is, it's part of how that love changes us. It literally grows us because we're, it's like being invested. And I come from a sports background. And I have always my whole life being all the way in wherever I am. So if I'm on the, if I'm playing 40, you know, football and I'm on the, I'm on the field, I'm going to bring all of myself to that experience. And it's just the same all these years later, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to bring all of myself to my poetry. I'm going to bring all of myself to my writing. If I'm going to sit in circle with my brothers, I'm going to bring all of myself there. And I think. It's that love that makes that happen. It's that love that pulls us into the moment and has us fully engaged. I think we live in a moment where a lot of our, a lot of our brothers out there are really tentative. They've kind of got one foot in life and one foot out of life. You know, there's a, and I mean, What was that?

James: 22:04

Is it back and forth? Yeah, back and forth. And there's, and I think it's really fair that there's a back and forth. I think that's really, it's, it's justified, but there is. There is something to be said for truly choosing the, like, what we deeply know to be true inside us and trusting, trusting the path is gonna take us to all the places that we never knew we had to go to and we just have to lean in. So that's been my experience. In the next stage of it all, um, through these words from Mac. Yeah. That, that relates, I've heard it before about, from other, from people about your purpose is what you look doing. And with the podcast, what I found is that this is, this will be the 28th pod, uh, interview that I've done. And so it's this idea that when you find something that you love doing, it flows as well. So literally I started in August and literally the podcast just flowed and I've even had got to a point where I had six weeks in New Zealand and I, what I did was that I made sure I got enough episodes for it to stream while I was away. So, but it's just one of those things that just flows, people come in, the episodes flow, the editing flows, and it's about, I feel as though when it comes to the idea of, um, doing what you love, there's a sense that when you are able to literally just drop in and let it flow, it becomes easy, timeless.

Matthew: 23:51

Yeah,

James: 23:51

becomes timeless.

Matthew: 23:52

Yeah. Yeah. I believe that. I really believe that. And that's, that's my experience as well. It's like we, when we're doing what we are supposed to be doing, it just makes sense. We feel it. It's not always comfortable and it's not always easy, but it does flow. You know, it does ask, it does ask things of us, but it does absolutely feel, we just know it in our bodies, don't we? We, Oh, this is, I'm supposed to be doing this. There's just. This is it for sure.

James: 24:23

This just feels right. How does sacred leadership differ from normal leadership?

Matthew: 24:31

Yeah, so I think there's a couple of different ways we could talk about it. Um, but I just want to kind of meet the time frames that we have here and just what this is. You can think about it as the, the being changed by that love over time. So, you know, we've been speaking about spiraling and changing as time goes on. Sacred leadership means that we are, like we said, like that statement you said at the beginning, there is an ecosystem on earth and we are taking our role within it. So sacred leadership is when we're living that role beyond industry. Beyond modern constructs of like, beyond like modern constructs of society, we can still be, you know, doing all of that as well, but it is the part, it's the role that we're playing that is beyond the conditioning of our time. And what I mean by that is, you know, for instance, you could, you could say that I'm a coach still, I coach and I mentor and that's, I still do one on one sessions with people. That's a part of my life. Um, but then if you look at this walk, which. is a, is an act of community rallying and cultural renewal. And there's no kind of gain in it for me. Not that sacred leadership doesn't have an exchange. There's a deeper it's coming from a deeper place than looking after myself. It's coming from a place of who am I and what's my role on earth in these times? And do I have the courage and willingness to actually play that role? So it's almost like the role that we play outside of industry, even if it expresses itself in industry. So take, take a carpenter as an example. Someone who builds things, they make things, they make things that are functional. Some carpenters like to make things that are beautiful and they have their job, like their carpentry job where they make houses or they or cabinets or however it plays out. That same carpenter, not just doing their job, but actually thinking where am I going to bring my carpentry skills, my creation skills on earth right now that, that adds the most of my abilities and craft and love to this world. And so they can still have the job, but there's also this like, This turning towards the, the contribution of a greater dreaming. You know, we're all a part of a greater dreaming and the sacred leadership is when we engage into that greater dreaming. Not just the, the surface level. The surface level is I'm a carpenter. I do my job. I make things for people. Like perhaps the deeper level is I have a craft that can literally tangibly build. The physical world that comes next, how am I going to, how am I going to be part of building the world that comes next and how can I use my, my skills to do that? And some carpenters find their ways to, for instance. Building roundhouses and creating like spaces where some of the cultural renewal and men's circles and sweat lodges and these like these sort of things where they can take place, their carpentry begins to create the opportunities. For, you know, someone like me or someone like you to come in and hold that circle and be in that space. And so they're playing their role. We're playing our role, however it looks. And, but it's where it's coming from. What depth of the river is it coming from? That is what defines the sacred leadership piece.

James: 28:17

So it's almost going from the idea that leadership that leadership is. about the external people. So it's, it's about me to thinking about the bigger picture, the more, more along the lines of where as a human race are we heading?

Matthew: 28:40

Totally. It's almost like if you think of our, if we think about human family, like humanity as our human family, which we actually are, you know, you can kind of like trace us all back to some big kind of shared beginnings in some, um, In some way, right? So we are a human family in some sense, the same way that all elephants are related. You know, we are all connected in that same relational way. And it's relating to the human family as a grown one, not a, not a taker from the ecosystem, but a contributor to the ecosystem. The contributing to the ecosystem is, is the leadership part of sacred leadership. The how we contribute, that's the sacred. So it's like, okay, so we're contributing to the ecosystem. We're playing our unique role. Yeah, the, the quality of our unique role. That's the sacred. Can we contribute to the ecosystem in the way that is not just the most quantitative, but is the most qualitative as according to the being that I am. Like for me, for instance, my most quality contribution to the ecosystem isn't carpentry. That's not, that's not mine. I'm a, I'm like a. human relations kind of person. I'm a bit more of a, you know, I've got to know, and that's, that's innate to me. That's like innate to how I've, part of how I was raised, a part of what lives in my DNA, a part of how my dad is a cuddly being, you know, it's like, it's a part of the story of me that I have to attune to over a lifetime and then live that in a way that contributes to the ecosystem.

James: 30:22

So it's more how, it's more about how can we co create for each of us have a different piece of the puzzle and it's about almost bringing this piece of the puzzle together to make the bigger whole.

Matthew: 30:42

Yes, yeah, and in that world don't have gurus anymore, because, whoever the teacher is, or whoever's playing the role of teacher is equal to the carpenter. Because the carpenter is playing their highest expression of their role, the teacher's playing their highest expression of their role, the cook is playing their highest expression of their role. And because we're all playing our highest expressions of our roles. We're all like, that's the circle. That's the circle of like true equality. And it's, we're all grown. We're all in grown states of humanity contributing to the ecosystem. So that's the, that's the dream anyway.

James: 31:25

So how, how can, so if anybody listening here now, how can people start to really move from leadership into sacred leadership?

Matthew: 31:37

Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I think the first piece is to acknowledge that they're already living their destiny. Like, that's a bit of a humbling thing for some people, particularly if you're, if you're broke, or if you're in a relationship breakdown, or just in a moment in life where it's just a bit, of the same thing over, you know, or, or we're just focused on, you know, doing particular things that excite us and caught up in our own kind of excitement. Um, I think the first thing to acknowledge is that we're all living our destiny. And just to rest into that, like to breathe that for a moment, this is my destiny. Like I, like I am already an expression of myself. I am already Living who I am now, my, my, my role, my task, my quest is, can I spiral into a deeper quality in the seasons and the years and the decades ahead so that the quality of me. is even more of what I am in the world. So an acknowledgement of the destiny and then a beginning to explore and just consider like contemplate, it's pretty simple stuff. It's like contemplating what the, what the deeper expression might be. You know, the, the carpentry is a good example. Okay. I'm making cabinets and I'm helping people out and I'm being looked after and I've got a solid income because of that. Like, what, What might be a deeper expression of this? And the answer to that question is going to be driven by love. It's not like something that we're like, Okay, we have to logically, architecturally work out. Um, it's not like, Okay, I can make cabinets, I should make cabinets over here. It's like, I can make cabinets. I'm a, I am a craftsman of cabinets. What, where is my love for building things and using my hands, drawing me? Where am I called? Like listening to the call, you know, the same, the same kind of call that takes me, that inspired me to start the wisdom school, that has inspired me to do this walk. Like, we have to listen to the call that's going to call us a little bit deeper, and we'll get, we'll get dozens of them over a lifetime, you know, these calls, sometimes they're big, sometimes they're small, but if we don't make ourselves available to hear them, available to be Penetrated by the call or penetrate, I say penetrated, but I mean, like contacted for it to kind of wake up inside us, then we're not able to hear it if we just stay busy all the time that find our way to the silence in the openness, then nothing can get in. We're just constantly, you know, swiping, scrolling, doing calling, watching, you know, and. Yes, I suppose coming full circle, it's about creating space for the call to reach you and just by being open to what that is, we can be touched and called to some way that we're not yet. So honoring that we're already on destiny and then opening ourselves to the call. This is kind of hero's journey stuff. You know, you gotta, we gotta be, we gotta be like willing to hear the thing. And I think it just takes a, yeah, it takes a willingness to listen, to take space, to listen.

James: 35:04

It's, it's hard to listen because you're in this fast paced world. And we're, especially, I think me men, men are very good at doing, doing, doing, doing. And it's hard sometimes if you just to slow down. And what I'm finding at this moment in time, this just this last, this, this week, this last day is almost take action what you can. and then surrender it, let it go, and then take an action, surrender, take action, surrender. And it is a nice balance of masculine action, surrender, feminine, and it's this nice spiral. And it just seems to, You know, in the past I've been like, go, go, go, go. And then when something's not working or I get a little bit overwhelmed, I go and find something to distract myself. Yeah, I,

Matthew: 36:07

um, we have a, I live in an old Tibetan Buddhist sanctuary. It's really a farmhouse, but it still has its like Tibetan Buddhist roots here. Um, and we have an altar downstairs and sometimes we place an altars for those who don't know. It's like just a a sacred table where you just kind of put put things, you know, put little statues or you put flowers and it's just a little holy intention holding table and I could just put things on that altar over and over again. I'm putting something on the altar, I'm doing, I'm putting things on the altar but it's only when I've stopped after putting it on the altar and really take it and be with it and drop into a moment of real presence. That is when we kind of enter a space of prayer or a space of openness, a space of holiness, a space of real presence. And it's that, that's what the elf is there for. It's not there to have stuff. It's there for the moments where it's gets to touch us, where we get to be touched by the energy of the altar, by the presence, by the meaning that lives on the altar. So, you know, we can do all these things, but if when, if we never create space to be touched by what we're doing and, and really feel how we're spending our time, then we're just, we're almost in this like artificial AI mind planning, kind of like creation, do this, do that. And we can never, we're almost distracted by our own kind of our own lives. We can't find our way to the, the deeper beauty that wants to be lived and the, the deeper call that wants to come through and the soul that wants to find its way to the skin, not just like in the deep bone, not just in kind of kind of hidden in the core of us. It wants to find its way to the surface.

James: 38:09

Nice. Um, So, obviously, finding space and always being overcome by distraction, distraction, distraction. What other challenges would people, will people, um, kind of come up against when stepping into sacred leadership?

Matthew: 38:29

Yeah, that's a really good question. I feel like where we find we there's this ebb and flow of being whole and being broken or being, you know, we kind of know ourselves know thyself and then we lose ourselves and some people kind of find their way to knowing knowing things they find their way to being the Noah. Okay, I've made it on this is my role. This is my sacred leadership role. And they go, Okay, this is where it is. And the challenge is. That that's Not where you end up, that's where we are right now, and we, and at some point there will be a humbling or an unmaking or a continuing that we have to allow ourselves to go on, and so we have a lot of, um, for instance, I'll speak into, like, I experience a lot of the gurus of this age, um, A lot of people who sit on thrones and speak knowledge, I experienced them to be beautiful and deeply magical, but also disconnected from the relational field of humanity, like they're not down on. on the level with us in relation. And it's a lot easier to kind of like say holy awakening things when you're not in the the to's and the fro's and of the biological tribal relation that is kind of here with the human family. So you could say that the actual the growth for gurus Is to get off the throne to get down with the people and for them to move from being gurus to elders to being the one that knows to being the one that's a part of it all and is both being changed by the others by the other human beings and also gently calling the human family to the place that they belong. You know, they feel is true. So it's a guru isn't relational. It's kind of, uh, it's a Piscean age one at the top. Everyone else listening. Elder is relational. It's almost the same idea in some ways, but one of them is in the community in the human family in the village, and they're not just the one that they're also being changed. And if the gurus were changed, They'd become relational, they'd become, they'd kind of get down into it with us and they would be penetrated by the rest of us as well. So, yeah.

James: 40:57

Yes, it's almost like one's on a pedestal, but then sometimes being on a pedestal, that can become your blind spot. Yes, you know, you, you, you almost, you almost because you sometimes you can almost have too much, you know, too much power and people should do what you should you say. Whereas I think when you're when you are there within the people. The one who is able to give, give knowledge, but also accept knowledge. Yes. You almost become that person who, it's, it's, I, I feel as though it's wisdom doesn't come from you. It comes through you.

Matthew: 41:40

Yeah, I love that. I love that. And it also allows like, you know, all of us together as a, like the collective of us is way more sent. We are a sensory being like a sensory collective being all of us. And so. The real art is for us to learn, be able to learn from each other and to be able to, like, be a sensory organism together, not just one direction to here, but for all directions to come online and for us to begin to feel our way through life. But to answer your your question just one more time in a bit more succinctly, um, and it's kind of connected to everything what is speaking about that one of the challenges that is that people don't. People think that they've come to the end or they don't they don't remember that the spiral continues and the spiral continues the spiral of change will always continue like, you know, you become the fish at the bottom of the river. And then you got to become a crab, you know, like the, the form, um, evolves over time. And so the best thing that people can do is just to go forward, knowing that it's just always going to, the spiral is going to continue. There is always going to be risings and fallings. The sun will rise and the sun will fall. The moon will rise. then the moon will fall, the tides will rise, then the tides will fall. But we're going to continue to rise and fall, find our way to like expressions of ourselves, integrate that, ground into that, and then continue on. And having the courage to continue is probably one of the greatest, the courage to continue, one of the greatest magics ends. um, arts of our humanity, um, particularly for those in leadership, the courage to like, you know, there was a time where I was, I was in my like six figure month coach phase and I had to have the courage to continue to let go of the business. That wasn't the truth of me anymore that I could make the money, but it wasn't the deeper expression of me. I had to let that go to step into the real world. The next chapter and which for me has been a more of a spiritual path, you know, some people go the other way as well. Like, you know, there's no wrong or right direction. It's just mine was in integrity with myself, the courage to be in integrity with myself and my integrity changes our integrity changes as we move along the spiral because we become attuned to new things. We awaken to different things and we have to. Hold that same quality of integrity. It just means different things at different points. Sometimes integrity means stepping forward and really standing for ourselves in the world and building the business. Sometimes like the business that's different to the thing or the, or the message, the service. Other times it's literally letting go of the thing we just built to like drop into the next layer of it all. So coming from the coaching world and the Tony Robbins world, Um, I don't think they talk, there's not very much talk about what comes next, you know, there's not very much talk about, okay, after the decade of having made it, you're, you're, you are asked to also in some way, let it go. And become the next thing that you are. And I think that's like, that's sacred to let go of the thing that is like defined as making it in like the terms of success in this age, that asks for such an integrity. It, like it asked me, I got to the point where I said the words. I think I've made it and it asked for so much integrity and willingness and I'm still like it's just that, you know, it comes back to that same old idea of at the end of the day, the only person that we have to be have to impress or have to be right with is ourselves. And yeah, that's what integrity is, is being right with ourselves. And so it's just my conversation with myself and it's every man every other man's conversation with themselves. Are you right with yourself? And are you like, do you feel like you're an integrity with yourself with how you're choosing to move in life and live in life? And if you are great, continue. And know that that integrity is going to change as you grow, because it's how you grow, it's going to ask, integrity will ask different things, so you have to hold that same courage. I used to love watching weight loss shows, like Biggest Loser kind of stuff, I don't know if you had it over here in Britain, we had it in Australia. Yeah, yeah. I just had a thing for that. Cause I love the, like the visual transformation and the trainers would always say that the contestants would say, is it going to get easier? And the trainers would say, it's going to get harder, but you're going to get stronger. And it's the same with integrity. Like, like, is it, am I going to get to the place of like the end of it all? And the answer is no, but you're going to be so strong in your integrity and so, uh, in tune with yourself. That you're, you are going to feel like you're moving through the world is who you really are, and that is a beautiful thing.

James: 47:02

Yeah, nice, nice. Can we, can you talk about your trip, your walk? And you mentioned before we obviously went live that you're starting to feel a little bit of fear. Can you explain a little bit more?

Matthew: 47:19

Yeah, so the walk is from, uh, the southern tip of the Isle of Wight, um, up the centre of England through Scotland to Durness in Scotland's far north. It's not the longest walk in the UK. There's there's another one. Actually the longest walk is around the entire perimeter. Like the great coast it's like what it's like 2, 000 something miles or something 3, 000. I don't know. It's wild. And there's another one that goes from Is it Jono Grotes to something landing? I don't know. Anyway, it's like down in Cornwall to the other tip. It's almost S shape. Um, but I'm doing the spine, spine of Albion, which has a special significance. Because it represents the, yeah, the spine of these lands, the actual, like the vertebrae of these lands, the, the Kundalini of these lands, um, and as I, as I walk along the act of it all, and people coming to walk with me and all, and all the kind of the magic and the drumming that we'll do and the just having a good time and having chats and, um, little circles we'll do along the way, that is like a massage up the spine of the body. Some people like to massage Like a human body. I like to massage, like, like a whole block of land and people. And that's my kind of like craft. But you said the fear. It is a rite of passage. You know, there's no, like, it is a rite of passage. My grandfather passed six weeks ago. I'm now the oldest man in that family line. And I feel it. I feel the presence of it. Um, I don't want to put too much meaning on it, because we're not really supposed to put, I'm not supposed to put too much meaning on this thing, because the meaning is going to reveal itself to me. But it does feel like a rite of passage, moving from like, moving into young, if it was the olden days, or the ancient days, it'd be like, I'm coming into the beginnings of Wise One. Like age, age wise and life stage wise, um, yeah, the beginnings of wise one, you know, it almost goes, it almost goes like adult wise one elder, you know, and each of them are like 20 year blocks, roughly almost like a generation each in some ways that we live through life. And so my, yeah, I'm coming into wise one and it isn't because it's a rite of passage. I just know what comes with that. I've been in, I've had some chronic illness. I've had a meniscus tear for the last 18 months. One leg is less developed now than the other from the amount that I haven't been bearing weight on it. Um, I've got a frozen shoulder, which is like 70 percent healed. Um, and I just know that I'm going to, there will be points along this way where even though it doesn't make sense, I will feel like I'm genuinely going to die. And it will probably be an ego death. It'll probably be part of what it takes to grow gills or to learn to breathe water, to like, to live the deeper, what it is to live the deeper currents of the river. But it's going to, in the moment, feel like I'm dying or that I'm terrified and Yeah, that's just a head for me and to kind of make it make it be a bit more tangible for some people. You know, there's gonna there'll be moments where I'll get hit by a car. They'll be, you know, like walking on roads though or like gently hit by a car. There'll be a moment where. Um, hooligans are like doing donuts around my tents. These things have happened before, right? I've been hit by a car doing a long walk before. I've had hooligans go around my tent before. I've had to like, you know, try and find somewhere to sleep in the place where I shouldn't sleep. And I've like, had to put my tent down behind an Aldi, you know, like it's like, there's like the homelessness and then people shaking the tent in the middle of the night sort of thing, you know, like, um, And then on top of that, the blisters and the soreness and then just having to continue. So it's, it's a lot for me right now, not being like the young, young, young man that I once was. Um, maybe when I was 23, this would have felt a little different. It would have felt a bit more like a athletic thing. But, um, at the moment with my body state and, kind of coming into my 40s now, it just feels a bit more like, whew, like this is going to be hard. It's going to be really hard. And I am going to suffer and I choose it. And that scares me.

James: 52:02

It's almost like bring it on kind of thing. But what I would love to do is when you are back after your walk, we can do another episode. and we can explore, um, a little bit about what, what happened and what you learned along the way. I'd love that. So just to finish off, can you tell people a little bit About what you do.

Matthew: 52:27

Yeah, so, so we have school of living myth. Um, essentially that's a place where I mentor emerging leaders and I say emerging, but that's not really an age based thing. It's just a readiness based thing. So I, I, I mentor people through the journey of stepping forward into themselves in a deeper way. Yeah, it's just a really beautiful community of emerging leaders and we, it's called school of living myth. So it's like leadership through the lens of living myth and living myth is just the, it's the myth in the moment, you know, the myth attuning to kind of like the myth of who we are and learning, practicing to live that in the world. So yeah, if, if someone's an emerging leader, they can come and spend some time with me. I also do workshops and immersions. Around the UK at the moment, um, yeah, there's people can find me on at the website schooloflivingmyth. com. That's the best way to find me or just to follow my YouTube, which is Matthew Liam Gardner. Um, and yeah, you know, watch, watch a couple of videos, get a bit more of a feel for who I am. And if they ever find their way into circle with me or into an immersion, they're really powerful experiences that they kind of, they, they're a combination of. almost the modern day, modern day facilitator workshop with almost a bit of ancient magic and subtle ritual, very subtle ritual. It kind of combines all of that. So, yeah. And Manchester is the place where I do most of my workshops. So I'm, I'm up there about five or six times a year.

James: 54:03

Cool. That sounds good. Thank you very much, Matthew. And I look forward to doing the next episode where we actually find out what happened.

Matthew: 54:11

Thanks, James.