Whitney (00:00:00) - Hey, Whitney here. Content director for Jasmine Star in this episode of The Jasmine Star Show. There are sensitive topics mentioned related to suicide, mental health struggles and emotional distress the content may be triggering for some listeners. If you or someone you know is currently struggling with these feelings, we encourage you to seek support from a mental health professional or call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 in the United States. Listeners, discretion is advised, and I hope that you realize how much you matter. It's.

Jasmine Star (00:00:45) - Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, where I am joined yet again by the ever kind, amazing, brilliant and devilishly good looking. That's the new one I've added. What a joke. Is there a running joke? Said with a straight face yet? I can't. Marcus Murphy is here and has made a generous introduction to a gentleman who really believes that you matter and more so, believes that as an organization, every person in that organization matters. Matthew, welcome to the Jasmine Star Show.

Jasmine Star (00:01:13) - I'm so happy you're here.

Matthew Emerzian (00:01:14) - Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here and it's an honor to finally meet Marcus Murphy in person. Yeah, you are. Easy on the eyes, buddy.

Marcus Murphy (00:01:21) - Stop, Please. Everyone, stop. I've never been guest on your show ever again. Because all tomorrow he's like, Jasmine, when can we do it? Yeah. What can we do the second? The second round of. He's so good about myself these days. Yeah, I laugh because it is. This is the first time that we've met. It's been two and a half years. Friendship. And you are a lot taller than I thought, which I wanted to just go ahead and make sure everyone knows that, you know, you watch these videos and you meet people in real life and that's like a collegiate athlete. He was. You played a water polo at UCLA. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not that I'm not that at all. But it is amazing to meet you in person.

Jasmine Star (00:01:53) - Like, what a amazing opportunity to come in and do this together. It's awesome. Okay, so I want to start. How did you meet? So I should actually probably say is as this idea came, this is the first time I'm having a co-host on the Jasmine Star Show and I wanted to reach out and said, Who are the interesting people in your life? Like, how can we serve a lot of people on this podcast? And he put together a short list and there was like a little asterisk by your name. And so I want to know, how did you guys meet? Where did this begin? And I'm very, very excited for this conversation. Can I say one thing about you just so I can tell you up? I love cutting you off. By the way, this is really great. You need to work on your podcast team. I've literally the worst. It's like, Oh, you want to be a late night TV show? I just kick off. Okay. No, no.

Marcus Murphy (00:02:33) - The one thing I'll say about you that I loved and went way beyond because we had a professional relationship and then it went to a personal one. And one of the things that we talked about was this idea of this internal kind of we call it it, Noah. We find these characters that are kind of similar people that we need, like No Ark, Noah's Ark, right? So Noah was this person who, like, really cared about people. He's trying to get him on the boat. He was trying to like the floods coming, the floods coming. But then also it was like doors are shut and I'm going right. And also had enough. Like he was also like that powerful rage, but not like destructive rage to be able to build a huge boat and like get people on it and just totally not listen and cut out all the noise and go do it. And immediately when I met Matt, that's who I thought of. I was like, You're Noah, dude, you are Noah.

Marcus Murphy (00:03:15) - And you don't know it yet. You don't. Noah You don't know, do you guys are though. Where are you parents? What is going on?

Matthew Emerzian (00:03:23) - Which is interesting because actually in my wife and I, we didn't have children, but if we did have a son, I wanted to name my son Noah. No.

Marcus Murphy (00:03:30) - Yeah. No. Yeah, well, you guys did it. No way. No way. I guess we.

Matthew Emerzian (00:03:36) - Know. But Marcus and I met on LinkedIn, so I received an email of a LinkedIn learning video how to maximize and build your brand on LinkedIn. And so I'm like, okay, well, this is something I need work with. And so I watched this video, which I didn't have the rights to see, and I watched this gentleman do an amazing training. And part of the training, though, he was ripping apart people's bad posts.

Matthew Emerzian (00:04:00) - He's really good at ripping people. He's ripped my LinkedIn account. He didn't bring it up. He ripped he ripped apart my LinkedIn account.

Matthew Emerzian (00:04:06) - So nobody go look at that. That was an episode for a long time.

Matthew Emerzian (00:04:10) - And so I'm like, I'm going to reach out to this guy. But I was so nervous because I've seen what he's done and shared of other people's stuff. And I reached out to him and he responded right away. And you were living in London? Yeah. And all of a sudden we created this, you know, relationship. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:04:27) - So. So there's something that you're saying this is something I need to work on, as in your personal brand. But one of the things that Marcus said to me before the interview was like he was kind of interested, beguiled and kind of slack jawed that somebody with your CV and your resume and your experience is going to him. I mean, you know, the guy kind of sorta knows what he's doing a little, but it's a little bit like, how do I serve somebody who has clearly like, you know, what you're doing? So why all of a sudden this like, turn in, I want to build my personal brand.

Matthew Emerzian (00:04:57) - I think, and we're going to sort of talk more about it. But, you know, for the past 15 years, I've been running a nonprofit organization that I started called Every Monday Matters. And our mission is to create a world where everyone knows how much and why they matter. So we have different verticals. We have our corporate programming, our education programming now, our senior living programming. But I always found myself just kind of tucking in behind that brand. So I was the founder, I was the author. But at the end of the day, you do a keynote for a big company, and I'd walk off that stage and go right back to just being Matt from Every Monday Matters. And so I never put myself out there personally as a brand. I never had a personal website before. My wife as many loving ways as she possibly could and maybe sometimes not as loving as Listen do, What are you doing? People love you. And you change people's lives. Like, why are you holding that back from the world? Like, this is your skill, this is your gift and pursue it.

Matthew Emerzian (00:05:51) - And so during Covid, when I think everyone started asking a lot of questions, I started pursuing these things. And I have learned many things from you, some of your friends, Amy, and some of those folks. And I tried to figure out how is it I'm going to launch a personal brand? And originally I was going to go down the course, kind of work great online courses and do all that. And then as I was building that out, then all of a sudden I realized I was asked to do a keynote. And when I did this keynote on stage in person with 2000 people in the audience, I just stood there. I was like, Wait, this is what I've been missing for all of these years of Covid as being on stage and being with the people afterwards to hug them and to talk to them and to learn from them and know that I see them. And so I kind of diverted from the coursework. And now I'm going more so into just full time keynotes and getting on the road and being out there and spreading the message.

Jasmine Star (00:06:44) - Okay, so there's two paths I want you to choose. Like this is like a Nancy Drew. I was going to say the Hardy Boys. No, no, no. You see, Drew is a little bit of a fit. Yeah. To choose adventure. Yeah. So path number one, we talk about the importance of mattering and we talk about from a team building perspective. And then the second path and we're going to get to both. It's just which one first is what on Matthew's LinkedIn like really made you say, Why is this guy reaching out to me? Yeah, yeah, right. So let's go there because we're talking about him. Keynote But yeah, so I would love to just kind of camp out and the fact that, yeah, when you reach out to me one, you did it in a different way than everybody else because there was a lot of intentionality to it. It wasn't about you, it was about me. And I think that stands with me because how many people like that reach out to us or talk or anything? They are literally usually going I, me, me, me, anything about them.

Jasmine Star (00:07:33) - But people don't care about you. Give me give me a sample LinkedIn message. Okay. You know, like this is classic. Okay, So this is.

Matthew Emerzian (00:07:40) - This is this is a good sample or a bad sample?

Marcus Murphy (00:07:42) - Is it a bad sample? Actually, actually, we can generally, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I can generally say that a classic example of a LinkedIn message is terrible. Yeah, that's bad. You know, like, you hardly get good ones, which is why I want to know, like, what made his good. But let's start with the classic. Okay, so the bad ones are usually going high. Fill in the blank because it's an automated message, right? Hi. Name? Yes. Have you? Wait, Do you want a three extra business? Oh. What would it be like if I can get you 45 leads a day? It's like, great. Imagine the flow. Imagine the flow, Imagine it, imagine it. Or how about this one? This was my.

Jasmine Star (00:08:15) - Probably my favorite one is just going like, I know that you probably are busy individual that has a job in things and we know that you're valuable to your network and it's just like, okay. And it gets into the back of it being like, buy my stuff. It's like basically, no matter how any of that is, it's the generic part of it.

Marcus Murphy (00:08:32) - I know you're busy, but I still want you to take time to read all this. Yeah. Yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:08:35) - You're busy. Generic message. Yeah. And I think that's where you cut through. The noise for me is that there was somebody who clearly watched one of my trainings or did something. They looked at everything or like, I can't just message this guy. It has to be the way that I set it up and it's how I taught it. So that actually stood out to me a lot too, is like you literally learned and took it and applied. Okay, but let's be real. It's. Well, it's he. You went over to his profile.

Marcus Murphy (00:08:56) - I know. That's what you did. I did. And I was. It was. Okay. Okay. You're being very, very kind. Yeah, it was. It was. Yeah, it was below average. But I will say this. I will say this a loving way is that when I go there and I saw what Matt's resume was because, look, this guy had a presence online that looked like he wasn't the person that I saw him to be once I did some digging. And that's something like if you're listening to this podcast, people do find you in the doormat to like who you are is maybe seems kind of superficial on social media, but it is the doormat. Like if you want people to come inside and see all these amazing things and these books that you wrote, it's like, Man, you could just turn that up a little bit and everybody's going to get the message so much clearer. And so I knew that when I saw Matt and I looked at his message and I read his book and I was sitting there going like, whoa, this guy needs to be known by so many people.

Jasmine Star (00:09:45) - Okay? So before we get into the thesis that, yeah, you matter and I matter and we matter, what's the story that got you here? Like, what is the out of the box? This is my origin story that led me to this moment. Yeah.

Matthew Emerzian (00:09:57) - So I worked in the music industry. I went to UCLA undergrad and then grad school got my MBA and had a couple of job offers from some big companies. And my best friend, who was a lead singer of a band at the time, I'd just signed with Sony Records and John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin produced their album and they were looking for a band manager. And so they brought me over to their apartment on a Monday night and we partake in some things, and they got me really primed.

Matthew Emerzian (00:10:21) - And they said.

Matthew Emerzian (00:10:23) - That's that's the question. Will you be our manager? And so we pulled out a Domino's Pizza napkin because we had ordered Domino's and we wrote Matt Emergent is now the manager of Elephant Ride. I turned down my two job offers with these companies that were nice, six figure incomes.

Matthew Emerzian (00:10:37) - And I just got my MBA from a top ten business school and became a band manager in LA and that. Led to working with broke bands on the Strip, like the strip was my office. And then eventually I learned about a gentleman named Robert Kardashian. And we all know that name at this point. At that point, I just knew him from the OJ Simpson trial, so I thought he was just an attorney. But then I learned that he was actually a big music man. And even during the trial, he wasn't working as an attorney on that case. He was just friends with O.J. Another story completely. But Robert had a music marketing company, and I wanted to build a co-management thing with him where I could bring him artists from the street. He could then take them to the labels because he had all the contracts with all the labels, and we would create this farm system. He didn't like any of the bands I brought him. Unfortunately, they were on the CDs. You know, the silver things.

Jasmine Star (00:11:23) - I'm too I'm too young. I don't know what that is.

Matthew Emerzian (00:11:27) - But anyways, he liked me and so he offered me a job as a senior vice president of his music marketing company. And so now I'm working for Robert Kardashian, Kim, Khloe, Kourtney all ran the front office so we can all enjoy how that was going.

Matthew Emerzian (00:11:40) - Their friends were coming in every day.

Matthew Emerzian (00:11:42) - Yeah. And then I was working on projects for the biggest artist in the world. So U2, Coldplay, Oblivion, Tim McGraw, Usher, you know, you name it. We were working on those projects, and so my life became all about the slippery slope of the music industry and the fame and the fortune and the red carpets and the Grammys and all of these things and everything that I thought mattered. I ended up learning that none of it did. And on a Monday morning, I woke up and had a massive panic attack which turned into chronic anxiety disorder and depression. And so I had days where I thought about going out here on the 73 toll road and getting my car up to a hundred miles an hour and just yanking the wheel because I couldn't stop this thing that was happening inside of my body and I completely lost control of my life.

Matthew Emerzian (00:12:25) - And so fortunately, I was introduced to an amazing therapist. I call her my expensive friend. And I think we often have expensive friends. Yeah, I had a couple and I.

Matthew Emerzian (00:12:34) - Paid for an expensive friend. Yeah, yeah, they're awesome.

Matthew Emerzian (00:12:37) - And anyways, we just had to go on this journey of healing and learn like why, where things went wrong and why does my life matter? And that ended up fast forwarding to me writing a book in 2007 called Every Monday Matters Trying to help people besides myself find their own purpose and meaning to their lives and in doing so, changing ourselves, but also changing the world around us. And then that book became the inspiration to become a nonprofit organization that we now have been running for 15 years. And that's why it brings.

Marcus Murphy (00:13:05) - Me how many people are affected by the nonprofit globally?

Matthew Emerzian (00:13:08) - Well, I mean, our education program alone reaches 3 million students nationwide. And and we've been doing had that program now for 12 years.

Marcus Murphy (00:13:15) - Could you imagine if you didn't wake up that day and feel all those things when you look at a landscape of impact like that?

Matthew Emerzian (00:13:21) - Yeah, you know, my brother told me early on, he's like, one day you're going to be grateful for you experiencing this.

Matthew Emerzian (00:13:27) - But it was like six months into my breakdown and I thought, Hell no. Like, there's nothing good about this. Yeah. And now people asking like, Would you change anything? And my answer is no, I wouldn't change the thing.

Jasmine Star (00:13:38) - So I hail from a family of storytellers and it's probably because my dad didn't learn how to read until he was about 25. So he was learning how to read as he was teaching his twin daughters. And so we communicate differently. So when you say, I want to push my car over a hundred on the 73, and for people who are unfamiliar, the 73 runs along from where you were living, Aliso Viejo through Newport Beach. And then we'll kind of like spit into bigger freeways like the five or 4 or 5. And at this time, you think about those things. Where are you in terms of your marriage? What does an average Monday look like and how is it different than another Monday?

Matthew Emerzian (00:14:14) - Wow. Well, my life is so different today than what it was back then.

Matthew Emerzian (00:14:18) - Yes, I'm happily married to an amazing woman. And were you single then?

Jasmine Star (00:14:23) - Were you.

Matthew Emerzian (00:14:23) - Married? I was single then, yeah. I mean, I'm not proud to say this, but if I were to define success back then, it was make as much money as I could have a house in the Hollywood Hills, have nice things, stay single, and basically be a jerk and just have fun and enjoy life. And so there's nothing wrong with being successful in all of those things. But I don't believe that's why we matter. And I think that our life, we're not here just to be successful. We're here for something bigger than that as well, I believe. And so I had to shift actually what I thought mattered. And also what mattered to me was these different. Now I still achieved success, right? And still these things still happen. I still wrote four books and all these things have happened, but I don't attach my mattering to those things. Our framework is I matter, you matter, we matter.

Matthew Emerzian (00:15:09) - And so I believe as humans, any time that we're living in a space where we're aware of taking care of ourselves and our own well-being and the good, the bad, the ugly of all that taking care of each other and our relationships and which ones are healthy, which ones are life giving, life sucking. Do we have boundaries? You know, anxiety disorders, a nickname for the nice person's disease. So we say yes to everyone but ourselves. Right? And then understanding that we're a part of something even bigger. There's this bigger we and it's not about, you know, I matter, but it's not about me, which is a really interesting thing to say. And actually, I wanted this new matter book to be called You Matter, But. It is not about you. But the publisher said that no one would buy it because it goes in the self-help section. And if you're telling the reader it's not about them, then then why do we want to buy it?

Marcus Murphy (00:15:52) - That's like that's exactly like that's like a marketing takeaway right now.

Matthew Emerzian (00:15:55) - Right. Okay. So again, I just want to go back and push on the story. So there is this moment. Yeah. And maybe somebody who's listening is having a moment that is entirely different and yet similar. Maybe they're not pushing their car to 100, but they know something is wildly mismatched. What was the first step you took?

Matthew Emerzian (00:16:13) - Well, the first step I took was I mean, obviously, I went to the doctors and then my parents. Like we were.

Jasmine Star (00:16:18) - Talking about your primary care physician. Yeah.

Matthew Emerzian (00:16:20) - I drove myself to the doctor, which you shouldn't do if I thought it was having a heart attack. That was and I hear that from a lot of people, Their first panic attack. I think it's a heart attack. Yeah. And that's what I thought I was having. Funny part. Part of my story is I was actually an ambulance driver between college And how many lifetimes.

Jasmine Star (00:16:36) - Have you had, Matthew? Lifetimes. I mean, he's the.

Matthew Emerzian (00:16:38) - Funny thing is, I only worked for one day because it was the scariest thing I've.

Matthew Emerzian (00:16:43) - Ever done in my life.

Matthew Emerzian (00:16:44) - Should I quit? But I figured you have the skill set to drive an ambulance. So I drove myself to my primary care doctor and they did all these tests and he came in and said, Listen, your heart's fine. You're just having a very severe panic attack. And I've never heard of that. I didn't know what they were. I never heard of Xanax, all these things before. So it was all very new to me and I didn't know what to do. I went home and they said, You should feel better in a couple of days. But that's not what happened for me. It just accelerated. Now, in.

Jasmine Star (00:17:07) - Your career, at this point in time, what is your job?

Matthew Emerzian (00:17:10) - I'm thick in the music industry, so still. Okay. Okay. No one in this is like one of the things they talk about is our sicknesses. Our secret or a secret is our sickness. But I worked in the industry where I couldn't let people know what I was going through, you know? And I started doing my therapist maybe go out every Saturday to do something that wasn't about me.

Matthew Emerzian (00:17:27) - And here I am out in LA picking up litter and I have a baseball cap on, I have sunglasses on and I have rubber gloves and bags in my belt loop because I like this reputation to protect, right? But picking up litter kind of became this sanctuary for me. And every Saturday, be by myself in the city just doing these things that weren't about me. And that weekly dose of doing things not about myself, feeding homeless people, reading the elderly, planting a tree, picking up litter, that weekly dose of doing things that are not about me is actually what helped me find me again.

Matthew Emerzian (00:17:58) - Well, that's so. Wait, wait, wait. So I hope everybody I did things that weren't about me, which helped me. Find me, Find me. That is like it's crazy because we're in a very prescriptive culture. Yes. And I feel like a lot of people will want to come in and be like, hey, read this book, do this thing, listen to this podcast, Whatever.

Matthew Emerzian (00:18:14) - You're giving somebody a prescription right now that I literally have never heard. I haven't heard like, you know what? Things are falling apart. I want you to go out and pick up trash. But yeah, but but it's not about the trash, but it's. Tell us about what you felt when you were doing those things.

Matthew Emerzian (00:18:28) - Well, yeah. I mean, I struggle and I mentioned like the self-help section thing. Like I struggle with the fact that my books are in the self-help section because I don't believe in self-help as its own thing by itself, because where.

Jasmine Star (00:18:39) - Do you think your book belongs in what section?

Matthew Emerzian (00:18:41) - I think the self-help section should be renamed. It's because we're social creatures. I live. We live in social dynamics. If I lived on my own private island of one and all I did was focus on being a better person. Well, fine. What else am I going to study and focus on? But we live in relationship to each other. So who I am and how I feel about myself and how I show up is also impacted by the two of you as well, right? In Africa it's called ubuntu, right? Like I am because of you.

Matthew Emerzian (00:19:08) - Or we are because of we. And so we all help shape and form each other. And I believe that we've. And it might not be popular to say this, but we've become too much of our own navel gazers. Like it's like so focused on my needs, my needs, my needs all the time. Yeah. And we just need to look up and also see how can I serve their needs and how can we serve the bigger needs. And I believe that if I had 100 people in my life that were focused on helping Matt serve his needs, and I had 100 people in my life that I helped them serve their needs, we'll get a lot further than all of us just focusing on ourselves all the time.

Matthew Emerzian (00:19:45) - Is there a weird trust thing there though? Because I always feel like the maybe the inhibiting factor of feeling like I'm going to just give, give, give is that people aren't going to take care of you because like in a beautiful what you just did there, you painted this big beautiful picture that if we all cared about other people, then we are going to be taken care of.

Jasmine Star (00:20:00) - Right? And then can I drill down a little bit more on that? Like, so a lot of the listeners, not all a lot of them their own business owners or a C-suite leadership. And so along the same lines, if as a CEO, if you approach it and saying, I'm going to take care of you and then you still in the back of your mind, like, I'm going to take care of you, like who's taking care of me? Like, are they doing it because of a paycheck? Like, how are we reprogramming in like a place of what Marcus says is trust?

Matthew Emerzian (00:20:22) - Well, it takes a lot of I mean, relationships take trust, right? And vulnerability. Absolutely. And just showing up in our authentic sense. But the other thing, too, is in the You Matter book, there's a Venn diagram in there. And when the drawing of all this started for me, the visual I'm a visual learner. Originally the inner circle was the eye matter, and that's this internal stuff.

Matthew Emerzian (00:20:42) - The circle next to a bigger one was the You matter, the people around me, my relationships. And then the biggest one was the We Matter. And when that book went to print, I called New York Hold the Press. I've been doing this drawing for ten years and I realized I have it wrong. Instead, the I matter circle, the you matter circle and the we matter circle should all be the same size and they all overlap. And in the middle there, it's where I believe that we are at our best as human beings. So I'm not saying just go be there for everybody else, for the you know, at the risk of your own well-being.

Marcus Murphy (00:21:16) - Right. Right.

Matthew Emerzian (00:21:16) - Like we still have to be aware of our own needs. Yeah. But what I think is we focus so much on the I in our culture. Yes. And not enough on the you and not enough on the we. And if we opened up those things better, we would I think we find a better balance to life.

Matthew Emerzian (00:21:34) - And in that way, you know, self transformation also become social transformation. Like we change the world as we change ourselves and we change. I help you transform you and also helps me transform me and, you know, as influence influential people. You know, even as a keynote speaker, I'm there to bring the message to the audience, You matter. You're seeing you're heard. You're loved. Now, I hit rock bottom and, you know, and maybe you're not hitting rock bottom back to your point. Maybe you're somewhere just I'm a little numb or life's not great or I got a good look at rock bottom, but I didn't quite hit it right. But anywhere in the audience, I know that there's people who are just trying to figure out what is this meaning of life like? What's life all about? So I'm coming in there to bring them this message, but every time I do it, I walk away feeling so fulfilled because then after I'm done, they. Matt, can I hug you? Can I share my story with you? And all of a sudden they fill me up like, Oh my God, like I'm here for a reason and I'm in my purpose.

Matthew Emerzian (00:22:34) - And they just gave me that gift back, right? And all of a sudden, this room of a thousand people often felt like a tiny table. We're all sitting around interconnected. So it's interesting how the I of you and the we play and that's what I try to bring to light. So for any CEO out there, yes, you have to take care of yourself. There's 100%. Right. But we also have to understand the needs of our people. And, you know, in the corporate space, they call it culture. So if you looked at the we matter from a culture perspective, you know, how do we take care of that? Which is the culture thing is interesting because, yeah, I'll go work with the company and our team will work with the company and they'll talk about someone say, you know, our culture here really sucks. And my first question is what are you doing about that? Because people will be removing themselves from it. So they'll step out, say, See this culture over here? It sucks, but I'm over here.

Matthew Emerzian (00:23:28) - But they removed themselves from it. But really, if you work at a company, you're right smack dab in the middle of that culture. And so it's like, you know, be the change we wish to see in the world, right? Create the culture that you want to have. Yeah. And we all play a role in that. We can't just point to it as the bad thing over there that I have no responsibility of trying to help or do anything about.

Marcus Murphy (00:23:46) - You sit in some of the like, I wish I could be a fly on the wall in some of the rooms that you have access to, like some of the brands that we love, the biggest brands on the planet. Matt is working with their teams, like inside the boardroom with people that make decisions that affect thousands upon thousands upon thousands of global employees. Right? People. What I want to know is. I feel like I can get real gray about it and be like, spill the tea on like what is bad? But I really want to know who's doing it well and why are they doing it well and like, how are they actually implementing some of this? And what is a somebody who is on the other side of implementing? Sure.

Jasmine Star (00:24:19) - What does that world look like? Was that company look like?

Matthew Emerzian (00:24:21) - Yeah, well, I feel today and I say this, you know, sadly, but thankfully, you know, the topics of mental health and wellbeing mattering are becoming much more popular now. Thankfully, thankfully, like, you know, I think we just saw a Verizon ad something matters bra matter, Mazda driving matter, everything matters all of a sudden. Right. And I think in some ways Covid exposed our tender underbelly as and what maybe used to be kind of soft stuff that we didn't really like. How is this going to help my bottom line, right. This kind of stuff. I think people are realizing that if our people are not well, we're not going to achieve our goals. It's just period. We're not going to do it. And there's enough research out there to show that. So for me, you know, it's we have the stories that, you know, are so amazing and a lot of it starts, I believe, with a leader who actually values people and truly values people.

Matthew Emerzian (00:25:15) - There were days back in the beginning of this journey for me where I was just fully pushing a rope like I was trying to get a CEO to value their people. And it was a constant struggle. And I got to the point where I was just not going to work with an organization if they didn't really believe this from the top. And because otherwise it wasn't even fun to work with these organizations. And I not going to say who those those brands were.

Marcus Murphy (00:25:38) - What does it rhyme with? Right. Yeah, exactly. Tall Mart. Exactly. So good.

Matthew Emerzian (00:25:47) - Today it's very different today. The people are much more open. They want to have these conversations. They're looking for answers. They understand their people are struggling. You know, the workplace with the hybrid versus, you know, virtual versus in the office. There's a lot of things that have mixed us up lately. And we're seeing it statistically. We're seeing it, too, with mental health, the alcohol abuse, drug abuse, violent crimes, you know.

Jasmine Star (00:26:10) - The increase of that.

Matthew Emerzian (00:26:11) - Yeah, the increase of all that in our culture today. And I wouldn't say that as a humanity. We're necessarily having our best look right this moment. And so we're looking to find answers. And mattering to me is the start of all of it. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:26:26) - So can I be a little bit skeptical? So there's an organization where maybe it's been an abdication. Look at that culture. It sucks. And then if I was an employee and I had a mid-level manager, senior level manager, even if I had a CEO who up until that point hadn't exhibited a true caring but deep in his or her, they are and they want to shift it. All of a sudden I'm a skeptic and I go into like the cafeteria and it's like, you matter. And you're like, Oh God, oh God. So from what I understand, they bring you in as a keynote speaker. And then are you working with management? Are you working with teams? Like, how do you change a whole culture? And then that's just the start of the question, because for somebody who doesn't have 100 or 1000 person team, we're talking about this burgeoning business owner with a team of ten.

Jasmine Star (00:27:11) - Yeah. What is the system? How can somebody come back and be like practical steps of saying, I want to really convince people that they matter and show them that they.

Jasmine Star (00:27:19) - Do, right? So yeah, the first thing typically starts with this guy walking in and with the message of you matter. And yes, there are skeptics out there and I have been in front of I've spoken in prisons with this message. So if you want to talk about the tough crowd.

 Marcus Murphy (00:27:35) - Right.

Marcus Murphy (00:27:36) - And by the end of it, they will their captive.

Jasmine Star (00:27:38) - Audience at least dad joke, the dad joke. That was that was good. That was good. Not right. It's all good, you guys.

Matthew Emerzian (00:27:49) - And by the end of it, they were hugging and they were crying and they they it completely changed their energy around. Everyone here just wants to get us down like no one cares about to. Hey, guys, listen, we can make this what we want it to be. So let's support each other. Let's love each other.

Matthew Emerzian (00:28:04) - Let's learn together. And the transformation is wild. But you're right. Like I asked the question from people, ultimately, there's a thing that happens at the end where they get on stage and they say, My name is and I matter because and they make this statement in front of 2000 people and they do this live there. I can't have someone in the first minute of my keynote be like, Come up here right now. I want you to finish the sentence. My name is I matter because and go, But.

Marcus Murphy (00:28:31) - You did that in your TEDx talk.

Matthew Emerzian (00:28:32) - I know, but that's after an hour or 15. Okay. Yeah. In case of.

Jasmine Star (00:28:36) - Me shout out TEDx talk by the way. Yeah. That was like that was this little flex. He's hyping you up by training like. But wait, but wait. What is that thing you did with red letters? There are three of them. Go. Now, your TEDx talk was great because you were different because they actually didn't want you to do what you did in your Ted talk, right?

Matthew Emerzian (00:28:52) - They didn't want me to bring anyone on stage and I said that I wouldn't do it.

Jasmine Star (00:28:55) - And then you did. And then you did it. Oh, yeah. And it still.

Matthew Emerzian (00:28:57) - Wouldn't do the Ted talk if I couldn't bring people on stage.

Jasmine Star (00:28:59) - Oh, okay. So.

Matthew Emerzian (00:29:00) - Yeah, Yeah. So anyways, you can't just come in there like, Hey, are you mad? Are you mad? It came out right because it takes time to get there with this. But ultimately, whether it's a team of ten or whether it's a massive company of 60,000 employees and we've worked with all of them, there is a practical, strategic way of doing this, and it starts maybe with a keynote. So there's context of what this is going to be. What's this journey we're going to take? It starts with understanding their pain points, whether that's diversity, inclusion, equity, belonging, whether that's turnover, retention, whether that's culture, leadership. And so we have a team I look at this as like a mattering agency, if you will. We come in and we understand their needs first and then we make a tactical plan to then solve this.

Matthew Emerzian (00:29:42) - Not overnight, it's over. You know, we work companies for years, seven, eight years at a time. Wow. Because the bright, shiny object is not going to change culture. I even joke that a lot of keynote speakers think that they're going to actually cause change in one hour. I don't think that's necessarily the case.

Matthew Emerzian (00:29:58) - Speak for yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I literally change. Change your life. I wait till that guy's life changes and I don't leave three days.

Jasmine Star (00:30:06) - After you're gone. You don't even know your name. Yeah, that's true.

Marcus Murphy (00:30:10) - All right, guys, it's been really fun. This has been good. See you.

Matthew Emerzian (00:30:12) - Still easy on the eyes.

Speaker 2 (00:30:14) - Okay. Again. I believe it. I'm out.

Matthew Emerzian (00:30:16) - But real change takes time, right? And it's like it's a slow drip thing. So you can't go from a company that clearly didn't really care about the people to. Oh, now they care about us, like overnight without it being authentic and genuine.

Jasmine Star (00:30:28) - That's true. So are they seeing those practical things implemented? Because if I'm sitting there, I'm. Employee and they come up and I'm like, okay, another one like, this is going to be another thing. But then I start seeing things happen and it's like actually, like, what are those things that people would start to experience to see that slow turn right? Yeah.

Matthew Emerzian (00:30:44) - So every Monday this is the name actually turned out to be brilliant. Although back to your thinking about how are my Mondays? My Mondays suck. Yeah, my Mondays are so busy. It's crazy. And I don't look at national holidays anymore because they all fall on Mondays, right? I'm always working, but every Monday it gives us a reason to exist inside of an organization. Interesting, right?

Matthew Emerzian (00:31:05) - Yeah, because as an entrepreneur, your Mondays could be Sundays or it could be Saturdays or they don't feel they don't hit quite the same. But I think as an employee or your employees, Monday is that start of the new week.

Matthew Emerzian (00:31:16) - That's right yeah and so and get people to not just you know reclaim their Mondays because everyone hates Mondays. It's kind of like we're not like a Monday makeover kind of thing. But ultimately to come in to give us a reason to exist with communications. But whether it's digital communications that we're doing throughout the organization, whether that's trainings we're doing with managers or middle managers are getting beat up right now. Right. And helping them, you know, navigate what they're navigating or whether it's activations on campuses, doing engagements of real life, you know, inspiration, walls and things. It's a full battery of techniques that we have to actually start to get this to change. And ultimately what happens is they don't even need us after a while because they start to own it themselves and all of a sudden people start to notice, Wow, like I do feel different. Or I'll get an email from a wife saying, I don't know what you're doing down at my husband's company, but he's actually become a much better husband in the past six months.

Matthew Emerzian (00:32:10) - Whoa. Like we didn't solicit that right. And there's been moments in my wife and I, we were in DC Rewind a little bit when there was a presidential election with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and Trump won. And we were in DC at the time. And DC was a very eerie place that day because we were there on Election Day and the day after we drove out to the middle of nowhere, Virginia, I was a keynote speaker for a big bank that was having a retreat and afterwards a woman walked up and says, Matt, can I speak to you for a second? I said, Sir, we walked out in the hallway and she said, I want you to know that I think God brought you here today because my plan was to take my life tomorrow. And she took me out to the parking lot where she had all of the duct tape and tubing in her car to run her exhaust back into the cab of her car to commit suicide.

Marcus Murphy (00:33:00) - Did you like would you. I would sit down on the ground and cry.

Jasmine Star (00:33:03) - I don't even know what I was. Yeah, it's.

Matthew Emerzian (00:33:04) - A lot to process.

Matthew Emerzian (00:33:06) - And. But does that come with the space because of what you're talking about? The subject matter, who you are. You get a lot more people who are vulnerably sharing those types of things with you.

Matthew Emerzian (00:33:13) - I think so. You know, when I share my story of like, hitting rock bottom and wanting to take my life on the 73 toll road, when you share that in the public in front of people, it does create a safe space for people to come to you and say, Hey, listen, I've been struggling too. And so I've gotten to see a very personal, you know, perspective of how people, even in some of the most successful companies in the world are really doing. And that is my thing for leaders. Like, I will tell you, your people need healing. They need this work. And whether you choose to work with me and every Monday matters or someone else, we need to start understanding our people's needs more and being there for them because there's a lot of pain out there that needs healing and we can heal.

Matthew Emerzian (00:33:58) - It is the exciting part, right? We can make an impact. And that woman I told you about, I brought the CEO in. I knew he was a very caring man, empathetic leader. We had the tough conversation right there in the moment. And they put her on a special kind of care program there within the company. And she started thriving. And she did amazing. And she saved her life. Right. And they always say if you just impact one person. Right. And I've got to have a lot of those moments.

Jasmine Star (00:34:28) - So one of the things that I would say for somebody who's listening, obviously every Monday matters is a great place for a small business owner who might have a small team in his maybe not at the point of investing in having a mattering agency matters agency come to them. One thing that we implemented was just asking people, How are you doing? But then also coming to the table and sharing something that it doesn't have to be vulnerable for vulnerable sake. It could just be real.

Jasmine Star (00:34:56) - But what I have noticed is when I meet with a team member and I'm saying, you know, on the outside, things look great. But I'm going to tell you this one thing. It's really hurting right now that the minute that you give that space for that, they feel empowered to do the same. So is there something else maybe along the same lines that's just like one action item that they might be able to take with their small team?

Matthew Emerzian (00:35:15) - Of course. Yeah. So my You Matter book is more of a personal story, my personal journey and journey and other stories along the way that every Monday matters. Books are actually super prescriptive. So what it does is it gives you 13 themes. So Monday gets kind, the Monday gets compassionate, Monday gets grateful. And then for each of those monthly themes, if you will, there's four Mondays. And so if it's Monday gets kind, the first Monday might be used your words. And so from an I matter perspective, using your words, how do you talk to yourself? What's your self? Are you self loving or you beat yourself up? Most of us aren't great about that, right? User words in a you matter perspective is you compliment people, you lift people up.

Matthew Emerzian (00:35:57) - You sarcastic are you short, you put people down. We matter kind of how do we use our words to create a culture here at work where we all kind of feel honored and respected? So the book is a recipe really to follow 13 monthly themes and four Mondays for each of those to then roll. And there's engagement ideas in there to then powerful roll them out.

Matthew Emerzian (00:36:17) - Put them right in like, yeah, the calendar is the only way to get it done. Like if something's not on my calendar, like, Hey, shut it down. I have shut it down in my calendar. That's so sad, by the way. But I mean, that's the roadmap, right? That's really wonderful. Yeah. Along the same lines, can I go back to the story? At what point do you decide to pivot away, start something new, find a greater purpose, and then where does your wife fit into this? I find it pretty intriguing because at the time of this recording, she is here with you.

Matthew Emerzian (00:36:42) - Yeah. Yeah. Were you like, she didn't meet you? When you're at your you're about your bottom. Okay, so you were man, you were thriving. Your hair was super curly. Yeah. Great beach day.

Matthew Emerzian (00:36:52) - Nothing to do with that guy. Yeah.

Matthew Emerzian (00:36:55) - How did you guys meet?

Matthew Emerzian (00:36:56) - Well, interesting story. So we. There was a choir from Uganda coming to America to tour, and they were orphan children's children from Uganda, and they were looking for people to chaperone for a week. Because I was music industry. I loved this whole idea and I love children. And so I chaperoned two of the boys. There were five and seven years old and their uncle, who was their adult chaperone. They live with me for a week and then they have this concert at the end of the week. On Sunday it was at a church, so I was obviously there because I was with these kids all week. And my wife, Patty, she happened to come as an audience member. And so after the concert was over, they had these merchandise tables set up and they were people swarmed the tables because they just wanted to buy it.

Matthew Emerzian (00:37:40) - Oh, they want to support everything. Oh, yeah. Just these kids were incredible. And so there's a woman standing in front of me and I'm tall, like you said, six three. So I'm able to look over people. And I said, Hey, do you have anything here for a. I asked the volunteers who were selling the merch and they said, No, it's only for women. And this voice says, Well, just buy something and give it to your mom or your girlfriend or something. And I'm like, okay, my mom would never wear this stuff and I don't have a girlfriend. And so I saw this person put this necklace. She was holding back down on the merch table, and then she walked away.

Jasmine Star (00:38:13) - Oh, God, this is so smooth. So, Matthew, this is so smooth. Tell me you got that? Oh, yeah. I'm literally covered in gel. Stop.

Matthew Emerzian (00:38:19) - Yeah, I'm a lot smarter than I look.

Jasmine Star (00:38:20) - I mean, brother, right?

Matthew Emerzian (00:38:22) - So I grabbed this thing and I buy it, and now I have to go looking for the woman who was wearing an olive green sweater because I never saw her face.

Jasmine Star (00:38:31) - And I see.

Marcus Murphy (00:38:32) - Very serendipity of this movie. If I ever have rom coms, I go, yeah.

Matthew Emerzian (00:38:37) - I go tap on her shoulder. Were you the one that said this? That was me. I said, Girl, I bought this tonight. I would give it to you. So I here, I bought it for you.

Jasmine Star (00:38:44) - But wait a minute.

Matthew Emerzian (00:38:45) - And that's how it happened, man.

Jasmine Star (00:38:46) - I was like, Matthew, Matthew, you tap her on the shoulder and she turns around with these piercing blue eyes and are you like, Whoa, yeah, yeah. She's like, Yeah, yeah, I like it. And you're like, Lucky me. Yeah. So you're feeling like a little. A little lightning. I bought the right thing for the right. A bracelet for the right. I mean, dang.

Matthew Emerzian (00:39:05) - Okay. Yeah. And the funny part is, at that time in my life, I was, like, 40 lbs heavier, so I was like, a little bit chub.

Matthew Emerzian (00:39:11) - Chub. And you've seen her, right?

Jasmine Star (00:39:16) - You had a great personality. You had a face for radio. Yes.

Matthew Emerzian (00:39:21) - She she she's very charitable herself. So so anyway, I see her face. I'm like, wow. So we go over and we sit down and start talking. And fast forward two weeks, I see your friend. And she said, Hey, I asked about Patty, my wife, and she said, Oh, wait, you know, she hit you up on Facebook, but you never responded.

Marcus Murphy (00:39:39) - And because you're bad at social.

Matthew Emerzian (00:39:40) - Because I was, I can't see that in front of.

Matthew Emerzian (00:39:43) - Her. Yeah, Yeah.

Matthew Emerzian (00:39:46) - And so I looked at it and sure enough, she had written me. Little did I realize that she had actually thought there was something there, but then mourned it because she didn't hear back from me for two weeks.

Jasmine Star (00:39:55) - And then just increased the longing. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It was like all part of your plan.

Matthew Emerzian (00:39:59) - Here's the best part of the whole thing.

Matthew Emerzian (00:40:01) - The whole time I was talking to her at that concert when I met her first, she was sitting on her ring. Because she was engaged. Oh, man, this.

Jasmine Star (00:40:10) - Movie gets better. It does? Yes. Yeah. And then? And then.

Matthew Emerzian (00:40:13) - And then she traded up.

Marcus Murphy (00:40:19) - Can I. Can I ask the last thing? First of all, everybody should be Patty. I think that that's a that's a really good you one. But here's my here's my question about that. Did do you guys engage in this together? How does this is not easy work And like that woman who talked to you in the parking lot the schedule flying all over the place and doing keynotes and working and stuff, I'm assuming that you need a great partner in crime for that and somebody who really inspires you and keeps you grounded there. So how important is that relationship in that way?

Matthew Emerzian (00:40:44) - Oh my God, It's everything. I mean, first of all, she's my biggest cheerleader, without a doubt. And she's pushed me in ways to do things that I never thought I would do.

Matthew Emerzian (00:40:52) - You know, my third book, the personal book Matter I wrote because of her. It had been ten years since I had written my first book, and Everybody matters in that book. And she really pushed me just to go there and be vulnerable at the same time. What's interesting is that she's an actor, and I don't know how actors do what they do. Like I can act to save my life. And she doesn't know who I do what I do because she can never go on the stage in front of a bunch of people and do a keynote for an hour. Yeah. And which is a huge fear for a lot of people, Right? And so we honor and respect each other for those unique skills that we have. And she says she's an introvert and I'm clearly not an introvert. When we got married, the guy said, I've never married two more opposite people in my life. So yeah.

Matthew Emerzian (00:41:30) - So good luck. So good luck. Yeah.

Matthew Emerzian (00:41:33) - Yeah. And so but what I've seen with her is that she knows how much this work matters to me.

Matthew Emerzian (00:41:39) - She knows the impact it has on people because she's witnessed it more than anybody. And she just gets in there and loves it and supports it and she gets in the mix. You know, I was talking about the whole prison thing. I mean, she was there with me inside this prison. And as soon as I was done, I look over and she's here talking with all these inmates and hugging them and all this. And she her heart opens. She's very sensitive, big hearted, and she just gets in the mix. And just sometimes I have to convince her it's time to leave.

Jasmine Star (00:42:08) - She'll just keep going. So, so important to have that. By the way, I know we're getting close on time and I want to really be respectful of it. But one thing that really stuck out to me is not just the corporate level work or the individual work that you do. You've also extended a curriculum into for school age children. Yes. Can you talk to us about that? Like, what is that program mean for people who just.

Marcus Murphy (00:42:29) - Yeah, I'm just saying just on that as well you do the senior one which actually is brand new to so the kids and and the seniors elderly.

Matthew Emerzian (00:42:35) - Yeah yeah we kind of get you at the beginning of life.

Matthew Emerzian (00:42:38) - Know life right.

Matthew Emerzian (00:42:38) - In the middle.

Matthew Emerzian (00:42:39) - Yeah they have a lot of similarities those two college.

Matthew Emerzian (00:42:41) - I guess right.

Matthew Emerzian (00:42:42) - Now.

Matthew Emerzian (00:42:43) - But we have we have a K through 12 curriculum and it's a falls in the camp of social and emotional learning so SEL again skills been around for a long time. We've been doing it for a long time but up until Covid it was mostly about Stem science, technology, engineering, math. All of a sudden I was like, no, no, no, no more stem. We need skill. So it's all about this mental well-being of our youth. And so right now we have a program that serves 3 million students nationwide. We're in all 50 states and a couple other countries. It's completely free for schools to have. We don't charge a penny for it, and we get funding sources to help support that.

Matthew Emerzian (00:43:16) - So if there's any donors out there listening.

Marcus Murphy (00:43:19) - What a plug. Yeah. So yeah, you need that tax write off. Let's go.

Matthew Emerzian (00:43:24) - Absolutely. So that's been just super successful with what we're doing with the youth across the country. And and one of the things, again, that we learned through Covid was not just the youth need this, but also the educators themselves. Our teachers were dying on the vines, right? They are just so burned out and walking away from a career. That was their calling. And so now how can we serve the educators themselves more and also the families, because the families had to deal with all this change as well. So that's a super robust program. And because of that program and the corporate program, actually what happened is I got asked to keynote the California Assisted Living Association conference. And so they asked me if I would go visit a couple of these assisted living home or communities before I did so. And I did that. And what I learned when I was talking to these men and women and in these communities, what they say is no different than what the men and women would say in prison is that I'm just here to die.

Matthew Emerzian (00:44:18) - Nobody cares about me anymore. I'm not a part of this world anymore. I'm lonely, I'm alone. And for different circumstances, they all felt the same. And for me personally, I don't think that's how anyone should end their lives. And what I also saw was what they call the killer bees, which is like ball toss and bingo and balloons. I don't think senior people, she just.

Marcus Murphy (00:44:40) - Never heard that.

Matthew Emerzian (00:44:41) - Yeah, like this is don't put them in a corner.

Marcus Murphy (00:44:43) - I'm laughing and crying.

Matthew Emerzian (00:44:45) - Yeah. Yeah. They're not three year olds, okay? Like, let's actually respect and honor them and give them some dignity. Yeah. And so we bring mattering now to them in the form of weekly activities, much like we do in schools, much like we do in corporate weekly programming. So allows them to read their mattering. And recently, just because we're talking like we're talking about a lot of death and dying and things but recently one of. A woman who was in one of our programs at a community passed away and they had a celebration of life for her at the community.

Matthew Emerzian (00:45:13) - And her daughter, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, flew out to LA for for the celebration of life. And she said at the celebration that I want you guys to know that because of this, Every Monday Matters program that my mom absolutely knew how much of why she mattered before she died. And did you cry?

Marcus Murphy (00:45:31) - You sobbed. Yes, Because you're about to cry right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm about to cry right now. Don't look at me. Yeah.

Matthew Emerzian (00:45:37) - No, You know, it's hard because I don't want people to, like, Oh, my God, this guy is so heavy and this stuff so heavy. Right? But it's just real, you know? And it's just. Pain is real. Life is real. We're all trying to figure this stuff out. We all have our stuff. It's part of why I have struggled with social media, to be honest with you, is like, I just want more honesty and authenticity and vulnerability out there in the world.

Matthew Emerzian (00:46:00) - And enough of this. Everything's awesome all the time. You know, it's it's not how it works. And so I'm trying to navigate how I can use a platform like that to bring value. And maybe we'll have some conversations after this. You can help me with.

Jasmine Star (00:46:16) - It would be an honor.

Matthew Emerzian (00:46:16) - Yeah, it would be. Because clearly I have a message. I just I don't want to exacerbate things also that I think are actually doing harm in some ways to our humanity itself. So how do I find that right healthy balance to.

Jasmine Star (00:46:29) - The people that I meet all the time who have platforms And then there are people that I meet that should have them. And I think, Matt, like you, fall into a bucket that I just it's the same reason why I responded to your message listening to you for the last 40 minutes or so. We can understand that. I want more people like you in the world that are doing the work that you're doing, because I'm not doing it. I want to.

Jasmine Star (00:46:48) - I'm inspired by it. But there needs to be people that are out there leading the charge. And that's why I admire you and your friend for sure. Thank you for making the introduction. Like, truly, I really do mean it. For those of you who are watching and listening to the Jasmine Star Show, it is an honor and a privilege to speak to Matthew and share this message in a way that first and foremost, he gets comfortable with. And then secondly, a little bootcamp during our lunch break. We about we have about to turn it up. But for people who do want to connect with you and with the everyday, every Monday matters. Where do they go? Where are we putting them to? Well, actually, you have your own personal brand website. Now we got a shout out.

Matthew Emerzian (00:47:24) - I should see that one first, then you should so you can go.

Marcus Murphy (00:47:26) - You're already getting coach.

Matthew Emerzian (00:47:27) - Matthew Emerson is my personal website and for those interested in in noting, learning about more about myself books, etcetera podcast, I have a podcast.

Matthew Emerzian (00:47:37) - Marcus tell my podcast. Marcus said one of the most profound things ever in that podcast, he said, My whole life I felt like I've never was white enough or black enough, and it's something I'll never forget that you said on my podcast there's also the Every Monday Matters organization website on social media, Instagram at immersion or at Monday's matter.

Jasmine Star (00:47:56) - Like you look at you. Yeah, yeah. No, look, hey, I'll give it a seven out of ten. But, but, but you're getting there. It's like going to the dentist. All right. You're going to come back on the show so that Marcus can give you a ten. We'll do so.

Matthew Emerzian (00:48:11) - I'd be honored. No. If you're looking for a new host, let me know.

Jasmine Star (00:48:15) - Done. Done. Yeah, absolutely. Like one show and he's booting him. All right, guys, Deal is good, dude. Thank you. Seriously, so much.

Matthew Emerzian (00:48:22) - You're both amazing.

Jasmine Star (00:48:23) - Thank you so much. Thank you for listening and watching the Jasmine Star Show.

Jasmine Star (00:48:27) - More than anything, if this has impacted you, please be sure to engage on social share the episode and beyond that, appreciate your time and energy. Thank you for being here.