I think it was about three years into the business.

And at this point I was severely overweight, incredibly unhealthy,

dealing with everything I had done.

And I just said.

Look, something has got to change.

And so while I love the big picture, what's the one thing I

can do right now in front of me?

You know, there's that leadership adage.

You always hear you can't manage what you're not measuring.

And I took that to heart and I was like, I'm going to start to

measure the crap out of everything.

And that started to really flip my journey.

Um, uh,

How do you turn personal tragedy into a powerhouse for business success?

Today on seek, go create the leadership journey.

We welcome Matthew Sanjari, a trailblazing entrepreneur and coach who transformed

his life after a near fatal accident.

is the visionary behind.

Prime Consulting, where he utilizes his 15 years of

experience to mentor entrepreneurs through critical growth phases.

His unique methodology, not only focuses on scaling businesses, but

also emphasizes personal development to lift clients into their full potential.

Join us as Matthew shares his inspiring journey and invaluable

insights on turning obstacles into opportunities for leadership growth.

And growth, Matthew, welcome to seek, go create.

Thanks for having me, Tim.

I'm excited to have a great conversation today.

I'm excited about it too.

Now you mentioned before we kind of get rolling here, you mentioned you just made

a move, tell everybody where you are and where you were from before you made that

move, because it sounds like a big change.

Yeah, yeah, this has been the year of big changes.

So I made my way on down.

I'm in Orlando.

so central Florida.

six months ago.

I moved up from Canada where I had lived practically my whole

life on and off different spots.

But yeah, six months ago from Canada to Florida, leaving winter behind.

that's what I'm doing.

We, before we hit record, I told you I'm in Colorado Springs as of the time we're

recording and by the end of day, I'll be in New Mexico working my way south

for my wintering have, the people in Orlando welcomed you with open arms or,

or they said like you darn Canadians.

Why do y'all keep coming down here?

What's that been like?

the most part, it's been with open arms, but I'm still getting way too many maple

syrup jokes for my liking And so I kind of lean into them now when I do business

pitches, you know, I don't have plat on, I don't have maple syrup for you

guys, but I do say hello from Canada.

Very good.

All right.

my first question, Matthew, was something like an icebreakery.

What do you do?

But I've recently made a shift.

I'm going to give you choice to answer my first kind of big question.

I'm just going to give you the two questions and you could say I picked

this one and start answering it.

The two questions are what do you do or are you?

Which question would you prefer to answer and just go ahead and

pick it and answer the question.

Hey, let's go with, who are you?

cause you know what, this is something I'm finding is evolving

constantly to my surprise.

but to the question, who are you?

I would say I'm someone.

Who's a dreamer.

I'm passionate about people.

I've done a variety of things over the years.

I'm a business coach.

Now I was a pastor.

I owned a marketing company, just a variety of things.

And it really doesn't matter what the skin has been.

I've realized that at the end of the day, I just want to see

people reach their potential.

And so who I am is dedicated to helping people build relationships,

realize what's on their lives and hopefully get to live it out.

So something, especially on this podcast, because we kind of mash together

business, leadership, and ministry.

that's going to perplex people right away is the fact that you were a pastor.

you've gone out into the, the world of business and all of that money

and all of that kind of stuff.

So I think the first thing I'd like to know is I'd like to know

a little bit Matthew, the pastor, and then the transition into

something other than pastoring.

Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, listen, I loved it.

you know, pastored on and off for, almost 14 years.

but in 2010, just a group of eight of us in a living room

decided to play into church and went on this wild, exciting ride.

But, you know, I learned pretty quickly.

Basically on day two, we're eight people.

This probably isn't going to sustain me.

I need to go find work.

And so, found a corporate job that eventually led to my first

round of entrepreneurship.

And, as I'm sure you can appreciate, I've just over the years realized

there's so much synergy across both, but again, going back to the, who am

I, as a pastor, I absolutely loved being able to walk people through life.

And, you know, it's funny.

Cause again, I see this.

Now in my current iteration of work, you know, as a pastor,

I didn't need to be an expert.

I just needed to be a great shepherd.

I just needed to be a great friend.

I just needed to be someone that was there to help people zoom out or zoom

in depending on where they were to point them to things that were bigger than me.

to the person that actually matters.

And so I loved pastoring, you know, it didn't matter what hat I was wearing,

you know, I did worship, did creative arts, did some executive role things at

the end of the day, being able to work, not just with people, but seeing them

develop, you know, in that leadership level and actually, step into, and I know

you appreciate this, but so many times.

And I went through this journey myself so many times seeing people kind of peek

behind the curtain and realize, Oh, you know, the things that I was critiquing.

Now, now I'm in the kitchen.

Now I'm making the food.

This is a little different and seeing people kind of go

on that leadership journey.

I loved it.

And more than being on a stage more than leading meetings, I think

it was all just the relational time that we all spent together.

it's the moments that nobody sees that I look back on and just think were

these beautiful, profound moments.

So yeah.

did you grow up in Canada?

Is that where you grew up and spent most of your early years?

Born in Montreal, lived in Ottawa, went up to Bible college in Vancouver, but spent a

lot of my time in Ottawa, central Canada.

Okay.

Cause you, I mean, Montreal all over to Vancouver, that's all over that,

spanning the, for, for those south of the border, we have no idea how far.

We think Canada is just, you cross over somewhere in Detroit

and all of Canada is right there.

So, that, Montreal is a long way from Vancouver, long ways away.

did, did you grow up with the mindset or the heart or whatever you want

to call it of, I'm going to go into ministry and be a pastor or what was

Matthew like in his growing up years?

You know, after you got over there, you want to be a fireman or an

astronaut or those type of things.

What was, what was your desires of what you wanted to be growing up?

You know what?

Funny enough, I was constantly oscillating.

my parents had different ideas for me, but I was constantly oscillating

between either actually wanted to go into ministry, youth ministry,

or I wanted to be a football coach.

I love sports, love playing it, love the coaching side,

love, inspirational stories.

the older I got, I really started to realize, wow, this idea of coaching or

helping people reach their potential.

obviously very passionate about it in a Christian context, in a ministry context.

But I think, even as a kid, I'd look at that and be like, man, as

if a coach can sit there, like, I'd watch basketball and Michael Jordan,

like he's the greatest player alive.

And even he has a coach, right?

Even he's got someone who's drawn up plays, who's pulling them aside and

saying, Hey, make these adjustments.

So were you in a Christian home growing up?

Were your parents, you know, spiritual depth church goers?

how would you define the spiritual atmosphere of your home?

So to give people some context.

Love my parents.

they're definitely on the crazy side.

I grew up in this beautiful dichotomy where my father to

this day is still an atheist.

My parents are still married.

my father's an atheist, smartest man, philosophy.

Logic, probably, you know, on the political spectrum, goes

one way as far as he can.

and then you have my mother who on the other side flips to the political

side on the other side, and she, I don't think she met a plant,

she wasn't willing to pray for it.

And so I grew up in this dichotomy where my mother was like, I'm going

to raise my family in the faith.

And my dad said, that's wonderful.

I'm just going to make him question it at every turn.

And looking back, it's funny because when you zoom back, it's kind of messed

up and feels like a recipe for disaster.

But I look back and say the ability to question and the ability to wrestle

with my faith at an early age, teenage years, young adult years, especially as

I started, experiencing personal tragedy.

Was so formative and has allowed me to help other people on those journeys

where now hopefully people aren't afraid to question and they're not afraid

to get into the messier areas of what leadership and ministry looks like.

And so, yeah, my upbringing was such a dichotomy.

A master class in diversity, but one that I'm really, really grateful for.

So one thing that's fascinating about that, I actually don't think,

I mean, obviously I would pray for your father for salvation and all,

but I don't think that's a bad thing you were able to recognize a

dichotomy I've been studying a lot of.

Revelation recently and you know that church that was so lukewarm.

I think many families have this, church going I interviewed someone recently.

They said, you know what 52, days out of the year we were in church That

was it, know, there wasn't like this One way the other I think it actually

would be healthy to have this is what this looks like I'm holding my hands up

for those that are listening in on the audio, the video, they say, Oh, okay.

And this is what this other looks like.

Obviously your mother was attempting to move you along a certain way, but at what

point did your faith become your own?

it wasn't maybe your mother's or something like that.

When did you own it?

Yeah, I would say there was two, I had two distinct come to Jesus moments as

well as how I would refer to the mass.

You know, there was one where I,

Yeah.

Come to Jesus.

I had one, the first one was the guy who really mentored me in a ministry, my

pastor for many years, he basically sat me down and we had this conversation, he

had a youth ministry at the time and he was attracting people that would never

step foot otherwise in the churches.

And I remember going there and, one of the frustrations

growing up for me is I was like.

Church feels so stuffy.

I'm like, why is Christianity so stuffy?

I had a really diverse upbringing, And so my friendships mirrored that.

I grew up with guys who were Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, and I'm like,

this feels just as stuffy as them.

Like, what's the difference?

And I remember, we'd have these long conversations over coffee,

till the wee hours in the morning.

and I'd start to realize that maybe God is, so much bigger

than a laundry list of rules.

Maybe there's much more than just the moral law of the Ten Commandments.

And so that sent me down a journey where for the first time in my life, I started

to get into the word and I started to read the Bible and I didn't want to

stab myself in the leg while reading it.

It didn't feel like a chore anymore.

And that first experience really set me down this path where I was like, Okay.

I'm getting a different picture of God.

That's no longer secondhand it's firsthand.

And it's starting to change and transform who I am.

and then we'll talk in just a moment.

Cause you obviously had, a catalytic event occur with an accident,

but there was one thing that you brought up that was so interesting.

It's so kind of closer to my story.

I would say my upbringing would be more We kind of popped in and out

of church and spiritual foundation because we grew up in the south.

Everyone just assumes they're a christian, you know, it's like kind of like we

are here There's bibles all around there's churches all around therefore.

We all are christians.

Obviously, that's not good theology right there, but I Wanted to be both

my parents were educators and matthew.

I wanted to be a coach a teacher.

So I wanted, I felt like I was created to coach from an early age.

The thing that kind of set me in a different direction was that I had a

conversation with my parents at some point, late high school career, and

I found out how much money they made.

And it sort of changed a good bit for me.

I said, you know what?

I don't think I want to do that.

I didn't realize we were poor and so I don't want to be poor.

And so I went after like engineering and went to Georgia tech, I

did, I came back to coaching.

And so what I'm curious about, because you talked about ministry.

And coaching, talk about, compare those two, especially now that you've

gone through, you've been a pastor, you've obviously been a coach, you've

worked in ministry environments, you've worked in business environments.

Talk about if there's, contrasts like differences, talk about what that is,

but talk about the similarities because truthfully, I see a lot of similarity.

So talk about those two.

Oh, you hit it on the head.

I think there's so many similarities and I was just having this conversation

actually with someone the other day.

To me, I view both of them as a coach, as a pastor.

I view them as invitations to stewardship, right?

Like someone, I'm being entrusted.

With someone's life, someone's business, someone's journey, and

you know, I didn't get to choose when they joined themselves to me or

when I joined myself to that, right?

That's the starting point.

And sure, we'd all love.

I mean, you know, whether you're on social media or the books you read.

it doesn't, we all want that linear journey.

That's just not life.

But how I respond during that journey with this person, with this entity,

that's actually what matters, right?

How we prepare each other, how we zoom out, how we talk through blind spots,

how we prepare when no one's looking.

These are the things that matter, you know, in pastoring, it's

the moments of having these conversations and walking people.

Through the times that are neither hard nor good.

That'll impact how they then handle the hard and the good.

And in coaching, especially on the business side, the leadership side, before

you ever get on a platform, what does it look like on how you treat your team?

In the silos in the quiet, right?

And so I think I just see so many similarities and they all

come back to stewardship for me.

And it's this idea that I try and pass on to people is, hey, as long as there's the

grace for you to be in my life and for this to be in my life, how I treat this,

how I steward this, how I handle this.

I think says a lot about me and says a lot about the value I place on them.

Yeah, I think that's good.

Stewardship is such a great word.

And I love the contrast between stewardship and ownership because,

you know, as a pastor, truthfully, I don't think you own anything as

definitely in the role that you play, you go in and you don't own anything.

Any of that, you probably don't have ownership in companies, businesses.

There, there's been times that I've had discussions about some ownership

piece with what I do, but not really.

We're just stewards, caretakers, overseers, trustees, whatever

word you want to use.

There's another word in I'll call it church world that's used a lot, but I

don't know that it's understood in that word is discipleship or discipling.

Let's go ahead and throw that into the mix and talk about comparisons, contrasts,

same thing, discipling, discipleship, as it relates to coaching and that word that

we use a lot in business, which is coach.

Do you see any similarities there also?

yeah, so many.

I feel like people are going to think we rehearsed this.

No, this is actually just happening all the fly.

But, on the discipleship side, I think it's a great word to use in this

context because I think to myself, You know, based on what I feel like the

Bible said, and the life that Jesus is modeled, discipleship is how do we

equip people with the tools so they can best run the race set before them?

Right?

And I think the same is true in leadership and in business.

If we teach people, I'm all for frameworks, I'm all for guidelines.

But if we try and force people into frameworks and guidelines, when something

off the map, Or something that they can't handle gets thrown at them.

A lot of times things blow up and people get erratic and they go off course.

But when we equip them with the skills and we equip them with the tools, we

put tools in their tool belt to say, Hey, when this comes, I love how the

Lord frames it where it's like in this world, there will be trouble, but take

heart for I've overcome the world.

And I think in discipleship, it's this idea.

Hey, bad things are going to happen.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

You're going to be disappointed.

You're probably going to experience failure.

There's going to be rejection.

I don't care if it's sports, ministry, business, life, relationships, whatever.

So let's get really honest.

And start to equip each other with the tools and that might

be, why'd you get in your Bible?

Right?

Why don't you get into some, some personal development?

Why don't you get in prayer?

Why don't you start to work on your communication?

Why don't you get some accountability in your life?

Again, there's parallels on either side, but how well we embrace those tools.

I think those, that's what sets us up for the journey of discipleship.

the thing that I love and I appreciate the, passion when

I asked that question for you.

I like that.

the thing that I've noticed.

is that in church world, they talk about discipleship, but they have

difficulty with it because it's sometimes difficult, standing in a

pulpit, talking to a hundred, 200, 300, that's not necessarily discipling to

me, but I am sure that today, yesterday, probably tomorrow, you were on.

Phone calls, probably 30 minutes to an hour, maybe longer.

And you'd probably do that monthly, if not weekly with the same people.

And it's really connecting.

And I think you can't disciple coach influence, steward someone, once

a week, 45 minutes up on a stage.

You might have some influence over them, but I think it's one of the

closest things to discipleship that we have in our current culture.

What are your thoughts?

I love that.

I'd agree, right?

Like, I think one thing that I really.

started to delve into is, you know, there's a difference between

information and revelation, right?

and again, this transcends whether we're talking about church or the

business world, it's like information.

I can say, Hey, you know, this person is six foot four.

They weigh 200 pounds.

They've got a wingspan.

That's 70 inches.

That's information.

Revelation is when they punched me in the face and I feel the contact of that

punch that, you know, like that's impact.

And so I can give a lot of information in these mass settings

just like you have, right?

Speaking on stages, but that revelation, that coaching, that intimacy, that's

actually born out of these smaller environments where we're able to

make it personal and we're able to address things and just talk

about things that actually connect.

I love that word connection.

There's a connection between two individuals or, you

know, even in smaller groups.

as impressive and, sometimes needed as these big information gatherings are, I

think these revelatory moments and these moments of discipleship, have to happen up

close because they involve relationship.

As you moved out of what we would call pastoring or ministry, it sounds like

you recognized early on that to have full time income in a ministry role was key.

Going to be challenging.

Is that correct?

Did I hear that earlier?

Yeah, yeah, especially just because, again, we planted, right?

Like, it's not like, you know, I had thought about going the route of

working at different churches, but we were young, dumb and naive and

had what we felt like was, The call of God to do this, and so we did it.

did you at all have this thought of I'm gonna i'm gonna throw a word out.

I don't like to use but I think most people understand it Do

you have a thought of failure?

when you decided to move away from a ministry role into a Corporate role and

then your own business and other things.

So is there any like failure or Darn or anything like that that crossed your mind?

Tim Daley.

tell your mom or anything like that.

Tim Daley hourly actually.

Yeah.

And, it feels a little stupid to think that, but I also think it's

just reality, you know, ministry.

It's funny because like, and I know you know this and so many of your listeners

know this, but it's like everything's ministry if we're honest with it, right?

It's all ministry.

But when we think of pastoral ministry, because it's an emotional investment

that we're so tied to, I think the disconnect that of, you know, Oh,

well, I'm not doing this full time.

This isn't the thing that's putting food on my table can be

really hard for a lot of people.

And I know it was true for me, right?

This idea that like, oh, man, I, my attention is divided.

I have to do this because I need to put food on the table.

But I just wish I was spending all of my time.

You know, I could be doing more.

I could be talking more people.

I could be taking more people out for coffee.

I could.

And so, yeah, I feel like failure was definitely a thing for a long

time and the business, even early business success didn't mask that.

Interesting.

So I want to fast forward briefly and then I'm going to go back for a

couple of things to fill in the gaps because we're heading towards you and

I are going to have some fun shortly.

Just really talking about business strategy leadership

So this is going to be some good content, but there's a couple

of things about Matthew I want to know a little bit more about.

I love the story and the journey here.

we go back and we talk about that failure or that time that you would have been

in ministry in a church plant, which is like one of the highest, Echelons

that in ministry world, they elevate you and say, Oh, you did church plant.

That's like two, two notches below missionary in Africa.

And, you know, evangelist that travels the world and, you know, gets people saved.

And then it's church planner.

So you were there today.

Do you believe you're doing less than as much as, or more?

ministry than you were doing then, which one of those would it

be less than as much as or more?

Yeah.

and I think that's a great question.

I think I would have answered this very differently at different

points of my life, but right now I would say as much as.

you and I talked about this earlier.

I think for me, I've really stepped into this honest revelation from God where I

am like, man, I've been called to people.

I've been called to help steward relationships and help

people reach their potential.

And it doesn't matter what the skin is.

It doesn't matter.

You know, at the end of the day, God has very kindly changed the skin on

me a few times over the last 14 years.

But at the end of the day, I still get to have an impact.

the methods have changed, but the message hasn't.

And so to me, I would say just as much, and I'm not sure I would

have been as honest with you, over the course of the last 14 years.

Yeah, that's good.

I agree with that.

I had long discussions with people at Bible school that, their measure

of doing what God wants and people have to go on their own journey.

Period.

I was a business guy.

I was saved in a business setting.

I've always been in the business arena you know, have never been in truth.

Kind of like you always felt churches were a bit stuffy.

I, Don't really enjoy going in our traditional church settings.

Give me a business setting where I'm facilitating a leadership group

and man, that's church for me.

I love that.

So all right, Matthew, I'm a firm believer that there's two ways people

make significant change in their lives.

One is we hire a coach, we focus, we come up with a plan.

We go through a methodical, Change process to do something different

and I think this is the more common one some catalytic event occurs And

it literally a two by four or a car accident or a financial collapse in my

situation Changes everything about who we are Sounds like there was quite a

catalytic event in your life that occurred I think it was 12 plus plus years ago

something like that I me about that.

And, and did it, did it have that change that I'm talking about?

Or if it didn't, that's fine, but tell me about that and what occurred there.

Oh, listen, it did.

It had the Hollywood movie effect that, that I think I could have never imagined.

you know, 12 years ago, I was driving at the time.

I think I was 23 years old.

I was driving home late at night from a girl I was dating.

I was driving home from her house.

I think it was like 11 p.

m.

at night and a country road.

And two horses jump out onto the road at the last second.

Yeah, horses.

And I don't know if you know horses.

I did not.

I know now.

But it was two Clydesdales.

and I, I couldn't stop.

They were joined.

And I slammed on the brakes last second.

Absolutely totaled my car.

one of the horses fell onto the car, absolutely crushed the, like the

car crumbled and, when the, when the proverbial and literal dust settled

and the, and the car had spun a few times, I realized like, you know, it's

dark at night, the windshield, like three inches is what they measured

and I would have been toast and, and, you know, I, I basically broke out the

car door because the frame had bent.

Knocked on the door of the closest house again, we're in the country, so we're

talking a mile between every house and ended up making my way to the hospital I

tell everybody, you know, I did what every young, dumb, naive, 20 something year old

male does where they give it a few days and they say, nothing's wrong with me.

Everything's fine.

turns out as, days turn to weeks and weeks turn to months

that everything wasn't fine.

I actually got diagnosed with multiple disabilities, some cognitive that

truthfully still affect me to this day.

that led me to this place where within a few short months, I was no longer working.

I had to take a break from church.

And serving and being on staff.

and it felt like the extrovert in me didn't want to see people.

And I found myself in this place, that, uh, I didn't want to do anything.

I found myself in bed depressed in a year out.

I basically would be completely different human than what I feel like I had

signed up for to be my lot in life.

And, uh, so what were the results of that?

You couldn't do certain things what, what of your life trajectory

changed due to an unfortunate event?

I, I've got to ask this too.

Um, Pretty confident the horses didn't come out of that situation

very well either, correct?

No, no, they didn't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Instant on impact.

Um, yeah.

As for life changes again, you know, everything without without exaggerating

everything ground to a halt, right?

I had to leave my job because the headaches and the pain just got so

bad that I actually couldn't stay.

I was calling in sick all the time.

And so I found myself depressed.

in bed, not seeing people, all things, just the antithesis of, of me.

Um, and you know, I found myself angry at God, you know, like what the heck

here I am starting a promising career in two different fields, loving my life.

I'm, I'm in my early twenties, I'm getting opportunities.

You know, it feels like I have the, the world's my oyster.

I have a, I have a, the whole canvas ahead of me and truthfully,

everything just ground to a halt.

For about a year.

And, and so, so what you out of it, snapped you out of it, led you out of it.

What did you do?

What did others do?

Let's talk about that journey beyond that, because it's my belief.

I don't think it's a car accident.

I don't know if it's financial collapse, like we went through, but I think everyone

has to go through stuff and, and I think we find out what people are made of or.

Who they are or where their faith is or whatever.

We could throw a lot of words in there when those situations occur.

So talk about the journey after that year and moving beyond that.

Yeah, so you know what?

About a year in and this is the kindness of God.

I can say this over every aspect of my story that we'll cover today.

Every aspect that I can just see the kindness of God woven through it.

And, I had a friend reach out about a year in and said,

Hey, I work at a pool company.

They make custom pools.

They need some help with some computer stuff.

And, you know, my dad worked in I.

T.

And he said, can you come help us?

And I was like, well, that's my dad's thing.

And he's like, no, can you come help us?

And he was just throwing me a bone.

He was like, they're going to pay you cash.

Just take the job, just get out of the house.

And I was like, okay, I'll give it a shot.

And, you know, I went out there, business owner comes and talks to me and he starts

asking me some really random questions.

We just hit it off.

And, you know, within a matter of time, he said, Hey, like,

what do you think of our website?

And, you know, he pulls it up and I'm looking at it and I'm like,

this website's awful in my head.

I'm like, I can't tell him this.

I just met this man.

I'm like, he's going to ask me to go home right now.

and he, he just kept pushing.

He's like, no, no, be honest.

I'm like, yeah, if I'm honest, I'm like, I, I wouldn't do this.

I think this looks terrible.

And he said, you know, what can you do better?

And I was like, probably.

And he said, okay, well let's try it.

And I walked out of there, Tim, with my first marketing client.

Didn't go to school for marketing, had no marketing experience, had

never worked a marketing job.

and looking back, it was just the Lord being like, Hey, here's, here's your shot.

Here you go.

And I use that money for my first client to teach myself marketing.

And that was the day my marketing company was born.

And, um, I would love to end the story there and say that it was a

happy ending and everything was great.

Truth is for the next three years, business was awful.

Um, you know, because as kind as the Lord was to provide that initial start, I came

into this reckoning where I realized that everything I knew about leadership and

business was really one sided, right?

I was a great face.

I could communicate well, I was an A type, you know, big ideas,

but I had zero life experience.

I'm like, I actually didn't know anything about the details.

I never really proven any the things I had talked about in

settings, um, which is shocking.

Cause you know, I think a lot of people think, Oh, if you speak

from a platform, you've lived this.

I didn't was way too young still.

And, uh, and I basically for those first three years, as quick

as I got a client, I'd lose it.

There was no systems, no strategy, no structure.

And, um, if you're talking turning point quickly, I remember looking myself

in the mirror in 2016, I think it was about three years into the business.

And at this point I was severely overweight, incredibly unhealthy,

dealing with everything I had done.

And I just said.

Look, something has got to change.

And so while I love the big picture, what's the one thing I

can do right now in front of me?

You know, there's that leadership adage.

You always hear you can't manage what you're not measuring.

And I took that to heart and I was like, I'm going to start to

measure the crap out of everything.

And that started to really flip my journey.

So would you say, I mean, one of the things that I know you address, I

address this also with, with leaders is attempt to see what their mindset is.

What their mindset is like, because often that can ripple

throughout an organization.

What was your mindset at this time?

Would you, I'm going to throw a few words out and then you could either

agree, disagree or pick them apart.

But I mean, when someone's gone through stuff, even though they could be

attempting to be optimistic, there could be a victim type mindset in a poor,

pitiful me or blaming or mad at God.

that earlier or things like that.

And if we look back on it, we.

We think we should have been more successful, but then we realized,

no, I shouldn't have been because my mindset or something like that.

What would, what was your mindset like during that years?

You said that was still challenging post at least getting business going.

Yeah, this is, this is such a good question.

I, to speak to that victimhood, I literally looked at this

accident, anything associated with as having robbed my life.

It ruined my life.

It took everything from me.

And, for the first year or two, there was a lot of people who agree.

They're like, Oh yes, that's awful.

As if that happened to you.

Yeah.

And then I found myself now surrounded by, God bless them, people

and opinions and my own internal thoughts that were just echoing this

chamber of, yeah, you're a victim.

And I sat there for years, years, from 2012 to about 2016, blaming my pain

for the reason why I wasn't living up to my potential or walking out my

purpose, uh, only to realize that it wasn't my pain that was doing that.

It was my perspective and when I dialed in and actually more than a

nice motto, figured out what that perspective was, I really think that

that was the shift for me in every area of my life, not just my business.

And one of the things I think this is important, I think it's

in Matthew seven towards the tail end of the sermon on the mount.

Very significant that I'm interviewing Matthew here and

I'm quoting Matthew seven.

I'm not going to quote it.

I'm going to give the reference.

Jesus says the rains come, the storms come for those that are built on set

for those houses that are built on sand.

And also the rains come in the storms come for those that it's built on a foundation.

You had a spiritual foundation there that was underneath

that mindset and that victim.

How,

when did that rear its head up and start taking over and start

getting you back on track of where you kind of started transitioning

from, okay, I'm not a victim.

I'm a victor.

I'm operating in the kingdom of God, not in the Babylonian

system or the world system.

And because I'm guessing a lot of the situation some of the pain all that

stuff probably didn't change between the years is what's changed or maybe

the soul So just tell me more about that before we get into I want to

go strategy, but this is good stuff right here This is foundational.

I mean, full disclosure, it's 12 years since the accident and

I still live with that pain.

I woke up this morning with some of that pain.

So you're right, it hasn't gone away.

But I remember this, I just said the whole perspective shift.

I'm having this conversation with someone at church.

And we're having this, we're having coffee, just having

this, this great conversation.

And this person starts to open up about chronic pain.

They start to open up about some really serious things

that they had been battling.

And I'm sitting here shocked because I'm like, you know, This person is pretty well

known in our church, you know, they hadn't really to my knowledge ever voiced that.

And so I started to say, hey, you know, why, why me?

Why are you sharing this with me?

And what what's made you comfortable enough to share?

And they went, because when you share your struggle, Matt, and I see you

keep showing up to things like this coffee, and I still see you, you know,

playing keys at church or talking.

It, it pushes me that there's hope for me, and I remember going home and

crying my eyes out because I thought to myself, I'm like, if this person, I'm

like, first off, I don't have half the hope this person does, but if they can

pull from the mess that I am right now.

And they can choose in the midst of what I thought was an awful situation

that they were disclosing to me.

Like, I wonder if there's some, there's some perspective to be had here.

I wonder how much of this is like me in my head.

And obviously things didn't switch overnight, but that

was such a catalyst for me.

Seeing someone be able to draw these These beautiful conclusions

from what I felt was like this absolute mess of a life at the time.

Yeah, that's good.

And I i'm i'm sure not only there was physical stuff i'm guessing things

like that Wreck our finances and those things are challenged but 2016

there's Things started to Obviously, you started getting more business.

You had your company and then you have now moved into coaching.

I think you exited your company.

Let's start now talking about what all that was like.

What what are some of the success keys that you learned along the way there?

That we could learn from.

So let's go to 2016 on, tell me what we need to know about that.

Yeah.

So you know what, let me, if it's okay with you, I'm going to paint

the dichotomy, you know, you asked me to be getting two questions

and I answered the second one.

Let's, let's answer the first one quickly.

So, So I'm a both a business coach and a business consultant.

And so to me, the dichotomy of the two is really important.

Cause I function as a hybrid and that's important because as a coach, I feel

like I'm there with the entrepreneur.

We're talking high level problem solving.

What are the things that are ailing you?

Can I help you zoom out?

And as I started to do that, I started to realize there was a real disconnect.

Full disclosure.

I'm sure you can appreciate this.

I never wanted to use the title coach because in my mind, I had this judgment

that I was like, there's a million coaches on social media, Lord knows if.

99 percent of them or even I'm qualified.

but it fits, right?

You're coaching people.

So I'm like, what else is there?

But I started to realize as I worked with people, there was a

disconnect on the implementation.

Didn't matter how good our strategy was, how good our sessions were.

If you weren't taking this back to your team or your business.

And so the consultant side of me said, well, we need this.

And rather than this just be a good idea, that was the key to me

unlocking the success in my own business, in my own life, realizing,

look, I've been an A type problem solving strategic guy my whole life.

That's wonderful, but I'm a one man shop right now.

So I've got to do the work and I've actually got to put the effort in.

And so I learned what it meant to build systems and structures and things

that I previously didn't care about.

And so.

Going on that journey for me led me to this from a leadership perspective.

I said, look, I've read all these books, you know, 80, 20 rule, all this stuff,

Pareto principle, what can I apply to me?

So I started to go with the mindset that I said, look, I'm, I'm, I'm an eight type.

I'm a visionary.

I'm a sales guy.

So I'm going to fill my capacity to a hundred percent.

I'm going to go until I feel like the absolute stress.

And then when I get there and I can feel the tension.

I'm going to start to delegate.

I'm going to start to offload.

And, you know, now I know that as my framework, the automate delegate

eliminate that I use with my clients.

But my goal in the beginning was the realization is if I took myself

from a hundred to 70%, well, I just bought back 30 percent of my time.

And so once I brought somebody else on that was doing that, I

was like, Oh, I just freed up 30%.

What am I going to do?

I'm going to focus on the things that I know how to do.

I know how to sell.

I know how to talk to people.

I know how to create a good culture and treat my employees.

Well, fill myself up to a hundred.

Oh, we reached the capacity start.

And whether it was automation and figuring out technology stacks and some of the

cool things, AI, uh, or delegation.

You know, actually figuring out, okay, you know, what are the

things not just delegating tasks, responsibilities, uh, elimination?

Am I doing redundant things?

All of these things started to put me down this path, Tim, of over and over again,

I started to build something that was scalable, that was, you know, Not just

relying on me anymore, and that's kind of what I've carried into what I'm doing now.

I guess one of the things I'd love to know, we don't shy away

from, you know, uh, the, like we talk about the mature topics here.

Where did you personally start seeing, I guess, let's, let's say financial reward.

That's not a, our, our ultimate measure of success, but it's, it's like where

you looked around and said, okay.

This is working.

Where, where was that timeframe?

16, 17, 18 yesterday.

I don't know whenever, you know, when, when would you say, man, okay, is

working, the systems are working and I'm gaining financial reward for it.

Yeah, 2017.

2017 was the moment where I felt the shift, and it was that exact thing,

or the first time I went, Look, if I, if I measure my capacity from

0 to 100, and I'm at 100, this is great, but now I'm capped, because

everything's reliant on me, on my labor.

So when I did that, that first offloading, without even realizing it, it, it,

again, it sounds so good on paper, but it hadn't hit my head yet when I realized.

Wait, I've now brought somebody on.

I can go generate more revenue.

Wait.

This is amazing.

And it actually became addictive to me.

And it's something that for me unlocked in business, but also unlocked in

leadership because now from a church perspective, I was like, wait, you know,

I had routinely just, I'm like, okay, we've got four leaders, you get this,

you get this, you get this, you get this.

And you know, we had survived, but it never felt like we

were harnessing momentum.

Now, when I applied that same logic, I was like, wait, what would

it look like to now help people build a third level of leadership?

Whereas they get filled up.

They start to bring somebody on.

And so to me, that was the real shift in my leadership and in my financial, when

I realized that I'm capped, I have a capacity, I have an emotional capacity,

physical capacity, all the capacities.

And the key is how well I'm able to leverage the things in my life so that

I can keep focusing on the things that I feel like God has equipped me to do.

Sure.

Are you working prime?

Are you working primarily with, we'll call them for profit companies.

You mentioned church just then.

because one thing that is.

Somewhat aggravating to me at times is how structures don't use some of the

things like automate, delegate, eliminate.

They, they, they think in different terms.

And listen, there is a spiritual component I know, and you know,

there's some differences there, but do you work all four?

for profit or do you do anything in the non profit arena also or the church world?

Yeah, not in the church world right now per se, but I do have some non

profit clients because again, and I'm sure you can appreciate this to me, and

this is just my opinion, so hopefully nobody sends you any nasty emails, but,

I'm just of the opinion that I think sometimes we over spiritualize things.

I think that this is a God given principle.

Again, the message can remain the same.

The skin can change, but the message at the end of the day is like, Hey, is this

going to help us pastor people better?

Is this going to help us lead people into a deeper relationship with Jesus?

Is this going to give people the skills and talents and unlock the things in

their life to live healthier marriages, better lives, more God given and God

purposed lives, then yeah, let's do it.

Even if that's as simple as sending out a scheduling request and, you know,

starting to automate some of these, introducing some software, you know,

in our lives, it would be inexcusable.

I think for many of us that are listening to ever say, well,

we've always done it this way.

And yet that's the exact same thing I hear time and time again.

I'm sure you have.

Uh, in churches and in ministry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've always done it this way.

I'm a, I am so non traditional.

It truly annoys quite a bit of people around me so much so that even,

you know, we're recording this, we're about to be in the holiday

season of Thanksgiving, Christmas.

I am like, so non traditional when it comes to that stuff.

family does kind of get a little bit annoyed it truthfully, but know, it's

just the way I push the envelope and all that so tell me give me give me some

profiles of the type people that you work with that you feel like you're You

are jamming you're rocking with them and it is really working to either size

company size organizations uh Things that are going on, things like that.

Just tell me more about the type people you work with.

Okay, so I asked two questions that I think really delve into

who my ideal client is, who the people I love working with is.

So the first question, uh, is a bit jarring for a lot of people.

But the first question is, Hey, heaven forbid, if you got knocked out of your

business or your church or your leadership for 30 days and you had no contact, right,

no plan, no contact, heaven forbid it happened, what would you come back to?

What kind of finances would you come back to?

What, what kind of team would you come back to?

What, what, what kind of clients would you come back to?

And everybody always has this like I see this like awkward

laugh and they just go pale.

And for me, I go, Hey, I know that's, that's uncomfortable, but this is

a really good revealing question.

It may, it may hurt a little bit because you go, Oh, maybe I don't have a business.

Maybe I have a job because if I don't show up to my job, I don't get paid.

Right.

Or maybe my leadership team.

is really not that much of leadership and more management, right?

It's revealing, but it helps me unveil.

Hey, well, now we know the areas to work on.

How do we build something where you get to actually function?

As an executive function as a, as a pastor function as a leader.

So that's that first question.

And I think the second question you actually touched on this earlier and

I was like, again, disclaimer, we did not plan this, but, um, I asked

the question, you know, if money, you're not allowed to use a number.

What does success look like for you?

And a limit, taking the number off the table, paralyzes people.

They sit there and they're like, Oh, well, I was going to say a million dollars.

I was going to say 500 people in a room.

And I say, no, you can't numbers off the table.

And so then, you know, with some probing, they start to get into the why.

And the why oftentimes is I want to have financial freedom.

I want to have time freedom.

I want to see healthy marriages happen.

Um, you know, I want to see the next generation raised up in

our church or in our business.

And I go, there we go.

That's the thing.

And now that you know that thing, why are you building the way that you're building?

You tell me that you want to spend time with your family, but

you're answering emails at 9 p.

m.

And so those two questions, Tim, they helped me unlock so much of

that client profile because at the end of the day, it is fairly.

Generic, right?

As long as you've got three people and you do half a million in revenue,

we're technically a good fit on paper.

But how you respond to those two questions really gives me perspective into the kind

of person that I'm talking to, the kind of outlook that they have, and really

some perspective into where they're at on their journey, and truthfully,

if I can be helpful to them or not.

Yeah.

Has it taken a while for you to evolve to those two questions that narrow it down?

My guess is you probably worked with some people that wouldn't have

answered those questions well early on.

I, I have, I mean, we made it, I made it work.

It was enjoyable, all that kind of stuff.

And, but, uh, how have you evolved into those questions?

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

I absolutely started working with people in the beginning that I, that

looking back, I'm like, they did not fit this ideal client profile.

And I think that that's come out of this place where, again, it's the struggle.

I said, if I didn't, I didn't want to be a coach or a consultant, I definitely didn't

choose to go down this road originally.

but how I found myself here was realizing, oh, wait, I have

done this over and over again.

I've done this in ministry.

I've done it starting the marketing company.

I've done it with a real estate company.

And so now I find myself not having to spout theory to people, but getting to

tell people, Hey, this is what I've done.

That's worked.

Are you willing to consider it when it comes to systems, when it comes to

strategy, when it comes to structure?

And so again, to loop that back, it's allowed me.

to now evolve into those questions because I look back and go, Oh man, I was solving

the answer to these two my entire life.

I still am.

I'm still evolving.

So

Yeah.

And Matthew, this is, people ask me this a lot.

So I'm going to ask you this.

People feel as if their situation is always unique.

It's like, you know, I, I know you've never, this is, I'm going

to be a little bit snarky here.

I know you've never seen this before, but we've got some conflict on our leadership

team and Joe is not getting along with Sally and we can't figure out what's going

on, blah, blah, blah, things like that.

But.

So, and, but yet, I have.

Found that most things are fairly common, uh, or, and not everything fits, but,

uh, what are some two, three, four, I don't know, you know, whatever it is,

what are some things that you see when you are invited in after you ask those

questions and you raise that hood up and you look down in that engine or the

organization, whatever metaphor you want to use, what are some things you see?

In almost every organization.

yeah.

So just to shoot that snark back.

There is nothing new under the sun.

Okay.

There is nothing new.

You're not a surprise to the Lord.

It may be new information to me, but it's not a surprise to him.

Um, but, but I think to answer that some of the biggest things that I've

seen and come across that I'm, I'm constantly addressing both in my life

and in for my clients and the people that I try and help, um, is again,

asking, I love to ask the question, Hey, Are you focused on growth?

Are you focused on health?

Because healthy things grow.

And oftentimes when we focus on growth, it's at the expense of health, right?

Nobody looks at a plant and yells at the plant and says, Why aren't you growing?

No, we water it.

We make sure it has great soil.

We adjust it, put it in the right sunlight.

And, uh, and if we put it in the right conditions, then it will grow right.

And so I think that that's always a big one.

Um, I like to use it in my file.

Often I tell people you can build business.

And then build people.

But I promise you, even with the advent of AI and all the

technological advances, if you build people, they will build business.

And again, can't just be a great model can't be a great slogan, because

if you want to build something that holds up to my first question, you

probably want to invest in people.

And I'm so fortunate that I have a bunch of clients that are investing in people.

Leadership pipelines and developing people.

Um, and I, I think if I could rapid fire another one at you, I think the

two is one and one is none is gold.

Um, you know, you, you may have been the entrepreneur.

You may be the chief decision maker.

You may think you're the smartest guy in the room.

You don't want to be.

And the sooner that you can bring someone else on that journey, um,

and you can start to transfer, not just the tasks, but some of the

responsibility and the authority.

Because if you just hand off tasks again, you know, if something were to

happen, then that person isn't equipped or empowered to actually make decisions.

They're just equipped to check boxes on a to do list.

And so two is one and one is done.

Simply meaning, hey, if you have somebody that you're constantly

mentoring and raising up and pouring into and showing, then that's great.

You always have one person, but if just you, there's actually nobody

there in case anything happens.

Yeah.

The way I word that is that we're trying to purge that if it is to be, it's up to

me mindset that probably got them to the success point that they're at, now it's

hindering them to get to the next step.

And, uh, and I've had it, you've probably had it.

We, we all, you know, achievers a heavy dose of if it is to be, it's up to me.

And, uh, and, and, but, you know, I love the automate delegate and

eliminate system that you talk about because it, I think it's a way

that people can check themselves.

when you step into an organization, what is some of the first things you look for?

To do, or to identify, or to find, or to snoop around, or whatever words

you want to use, give somebody a like.

If they're working with you, and Matthew shows up virtually or in person, what's

one of the first things that you like to do when you step into an organization?

Yeah.

So, you know, assuming that we've, we've gone through the two

questions, cause I always do that.

You know, I walk people through my four Ps.

And those are purpose, predictability, profitability and productivity.

And the reason why I do that is I ask people, Hey, like what's important to you?

And I mean, listen, Tim, you know, the answer to this, everybody

always has profitability, right?

Like we're in business, right?

Even if it's a nonprofit or a church, like, Hey, we have to get the lights on.

And I go, that's the least important of the four piece.

So that's actually the last thing we're going to work on.

Because if you find your purpose.

And I'm not talking about use the owner.

I'm talking about if I go ask all the team members, Hey guys, what's the

reason we exist, and if they're not all aligned, which Spoiler, they never are.

Um, if they're not all aligned and we're actually not operating from

the same framework and finding that purpose that allows us, takes me

to the next step where I go, Hey, how are we doing with productivity?

Right.

Are we actually operating at the levels that we want to be wasting

time, wasting energy or people happy.

That's again, the automate eliminate delegate.

That's such a great framework to assess our productivity.

Then that gets us into our predictability, right?

And predictability.

Is our ability to actually measure how well our systems are responding?

Can we turn this on and off?

Can someone take a vacation?

Um, you know, predictability isn't just I run a marketing campaign and I get leads.

And if we've built a business that is built on purpose, That

is productive and predictable.

It's only a matter of time before our profitability increases.

And I like to explain profitability and I really challenge

people on this as a product.

Profitability is not my income minus my expenses equals my profitability.

I just had a conversation with a newer client.

She's profitable.

Until I peeked under the hood and found that 60 percent of

her clients lose her money.

And I was like, it's a miracle you're profitable.

But imagine the 15, 000 a month you're leaving on the table with those 60%.

She had no idea.

Right.

And so profitability is far greater than what's left over.

What's working for us?

80 20 rule.

How are we making our money?

Right?

What are the most leveraging tax for us for the nonprofit?

They're putting all this effort into this donation that donated donation.

Turns out they have a corporate match program where people can give 1000

and their company will donate 1000.

guys, we could just double all of our revenue in one shot.

And they sat there and they were like, why aren't we putting

all of our time into this?

And I was like, Exactly.

You, you just answered your own question.

And so, yeah, those four P's, I find it helpful to lay it out.

And again, just to gauge where people are at, because almost

always people go profitability.

Let's talk about that one.

And I go, yeah, that's the one we're going to hit to last.

And, uh, it's, it's only a matter of time before we get there.

So when are you going to write a book on Matthew's four Ps?

When's the book coming?

I, I, I don't know, honestly, I've got a bit of imposter syndrome full

of disclosure where some, some days I'm like, yeah, let's write it.

And some days I'm like, I still don't know if I'm qualified to do this.

So.

Uh, I'm sure it's, I'm sure at some point I'll get on the horse because, uh,

you know, if I can help people through that writing medium, I'm, I'm down.

But yeah, it's a journey.

Sure.

Hey Matthew, give me, um, that was sort of a success story you just gave, but

just something off the top of your head, a success story with the client that is

just going to be helpful to the listener that goes, Ooh, I like the sound of that.

What's, what's something that jumps to your head when I ask for a success story?

Silence.

coaching side when I went down this road a few years ago, um, in the health and

fitness space, she's incredible, had been an entrepreneur for a decade plus,

and it achieved some measure of success.

The hard part is that the entire thing was built on her.

And she had never taken a vacation.

I'm talking, she had not gone a full week away from the business.

And this business was run 360 out of 365 every year.

And so I asked her, I said, well, why haven't you taken one?

It's, it's really important that you get out.

You say that time is so important to you and your family and your friendships.

And she goes, well, I'm scared.

I'm scared of what will happen if I leave.

And so, you know, obviously we talked through her fears and, you

know, we really boiled it down to.

She was afraid because she hadn't transferred enough responsibility

over to her team, just tasks.

So she was afraid that when she left, if the place burned down, They were done.

And, uh, the beautiful thing about going on the journey, both with both

her and her operations manager again, that coaching and the consulting is that

she literally within a few months was able to take her first first vacation.

We had multiple check ins during her vacation, where I was like, hey, just

so you know, places and burned out.

You're still fine.

And she came back and it was so cool because her team not only stepped

up, they, for the first time, got to realize what they were capable of.

Right?

Because.

Even though she's an incredible owner, she didn't realize that

she was capping their leadership.

She was always there to save them, always there to rescue them.

And now we had this beautiful thing where everybody's sitting

here realizing the possibilities.

And that's when we really got to go to work.

And here we are, uh, you know, almost two years into that journey.

And I have to tell her to stop taking vacations.

It's, it's gone a little too far now.

I need to be like, hey, dial it back.

But it's beautiful.

And, you know, she's the one I alluded to earlier.

She's building a leadership pipeline.

You know, they used to hire.

External managers, and it was creating this chasm with the employees

that she wasn't even aware of.

Now their last three management promotions have all been internal

and people are excited that they're showing ownership because they're

seeing that they can potentially live out their dreams within her company.

And she's operating at a level that she always wanted was

That's a high level leader.

I love it.

I love it when someone moves from that task person to I

believe a leader really is.

And, uh, man, that's awesome that you're leading and guiding people.

Into that, uh, that area.

Hey, Matthew, if someone wants to connect with you, get more information, maybe have

you ask them those questions you mentioned earlier, where can people find you?

Yeah.

I love connecting with people.

You can look me up on LinkedIn, Matthew Sanjari, S A N J A R I, or you can

go to my website, consultingbyprime.

com.

That's consultingbyprime.

com.

I'd love to connect with you.

Awesome.

We are seek, go create Matthew.

Those three words to allow you to choose one of those as my final question.

Seek, go or create and why?

Yeah.

Uh, I'm going to say, uh, and both selfishly and unselfishly,

I'm going to say seek.

Um, and when I think of seek, I think, man, go seek out someone

who knows what you don't know.

Right?

The old adage is you don't know what you don't know.

And I think that that's so true.

Um, I think surrounding myself personally with people who are so

much better than me, smarter than me, wiser than me in so many different

areas, we all get to play a part.

but has been so good for me because it doesn't matter how smart I think

I am or how much success I get.

There's just someone out there who's going to challenge my perspective and allow

me to view things in a different way.

And so, you know, whether that's a coach, whether that's a consultant,

whether that's a pastor, you know, surround yourself with people, seek

that out and try and get people that will challenge your perspective

and help cover your blind spots.

Excellent.

Love it.

Matthew, thanks for joining us here.

This has been great conversation.

You know, you, like you said, it may look as if we were scripted,

but we were just sinking, man.

It was just like we were, we were on the same page sending out the vibes

here over the, uh, over the waves, man.

I appreciate you being here.

If you feel that Matthew said something that resonated with you, or you want to

connect, I encourage you to reach out.

I mean, both of us are coaches, but listen, you need to find

someone that you connect with.

And it may not be me.

It might be Matthew.

And I think he would probably say the same thing.

It's like, find someone seek as though, as he used that word, seek someone

that can help lead and guide you.

And I'm convinced that Matthew's a guy that can lead a bunch

of you that are listening in.

So reach out to him.

We have new episodes here at Seek Go Create.

Every Monday, we're on YouTube.

We're on all the platforms and I want to make a quick shout out.

Thank you so much to the people that have been supporting us financially.

We put this link up seek, go create.

com forward slash support.

I get tips that keep showing up 50, 75.

Just people saying, we support you.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

I appreciate it.

Keep doing it.

I'll accept it and receive it So, I appreciate you listening

in until next time continue being all that you were created to be