What if no one shows up?
I write and create with the hopes of an audience, but I really do it because I believe the work in itself is important.
Travel Like Matt
If your personal, professional, and spiritual journey is helping you become a more humble person, you’re traveling well. If you find yourself building your own brand by endlessly critiquing and “yelping” against your own culture, you might be impeding your own progress. The best way to critique is to build something new and beautiful while maintaining a foundation of love.
Eclipse and the End
“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.” -J.R.R Tolkien “The Fellowship of the Ring”
Long Road to Osaka
I have experienced success, but I've always had to take the long, unscenic route to get there. It looked to me like these kids had found the shortcut that I had looked for, but I had never found it. While sipping my Old Fashioned, I wondered to myself, "Did I waste my twenties?"
Sake Runneth Over
Restaurants live and die by keeping a close eye on cost controls. A spilled tablespoon of Sake with every customer adds up quickly and ultimately requires the business to buy additional bottles with no opportunity to recover those costs. Restaurant owners want their guests to be happy, but not...too happy.
Values and Stolen Bikes
Being robbed is an aspect of urban life. It doesn't define life in the city, but it is a reality. When something like this happens, I'm angry and frustrated because we work as a family to make things better in the world, and it feels like our efforts are futile. In times like these, I feel like the world is laughing at our values, and it's humiliating.
Dark, My Old Friend
As a species, we've evolved to have survival instincts around living in the dark and prefer to live in the light. While counterintuitive, we need to grow our appreciation for what the dark brings to our lives here on Earth.
He-Man, Barbies, and The Sound of Freedom
I was a classic child of the 1980s, and my Saturday mornings included watching Masters of the Universe, Droids, Ewoks, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, and Pee Wee's Playhouse. This was normal for me and millions of other kids, except for one little caveat. Before church, my mom often said, "So, please don't bring up He-Man and the Masters of the Universe at church."
Jesus Freak
This is the struggle of the ages for anyone religious. Do you allow your faith to evolve when presented with new information? I would say yes.
Deal with the Snake
I'm not the first person who should be giving lessons on leadership.-but one of the lessons I've learned about leadership is that being a leader means you have to be the one that deals with the "snake".
Campfires and Doritos
…Yes, people and bad ideas need to be challenged, but change can only happen if we can listen to one another. I'm not naive to how difficult a task this is- but nothing worthwhile is easy. We have to try. One campfire and one bag of Doritos at a time!
There Are No Extras
Years ago, I was in Juarez, Mexico, along the Rio Grande and the US and Mexican border. While I was there, I took a photo of the area, and as I snapped the photo, something unintended happened…