What It Really Takes to Save Lives and Build a Legacy with Matt Nealand

Welcome to beyond you'd why podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week, we're going to be talking about the why of contribute. So if this is your why, then you want to be part of a greater cause, something that's bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily want to be the face of the cause, but you want to contribute in a meaningful way. You love to support others, and you relish successes that contribute to the greater good of the team. You see group victories and as personal victories, you're often behind the scenes looking for ways to make the world better. You make a reliable and committed teammate, and you often act as the glue that holds everyone else together. You use your time, your money, your energy, your resources and connections to add value to other people and organizations. And so today, I have a great guest for you. His name is Matt Nealand he's a visionary leader in emergency medical education and the program director at EMTS Academy and paramedic program at St. David's Round Rock Medical center in Austin, Texas. Now, Matt took a program he built from the ground up and expanded it to eight locations across Texas. Along the way, he discovered that the key to lasting impact isn't just professional success. It's staying grounded in purpose and perspective. Now he's helping others ask the bigger question. What's next? What's possible? And how do we build a life that truly matters? Let's welcome Matt Nealon to the show.

Dr. Sanchez, thank you so much. That was a beautiful introduction. It's like you crawled inside my head and you were looking through everything and you nailed it.

I love it.

I love it.

And so, Matt, you know, for our audience, you and I are both part of the group called the Genius Network. And. And recently we got to spend Some time together in Austin, Texas, where you live. But take us back in your life. Where were you born and what were you like growing up?

I was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, and we moved to Illinois probably when I was like five to seven. And I always knew I wanted to be a police officer, a firefighter, or a paramedic. I wanted to help people. And so that was kind of my big why. And it didn't really make sense for a long time. I just knew that I wanted to go out there and help people who needed it most.

I love it. And so where did you go to high school?

So I went to high school at Hananega High School in Rockton, Illinois. A little high school. I think we probably had about 800 to 1200 students. I was active on the fire department even then when other people were in sports.

Nowadays they have like the explorers. I would have called myself a cadet. And so we would ride our bicycles to the fire calls. And my brother, my twin brother, was kind of a scanner guy, and he had the scanner. And so he'd say, hey, there's a big fire. We'd go and we'd show up on the call and we'd hand out water or roll up hoses. And then the fire department got to know us. And eventually they kind of brought us under their wing and said, come on in. And we took a first responder class very young. And that was all kind of around age 15 and 16. So went to college. I don't know if you want me to keep going and tell you about.

Hold on. Before that. So if we were to have seen you in high school, we're now in your high school. And there goes Matt by what would we have seen?

You would have seen an outgoing, friendly guy who just truly wanted to help everybody and be friends with everybody. In fact, they had a group called Natural Helpers, and it was kind of a weird group. It was just like those people who wanted to help other people. And I remember the group was really great. I don't know that it really ever helped anybody, but the group of people that were in there were super great. So if they're listening, shout out to Natural Helpers from Hananiga High School.

So, okay, you not really into sports, but more into being part of the fire department?

Yep. Okay.

Graduate from high school. Where do you go from there?

I went to Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, and I studied law enforcement. Again, it was kind of that police, fire, ems. I thought I wanted to go work in federal law enforcement. That was My dream job. I didn't ever do drugs. I just knew what I wanted to do with my life and I had a pretty straight path. It was just going to be one of those three options. So I, I don't know, I wanted to go work at atf, which nowadays we're saying you want to work at ATF is kind of like, ah, but back then I, I did an internship my senior year in arson investigation and I was absolutely amazed by arson investigation. And I thought that that was really, really fascinating to see where a fire started and more importantly to be able to read people and understand a little bit about that. But thankfully it didn't work out.

So what did your parents and brother think about you wanting to go down that path? And did your brother do the same thing?

My brother was a police dispatcher for a while. He wanted to be a firefighter, but he ended up working in a 911 dispatch. He worked for the Illinois State Police. And so he also had kind of that wanting to help people vibe.

Okay, so how did you figure out, okay, well now you're in college trying to figure out which direction of those three to go. How did you figure that out?

I took a paramedic. I took my EMT class, I think my freshman year of college and then I took a paramedic class. And for those listeners who may not understand it, sometimes people think emt, paramedic and it is, but EMT is generally the lower step and paramedic is the highest level of pre hospital care provider. So I took a paramedic class. I think it was my senior year of college and that's when everything just kind of clicked. The lights turned on and that's how I've helped the most people. It, it, that was the start of it. I really got a lot of dopamine in my brain from being able to get on scene, make order out of chaos and help people.

Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. What about being a paramedic, did you like what, what, what was the thing that said, ah, this is what I want to do?

I thrived in chaos, which was, I don't know, it's a weird thing, but I love to be able to get on scene and be the one in charge and, and make somebody's day better. I wanted to help them get to a better place, which is another kind of, you know, these are all related. But it was just that I wanted to help, I wanted to contribute, I wanted to be valuable to somebody else's life. And frankly, the easiest way to do that is after they've called 911. The challenge with that is they have to call 911 to get your help.

Yeah. Okay, so then you show up, run into the chaos, figure out what's going on, figure out what the next best step is. And that gave you your dopamine rush?

Yeah, absolutely. There was a huge high from that.

Awesome. Okay, so you graduate from college in. Is that a degree in paramedics?

So I had a bachelor's degree in law enforcement and a certification as a paramedic. There's only about 15 or 16 Bachelor's of EMS degrees in the nation, and we're working on making another one starting here in January of 26, if all goes well.

Okay, so EMS, EMT and paramedics.

Straighten.

This out a little bit. What's the difference? What do they mean? How do we figure out what they are?

That's a great question and one that's commonly asked. A lot of people think that they all mean the same thing and they're similar. The way I describe it is EMS stands for emergency medical services. And that's like this great big umbrella term, and that includes fire department, ambulance services, and even some police agencies, some lifeguard agencies, park rangers. So again, ems, the big umbrella. And underneath that you have a couple different certifications. Just like in nursing, you may have an LVN and RN or a CNA and an RN. There's different categories. EMS is the same way. So paramedic, typically about 1,000 hours of training takes generally about a year and a half. EMT comes before that, and that's generally one semester or about four to five months.

Ah, okay. So all of it's under ems?

Absolutely. Yep.

Gotcha. Okay, so graduate with your degree. What happens to you after that?

I'm working in Illinois, Western Illinois. I'm not. It's a small town and I want to go bigger. So again, this contribute thing shows up once again. And So I saw Dr. Rock. Ed Rock was the medical director for Austin, Travis county ems. He was on the front cover of a magazine. And I said, man, that looks awesome. I want to go to Austin, Texas. I imagined tumbleweeds rolling in front of my ambulance, a hitching post maybe right next to the ambulance. I had no idea what Texas was like, but as a 21 year old kid, it just seemed way more interesting than where I was at the time in Illinois.

So at age 21 is when you moved to Austin?

Yeah, I was a paramedic before. I was finishing up my paramedic before I could legally take a drink. And I remember thinking, I'm, you know, 20 years old, and I'm thinking, man, imagine if my professor dropped dead and I could show off my skills in front of the class.

How cool would that be?

It's sick stuff, but, you know, sometimes when you have a skill, you want to use it. Just like you as a dentist, if somebody had really bad teeth, you're like, I can fix that. I can do something for you.

I love it. Okay, so at 21, move to Austin. Take us through what happened next for you. Sure.

I got a job with Austin, Travis county ems. I'm helping a lot of people. It's a high call volume system. By high call volume, we worked 24 hours on and 48 hours off. And so during that 24 hours, we would. I was on the busiest trucks. It was like East Austin. And there were some areas that were not really nice as far as socioeconomic type stuff. And I'm talking shooting, stabbings, a lot of cardiac arrests. I saw 50 CPR calls or death pronouncements in the first six months. It got so bad that they named me Medic Death or doctor Death. And, I mean, that started to wear on me. So you. What's. Why me?

Why did they call you that? It wasn't. You didn't cause it.

I was a crap magnet. I was the one who was attracting, like, all those calls. I guess I had, like a halo around me when I was going through paramedic school and all that. And suddenly I hit the streets of Austin and people are dropping like flies. Dead, dead, dead. The most I ever saw, I think, was four pronouncements in a 24 hour period.

So that's four dead people in one day. And, you know, it starts to kind of grate on you a little bit. Yeah.

So let's talk about that. How did. How did that affect you?

It affected me a lot. One of the things that I learned pretty early on throughout this was that Jack Canfield has a really great formula, and it's called E plus R equals O. And I'll get to that in a second. That means event plus response equals outcome. But what was happening was I was seeing these people die. And then the next day I'd read the paper when they actually had newspapers. This is 2000. And so I'd read about it, and Mr. Smith was a great guy. He was active in his church. He was a family man. He had three kids and six grandkids. And I started to become attached to him, and I didn't need to be. So I had to physically and mentally separate myself and say, that was a call, it was a silo. It happened here during this period of time and I didn't cause it. And I may or may not have been able to impact that and change that, but it wasn't my fault. So to circle back to this, e plus r equals o. It was only 20 years later that I learned this formula. And event plus response equals outcome. And so this is something I now teach our paramedic students. I teach nursing students here on campus. And the idea is that something's going to happen that's an event. And so a simple example is somebody flips you off in traffic and then there's going to be a response. You can also flip them off. You can now play this road rage game where you're, you know, accelerating and giving each other dirty looks and all that, and then there's going to be an outcome. So the plus sign in there, I like to say that's a time element. So you have the event plus the response. And the further that you can get these two things apart. If you're listening, you can't see my hands, but they're physically separating out. The more time that you can put in between the event and the response, the it gives your mind a chance to figure out what's going on. And our brains are like chat GPT in that if you give them long enough, they'll find the right answer. So sometimes you just need a second to breathe. Separate the event from the response and you'll get a different outcome.

And why did that formula help you?

Because what I realized is that person had 50 or 60 or 70 years of bad living. They got them. That was the event. A 911 call happened. I was the response. And I may or may not have been able to stop the event. I may or may not have been able to change the outcome. But I knew that I had to go in there and do the best I could. And even on days when I made a mistake, some people lived. If I did everything perfect, they died. So it wasn't my fault and I had to separate myself from that. But the cumulative effect over time is that when you start seeing drug dealers and prostitution and just all the worst that life has to offer, it can be really, really hard to want to continue to go out there and do that. And so I was feeling the effect of that and I started. I joined special operations when we did high angle, low angle rescue, tactical bomb squad, helicopter rescue, cave rescue, all of that stuff. And what I was really looking for was a little bit of distraction from the pain that I was feeling as a paramedic.

I can imagine. I mean, most of us never see anybody pass away unless it's maybe a family member at the end of their long life, hopefully much less what you're going through.

Yeah, absolutely. And Hollywood has it wrong. They show paramedics as sitting there. The cops are there. You know, you think of NYPD or some of the shows, and the paramedics are just sitting there with the patient. Or they show ambulance. Ambulances. It's just ambulance drivers. But the reality is paramedics see a lot more death. And they're the highest level decision maker on an EMS call, but they're usually the lowest paid. Firefighters and police officers are generally making more than they are. And so it's a huge amount of responsibility. It's challenging, and it really grates on you. So we can do a lot of stuff. We can read EKGs. We can put, like six or seven new holes in the body. I could cut a hole in somebody's throat if they're not breathing. Sorry if that's graphic for your listeners. We can drill holes and bones to access IVs and just do a lot of stuff really quickly. I like to say that our bread and butter is the airway, breathing and circulation. I'm not an expert at toe fungus, but if you're. If you stop breathing, I'm your guy.

Okay. So you did that for how many years? And then what happened to you next?

So I worked at Austin for about five or six years. I had been an EMS up to that point, probably, I don't know, 10 years or so. I got sick of big city life, so I went to Sitka, Alaska, and ran a EMS system there. I worked for the fire department and thought that that was going to be great. It was. I mean, Sitka is absolutely amazing. But it was still really hard. It was still ems. Some of the pain that had accumulated through years of working at Austin in Big City was still there. It never really went away.

Wow. You know, I. I can't imagine that most people think about what the EMS professionals go through. They just assume that that's what they do and they should be used to it and good at it. But that's not reality. Right. They're still human.

Yeah. There's a funny story one time. I like to say that people see us as superheroes and that that's just a uniform and that there's not a real person underneath there. A Couple funny antidotes. Somebody one time was in the restroom, you know, standing and doing their business, and somebody goes, wow, you guys pee too? And it really is that. Disconnect that. Yes. We have to pee, we have to urinate, we have to, you know, use the restroom. And then the other part of it is somebody one time saw us putting diesel fuel in the ambulance, and they're like, oh, wow, those take fuel. Well, what did you think they ran on nuclear energy? It. Yeah, it's just this. We police, fire and ems. We just. Sometimes people don't connect with them. I think the uniform is of facade and they don't see the person underneath.

Okay, so you're in Alaska. You've been. How long were you in Alaska? Alaska. And then what brought you back to Austin?

Sure. So we were in Alaska, and they're three by now. Yeah, yeah. So at some point, I moved to Austin in 99, got married in 2000 to my wife, Laura. She. And she had a daughter, Alexa. And so now there were one family. Laura grew up in Alaska. We moved back up there. Yes. So I met the fire department, and we decided to start a business. We started a business, Reindeer Red hots. Selling reindeer hot dogs. Yes. Those are real reindeer, and they are the best hot dog you've ever had in your life. And I used to give out samples on my days off from the fire department and say, look, this is amazing. You'll love it. If you don't like it, I'll give you your money back. So if I can keep going or fast forward or whatever. So you.

You are in Alaska still selling rain dar reindeer hot dogs as well as working for the fire department?

Yes. And so what we realized from that is that we had read at some point Rich dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki in cash flow quadrant. And we realized that we were in the E quadrant at the fire department, and we started a small business in the S quadrant. In case your listeners aren't familiar, the B quadrant is business owner, and I is investor. And so we started a small business, an S. And Laura was making more money four hours a day, four months out of the year than I was at the fire department all year. And so we realized that business was truly the way to go. And we got bit by the entrepreneurial bug. We bought a mobile home. We rented it out. We made about $650 a month cash, which was really great for us back then. And then at some point, Alaska just got to us. The school system wasn't what we were expecting, and we Moved back to Austin. And at some point, again, the entrepreneurial bug was there. I was working on an ambulance and we ended up buying an EMT school.

And so from that we took the EMT school. I built the paramedic program there. It was like a 685 page application. I wrote every single page of that and got the approval needed to teach. I think we're one of maybe only two private paramedic schools in the country out of 700. And I'll share a little bit of philosophy if it'll be helpful, because I have something that's called a service ratio. And this is all going to tie together here and this is all going to make sense for you. And the idea is that as a paramedic, I could only. I was one paramedic, one person serving one patient, and they had to call 911. When I was at the fire department, I could serve more people because I had underped other people working under me. But. And so that was helpful. But then we launched a paramedic school, and now I'm one program director training. We've trained somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 EMS providers. And if each one of those providers goes out and treats the 10,000 people that I did just at Austin, you can see that this has a huge ripple effect. And that service ratio. And to connect this with my. Why is it's that service ratio to contribute and to add value to as many people's lives as as possible during my short time here on Earth. Right. Hopefully it's very, very long. But my time, talent and treasure is to me, what it's all about, is contributing to other people.

To be the pebble that starts the ripple effect that goes on and on in the lives of others.

That's exactly right. To be the spotlight that lights up somebody's dark day. And the more spotlights I can turn on, the better the world will be.

Did you ever think you would own an EMS school? Emt, Freemaster emt?

Well, it's a paramedic school, so we teach EMT and paramedic. So I typically call it a paramedic school because, again, that's the higher level. And. And, you know, that's probably what I'm most proud of, is the paramedic side of it because it was so difficult to get.

So. Yeah. Did you ever re. Think that you would own a paramedic school?

I never did. I was the class clown in. I was always the one cutting up. And so now I'm the principal or the superintendent, and that can be kind of challenging at times, but it's been good. And I didn't. I don't know that I would have started a business on my own. Laura has this genius in her that she's an entrepreneur at heart.

So what was the biggest chat when you bought the school? What was it like? And then what is it like today?

Great question. It was a small 6 by 12 trailer tow behind trailer with some EMT equipment, some backboards, and a bunch of splinting equipments. And it had a little logo on it. And we would tow it behind our vehicle and show up at a classroom. And there was only one site, and I think it was. I want to say it was making about 40 or $50,000 a year. It wasn't a lot. And there were maybe 20 students there. And so we took that and we expanded it. We put a fixed location in because I saw the potential of how big it could be. And so then we just started day classes and night classes, and it kind of got traction. And then we said, let's go on to paramedic. And we went through the accreditation process, and it worked.

Wow. And so now you have. Is it a virtual location? A, you know, brick and mortar? What have you got now?

Great question. We are within Texas State University in Round Rock. The main campus for Texas State is in San Marcos. And so we're at the satellite, and we're operating within. In Texas State University. It's a private program within a university. And so I mentioned earlier, we're working with directly with Texas State University to create. It'll be like the 17th EMS degree Bachelor's degree in the country. Wow.

And so how many students do you now graduate per year?

At any given time, we have about 220 students. And so per year it's probably double that.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's.

Yeah, that's a whole lot different than dragging around a trailer.

Exactly. Yeah. We're at a fixed location. We've got multiple classrooms, multiple classes, and we have several other training sites throughout Texas.

So what was the biggest challenge you ran into in starting and building your company? Because now you're not only just part of the ems, you know, community, but you're also now an entrepreneur, businessman. Lot of different things you gotta think about than what you had to think about before.

I think the hardest thing for me starting was realizing that you fit you as a young person. You think that everybody ahead of you has it figured out, but the reality is none of us have it figured out. And we are all like somebody, you know, tapping a cane, trying to figure out the next step. Or as Jordan Peterson says, we're all walking through murky water just trying to find the next stump or whatever the next piece of ground is. And so that's probably been the biggest challenge. And the highs and lows of being an entrepreneur would be probably a close second to that. But it's just one of those things you need to figure it out, and there's no playbook for it. So figure it out as fast as you can and be okay with that.

Yeah. So for those not that are listening, that are not entrepreneurs, how would you describe, in your words, what the entrepreneurial journey has been like?

Have you ever been on a roller coaster? Yeah. That's what an entrepreneur feels like. You're super excited. You're at the line. You're like, hey, I'm going to be in the front of the line or the back of the ride, wherever you want to be, wherever the ride is going to be the best. And you get on and you're super excited, and it starts going click, click, click, click, click, click. And you start getting some traction and sales, and, man, does this feel good. And then all of a sudden, you get to the top and, like, if you've ever been in the front car on a roller coaster, you know, it kind of hangs there for a second before it drops. And then it can be like that, where one day or one year is super good, and the next you're like, what happened? And then there's some loop de loop, some rolls, and sometimes you go into a tunnel and it's dark, and you don't know is it going to go up, down, left, or right or. So that would be my best analogy of what it's like to be a business owner.

That's how I would put it, too. I mean, today's the best day ever. Tomorrow's the worst day ever. Then back to the best day ever. Yeah.

Joe Polish has a great poster. And I won't swear on your podcast, but it's like, heck, yes. And oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, heck yes. And sometimes those wins come fewer and farther between, so you have to celebrate every win as a business owner.

So what's next for your school? What's next for Matt?

The school we're creating that bachelor's degree, we're working on federal financial aid so that anybody who goes to Texas State can also go through our program. And if they need federal financial aid, we can fund the class. The other thing that I'm doing is I've started a podcast called I See Rich People, and that came to me in a dream. A lot of people laugh at that name, but it was one of those, aha moments that wake you up from sleep, and you're like, I don't know what to do with this, but this is what we're going to do.

So the purpose of it is to help entrepreneurs either get started or if they're already at a certain level and they get stuck and they want to go to a higher level to get to the next level. And so I said earlier that as a paramedic, I could only help one person at a time, and that was after they called 911. My goal now is that if somebody has never explored being an entrepreneur or starting their own business to help them get started, and then my light can shine down on more people or illuminate more people, I can be that lighthouse to show them the warnings and the examples of what to do and what not to do.

So you're expanding out of the medical profession and into the entrepreneurial space? Yeah.

My vision in the next 12 months is that I will step back as more of the Chief Visionary Officer and still stay within EMTS Academy or. But somebody else will be my. The program director for us. And I see rich people, and that community will continue to grow and have more impact, and eventually I will exit completely. But I don't know what time frame that is right now.

And why do you want to exit from EMTS into business?

The main reason is.

It's a.

A great question. The main reason is because I want to help more people. And it was you who kind of helped me realize that my why to contribute. I've always known what it is, but it didn't have a name or a label, and I've just always wanted to help more and more and more people.

That's a great. You know, it's great that you understand it and see it. And now just go be it right now. Go be the ba. Once you discover your why and how and what along with it, then the goal then becomes to just be the best version of that. Instead of Matt playing small and you're not playing small, but small compared to what you can play.

You being the best version of yourself is where you're going to have the biggest impact. Most fun, most revenue, most everything. Have that life that you really envision, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I can summarize my philosophy that I'm here to take my time, talent, and treasure and. And serve as many people as possible. And that's it. It comes down to that one simple statement. And I'm guessing that if somebody else out there has the why of contribute, that's probably how they feel as well. And I'm probably talking to their avatar right now and now they feel like I'm crawling around in their brain.

So let's go. Do you have a vision for what you want? It's I see rich people to be about.

Yeah, it's our education system didn't do a good job of training me that there were other options out there to be a business owner. And I think the challenge is that people, the schools are really only saying you can do this or you can do this. But it's very rare that somebody says you can own a business. Even the MBA programs aren't teaching people that you can be the business owner. They are teaching them how to work in at a business as an employee. And it goes back to the ESBI quadrant, the cash flow quadrant, esbi. And we need to educate people that they can do something more than they've ever thought about. And this is something I've shared with my nieces and nephews and tried to expand their world a little bit to say, did you know that school is teaching you one thing, but there is another way? And if you've never considered it, even if you've never considered owning a business, you instead of just being a welder, why don't you own a welding shop and you can be the boss and you can employ 10 people instead of a one man show.

And how does your wife feel about this change in direction?

She's always been on board. She's always known that I wanted a bigger stage and she saw that. And for the longest time I was doing what needed to be done to pay the bills and make sure everything was in line. And so now that our daughter is married and they just bought a house, it's kind of time to go on to the next chapter. So she's fully supportive of it. She actually I was surprised because I was like, I'm going to be recording podcasts. How do you feel about that? She's like, I see it. I see your lights coming on. I see the impact that you're having on people's lives. And I've known it. You're coming alive. My daughter, I asked her the same thing. She works with us and for us. And so I asked her and she said, no, dad, I'm fully supportive of this. I see it. This is a good thing. I want you to do this. So they've both been very, very supportive of this next chapter.

And what I've seen with you is that you're definitely a major connector. You love to connect people and you're always thinking in terms of, okay, who can I introduce this person to? How can I help them get where they want to go? And that's such a great quality for what you want to do. I wondered at one point why you were in the Genius network. Before I knew your story. I was like, he's got a em. Why is he in here? What is it like?

What's.

What's the attraction for you? But now it makes a whole lot more sense.

Yeah, absolutely.

Those are your people.

Those are my people. There's a level when you hit of success that it's sometimes hard to talk to the average person. And this may sound snooty or whatever. I.

Let me reframe that. I'm going to give you my perspective and I hope that you interpret it right. When you get to a certain level of success as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you may struggle to find people who are at the same level as you and to have the same conversation. And that's what I found, is I found, like you said, my people. I found people who I can say, hey, it's lonely at the top. Have you ever run into a situation like this? How do I get ahead? How do I talk to employees? How do I handle this situation? And the good news is there's lots of people there who can help you. And with one connection or one class or one service they provide, you can get to the next higher level. And so it really is about getting higher and higher so that light illuminates more people.

All right, last question for you, Matt. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given or the best piece of advice you've ever given?

Keep going.

No matter what you're going through, it's going to feel uncomfortable at first. And I just had a class with Michael Bernoff, his hit class, and it talks about communication. And he says it. I'm going to use the G rated version. It's going to feel poopy at first. And that's very true that anytime you move forward in something that you're not comfortable with, it's going to feel like garbage and you're going to want to quit. But as you continue to learn and grow and iterate, you will get better. And you just have to get through that uncertainty phase and just keep walking the Walk. And if you think back to when you maybe you learned how to drive or play a new sport or, like, Gary, I know you're big into pickleball. And so, like, if I were to pick up a pickleball racket, it would. There would be a little bit of a learning curve, but I'd get through it as fast as possible. So my best advice, Keep going and figure it out.

Yeah, I think in my own world, that advice has been kind of, if there is a secret to.

Success, it was just almost being too stupid to give up. Right?

Yeah. You know, when you're a business owner, you can't quit. There were multiple times that I literally typed out my resignation letter and wanted to say, I quit and turn it in, but you can't. And so you have to figure it out. And so if you are up to the challenge, being a business owner is the best dojo in the world. You will learn things that you could have never done on your own. As an employee, you don't have these challenges, so it doesn't challenge you to grow into a bigger, better person or a bigger, better version of yourself, even. Yeah.

Well, Matt, if there are people that are listening that would like to connect with you, work with you, follow you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Sure. We have a website, ICRICHPEOPLE.com you can follow me on LinkedIn or if you're interested in going to EMT or paramedic school, you can go to EMTS academy.com and right now we're in the Austin area, but we can have classes throughout Texas. So if you want any help, reach out. We'd be happy to assist.

Awesome. Matt, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your story and, and I learned a lot just listening to your story, so thanks for sharing it today.

Well, thank you so much for having me as a guest on your podcast. I really appreciate it.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to.

And.

Discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.