Matt Ficken, a small-business advisor, credits his success to relentless work. He finished fourth in Georgia's state wrestling tournament after a year of unglamorous training, and now tells business owners that investing in people—building skills and culture—is the single most effective lever for growth. He lives by Lou Holtz's principle: you can outwork your competitors.
Chapters
Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Matt Ficken with us. He's a small business advisor, so welcome to the show, Matt.
Thanks for having me.
Of course, man. Thanks for joining us. We'll dive in. The first question that I have for you, Matt, is what's the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Yeah, absolutely. And this is one of many great questions you got here, but I, my sophomore year of high school, actually, I made the varsity wrestling team, and that wasn't because I was a particularly great wrestler. There was just a hole in the lineup at two weight classes above me. Somebody had to fill it, so I was there, and I spent the entire year on my back just getting pinned, just getting demolished by these monsters at 189 pounds. Instead of quitting, instead of, you know, hanging it up, I spent the next 2 years going to camps in the offseason, working out with trainers, coming in in the mornings, going up to the wrestling loft at lunch, and of course doing wrestling practices, regular wrestling practices, to the point that my senior year I wound up 4th in the state at 171 pounds in the state of Georgia. Anyway, that just, for me, it was that classic, and it's a recurring theme in my life, I suppose, that if you put in the unsexy hard work day in and day out, you can truly see some amazing results.
And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Yeah, I think specific to my industry and expertise is in investing in your organization or your team, whether it's your small business or your sales team, wherever you are. That's the number one way for you to grow, whether it be revenue or production or really even grow as a person. Investing in your people is the best way to drive revenue.
And what's your best piece of overall business advice? It might tie in, but not necessarily like industry-specific.
Sure, yeah. And this might be a little bit cliché, but everybody puts on their pants the same way. So there's no, there's no need for you to, to be intimidated to approach somebody, especially if you have good intentions or a noble purpose. So just know that everybody has issues and everybody has problems and insecurities, and nobody's untouchable.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Yeah, another real interesting one. I try to stay away from regrets. I don't feel like I have a ton. Maybe I should, but I suppose I wish I had gotten a little more serious earlier. You know, after high school, I was, you know, I graduated college in 4 years, but I had a good time. And I guess if I could give myself any advice, it would be, hey, stay serious and maybe don't have as much fun. No, no, I understand.
I think there's a balance, right?
Right.
Next question is, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
You know, for me, I think the key to happiness really is having some self-compassion and giving yourself a break sometimes. And doing things right for yourself and being kind to yourself.
And what's the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
So this was a particularly hard one, I think, but Extreme Ownership is a book by these two Navy SEALs, Leif and Jocko. And what I really loved about the book Extreme Ownership was that it says you've got to accept full responsibility in all areas of your life. That's 100% responsibility for every single thing that you have. And to me, that underlying message was, if I'm not the problem, then there is no solution. Um, yeah.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
Uh, I really like this Lou Holtz quote: you, you may not be able to outthink, outmarket, or outspend your competition, but you can outwork them.
Yes, I love that quote. Thank you so much for coming on, man. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where's the best place for people to find you online?
Yeah, you can get me at mattficken.com, or you can certainly just search Matt Ficken Atlanta, probably just Google query, but on LinkedIn you'll find me there. So I encourage your listeners to reach out. I'd love to connect and learn more about each and every one of them.
Perfect, man. Thank you again for coming on. We appreciate it.
Thank you, Tyler Wagner. The podcast you just heard was recorded with Anchor.
If you want to make your own, download the Android or iOS app completely free from anchor.fm/podcast.
