E290 – Matthew Gagnon – How to function at a higher capacity by working on yourself with perseverance

Junaid Ahmed 0:10
Thank you for tuning in to hacks and hobbies with your host Junaid in season two of hacks and hobbies were visited by our amazing guests coming from all walks of life, what to learn their story, their struggles and their journey on how they got to where they are today. So stick around.

In this episode, I get to speak with Matt Gagnon the mat here. He's a go active coach. He believes and comeback stories and for the past 15 years, he was basically selling his soul to the corporate lifestyle, missing birthday parties, family events. holidays, you know it is. And he made a decision to get out of that and create something that would fulfill his life and make him more. It's just like you and I right. So I'm, I'm so thankful. I'm so honored to have Matt here on the podcast. Matt, thank you so much for coming on.

Matthew Gagnon 1:24
Thanks, my man, I appreciate it.

Junaid Ahmed 1:26
You're welcome. So, on the podcast, I love to go into the back stories. I love to hear I mean, from the little bio read, it shows me that you know, we're a lot of us. We go through this the standard schooling, because we're college and now we're stuck at a desk job or stuck in a life that we thought was going to be the American dream, but not really is. So tell us a little version of your journey. That will get us a little bit of you know how it all started for you.

Matthew Gagnon 2:06
Yeah, pretty, you know, pretty simple for me to bottom line is is that,

you know, I tried to check off all the boxes growing up and do things right and do things that people told me would make me successful and things that would look successful, like, you know, getting a great paying job. I got a job in retail. You know, I went to college, majored in marketing, I even did a an internship with the San Antonio Spurs, you know, and I was on my way and by 25, there I am, like, you know, I've got a decent salary. I'm out of college. I've got my first BMW. Like, I feel like hot shit. Yeah, you know, like, I feel like, I'm basically living the values that were defined by other people for me, and by the time I reached 30 Man, I really burned out. Like, because that was just, it just wasn't my lifestyle. I was traveling 25 nights a month. And all of these things that I thought were important to me really weren't like buying nice clothes, you know, going out to eat, and own and fancy crap. Like, I thought that's what I wanted in life. But really, it's just what other people wanted for me. Or at least as a story, I told myself and I was miserable. But on the outside, I looked very successful. You know, I look like I had it all together. But internally, man, I was just rotten. And I was doing all these things, trying to find my way in life trying to fill this emptiness, this void. And I mean, I was even drinking 15 cans of Red Bull a day. Oh my god. I was abusing Adderall.

Just to have the energy to get through the day.

You know, and I didn't know I was getting sick either. I was getting sick in my 20s I didn't even know what I was developing narcolepsy. And I was losing my hormones. I was getting a hormone insufficiency. So yeah, by the time 2015 hit, I'd really burned out. And that's when I went on medical leave and had to leave the entire career that I ever felt like I had no, the career that provided me with the six figure salary that people told me would make me happy. I had to leave all of it. Because I was on my way to just dying young. I mean, I had, I was diagnosed with several rare autoimmune disorders and some neurological issues. And it suck the energy right out of me. I was no longer able to function at the level I was in the past. Wow.

Junaid Ahmed 4:47
That's crazy, man. And that's honestly that's where

Matthew Gagnon 4:49
that's where, you know, I birthed my own business. Basically, I was in a situation where I was unemployable. And so I started my own life coaching practice after going back to school for it, but to put the perspective in in 2015, April 10, you know, I started this business after going on medical leave, and I was broke. I had a negative bank account. I had an infant son, my wife was out of work and basically had like this, you know, half million dollar home built from scratch, you know, and now I had no money in my pocket and I'm starting a business and I'm sick. Yeah

that's the shit right there, man. That's,

Junaid Ahmed 5:37
that's that's the one you say, you know? It hit the fan.

Matthew Gagnon 5:46
But he did. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Yeah.

Junaid Ahmed 5:48
But at least you had your mind. You had your mind and your thought process in place to say hey, this is not for me anymore. I can see was deteriorating. Let me make a change.

Matthew Gagnon 6:05
You know, I wouldn't have had my mind had I not done the work prior though, like, I had eight years, not eight years, but it was like a few years of training prior, like five years when I turned 30 to 35. Like I really started going to therapy, I started getting a coach, I started doing group work, I started doing a ton of self discovery work. That helped me understand some of the things that were going on in my body because by the time 2014 hit, my mental health also collapsed. My mind wasn't always working in my favor, either. Yeah, because some of the illnesses I had really impacted. So if it wasn't for the work that I did prior to that, man, I'd really be screwed. So I was very fortunate that you know, I battled depression, and I battle you know, mental health issues from time to time and I'm an open book about that. But uh, but if it wasn't for putting in that work, man, I'd really be in a difficult situation. So I'm grateful for all of it.

Junaid Ahmed 7:04
Absolutely. Having that work, I mean, it sets the foundation, right? Because before you start anything, you got to have that foundation setting moment. And

Matthew Gagnon 7:18
right on. Yeah.

Junaid Ahmed 7:22
That's fantastic. Thank you for sharing. Now. What are some of your motivations for the things that that you're doing currently? And the so so we heard about the backstory on how you know what really happened and what drove you to start your own coaching it's because you saw what was destroying you. And it was literally like you had to take a medical leap. I mean, that's that's serious stuff, right. And a lot of people don't even get that chance because They're straight to the ER. Or they are in even serious condition. They're they're facing heart attacks and stuff like that. So luckily, you're, you're able to avoid that. Because how many Kansas read?

Matthew Gagnon 8:16
I don't know. I don't know if I could say I avoided it. Okay. I was drinking 15 cans of Red Bull a day with with a strong amount of Adderall to Oh man, you know, BC, you know, up until I was 30. For a good few years. I was doing that while traveling 25 nights a month for my work. very stressful job at

that time.

I had a mentor in my life that wasn't very healthy either. I had multiple breakdowns, man. Oh, like again, here I am in this suit. You know, looking like I've got it all together. But yeah, there were plenty of days behind closed doors. I was curled up in a ball just crying like extreme anxiety. I didn't know what I got myself into. And it felt like I was trapped man. I felt like I was and You know, I'm an athlete too. I, you know, it's just this strong dude that, you know, needed to have this vision of having it all together. And so I didn't, you know, only people who were super close to me really knew how broke and I was Yeah, at that time, but, but here's the thing, like, I didn't come out of that unscathed though, either. Like, by the time I was 30, I had attempted suicide. Well, like I was already a disaster. I thought taking a bottle of pills would just make it better. And I felt like I was unlovable to the world. Like, I'd become pretty dark. I'd strayed from my values quite a bit. So far that I just felt like I was ugly. And I was unlovable.

Junaid Ahmed 9:40
So,

Matthew Gagnon 9:42
you know, fortunately, you know, I lived through that temporary situation. Yeah. And it was only training for what was going to come next. Yeah. You know, and so that's why when people were like, man, how did you survive this building your business and getting sick? Yeah, I'm like, I had training before. Yeah. Like, I don't been through some stuff that I thought I couldn't survive and I survived. So now I'm like, man, I can I can survive anything. Yeah, thanks to my faith that I have. It's definitely been renewed in the people that I've surrounded myself with man. So that's been the epic part of the journey and like, I got diagnosed with stuff like Addison's disease, which was a rare autoimmune disorder while not making adrenaline. It stopped making stress producing hormones so if I got stressed out man, I didn't go into fight or flight I go into a little adrenal crisis. So I was in the ER multiple times. Okay, I'm trying to figure out how to get a handle on this thing. I mental health like when your hormones are out of whack your and your emotions are out of whack. My body's making testosterone for a while. Well, like just my body was so mad at me man for abusing it for pushing it too hard. And for stress. Yes, people underestimate stress. Stress was destroying me and I was allowing it.

Junaid Ahmed 11:01
Yeah. So one thing that I noticed is that, you know, you said you, you were an athlete. And I am an athlete, right. So you are, you are an athlete don't, you know going to high school and you know, in college, you You're definitely playing in those sports. So, because I've just tried to think, you know, okay, if a normal person takes so much, you know, Adderall and Red Bull is going to destroy them. But you having that muscular mass, you're able to sustain it for the short period of time that you were able to, right. So that probably So

Matthew Gagnon 11:39
yeah, I wasn't. I was never using that stuff as an athlete right in in sports. Yeah, like yeah, that was the thing I developed. I was never the fastest or strongest or natural athlete by any means. Any athletic ability. I had to work my tail off right? from my past will tell you that like I was a mess of an athlete. Like in my younger days. But like I did, the time high school football came around by my junior year of high school like things started to click. I lost a lot of weight. Yeah, I gym, I started exercising change my mindset. But one thing I knew was I could out hustle anybody, like I could work harder than anybody. Yeah. And so I did that. And I got praised for it. I was praised for my high energy, I was praised for my work ethic. Nice. And then beyond sports, I was praised for my work ethic, put your head down, get your stuff done. Yeah. You know, and do the work. Don't complain. Yeah. And I would do that. But when my energy started to decrease and decline, like dramatically, all of a sudden, I felt like man, if I don't have energy, then what value do I have? Right? Not that's art. I had this belief system. I'm not that smart. You know, I struggle with my grades. I'm not that talented. You know, All I've got is my energy. Yeah, you know, I wasn't a great student, but I was a class president. I was attracted Like I was involved in everything Yeah, but like raid wise, like now. So I had this, this limiting belief that I was stupid, you know that I just wasn't that smart. And so and energy was the only thing that I had. So when I started to lose it, I started to medicate started to take in all that Red Bull and Adderall to keep me going. And I only took the Adderall for a while, because my doctor said, hey, you've got ADHD as an adult. They gave me Adderall and I liked it.

Junaid Ahmed 13:33
Yeah.

Matthew Gagnon 13:36
Yeah, I can access my entire mind.

Junaid Ahmed 13:39
Yeah, like

Matthew Gagnon 13:41
me. Until it wasn't Yeah. You know, and I've been off that stuff for a long time now but uh, but yeah, I mean that that was where it all birth. Yeah, like that was the beginning of all that stuff as limiting beliefs that I had. Just from a kid growing up. You know, and that's where I have a long history of concussions too. Because in high school football man, I use my head as a human battering ram Okay, and I don't blame football and I don't blame my coaches I loved my coaches. Yes, I love the game. I made the choice like and Mike we didn't know back then like we just thought like, Hey, I concussion you got to be knocked out. You know, it's like I was never knocked out. It's too damn stubborn like I fight and stand up and I would just keep going at it but man, I took some serious hits to the head. I was a small guy playing football. So yeah, that's that's kind of where it all came from. But it's the entrepreneurial spirit though that always lived in me though. And I forgot about it. And that's the thing about this values thing that I talk about now is like it's not about reinventing yourself in 2015. I reinvented myself I rediscovered myself. I remembered all the crap that I used to love doing. Like, as a kid, my first business was like when I was eight years old man, I was, I was taking baseball cards.

You know, like,

I would go to baseball card shows with my dad and I'd be selling and trading cards with 40 year old men. You know, so I love that kind of stuff. I had my own lawn mowing business by the time I was like, you know, 12 you know, and shoveling sidewalks in Maine and all that stuff. But somewhere along the line someone gave me a ton of money to start working and they gave me a promotion they gave me a yeah and I just ran with

Junaid Ahmed 15:37
this amazing this amazing journey man that's that's I give you props man. That's amazing. It's friggin awesome. Having so what I did see me not not trying to break everything down but but soon. So you're now is now your motivation behind your company is to make sure that other people Not doing making the same mistakes that you are you made them be able to reconnect with who they initially were, and how they can use that energy to move forward in life.

Matthew Gagnon 16:14
Yeah, I think that's, that's pretty accurate. I mean, the way I, the way I describe it is, is I help people live life aligned with their values, versus the values that have been defined by others. And as much as I'd like to say, I'd like to prevent people from making the same mistakes. Look, man, if someone tried, people tried telling me, you know, 20 years ago, or 10 years, I'm getting old now. I'm losing track of time. Like, just slow down. Like people always. People always say that slow down, man, you got to pace yourself. It's a marathon, not a sprint. And I'm like, Oh, that makes sense. But what what does that even look like? No one ever taught. How going down even like that slow down. Yeah, I would love to but I have no idea. All I know was zero and 100%. That was it. Like, I didn't know what was in between. You know, I'm the same way with everything in life, you know, hey, it's even in my car. It's the simplest thing like, Oh, my windows all the way up all the way down. Like it's either blazing hot in my car with the heat or freezing cold AC. I'm like, What are all these numbers in the middle doesn't make you know, so I've always been extreme, but no one ever told me what it was like to slow down. And so I had to learn the that's how I tore my hamstring. I got the most intense hamstring tear because I was like exercising later in life and they told you have a 40 yard dash at 70%. And I'm I don't know what that means. So I just ran 110 staff my hamstring, right in half again, major second degree chair. And I'm like, oh, man, so I learned a lot of lessons from my dreams. Yeah, now it's just like, Look, I know people are going to do what they got. They're going to do to learn their lessons. But I want them to know that I'm here as somebody who's walked out path and when you're ready, when you're ready, I'll be there to help you find your way back. Not just finding where you, like, look at those things from your past that you that you need to rediscover, and then apply them to now, you know, so many people say, Man, I wish I could go back 10 years ago and be back you know, the way I was that I'm like, you don't want to go backwards. You want to you don't want to go back you remember how it used to think 10 years ago? Great. You want to take some of the things you loved back then but bring them to now with the new knowledge that you have. So that's what I was doing and your values man like when you know your values are bro like you You look at them like tanks. And like when the when one of those tanks is empty, you know what to put in it. You know what? When you don't want to fill it with crap that doesn't belong there. And that's when we get in trouble with addiction. We buy shit. We get addicted to things. We start over eating like we start losing it. So I had to rediscover what my tanks were and what my values were and then align my life around. That was how I do my job, the people I surround myself with. That was the truth. That's when I started integrating music back into my life and fate, volunteering, and even like, even silly things like, you know, trading cards and stuff like that. Like, man, I still I bought myself a box of like trading cards A while back just for the joy of having cards again, because it was fun. And I and I shared that hobby with my son when he was like three, you know, video of us opening up like, Looney Tunes baseball cards together. It was a blast. It was a box of cards I found from 1992. And here Here we are, like, you know, 2013 at the time, or it was 2006. Yeah, and he and I are opening up these cards together was a blast, man. Like, so all that stuff. You just have to have more things in your life besides just your career. right you're gonna lose your shit.

Junaid Ahmed 19:58
Absolutely. Yeah, no Because you're trying to activate the part of your brain that gives you strength and stamina and motivation, and if you're substituting enabling those parts of your brain using drugs and, and stuff like that, it's it's not going to go too long. But if you are using hobbies to activate those centers in your mind then boom and you're unstoppable.

Matthew Gagnon 20:26
Yeah, man, it's like a long lasting burning. You know, versus just like, sure, like if you do something that's addiction based, you might get a buzz out of it right off the bat, but like what follows, right? There's complete shame. no immediate shame so it doesn't last at all. It's so bad. But when you fill that thing with something that belongs there, man, like you don't feel the shame afterwards, you feel the strength and you feel inspired. And the way I look at is this is like most people who come to me to work are usually people who have started to burn out in life. They are high performers. There are people with delivered results, but the only thing that's pouring into their life is their career. And it's like their performance has determine their value. As long as I perform at a high level my values high, as long as I'm getting promotions and raises and praise, my performances, you know, my value is high. But that's a terrible investment in your life. Because it feels great for a while, like when you're on that when you're in that honeymoon phase, or you're just on that, like burn mode, grind mode, we're just crushing it in your career. It's awesome. You feel untouchable, but then you have one bad week at work, and all of a sudden, it's like, I'm going to lose everything. Like you can't handle it because you got nothing else going on in your life. So when work goes bad, your boss is disappointed in one thing that you're doing all of a sudden, it's like, oh, man, I'm gonna lose everything. You know, and it's those highs and lows of either I'm going to get promoted or I'm going to get fired. And eventually I can't maintain that stress. So, from from an investment perspective, you wouldn't do that with like your retirement, you wouldn't put all your money into one investment and say, Hey, as long as this investment goes, Well, I've got it made. But if it fails, like you've got nothing. So you you diversify, you know, your investments, your portfolio, you should do the same thing with your values in life. work can be one of them, but it can't be everything. You gotta have multiple streams of values pouring into your life. So if one gets cut off, you still got like, four more pouring into you, at least, keeping you go. So you can rebuild that fifth one again. And that's why I believe we got three to five core values in our life. And so when things start going off track, we just look at that list again, and we remind ourselves which ones we got to pour back into. And it's simple stuff, man, like I play. I like to play music. So like I learned that I really love to perform. So I would perform an open mic night every Wednesday while I was living in Maine. This past year, and that one night a month, like one one night a week, man that filled my tank so much, even though was a late night but just the opportunity to sing music and perform for people, men, more creative, more resourceful. It poured into my entire life. My work was better I was, you know, I was more creative and fun with my kid. You know, it was just, I made more friends like it was really cool. It was long lasting burning energy for me that just didn't feel one thing but it poured into the rest of my life.

Junaid Ahmed 23:33
That's that's really powerful. I love that analogy, man. Love it. Wow. We've talked about some really good stuff I love you know, all of the conversations, all of the different avenues and to learning about how we should lead our life. I mean, they say, you know, don't put all your eggs in the same basket. Say find you know, find the path That's in the middle. Right? Don't go to extreme and they're all very true. And if you look outside the two colors that are most present in our life or in the nature are those colors of the middle path green and blues. And if you look at the rainbow default right in the middle so it's you know, you don't want to be running red or and that's why it gets the color red. That's the one extreme versus going super blue.

Violet or whatever is the other extreme but yeah,

Matthew Gagnon 24:39
yeah, and that's, that's,

you know, and I still tend to swing

in extremes occasionally every now and then but like I don't live I don't live there. Just you know.

Junaid Ahmed 24:49
Yeah, and for

Matthew Gagnon 24:50
me being in the middle also allows me to see opportunities that are not just in front of me but in my peripheral now. My life used to be so tunnel vision before and I was like looking through the hole through a basically a hole in a straw, I could see everything that was directly in front of me.

But like,

I started to let my values pour in like nature being one of them, you know, I started out as a man, I get to be outside more, I love hiking, and like, you know, you stand on a mountaintop. And that's what your view and perspective of the world becomes. Now, it's like being on a mountaintop. And you can see 360 degrees around you. And some of the greatest opportunities that we have in our lives live within our peripheral. You know, the best shits not right in front of us. It's just the obvious, no, you know, the cool stuff is on the sides and the peripheral and it's just we got to be willing to see it. You know, and so going after your purpose and pursuing and living a life of line with your values, doesn't mean it's going to be easy, it's probably gonna be harder. But it's so much better, man. It's so much more fun. If you want to live a safe life you can but that's safe life could kill you. And my safe life almost killed me was miserable. You know? So, I'd rather I'd rather go down man doing this shit I love you know, yeah, that's that's really how I feel about it. And that's, that's why I'm taking risks today. And things don't always work out. Yeah, but man, I'm failing proudly. Like, it's cool like I'm alright with failing and I'm alright with making a mess because that's why my business is now almost five years old. And I've never looked back. I haven't worked for another person since, you know, and yeah,

Junaid Ahmed 26:30
I love it. It's an amazing feeling right?

Matthew Gagnon 26:34
Yeah. And my son, this is how he's he's six years old. He's only known memories, or is as an entrepreneur and my wife the same way My wife is an entrepreneur also. So anyone else out there who says you can't have two entrepreneurs in one household is full of it, because we did it. Like they're doing that too. And it's not always easy, but man, is it super cool?

Junaid Ahmed 26:57
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's jump into the the section where we have the questions on to hobbies tax and hobbies questions. So I you know that one of the questions that I ask is, what is the one hobby that you wish you got into and never you never get a chance to get into that. And you had mentioned something really cool.

Matthew Gagnon 27:22
What? Where did I mentioned in there? Because like, I really struggled with that question because again, like my dad was really big into hobbies and collecting things. So like, there literally wasn't a hobby out there. I felt like that I didn't try at one point.

So yeah, what did I put down?

Junaid Ahmed 27:43
So what you put down was whitewater rafting guide. Yeah. And that that's really cool, because I went whitewater rafting back a couple of times. And I'm talking to the guide and like, how, like, how do you how does one Become a guide to this really awesome sport or awesome you know? pastime nice Yeah, man. Do it so

Matthew Gagnon 28:08
yeah, like here's the thing I I've done rafting probably 12 times. And I've done it in many different places and I've done everywhere up to category five, you know, rapids, I love it. I haven't done in ages and one of the things is like I have a muscle spasm disorder so like, sometimes my muscles cramp up so right now being a guide would feel a responsible but the reason why I love being guide is also the same reason why I love coaching like, the guide, like kind of guides the boat, but he can't steer the whole thing by himself. He needs no like, and it's crazy. What guides do they basically have a boat of like six total strangers that are amateurs at what they're doing. Yeah. And, you know, he's got to get them all to work together and recognize what they're capable of overcome any limiting beliefs overcome their fears of what's about to come ahead and work together. You know, but like, he can't do it by himself, he needs all these people and he's got to hell, he can't, you know, just tell them he can't make them do it. He's got to, like, teach them. And so like, it's a fascinating process and I love the whole journey of it. And by the end of it, it's amazing to see the transformation that everybody else has gone through in the boat, you know, yeah. And so that's why I always I does that so much and I and someday,

either as a

guide or a participant in the boat again, I can't wait to do coaching based retreats, you know, with whitewater rafting integrated into it. Because that's what's going to happen.

Junaid Ahmed 29:45
Yeah. And and then a lot of these retreats, when teams are coming, they all come in as individuals but they'll leave as team because they have to work together. And that's Yes, what it is right I You can be one person giving hundred percent to what you love to do. But as soon as you integrate a team, you no longer have to do 100% you get 500% of action coming through like that one hour now becomes five hours because now you have four days running. Working on that same thing in that one hour. And I remember

Matthew Gagnon 30:22
the guide really helping me because I would always sit up in the fried volunteer to sit right up front. You know, I was usually the stronger guy, and he would always pull me you know, the guy always pulled me aside like a man. Like, I know you're strong and stuff, like, you can't overpower it. Like you got to work with everybody. Because if you if you paddle harder than everybody else, it's gonna throw us off. Yeah, like you got to work with everyone was like, okay, okay. And so like, I learned a lot from those experiences. And and the other thing too is like, you could die doing this like and sometimes people forget, like, like, this is this is dangerous, you know, and so I really just dug the metaphor that it represented to me

Junaid Ahmed 31:06
yeah no It absolutely is a dangerous thing to do because just recently friend from my community and California they went whitewater rafting up north and they lost to two guys in the in the river and they couldn't find them till later to finally found their bodies. Oh my gosh man. It's it's not it's not fun yeah it's easy all right next up what is your favorite movie or TV show?

Matthew Gagnon 31:44
Oh man dependent on what mood I was in at the moment. I think

if I didn't think about movies, I probably put down maybe Goonies because I do dig that quite a bit. What did I put down?

Junaid Ahmed 31:57
Yeah.

It doesn't have I mean, doesn't

Matthew Gagnon 32:00
matter.

Junaid Ahmed 32:02
Like Goonies doesn't matter. Yeah. I love it. You said anything with Bill Murray. He said, Oh, yeah.

Matthew Gagnon 32:08
Bill Murray. Yes. What about Bob man? I love Bill Murray to death. I also love Goonies because I love those stories. I love superhero movies. And I also love anything about music. Yeah, like love movies, music, too. So like, I'm really, really big on that. I'm a big movie fan. I also love the TV show Arrested Development. It was a short live show. I liked the first three CO Yeah, it was a short live show. But it was brilliant beyond its time, and it was just the humor and it was super smart humor. And, man, it was just the jokes would catch me off guard and I would laugh hysterically for hours. So yeah, I dig that stuff.

Junaid Ahmed 32:54
Nice. When you mentioned

anything with Bill Murray You mentioned What about Bob? Long time ago? I remember watching the trailer for what about Bob? And I was like, all right, I gotta go watch this movie, but I never got around to watching this movie. And I kept. I kept thinking like, what was that one movie I wanted to watch for so many years. So I'm gonna have to check that one out. I love

Matthew Gagnon 33:17
that movie. And, you know, it's funny because you know, Richard Dreyfuss in that as a psychologist, I'm a life coach. We're different, but like, it's just so funny to just, I love the whole the whole storyline behind it's worth watching, but that movie cracks me up to this day, man. It's timeless humor.

Junaid Ahmed 33:35
Nice. Yeah. Alright, so this one is a is. This is a new question that I've thrown in. What movie would you choose? If you got to play a character in it?

Matthew Gagnon 33:51
What movie would I choose? If I got to

play a character in it?

Oh, man.

Do I love That

two things come to mind.

For some reason the movie Any Given Sunday came up because I love football. I would love to be a football player in that movie. That would be super cool. Yeah, but outside of that the other one was like Captain America. Like I love a good Marvel movie. Yeah, to be a superhero. Oh, yeah. I still believe that. I am one you're wearing that Captain America

Junaid Ahmed 34:27
t shirt. Pretty good, man. Yeah, thanks, bro. You know so

Matthew Gagnon 34:32
today I still like to believe I am one of my body likes to remind me that I'm not but uh, it's still it's just a mindset. So yeah, yeah, that's what comes to mind in this moment.

Junaid Ahmed 34:44
Nice. And so who would be your favorite superhero?

Matthew Gagnon 34:50
Yeah, it's still it's still right in line with like Captain America and Captain America and America I got see Iron Man is like because like, dude, just I love the swag. Have a good Tony Stark? Yeah. So in Robert Downey Jr. is probably one of my favorite actors also. Yeah. Mike,

Junaid Ahmed 35:07
he is so good. Alright, last question. If you were a board game,

Matthew Gagnon 35:14
what would it be hands down?

Yeah. Nice. Nice.

Junaid Ahmed 35:21
Fantastic, man. And so where can my audience find you? You know,

Matthew Gagnon 35:25
my websites never really been finished. It's actually kind of a point of like pride. Because I built my entire business when I was broke using just free resources, you know, and yeah, my first free resource that I had was LinkedIn. So like, social media was totally free. And so I built 70% of my business was built from LinkedIn. And I love that platform for for storytelling, for sharing. I use it. I broke every single rule you could possibly like, unwritten rule on LinkedIn that you could like I talked about faith I talked about like, Depression and everything on that platform when they said you couldn't. So I really do enjoy it. And so LinkedIn, you can find it under my name you you can't miss me my headlines got a bajillion emojis in it because I like, I like my abilities. But you can also find me on Instagram under life story coaching. I love using Instagram as a way of telling stories. And and also, like, I'm super, always down for a great conversation so you can email me mad at life story coaching.net I love a good chat. It's better to email me versus like, messaged me on LinkedIn because I get a bajillion messages on LinkedIn. And it's all Yeah, but like, I love I love a chance to talk. I mean, that's how we connected right? Like I think I was on a road directly and I probably put I posted one of my friends like hey,

Junaid Ahmed 36:46
call Yeah, yeah, exactly. You were you're on a road trip. And you were dropped you probably driving from Maine to Texas. Yep, that's it. Right. Yeah. And that was like, Hey, this is awesome. I love it. And talking about road trips. I just made a did a road trip. 10 hours driving up here to Michigan from from Virginia. Right on, man. That was That was fun. That was fun.

But I didn't have that daylight that you get that you had.

Matthew Gagnon 37:18
I get it.

Junaid Ahmed 37:19
I get it. I journey. Yeah. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, this was really awesome. Connecting with you. I love your story and wish you best of luck. And we'll reconnect again and let's see how we can work together. Man. I look forward to a bro.

Matthew Gagnon 37:35
Thank you so much.

Junaid Ahmed 37:37
Awesome. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you for listening to hacks and hobbies. You can find additional information on the guest today on their website, hacks and hobbies. com. Please feel free to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss out on upcoming interviews with amazing guests.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai