Your Story Isn’t Over: Life Shifts with Matt Gilhooly

0:00From what I've learned and the people that I've talked to, I think find a way to share your story, whether that's to a friend, whether that's writing on a piece of paper. When that story's in your head, it's much scarier. It's much harder to deal with. But once you put it out on paper, once you tell somebody, it's like, OK, it's out there. Now I can do what I need to do with it, whether that's a bigger journey of some kind of therapy or something like that. So I would say to anyone that's feeling that way is to find someone or something like an outlet in which you can express your feelings like truthfully and not in a performative way.

0:59Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the BILF pod, where authenticity trumps authority. I am your host, Mara Dorn. And for those of you tuning in for the first time, you might be wondering what BILF stands for. And BILF stands for Boss I Like to Follow. I am very, very touched and excited today to have our guest. His name is Matt Gilhooly. Matt is a BILF in his own right. Matt is actually the founder and host of a podcast, The Life Shift, and he's an author of a marketing communications writer. Is that it? Your author also? No, I just, I write for my job. Oh, you write? Okay, see? Every day. You write every day?

1:45Well, for mortgage technology, so it's really exciting. That's pretty cool. That's awesome. I love that. That's really cool. Well, today I'm really excited, and I'll tell you why I'm super excited that you're on. You and I have a similarity and we have something in common that for you, I mean, just talking to you for literally five minutes, you brought it out of me and I told you my story. And like you, I lost a parent when I was really young. I was six years old. I was telling you I was on vacation. And for those of you that don't know, this is actually one of the very few times I've ever spoken about this publicly.

2:18And what I've learned is that through speaking about the death of my father publicly, it is really helping me to understand a lot more about who I am internally. But it also brings to light maybe some problems that I've been dealing with. I don't know, problem issues, we'll say some issues. Life. Yeah, life happens. But I'm also learning that it's nothing to be embarrassed about, or it's nothing that I should be ashamed about. But it is something that is a part of me. And it's something that has changed my life. And I don't think that I even realized how much it would change my life as a little girl.

2:55I was six years old on vacation with my family and we had like really rarely ever gone on vacation. We drove from Sunrise, Florida to Atlanta. That's a fun drive. Right? And my mom's Camaro. I don't remember. And super excited. You know, my mom and dad, like I said, I don't remember ever going on vacation. So here we are, we're going on vacation and we go to this house. I remember it was like yesterday. It was in this like woodsy area in Atlanta. We're having, we're getting ready for Thanksgiving. I mean, just everything that you can possibly imagine of fun and glorious times. And it was just an amazing night.

3:33And I really remember going to sleep, like super excited about the next day because it was going to be Thanksgiving. But I was actually woken up in the middle of my sleep. And I was woken up by a gentleman I had never seen before. And it was a rabbi, a rabbi who is a religious figure to tell me that my father had passed away. Now, I can only imagine because I think, you know, part of us kind of tunes out some things that, right? So it's kind of a blur what happened. But I do remember looking at this man, like Charlie Brown, the words were like coming out, but they just weren't making sense. And little did I know that my entire life would completely change.

4:14For sure. That was it. And what I love about what you're doing is you create a space for people like myself. You know, I always, and I was taught from there on to put on, you know, your, your face. Cause that's just how I was raised. And I don't think my mom even realized that this is who, who she wanted me. I think she, I think indirectly, she didn't really want to deal with it so it was just kind of one of those things like it happened it's really sad that it happened but I was never able to use my dad as a crutch growing up right and indirectly it did propel me forward for sure like there was a lot of good things that came from it um which is always hard to say yeah I know that's so it sounds so terrible my dad died and it's great for me no I mean it sounds but you have to laugh I mean you have to have some humor right in it I always feel like you got to laugh a little bit but there were a lot of good things that came from it it showed me how life, when life happens, you kind of have to move on and it's okay to move on.

5:10It showed me that you can take a sad moment and use it as positive energy to propel forward. It showed me that sometimes when unexpected things happen, that you have to kind of turn it around and shift it and be okay because you never know what's going to happen. And it also showed me to really love and hold near and dear. I think that's why, you know what, sitting here, I think that's why I'm a relationship hoarder. I think I just figured it out why. I've had this like really terrible problem my whole life of being a relationship, but now I know why. I think I just solved my own problem. Done, we're good here.

5:44You haven't even said two words and you're helping me solve problems. That's what I'm here for. But I'm really just interested in knowing a little bit about your story. So if you can share with us a little bit about your story and why you even created this safe space. Sure, I mean, I think first though, I wanna ask, But at six, did you understand what all that meant for you? Or did you just kind of fall in line with what your family wanted for you? And I'm asking that because of my own experience. Yeah, I knew that I was different. I knew that. And I think my mom spent so many years trying to normalize my difference that I don't think that it ever made a real difference in my life because she overcompensated for it.

6:25I knew that you know I didn't have a dad to take me to the daddy daughter dance I knew that you know everybody would come and parent and meet the teacher day and I would be there with my mom um I think indirectly it probably hurt but outwardly I never really I never showed it because my mom spent so much time trying to overcompensate yeah well I mean like you said we have a similar experience yeah I was my parents got divorced when I was like six so I was kind of living with my mom and my dad moved to Georgia. I lived in Massachusetts. And so we were far apart. And then I was visiting my father one summer for probably like a month or two, just, I don't know what you do at eight.

7:07You just do whatever. And I was at daycare, whatever you, afterschool care, whatever that is for a summer camp. And my dad's boss picked me up and I was Like, why is this woman picking me up? Brought me to his office, which I don't go to his office. And I remember walking into my, through my dad's office, past everyone. Everyone's heads are down. It's very quiet. Not really sure what's happening here. I'm also eight. So it's kind of like, why am I here anyway? And my dad sat me down and he told me that my mom had died in a motorcycle accident at that moment. And I remember, like you said, it's kind of like Charlie Brown's teacher, like that wah-wah.

7:45Like, what does this even mean? And the reason I asked you that question, I was like, I don't even think I knew what, like I understood what death was. Yeah, but you couldn't like place it to like - But the permanence of it? Just didn't seem real. Are you saying that I'm not going to see this woman that was like led my life for so long or for the years that I could remember? Right. And it also meant like, now what? Can I never go home again? Like, do I have to make a new home? Do I have to move down here and miss all my friends? It was before school had started, but in Georgia, school had just started.

8:18So it was like I was the student starting late. So everything was so different for me. And what happened in my world, this was like late 80s, early 90s, is that the adults in my life, they didn't want to talk about it. And what I got from them is they wanted to make sure that I was happy. Yeah, that's the same thing. I was a happy kid. Yeah. But I took that as I need to prove to them that I'm happy. Right. Not I need to get happy, but I just need to show them that I'm happy and that I'm perfect. Because if I'm not perfect, they'll see that I'm not happy and then they'll also leave. So my whole life from eight till probably like 30 was trying to prove that I was just a great student.

9:03I was going to get a promotion. I was going to buy the nicest house. I was going to do all the things that society told me would make me successful. And meanwhile, it was just broken inside. Were you ever scared that your dad was going to leave too? Yeah. That was a big fear. Even to this day, this is a huge fear of mine. I'm very close with my mom. I'm super, super, super close with her. She has everything. But I lived with that fear as a child because it is, I mean, it's traumatic. We went through a traumatic, especially, I think it's a lot different too when you're older and you lose a parent versus when you're younger.

9:37Neither worse, but it's just a completely different experience. Because for us, like you're right at six and eight, how are you even, I can't couldn't even fathom i didn't even know anyone that died right and if they did they were probably like an old grandparent yeah exactly that's just next right that's what you do yeah when you get that old i i i can totally relate and i spent the duration of my life trying to be perfect because i was afraid same thing that if i was not perfect and if i and i'm the only child do you have brothers and sisters oh you're an only child how weird is this can we just tell the audience that we grew up in the same like same street we went to the same elementary school we're almost the same age and your dad was living in georgia i went to georgia this does not happen we were like meant to meet yeah exactly for sure no i i mean i think i think you're right it's very weird first of all that we have all those similarities i was listening to you on other podcasts i was like i wonder where in fort lauderdale because i also say fort lauderdale yeah it's really plantation yeah Because if you say plantation, everyone's like, where?

10:38Before a ladder, it's easier. Yeah. I think the hardest part for me, looking back, I don't think I realized this at the time, but my dad was mid-30s. I don't think he had lost anyone in that way. Yeah. So he didn't know how to grieve. He wasn't a full-time parent at the time. So he also now had to take on this role of like being a mom and a dad to a kid whose mom just died. So like he didn't know what was going on as well. And I talk to him now. He was actually just in town last night. And I was like, you know, we did the best we knew how. Yeah, there's no set of directions when you're raising kids.

11:13But I wish we had done it differently. You know, like I feel like there was, it was really hard. Nobody was talking about it. And nobody went to therapy. Nobody went to therapy. Can you imagine selling the people? Because my mom sent me to therapy. I probably went too. I went. And the school counselor, she tried to send me up for the Central Park school counselor. But that's embarrassing because you're getting pulled out of school to go to the counselor. And right at that time, only the bad kids went. And so they were always like, why is she going to therapy once a week? So how do you even explain this as a child?

11:40Well, and you're also not used to being vulnerable. Right. Like you are, well, I was dealing with bullies and things like that at the time. So now I have to go over here and talk to this woman about my feelings when I'm just trying to survive over here. So it was a lot of years of that. It was probably two decades, which brought me to like during the pandemic, I got a second master's degree. at UF and I was just because I was bored and a perfectionism, you know, 4.0. It's fine. Still stuck there. But I took a podcasting class and I just had to start something. And initially I was like, can I have a podcast just about grief?

12:18Because I screwed it up for 20 years and now I know how to do it. And I was like, that's kind of really depressing. So I'm probably not going to do that. So I decided to talk to people about the very specific pivotal moments in their lives in which their life changed. So that life shift moment. And that's been the challenge to a lot of guests is because I think we think, okay, this transitionary period was my life shift. It was, but can you pin it down? Like for me, it was always my mom died, but it was really when my dad sat me down and had to tell me because she had already been dead for three hours and I hadn't, like I didn't know.

12:56So it's really been an interesting journey to hear people dissect their lives in a way that maybe they haven't been challenged to do so before? Because yours probably wasn't when your father died. Mine was, I know what exactly mine was. I can pin it because I actually wrote a book. And when I wrote a book, which it wasn't about, it was just about my story in general. But when I wrote the book, it was super therapeutic. And the pivotal moment in my life was when I saw my mom, I'll never forget this, because we had to fly back. We drove to Atlanta. We had to fly back. and we my mom I remember like in true like I called her I call her the rand and she is like the right exactly what she's like she is it she I love her so I remember her like getting dressed she got me dressed she put on her big sunglasses held my little hand through the airport and that's when I realized like you have to get up and put your face together and you got to get it together and let's roll and let's go and that's that was kind of like the motto of our life like shit happens it's really sad but we have to move forward yeah and that was really and that's kind of how you know I think of life a lot yeah and for my whole life I've been like that shit happens but it doesn't matter what happens you don't use it as a crutch but but you use it as a as a building block and a tool to either excel in life or you can or or not it's a choice you know it's a personal choice I could have spent my life saying what was me I could have and and I think everybody would have excused it.

14:19I did it. Which is fine. But luckily, and I always say thank God, because of my mom indirectly and how fierce and how bold and brave she was. I mean, same thing. My mom was 42. All of a sudden, she has this little six-year-old daughter. Because my dad was raising me. My mom worked all the time. It was not very similar. Yeah. So my dad raised me. And all of a sudden, she couldn't even do my hair. So I had to learn how to French braid my little hair at six years old. Yeah. So it was just, but that was the pivotal moment in my life, which really made me, I think later on, really want, number one, I wanted to make sure because my mom dedicated her life to making sure that I had everything.

15:00I knew that I wanted my mom to have everything. So I've spent my entire life building a legacy. Of course, for my children, they're my why, but my mom is a huge why for me. Yeah, she was an example of like just moving through. True. I'm sure part of that experience, though, made you the badass that you are today, too. Through her. Like, just in business, just in general of, like, I have to make this happen. Yeah. Because I need to protect myself. I need to protect the people around me. I need to hoard the relationships or whatever those are. I think there's a lot of things that come from such a tragedy as a kid.

15:35but it's only if we're lucky enough to either assume it in a way that is healthy or eventually get to the point where you can have that because like I said, up until mid-30s I was still using the fact that she had died as this crutch. If something bad happened, it was like, oh, because my mom's dead or if something good in my life, it was like, oh, because people feel bad for me because my mom's dead and there was a lot of that playing that game until I finally was ready for a therapy session where I chose to go and I chose to find someone to help me through the muck. And this woman, totally on paper, you'd be like, Matt and this woman make no sense together as a therapist.

16:19And she was like, you realize every decision that you've made since you were eight years old, you've done as an eight-year-old with that scared mentality that someone was going to leave you. Wow. And I was like, everything. So what happened? And you just changed your whole mentality. Honestly, it probably felt like it was in the moment that everything changed. I'm sure it was like a year period of me kind of unraveling all the decisions that I had made, all the easy routes that I had made. Because I took all the easy paths because I was afraid if I wasn't perfect, like I chose the paths that I knew I was going to be really good at.

16:55Because if I wasn't, I was going to fail. And then what if my father left because I did terribly? You know, like he wasn't happy. He was never going to do that. But in my mind, I was so afraid as that eight-year-old. So I finally kind of made it through that in which I was able to talk in a healthy way about my mom and about losing my mom and about how broken I was for so long, which I think is really hard as a male. For sure, that is, yeah. Like tell people that I'm sad and that's okay. Because growing up, I was only allowed to be happy or angry. Yeah. Right? Like those were the only two things that men are allowed to be back then.

17:32My household too. Nobody cried. Don't cry. And now I'm like, I'm not having a good day. I'm sad. You know, I lost my dog over the summer and it was like the most devastating thing. And I just tell everyone about it because I'm a human. And it's okay. Exactly. But it wasn't. It felt like it wasn't okay for so long. I think at that time it wasn't okay. It should have been. Yeah, but if you go back to school, and I could say this because we went to the same elementary school, same group of people that were like, we went to like a pretty, not affluent but it was affluent I mean it was a nice elementary school you went to just think about like the teachers it was a very close-knit community and everybody knew everybody there was there was really six degrees of separation everyone lived within like Jacaranda Lakes Quatrain Bridgewater you know that whole like like area and if you couldn't be that kid you could not be that kid that was you just couldn't be that kid no you get bullied for sure yeah time period of course but I'm so grateful for it in this weird way because now I can look back.

18:32You have to get bullied a little. You have to get bullied a little. I'm not grateful for that. But, yeah. No, I mean, that was quite a journey itself. But all of that, all of that crap that I went through, all the missteps and the things that I look back and I'm like, cringe, like totally wrong decision. Like help me now. Help me hold space for people's conversations. I love that. Never would I have thought that, you know, someone, I just talked to someone in Australia, and they were telling me their story, and they were like. So you get people internationally that come. Oh, yeah. How do you do that?

19:07Well, I've been really fortunate, and I guess the nice thing is that. Well, I saw your podcast. It's had, what, like 143 ,000 views? It's a lot. I've had a lot of people watching and listening. Don't be modest. I saw, wait, let me read what it says here. She's making up views. Achieve recognition as a global top 2 % performing podcast. That's 1.5 now. Oh, okay. 1.5. Through engaging storytelling and quality editing. I mean, that's pretty impressive. Thank you. I'll accept that. I'm impressed. Here's the thing. The thing is, I think there are so many people that don't have people in their life around them that will listen.

19:50and there's something so valuable about everybody's story because your story I can relate to things in your story you can probably relate to something that I've said in my story and if you're that person that has that story inside and nobody's listening it's really hard so I've been really fortunate that since maybe six months into my journey I haven't had to look for a guest for my show they just come to me which is great you know some are not great and I have to like say no because they just want to pitch their book or whatever it may be. And there are plenty of podcasts for that. But the ones that need to find the space to open up, they will.

20:25And I've had people show up and go, oh, I was going to tell you about the time I had cancer or whatever it was. But I really want to tell you about something I've never told anyone before. And it's those moments where I fall back. Who am I? Why are you telling me that story? And I think it's because I've told mine. I've shared mine. I've shared my vulnerabilities with the world and told them when life sucks. It's so true. Yeah. So it's just been a, it's been a beautiful journey and I'm just really lucky to just create the space. But look, I mean, that's amazing. Just think of, think about how many people our age, especially because, you know, mental illness, anxiety, and I've talked about this because I do suffer from anxiety, um, pretty bad, but this, these were things that were never spoken about.

21:13I mean, I battled with anxiety probably 20 years before I actually came out and said, you know, I have anxiety. I have it. And you create this space for people to really just open up and be themselves when we're stuck in a world, you know, where you can have, of course, and you can hide behind AI and you can hide behind, you know, the screen. You can, but you give people that opportunity to be authentic. And I ask them really awkward questions. I love that. Oh, I love that. I love awkward, uncomfortable questions. I think it's important. I think the way I think about these conversations is like, these are the questions that I ask are the ones that I wish I would overhear other people asking instead of like talking about their accolades or like what the performative next question is.

22:01But like, you know, just something really inappropriate maybe. I love you. I love you already. I love inappropriate questions and awkward questions. Yeah, because you never know what people are going to connect with. And a prime example of this was I was having a conversation about this woman who had lost her father at maybe five. And then her mom was she was estranged from her mom as well. And it was this long journey or whatever. And we were talking through and we somehow we got on this conversation about like in high school where where she was like, yeah, there were times where. she would imagine that her father was in witness protection at the time just like it's a part of her grief journey i was like me too and then we went down this whole tangent of like how our parents were both in witness protection that's crazy i used to think that my dad i promise you that he was going to come back through the door exactly he was just it was like he fooled everybody he wasn't really dead and he just really lied to everyone and he was going to never tell someone that never i never even said that i can't believe you got that out of me exactly because but those are the things it's like it makes us feel normal it makes us feel that like oh no we're not weird for thinking that that is our brain protecting us in whatever way we needed to be protected at the time but that what was so beautiful about that moment it was like it was the first time that my show validated my experience and I think so many people could be listening to someone else's story with your I listened to a couple of your episodes on like other people's podcasts and just hearing those pieces, you never know what people are going to connect with.

23:32And it's like that weird moment. You'd think I connect with the fact that her father had died, but it was really the witsick that our parents were not in, but that we thought they were. Yeah. I mean, I love that. And it's funny because when you were talking to Allison, who wanted you to come on, I think one thing that she pointed out to me, although we have so many parallels is how it relates to bilf and just business in general is that i think your story i mean because i know aside from this you have your everyday job that you that you're an author and you write for your job but i feel like when we are open and we are vulnerable number one it makes us better leaders right because people can sniff on authentic people they can smell it a mile away but it makes you human and relatable and when you are human and relatable and open the results in the end from people.

24:24You can drive people just from being human. You build trust. Yeah. I think if people can see that you're a flawed human, I think it makes you more valuable to them in their lives. Because then again, they can relate to you. And if they can relate to you, they're going to want to do things with you, for you, around you. You know, they're going to want to perform as a team rather than you have this scary performative boss that's just dictating orders. And everyone is like, what are they covering up in their history like what is their trauma it looks fake I always say like I even wrote a book that called that was called perfect imperfections but I do believe that your imperfections make you perfect yeah for sure they wrote a poem that of that too when I was in like middle school who are you I maybe we like are meant we're definitely meant to meet it's so we're like I met you before it's so crazy how similar our lives have been but so I okay so let's talk about our lives and like how like navigating through the world of like unknown, because it was weird.

25:22It definitely was, I would say a little weird for me from time to time. You know, when you are experiencing things with your friends and they are going to that daddy-daughter or even my wedding. I was married twice, whatever. But you know, I didn't have the daddy-daughter dance. I never had that. I never had, and I always felt like I was missing out on something. And I think now more so than ever, I feel like I missed out on so much of my life without having a father. Did you gravitate to other father figures in your life? No. Which I would think like luckily, no. I did on the opposite. Like every friend that I had, I was like buddy-buddy with their moms because it was like something that was missing in my life.

26:07I think it's different with a mom than a dad. I think so. I think it really is. Maybe a little creepy on the other way. No, yeah. But I always say, I know this is terrible, but I always say I think for a child, it's easier to lose. I don't know if it's easier or that's even the right word. But to lose a father, I think, is, I don't know if you would use easier. Maybe more manageable. I don't even know what word you would use. I don't even know. I know what you're saying. But you know what I, because the mom holds like, that's the nurturer. And I know how I am with my kids. Like, I'm the nurturer.

26:38I'm the one that has it all together. I'm the one that cooks. I'm the one that knows all the nitty gritty little things. And dads, unless you have a very, and I'm not saying that dads can't, I'm not saying that at all. But the mom is the nurturer. So it's hard. I can only imagine how it felt for you. Are you close with your dad? I am now, yeah. I think when I was kind of navigating the world of fearing losing him from not being perfect, I think that was different. But also I was a teenager. Like what teenager gets along with their parents? Not too many of us. Yeah, no. But now that I'm in my 40s, my father and I have a really good relationship.

27:13And what's been really interesting, I flipped the script early on in my podcast journey, and I had a friend interview me about my story. And I let my dad listen to it. Well, I didn't let him. It was in the world. And we had a beautiful conversation after that. Because think about it. When you talk to your mom about your life, there's always this interjection, probably, where you're going back and forth. No, that's not how it happened. Yes, always. You're crazy. That never happened. But this was an opportunity for him to hear me uninterrupted and how I saw it. And your perception. And he was like, you know what?

27:47I didn't realize that's the way you were feeling at that particular time because here's how I was feeling. Yeah. And podcasting is such a beautiful space in that way. So I super encourage you to do that for your own story and have your mom listen to this. My mom heard me speak. She did. Like this year, she heard me speak for the first time. and she read the book. She read it. And I think some of it was a little eye-opening for her. I think some of it, she, nothing, obviously nothing was not nice. It was my perception of my own reality of what I was going through and why I am the way that I am, you know.

28:28But, yeah, I think that her hearing it, it definitely, she would never come out and say to me, like I'm so angry with you but I think she was taken back I definitely do yeah I do I think she was taken back by the way that I saw some things not good I just think taken back yeah you know I mean I think that's a good journey I think that's a reflection is a beautiful thing if we're allowed to do it for ourselves or if other people can do it but I I don't know I I have a good relationship with my dad I think also in part because of that yeah because now we can talk about it and he can go, you know, I really screwed up.