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Why am I writing this?
I’m an introvert who doesn’t like to talk about himself. There is some reluctance in my mind about it.
I thought this might be the best way to tell my story and:
- Help me make sense of it all and
- Help others in any small way.
Background
I graduated college with an Accounting degree. I passed the CPA exam and started working at Deloitte as an External Auditor. Accounting made sense to me and I loved business.
My mom was also a CPA. Growing up, I never thought I would do what she did. I remember her studying in her room to take the CPA exam and weekends she would sometimes work when it was busy. That didn’t seem fun. But I must have inherited her mind for it.
I met my future wife, Gina, in college and we married soon after I started at Deloitte.
6 years into it, my wife and I knew we wanted something else. We started researching small businesses we could start. We ended up opening My Favorite Muffin in downtown Denver in 2011. Gina ran the shop day to day while I worked at Deloitte.
It wouldn’t be long before I found the Denver startup scene. Searching for a startup idea, I went to Startup Weekend Denver in 2012.
I loved it so much I went back in 2013…
TxtChk takes top honors at Startup Weekend Denver 2013
During all the networking, I met Jon who organized a lot of the Denver startup events. He asked if I wanted to be a cofounder for a startup idea he had. My Dealer Service was born. I still remember Super Bowl Sunday one year. We talked to the GM of a auto dealership to learn more about customer service and brought him beer to show our gratitude for his time. My Dealer Service changed names to Modern, pivoted to heavy equipment, and a Fortune 100 company acquired them in 2020.
By 2014, I was full-time at Deloitte, we owned the muffin shop, and I was co-founder of the startup. It was all a bit too much. In 2014, I ended up leaving Deloitte, selling the muffin shop, and leaving the startup. I went to the Bay Area to take a role in SEC Reporting at eBay.
Looking Back: Searching for Something
As I look back on that time, it seemed I was searching for something. Probably searching for ‘Success’ at the time. Never 100% happy with any of it. For a short time, sure, it was fun. Ups and downs. Problems with all of it.
eBay had a Finance Leadership Development Program and I wanted to try Finance over Accounting. They accepted me into the program in 2016. The program is four rotations of six months each. Mine consisted of:
1. North America Vertical Analytics (San Jose, CA)
2. Germany FP&A (Berlin, Germany)
3. StubHub International FP&A (Bilbao, Spain)
4. Investor Relations (San Jose, CA).
Being Coached by an Unconventional Coach
We had a coach during the program, Laura Beckingham. Laura is an unconventional Coach. I didn’t know this at the time as she was my first coach. I dug deeper internally than I ever knew was possible. At the beginning of the program, she interviews you in depth and produces a report. One part of it said, “It’s time he started to ask himself some of the bigger life questions, related to his meaning and purpose. The program will provide some opportunity for this but Matt must connect with the work beyond the level of task so that he doesn’t just go through the motions; it’s time to get to know self, warts and all, at a deeper level.”
And there it was…my existential crisis. Who am I? Why do I exist? What’s the purpose of all this?
My second rotation took me to Berlin, Germany. Our first weekend there, we face-timed with my parents and grandpa. We showed them our new city and the Brandenburg Gate.
We were determined to travel all over Europe during those 6 months. The second weekend we went to Athens, Greece. While sitting in a restaurant at the top of a hotel overlooking Athens, my phone rang. My sister was calling. She said they had taken Mom to the hospital.
Twenty months prior, doctors diagnosed my Mom with radiation-induced sarcoma. This came two decades after she battled Stage IV breast cancer. The radiation therapy that once saved her life had now led to another cancer. Doctors estimated her chances of survival at 5%.
The Death of my Mother
(It’s been six and a half years since she passed and I teared up typing that the first time. It clearly had a major emotional impact on me and still does.)
So when my sister called, she said it was time to come home to see her. We arrived on a Monday and she passed away that Saturday.
Her funeral was ‘Standing Room Only’ with people standing at the back of the church. A friend said later, it was the best funeral he had ever been to. The former and the current President of the University of Arkansas System spoke in her honor. She knew her death was inevitable so she planned every part of it as only a CPA would do…in an excel spreadsheet.
Emotional Roller Coaster
Back in Europe, Gina and I vowed to make the most of our time in Europe. We knew Mom wouldn’t want us sitting around grieving and not enjoying our time there. Almost every weekend, we left Germany to see a new city. We hit 17 Countries in 2017.
Every week for me was an emotional roller coaster. Grief during the week while trying my best to deliver at work. Weekend flights to explore another European city. Grief – Happiness – Fun – Grief.
Part of being coached was learning about the emotions I was experiencing. I was very aware of this cycle that was going on and I sort of watched it play out. It took about 3 months to start to come out of the grief and about 6 months to be out of it.
My third rotation took me to Bilbao, Spain. During that rotation, Laura thought one book might appeal to me. She recommended The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.
The Untethered Soul book & It’s Life-Changing Impact
I downloaded a Kindle copy and devoured it.
The book said things like:
“The intention behind the book is very simple: I want to share a path to complete inner freedom with anyone willing to receive it.”
“You must decide that you want to enjoy your life and that there is no reason for stress, inner pain, or fear. Every day we bear a burden that we should not be bearing. We fear that we are not good enough or that we will fail. We experience insecurity, anxiety, and self-consciousness.”
“It is actually possible to never have another problem for the rest of your life.”
“Your daily life can be like a vacation. Work can be fun; family can be fun; you can just enjoy all of it.”
I couldn’t believe no one had taught me this.
That one book would change the course of my life.
I still remember the moment I read the last word on the last page of that book.
I set this Intention: If I do nothing else in my life, I will fix my mindset, such that the external world does not control my internal world.
I knew that I had spent my life trying to fix everything in my life externally. The work I needed to do wasn’t external. The work was internal.
As the end of the Leadership Development Program approached, it was time to take a full-time role. I started documenting who I was in a PowerPoint, my background, my personality type, feedback I’d received, what energized me, what drained me. I remember specifically creating a new slide and writing these words in it…”I hate numbers.”
After I wrote them, I stared at them. It was true. It was no longer fun for me to talk about numbers all day.
Now What? Decision Point coming out of FLDP
The person running the Leadership Development Program took another role at eBay and created an opening. I knew I loved the coaching I was getting from Laura and it seemed like something I would like. I liked the people aspect of working in teams more than the numbers or the work we did.
When I was coming out of the program in 2018, I had a choice to make. 1. Stay in Finance or 2. Lead the Leadership Development Programs. My manager during my #3 Rotation at StubHub International was Lauren St. Clair. She had been a mentor of mine even before that. She had a role open in Bilbao. Great role, great manager, great city, great people.
The big question was how do I leave a 15 year career in Accounting and Finance?
Laura had given me an exercise to do to help in making that decision.
Becoming a Coach
Once I did that, I knew I had to take the role leading the Leadership Development Programs. A few days later I enrolled in Coach training to become a Professional Certified Coach. After finishing that course, I knew there was more for me to explore when it came to coaching and mindset.
In January 2019, having finished my coach training, I remembered that intention I set back in Bilbao, “If I do nothing else in my life, I will fix my mindset, such that the external world does not control my internal world.”
I had been coached and am now a coach. Yet I still had problems every day. That didn’t make any sense to me. I knew there had to be a way to actually do what Michael Singer wrote about in The Untethered Soul.
Through all of this, I had become a reader of self-help books, philosophy, leadership, business, cognitive behavioral therapy, western and eastern spiritual teachings. They were all pointing in a similar direction. But I needed something more.
I spent thousands of hours in my office in the early mornings. Reading, pondering, examining my life, thoughts, feelings, actions. I was also Coaching others through their journey in the Leadership Development Programs.
I had seen other models that coaches had developed. But they didn’t seem to integrate everything I had learned.
Creating The Reality Model
So I created my own called The Reality Model. The culmination of all the books I had read. How to empower yourself in any situation. How to create self-awareness for yourself. How to remove limiting beliefs. How to fix every problem. How to achieve every goal. How to tie the Western beliefs with the Eastern beliefs. Empowerment + Awareness.
I’ve been coaching the last five years.
What does the future hold?
I don’t know. But I love coaching people. I’m at my best when I’m in deep coaching conversations with people.
I empathize with the human condition. The human standing (or sitting on Zoom) in front of me. That on the one hand, they are a unique human being who is complete and perfect in every way. On the other hand, who struggles day to day, trying to figure out this thing we call life.
I don’t know what the future holds, but for now, it’s Coaching.
