You Matter: Mental Health and Business Culture with Matthew Emerzian

22:32But anywhere in the audience, I know that there's people who are just trying to figure out what is this meaning of life, like what's life all about. So I'm coming in there to bring them this message. But every time I do it, I walk away feeling so fulfilled because then after I'm done, And they, Matt, can I hug you? Can I share my story with you? And all of a sudden they fill me up like, oh my God, like I'm here for a reason and I'm in my purpose. And they just gave me that gift back, right? And all of a sudden this room of a thousand people all of a sudden felt like a tiny table. We're all sitting around interconnected.

23:08So it's interesting how the either you and the we play. And that's what I try to bring to light. So for any CEO out there, yes, you have to take care of yourself. There's a hundred percent, right? But we also have to understand the needs of our people. And in the corporate space, they call it culture. So if you looked at the we matter from a culture perspective, how do we take care of that? Which is the culture thing is interesting because I'll go work with the company and our team will work with the company. And they'll talk about it. So we'll say, our culture here really sucks. And my first question is, what are you doing about that?

23:43Because people will be removing themselves from it. So they'll step out and say, see this culture over here? It sucks. But I'm over here. But they remove themselves from it. But really, if you work at a company, you're right smack dab in the middle of that culture. And so it's like, you know, be the change we wish to see in the world, right? Create the culture that you want to have. And we all play a role in that. We can't just point to it as the bad thing over there that I have no responsibility of trying to help or do anything about. You sit in some of the, like, I wish there could be a fly on the wall in some of the rooms that you have access to.

24:16Like some of the brands that we love, the biggest brands on the planet, Matt is working with their teams, like inside the boardroom with people that make decisions that affect thousands upon thousands upon thousands of global employees, right? People. What I want to know is, I feel like I can get real gray about it and be like, spill the tea on like what is bad. But I really want to know who's doing it well and why are they doing it well? And like, how are they actually implementing some of this? And what is somebody who is on the other side of implementing? Sure. What does that world look like?

24:45What does that company look like? Yeah, well, I feel today, and I say this, you know, sadly, but thankfully, you know, the topics of mental health and well-being mattering are becoming much more popular, you know, now. Thankfully. Thankfully, like, you know, I think we saw Verizon ads, something matters, bras matter, Mazda, you know, driving matter, everything matters all of a sudden, right? And I think in some ways COVID exposed our tender underbellies and what maybe used to be kind of soft stuff that we didn't really, like, how's this going to help my bottom line, right? this kind of stuff, I think people are realizing that if our people are not well, we're not going to achieve our goals.

25:21It's just period. We're not going to do it. And there's enough research out there to show that. So for me, we have the stories that are so amazing. And a lot of it starts, I believe, with a leader who actually values people and truly values people. There were days back in the beginning of this journey for me where I was just fully pushing a rope. Like I was trying to get a CEO to value their people. And it was a constant struggle. And I got to the point where I was just not going to work with an organization if they didn't really believe this from the top. And because otherwise it wasn't even fun to work with these organizations.

26:00And I'm not going to say who those brands were. What does it rhyme with? Right, yeah. Tall Mart.

26:12today it's very different today the people are much more open they want to have these conversations they're looking for answers they understand their people are struggling you know the workplace with the hybrid versus you know virtual versus in the office there's a lot of things that have mixed us up lately and we're seeing it you know statistically we're seeing it too with mental health alcohol abuse drug abuse yeah violent crimes you know the increase of that? Yeah, the increase of all that in our culture today. And I wouldn't say that as a humanity, we're necessarily having our best look right this moment.

26:45And so we're looking to find answers and mattering to me is the start of all of it. Okay. So can I be a little bit skeptical? So there's an organization where maybe it's been an abdication. Look at that culture. It sucks. And then if I was an employee and I had a mid-level manager, senior level manager, Even if I had a CEO who up until that point hadn't exhibited a true caring, but deep in his or her, they are and they want to shift it. All of a sudden, I'm a skeptic and I go into like the cafeteria and it's like, you matter. And you're like, oh God, oh God. So from what I understand, they bring you in as a keynote speaker.

27:21And then are you working with management? Are you working with teams? Like how do you change a whole culture? And then that's just the start of the question. Because for somebody who doesn't have a hundred or a thousand person team, we're talking about this bordering business owner with a team of 10. What is the system? How can somebody come back and be like, practical steps of saying, I want to really convince people that they matter and show them that they do. Right. So yeah, the first thing typically starts with this guy walking in and with the message of you matter. And yes, there are skeptics out there.

27:53And I have been in front, I've spoken in prisons with this message. So if you want to talk about, going into a tough crowd. Right? And by the end of it, they were - Well, they're a captive audience, at least. Oh, dad joke. The dad joke. That was good. That was good, Marcus. That's not right. It's all good. You guys are good. And by the end of it, they were hugging and they were crying. And they had completely changed their energy around. Everyone here just wants to get us down. Like, no one cares what to, hey, guys, listen, we can make this what we want it to be. So let's support each other. Let's love each other.

28:29Let's learn together. And the transformation is wild. But you're right. Like I asked the question from people, ultimately there's this thing that happens at the end where they get on stage and they say, my name is and I matter because. And they make this statement in front of 2000 people and they do this live there. I can't have someone in the first minute of my keynote be like, hey, come up here right now. I want you to finish this sentence. My name is I matter because and go. But you did that in your TED talk. I know, but that's after an hour or 15 minutes in case of me. Shout out TED Talk, by the way.

29:02I know. That was a subtle flex. He's typing you up by turning you like, but wait. But wait, what's that thing you did with red letters? There are three of them. Go. No, your TED Talk was great because you were different because they actually didn't want you to do what you did in your TED Talk. Yeah. They didn't want me to bring anyone on stage. And I said that I wouldn't do it. And then you did it. Oh, yeah. I said I wouldn't do the TED Talk if I couldn't bring people on stage. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so anyways, you can't just come in there like, hey, you matter, you matter, I came out, right?

29:30Because it takes time to get there with this. But ultimately, whether it's a team of 10 or whether it's a massive company of 60 ,000 employees, and we've worked with all of them, there is a practical strategic way of doing this. And it starts maybe with the keynote. So there's context of what this is gonna be, what's this journey we're gonna take. It starts with understanding their pain points, whether that's diversity, inclusion, equity, belonging, whether that's turnover retention, whether that's culture leadership. and so we have a team. I look at us as like a mattering agency, if you will.

30:00We come in and we understand their needs first and then we make a tactical plan to then solve this. Not overnight. It's over, you know, we work with companies for years, seven, eight years at a time. Wow. Because the bright shining object is not going to change culture. I even joke that a lot of keynote speakers think that they're going to actually cause change in one hour. I don't think that's necessarily the case. You speak for yourself. You've offended Marcus. Yeah, I literally changed. He could have changed your life. I wait till that guy's life changes and I don't leave his face. Three days after you're gone, you don't even know your name anymore.

30:33Yeah, that's true. All right, guys, it's been really fun. This has been good. But you're still easy on the eyes. Okay, again, I'm leaving. I'm out. But real change takes time, right? Yes. And it's a slow drip thing. So you can't go from a company that clearly didn't really care about the people to, oh, now they care about us, like overnight without it being authentic and genuine. It's true. So are they seeing those practical things implemented? Because if I'm sitting there, I'm an employee and they come up and I'm like, okay, another one, like this is going to be another thing. But then I start seeing things happen and it's like actually like what are those things that people would start to experience to see that slow turn, right?

31:09Yeah. So every Monday, this is the name actually turned out to be brilliant. Although back to your thing about how are my Mondays? My Mondays suck. Yeah. My Mondays are so busy. It's crazy. And I don't get national holidays anymore because they're all full on Mondays, right? Right. Because I'm always working. But every Monday, it gives us a reason to exist inside of an organization. Interesting. Right? Yeah, because as an entrepreneur, your Mondays could be Sundays or could be Saturdays, or they don't feel, they don't hit quite the same. But I think as an employee or your employees, Monday is that start of the new week.

31:40That's right. Yeah. And so, and just get people to not just, you know, reclaim their Mondays because everyone hates Mondays. It's like, we're not like a Monday makeover kind of thing. But ultimately to come in to give us a reason to exist with communications, but whether it's digital communications that we're doing throughout the organization, whether that's trainings we're doing with managers, poor middle managers are getting beat up right now, right? And helping them navigate what they're navigating or whether it's activations on campuses, doing engagements of real life, you know, inspiration walls and things.

32:11It's a full battery of techniques that we have to actually start to get this to change. And ultimately what happens is they don't even need us after a while because they start to own it themselves. And all of a sudden people start to notice, wow, like I do feel different. Or I'll get an email from a wife saying, I don't know what you're doing down at my husband's company, but he's actually become a much better husband in the past six months. Whoa. Like we didn't solicit that, right? And there's been moments in my wife and I, we were in D.C. Rewind a little bit when there was a presidential election with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

32:48And Trump won. And we were in D.C. at the time. And D.C. was a very eerie place that day because we were there on election day and the day after. We drove out to the middle of nowhere, Virginia. I was a keynote speaker for a big bank that was having a retreat. And afterwards, a woman walked up and she says, Matt, can I speak to you for a second? I said, sir, so we walked out in the hallway And she said, I want you to know that I think God brought you here today Because my plan was to take my life tomorrow And she took me out to the parking lot Where she had all of the duct tape and tubing In her car to run her exhaust Back into the cab of her car to commit suicide Did you like I would sit down on the ground and cry I don't even know what I would say Yeah, it's a lot to process But does that come with the space Because of what you're talking about The subject matter, who you are you get a lot more people who are vulnerably sharing those types of things with you.

33:38I think so. You know, when I share my story of like hitting rock bottom and wanting to take my life on the 73 toll road, when you share that in the public in front of people, it does create a safe space for people to come to you and say, hey, listen, I've been struggling too. And so I've gotten to see a very personal, you know, perspective of how people, even in some of the most successful companies in the world are really doing. And that is my thing for leaders. I will tell you, your people need healing. They need this work. And whether you choose to work with me and Every Monday Matters or someone else, we need to start understanding our people's needs more and being there for them because there's a lot of pain out there that needs healing.

34:21And we can heal it is the exciting part. We can make an impact. And that woman I told you about, I brought the CEO in. I knew he was a very caring man, empathetic leader. We had a tough conversation right there in the moment. And they put her on a special kind of care program there within the company. And she started thriving and she did amazing. And she saved her life, right? And they always say, if you just impact one person, right, and I've got to have a lot of those moments. So one of the things that I would say for somebody who's listening, obviously Every Monday Matters is a great place for a small business owner who might have a small team and is maybe not at the point of investing in having a mattering agency, a matters agency come to them.

35:09One thing that we implemented was just asking people, how are you doing? But then also coming to the table and sharing something that it doesn't have to be vulnerable for vulnerable sake. It could just be real. But what I have noticed is when I meet with a team member and I'm saying, you know, on the outside, things look great. But I'm going to tell you this one thing, it's really hurting right now that the minute that you give that space for that, they feel empowered to do the same. So is there something else maybe along those same lines that's just like one action item that they might be able to take with their small team?

35:40Of course. Yeah. So my You Matter book is more of a personal story, my personal story and journey and other stories that along the way, that every Monday Matters books are actually super prescriptive. So what it does is it gives you 13 themes. So Monday gets kind, Monday gets compassionate, Monday gets grateful. And then for each of those monthly themes, if you will, there's four Mondays. And so if it's Monday gets kind, the first Monday might be use your words. And so from an I matter perspective, using your words, how do you talk to yourself? What's your self-love? Are you self-loving or you beat yourself up?

36:15Most of us aren't great about that, right? Use your words and a you matter perspective is you compliment people. You lift people up. You sarcastic. Are you short? You put people down. We matter kind of how do we use our words to create a culture here at work where we all kind of feel honored and respected. So the book is a recipe really to follow 13 monthly themes and four Mondays for each of those to then roll. And there's engagement ideas in there to then roll them out. Yeah, the calendar is the only way to get it done. Like if somebody's not in my calendar, like, hey, shut it down. I have shut it down in my calendar.

36:49That's so sad by the way. But I mean, that's the roadmap, right? That's really wonderful. Yeah. Along these same lines, can I go back to the story? At what point do you decide to pivot away, start something new, find a greater purpose? And then where does your wife fit into this? I find it pretty intriguing because at the time of this recording, she's here with you. Yeah, were you like, she didn't meet you when you're at your bottom. Okay, so you were - She met you on your husband, baby. She had met you in a good stock. Your hair was super curly. Great beach day. It had nothing to do with that guy.

37:19How did you guys meet? Well, interesting story. So there was a choir from Uganda coming to America to tour. And they were orphan children from Uganda. And they were looking for people to chaperone for a week. Because I was music industry. I loved this whole idea. And I love children. And so I chaperoned two of the boys. They were five and seven years old. And their uncle, who was their adult chaperone, they lived with me for a week. And then they had this concert at the end of the week on Sunday. It was at a church. So I was obviously there because I was with these kids all week. And my wife, Patty, she happened to come as an audience member.

37:57And so after the concert was over, they had these merchandise tables set up. And they were just people swarmed the tables because they just wanted to buy. Oh, they want to support. Yeah. Yeah. They just these kids were incredible. And so there's a woman standing in front of me and I'm tall, like you said, six, three. And so I'm able to look over people. And I said, hey, do you have anything here for men? I asked the volunteers who were selling the merch. And they said, no, it's only for women. And this voice says, well, just buy something and give it to your mom or your girlfriend or something.

38:26And I'm like, okay, my mom would never wear this stuff. And I don't have a girlfriend. And so I saw this person put this necklace she was holding back down on the merch table. And then she walked away. Oh, God, this is so smooth. Matthew, this is so smooth. Tell me you got that. I'm literally covered in children. Stop. Yeah, I'm a lot smarter than I look. I mean, brother. So I grabbed this thing and I buy it. And now I have to go looking for the woman who was wearing an olive green sweater. Because I never saw her face. And I see - Very serendipity. I love rom-coms. I go tap on her shoulder. Were you the one that said this?

39:05She said, that was me. I said, girl, I bought this an item to give you. So I hear I bought it for you. But wait a minute. And that's how it happened. Matthew, Matthew. What? you tap her on the shoulder and she turns around with these piercing blue eyes and are you like, whoa. Oh yeah. She's like, she's cute. Yeah. I like that. And you're like, lucky me. Yeah. So you're feeling like a little, a little light. I bought the right thing for the right girl. I bought a bracelet for the right, I mean, dang, okay. Yeah. And the funny part is at that time in my life, I was like 40 pounds heavier. So I was like a little bit chub chub.

39:37And you've seen her, right? You had a great personality

39:46She's very charitable herself. So anyway, I see her family. Wow. So we go over and we sit down and start talking. And fast forward two weeks, I see her friend. And she said, hey, I asked about Patty, my wife. And she said, oh, wait, you know, she hit you up on Facebook. We never responded. Because you're bad at social. Because I was, I can't say that. Yeah. And so I looked at it and sure enough, she had written me. Little did I realize that she had actually thought there was something there, but then mourned it because she didn't hear back from me for two weeks. It just increased the longing. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

40:22It was all part of your plan. But here's the best part of the whole thing. The whole time I was talking to her at that concert when I met her first, she was sitting on a ring because she was engaged. Oh, man. This movie gets better. It does. Yeah. Yeah. And then she traded up.

40:43Can I ask the last thing? First of all, everybody should be Patty. I think that that's a really good, you won. But here's my question about that. Do you guys engage in this together? This is not easy work. And like that woman who talked to you in the parking lot, the schedule flying all over the place, doing keynotes and working and stuff. I'm assuming that you need a great partner in crime for that and somebody who really inspires you and keeps you grounded there. So how important is that relationship in that way? Oh my God, it's everything. I mean, first of all, she's my biggest cheerleader without a doubt.

41:13And she's pushed me in ways to do things that I never thought I would do. You know, my third book, the personal book, You Matter, I wrote because of her. It had been 10 years since I'd written my first book. And now that everybody matters in that book. And she really pushed me just to go there and be vulnerable. At the same time, what's interesting is that she's an actor and I don't know how actors do what they do. Like I can act to save my life. And she doesn't know how I do what I do because she can never go on the stage in front of a bunch of people and do a keynote for an hour. Yeah. And which is a huge fear for a lot of people, right?

41:43And so we honor and respect each other for those unique skills that we have. And she says she's an introvert and I'm clearly not an introvert. When we got married, the guy said, I've never married two more opposite people in my life. So good luck. So good luck. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what I've seen with her is that she knows how much this work matters to me. She knows the impact it has on people because she's witnessed it more than anybody. And she just gets in there and loves it and supports it. And she gets in the mix. Now, I was talking about the whole prison thing. I mean, she was there with me inside this prison.

42:18And as soon as I was done, I look over and she's here talking with all these inmates and hugging them. And she's very sensitive, big hearted, and she just gets in the mix. and just sometimes I have to convince her it's time to leave. Keep going. So important to have that, by the way. I know we're getting close on time and I want to really be respectful of it. But one thing that really stuck out to me is not just the corporate level work or the individual work that you do. You've also extended a curriculum for school-aged children. Can you talk to us about that? What is that program? I mean, for people who just - Yeah, I was just saying, just on that as well, you do the senior one, which actually is brand new too.

42:58So the kids and the elderly, yeah. Yeah, we kind of get you at the beginning of life and the end of life and right in the middle. They have a lot of similarities, those two. We just hit college, I guess, right now. But we have a K-12 curriculum and it falls in the cap of social and emotional learning. So SEL. Again, SEL has been around for a long time. We've been doing it for a long time. But up until COVID, it was mostly about STEM, science, technology, engineering, math. All of a sudden now it's like, no, no, no, no more STEM. We need SEL. So it's all about this mental well-being of our youth.

43:28And so right now we have a program that serves 3 million students nationwide. We're in all 50 states and a couple other countries. It's completely free for schools to have. We don't charge a penny for it. And we get funding sources to help support that. So if there's any donors out there listening. What a plug. It's like, yeah, you need that tax write-off. Let's go. Absolutely. So that's been just super successful with what we're doing with the youth across the country. And one of the things, again, that we learned through COVID was not just the youth need this, but also the educators themselves.

43:59Our teachers were dying on the vines, right? They are just so burned out and walking away from a career that was their calling. And so now how can we serve the educators themselves more and also the families? Because the families had to deal with all this change as well. So that's a super robust program. And because of that program and the corporate program, actually what happened is I got asked to keynote the California Assisted Living Association Conference. And so they asked me if I would go visit a couple of these assisted living home or communities before I did so. And I did that. And what I learned when I was talking to these men and women in these communities, what they say is no different than what the men and women would say in prison.

44:41Is that I'm just here to die. Nobody cares about me anymore. I'm not a part of this world anymore. I'm lonely. I'm alone. And for different circumstances, they all felt the same. And for me personally, I don't think that's how anyone should end their lives. And what I also saw was what they call the killer bees, which is like ball toss and bingo and balloons. I don't think senior people should just be put out. I have never heard that, dude. Like, let's just don't put them in a corner. I'm laughing and crying. I know. Yeah, they're not three-year-olds, okay? Like, let's actually respect and honor them and give them some dignity.

45:15And so we bring mattering now to them in the form of weekly activities, much like we do in schools, much like we do in corporate weekly programming that allows them to regain their mattering. And recently, just because we're talking, I feel like we're talking about a lot of death and dying and things. But recently, a woman who was in one of our programs at a community passed away. And they had a celebration of life for her at the community. And her daughter, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, flew out to LA for the celebration of life. And she said at the celebration that I want you guys to know that because of this Every Monday Matters program, that my mom absolutely knew how much and why she mattered before she died.

45:54Did you cry? You sobbed. Yes. Because you're about to cry right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm about to cry right now. Don't look at me, man. So, you know, it's hard because I don't want people to like, oh, my God, this guy is so heavy and this stuff is so heavy, right? But it's just real, you know, and it's just pain is real. Life is real. We're all trying to figure this stuff out. We all have our stuff. It's part of why I have struggled with social media, to be honest with you. It's like, I just want more honesty on authenticity and vulnerability out there in the world. And enough of this, everything's awesome all the time.

46:29You know, it's not how it works. And so I'm trying to navigate how I can use a platform like that to bring value. And maybe we'll have some conversations after this that you can help me with. It would be an honor. Yeah, because clearly I have a message. I just, I don't want to exacerbate things also that I think are actually doing harm in some ways to our humanity itself. So how do I find that right healthy balance? There are people that I meet all the time who have platforms and then there are people that I meet that should have them. And I think, Matt, like you fall into a bucket that I just, it's the same reason why I responded to your message.

47:04Listening to you for the last, you know, 40 minutes or so, we can understand that I want more people like you in the world that are doing the work that you're doing. because I'm not doing it. I want to, I'm inspired by it, but there needs to be people that are out there leading the charge. And that's why I admire you and your friend for sure. Thank you for making the introduction. Like truly, I really do mean it. For those of you who are watching and listening to the Jasmine Star Show, it is an honor and a privilege to speak to Matthew Merzian and share this message in a way that first and foremost, he gets comfortable with.

47:32And then secondly, a little bootcamp during our lunch break. We're about to turn it up. But for people who do want to connect with you and with the everyday, every Monday matters. Where do they go? Where are we pointing them to? Well, actually you have your own personal brand website now. We got a little shout out. I should say that one first then. You should. So you can go to MatthewEversion.com is my personal website. And for those interested in keynoting, learning more about myself, books, et cetera, podcast. I have a podcast. Marco's on my podcast. Marco said one of the most profound things ever on that podcast.

48:05He said, my whole life, I felt like I've never was white enough or black enough. And it's something I'll never forget that. you said on my podcast. There's also the Every Monday Matters organization website on social media, Instagram, at Immersion, or at Mondays Matter. Look at you, look at you. I'll give it a seven out of ten. But you're getting there. It's like going to the dentist. You're going to come back on the show so that Marcus can give you a ten. We'll do some coaching in it. I'd be honored. If you're looking for a new host, let me know. Done. Done. Yeah, absolutely. Like one show in, he's booting him out.

48:43All right, guys, see you later. It's been good. Dude, thank you seriously so much. You're both amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening and watching the Jasmine Star Show. More than anything, if this has impacted you, please be sure to engage on social, share the episode. And beyond that, appreciate your time and energy. Thank you for being here.