How An Ex-NFL Player Built A Pest Control Empire | Mitch Matthews Interview

Alright, welcome back to the show. Today, we got with us Mitch Matthews. Welcome on. This is going to be a fun episode. We're going to talk all sorts of stuff.

Stoked.

But give us real quick the 2-minute overview of just— you got an extensive career in athletics and sports and in sales and business. Give us like the 2-minute overview and then we'll dive into a bunch of stuff. But give everybody a quick overview.

I'm from Beaverton, Oregon. That's where I grew up. I came to BYU in Utah, Brigham Young University, to play football. That was in 2009. Went on a 2-year church mission, but I played football all the way from 2012 to 2015.

Mm-hmm.

Then played a couple years in the NFL. But this entire time I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to play football first. That was Plan A. My second Plan A, since I don't believe in Plan Bs, was to be an entrepreneur. And I knew when football was over that I would be one. And so I've transitioned into that. I own my own business now. It's called Anthem Pest Control. And I have a wife and a new baby girl.

Yeah, well, congrats on that. And yeah, it's fun to see you guys, everything you're doing. So Anthem, real quick, you guys are doing pest control, company you started and founded. How many guys you got working for you now?

Well, it wasn't just me that founded it, first of all. It was me and 2 business partners who, you know, we have a lot of fun together, but we have 170 sales reps this year poised to go out. We're in Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Greenville, South Carolina.

So for people watching, all those people that come and knock on your door talking pest, they could be from you.

Yeah, could be our guys. If you're from the Southeast, they could be our guys.

Well, and your growth has been incredible, at least for me just watching you, you know, on Instagram or other places. But Anthem, it seems like the last year, 2 years, you guys have taken off. When'd you guys actually start?

2017.

2017.

So we've been in business 4 years to this month.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been 4 years.

And you got 170+ guys going around.

170 sales reps, and that's just the sales reps alone, and then probably an extra 50 You know, regular employees.

So, how'd you— so, you're— let's go through your story a little bit. So, you're at BYU playing football. Were you doing sales at that time?

Not at all.

You're football 100%, right?

Yeah, totally.

Can't be. So, and by the way, Mitch Matthews got an incredible career at BYU. I love watching you.

Thanks, man.

You had that catch on, um, what was it?

Nebraska.

Nebraska. I know. Yeah, that thing is sweet. Hail Mary catch, game winner. It's awesome.

So, it's cool.

So, you're there, you're not doing sales.

No.

You go right into the league. Right? And then you were at how many teams?

4.

4 teams. So what were the teams?

Chiefs, Browns, Vikings, then finished with the Dolphins.

Geez. So you're bouncing around 2 years?

2 years, yeah.

2 years, wow. So let's talk about that. For people, they always call it the not-for-long league.

Yeah, right? Yeah, NFL, not-for-long league.

Because everyone, people get hurt or they just transition out, whatever. So your experience there too, I'm sure you were, you know, you're playing, you're working, but also you're around a lot of people that have some money.

Yeah.

And you hear like the classic—

I can't—

you probably know the stat, but it's like 70% of people that leave professional sports are bankrupt in the next 5 years.

Yeah, right.

Something like that, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So you're there, so, and you, you're saying you always want to be an entrepreneur. So what drew you to that? And what was like, what was kind of that transition like out of the league into sales and into starting your own business?

So playing football was always a dream. And just kind of my, my own personal ethos is wherever I'm at, wherever my two feet are at, I'm going to see how far I can go in that sector. So when I played football in high school, immediately my mind said, well, I'm going to see if I can go play football in the National Football League. I want to see if I can go to the highest level, because if I can, then that'll create a habit in me that wherever I'm at in life, do the absolute best you can and to constantly test your limits where you're at. Because I think that's where success is at, is seeing how long you can do the same great thing over and over for, and that'll launch you to where you want to be. So I was able to go play first for the Chiefs And the Browns, Vikings, Dolphins. It was a great time. It was probably some of my highest highs because you live in your dream job. For me, that was my absolute dream job. It was amazing. But it was also some of my lowest lows because when you have your dream job, you feel that euphoria of being there. But what happens when that's taken away? Now, how do you feel?

Yeah.

So if you're at your high of high and that gets completely cut down when you're fired or let go or cut, they call it, then you're at your lowest of lows. And that's a big transition. Yeah, right. If you have a bad morning, it's not that big of a transition, but you have your dream job one day and then the next day your locker is cleaned out. and it's in a garbage bag and you're going back home, that's a massive transition. So that'll mess with— that'll mess with your mentals. And that happened to me 4 different times. After I was on the Dolphins, I hurt my ankle and that was kind of finally my, my, my last time where I said, you know what, I've been on 4 different teams. This has been an amazing ride. It's going to take me a while to rehab this ankle anyways. Let me go start my own first business. Yeah. And I did, which is Anthem.

Yeah.

And it's been an amazing ride. We've had some lows there our first year. It didn't even seem real because we weren't doing that good.

It just seemed like a side gig. But you You hadn't sold yet. Were you the salesman too? Were you going to go out and knock doors or were you building the team?

Yeah. So it was at that point it was just using my connections and network to build a team. And my business partner handled all of our operations. And then the third partner, he's our investor, handled all the finances. So it was just recruiting, honestly. And which was the toughest part about this was I'm recruiting to— I'm recruiting salespeople to come and sell with an entrepreneur who's one, never sold anything in his life besides just friends.

Yeah.

And who's never ran a business before.

Yeah.

So that was really tough to recruit at the beginning. I thought, you know, the name I had built for myself in football, it was going to be way easy to recruit. But at the end of the day, people want to work for people that have, have done what they're inviting them to do, right? I'm going to invite people to come sell with me. I had to have been a good salesperson. I hadn't sold anything yet.

That makes sense.

Or been a great entrepreneur, which I hadn't been yet. Yeah. So it was actually tougher at the beginning. So when I really— when we really started to have success in the recruiting side of our business, And for those who don't know, for pest control, it's a sales-driven, direct-to-home model, and recruiting is the lifeblood. So to be that guy where people could look to me as a sales guru, if you will—

Yeah, be their trainer, be their leader.

The coach, yeah, the guy. I had to go do it first. So my first year after football, and it was so close to football ending and this starting that I was still limping door to door. Like, I busted my ankle. I was still limping door to door, and I just, I was just winging it. Yeah, but my first summer that I went out, I, I broke a couple of sales records in this industry. And that was the whole hope is I'm, I'm at a point now where no one wants to listen to me, follow me as an entrepreneur and a salesperson because I hadn't done either of those. Yeah, I need to go put myself on the map in terms of their sales coach and be that guy and be their leader. So I went out and sold and broke a couple of industry records at the time and at that point put myself on the map as a sales coach. And what that really did though was it helped solidify me as someone that could believe in himself, right? I believed in myself as a person, but did I even believe in myself as a salesperson, as an entrepreneur? And I had major imposter syndrome. Yeah, because I didn't know what I was doing. And when we finally went out and did that and had some record-breaking years at the beginning, that's when really we started to take off.

Geez. And so I love that. And I think people, a lot of people struggle with confidence or they're like, I don't know if I have the confidence to go do something like that. I think competence gives confidence, right? When you go out and do and you accomplish, you become confident. And when you— the more experience you have at anything, you become confident. And you obviously went and broke records and did really well, and instantly people could look to you as the leader and the, okay, I'm gonna learn from Mitch. You know, he was great at football, but also it sounds like he's pretty good at sales too, right?

Sure.

Walk me through how— what it's like to build a sales team. You know, people listening, maybe they're building out different teams for whatever, but Building especially a sales team. There's a lot that goes in that, and it takes a certain type of person to do it. Walk me through some of the stuff that people can glean from building a sales team, and building an effective sales team versus like just a weak type of sales team.

That is very, very, that's a very good question, 'cause salespeople, which is myself included, they're overachievers, because sales is the highest paid position in the world. A lot of times there's no cap, so you can make as much money as you want, and so a lot of The breed of a salesperson is an overachiever, someone that's super hungry, cares about fitness, and just wants so much out of life. And a lot of times there's needs that come with that. So to me, what's been most important is empowering the next generation after me. So right now we have 15 managers at our company and they're unbelievable. Like, they're unbelievable leaders, great sales coaches. And I could not by myself have recruited 170 people in the last, you know, 3 and a half, 4 years that I've been a part of this But, but they, they can. But I needed to go out and do what I did in sales to even be credible enough to even be listened to. But sales isn't necessarily leadership. I think they coincide. But I had to empower these 15 managers, and there'll be way more in the future. But I had to empower this, like, original 15 leaders that we had and give them all the credit, give them all the power, give them all the coaching, all my attention. That way I could replicate myself and almost have, in a sense, 15 people that really wanted to build out a team. So you're painting vision to these people and you're giving them skills so they can hold, you know, the infrastructure, all these people. So to me, it's empowering the next generation because you cannot do it alone.

See, I think that's interesting is what you just said is, you know, some people are great salesmen, they're not great sales leaders. Yeah, it's a different skill. Way, way different. I've heard that from a number of people. And you hear that about all things. People that are great programmers but can't lead a team of programmers, or people that are great at trading. We have a lot of traders and stuff that follow, like trading investments and stuff. Great traders but You can't build a trading team or trading algorithm. And so I think that's a crucial skill of empowering that you mentioned. Talk me through some of that though. Are you talking, is it bonuses? Is it giving them responsibility? How are you empowering those 15 people that are your managers right now and giving them, I guess, showing them the vision of what's possible and duplicating yourself? 'Cause I feel like entrepreneurship and just in general is one of the scariest pieces is letting go of some hats and letting go of responsibilities to others that, are they gonna screw it up? There's no way they could do it as good as I could.

Yeah. Yeah.

What are your thoughts on that?

That's a great question. I had this thought come to me recently and it just came to me again, so I feel like it's needed to share. But I feel like so many people, if you look at any building around here, they're above where they're at and they're too cool where they're at. They're always looking for the next big thing. Okay. And I think that's a negative. So I always say this, everywhere you're at, you should always be bigger than where you're at, but never above where you're at. So if you think of Muhammad Ali, he wasn't above boxing because someone who's above boxing is too cool to work out, too, too cool to train hard. Yeah, but he definitely was bigger than boxing because he was trying to fix racial equality in America through his boxing vehicle. So to me, even, even if you strip down everything that we do, at the end of the day, it's pest control, right? It's just sales. It's a sales job. But if you can teach these people that what they're doing, never to be above it, to be too cool to train, to be too cool to come to the office, be too cool to do what makes you great. But to be bigger than where you're at, that's where I think they'll have success. Because a lot of these, a lot of these sales reps that we have, I feel like they're beginning to realize that this is just a vehicle to their own personal greatness. And they're going to take that to the second and third generation, that sales entrepreneurship, they can instill a greater than feel, not an above than feel, right? Yeah. So these, a lot of our sales reps that we have, these leaders, leaders, leaders that we have, are doing some amazing things with their money and they're able to set up amazing, amazing lives with that. They're able to coach and mentor people from being nothing to something. If you look at sales in the pest control world that we're at, you can look at it as just grabbing as much money as possible, or you can look at it as a way to change young people's lives. And if you choose that, that harder route, then you're going to— all those things like money, they're going to come later, but they'll come. So it's being greater than something or bigger than something. But never being above something.

As you're saying that, I just think of Kobe Bryant. You hear like story after story of him, you know, working harder than everybody else. You hear of him staying late shooting ball, you know what I mean? Being above, you know, not greater than, but—

Bigger than.

Bigger than.

Bigger than, but not above.

But not above. I think that's actually excellent advice. I love that. Something interesting I've learned too, you know, I've got a number of employees now working for me. We're not as— we got probably 11 people, maybe 15 between our couple of businesses I run, but 11 in one of our core businesses and I didn't realize I read a lot of business books and they always talked about like leaders need to like share the vision. And like it was— I just felt so like so wishy-washy of like you got to talk about the vision. And like I was like, no, like we're here to just work and make money and like let's all just get rich together. Like that was my, you know, let's just do this. And what I realized after doing that for a few months, like the few times I was like, let me share the vision, I'm like, I'll try it. Let me share the vision of what we're going at and where we're going to become as a company. It was interesting. Like my guys, like we're working 4 times harder, felt like the next day.

Sure.

Everyone was more motivated. They felt like they had this sense of group and community, and it was, it was so interesting to see the transition in people when you're talking a little bit bigger picture than just the day-to-day, or a little bit bigger picture than just knocking the next door of what we're doing and what we're taking over. And I was like, wow, I guess all those— I guess they were right. I guess Jack Welch was right in his business book, right? So I gave it a shot and went for it.

I love it. The leader that's gonna paint a vision will steal away all the top talent because vision is like— it feels so good to hear when you're a part of something, when you open the doors to that building, when you sit down at your chair and you know it's way bigger than that, than just the money you're gleaning from it. It's powerful stuff. So the leader that paints a vision is the leader that everyone's going to follow.

Look at Elon Musk. Yeah, dude says we're going to Mars, right? Doesn't know how to do any of that. Doesn't know how to build a rocket ship or anything. But people just say, okay, I like Elon, I like the vision, I'm going to follow this guy and I'll go work for him. And investors follow it. People are buying the stock. I mean, everyone— Elon, he's done this time after time. We're gonna build an electric car. We're gonna do the SolarCity. We're gonna build PayPal. I mean, all the cool stuff he's done. I think it's exactly right. Let's talk a little bit different too. I actually want to ask you about— do you do a lot of personal investing yourself? Yeah, decent amount.

Yeah.

What's your thoughts on like cryptocurrency? Where are you at right now?

Big fan of it. Yeah. Yeah, big fan of it. I mean, it's just one of those inevitable things. It's inevitably gonna be a part of our world. So, I mean, if someone hasn't invested to a certain extent, then get into it. At least you can know how to. Because last thing, I would rather have someone invest in a cryptocurrency and lose money but learn a ton than not invest at all and not even learn. Right. So for me, I have invested a good amount in it. It's turned out well, as you've seen the times. But to me, you've got to know the changes before they really happen, because what if Cryptocurrency was the way of the future a decade from now, and you knew nothing about it till it happened. Well, I think I think true poverty is just not knowing the information, not knowing the game. If you know the game and know how it's played, then you're going to end up winning. Even if you're super super talented, super super wealthy, if if you don't know the game, then then it's not going to bode well. And I have a funny story about just the game. Yeah, I tell us all the time. I had a teammate at BYU. His name is Ziggy Ansah. He came over from Africa to play— to BYU. And he tried out basketball, didn't make the team, tried out track, was fast, but he didn't make it. But he's 6'6, 270 pounds.

So it was a football body.

Yeah, good body. So the football team was like, whoa, try it, you know, come on, try us out. Super smart guy, double majored in like forensic science and accounting at BYU or something like that. And he came over to the football team and you You look at him and it's a specimen. It's a freak athlete. And but he didn't know the game. Never played football. Never probably even seen football coming from Africa. His first day, puts on his shoulder pads backwards and everyone's laughing at him. Right. So his talent level, like his raw athleticism, was very, very high. But his knowledge of the game wasn't even there. And we couldn't even put him on the field. Eventually, he played some special teams on kickoff where all he had to do was just run straight. You know, you just run straight. And he was great at that once he knew how to just do that. Come to his senior year, he still wasn't a starter going into his senior year, and there was 9 games left in the season, 8 or 9 games left. And he had finally, over those last 3 years— freshman, sophomore, junior year— learned the game.

Mm-hmm.

And once, once the coaches finally gave him a shot and he knew the game, well, his, his expertise on something finally matched where his athleticism was. And in 8 and a half, 9 games that he was the starter, he went from his freshman year never playing At all, not knowing what to do, to his senior year when it ended, he was the fifth pick in the NFL draft by simply knowing the game. Yeah. So I think investing in cryptocurrency—I know I kind of took a tangent there—but it's just important to know the game. So I had a major FOMO when I heard all these cryptocurrencies, and I said, "You know what? Let me invest. Let me try it out because I got to know the game or else the game will eat me alive." Yeah.

I think that's that's a cool story. Crazy story, huh? I didn't know he went fifth. Fifth pick in the draft.

In the like. 5th pick in the draft. That's like, that's, I think it's the highest ever in BYU history.

That's wild.

Crazy.

What, D-end or what was he playing?

Yeah, D-end.

D-end?

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

5th pick in the draft.

And I heard that, I remember when he was playing club teams.

Crazy.

Yeah, just this kid from Africa, he's never played before, but he just was, yeah, I love that. But understanding the game, I think you're exactly right of, and if it takes some dollars, maybe you make some money, maybe you lose some money, but if that takes it to learn the game.

Know the game.

To know what's going on and maybe it's true.

Know the trends.

Maybe it isn't. Yeah, know what's happening. That's wise words. Yeah. So with— so I asked you about crypto. I think it's just fun to just chat. NFTs, anything in there?

Honestly, that's where I need to learn the game even more because it's so new and I have been trying to, but it's so interesting. Like the NFTs now, it's coming into the art world. It's just— it's nuts to me, but I'm actually learning the game and it's been fun.

I know that's— that's an interesting one, right? With NYC, super interesting. What's interesting is the applications of blockchain. In that point of blockchain disrupting, you're starting to see it a little creep. Obviously, cryptocurrency is built on blockchain; it's a decentralized system. But having it come into art now and different places, you're like, huh? You know, could it come into? Well, a lot of people have been trying to push it into real estate, where if you're going to buy a house, you don't need a trust company, you don't need title insurance; it's just on the blockchain. And if you're selling a house to me, I just know Mitch has owned this since 2015. And okay, we just signed the paper. You don't need. All the agents and everything, if it's built on a blockchain, you're not selling. So anyways, pretty interesting of how blockchain is getting this. I understand the game. My dad actually came to me 6 years ago and he sat me down, me and my brothers, and he said, boys, you need to understand what blockchain is. He goes, we once, we had the fire and then we had like the car and then we had electricity or whatever. He kind of went through the whole thing. Then we had the internet. Now we have blockchain. You're gonna hear about blockchain. every month for the rest of your life about some new development.

Yeah.

And it was really, that was 6 years ago, and I started to learn it, but understanding the game, and I'm like, man, and then there's money, so much money moving into those types of things, and the capital is just crazy right now. Is Anthem your number one focus right now?

It is, yeah, business-wise.

Do you have other business ventures you're working on, or just Anthem?

I own a company called Dapper. It's a mobile detailing company, so we go to people's houses.

You own Dapper? You're an owner in Dapper? Yeah, me and my best friend. I see you guys' cars everywhere.

Oh, really? The Jeeps and everything that run out of there. That's sweet, huh?

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, the Jeep Gladiators are really cool. So that's going crazy, it's really fun to do. But my main focus would be right now Anthem, and that's just 'cause it's the number of people. Like, it takes a lot of like your brainpower, and I love it. I love both of them. I work with my best friends, so it couldn't be better. But Anthem is the focus just 'cause one thing I've realized is you cannot optimize leadership. You cannot. You can have leaders underneath you that carry a lot of the weight. That might be a way to look at it as optimization, but if you're the leader of the company, if you're the leader of all the salespeople, you can't ever just take a break and let the people start running with it. You can't optimize leadership. And you can optimize operations, you can optimize routes, you can optimize things like that, but leadership is impossible, 'cause they need, the leaders underneath you, or your people underneath you, they need your energy. 'Cause energy is influence. Passion, passion is influence. So if you have those things, your people will be affected by it. If you're never in the office, if you're never giving wisdom, eventually you can't even paint the vision. So to me, it's impossible to optimize leadership. So you have to be there, you have to give them your energy, because how could you promise them you're gonna change their life or help them change their life if you're never there or never around?

Yeah.

So that's why my principle Business right now is Anthem because it's the people and they need me to paint that.

They need you there. Yeah, that's that's yeah, that's cool. Um, can I want to switch gears a little bit? Let's do it. I want to talk about self-development. Let's do it. And I well, I want to first ask you about Wim Hof. I saw your stuff. You flew out right and met with Wim Hof.

Would you go to Poland at his house, man?

You went to Wim Hof's house like a dream of mine. I followed Wim Hof for last like six years. Yeah. Buddies in high school that loved to take cold showers and everything. Yeah. Tell me about that experience.

It was amazing. Amazing. So it was, it was me and a great group of guys. So Lewis Howes, big-time podcaster, he created the whole entire group. And so no one really knew each other out of the 12 guys that went to Wim Hof's house. We all knew Lewis though. So we created this cool brotherhood when we were able to stay in Wim Hof's house. So Lewis invites Jesse Isler, Aubrey Marcus, some Olympians, Steve Weatherford. It was a really, really powerful, cool group. And it was just fun to be there with those guys. And I was the youngest guy in the group, but to learn their wisdom and how they spoke, and it was really, really rewarding, really cool. But awesome. All of us flew out to stay in Wim Hof's house, and none of us really knew anything about Wim Hof besides he was like this mythical creature almost. Jesse Isler always says it was, it was almost like going to meet Yoda. Like, he's not human, you know, he's not human, but he lives on Earth. And so we went out to his house.

Tell people too, who is Wim Hof if you've never heard of him before?

Yeah, so Wim Hof is the Iceman. Yeah, so he's broken, I think, 13 world records, and most of them are all dealing with ice. So he submerged himself in freezing cold water for 2 hours and 45 minutes, I think, and his core body temperature didn't change. Done a marathon around the base of Mount Everest. He's just the Iceman. So his ability to withstand freezing cold temperatures is not natural and is not human. But what comes from that, like withstanding the pressure of the cold, is just a metaphor for withstanding the pressures and the stresses of life. And so his teachings with the breathing and the cold therapy, they've changed and saved lots of lives. And I mean, I can go into a lot of stories, but if you look it up and you try his stuff, It's something I can't even—

I do his breathing exercises multiple times a week. I love it.

Oh my gosh.

I saw a video of him too. He injected himself with Ebola.

Yeah.

Active Ebola. And to just prove a point that he could overcome it and expel it from his body. And he did it. Yeah. A couple of days, he was fine. He's out of it. Yeah. Just crazy.

He took a group of 24 people, injected 12 of them with some sort of illness, the flu, whatever. He trained these people in the cold water, the 12 that he injected, and in the breathing. And the other 12 were super, super sick and these 12 didn't feel any effects at all. It's really cool, it's really healing, you know, a lot of autoimmune diseases and stress, anxiety, depression, all those things.

So okay, so you get to Poland, you're at his house, you're at Yoda's house.

We're in this cabin and there's no way it passes any of these health codes. There's like an open flame in the living room. There's one bathroom for like 15 people that are all there. There's like Bunsen burners for the stoves. Like it was just, it was an amazing experience. It was perfect whim where it doesn't care about money, Doesn't care to use his brand as a money machine, but to heal people. So night one, it's a 10-minute cold plunge, which I've done tons of cold plunges up to my waist because of football. It's very good for, you know, inflammation. But this time it was up to your neck.

Oh yeah.

And most people that went in this ice tub had never done an ice tub before at all. So they go up to your neck. It's pretty scary. Yeah. And when you're in those type of elements, when we got in this, this cold tub, we're chipping away ice. There's a thick layer of ice at the top. We have to chip away at it to get in this cold tub. So, you know, it's freezing cold. It's snow on the ground. It's Poland.

Yeah.

In January. So it's freezing cold inside and out of this tub. And for 10 minutes, which I'd never done 10 minutes even up to my waist. And it was really, really tough. And if you stay in water untrained for that long, I mean, people die in those type of temperatures.

Oh yeah.

So to step into something that could—

Did he train you before? Just said, hey—

That one? No, that one? No.

Now he just threw it in there.

That one threw it in. Because 10 minutes is— that's a long time, but it's not long enough to do any damage whatsoever. But it was really cool bonding moments to go in pain together as a group that didn't really know each other and to do it with Wim Hof there. So it was amazing experience. We jumping off like 30-foot cliffs into freezing cold water. We the we did a lot of the breathing, which you had talked about. But the crowning jewel of that whole experience was we did a probably a four-hour hike. It was no shirts, shorts only. You could wear gloves. It's a four-hour hike on Mount Sneska in Poland. It was probably negative 20 degrees. And what I learned from that trip though, and I'll get back into the hike in a second, is the whole trip trained you that you're more superhuman than you think. Meaning, like, during these breathing exercises when I was at his house, I was able to hold my breath for 3 minutes comfortably. 3 minutes' time. And I had never done that or thought even 45 seconds was possible, let alone 3 minutes. We go and jump in these freezing cold temperatures for long periods of time and I never thought I could do that. We go on this hike in Poland in -20 degrees and the wind chill is crazy. You're leaning 45-degree angle into this wind to stay, you know, stay up. Yeah. And you get off it and you're alive. I'm here today and you're like, wait a minute, like, what else can I do? And so I leave that trip and I felt like I had some superpowers in a way. I felt kind of how Wim feels on a daily basis and you're able to think bigger and be bigger than you were before. And so it just got me on this. I mean, I felt like I was already on this path to self-improvement, but that trip really solidified like who we all need to be is testing our limits, see what we can do, because you can actually feel superhuman in a lot of ways that are right around us, which is cool.

Yeah, that's, that's so interesting, this superhuman aspect. Yeah. So what do you think? Like, has that changed how you think about business? What's possible? What? 100%. And everything. Talk me through some of that.

Yeah. Well, I think, I think painting a vision to, to your company, you have to paint the vision to yourself first. Like, how could I project this big vision to my company unless I had the big vision and know that it could be accomplished in my own mind before I put it out there on paper and to people, right?

Yeah.

So unless you're doing these self-improvement type things, there's so many ways to do this. Unless you're seeing how much you can believe in yourself and see how high you can create your self-esteem, how could you— if you're at a low point in your life, how could you How can you paint an amazing vision of who your people could become if you're not even there yourself?

That makes a lot of sense.

So, to me, it's a constant journey to chase my potential and see who I can become because then I can bless and benefit my people by projecting a vision that helps them become their best selves too.

I absolutely love that. The— well, and I think it's so interesting of how just raising your vision on what's possible changes the world for people and what is out there. In my story a little bit, I figured out that I had a dad who was running a multi-billion-dollar investment firm. And it raised my vision. I was like, my dad's not that smart. He's a normal guy.

That's my dad, man.

I could do it, right? And that's— people have always asked me, Bridger, how did you— 'cause I have people that listen to the show, I've talked about funds and I've launched multiple funds. How'd you have the confidence to go do that? How'd you even think of that? And I said, well, I had a guy ahead of me that I could see the vision of what was possible and I thought, well, if he could do it, I can do it.

Crazy.

And I think that's true with everything. That's why you see this compounding effect of entrepreneurship, compounding effect of skill when you're around other people. who are breaking limits or breaking things that you didn't think was possible, that you see other people do the same thing. Like, oh, if Mitch could start a business— I knew Mitch since we were 3 years old. If he started a business, I could start a business, right? And it's really interesting what happens when you start sharing. And that's— it could be entrepreneurship, it could be fitness, it could be whatever. But it's like your siblings too, it's another example. Like, oh, if my brother could do it, or sister, like, I could do it, right? And I think that's true, as you said, with Wim Hof, of what's possible out there. Yep. And but he's on another level though.

He's another level. He's on another level. Well, maybe not him, but but but seriously, you can just taste of of the feelings he feels, and and you know he's doing it for the right reasons. But the reason why proximity is power—it's kind of what you were getting at—is because you follow guys online like Ed Mylett, the Tony Robbins, the you know whoever. There's so many. There's countless people. But then you go spend time with them in person because you put them on a pedestal. Online that as if they're mystical, as if they're like they're out of this world. Yeah, I'm me, but he is him or she is her like that. She's in a different world, right? And you go spend time with people in person and you realize how normal they are. You realize that there's one common thread amongst these people though. They believe in themselves. They fully believe in themselves. And that's what I learned about the NFL too, is there always wasn't the best athletes. Not everyone in the NFL is a freak athlete. Only probably 5 to 10% of the team is like these out-of-this-world athletes. But there's one common thread though, is they all, is they all believe in themselves to a high, high degree. And when I went and spent time with all 12 of these guys and Wim Hof in Poland, all these guys like Jesse Itzler, Aubrey Marcus, Lewis Howes, they're all like these mythical business creatures, right? Yeah. And you spend time with them in person, you're like, wait a minute, this guy's just like me. He's just like me with a lot of confidence, high self-esteem, and he knows how to paint a vision for himself. And it's super cool that, like, if I was to spend time with Ed Mylett, who I put on this pedestal in my mind, right? Or a Tony Robbins. They're all these mythical creatures, and then you spend time with them in person, or get as close as you possibly can, learn how normal they are. Wikipedia their name, you learn, wait a minute, that guy has some Standard things that I've even gone through.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, he's a normal guy. He just has crazy confidence and crazy vision for himself.

I think that's 100% true. Well, I want to ask you, what gave— do you— have you felt like you've just been confident throughout your entire life? Or were there certain things that gave you confidence or built confidence in you and that high self-esteem? I can just tell by just being with you, you have that. What would you say for people that maybe are like, I don't know if I have that, how do I get that? What would you say?

Yeah.

And how did maybe you develop it?

How to develop confidence is through a couple things: through a lot of pain, through high achievement, through setting a goal and doing it. In other words, doing exactly what you said you do, and through in some cases recognition. But you know that for me, the quickest way to give my people confidence is to just recognize them. That's what. so many people are hungry for. But a lot of times it's not your choice if someone recognizes you, right?

Yeah.

So it comes through a lot of pain. For me, I thought I was super, super confident after, you know, playing at the highest level in college and doing well there and, you know, climbing the leaderboards in school history. And it felt really good. And I thought I was super confident. But what I realized is I was confident in one thing. That was football. So what happens when football's gone? Now where's my confidence? When I really felt like I gained the most confidence was when I recognized my ability to overcome some pretty deep pains. So I, I was cut 4 times from the NFL. There was a month span in my life where I was, I was cut by the Minnesota Vikings. My mom passed away. I was 25, and it was pretty unexpected. I started this business that I own now, Anthem. And I had— I got married all within like a month span.

Wow. Yeah.

And I had my mom's funeral the same weekend as my wedding. So I went from having this easy life, this successful life, being a college football player and then now playing football in the NFL, to having kind of all that crash down on me and finally realizing what pain was and hard was. And so now my perspective on life is completely different. Because I'm not just confident in what I'm doing. I'm not just confident in football. I'm just confident in myself that if anything was to happen, well, I've experienced some pretty deep pains and some crazy circumstances. So since I've felt those pains, then I'm just confident in myself that I can overcome anything if I've overcome that.

Yeah, you got over that in the past. Then yeah, why not? Why not overcome it in the future?

So that's what it was. It wasn't recognition at the time. It wasn't because I'd achieved a lot. It wasn't because I said I would play college football, NFL football, and I did. It was because I'd gone through a lot of pain. And so now my perspective on life is different. If something happens, something happened to my business, something happened to whatever else, lost my house for whatever reason, lost whatever. Yeah, I've been through worse pain. So I have confidence in myself to overcome anything. And so if you want real confidence that is across the board in anything in life, You got to go through pain. Now that pain came to me though. I didn't choose that pain. I didn't want that pain. So now my pain is purposeful. It's deliberate. So I'm doing an Ironman tomorrow. Are you really doing Ironman tomorrow to purposely put myself through something hard? Yeah. And to me, that's, that's how I keep that perspective. I went through something hard, not on purpose. It came to me, but now it's purposeful. It's planned pain to give myself confidence.

One of my business partners always talks about— he goes he schedules 1 to 2 hours of planned pain a day. He tries to, whether it's answering that email or that, you know, talking to that person he doesn't want to talk to, or maybe it's gym, or maybe it's fitness or whatever. Maybe it's talking to his spouse because they're fighting about something. He plans it out. He's like, I plan pain in my schedule every day.

Cool.

And I try to get to that point because of what you just expressed. And I've seen the same thing in my life. You know, I've had, you know, other— I won't go into this stuff, but everyone's had hardship and people die and things go bad and And what it does, if you come through it, it gives you resilience for the future. And 100%. You're right. Why are you here? You've got an iron. I know. What are you doing?

I got my— I got my water jug in the car. I'm hydrating. I can spare an hour to talk. Oh, I just— I just crushed some Olive Garden breadsticks and some pasta. So I got my carb load, got my water in the car, and I'm sitting down and I'm resting the legs right now. I'm good.

This is part of it.

This is part of the rest.

This is the rest of the workout.

Here in Utah County, so you bike around Utah Lake, you swim in the Linden Pool, and then you run 26.2 on the Murdock Trail. So it's a full Ironman. Full, yeah. 140.6.

Oh my gosh, have you done anything like this before? Have you done a marathon? Have you done a bike?

No marathon. I biked 112. Okay. And I've swam 2.4 miles. Yeah. All within the last probably week and a half to get ready for this Ironman. Okay. So these are all recent, but I've trained for the last 4 months. Yeah, geez. Ready to go, man. Wow. Deliberate pain, but yeah.

Follow up and see what happens.

I know, huh? Yeah, I know. Yeah. Tomorrow, 5:30 in the morning, I'll be starting.

Gosh, what other type of pain do you Do you schedule? Is it mostly fitness type of things, or do you have other things?

That's the easiest one to do. Yeah, that's the easiest one. And it doesn't have to be like this dark, overglooming pain, right? It can just be like what you talked about. Like, if reading is a pain to you, like, put yourself through reading every single day. You know what I mean? That's what's painful to you, then just— that's probably what you should be doing. One of my good buddies, his name is Humble the Poet, he always says fear is your compass. So what you're scared of, which fear is pain, what you're scared of, that's your compass. That's exactly where you go. So fitness is the easiest one for me just because I've been in fitness my whole entire life. But what's also really hard is, is running a business. You know, being a great leader is really, really hard. I'm not even there yet. Not even close. But that journey is hard. So I'm going to put myself on that through, through reading, through being with my people, through spending time with other leaders who are way better than me.

Yeah.

It's, it's a certain level of pain there to be uncomfortable. So uncomfortable situations, things that scare you, that's all pain.

I love it. Do you think it's a totally different topic, but whatever, we'll do it. Do you think— will you put your kids in football?

Yes. Yeah. Football is a beast, though. It is a beast. Luckily, I played wide receiver, so I didn't get, you know, my head banged in a lot. Yeah, but I got knocked out. I've been concussed multiple times. Yeah. I definitely won't put my kids in a bubble though. If they really wanna do something, then, and I know they'd be successful, how dare I keep them away from something? 'Cause there's so many other things in life besides football that are dangerous for you, you know? So if my kids really wanted to do it, absolutely, because I was way better at baseball than football. I was a 6'6 left-handed pitcher. Yeah. Like, that's like the ideal.

That's like the dream, man.

But I was like, I like baseball, but I love football. And so that made me have a great life and great career and make it to the highest level. But so if I knew my kids loved it, love football, how can I hold them back from their passions? Now what I could do is not let them start till like 8th grade or 7th grade.

'Cause you were hesitant when I asked you that. You were like, I don't know. So yeah, maybe see?

Yeah, but I think I started football in 2nd grade. My dad was the coach and he forged my age and said I was a little older than I was, so I started in 2nd grade. So I don't know if that's necessary, but flag football's a good option. But there's a lot of pains that come from football. You're on the, it's the most visible thing in America. Football is what everyone watches. People know who you are, and there's some, Things and struggles that come with that. But if my kids wanted to golf, I'd probably be like, heck yeah, let's go. Let's go golf so I can do it with you. But if I want to play football because they're passionate, I'd say absolutely. But in a way, the reason I was kind of hesitant is because I almost wish it maybe was something else. It doesn't have to be football just because I did it. If they're passionate about whatever else, then that'll take them far.

Yeah, I like it. Yeah. For kind of last last couple parting questions here, if someone's listening, they. They wanna— let's call it entrepreneurship. They wanna start a business. Yep. They're nervous to get started or they're just getting started. What advice would you have for a person starting, getting into the business world? Maybe some advice you'd give your previous self. Someone just getting started and maybe they're hesitant to get in, maybe they're just starting at that kind of starting stage. What would you say?

Sure. I would say find the right partners. You gotta love the partners you're working with, the people you're working with, and you have to have people that you can lean on. To go start a business completely by yourself is tough to do. And I didn't have to do that. I had great mentors and great business partners that carried a lot of the weight, and I'm able to learn through that process. Could I go start a business on my own now? But I might not even want to, you know, if I could. But I just love working with people and love having, you know, partners that I can love and trust. So I would say number one is just find people to do it with on that journey if it's your first time.

Yeah, for sure. Any advice for how to find them?

Find people that you respect the heck out of, not necessarily who you just love, because I love, you know, a lot of people who I wouldn't do business with, right? Find people who you respect the heck out of and you love and bring something to their attention that they would want to do with you and be the person that they would want to do business with. Yeah, right. So you can't be a bottom feeder for them. You can't just be an urchin to them. You got to, you got to raise their standards as well. I would also say spend as much time as possible with people who have started businesses, and you realize how easy it is. It's hard to start a business, but your people who haven't started one that want to, they think it's a lot harder than it really is. So spend a lot of time listening to people who have started a business, and it will become clear to you how it's done. Find those mentors, find people who have started a business, and just sit yourself right next to them on purpose. Ask to shadow them. I remember— this is no joke— this is like 2 and a half, 3 years ago. I was 27 years old. I asked Jeremy Andrews, who's like, you know, one of my business idols. He's the CEO of Traeger Grills.

Former CEO of Skullcandy.

Former CEO of Skullcandy. They just sold part of their company for $1 billion. Like, it's nuts what he's doing. I went on a hike with him the other day and we were laughing about the story because I asked him 2 years before, 2 and a half years before, I said, hey, can I come shadow you? I'm already 2 or 3 years into my business. And I asked another guy, I'm almost 30 years old at the time, I'm 27. I'm asking someone if I can shadow them. But to me it wasn't— I mean, I went and shadowed him for 12 hours one day and it changed my— changed the trajectory of my business. I'm not joking. Those 12 hours. So it was just putting myself right next to someone and stripping down the pride of having to shadow someone. Usually do that when you're 18 or 19 years old. I was 27 years old, man. I'm shadowing people. So I did that because there's no pride in it. Just go stick yourself next to the people you want to be like, and soon enough you'll be right there.

I love it. That's good advice. Yeah. Finding, you said at the beginning, find good partners.

Yep.

Be intentional with partners that you're looking for and finding, then surround yourself with people who are doing it. And like we mentioned earlier, it's that kind of compounding effect of if they can do it, I can do it. That's been true in my life over and over again. Kind of final question too, I wanna ask you about, you know, outside of business, you know, obviously you're trying to excel in fitness. We'll see how the Ironman goes tomorrow. But doing pretty well.

Should've done this after so I could tell stories about it.

How do you keep yourself, you know, certain goals on— let's talk about a holistic point of view. You have financial goals obviously, but fitness, relationship, or spiritual goals, things like that. How do you keep those in balance and what are some thoughts you have to an approach of looking at life holistically like that? What's your approach to that?

It's a great question. I don't even know how to answer it eloquently, so bear with me if I stumble through it. But I've kind of had an epiphany as I've been training for this Ironman. It's been great for me. It's been fun. It's been healthy. It's been awesome. But it actually didn't perfectly align with who I want to become and what's most important to me. If I besides family, which family faith those things to me are by far way more important than anything I can be doing. But if you just zoom into what I want to do, like what my duty here on earth is, is to lead people to a better life. And I think entrepreneurship is the is the best vehicle for that. Which exalts entrepreneurship to pretty much my number one priority besides family and faith. Makes sense. So entrepreneurship to me, changing the world in some way, that's— those are going to happen through entrepreneurship. And so— and it's so funny because it's a vehicle to accomplish. It's just a vehicle. It's the vehicle. And when you gain more finances, you can go faster to change the world. And so there is a way to do it. And it's funny because I own a pest control company. How is pest control going to change the world? Well, if I only thought of myself as someone who owned a pest control company, then I wouldn't. But we're way bigger than just pest control where we're at. Yeah, everything I'm doing is way bigger than what I'm actually just doing. And Jesse Isler is a guy who I look up to a lot. He always says that— and he told me this, I was at his house probably a couple months ago— he told me, he's like, your best ideas are not gonna come in your 20s. I'm 29 right now. He's like, they're probably not gonna come in their 30s, in your 30s. He goes, your best ideas definitely are gonna come to you in your 40s and 50s because you're smarter and more experienced and you see the world in a different way. So don't beat yourself up for not having the perfect world-changing idea in your 20s. Build capital, start really cool businesses, make it bigger than what you're doing. But your best ideas are yet to come. And I'll finish with this. Just our best— me and you, your wife, my wife— our best is yet to come. And that's something that Jeremy Andrews taught me when I was on this hike with him a couple of days ago. He said, your best is yet to come and you should always think that. Your business should always think that. Because if you think you've already had your best, like if my Hail Mary moment in college was my best moment, I'm 50 years old. And that's still my best moment, that's a sad life.

Something's wrong.

That's super sad. If a time when I was 24 years old is the best moment of my life. So, our best is yet to come. My best is yet to come. Your best is yet to come. So, I'll always think that way and entrepreneurship will be my vehicle. As long as faith and family are aligned, entrepreneurship will be my vehicle to change the world in some way.

Oh, I love it. How can people get in touch with you if they want to work for you? Or come just hang out? What's a good way to— a good way to get in touch with you?

Social media.

Okay.

Well, a couple of ways. So I do a lot of inspirational text messages. I have a group of almost 1,000 people that I text inspirational messages to. You subscribe to it by texting me.

I'm pretty sure I'm on the group.

Are you?

I think so. Yeah.

Good, good. So it's 971-204-8268. So text me and it'll automatically log you in. It's 971-204-8268. I feel like I'm giving a commercial right now.

Get below. And if you buy 2 in the next 30 minutes, you get—

Exactly. Yeah. And then on social media, it's @MitchMathews10, and Matthews oddly has one T on it. So it's @MitchMathews10 on Instagram and all my socials. Shoot me a DM, text me, and then I reply to a lot of those texts and, and we'll talk.

Cool. Okay. Well, Mitch, thanks so much for coming on today.

It was fun. Thanks for having me. It's been fun. Yeah, for sure. Thanks, brother.