Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Environmental Tech Meets Medical Innovation: Matt Sweetwood's Multi-Industry Leadership Journey

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Environmental Tech Meets Medical Innovation: Matt Sweetwood's Multi-Industry Leadership Journey · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:17
today's guest is Matthew Sweetwood.
0:19
He is the founder and CEO of Greener Process Systems, a
0:24
forward thinking EPC and sustainability company.
0:27
Their mission is to protect the Earth's environment using
0:30
innovative technology to reduce ship emissions.
0:34
Through their patented Seth Technology, Greener Process
0:37
Systems has become a leader in maritime Environmental
0:41
Protection, driving meaningful change in port operations
0:44
worldwide. As a professional speaker and
0:51
experienced innovator, he has shared insights on leadership,
0:54
personal branding, and entrepreneurship.
0:57
He is also a best selling author who shares his insights at
1:00
speaking engagements worldwide. His accolades include being
1:05
named Photo Industries 2016 Person of the Year by PMDA and
1:10
receiving the 2014 CMO Club Presidents Award.
1:15
But he considers his greatest achievement to be raising 5
1:19
successful kids to adulthood as a single dad.
1:23
Now before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
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1:54
All right, back to our guest today, the CEO of Greener
1:57
Process System, Matthew Sweetwood.
1:59
I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
2:02
Anthony, thanks for having me. After that, I wasn't sure you
2:04
were talking about me. Person sounded somewhat
2:07
important. He sounds amazing, so let's
2:10
let's find out more about him. So, Matthew, you've LED multiple
2:14
companies over the past 31 years.
2:17
What initially drew you to develop sustainable technologies
2:21
at Greener? Process systems, you know, you
2:25
know, I say in life there's no coincidences or you know,
2:29
there's serendipity, there's karma, there's all sorts of
2:32
things. And actually.
2:34
The. Technology there is.
2:36
It's not my technology. I'm just, I'm just good at
2:38
running companies. So they stick me in front of
2:40
them like, you know, like the ratchet, you know, ratchets are
2:44
really good at tightening bolts. So I'm really good at, you know,
2:48
running companies. And it doesn't really matter
2:50
what kind of bolt it is. You know, it's aluminum, steel,
2:53
whatever. I can tighten the bolt.
2:55
And ironically, I got invited to help run this company by
3:02
somebody who I helped out in a previous company, sort of gave
3:06
this person a job. This is a company that was
3:10
really impacted by COVID heavily.
3:12
It ended up shutting down. But I did something really good
3:15
for somebody in a job interview and gave him another chance,
3:19
gave him a job, saved him and his family.
3:20
And then about a year later, the guy calls me up and he goes, you
3:25
know, my dad has this invention and they're just going to get
3:29
taken from him. It's a huge opportunity.
3:32
And we kind of want to make a company and get somebody to run
3:35
the company for. Is he interested?
3:37
Like, OK, never. What is it?
3:39
What is it? And it turned out to be this
3:43
really innovative capture technology that allows us to
3:47
capture the emissions of smokestacks in factories and on
3:51
ocean going ships while they're in port, believe it or not, out
3:54
of nowhere. So I spent most of my career in
3:56
electronics and tech and the technology is really valuable
4:01
because you can basically bring a port or a factory.
4:06
So it gives us the ability to capture emissions and reduce a
4:11
factory or port to 0 emissions. We can take complicated
4:18
particulates out of the exhaust such as Sox and NOx and diesel
4:22
particulate and so on. I don't want to get too
4:24
technical, but our systems allow us to do that and in certain
4:29
instances even generate electricity off of the
4:31
smokestack. Really.
4:34
So it is the is the secret sauce and the filter mechanism itself
4:39
or like what, what are you guys doing that's different than
4:41
other companies? Yeah, that, that's a great
4:43
question. The secret sauce really is in
4:46
how you capture the smokestack. What initially drew you to
4:50
develop sustainable technologies at Greener Process Systems?
4:53
How'd that come about? Yeah, I, I think in in my case,
4:57
it was just a little bit of a luck.
4:59
It's not my. Technology.
5:01
I was just brought in to run the company and getting the
5:04
opportunity to run the company was just a little bit of doing a
5:08
good deed in this world and getting good karma on return.
5:13
There was a person who worked for me in a previous company who
5:18
it's very interesting story actually about hiring and
5:21
analyzing because I've hired literally thousands of people in
5:24
my life. And I think it's one of the most
5:26
important aspects of running a business, particularly if you're
5:29
running a small business and you're you're doing it yourself,
5:33
having that opportunity to hire and be involved in the hiring, I
5:37
think it's really important. But I digress.
5:40
So this was a situation where the company that we were with
5:45
closed, it was a result of COVID.
5:47
It was just a very ugly. Circumstance COVID just took
5:51
this. Company out in every conceivable
5:52
way that you could. It was a a luxury hospitality
5:57
company that operated between New York and Florida and the war
6:01
between Florida and New York and everything that could possibly
6:03
go wrong, including the government outlawing what we did
6:07
for two years was interesting. But nevertheless, I had hired
6:12
somebody for marketing position, and it was sort of a little bit
6:16
of a desperate young man, had a family, couldn't get, couldn't
6:19
get a job, was in a little bit of trouble.
6:21
And he screwed up the interview that he had with me about as
6:25
badly as you possibly can. But I saw something in him.
6:30
Yeah. I'll tell you, what he did in
6:31
the interview is kind of funny. I don't want to leave it hanging
6:33
hanging like that. Shows up late, shows up
6:36
completely disheveled. I thought maybe he was drunk or
6:38
on drugs or something like that had done.
6:41
No. Had done no like no research on
6:44
the company you know and keep in mind this is in Miami.
6:49
So if you've ever hired in Miami, anybody will tell you
6:53
running a business in Miami, half the people that show up for
6:55
interviews usually are stoned. So.
6:58
You know, hiring. It's not.
7:00
Always the easiest, the easiest thing.
7:02
So you tend, you know, beggars can't be choosers.
7:05
You tend to sort of left the interview, you know, So I
7:06
started talking to this guy, you know, I didn't # him too hard
7:10
for being late and stuff like that, but he seemed really
7:12
smart. It's just, and then I could see
7:14
he was like in the interview, he couldn't even like sit still.
7:18
So I'm like, listen, I'm like. We're done.
7:23
Right. You're not ready for this.
7:24
You really don't want this. And he's like, he's like, you
7:27
don't understand. I went to, I went to this, I
7:30
went to this interview before you and they made me pay a fee.
7:34
They kept me there all day. And then I realized it was a
7:37
scam. You know, I got to fit, you
7:39
know, you've heard these employment scams and stuff like
7:42
that. So I'm like, listen, go home.
7:45
We're going to, we'll, I'll, I'll send you an e-mail or
7:47
something. We'll, we'll reschedule.
7:48
Go home. So on the way home, I, I said,
7:51
you know what, this guy's, this guy seemed really smart, really,
7:54
really smart. I send him a text and I say to
7:58
him, I say go research the company and give me a marketing
8:02
plan, put it on my desk at 9:00 AM in the morning.
8:05
About 3 hours later he gives me an absolutely perfect detailed
8:08
marketing plan for the company. Bring him back in.
8:11
I hired him. He worked for the company for
8:13
about a year or so and then COVID just killed the company.
8:17
We actually did luxury rentals and they were outlawed for about
8:20
a year. You couldn't do you couldn't do
8:22
short term rentals, whole complicated thing.
8:24
So it was about a year later. After that, a year and a half
8:28
later, he called me up and he goes, my dad has this amazing
8:32
invention. He has a patent in Italy on the
8:35
invention. There's an opportunity to
8:38
install this thing in Italy and he's dealing with these big
8:41
companies and they're just going to steal his patent and throw
8:43
them in the Mediterranean Sea. So we need to have a real
8:48
company. We need to, you know, know what
8:50
we're doing. None of us know how to do that.
8:51
Are you interested? So I took a look at it.
8:53
The patent was amazing. It was about 15 years in
8:56
development. It's a technology which allows a
8:59
hermetic seal of a smokestack. Why is that important?
9:05
Because first of all, it creates an efficient seal of the
9:08
smokestack if you want to capture emissions.
9:11
And second of all, it allows for things like the capture of CO2
9:17
from the exhaust because you're able to maintain the temperature
9:21
of the exhaust, which also increases your ability for
9:24
filtration. When you have a smokestack, for
9:27
example, from a ocean going ship or a glass factory or any kind
9:32
of factory aluminum smelter, there are open stacks all over
9:36
the world, all over the country. They just billow heat and smoke
9:39
and particulate up into the atmosphere.
9:42
And if you just kind of try to cover the smokestack, there's
9:45
escape, there's heat loss, there's all sorts things.
9:47
You have to put additional energy into the process, which
9:50
then creates more pollution and so on.
9:52
We have technology that actually creates A hermetic seal on the
9:55
stack without damaging the furnace or the engine that's on
9:58
the other side. It allows us to trap the heat in
10:01
the system, use the heat to power the system and do proper
10:04
filtration. And in many cases we can
10:07
actually, we can actually generate electricity off of the
10:11
stack of good hot high pressure stack.
10:13
You can capture about 60% of the electricity back in the stack.
10:18
So this invention, so you. Capture it.
10:20
How do you how do you use that electricity from?
10:23
You can actually put it back into the grid, or you can power
10:25
your factory with it once you. So it comes in the form of heat
10:28
and then so you use that heat to run a turbine really.
10:31
Really as simple, you know, without getting.
10:33
Yeah, yeah. Going down that rabbit hole,
10:36
basically you spin a turbine and or there's other ways there's
10:40
there's transfer mechanisms and so on.
10:42
Depending on the stack, you can generate electricity, you can
10:45
capture CO2. If you actually have a place to
10:47
put it. We can get to that too, which is
10:49
one of the biggest jokes in the entire environmental industry is
10:53
that you want to capture CO2. People do not realize the kind
10:57
of volume of CO2 that comes out of an exhaust.
11:01
It's actually not practical, but the whole different story.
11:06
So this technology allowed that. So once I had the, I took a look
11:09
at it, there was a standing contract in or an opportunity
11:13
in, in Europe, actually in Italy in particular, which provided
11:19
funding for the installation of these in, in a, in a port in
11:32
Italy. It allowed for, it allowed for
11:36
a, there was millions and millions of EUR set aside for
11:40
this. And the, the ability to have it
11:46
funded and have a pilot funded by the European Union was very
11:49
exciting. And so I really, I really jumped
11:52
in at the opportunity. I said OK, we can put this
11:54
together. And here we are sitting, we have
11:57
6 patents later, you know, all over the world we have, we're at
12:01
a stage now where we have proposals all over the place to
12:04
install our systems. And hopefully this is, you know,
12:07
it's a, it's a mid state start up and hopefully we'll really
12:11
start to install these systems pretty wildly.
12:14
So Matt, what is it that you guys are doing that's so
12:17
different from all the other companies out there?
12:19
You're just better at capturing the emissions.
12:23
You're the only ones that can convert it into electricity.
12:26
Like what? Like kind of give it to me for
12:28
for somebody non-technical. Yeah.
12:30
So our our patented technology allows us to create a hermetic
12:35
seal on the smokestack. I mean it seems logical, right?
12:39
You want to, you want to cap a smokestack, let's say of an
12:41
ocean going ship or a factory that's billowing smoke and you
12:45
want to seal it. But it's actually quite
12:47
difficult because you have different size smokestacks.
12:51
You have, in the case of an ocean going ship in port, the
12:55
ship is actually moving even though the ship is docked.
12:58
You have to realize the ship is moving.
13:00
It moves up and down and side to side with the flow of the water
13:03
and so on. And so you want to make a
13:04
hermetic seal because it creates a much more efficient capture.
13:08
Obviously if you put a bonnet or you put an umbrella kind of
13:11
device over it or just a cap and you leave space, you lose
13:15
efficiency in the system. You have things escaped that you
13:19
don't want to. From an operational perspective,
13:23
the Hermetic seal allows us to trap the heat of the exhaust,
13:26
and when you trap the heat of the exhaust, it allows for a
13:30
couple things with better benefit.
13:32
Number one, you can use the heat from the system then to power
13:35
the system. There are systems out there that
13:38
cover smokestacks, but typically they have to add power into the
13:43
system in order to capture because the system itself has to
13:46
run. It has to flow air through and
13:48
into some sort of filtration system.
13:50
Ours, we use the heat of the system.
13:52
If you're in a really high temperature, high pressure
13:54
stack, we can actually generate electricity because of the
13:58
efficiency of the system. It's generating more power than
14:01
what's needed to run the system. Typically a smokestack, you can
14:04
capture 60% of the lost energy and then all of that just goes
14:08
up into the atmosphere now. So to answer your question that
14:10
our patented Hermetic Seal technology, the capture device,
14:15
the ECD, we call it OK, the emissions capture device, this
14:18
is the magic of our technology. And then obviously there's a lot
14:22
of engineering that goes into how you actually filter the air
14:26
and what you do with it. There's all, there's
14:28
alternatives. Sometimes it's just about
14:29
cleaning the air so that you have 0 pollution, you know, or 0
14:33
emissions or close to 0 emissions.
14:35
We claim about 95% effective. You can generate electricity if
14:39
the stack has is hot enough with enough pressure through
14:44
something called waste heat recovery.
14:46
WHR you Google that thing you'll you'll see lots of discussion
14:49
about it or in some cases not so popular anymore.
14:54
But for a while there was a big drive to actually capture CO2
14:59
out of a smokestack. Capturing CO2 has some
15:04
complications to it in terms of of actually being able to
15:09
capture it. I know that sounds a little bit
15:11
paradoxical. In order to capture CO2 out of
15:15
an exhaust, you have to have two components.
15:17
You have to have clean air. You can't have other materials
15:20
mixed in with the CO2. And in the case of a fossil fuel
15:26
burning exhaust, coal, diesel and so on, the exhaust can have
15:30
things like diesel particulate, NOx, Sox and so on.
15:34
All of that has to be filtered out.
15:35
So the fact that we're able to keep the temperature high, we
15:38
can filter out all of that particulate.
15:40
And then you're left with sort of this pure air at the end,
15:42
which you can then capture the CO2.
15:45
I'm saying it like it's, you know, just, you know, click,
15:47
click, click is this is. Complicated engineering.
15:50
This is the different series of filters, right?
15:52
Is this sound? And this one cleans that out
15:55
exactly. Right.
15:56
One's made of cotton, one's made.
15:57
That's kind of quite like that. It's a complicated process
16:01
because the temperature drops, you got all sorts of things can
16:03
happen and not good things happen.
16:05
So and the and the other difficulty with capturing CO2 is
16:10
that if you take a typical freighter freighter and you cap
16:16
and you clean the emission that comes out of it and then you
16:18
capture the CO2. I mean, a freighter, while it's
16:21
in Porto fill a few football stadiums worth of CO2.
16:24
I mean, it's crazy kinds of volume.
16:26
It's not like it's in a little box.
16:28
You know, this isn't, this is not like a little amount of
16:31
material. It's an insane amount of
16:32
material and so. Are you saying that it's
16:36
unreasonable to capture CO2? Basically unreasonable.
16:39
There are pipelines that were being built, but I don't know, I
16:41
think the trend, I somehow feel like the trend is away from this
16:45
because there's also now questionable science as to
16:48
whether the CO2 is affecting it. Once companies, here's what I'm
16:51
going to tell you about the environmental business that
16:53
people don't know because people see the front facing of
16:56
companies. So they see companies talking
16:59
all the time about, you know, we want to reduce emissions, we
17:02
want to be more environmental friendly.
17:04
But I'm going to tell you when it comes to the bottom line and
17:06
spending money on it, they look for every reason to delay, to
17:09
drag their feet, to not do it. It's not regulated by 2030, by
17:14
2040. That's the favorite thing.
17:16
They're like, we're going to reduce by 20402050, everybody's
17:19
going to be dead by then. OK, You know all the people, and
17:22
I don't mean physically, I'm just saying all the people that
17:24
come I'm. Just saying.
17:24
You paint a bleak picture there, Matthew.
17:27
Yeah. So I, I found the environmental
17:29
industry is a little bit of a, particularly this emissions
17:32
industry is a little bit of a, we're going to talk the talk,
17:35
but we don't really want to pay to.
17:37
Walk the walk so a. Lot of that goes on.
17:40
The only thing that actually gets companies to reduce
17:44
emissions are harsh regulations, which.
17:47
Or or if the financial motivations can be aligned.
17:50
Like if it becomes cheaper somehow for them to operate
17:53
their business by doing. Offer solutions.
17:56
OK, I'll give you a real business examples.
17:59
So we can go into a place like an aluminum factory, aluminum
18:02
smelter. They melt aluminum.
18:04
I'll just say it the most simple way.
18:06
They create a big bonfire, very hot bonfire, and they throw all
18:10
sorts of metal scraps into it, melt it into a liquid and then
18:14
make aluminum out of it. Aluminum is a, you know, multi
18:17
material metal. And these factories are out in
18:21
the middle of America. They just have open stacks just
18:24
spewing stuff. We can walk into a factory like
18:27
that and for 5 to $10 million, we can seal the stock and
18:33
generate $1,000,000 a year worth of electricity off of the stock.
18:39
OK. And if the electric rates go up,
18:41
you generate, you know, it's based on the kilowatt charge and
18:44
so on. They'll be like 10 years.
18:47
Who's paying for the system now? They're like.
18:54
So do you offer any kind of like financing?
18:56
Or and then they're like, well, you know, we have to change our
18:58
operations. We have to do this.
19:00
It's the gain is not we have one factory we went to.
19:04
They collapsed their own roof because they they design of
19:08
their smokestack was not good. They poisoned their own
19:11
employees and the whole bit. They didn't care.
19:14
No, they're making so much money and they're just kind of like,
19:17
I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just telling you, I'm just,
19:20
I'm making it more bleak than it is, of course, because we're on
19:23
a podcast and it's more dramatic to do this.
19:25
But I'm telling you that's the that's the general feeling out
19:29
there. So it's like, we're not doing
19:31
this. And they're like, who else is
19:32
doing it? Are the other factories?
19:33
No, they're not doing it. You want to be the first?
19:35
No, we don't want to be the first.
19:37
Yeah. So harsher regulations, maybe
19:39
negative press, these are the things that I've seen get like
19:42
big companies to move. Yeah, but The thing is, the
19:45
environmental issues, they, like don't affect individuals enough
19:50
for them to care enough. It's kind of a little bit of a
19:54
weird thing. Like you go out to Los Angeles,
19:57
the Los Angeles Valley, you have the Port of Los Angeles out
20:01
there and you have the Port of Long Beach.
20:03
These are like the two largest ports in the country.
20:05
You heard when the ships were backed up and all sorts of
20:08
stuff. There's an area out there they
20:10
call the Diesel Death Zone. OK, it's not a place I want a
20:15
vacation. Yeah, yeah.
20:16
It's a place where a lot of people live and they talk about
20:18
they walk out and they wipe the soot off their cars, all right,
20:21
off the playground swings. I can show you ABC News reports
20:25
where they go out there and they wipe the the stuff off the
20:28
swings. Since the kid swings and
20:31
California took them, I don't know how many years, they passed
20:34
some sort of regulation with respect to tankers, not
20:38
freighters, not cruise ships, not and not, not tugboats, not
20:42
the trucks going into the port would generate all sorts of
20:46
stuff. And this is California, right?
20:48
The most environmentally friendly thing they ever think
20:52
and and they follow it. They don't follow it's like.
20:55
So I think I can sum this up best with a conversation I had
20:59
with one of the largest ports here in Florida.
21:03
And where there are, there aren't port.
21:05
And it's not just Florida, there's no port regulation and
21:07
go to the Port Authority in New York and New Jersey.
21:09
Well, you know, another humongous port.
21:10
They don't, they put in an electric port, they put in a
21:13
little bit, they throw a little bit at it, but they don't
21:16
really, they're not really behind it.
21:17
He's like, he's like, you know, 75% of the fuel oil that comes
21:22
into Florida comes through my port.
21:25
He goes, I don't really think they're doing anything.
21:27
To me, he's like, they're not shutting me down, they're not
21:31
doing anything. And if they really want to shut
21:33
me down, go ahead. It's okay.
21:34
I'm on government salary, it's no problem, no sweat.
21:38
Doesn't affect him. It doesn't.
21:40
So, so you get you get sort of this malaise.
21:44
And then there's another aspect to this too, which is really
21:46
important to discuss in this business is that not our product
21:50
because we have actually a really amazing technology, but
21:53
95% of the stuff that's in the entire environmental world is no
21:59
tech or future tech. So it's not, it's, it's just
22:04
fake. It's not going to work.
22:05
It's an idea or it's going to work in 2045 by by.
22:09
You guys, your tech, it's here now.
22:11
It works now it's ready for implementation.
22:14
Today and if things go well in Italy, we'll install our really
22:17
first in a port there funded by, we were approved by the Italian
22:21
government. Our technology made it through
22:23
the Ministry of Environment and their technical crew.
22:26
They've approved our technology. It's for real.
22:28
We can install it in any port in Italy and that probably would
22:31
extend to the EU and we'll be able to get the system in.
22:35
How did it start specifically in Italy?
22:38
That's where the inventor was. OK, so he had relationships
22:41
there. That's where the conversation
22:42
started. Europe is way more serious about
22:45
these things than we are here. They also have a much bigger
22:49
problem because if you know Europe, you know that the ports
22:52
dig into the cities. Like you go to Italy, you go to
22:55
the coastal cities in Italy, the port, the ships dock right
22:59
against the the Main Street. Like you can just literally walk
23:03
from the Main Street into there. I have some scenes from Napoli.
23:07
Napoli, there's a road right next to the port and in Italy
23:11
you have these. They're ferries, but they're
23:14
really like small cruise ships and you have obviously
23:16
freighters that come in there. There's a street right next to
23:19
the port in Napoli, Vesuvius, off in the background.
23:23
Mount Vesuvius, beautiful scene. And they basically had to
23:26
abandon all the buildings at the port because of the pollution.
23:29
If you stand up. I stayed at the Renaissance once
23:32
when I was there, which overlooks the whole city.
23:34
You see this plume of just smoke billowing over the valley from
23:38
just a few ships in the thing. A typical freighter amidst the
23:42
equivalent of 20,000 cars without catalytic converters
23:46
every hour. Just to give you an idea.
23:49
But maritime traffic controls the world, so there's very
23:53
little effort to put a heavy curtailing on that for
23:59
environmental all the projects a long term, the only significant
24:03
thing that I think was done over the last couple of years in that
24:06
area was the the forcing of low sulfur fuels as you get close to
24:12
port. They figured out that Sox was
24:14
the most harmful ingredient. So they make ships burn fuel
24:18
which is twice as expensive when they get close to port basically
24:21
everywhere in the world. So Matt, realistically timeline
24:26
wise, when do you think we might see this implemented in I?
24:29
Think over the, I think over the next three to five years you'll
24:33
start to see us get systems installed.
24:36
It's just things will the lines were all crossed.
24:38
We'll get a few systems in, there'll be just absolute need
24:42
to do it. And, and you'll see that happen
24:45
now that our technology is, is authorized because one of the
24:49
problems you have and this if anybody with a startup business
24:51
out there with technology is that it's very hard to get the
24:54
1st users to try it right, particularly when it's
24:57
innovative. Nobody wants to be the Guinea
24:59
pig. Yeah.
25:00
And it's only that it's like, what is it really worth?
25:02
Does it really work? You know, am I going to get
25:06
subsidy for this? And the case is it, you know,
25:08
what does it count for? And having the approval of the
25:11
Ministry of the Environment in it's like the EPA approve.
25:14
It would be the equivalent of the EPA saying that my
25:16
technology is is does reduce emissions and you can install it
25:22
and get a government grant from us if you install the
25:25
technology. And I want to shift gears and I
25:29
I want to hear about the medical lab that you're involved with.
25:33
What what's going on there? Then what's the name of it?
25:35
What are you guys doing? Yeah.
25:37
Sure. So this business running while
25:39
this business is going on, it happened to be somebody who I
25:41
ran into here in my local community actually I on the way
25:46
to temple kind of thing. And because you know where we
25:49
live here, you know, this is this is Israel East.
25:54
OK. I'm just letting you know
25:56
nevertheless, but. A lot of your Jewish friends
25:59
live nearby. Yeah, you might say that Boca
26:01
is. Yeah, Bill Maher, not a favorite
26:04
of mine. He actually made a really a
26:05
funny joke about this. If you Google it, he actually
26:09
find it. He goes.
26:11
He's talking about how, you know, the Jews are accused of
26:15
being colonizers in the whole bit.
26:17
And he's like, this is just completely not true.
26:19
This is, you know, the whole thing.
26:20
He goes, they've only colonized one place and that's Boca Raton.
26:24
That's it. So I just figured I'd say it.
26:28
So, you know, in a conversation I was having, there was a local
26:32
business here that the business was struggling a little bit.
26:36
And that's been my career, by the way.
26:39
My career is I'm like the fix it guy.
26:42
I, other than the company I ran, electronics company I ran for
26:45
about 25 years in New Jersey. When I left that company now
26:48
almost 1011 years ago, all I've done is I've gone into
26:51
companies, fixed them, turn them around and move on.
26:56
And the, the this is a molecular lab.
27:00
So molecular labs came about out of COVID.
27:03
If you remember there was a big need to have a rapid test, you
27:08
know, you used to be, you would take a test, they would do the
27:11
standard culture and sensitivity method, which means you take the
27:14
sample, you they would take that nasal swab or and they would
27:19
send it off to a lab. The lab grows the culture.
27:21
They put it under a microscope. Oversimplifying, put it under a
27:24
microscope and they can tell you whether you have.
27:25
COVID or not? And that takes several days.
27:28
The problem is the fear at that point with COVID was that you
27:31
would then, you know, spread it to a million other people and
27:34
everybody would die. OK.
27:35
So out of that there was a molecular technology called PCR
27:41
that came about that allowed. For hearing about it at the
27:44
time. Yeah, that allowed for basically
27:46
instantaneous results. You can get results in an hour
27:48
just, and it's not that it takes an hour, it just physically
27:51
takes time to put the thing. You actually take the swab and
27:54
you put it on a chip, you pipe at it on it like a micro drop on
27:58
a chip and it goes in a chip reader and you and usually they
28:02
gang them together. So they don't just one run chip.
28:04
They run a tray of chips. So you need a bun, but you can
28:07
run the test. Like if you were sitting in the
28:09
lab, I could take a test and have you a result in a in 30
28:12
minutes no problem. So this technology was developed
28:16
for COVID, but after COVID went away, a lot of the labs just bit
28:19
the dust. They had nothing because
28:21
traditional places just continue to use the same method they've
28:24
been using since they and penicillin was invented.
28:27
OK, which is what they do. And so a few very smart
28:31
innovators came up with the idea that the speed of the result has
28:36
an advantage in certain marketplaces.
28:40
It actually has an advantage everywhere, but doctors don't
28:42
necessarily like to change so much.
28:44
So the place that it has a huge advantage is in nursing homes,
28:48
because in nursing homes you have an 85 year old patient who
28:52
is showing signs of an infection.
28:55
And So what they do in a nursing home is they tend to just
29:00
prophylactically treat them with antibiotics.
29:04
So they'll give them 234 antibiotics at one time because
29:07
they don't want the patient to pass away because of the
29:09
infection. They send a test off to the
29:11
laboratory and then five days later they figure out whether
29:14
they did it right. Huge problems with that.
29:17
There's a huge cost to that. You end up with patients in the
29:20
hospital or coming out of the hospital and then readmitted.
29:23
If that's where the antibiotic is administered, you develop
29:26
antibiotic resistance because you're just dispensing this like
29:30
like M&M's. And so the, this was a lab that
29:34
was designed to pick up a sample at 5:00 at night anywhere in the
29:38
country overnight it back to the lab and then give them a result
29:42
in a few hours later electronically.
29:45
Also a molecular lab can do a better determination of whether
29:49
a particular bacteria is antibiotic resistant so you
29:52
don't give them the wrong thing. So there's a lot of advantages
29:56
to doing this. So the lab itself had a really
29:58
good business model, just wasn't being run very well.
30:02
There was a. So do the do the do the areas
30:05
that you're serving. I'm guessing it's very like
30:08
local, very regional because no like you get your.
30:11
UPS and FedEx can pick up a package at 5:00 anywhere in the
30:14
country and deliver it by 10:00 AM the next day to you.
30:18
They actually both of those companies have healthcare
30:20
divisions specifically for people don't know this.
30:22
I didn't know this either because I knew nothing.
30:24
Keep in mind I walked into this business knowing 0 right?
30:27
So this is a really good sort of note for your viewers is that
30:32
business skills are just business skills, right?
30:35
You, you theoretically can apply them almost anywhere.
30:38
And this was a company that was having trouble managing staff,
30:42
managing expenses, lacking sort of IT direction and so on.
30:49
And so I walked into the place and within a few months able to
30:52
fix it up, you know, fix up the fix up the business and really
30:56
make the business run. And so you can actually take
31:01
samples from any they're called, by the way, we're calling them
31:03
nursing homes for layman's, they're called skilled nursing
31:06
facilities. Just.
31:08
SNFS this is an acronym business, by the way, and I'm in
31:12
refusal to memorize all the acronyms.
31:14
But this one, I, I walk in the staff, I walk into the place,
31:19
the staff, right, the staff, they'll like literally give you
31:22
one of those sentences with like acronyms.
31:24
You know the whole sentence is acronyms.
31:26
I'm like English. You need an interpreter.
31:28
English please, You know full English.
31:30
Thank you. So Matt, who like who's the base
31:32
of your, your, your users? Like is, is it mostly these
31:35
skilled nursing facilities? It's the skilled.
31:38
So you've got like a, a bulk of arrangement with them.
31:40
It's not like not like you're going direct to consumer.
31:43
I'm not going to send you a test that you mailed me.
31:45
I mean, if you did now that we're kind of friends, I
31:48
probably would do your test for you.
31:51
I'd throw it on there with one of them and give you a result.
31:53
Yes, I would do that for you. But since if you're not my A
31:56
friend, I'm probably not going to, no, we're just strictly B to
31:59
B to B, you know, servicing these skilled nursing
32:03
facilities. That's right.
32:04
It's really an amazing technology that you have almost
32:08
$1,000,000 worth of equipment in the lab.
32:10
It's it, there's something, you know, it's kind of like how you,
32:15
it's almost in a way how I think about neurolink.
32:18
You know, what Elon Musk did when you sort of have a human
32:22
product, which is a medical sample, it's a swab and the swab
32:27
somehow makes its way onto a computer chip into a little like
32:32
on a computer chip and goes in a device that's red.
32:35
I there's something that's very futuristic about that that's I
32:38
find very cool, you know, and if you think about it, he's
32:41
implanted a chip in a human, right.
32:43
So you have this touching of metal, I guess to human matter.
32:49
And I, I find that particularly like, wow, I'm still amazed by
32:53
it. I.
32:55
Find it So what's the future of this molecular testing business?
33:00
Where do you want to grow at? How do you want to?
33:02
How do you want to? Take this.
33:02
I mean, so this is a business that I'll touch for a while.
33:05
I will get up and running, you know, we'll get running and the
33:07
idea is just to grow the sample count.
33:09
You just, you, you have scalability in this business
33:12
because your equipment can run, run tests for two hours a day, 4
33:18
hours a day or 24 hours a day. And then when the tests run 24
33:21
hours a day, you get another piece of equipment and another
33:24
lab molecular laboratory certified technician and they
33:29
run the equipment. And so you can continually scale
33:31
the business. The business has some other
33:34
technology in it, which is, I didn't tell the whole story,
33:37
which is what initially attracted me to it.
33:40
It has, the owner of the business has has an invention,
33:45
which I can't really talk about, which because we're about to get
33:48
a patent on it, but it it potentially could change the way
33:52
testing is done even a step further.
33:55
For example, imagine you could walk into your doctor's office,
33:59
they could take the swab and give you the results in 60
34:02
seconds. Imagine for a woman in a
34:05
gynecologist's office where they could take a swab and give her
34:09
result in 30 or 60 seconds. This is this has got like like
34:15
Theranos kind of vibes. It's funny.
34:18
People all say that to me, except we're like, we're like,
34:21
we're a bunch of real Jewish guys from Boca Raton, OK?
34:24
We're not. We don't do well in prison.
34:26
I'm just letting you know it's not going well.
34:29
None of. The guys are working on the real
34:31
deal. Yeah, right.
34:32
We're working on the real deal and it will get full on FDA
34:35
approval and it will get full on everything and vetting and
34:38
everything. So so when can we check back in
34:42
with each other and you can give me an update on on.
34:46
Two to three-year project. OK.
34:48
Great. Two to three-year project.
34:49
Realistically, to do it right and to do all the pieces and to
34:53
get it right, the technology looks very promising.
34:56
Would it cannibalize what you guys are already doing or would
34:59
they be testing for different things?
35:02
You know, that's a really interesting question.
35:04
I think it would eliminate probably if it worked perfectly
35:07
and you had this device in every place in the country, it would
35:12
eliminate, you know, 75% of this business.
35:14
Which you would be fine with, because at that point you've got
35:17
something that everybody else has and is a.
35:21
Huge step up. The real problem with this
35:23
invention and I, I, I probably shouldn't be talking, but I'm
35:26
going to talk about it anyway because it's just fun to talk
35:28
about is that when I saw this thing, I'm like, I'm like, do
35:34
you have life insurance? I said this, the inventor, I
35:36
said, you have life insurance. I said because if this thing
35:38
works, you know, Pfizer, you know, they're going to just
35:42
you're going to disappear. They're going to disappear you
35:44
OK, Because this is going to put like billion dollars, not Pfizer
35:47
in particular. I'm just use them as an example
35:49
but it's going to put like billion.
35:50
Dollar big company and it's threatened by this technology.
35:53
Yeah. I mean, this is not, I said we
35:55
have to do this kind of quietly, get this going, whatever, if it
35:58
works, it works, it doesn't work, whatever.
36:00
And then, you know, sell it to somebody or do something before
36:03
they kill us, you know, because, you know, when you have
36:05
disruptive technology like that, you know, when you're going
36:08
after billion dollar businesses, they don't just go, oh, well, we
36:12
got beat, you know? So what?
36:15
You know, it happens to the best of us.
36:17
It doesn't work. More, more high drama from Matt
36:19
Sweetwood. Today's folks.
36:20
That's great. Exactly.
36:22
So let let's talk about your book Leader of the Pack.
36:26
Yeah, but what is this? What?
36:27
Why'd you write it? I wrote it because, and I hate
36:31
saying it like this because everybody does this, but I wrote
36:34
it because I had to write it. It just was a confluence of
36:37
things that happened in my life where I had one of those
36:39
moments. I'm like, there's no way this
36:41
happens to me. All of this stuff happens to me
36:44
without me supposedly going to write about it.
36:46
Because if you think that you're going to write a book and make
36:48
money off writing the book, this is like, you know, these
36:51
companies come at you, you know, we're going to help you write a
36:53
best selling book and you're going to be, you know, like
36:56
Stephen King and life is going to be good for you.
36:58
You're going to be famous and the girls or men, if you're man
37:01
or woman going to swoon after you.
37:03
And all this stuff doesn't work like that.
37:05
It's more like half Starbucks wage without the health
37:07
insurance. So the, the reason I did it was
37:11
I just had a crazy circumstance of events in my life that real
37:16
that was around my raising of my kids.
37:19
And I started talking about it. You know, actually it's a
37:23
business story in a sense. I was running an electronics
37:28
company in New Jersey at the time.
37:29
Actually it was a camera store and a photographic supplier and
37:33
electronics and so on. And I started using social media
37:37
to promote the business. I'm going to give you the full
37:40
story because it's really, I think a really valuable story
37:44
lesson in life is that I saw we were early adopters of social
37:48
media. We joked before we got on, you
37:49
know, that I was using a, it was on AOL.
37:51
I mean, we did advertise on AOL. And what's really sad is
37:54
probably there's a bunch of people listening to you now that
37:56
have no clue what that is. But nevertheless, for those who
37:59
do, you know, you'll know what that know how funny that is.
38:03
And I started using social media for the company.
38:05
I wasn't getting a lot of traction.
38:09
So I said, and I was managing the social media myself for the
38:13
company. So finally I just like, OK, I'm
38:15
maybe I'm not doing this right. I hand the social media over to
38:18
somebody, you know, half my age and I'm like, you try to do it
38:21
And I'm like, I, I made all these accounts myself.
38:24
I'm just going to start talking about my own, my own stuff.
38:27
And I started talking about being a single dad.
38:31
Like the reaction was, and you have to go back now.
38:35
We're going back 20 years, you know, in the world of social
38:40
media. I mean, you know, was the
38:44
infancy of social media. So I started talking about
38:47
myself, right? You wouldn't think I'm not even
38:50
a pretty girl. I started talking about myself
38:53
like, you know, what it was like to be a single dad, having mom
38:57
walk out on the kids, having, you know, like all of this stuff
38:59
and what I would go through. And then I got the ideas.
39:02
You know what? I'm the president of this
39:04
company. I'm going to give people inside
39:06
stuff. So I would go meet with the CEO
39:11
or the president of Nikon or Canon or Kodak or whatever it
39:14
was. And I'd be like, you know, and
39:16
I'd start talking about it. What it was like, you know, I
39:19
went into his office and this happened in his office.
39:21
You know, he mentioned to me that this might and all of a
39:23
sudden I realized that these personal stories are what really
39:26
get gets attention. And so out of that, I started
39:29
talking more and more about fatherhood in a way that really
39:35
nobody had talked about before. And then eventually got
39:39
approached by a, a publication called The Good Men Project.
39:42
And I started writing articles for them and then eventually the
39:45
Huffington Post. And then combining this stuff I
39:47
was writing for Entrepreneur. And eventually I had this sort
39:50
of collection of stories that I had told about things.
39:54
And the stories were getting lots and lots of reaction.
39:57
And then of course, there was pressure.
39:58
You should write a book about. You should write a book about
40:00
it. And so for me, it was really
40:03
that sort of evolutionary process of just getting the word
40:07
out there, talking about it and finding what sticks with an
40:09
audience and then realize I have enough material.
40:12
I could really write a book about this.
40:13
And my book was a best seller. I was #1 so I have 185 star
40:17
reviews out there. I was #1 in self help for a
40:20
while. And I will tell you that I get
40:22
an e-mail once every week or two from somebody that tells me my
40:26
book has changed their life for the better.
40:29
They thank me for something I talk about in that in that.
40:32
Book and what influence is it having on people?
40:34
What's? What's the impact?
40:36
It's so the book has it's multi layered.
40:39
So the first is can I curse on on this broadcast?
40:43
Do you mind if I curse? Go ahead, go ahead.
40:45
I can just unload it. It's it's how you get out of the
40:49
worst shit that happens to you in your life, right?
40:52
What, how do you sort of get yourself out of the worst
40:55
possible circumstance that you can find yourself in and how
41:00
really you're in most the blame for why you ended up here and
41:04
why you need to not keep repeating these things on
41:07
another level. It's a very spiritual journey.
41:10
It's how when you find that part of your side, your spiritual
41:15
side, how it elevates you and really gives you power to
41:19
transform yourself. And so it's a really it's a
41:22
harsh read. My book is a harsh read.
41:26
Bad things happen in that book. And I've had people crying, you
41:30
know, reading the book and calling me.
41:32
It's a big mea culpa on what I did, but it really helps people.
41:36
The other thing that I I get a lot from people is they thank me
41:41
for making the case or explaining why people stay in
41:45
abusive relationships. You know the famous line where a
41:49
woman is being beaten by her husband and her friend turns to
41:53
her and says, well, why don't you just leave?
41:54
Why do you go back? You know he's going.
41:55
To hit you again. So I think, and I can, I think I
41:59
do, because people have told me over and over and over again
42:03
that I do a very, very good job of explaining how you get stuck
42:06
there and why you're there. And how you get out.
42:10
Of it. Can you summarize it for us
42:11
here? Yeah.
42:13
It's a psychological trap. It's a spiral that puts you in a
42:19
ego deflating. I deserve it kind of mode, a
42:25
distortion of reality and an addiction, a sort of a yo-yo
42:30
effect of addiction that kind of keeps you there.
42:34
And there's other things that keep you there.
42:36
You know, there's children can be involved, there's money which
42:39
prevents you from leaving and control.
42:41
But ultimately it's a psychological trap.
42:45
And if you get involved with people that have psychological
42:48
problems like personality disorders, they have been imbued
42:52
with a talent of trapping people.
42:55
They have to trap people because it's the way they release their
42:57
pain. But this is not a psych podcast.
42:59
So how do you break out of the trap?
43:02
It. It's just an inner strength.
43:05
In my case, it was spirituality that helped me, that really
43:08
helped me understand and gain the strength to pull myself
43:12
pull. Myself out your Jewish.
43:14
Faith connecting with God. Gave you connection with God and
43:17
the other. Aspect I think, which really
43:20
helped me was I had little kids. So you turn around and you're
43:26
look at the kids and the kids are looking up at you or like,
43:28
dad, you got to fix this. Like like do something, do
43:34
something, do something, loser. OK, right.
43:37
And you know, you have your kids.
43:38
You don't want your kids ending up on the street in jail, drug,
43:41
taking drugs. You know, you love your kids,
43:43
right? So if it's not for not for you,
43:46
at least, you know, let's save the family.
43:48
So it's a spiritual connection. It's saving the family.
43:51
It's it's a question you have to and and this is my by personal
43:56
motto, which is how badly do you want it?
43:59
If you want something badly enough, you're just gonna will
44:02
up the strength to figure out how to do it.
44:05
And I wanted to save my kids badly enough.
44:07
I wanted to save myself badly enough.
44:09
That's powerful motivation. It's powerful.
44:11
Badly. It's.
44:12
Powerful. And you know, I, I, I actually
44:14
use this when I give, when I give talks.
44:18
I remember I was, I was giving a talk.
44:20
I'll give you a sort of a really good life example of that.
44:22
I'll transform that into something positive.
44:25
I was giving a talk. It was in actually in Manhattan,
44:27
right in Times Square in the Microsoft facility.
44:30
And it was a. Talk to.
44:34
Basically a middle-aged group. Of Ivy League graduates, you had
44:38
to have an I like an Ivy League MBA to be in the room and be
44:42
unemployed or wanting to change employment.
44:46
OK. And so the goal was, it was
44:49
just. I was giving the keynotes.
44:50
So it was really just talk about any, you know, anything you
44:52
want. And the speech was centered
44:54
around, you know, you can basically do anything.
44:57
You guys are super smart. You're doing all this.
44:59
This was kind of the talk. It was a leadership talk, you
45:02
know, motivating talk. And I remember I'm giving this
45:05
talk and there's a woman like sitting in the front row.
45:08
If you've ever given a speech, like, you know, you're looking
45:10
at, there probably 100 people in the room.
45:11
So you're giving the talk and there's a woman like in the
45:14
first or second row. And as I'm giving this, she's
45:16
just shaking her head, like just shaking her.
45:19
She's not agreeing. Huh.
45:21
She not agreeing with nothing. And she's letting you know it.
45:24
She's. Letting me know it I'm not.
45:26
A bashful, you know, so you're trying to you just sort of go
45:29
on. Eventually I'm like, OK, I stop.
45:32
I go over Lucy. You know, Miss, whatever,
45:36
whatever your name is, I see you.
45:38
You don't agree with me. And.
45:42
And I say what, what is it that you don't agree with?
45:45
And she basically disagrees with this basic point that you can
45:48
have anything you want if you want it badly enough.
45:51
And she goes to me, she goes to me.
45:55
What if I wanted to be a doctor? I can't be a doctor.
45:58
I'm like, you definitely can. So I.
46:01
Start to question her. I'm like, where's your degree
46:03
from? She actually went to I want to
46:07
remember. It was Ivy League school.
46:08
She had an MBA or something from one of the Ivy League schools.
46:10
I want to say, yeah, she's a bright person, right?
46:14
Super. Bright.
46:15
You know, super bright. I'm like, can I ask you some
46:18
personal questions? She goes, sure.
46:19
I go, are you married? I go, does your is your husband
46:22
employed? Yep.
46:26
Are you financially OK? You know, obviously I'm not
46:28
saying you don't don't tell me what you make, but you're
46:30
financially OK. You're making the mortgage.
46:32
You're OK. I'm like, and I'm not going to
46:35
ask your age, but I'm going to guess that if you, if you right
46:40
now apply to medical school with your degree, you might get in,
46:45
maybe not. Maybe you might have to because
46:46
I don't know what your undergraduate, You might have to
46:48
take biology, some basic classes and then you're a mature person
46:52
with that. I bet that I can find the
46:53
medical school that you get in and in 10 years from now your
46:56
kids are grown up, right? Yes, kids are grown up.
46:59
So in 10 years from now, you'll be a doctor, you'll be in your,
47:03
you'll be in your mid 40s, even though she'll probably be closer
47:06
to 50s. I'll be in your mid 40s and you
47:08
could be a doctor. You just have to work for 10
47:10
years. Do you want that badly enough?
47:12
If you do, just go do it. Do it.
47:14
Nobody. 'S stopping you.
47:15
You can. Afford to live.
47:16
You actually have it easy. Your husband's working.
47:18
He's making money. Go to medical school right now.
47:21
Change careers. You don't like what you're
47:22
doing. It's your dream.
47:23
It's what you want. It's your response.
47:26
She's like, well, the thing. She basically I I won, I won.
47:30
She started. She actually took a good
47:32
attitude about it. By the way, in the end she goes,
47:34
yes, you're right, but is that realistic?
47:36
I'm like, it's realistic. If you want it badly enough, I'm
47:39
not telling you to go do it. Like if you came to me as a
47:42
coach, right, and I was going to coach you, I don't know if I
47:45
would send you in that direction.
47:47
But if you telling me that you're a lifelong dream and you
47:51
had I'll make up some story. You had children at 17 and you
47:55
had another child at 19 and you had to go to work and you
47:57
couldn't do it and blah, blah, blah.
47:59
And now you had your career and this was your dream.
48:01
I'm like, go do it. You're going to live to 8090
48:05
years old. That's your life expectancy at
48:07
this point. Go, go do it.
48:09
You can spend 30 years as a doctor.
48:10
Go And I'm glad that we. Touched on this story.
48:13
Because it highlights something else that you spend your time
48:16
doing. You're consultant, business
48:18
coach and keynote speaker. How do you find time for all
48:21
this? Yeah, 'cause I'm like.
48:23
I'm not a vacation guy, a play guy.
48:27
This is, I don't know, it's a good thing or a bad thing.
48:30
I just high energy, a little ADHD kind of and I funnel that.
48:34
I'm probably, I'm actually trying to, you know, I've been
48:36
on enough radio, podcast, TV and stuff to try to keep my speech
48:40
at a reasonable speed. But you know, so I'm a very high
48:44
energy person. And for me, this is what I
48:46
really, I really like to do. I have right now in, in the
48:50
middle of everything, I have multiple coaching clients.
48:53
It's not like I have a coaching business right per SE, but I
48:56
have select clients that come to me.
48:58
I usually high level clients. I, I actually have right now
49:02
three clients. 1 is a very famous Yogi.
49:08
Woman Very. Famous 1 is a rabbi who comes
49:14
to. Me for advice.
49:15
Because I do a really good job of bridging that religious world
49:20
and the regular world. And for a religious person,
49:25
sometimes that's helped them. I've helped them in his
49:26
businesses and his life and all sorts of things.
49:29
He had a legal thing. I've done that and I have a very
49:34
high level architect working in a major city, runs a big
49:39
architecture firm. Those are the kinds of clients I
49:41
like because I can. They have money to effectuate
49:46
the things I tell them. So you like to think big, and
49:51
you like to. Think thinking big.
49:53
Like I'm better. I'm not.
49:55
Like if you tell me I'm on drugs and I'm about to kill myself,
49:58
that's for the psychiatrist. That's not I I that's not a fit
50:02
for you. Yeah, I can't.
50:03
That's. Not a fit for me I'm.
50:04
Not no, please. You want you want a high
50:07
performance. Who wants to give you a level
50:08
of? Even more right, right.
50:10
That's really my target is to take somebody who's operating at
50:13
a pretty high level and, and what can you do for them?
50:19
I think I, you know what I, I think it is because these people
50:22
are just smart as I am. It's not smarter.
50:25
I think what it is, is that on their level of smartness in some
50:29
range. I'm, I'm not saying this to
50:31
compliment myself, but I give them a non emotional analytical
50:37
perspective and creative at times on their life.
50:42
And so it gives them because it's hard to be your own, your
50:46
own coach, right? Particularly if you're working.
50:50
At a high level and you're under a lot of pressure and there's
50:52
complication in your life, you know, when you're dealing with,
50:55
I'll use the architect, right? He's got a legal issue going on.
51:00
He's got a business issue going on.
51:01
He's got an ex-wife. He's got all, you know, tax
51:04
issue. He's got all these things.
51:05
I know all of this stuff. I run businesses, I've raised
51:07
kids, I've raised family. I know all of this and I can
51:09
give him a very unique perspective on it.
51:13
I also go to reading people so I can understand what's going on.
51:16
He'll be like, why did this person do this?
51:18
And you know, and he's attached to the person you don't
51:20
understand. So I'm looking at it just from a
51:23
distance and just from the information.
51:24
So I've actually been very, you want to know the truth.
51:27
It's probably been my most successful area of occupation in
51:33
a sense because I've helped dozens of people at this level,
51:37
like really raise their level, usually above my level, the
51:41
level that I work at. I always think that's kind of
51:43
God's plan for me. So if somebody's.
51:46
Listening and you know, they they kind of like what they hear
51:48
about Matt Sweetwood like what would be a good.
51:51
Fit for you? In terms of a a coaching client,
51:54
they are an owner or a founder or they're what?
51:58
Yes, describe them. Yeah, it could be a founder,
52:01
even a. Startup founder because I I know
52:03
really know that game. I know the fundraising game.
52:05
I know how to do that. I know how to set up a business
52:08
keeping within expenses. Somebody who's running a mid
52:11
sized company or a small sized company themselves, the CEO or
52:15
one of the senior executives, a professional of any kind,
52:19
dentist, doctor, lawyer, accountant, whatever, that kind
52:22
of thing where I can really help them.
52:23
You know, any kind of entrepreneur, that kind of level
52:26
person, I can really improve their lives.
52:29
They typically have complicated personal lives to go with it
52:34
typically. That goes with it.
52:36
I don't mean. Complicated, Like weird
52:38
complicated. I mean, they just have heavy,
52:40
heavy, responsible, heavy burdens of responsibility.
52:44
And sort of, I'm very good at helping them juggle that and
52:47
improve the quality of their life, usually make more money
52:50
and improve the quality of their life and avoid problems.
52:53
And #3 is something I've done many, many, many times, like
52:57
where I say don't do that or do this and something better will
53:01
happen for you. If you do this, it's going to go
53:03
completely wrong about for the keynote speaking.
53:06
Side of your business, like what are some good groups that would
53:10
be a fit for you? What kind of messages can you
53:13
deliver to them? Yeah, I talk on.
53:16
I try to not to, I, I'm not the guy that goes in and gives your
53:19
sales department the, the sales technique.
53:24
I'm a keynote kind of speaker. I talk on leadership, I talk on
53:28
happiness. I talk on finding your purpose.
53:31
I'm really sort of motivating you to get out of that everyday
53:35
thing and look to how to better your life to really, really make
53:39
a difference. I've also, I also have a very
53:42
good talk that I've given to, to temples and houses of worship
53:45
along the way. But typically I do that for, I
53:47
do that for fun, for fun a little bit.
53:49
But I'm the guy who shows up at any conference, can give that
53:52
keynote speech and talk about leadership on how you can better
53:56
yourself, how you can be more productive or more happy in your
53:58
life. I have a couple different
53:59
versions which I will tailor for the industry that I I go in.
54:03
You mentioned something. Earlier in the interview about
54:06
how you've hired thousands of people and you believe this is a
54:09
a really important skill. Can you provide some advice for
54:13
our listeners on, you know, I don't know, good questions best
54:16
practices kind of a thing. Yeah, I'll, I'll.
54:19
Start with an anecdote. I was at a conference, you know,
54:22
and after you give a talk, they always, they, they get you to be
54:25
on a panel, right? They multitask you.
54:27
You always, by the way, if you're ever speaking, you always
54:29
volunteer for that. They love you when you do that.
54:31
So we're on a panel. I remember I was on a panel with
54:33
like HR people, which I really should not be on a panel with HR
54:36
people, but it was OK, I'm there.
54:38
And they were asking everybody, you know, what were good HR
54:41
practices. And the final question was name
54:45
the quality you look. It was like sort of a silly
54:47
question. Name the quality that you most
54:50
admire or most look for in somebody you're hiring.
54:52
You know, when you get the usual answers, you know, I'm looking
54:55
for a diverse thing that fits in the thing and the thing and that
54:59
gets along in the whole bit. So I got, everybody had used up
55:03
all the sort of traditional stuff when it came to me.
55:05
And so my answer was I look for kindness.
55:10
And so I actually. Do do that.
55:13
And I find that particularly, you know, if you have a big
55:16
company, you're hiring the meanest to the kindest.
55:20
You know, it's a little more difficult when you have to hire
55:22
thousands of people. But when you're in a company and
55:24
you're hiring two people and four people and eight people and
55:27
that kind of thing, if you just simply have a kindness score on
55:32
them, you will hire people that get along with.
55:37
Everybody. Avoid politic and create a
55:40
workplace which is ultimately significantly more productive.
55:44
And that kindness factor has really stood me in in good
55:48
stead. I did that at this lab that I
55:50
have there's seven other 7-8 other employees there.
55:53
I actually when I walked in, I dismissed within a very short
55:57
amount of time the mean employee, OK, even though she
56:01
had some high level competence. I'll tell you what I did.
56:05
So I worked into place a relatively false small facility
56:08
and I was only there a few hours a day kind of in as a on a
56:11
consulting basis. And so I got in there and they
56:15
introduced me and I looked around the room and everybody
56:18
had smiles on their face but one person, right?
56:22
Who saw me immediately? As a threat, OK, even though
56:25
this is like a technician, right?
56:27
Like a high level technician. I mean, I wouldn't know how to
56:29
pipette, you know, water into a coffee mug.
56:32
OK, so you know what I did? I went in, they had her desk was
56:37
sitting there and they had sort of this conference table.
56:39
I went and I said my desk is on the conference table.
56:42
I put my laptop down on the conference table right next to
56:45
her. And worked with her and realized
56:48
that she was. Torturing everybody, let her go
56:50
within a short amount of time and replaced her with somebody,
56:52
this young man who is just total sweetheart.
56:56
So in that kind of an environment.
56:57
It's easy to pretty quickly understand, like who's kind,
57:01
who's not, because you're spending extended periods of
57:03
time, right? That's right.
57:03
That's right. What about any interview?
57:05
Process how is. That something you can vet out?
57:06
Yeah. So you're vetting that?
57:08
Out along with a bunch of other things and once you get.
57:12
Through SO. Being always sort of coming,
57:15
being at a top level in a company, I always have an
57:17
advantage of having basic competency tested before it gets
57:21
to me. So I'm not in the process
57:23
typically of testing the competency of the person, right.
57:26
So if you're hiring a lab technician as the example, by
57:29
the time they get to me, I've already spoken to the staff and
57:32
they've already told me the person has the right
57:33
certification. They've done this.
57:35
So then what I do is I try to understand whether the person
57:41
matches the documents that are standing in front of me because
57:45
that measures integrity. Then what I do is I just want to
57:48
get the person talking. So I almost treat it like a
57:54
networking opportunity. I was going to say dating
57:57
opportunity, but that's bad form in this case.
58:00
But it's you use some of the dating and networking use
58:03
similar skills. And this applies to men and
58:05
women. I'm just this, this is not, it
58:08
doesn't matter. And you just, you get, you talk
58:11
to them, you find something that interests them and you get them
58:14
talking. And I promise you, if you get
58:16
someone talking for 5 or 10 minutes and they're under a
58:21
little bit of pressure, right, because they're in their
58:22
interview, so they have some level of nervousness, their
58:25
personality comes out almost every time, almost every time,
58:30
and you're trying to get them to talk about.
58:31
Something that's personal, something outside of work, it
58:34
could be kind of drop their bond.
58:35
A little bit like. Like sometimes I'll.
58:37
Be like, I'll laugh. I'll be like, So tell me.
58:39
Tell me about your last lamb. How'd you like the people there?
58:43
There's a great question. You get all.
58:46
Sorts of answers. You know, you know, one of the
58:50
reasons why I left that lab is blah blah.
58:52
You know, you can get an answer like that.
58:54
They were all great people. I hated to leave.
58:57
I still keep in touch with all of them.
58:59
Blah, blah. Giving you both, both ends of
59:02
the spectrum. Yeah.
59:03
Then if they'll say, you know the people there, didn't you?
59:05
I'm like, so why do you think that?
59:07
Tell me why you think they didn't treat you well.
59:09
What happened? Well, you know, we were meeting.
59:13
At the, we had a, we had a party after the thing and everybody
59:17
excluded me from the party. You know, we were at the, the,
59:20
the Yacht Club and we were doing this.
59:22
I'm like, oh, have you ever been boating anyway?
59:25
You know, I'm just giving you just you start talking.
59:28
And if you talk to somebody, you get through basic competency,
59:31
you double check the competency. You, you check their facts.
59:36
You ask very careful questions about their history and see if
59:39
it lines up. And then you just get them
59:41
talking. And in getting, if a goal is to
59:44
measure kindness and truthfulness, all you need to do
59:47
is get somebody talking. And if I get somebody who is
59:50
honest and kind and has the core competency, the likelihood of
59:55
success goes through the roof that.
59:58
I can fight with my people. They're not going to.
1:00:00
Disrupt the environment and so on.
1:00:03
Yeah, Matt, I just got one more question for.
1:00:06
You But before I ask it, I want to do a couple of things.
1:00:08
First, I'm going to invite all the listeners to go ahead and
1:00:11
hit the follow button on their favorite podcast app to get more
1:00:14
great content like we've had here today with Matt Sweetwood.
1:00:18
And I'm also going to let people know the best way to get in
1:00:20
touch with you, which I understand is M Sweet
1:00:23
msweetwood.com. It's also all of your social
1:00:28
media handles everywhere they go at M Sweetwood.
1:00:31
At M Sweetwood everywhere, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
1:00:34
LinkedIn, everything just type in.
1:00:36
Actually, if you just Google Matt Sweetwood, I I do come up
1:00:40
and but just don't believe half the stuff you read.
1:00:41
It's not all true. OK.
1:00:44
So Matt, last question for. You.
1:00:46
If you and I reconnect a year from now, what do you think
1:00:50
you're celebrating? What are you happy about?
1:00:52
What are you clicking your heels for?
1:00:54
Maybe my? 7th grandkid.
1:00:56
I have 6 now. You're kidding.
1:00:58
Maybe. Maybe.
1:01:00
And I'm glad that I'm glad that that's your.
1:01:01
Answer because we didn't like you.
1:01:03
You sort of talked about it a little bit in the context of
1:01:06
your book. But, you know, you in the intro,
1:01:09
we said, you know, your greatest accomplishment was raising your
1:01:12
successful kids. Talk a little bit about that.
1:01:15
Yeah. I mean, so I had a circumstance.
1:01:17
Where I was you go back to a really date myself despite my
1:01:21
youthful appearance back in the 90s, you know, I was typical
1:01:25
working dad. You know the idea stay at home
1:01:28
mom, you know raise the kids and but my life blew up Mom walked
1:01:33
out on the kids and I ended up having to raise tiny little kid.
1:01:37
She walked out when the youngest was 18 months still in diapers
1:01:41
and the oldest was 8. I had five kids and I had to
1:01:45
deal with an insane court system, businesses that were
1:01:48
failing at the time, and a very difficult to say the least
1:01:53
ex-wife who put us under attack. I write about that in my book
1:01:56
Leader of the Pack. It's a great read.
1:01:58
People usually read it in one night, by the way.
1:02:00
They always say I can't, I'm just going to check it out, read
1:02:03
it all in one night. And then like, wow, wow, wow.
1:02:06
And so turned me from a boy into a man and learned how to raise
1:02:10
kids and run a business and manage life at a high speed and,
1:02:14
you know, figure out all the things that were wrong with me
1:02:17
that led me to this kind of place.
1:02:20
So I'm a better man because of it.
1:02:23
How did you find the strength to?
1:02:25
Get through that. I mean one of those.
1:02:27
Things alone. Could be enough to cripple most
1:02:30
people you had failing businesses.
1:02:33
You you know we're going through a divorce with an ex-wife who
1:02:36
sounds like maybe maybe she had some stability issues.
1:02:39
Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe that's a good.
1:02:41
You're you're becoming a single. Dad to 12345 kids, all of them
1:02:47
young, some of them in toddler phase.
1:02:50
Like yeah. Did you have a support system?
1:02:54
Is is this where you got stronger in your faith?
1:02:56
Like what? How did you pull yourself
1:02:57
through this? It's sort of a combination.
1:03:00
Of all of those things you you talk about, I fortunately was
1:03:04
financially just well enough because and the divorce was
1:03:07
catastrophic. I mean, and I write about it in
1:03:09
the book I actually got. I had nanny come help me.
1:03:13
I did. I did.
1:03:14
I didn't have much family. Smart, a very small family.
1:03:16
My mom was older, you know, older.
1:03:18
She had Parkinson's. To my level become a man you.
1:03:34
Know tough it up, figure out how to do it.
1:03:36
I have high energy. God gifted me with really good
1:03:40
physical strength and as a result I was able to figure it
1:03:44
out and making a spiritual connection really gave me that
1:03:48
extra push that I needed. And like I said before, I mean
1:03:52
your kids look up at you and you're looking at them you're
1:03:54
like, Matt, don't F this up. Like like you got to make this.
1:03:59
You got to make this work. We need you, Dad.
1:04:02
Right we. You're the captain, you're the
1:04:04
captain, man, right? Like do something like we can't
1:04:09
live. Like they're not saying this.
1:04:10
It's in their eyes. It's in their right.
1:04:12
You understand what I'm saying? So you.
1:04:15
Just you. Figure it.
1:04:16
You just figure it out. That's all.
1:04:17
I, I don't even know. I figured it out.
1:04:19
Like sometimes like I'll, you know, it's funny because now
1:04:22
I'll go out to a restaurant and I'll see a family with like 3
1:04:24
kids, you know, throwing meatballs across the restaurant
1:04:28
and I'm like, how did I do that? How did I, how did I, is there
1:04:34
an adult section of this restaurant, you know, kind of
1:04:36
thing? How did I do that?
1:04:38
I don't know how you know what I think the best answer to you is?
1:04:41
I have no idea how I did that. You read my book, it's in there
1:04:45
somewhere and and that's it. Fair enough.
1:04:48
OK, we. Got marching orders?
1:04:49
We can find that book on Amazon. Give us the name again.
1:04:53
Leader of the pack. How a single?
1:04:55
Dad of five led his kids, his business and himself from
1:04:58
disaster to success. Bye bye Matt.
1:05:02
I want to be. The first one to thank you for.
1:05:03
Sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:05:05
I really appreciate. Thank you for having me.
1:05:07
Had a really good time. Here I appreciate the long form
1:05:09
where you don't have to give, you know, meme ish answers to
1:05:12
every question. It's been enjoyable for.
1:05:14
Me as well, folks. That's a wrap on another episode
1:05:17
of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
1:05:20
today.