In this profound episode, Matt Gerlach, Owner of mattgerlach.com, shares steps to align your business with your true aspirations. If you struggle with burnout or unfulfilling success, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What barriers from your past may block your fulfillment
– Why assessing your current situation clarifies your true motivations
– How to set aspirations that align with your desired lifestyle
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the Start scale and succeed. Podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a founder. Today’s guest here with us today is Matt Gerlach, and he’s going to take us deep into the heart of the founder, who’s asking themselves, is this it? Is this really as good as it gets if you’re in a season where you would have quit your job if you didn’t happen to own the place, this episode is definitely for you, and I don’t normally do this, but if you know of another founder, someone in your life who’s having a hard time as well, do them a favor. Share this episode as we get into it. You’ll understand why, but share it with them too. They’ll be glad that you did all right. Who is Matt? Matt is a trusted guru for entrepreneurs with a proven track record of helping dozens of startups scale to seven, eight and nine figures over the past 15 years, a deep understanding of many of entrepreneurs struggles complements his expertise. After launching his first business, Matt encountered debilitating anxiety and depression. He emerged as a beacon of transformation by investing over 200,010 1000 hours of personal healing and growth confronting the healing his past gave Matt the confidence and strength to scale his business, earning himself an impressive million dollars per year, Matt, you’ve got a handful of steps. I found really, really helpful for folks. And they’re like, they’re crazy obvious, but that doesn’t make them any less real or important. And actually, it actually, I’ve found it makes them easier to miss. So I’m wondering if we could walk through there’s six of them, and we may not get through all of them. We’ll show folks how they can get to the last ones if we don’t make it there. But I’d like to walk through just starting at the top step number one, you make a big point of focusing on Where are you now? And I again, I think that’s an easy step to skip, because we want to jump to vision and destination and where you’re going. But why is it that you started with the current situation in step one?
Matt Gerlach
Yeah, Scott, thanks for the question, and I love what you said about the steps being pretty simple. They’re not overly complicated, and it’s really a derivative of my healing journey. I have done a few fancy like framework programs that are just like, that’s not what worked for me. What worked for me was something simple that I could continue to work on in between sessions with my therapists, with my coaches and everyone else in my life. We start with, where are we now? Because we need to get a real firm understanding of what is going on, what is the why we want to change? So many people come in and say, like, I want to make a million dollars a year, for example, or I want to have a better marriage. But why? Like, where are we? Like, we want to have a better marriage. Because right now, my wife and I are fighting all the time, and it’s destabilizing. And it’s destabilizing because growing up, my parents fought all the time, we need to get that foundation so we know what to anchor to. So between, between the steps that we put together, that my clients take, there needs to be a why behind this. That’s what gets things to stick. And we can’t just stay at the surface level. And like, I’m not about there’s plenty of coaches out there that’ll help you attain those surface level, those outwardly successful goals. I’m about the internal success, the inward success, as I call it, helping people create lives as good as they helping people create lives that feel as good on the inside as they look on the outside.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And so for because we’ve got a lot of founders that are listening, and many of them would have achieved some of that surface level success, right? For a lot of folks at this stage, they’re the it’s not a new game, right? They’ve been playing it for a while, and a part of what I found is so frustrating or disillusioning is they keep hitting these milestones, and on the other side of it, they look around and everything’s the same, right? The numbers are just bigger. And so for someone who’s in that cycle of just ever setting bigger numbers, what is it that focusing on where they are now, how does that kind of short circuit that cycle?
Matt Gerlach
It’s so funny you say that too, because one of the first businesses I worked with, the founder, she hit nine digits, and she’s like, same problems, just bigger numbers, you know. And I don’t think she was any more satisfied at the nine digit number other than the plaque on the wall, which is an important I mean, it’s a cool plaque to have on the wall, don’t get me wrong, but yeah. I mean, we need to ask ourselves, like, what we really want with our lives? Almost everybody that I worked with, everyone that I asked this question to like, would you rather have a business that generates $5 million in revenue, we’ll say 60% margins that you solely own. You have the ability to scale this business to not only where it’s making that $5 million but where you’re. Only working 15 hours a week. You’re netting, you know, million, million and a half dollars a year. Would you rather have that? Or do you want the 100 million dollar business that’s extremely leveraged? Do you have 50 different investors that you’re answering to a team of 300 people, all of their problems, sales that are declining, and you’re having to figure out payroll or layoffs and deal with all of these problems, the tariffs right now, I mean, and that is, I mean, some people legitimately want that. Like, nothing wrong with that. Like, our world needs people like that. I just don’t work with people like that, because I work with people that really, actually want that $5 million business that they have, the life that really offers them what they want. But very few people ask themselves that.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, and it’s a great kind of step into step two. These blend together to some extent, but once you know where you are, you do have to set some goals. And I’ve got a couple questions for you, but it really revolves around, how do you know that they’re the right goals? Because from your what you just mentioned, and I’ve seen this happen a lot. For many people, the right goals are actually in their rear view mirror, right sometimes the right goals are going back to a standard of living type of work in our language here at scale architects an earlier stage where you can achieve the things that you want, you can actually achieve them better, sometimes in the rear view mirror. Have you found that to be the case? That it’s it’s not always up into the right, at least in terms of what we normally think, like revenue or profit.
Matt Gerlach
Most of my clients, not all of them, some of them are scaling from 500 to, you know, one and a half million, or something like that. And sadly, in today’s life, economic situation, one and a half million isn’t, isn’t necessarily where you’re owning a private jet or anything like that. But, yeah, I mean, I would say the majority of my clients, it is going, I don’t want to say backwards, but it’s going back to what actually brings them that fulfillment is, you know, having three product lines versus 20 product lines. It’s actually having a team that only you know, that’s that’s largely freelance, that you know is not where they’re dealing with the HR nightmare that they’re currently dealing with, right? Absolutely, and so many people just need permission from someone who’s been there and done that, like I, you know, I’m sure we’ll, we’ll, I mean, we’ll talk about this a bit more, but I have, you know, I mean, recently walked away from the business that I had that was giving me seven digits a year. I don’t think that I’m not gonna get back there. But also, if I don’t like I have never been happier in my life than I am right now, in doing something that is 100% me, where work does not feel like work, and so many people just need permission to have that like on my journey, like, you know, I so many of us, you know, here, like you want to make a business that has a value that could be sold one day, very, very legitimate. For me, a big part of my journey was like realizing that while that is definitely a path that a lot of people should follow, for me, what I’m looking for, I want, you know, I’m a coach, a mentor, I’m an author, and what I’m really looking for myself is to build a business that I enjoy working until I’m 75 years old, and some of us just really need help getting permission to actually go after that life that they want to have. And I also sometimes take away that word goal, and I interchange it with the word aspirations, because a little bit less like, you know, it’s a little bit less like, rigid. It’s a little bit less like, more and more and more. It’s like, what? What’s the life we’re actually aspiring to have? Yeah, so many of us don’t ask ourselves that, and we’re just do thinking more and more and more makes us happy when really what we want is to spend more time with our families and kids and to start surfing.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, there’s not a whole lot of surfing in Atlanta. I’ll take your word for it, but no. So there’s this really interesting dynamic here, because that permission, you’re right, it’s a really, really big deal, but it’s also kind of the other side of a coin on what’s getting us into this problem, which is we’re borrowing other people’s goals for our life, right? Why is it, especially for founders who, in so many ways like either look like or are doing their own thing? Why is it that we still get caught up in this kind of permission challenge when it comes to setting our own aspirations and what we want.
Matt Gerlach
You’re, I mean, you just said it. It’s that people aren’t, they’re, they’re not making their own goals. They’re and I don’t mean that disparagingly. I mean, we don’t know that that’s what we’re allowed to do until someone really tells us we’re allowed to do it. And let me be clear, you don’t have to call me to have that permission. There are 1000s, if not millions, of books and other places to get this information and learn that you are allowed to create your own business. It has been like one of the most life changing things in my whole entire life to like, realize that people, like the mentors that I’ve learned from, they designed the business. They want by first identifying the life they want. So many founders start making that business and they’re they’re going where the market needs them. They’re not ever thinking about the life that they want, and they’re just getting themselves into another situation where they have a job, except for they’re working for themselves. And like you said at the beginning, they can’t quit because they are, you know, they’re, they’re running everything. And, I mean, it’s not a horrible place to be. And don’t get me wrong. I mean, a lot of people do that, and they walk away with 10, you know, 100 million dollars. A lot of people don’t know. And we’re in a situation where, you know, money is not free the way it was to borrow. So there’s a lot less investments happening in the world, and businesses have to learn how to become profitable. And for me, like I’ve always liked my background before I started working in consulting and coaching, was I worked in consumer products, which really set me up for a lot of success, because nobody lent money to consumer product companies unless they were profitable. So this whole, like World of where people get to, you know, borrow millions, if not billions, of dollars based off of ideas, is not foreign to me, where a lot of people are having to learn that for the first time right now.
Scott Ritzheimer
Rght, right, You can talk about this idea of, like, the 100 million dollar exit, and if you’re thinking, you know, but Matt and Scott, like, you don’t get like, what could you imagine? What I could do with that money. And I think the the kind of response to that is, look at the statistics for life expectancy after an exit, right? Like, look at the statistics for severe medical conditions within the first year of an exit. Like, it’s, it’s stunning. It’s just staggering. And, and I think it’s, because even in that goal, we’re still using someone else’s goal and justifying it, because it seems to be the way to everything else. So one of the things that pops up then is what’s actually getting in the way of all of this? And that’s step three of your process is looking for barriers, not only in the present but in the past, walk us through that a little bit.
Matt Gerlach
Yeah. I mean, these are all limiting beliefs we picked up along our lives. You know, it could be things that happened in childhood. I mean, we all have traumas that happen in childhood. A lot of people don’t love the trauma word for me a big I’m a big aha happened to me several years ago when I learned the difference between what they call big T trauma, which is, you know, horrible things, like, you know, violence, sex crimes, prisoner of war type things. And a lot of us didn’t, did, I mean, didn’t experience that. There’s this thing called little T trauma, which is normal traumas. It’s your dad telling you you’re a piece of crap your whole life, it’s your mom nagging at you for not being good enough. All of these things have an impact on us, and then we’re still that 40 or that 50 year old founder who is trying to please somebody, when really we need to learn to love ourselves and create the life that we want. We’re adults. We get to do that. We get to decide if we want. I just came back from Vietnam a week ago, where, you know, going to Vietnam and seeing, I went with my partner and his family, five of us, like, we had a lot of delicious food for, like, $15 for for all five of us, you know. So you really start to see, I mean, that’s why people are, are moving in a lot of cases, because, like, there is a lot of freedom to do something that really fits the life that we want. And I love that you said that about the 100 million dollar exit, because as somebody who made a seven digit paycheck, I couldn’t spend it all. I live in Los Angeles. I am assuming this isn’t the top five most expensive places to world. And I mean, I mean to live in the entire world, I have a beautiful home, nice home, and I couldn’t spend a million dollars a year. I mean, I could try and spend it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that hard to spend. But like, other than, I was talking with somebody the other day about this, like, really, if I can’t have a private jet, there’s really nothing less. I mean, there’s really nothing left that I need in my life. And I’m, I’m probably not on the trajectory to have a private jet, and I’m at complete peace with that, yeah. But like, with, you know, like you said, I think it was one of the Disney grandchildren came out recently and said, If you need more than $999 million you’re a psychopath. I’m not necessarily accusing anybody of being a psychopath, but it is funny, because for decades I’ve been saying that. I don’t think, I mean people, you know, sure, have a billion dollars. I don’t know what someone needs $20 billion or more for, but.
Scott Ritzheimer
And I think what that kind of points to is that the question around, particularly organizational size, and I think that’s just a proxy for resource availability, right, is the amount of resource that you need, the size of company you need to build, is not dependent, really, on any type of lifestyle that we typically assign to it. It’s what is the nature of the problems that you’re trying to solve, right? So the business that you’re building oftentimes has this Genesis in using maybe a. All, but oftentimes a very big problem, right, that we face as humanity, as an industry, as whatever fill in the blank. And what I have found to be one of the most consistent ways to identify the right the right goals, the right size, is to say, what size do you need to be to solve that problem? Yeah, right. And I think there’s so much purpose that kind of comes along with that, but all of that falls short if, if we don’t actually have a plan to execute on this. And so it takes us to step four, create a plan, and you advocate for some actionable steps. Now, when it comes to, like, this really emotionally charged stuff, like, if I don’t do this as a founder, I’m a failure, or I would have to go back, or I’ll never hit this goal that I’ve told everyone is so important to me all my life, but it was really never my goal in the first place. There’s a lot of emotion that comes into that, and sometimes that emotion can kind of freeze us up. So what are some, some, maybe even example, action steps that you’ve seen folks take when they’re really walking through how to clear some of these obstacles and get to the goals that they really have for themselves?
Matt Gerlach
Yeah, thanks for the question. I mean, a lot of it surrounds self compassion and just learning to love ourselves. So I mean, the tools that I have worked with my clients on for that, and again, these aren’t crazy things that you haven’t heard of. It’s mantra type work, so like writing down every day three things, why you’re worthy of making the choice that you’re making, why you’re doing, who you’re benefiting by making this choice, a lot of people are really saving their own lives by de stressing their lives. That was the situation for me, and that’s really what’s driven me into this work. I mean, I was suffering from horribly high blood horribly high blood pressure, and I’ve been to the hospital two times thinking I was dying because of it. And, you know, I mean, I essentially saved my own life by moving into aligned work. And it’s not that it’s not hard, it’s it’s aligned work. So, you know, I work with my clients on just getting wellness practices going, so yoga, hiking, not having their email on their phones, and taking time off. What’s been really mind blowing for me is that, as I, you know, I’m always reading and I’m always learning, it’s a big part of my life, and it’s really, quite honestly, what’s driven me towards this, towards this professional life of helping other people, because I’m kind of selfishly helping myself by just constantly being in growth environments. But like everybody I talk to who is a high performer, high achiever, like really, really high up, they take so much time for themselves to unwind, because you can’t be going all the time and be effective. You just can’t do it, right? But when it comes down to it, you know, we need to remember that, like we are in charge of the businesses we want to create, the lives that we want to create. And to your question, so many people are like, pushing for more and more and more, and they’re like, they’re hurting people in the process. They’re not taking care of their employees, so by slowing down and de stressing their lives, de stressing the businesses, it’s actually showing compassion. This is really like this really gets me in my heart right now, but it’s showing compassion to their employees. It’s showing their employees kids that they’re worthy of compassion. Yeah, so I really work with people to understand the why and how their how their compassion and how them being gentle to themselves and others around them is just this massive impact and everyone that touches this business, and it’s just, I mean, I don’t buy from companies that are more and more and more and more that are like hurting people along the way. And it’s nothing wrong with having a big company. There’s a lot of big companies I know of that are purpose driven and really making huge impacts. There’s a lot, though, that are just out for the profits and don’t care how their employees get treated.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So there are two more steps. We’ll make sure we let folks know how they can get get access to them, because there’s some exercises and questions. It’s just a really, really helpful resource. So we’ll get there in just a second before we do though, there’s a question Matt that I have asked every one of our guests. Now I’m interested to see what you have to say as well. So the question is this, what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Matt Gerlach
Vulnerability is a superpower. It is being kind and gentle with our feelings and just like every like in businesses and personal life, so many of us get reactive and we’re like, this person’s not anticipating what I need. This person’s not doing what I expected. If we just lower, lower the bar, like, lower our guard and actually like, approach that person and say, Hi, what you’ve done has actually hurt me, or I need this because I’m actually really scared of what’ll happen if we don’t do this. By getting to that deep emotional level and connecting with somebody, we can achieve almost anything in life.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah. It’s fantastic. And. Where can folks go to not to find out more about the work that you do, but also, where can they go to get the these final two steps?
Matt Gerlach
Well, I have something really special, actually, in my home. I live in Los Angeles, in the middle of LA, I’ve started what I call the Friday brunch club. So every other Friday, I invite local, purpose driven entrepreneurs into my home for a free brunch, and it’s been absolutely incredible how deep and vulnerable we get. So if anybody’s in Los Angeles and wants to attend, I would love for you to reach out my email. I’ll just give it out. I don’t normally do this, but it’s [email protected] send me an email and I’ll and I’ll see if we can get you into one of the Friday brunch clubs. And if you are not and don’t know anybody that is and want to connect with me online, my website is Mattgerlach.com all the socials are there, and still feel free to email me if you have any questions. But you can download the guide, this six step guide, and in there, you can book a free call with me and happy to talk with you. I’m just in this place of service, and I know what it’s like to feel like I’m going to die from the stress that my business is causing me, so I am in service of helping others.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, Matt, thank you for being on just a privilege and honor. Having you here today, I really appreciate it. Love this conversation. I know it’s going to make a big impact in some folks lives. For those of you who are watching and listening, you know that your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Matt Gerlach
Matt Gerlach is a trusted guru for entrepreneurs, with a proven track record of helping dozens of startups scale to 7, 8, and 9 figures over the past 15 years. A deep understanding of many entrepreneurs’ struggles complements his expertise. After launching his first business, Matt encountered debilitating anxiety and depression. He emerged as a beacon of transformation by investing over $200k and 10,000 hours in personal healing and growth. Confronting and healing his past gave Matt the confidence and strength to scale his business, earning himself an impressive $1M/year.
Want to learn more about Matt Gerlach’s work at mattgerlach.com? Check out his website at https://mattgerlach.com/