Cam Hall [00:02:29]:

This is your place. Thank you for spending time with me today. Now let's dive in. Matt, welcome to the Dads Making a Difference podcast. Brother. Great to see you today, man.

Matt Morizio [00:02:42]:

So good to see you. It's an honor to be on it. Really. I love what you're doing. I'M thrilled to be part of it.

Cam Hall [00:02:48]:

Well, I'm glad you're here because the conversation that we're going to have today I think is a timely one for a lot of guys. And I say timely because in our community this is a topic that often is coming up. It's this idea of money mindset, my relationship with money, the stress that dads feel and the stress that a dad feels being put into this position where he has this label of provider on him and what that means to him. And this comes up in our conversations and guys are struggling with it. It's a weight they feel sometimes. I would hate to say it's a burden that they feel, but I love your take on this. We had a pre call before this and I just love what you had to say about guys in their relationship with money and then how that then impacts their ability to show up as dads. So I'm excited for this conversation.

Cam Hall [00:03:33]:

But why don't we start, Matt, just with that, Just diving in just to the importance of developing a really healthy money mindset and where your passion for this came from.

Matt Morizio [00:03:46]:

The passion came from me. Case study number one. I mean, I, from the transition that I personally experienced and, and realizing that like going from this fear based, worried, anxious disposition toward money to one of freedom and clarity and feeling like money's tied to calling, money's tied to purpose. And I understand now how the game works and having that in experience myself, that's where the passion came from. Because I'm like, if I can, if I've experienced this myself and I, I see the changes in my life, like the spillover effect, like you said, with my wife, with my children, all of the things then I want to do that for other people and I happen to just be in a role as the founder of a wealth management firm that I get that front row seat and I get the, the opportunity and the honor to have that role in people's lives. So I, I don't say it lightly. I quite literally feel like I can be that person to help generational chains get broken in some family's life so that future generations of that family, mine too, I mean I'm, like I said, I'm number case study number one. Future generations of Maurizios aren't going to get upset about money, aren't going to worry about money, not worry in the sense, like I don't care about it.

Matt Morizio [00:05:09]:

I know I have, I'm apathetic toward money, but instead not fear it. Like it's an unknown monster. You know that they're going to understand how the game of money works. They're going to understand the value exchange that happens and how they get paid and they're not going to worry and be fearful of it. That's my point. So that's where it came from. I don't know if that answers your question, but man, it comes from, it.

Cam Hall [00:05:36]:

Comes from your space, which I love and I love that it comes from your experience. But you use an expression, the game of money or money as a game. And I think it's important for people to understand. And when you said that just triggered me to your background because you grew up playing a game that you loved and then transitioned into this area of wealth management. But I think for context, people need to understand like where you came from and yeah, that game that you loved so much.

Matt Morizio [00:06:08]:

Yeah, that's, that is my language. So, so when I say the game of money, you're right. It's because that's, that's my own language. That's my mindset. I played minor league baseball with the Royals for five years, so I did that many moons ago at this point. But that was goal number one as a five or six year old boy. And I really chased that goal quite literally for 20 years. I was released.

Matt Morizio [00:06:32]:

Released is the baseball term of being fired. So I was fired, but I was released in at 26. So 20 years later and I actually never made it to the big leagues. So that that goal of 20 plus years or chasing only to not actually see it through was like an incredible learning experience. You know, like you can run hard in the run, you can run hard for a very long time and still not necessarily achieve the ultimate goal. But I look back in the rear view of life there and say, man, I am a completely different person because of that journey. And you hear people say it, it's the journey, not the destination. But, but I'm living proof that had I made the big leagues, I don't know how much more my life would have transformed.

Matt Morizio [00:07:19]:

You know, obviously financially you can make a bunch more money. But, but otherwise, emotionally, my wiring, my mindset, I don't think the big leagues would have been the thing that actually like tipped the scales for me. I think I learned all that I needed to learn in that journey. So now when I speak of the game of money, it's just because that's. That I'm an athlete at heart and that's my wiring and that's my mindset. I've always been somebody who, who zigs when People zag and recognize that, like, to live an extraordinary life, by definition I have to do extra or beyond ordinary. Like I have to do things that people aren't doing, aren't willing to, doing, won't do, aren't willing to do or won't do. Because that, that has always been just my, I don't know, my mindset from, from a six year old boy trying to chase this, like, you know, this goal of, of making it to the big leagues, which is a, I don't know, point, whatever percent chance of actually making it.

Cam Hall [00:08:17]:

I, I want to touch on something that you just brought up. You just said doing the things that people aren't willing to do. You know, it's the hard things. And somebody might be listening to this right now in the first couple minutes and be like, oh, another guest Cam's got on. Minor league baseball player, chased this dream, now he's in wealth management. But what they also don't see are the layers to this. Because if you're listening to this right now, it's not like Matt just stopped playing baseball and then started a wealth management firm. You are a father of seven kids and you've been married for 14 years.

Cam Hall [00:08:49]:

You have seven children. So starting your own thing, you're taking that entrepreneurship journey. I have two kids and I know how hard it was. Let's talk about that for a moment. Because that also offers context to your understanding and knowledge of what it takes to pull this off.

Matt Morizio [00:09:08]:

Yeah, I think that, like, I need to live and model my life in such a way that challenges. I've always done it, I've always challenged conventional wisdom, but I think I, I want to be that model for people to say that it is possible. I mean, I started a business at 40 with seven children, so that's not what people say by definition is the right time to become an entrepreneur formally, you know, but it doesn't come without cost, for sure. But I do believe it's worth it. I don't think that the easy path is ever in the long run, the right path to take. And I felt this real calling on my heart, this tug on my heart to launch this firm, to serve people in a way that I felt I was uniquely qualified to serve and that they deserve to be served. So, yeah, I realized I need to go and do this and I kind of burned the boats. This has always been my mentality.

Matt Morizio [00:10:06]:

I did it for baseball, I do it for this. And when you have stakes that are as high as mine are, and I encourage people to set stakes really High, like, you can't fail. I always live by that Babe Ruth quote that says, it's hard to beat a man that refuses to quit. And. And that's kind of me, like, I won't. I won't lose. It might take me a while to win, but I'll figure it out eventually. Yeah.

Matt Morizio [00:10:32]:

So, launched a business. 40 years old, seven children, sole provider. Always have been. And we've figured it out so far.

Cam Hall [00:10:42]:

Yeah. And so, again, what a risk to take doing that. But I would say it's a calculated risk. You knew what you're passionate about. You knew who you were. You said to me, yeah, I'm not really one for following the mold. I don't really follow the path that everybody has set out for me. And there's a lot of guys, and I'm going to be vulnerable here, too, because after our first call, I'm like, I got to ask this.

Cam Hall [00:11:09]:

I got to ask Matt some questions. You know, you mentioned something about the easiest path to take is not always the best path. And I think right now, for many of us, myself included, who work full time, are in a profession, are in a role and feel that responsibility of providing for my family and say, I can't take the risk because I have this responsibility. I can't take the risk because I'm the provider. I can't leave this thing and burn the boats or burn the ships and. And just go all in on my thing. But you. You say do it because your family's not getting the best version of you if you're miserable.

Matt Morizio [00:11:52]:

Right? You got it. You got it. And it does come with a layer of calculation, for sure. Like, I could eat ramen noodles and sleep on the floor of anything if it's just me, because that's just me. When it's other lives at stake that need to be fed and live, yes, obviously the stakes are higher and the risk I take is less. But I think people's threshold for what they would classify as risk, I think they need to elevate that threshold, to be quite honest with you. Where, like, I've seen it too much. Where my previous career, I was in staffing finance, staffing for a firm called Kforce.

Matt Morizio [00:12:35]:

And I saw very often people would come to us, really well qualified, exceptional workers, finance professionals. They'd come to us and say, hey, look, my company was just bought, or we're going through a downsizing, or there's a merger happening, and at the end of the day, whatever their situation was, they got squeezed out, no fault of their own. They were. They were doing what they were supposed to do. They just happen to get squeezed out of a job. And I saw that over and over and over. And I. I believe, like, when I look at that and I know my wiring and I know where I want to go, I believe that the risk actually came from depending on somebody else to employ me to say like, my future is in your hands, and it may or may not be up to me whether or not I can continue working here, but I'm just going to do my best and hope that I continue to work here or get a new job somewhere.

Matt Morizio [00:13:39]:

And hope is a terrible strategy, if you ask me. And, yeah, I knew it. I knew that, like, I was not cut out, was not made for corporate America to be there behind it, wasn't even behind a desk. I was out on the road meeting people. I just knew that I had this calling on my heart to go do something else. And you said it. If I didn't go and eventually pursue that dream, my kids weren't going to get the best version of me. My wife wasn't going to get the best version of me.

Matt Morizio [00:14:08]:

And I think, most importantly, I've got this idea. My faith's pretty important to me. I mean, I'm not out here, like, preaching my faith, but I have this idea of, like, when I die and I go and meet God, this is not biblical. I just have this image. It's like, imagine he holds up a mirror to me, and the reflection is somebody, or the reflection is the person he created. And if I don't recognize that person, that's like, the biggest, I think, tragedy of life, you know, if I don't see that person in the mirror. So my goal is to look in that mirror figuratively and see myself, you know, like, I want to have fulfilled everything I was put on this earth to do. So that's the ultimate goal.

Matt Morizio [00:14:51]:

And I think part of it for me was like, if I didn't jump into this entrepreneurial journey, my kids would have gotten, like, a 60% version of me.

Cam Hall [00:14:59]:

Yeah, you mentioned a tolerable risk, you know, being calculated and understanding that. And so I want to take that and circle back to the idea of money mindset and how much of. When you come back to identifying what that risk is and you're making that decision of, do I step out? Do I do this new thing? How much of that hesitation comes back to the existing relationship with money that we have and our reliance, like you said, on someone else to provide for us.

Matt Morizio [00:15:35]:

Sh. I think that's A really good question. I think a lot of it does stem from our fear around finances. This, this is, this is not the same, but I think it's in the same vein. One of the most tragic things to me that I hear people say often and it's because I have seven children, I think they bring it up with me is they'll say to me, man, I don't know, I don't know if I can even have another kid. Like I don't think I can afford them. And I'm like, dang, I think you're thinking about the decision making all wrong. You're thinking, let me map out the perfect financial future for caretaking and then if I can see that vision, then I'll go for it.

Matt Morizio [00:16:26]:

And guess what? Like, that's not how life works. When we don't get to know the next steps until we take that unknown step. That's just the reality of life. If you told me I should be financially set and prepared for each child, I think I'd still have zero. I mean, to be quite honest. So I think the fear it could be, I would classify it as fear, but I also would classify it, I think even more specifically as a misguided calculation toward that decision. Because I think that we worry too much around money. And don't get me wrong, like the money is essential.

Matt Morizio [00:17:10]:

You can't live without finances. A church can't function without finances. A non profit needs money. Like the most charitable beautiful organizations in the world need dollars to function. So like you need the money. I'm not poo pooing that. What I'm saying is that shouldn't be criteria number one for you to say. I think if I can see the vision and the pathway for this finances, then maybe I'll take the step like you just won't.

Matt Morizio [00:17:36]:

Even if you see it, you can take the step and it'll go sideways. I believe that if you feel this calling on your heart to go and serve a certain person, lead with from the entrepreneurial side, lead with who you're called to serve. How you're uniquely created to serve. What experiences have you overcome that you can go and bring towards somebody else to hopefully help them along their journey, then take that with you and say, I think I need to go do this. For people going to the money will, I'll figure the money part out. Just like kids. If you feel like you're supposed to have more children, but you're the finances of raising them is the thing holding you back. Like, don't worry, I mean, that will happen.

Matt Morizio [00:18:16]:

You'll figure it out. I promise it's going to happen. So I think it's fear, but it's also a misguided decision making matrix that people use.

Cam Hall [00:18:26]:

Yeah. And there's an emotional attachment to it. We have this really deep emotional attachment to money. Whether we make a lot or we make a little, whether we have a lot or we have a little, both ways people get emotionally attached to that. And unfortunately a lot of us have our own personal value connected to that. So how, how in your journey and in what ways can guys who are listening to this detach themselves emotionally from money?

Matt Morizio [00:18:59]:

Man, we have, and I've had thousands of conversations with people about their money at this point. And I've learned that we have adopted, inherited. We've caught, you know, with children more caught than taught. We've caught whatever our parents feel about money. Their relationship with money becomes our relationship with money. Mostly because society doesn't allow you to talk about money. So you don't talk about it and you just sort of catch whatever is given, handed down to you. Because at some point in your adulthood you're supposed to know how taxes work and insurances work and mortgages work and all that, but you're not allowed to learn about it and talk about it along the way.

Matt Morizio [00:19:39]:

It's just supposed to happen.

Cam Hall [00:19:40]:

Yeah.

Matt Morizio [00:19:41]:

And that's our parents inherited whatever relationships, good or bad, mostly bad from their parents. And like if we keep going, there's great depression, error, parents mindsets toward money that get passed down and that like I said earlier, that generational chain, those chains don't get broken. Those just continue to pass on. So I think step one for me in my own experience is identifying that and say like I am going to be the one in my family tree that starts to learn about money and take the reins on that. Don't bury your head in the sand anymore. Like generations before have take the reins and start to learn how the game of money works. We are in this information age. There is no shortage of understanding how it works.

Matt Morizio [00:20:26]:

And if you don't know where to start, we, I think the next frontier is artificial intelligence. We can today go to ChatGPT, which will scan the world of data, you know, like way more than we could fathom. And you can ask it. I'm a newbie when it comes to finances. I don't know a single thing. And you can say those stuff because you can be as vulnerable as you want because it's just a robot or whatever. I didn't even know what it is, it's AI so it's not a human. You don't have to feel uncomfortable in front of it.

Matt Morizio [00:20:55]:

You can say, I don't know anything about personal finances, but I'm committed to learning what five things should I study? Or what five questions should I ask? Or what two topics should I approach. You know, ask it where to begin, then it will tell you, and then you can ask it to answer the questions that it just told you to ask and start your kickstart your journey there. So for me, in my own personal life, I learned the game of money. I learned the rules of finances by immersion, the same way you might learn Spanish, by moving to Spain and forcing yourself to learn it. I jumped into the wealth management space without a prior knowledge set on it. I had no clients, no experience. I worked in finance, but it wasn't personal finance as much as it was corporate. So when it came to investment finance, personal finance, that I was still afraid of money and how it worked.

Matt Morizio [00:21:49]:

So I learned it. But I noticed that as I was learning how it works, the monkey kind of came off my back. I was less worried about that monster because I started to see it. I'll compare it like this. You know how going into your freshman year of high school, a lot of us when we were there were nervous about getting to the getting to high school. What's my class going to be like? Am I going to get lost? Are my teachers going to be good teachers? All the things. And then you go to your first week of high school and 80% of your fear, where are my classes? Where who's in my class? You know, all that stuff dissipates because you start to learn it. You just understood everything you didn't know, which was the fear of the unknown now becomes known.

Matt Morizio [00:22:38]:

Well, financially speaking, most people walk around their entire adult life as that incoming freshman where they just don't ever take the time to learn finances. So they stay end of summer, eighth grade, going into ninth, and never choose to learn about it. So it always remains this big, fearful worry. People will spend more time reviewing, and I've seen it, spend more time reviewing a $50 purchase on Amazon than they will handing over their entire life savings to somebody. They'll read reviews, make sure they're not getting screwed, but when it comes to their entire life's work, they say, I don't know, somebody introduced me. They seem like a nice guy. They knew what he was doing. Like, that's it.

Matt Morizio [00:23:22]:

That's the, that's the sole criteria. So that for Me learning how it works was is number one and one A and one B. They're both kind of number one. But this is the shortcut I learned through firsthand experience that as I committed to a giving strategy, I call it a strategy which is a discipline, a giving discipline. As I gave money away, it lost its hold on me. I was fearful and worried about money. I really was, I'm not going to lie. And was only it wasn't until I said to my, I said I'm going to start to give this away because I can't stand the anxiety I feel around money.

Matt Morizio [00:24:04]:

I'm in a constant state of fear and worry. And in order to break that, I guess I said I'm going to commit to this discipline giving strategy where every time I get paid I put 10%, it doesn't matter, you can put $1 put money into a separate bank account. So money hits my regular account, I wire it to that separate account. And that account in our home we call it a blessing account because some people call it generosity account, giving account, you call whatever you want. It's just a separate account designated for use of other people's whenever you feel called to do whatever you want to do. And I learned that as I committed to giving it away, it lost its hold on me because psychologically now I ran this through a lot of, well, not a lot, a couple different PhDs in psychology that I know. I said, hey, let me share my experience. Can you tell me if this is rooted in any science or anything? And they said, yeah, what you're saying makes sense because in psychology you have these two root emotions, love and fear.

Matt Morizio [00:25:09]:

And kind of the rest of the emotional tree stems off of those. And they will say that love and fear can't simultaneously coexist at the same time. You can have fear and have love separately, but not at the same time. So when I was hoarding my money worrying like gripping it tight, I was fearful of it. You know, I was living in this scarcity, this worry, this fear based emotion. Well, when I flipped that script and chose to then freely give, that's a love based emotion, I couldn't also still fear it. And subconsciously our brains sort of rewire. You know, mine did, it said basically my subconscious said, hey guys, like we don't have to worry about this anymore.

Matt Morizio [00:25:53]:

Apparently we're giving it away. So let's not, let's not stress about it. That's quite literally how it happened. And so I've learned that in order to receive more, give more like that Peace, that, giving, that, receiving, that comes to open hands. You can't, you can't give, you can't receive with closed fists. I mean if you want to use that image literally, you can't, you know, like you have to open your hands at some point, take something or to give something. So I'm living, living in the posture of more open, open hands than closed fists.

Cam Hall [00:26:28]:

So understanding money, learning about it. Oh man, a lot of guys are just, people are just so nervous to ask, hey, I'm glad that you brought up AI because we, there's no excuse right now in the age like you said that we live in, not to have the information. But like you said also there's a, a human piece to this where you need, if you're going to hand your finances over to somebody to manage, you need to be able to trust them, you need to know them, you need to have a conversation with them. And I'm glad that you encourage that. And then the, this idea of breaking that attachment by giving it away, I can only speak to my context. I'm glad you shared that. For our family, that was a turning point in our family. It was a turning point for us to give and educate our kids.

Cam Hall [00:27:17]:

Even on this whole idea, we do like the jar system with them, right? They have, they get, they have gigs and they earn money at home and then they have their give, which they do first out of what we give them. They give, come on, they save, they invest and then they have their spend. And so the way they do it, and you might frown up, but they do their 10% for their give. I love that. The blessing jar. That's we're going to call it that instead of the give jar, we call it the blessing jar. And then they, they split what's left and then so 40% save. And they know they're not saving for a scooter, they're just, this is money they're saving.

Cam Hall [00:27:52]:

My, my 10 year old son wants to buy Apple stock. And so like that's, that's where we're at right now. And then as they can just, they can spend. So but for Kim and I, my wife's name is Kim, by the way. Cool. We struggled financially for a long time. We really did. And a lot of the things that we were doing were decisions that we had to make because of the power that finance had in our life, the power that money had in our life and was dictating.

Cam Hall [00:28:19]:

And I remember, I don't know about you, but we go to church every Sunday and so we go, and there was this, this offering at church called over the Hors Horizon. They were going to give it all away to these community organizations. And I just felt like this was. We're new in this church. And I, I just looked at her, said, I'm going to give. I'm going to give this amount.

Matt Morizio [00:28:38]:

She's like, wow. But we, oh, that's awesome.

Cam Hall [00:28:41]:

We have vacation coming up. And what about this? Because we had just been stressing for three months straight, and I said, babe, I think this is the right thing to do. And we did it and we walked out of there and there was this, like, wave of relief. And it wasn't like a pat on my back. I feel good about it. There was nerves. There was like, oh, wow, we just did that. But like this just wave of disconnection from the actual outcome of it.

Cam Hall [00:29:09]:

And just like. And, and we, we pray deeply in our home. And it was just like this idea of, like, just let this go to good use. Let this, this is going to impact somebody more than it's going to impact us right now. And so I'm so glad that you brought that up, because the guys who are listening to this, like, like, this isn't a quote unquote Christian podcast. We talk about these things a lot, and we talk a lot about our values and, and what's important. But if you are really honestly wanting to break the chains that money has on you, no matter how much or how little you have, it could be a penny, right? It could be anything. Like, what if you just need to start giving it away and you'll see what.

Cam Hall [00:29:49]:

And so, yeah, thank you for sharing that.

Matt Morizio [00:29:51]:

I've heard Dean Graziosi, who's a guy that he works with Tony Robbins, I heard him say it on a podcast once. He said, somebody said, you know, I've heard, I've heard that money can't buy happiness. And he goes to those people, I say, well, you haven't given enough away yet, because it really does bring you joy. But you said it right? Giving it away for that pat on the back or for that, wow, what a good person you are, like, for that. That's not generosity. That's just selfishness disguised as generosity. So that's not what it's about. And it's about literally letting go of that thing that had its grips on you and having your kids part of that.

Matt Morizio [00:30:34]:

I just want to say this is so powerful because you're setting them up with a foundation of money that you never had in your life. And it took You a lot of pain and struggle to find out. And I'm, I'm somebody tell, come telling the story. Not from the mountaintop in the rear view. Like a lot of what you'll see online today is influencers and everything else. That's everybody else that says the journey, the struggle, the valleys were worth it. Because now look at the private jet I own or look at the whatever, you know, like I sold my company, I'm here saying I'm still taking screenshots, keeping receipts of my financial journey because I know that it's making me a more empathetic advisor. But I have all of the maxed out credit card screenshots and the negative bank balances.

Matt Morizio [00:31:23]:

And it's years, I'm talking seven years of these back and forth. There's peaks and valleys. And I've kept those because I, I don't want to tell the story as if I'm. Or tell my story as if I'm on the other side of it and saying, hey, I finally made it through. And now let me tell you why it was worth it. I'm in the middle of it and I already know it's worth it. And I'm sharing my journey as I'm living it, you know, And I think that's a really powerful position to come from. And with the kids, one, one more point on this, I think it's such an empowerful thing.

Matt Morizio [00:31:56]:

We, because we have a separate bank account, it's like a separate color debit card and everything. So the kids know when, when that card comes out, it's like somebody's getting, somebody's getting extra. Somebody's getting blessed in some way, shape or form. Well, we went to ihop. It was a reward, which of all things, it was a reward for brushing teeth twice a day for a week straight, which is probably the worst reward for brushing your teeth. Also, not all my kids even did it. Go figure. I cannot figure out how to get them to brush their teeth twice a day regularly, but this reward sort of worked.

Matt Morizio [00:32:28]:

So anyway, we had ihop and then we were paying the bill and they said, hey, Papa. They call me papa. Hey, Papa, let's, let's bless this waitress because they had really good conversation with her. And I was like, all right, let's do it. Like it's their idea. They're feeling this calling on their heart to give. So we took out the other card, you know, the different color card, and we doubled the bill, whatever the bill was, we gave that in the tip. And the point was like, do that and leave.

Matt Morizio [00:32:55]:

You know, you're not. You don't do that and sit and wait. Even though you sort of want to see the joy, that's not the reason we're doing it. So we were leaving, but of course, with a bunch of young kids. I think there was four. We had four of them at the time. I took four. Of course, one had to go to the bathroom.

Matt Morizio [00:33:10]:

And then if one had to go to the bathroom, they all had other ones. And everybody. So I'm standing outside the bathroom for like 10 minutes waiting for everybody. And of course, in that time, the waitress came over, got the bill, and I saw her reaction and she came like she found me because I'm standing in the corner trying to leave, but I couldn't leave. Yeah, but she found me and made like a beeline to me and her. She was all teary. And my kids had basically all come out at this point because we're about to leave. And she came over and just hugged me and thanked me and told a story about how her wallet was just stolen a week prior.

Matt Morizio [00:33:50]:

It was around Christmas, and she was really losing hope and didn't know how she was going to get gifts. And just the fact that we showed up and did that today for no real reason from her perspective, she felt like there was hope still. And she. It was gonna be okay. This Christmas is gonna work out. And I was like, I'm like getting emotional right now telling that story. I was floored because I didn't intend to be there. But the most powerful part was the conversation with my kids on the way back because they learned, like, the love of money is the root of all evil.

Matt Morizio [00:34:25]:

Money is not evil. Like, they learned firsthand the power of giving and the power. You can like the beneficial power of money if you use it appropriately. So they saw that and forever they're changed as a result of that.

Cam Hall [00:34:40]:

Yeah, I love that. I love it. Because as a dad, that's the type of messaging that you want to share. And sometimes words, you know, don't do justice. But your kids need to see something in action. They need to see it in practice in order for them to really get it. Like you said, caught, not taught. Like, I could sit down with my two kids and teach them about money, or I can just show them how to responsibly have an interactions with it.

Cam Hall [00:35:08]:

No, I love that. I want to die. I know that I told you we were going to go this length of time, but do if you have a little bit more time, I want to go somewhere Else with the conversation.

Matt Morizio [00:35:18]:

Sure. Yeah, let's do it.

Cam Hall [00:35:20]:

Because on our pre call we got into a little bit of a chat of, okay, here's the. Here's the relationship we can have with money. Here's how we break the relationship with money and have a healthier relationship and model it for our kids. But for the dads right now who are feeling that way to being the provider, who are stuck in something that they're not passionate about, something that they. It's the grind, right? It's the. You said it. Living for the weekend, right? You live for Friday evening and then Sunday night. I think you call it the Sunday scaries.

Cam Hall [00:35:54]:

But what are you seeing right now with the dads that in your community that you interact with, what are you seeing from them that tells you change needs to happen?

Matt Morizio [00:36:08]:

Well, this might be a little bit of a, of a tough love approach, but what I'm seeing with dads who feel stuck, like they can't get ahead and they can't figure out what their next step is, I'm seeing that they're letting fear run their life. I see that now. I don't say that to their face, but I think anybody listening if they hear that, that probably rings true. At the end of the day, when it comes to personal cash flows in your life, you either cut spending or you earn more money. That's really the only two ways out of it. And you can blend it, but that's it if you want to over simple. It's not even overly simplified. That's literally it.

Matt Morizio [00:37:00]:

And when you look at the expenses of your life, my gut says that you probably don't have a lot of fat to trim because most of the guys in the circles I run with aren't irresponsible with their money. They're not out with gambling addictions. They don't have yachts and just throw big parties because they like to throw money off the side of the boat, you know, like they're living appropriately. Maybe their splurge is an extra YouTube package or something for their TV because they like sports or something. You know, they upgraded their YouTube TV channel per package. And sure, you can trim that down and save 30 bucks a month maybe and maybe $360 on the year. But when you do the math to really start to save a significant income income or significant money in a way that that impacts the bottom line and impacts your budget. You almost always look at lifestyle changes needing to take place.

Matt Morizio [00:38:02]:

You've got to sell a home and downsize, sell a car, move to a middle of nowhere part of the country because there is actually where it's cheaper. But then you've got to your kids and everybody has to deal with that new way of life. You know, a lot of these become non negotiables or non starters. You can't have these conversations. Yeah. So to the dads that are worried that feel like they need to provide, I tell them, you got to figure out how to earn more income. Bottom line, that's it. I mean period, full stop.

Matt Morizio [00:38:38]:

You don't have more money to trim. You've got to figure out how to earn more income and stop letting fear stop you because you're afraid that if you try something and you screw up, you wasted time or effort or you look stupid because you tried and failed. You aren't in if you are in a spot. And I'm, I'm again, most of my advice is like coming from me to me because I've experienced it. My wife stopped me. I don't know what year we're in, but we had four children at the time. It was years ago at this point and I was working a lot because I'm a worker. I love it like put in, give me a 14 hour day and I can grind it and I love it.

Matt Morizio [00:39:22]:

That's just who I've always been. Actually, it's way more difficult to cut that short and come home and be present with my children because I just want to go. But that's who I am. Well, I was doing it because I was the provider and I had to do it because we needed to pay all the bills and all the things until she stopped me after we put the kids down. It was one evening and it felt like it was out of the blue and I'm talking, I was out 5am if I wanted to go to the gym. I had a networking event that evening. I was home at 10:30. I didn't even start see my own kids, even though I went to bed and woke up in the same bed.

Matt Morizio [00:39:54]:

And that happened kind of routinely because of the job, the type of work I had to do. And she stopped me and said I didn't sign up to be a sole provider. I mean, excuse me, she's. That was me. She, she stopped me and said I didn't sign up to be a single mom. And I was like, as a sole provider, I was thinking to myself, like that's what I'm supposed to do. Until she hit me between the eyes with that truth. And I realized like, I can't trade time for Money like this is fleeting and I need to figure out something else out.

Matt Morizio [00:40:30]:

So I was in the same position that you're talking about with these dads. I needed to make a change and that was scary. What that change looked like was I jumped into wealth management eventually because I was praying hard for that opportunity. The wealth management opportunity came and I prayed hard that that was not the opportunity because I did not want to be in wealth management. But I tried to close that door. And every time I did, God blew it wide open. And I took that leap of faith only to really go in probably one of the, not one, the most difficult financial season of my life, to the point where I maxed out all my credit cards, depleted all my savings, needed to refinance my home just to pay for expenses, pay for my life. And the refinance didn't happen in time.

Matt Morizio [00:41:20]:

And I needed to borrow my mom's credit card literally just to buy groceries. That was embarrassing, humiliating, so uncomfortable. But it was the necessary change that I needed to make because the path I was on of that work all day, provide for the family because it's the right thing to do, was going to ruin my marriage and it was going to ruin my relationship with my kids. I needed to make a change. And in the career I'm in, there's an the ceiling for income is higher. So I needed to earn more income. I didn't have more hours to put in the day. Like I needed to figure something else out.

Matt Morizio [00:41:54]:

So to my message, my message to all those dads, you can tell I'm passionate about it because I've lived it, is stop letting fear run your life and figure out a change because a change needs to happen. You probably can't trim your budget, so figure out a way to make more income, understand your unique gifts, who you're uniquely qualified to serve, and go get it.

Cam Hall [00:42:16]:

Love it. Guys need to hear it. Guys here need to hear that. In our community we have those conversations. I have a one on one coaching calls with some of our guys and I would say most of the guys in our group are fairly successful or successful by, you know, societal terms, but they feel the pressure and say, well, you can either do this or that and, and when you're presented with a this or that, you get your back up because you're like, you're just telling me what to do. No, I'm telling you what you need to do. Not I'm telling you go do this, but you understand what you need to do and it's this or that. And That's a hard decision.

Cam Hall [00:42:54]:

And as a dad, I've had to make decisions like that in my life. I've had to make decisions like that financially. And, yeah, it's uncomfortable, but in the end, it's better on the other end. It's on. It's better on the other side of it.

Matt Morizio [00:43:06]:

Yeah.

Cam Hall [00:43:07]:

No. Awesome. Glad you said that. You said, well, it's kind of tough love. No, it's love. That's what it is. And. And I think that's part of it, too.

Cam Hall [00:43:16]:

And we see guys. And that's one of the reasons I do this, is because we see guys in isolation, and they get very behind the shield. This protection of, like, look what I can do, and this is who I am. But when they get in community with guys, they can have unfiltered conversations and a trusty group of advisors. It's not tough love. It's just love. We just want you to succeed and become the best version of you so you can show up the way you want for your family and for the other people around you. So, yeah, man.

Cam Hall [00:43:46]:

Well, just love.

Matt Morizio [00:43:48]:

Yeah, it's just love.

Cam Hall [00:43:49]:

Yeah. Hey, I got a question for you. You know, right now, as a dad, how are you showing up? What's an area that you are diving into, an area of growth you're excited about?

Matt Morizio [00:44:02]:

Well, as a dad, my word of the year is intentional. Every year, I pray, kind of pray at the beginning of the year, try to find a word or phrase that I feel like is on my heart. So I've been intentional. And in the business, too. Like, the business is a big domino effect for a lot of other. What we feel like is our callings and stuff that we're put on this earth to do. Couple of the things that recently have happened because as a result of the business growing, I celebrated a year a few months ago, so we grew well enough in the first year, 40% or something like that, to be able to, for the first time in our life, have some help in the house and homeschooling seven children. We've needed help for quite a while.

Matt Morizio [00:44:53]:

We've never had it, but I was able to hire help. And she's been an answer to prayer. She's been so amazing for our family. So that's one area I'm leaning into, and the other is we put a. We had our kids make a summer bucket list, like, what do you want to do this summer? And that just stays up. We have this glass board that's, like, in the middle of our kitchen. It's kind of like the command center. Imagine, imagine a whiteboard, but not as offensive because it's glass clear.

Cam Hall [00:45:24]:

Yeah.

Matt Morizio [00:45:24]:

Yeah. So those goals for the summer stay, stay up there. And I'm very intentional with staring at them to say, how can I make these summer dreams come true? So I'm looking at them and they're not all financial. It's just trying to figure out, like I need to be intentional with my schedule so I can make by, by the end of the summer, I can make as much of these as possible come true.

Cam Hall [00:45:52]:

I love it. That's great, Matt. Man, I love this conversation. Thank you for doing this, Matt. If there's guys listening to this who want to learn more about you and the work that you do, where can they find out more information?

Matt Morizio [00:46:05]:

Thanks for that. I would say the best, the best place to find me is on Instagram. I'm pretty active there. Just my name at Marizio. And if you want to DM me that you heard, heard this conversation on the podcast, I will send you a link to a course I created. It's free. It just, you have to put an email address in. But it's a, I think it's a three video course, maybe six to eight minutes per video.

Matt Morizio [00:46:27]:

So it's not a really heavy lift. But it goes into a lot of the detail of what we talked about. There's some like real blocking and tackling around personal finances, plus some high level thinking stuff around finances. But I think it's. If you're looking for a primer, that's a great start. That's a good place to go where you don't have to ask anybody a question. And it's a real person talking about his own experiences, who is licensed and who has had thousands of conversations with people about their money. And you can check out my website if you want to see the businesses reconstructing wealth.com and yeah, those are the best two places online to find me.

Cam Hall [00:47:02]:

Excellent. We'll make sure that Matt's contact information is all in the show notes. Matt, I hope you have a fantastic rest of your summer. I hope you're able to knock off as many of those items on that glass board as possible. But I appreciate you and I appreciate you taking time away from your family to spend with us today, man.

Matt Morizio [00:47:20]:

Me too, Cam. Thanks for this and man, I just honor the work you're doing for dads. It's so needed. We don't talk. Men don't talk enough. So it's a real honor to be in this seat, to be able to hopefully serve them.