Episode 1610: Interview with Matt Morizio About His Journey from Baseball to Entrepreneurship

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining us on episode 1,610

of the

Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Matt Morizio: I'm Matt, Morizzio, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to recognize that moving forward with Open Palms is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this the Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

And I never, I never even knew I had a relationship with money because I grew up in a home where I got, I got screamed at, I got in a lot of trouble if I didn't turn the heat down when I left in, in the winter in Boston and in, you know, it's cold and it's an oil heat house. So if I didn't turn it down to 58 like we got.[00:01:00]

We heard about it.

Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in your.

Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's podcast episode, I interview Matt Maurizio. I asked Matt about his mindset shifts and how it helped him move from baseball to entrepreneurship. Matt also shares with you how he's learned to lean into being uncomfortable. I also asked Matt to share with you more about what it means to have a truly abundant mindset.

I have a great book that's been out for a while now called Inspired Living. [00:02:00] Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering your time, your talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about that book over an inspired living book.com. It'll take you to a page where there's information and you can sign up to get some mailings about it as well as purchase a copy there.

I'd love to see you get a copy and share with me how it impacted your world. Matt Maurizio is a man of faith, a 14 year husband and a father of seven. He's an entrepreneur and the founder of Reconstructing Wealth, and before that, he chased his baseball dreams as a catcher and pitcher in the Kansas City Royals Minor League system.

His mission is to transform people's relationships with money, from scarcity to abundance, from confusion to clarity. He is his own case study, number one. As his own relationship with money has changed his life, has changed better relationships, better sleep, more present in his day, and more [00:03:00] intentional with his actions.

Now he helps listeners like you do the same, empowering you to take control, build confidence, and create a life you don't feel the need to escape from. Welcome to the show, Matt.

Matt Morizio: Man, thank you so much for having me. It's really an honor. I, I've been looking forward to having this conversation.

Scott Maderer: Absolutely. I, I really look forward to chatting with you today.

You know, we've gotten to know each other a little bit before the show, and, uh, I just shared a little bit in the intro some of the things you've done, uh, around both your home life as well as being an entrepreneur working with Reconstructing Wealth, and, and then of course. Baseball, you know, which is kind that kind of cool.

We were just talking about doing a lot of different things through our life and it's like, yeah, right. You know, baseball and wealth, that's right. And the fact that some of us are, are a little eclectic, but talk a little bit about that journey. What you know, first off, what. Steered you down the line of [00:04:00] baseball, and then how did that come around to what you do now and why is this sort of the message and the the work that you're called to do?

Matt Morizio: Sure. I think there's a lot to impact there, but I'll start with the baseball part just felt like a, a, like most, not most, a lot of little boy dreams of I want to be a professional baseball player. When I grew up, and that was me, I was among. A whole bunch of them in my high school graduate, I mean, excuse me, my high school, my preschool graduation yearbook, which we did have one of those.

There was under the, uh, what do you wanna be when you grow up? Umbrella. I wrote baseball player, like there, there was a, there was a section to write that and that there was firefighters and veterinarians and astronauts and athletes, and I wanted to be a baseball player, but for me it was a bit of a proclamation from an early age.

Now, I'm not trying to say I was like a. Savant and knew exactly what I wanted to do with my entire life. Uh, I just had this inkling in me that said, I really want to do this [00:05:00] forever, like if I can. And then I got to play longer. And as I got to play longer, I loved it more and I was good at it, you know, and like, who doesn't like to do things they're good at?

So I was winning and enjoying it, and it was fun to be the best on the field, and that just kind of fueled my passion for it. But eventually, like high school, early high school I really saw, wow, I could probably do this in college, I think, and that's when the naysayers and the, the, I don't wanna say haters, it was just the, it was the people that were closest to me that out of protection started to give the, the realistic advice of like you understand though the statistical laws of a.

A high school athlete making it to play division one sports, right? So you probably should set your sights on a different target, and if this happens, nice, you know, like it wasn't a, it wasn't negative advice, but it certainly wasn't fueling me. Uh, and then of course [00:06:00] when I said, I also, like, I want to, I wanna go be beyond college and play professionally, then that was of course the, Hey, let's have a little come to Jesus moment here and talk about the realities of your life.

You're living a little bit in the clouds, Matt, and let's come back to Earth. But the senior year, my senior year, I was drafted by the Padres in the 48th out of 50 rounds when they had, at that time as a pitcher, shortstop. And it was a, it was like a big in your face to all those people who told me I couldn't do it.

You know what I mean? It was a validation that calling on my heart wasn't for nothing. Now, I didn't sign to go play with the Padres at the time. I had a scholarship to Northeastern in Boston. So I, I chased the dream because now the dream has become a reality. I had an opportunity to potentially sign a professional contract, so now I know, hey, this is.

A thing. So I like to say I went to college for baseball. I was a fine student, but [00:07:00] man, my focus was certainly on, on the field. It was not in the, in the classrooms, but you fast forward through some twists and turns. I was no longer pitcher, shortstop. I converted a catcher in college, which I had never done before.

That's a whole different story. I converted a catcher and fast forward four years. I was drafted in the 17th round as as a catcher this time by the royals, and played five seasons, four as a catcher, one as a pitcher. Eventually I said, I'm gonna play until they take the uniform off. And they did eventually, five seasons later.

Spring training of 2011. I got a call during spring training the evening before. It was kind of like a respect call. 'cause I had been there for so long. Relatively speaking, I was a bit of a dinosaur in the minor leagues, like 25 or 26-year-old dinosaur because most kids are a year or two in, in it now they're 18 to 20.

But they called me to say, Hey, we're gonna release you tomorrow. And that was really the end of a dream. That was the end of a 20 year pursuit of a [00:08:00] goal of a dream that in reality never came to fruition. I actually never made it to the big leagues. So theoretically, I never accomplished the ultimate dream.

But I will tell you that I can attribute so much of who I am today. To that time as an athlete, especially the five seasons playing professionally. So I am grateful, eternally grateful to the Royals, to that five, those five seasons of my life. Because I am who I am today in large part because of those seasons.

Mm-hmm. And you know, you fast forward to today, you could. I don't want to drag you through all the mud of the, where did I go from there? Maybe we can get into it if we, if it makes sense, but eventually there was this calling on my heart to sort of do my own thing. If you look at, if you look at my body of work, you know my life.

I have, I chased that impossible dream and realized pretty close to making it to the big leagues. I, I realized that professional baseball dream. And [00:09:00] now I have seven children. We homeschool our kids. I launched a business at 40 years old with seven kids as a sole provider. So I'm not, I'm not this poster child for conformity, you know, like my, my body of work will tell, will show you that I, I tend to zig when people zag.

So entrepreneurship makes sense for me. I'm a bit of a maverick in that way. So running my own race and leading my own charge was inevitable I think in my life at some point.

Scott Maderer: So how do you think I mean fir first off I congratulations on, on pursuing the dream, and I, I don't think it's fair to say that you didn't realize it.

Maybe you just didn't realize all of it, but you, you realized it, you, you gotta play, you know, even Minor league is not. It's not like, that's not professional. I mean, you know, they, yeah, yeah. I did get they, they do pay you to show up, you know?

Matt Morizio: I did get that paycheck. Yeah. Did. And they come my health insurance.

We'll put it that way. Yeah.

Scott Maderer: Well, and, and I, I guess one thing that, that I want to touch on is, you know, way back in the beginning, you, you [00:10:00] mentioned you know, the people you care about kind of trying to give you well-meaning advice of, you know, hey. Maybe you want a backup plan, maybe this isn't all of it is cracked up to be, you don't wanna put all your eggs in one basket.

The odds are low, you know, whatever. Everyone, all of which, like you said, those are all factually correct statements, so there's nothing Right. They're not lying to you. Correct. Right. But how do you, how do you wish they would've encouraged you in your dream, but not. But you know, how, how do you wish they would've handled that?

Do you think they handled it the best way possible? Or thinking now about your kids, if one of your kids has that kind of dream where, you know, it is one that might not shake out, but yet it's a dream for them, what, how do you think you'd encourage 'em?

Matt Morizio: Yeah, I, it's, I love that question. I had one person who.

That stands out to me. That was a mentor in high school that didn't give me that advice. I told him he was a gym teacher at the high school and he was also a personal [00:11:00] trainer and he was just an amazing guy. And I told him that I wanted to make it to the big league, like I wanna play professional baseball as my goal.

And his response was, okay, so what are we gonna do to get there? Which was really cool. And not only did he say that. I, 'cause I didn't know what we were gonna do. I said, I don't know. What are we gonna do to get there? He said he kind of participated in my dream with me. And what I mean by that is he told me, 'cause he was a personal trainer, he's like, I trained myself at 5:00 AM or a little before 5:00 AM during the week, in the mornings before.

I trained a few clients before school starts, but if you want, this summer I don't have school, so I'll do a lot more training, but I'll still be training myself at 5:00 AM. If you want to come work out with me, I can teach you what it looks like to work out and I can at least help you there. So that summer, I trained five days a week with this guy who turns out, knew a whole lot and really [00:12:00] taught me what hard work looked like, what healthy, smart training, strengths training looked like.

And that kind of gate lit this fire of belief in me to say like, I can do this. And now to answer your question about what do I do with my kids? They say things like that, like, I want to be a pro baseball player or something. My, my oldest one says that, and my, I have other kids who are gymnast gymnasts, they're into gymnastics and they want, they have goals of playing or competing in college.

And I actually now encourage that dream. I encourage big dreams and I support the work. And I think if somebody had done that for me, which kind of like. This guy Rick did for me. He supported the effort. 'cause as I've grown through and reached milestones and failed to reach milestones and, and everything in between, I realized like the juice is in the squeeze.

It sounds so cliche that it's about the journey, not the destination, but [00:13:00] like that's really true. Mm-hmm. You learn and become who you're called and created to be. In the journey, in the unknown, in the leaps, the steps of faith, the obedient acts of faith, the un stepping into that room that you don't feel qualified to be in, and that's where your growth happens.

It doesn't happen because you accomplish some goal, you reach some milestone. So for my children, I actually don't care if they do accomplish their dreams because I know making it to the big leagues, playing division one sports like I got there. I've done that. Those aren't the things that's gonna make them into the person they're called and created to be.

But understanding who they need to be in order to work toward becoming somebody of that caliber is the thing that's gonna help them become who they wanna be. So I, I do not poo poo their dreams. I encourage their dreams, but I also bolster it by saying, we got work to do. Then if you want to get there, like this is who you need to be, if you want to realize that.

Mm-hmm. Like this [00:14:00] is the type of. Behavior, the type of person, the type of mindset that you need to have if that's who you really wanna be. So I encourage that and I wish somebody encouraged that in me really heavily. That would've been pretty cool. Yeah, it is that, well, and I think there's a statement there too of it.

Scott Maderer: It's, you could have sat around and wished to be a baseball player. And, and you know, the statistics all come true or you could have actually taken action and started working out and practicing and playing more. You know the guys that become, and the gals that become professionals, a lot of times their high school years, if you look back at it, it's like, wow, they weren't, they weren't out partying a lot.

They were, yeah. You know, they were up at five A with m. Shooting free throws or, or running Yeah. Or weightlifting or whatever depending on what the case may be. Yep. Um, yeah. And yeah, it, it's, are they, are you willing to do the work? [00:15:00] Is a large part of it too, because you can have all the talent in the world, but if you don't do any work, it doesn't

Matt Morizio: show up.

Yeah. Hard work beats talent. When talent doesn't work hard is that is how the saying goes.

Scott Maderer: So talk a little bit about your faith journey. You know, you mentioned kind of who you're created to be, and, and I know that's important, an important part of, of who you are and how you've, how you've formed yourself in the world.

And I like to highlight on the show how our, our life journey and influences our faith, and then how our faith influences our life. So talk a little bit about that feedback loop for you and what's that's looked like over the years.

Matt Morizio: It's really well said, and I love that you do talk about this on the show.

I think it's super cool, Scott. So thanks for the opportunity to share it. Um, my faith journey was I guess it's it's my own journey, but it's probably one that resonates with most people. I didn't, I didn't grow up without a faith and I didn't grow up heavy in a church either. I kind of was like [00:16:00] a middle of the road type faith person.

So my, my parents divorced when I was young, second grade, and I split weekends. Some with my dad one, some with my mom. So it was like, it became Sundays with my dad. I would attend different types of churches. It was first, uh, Lutheran Church was mostly the one that I went and he ended up settling into.

So I would go to a Lutheran church and then I would go to Catholic church, which I, I grew up in New England and the Boston area. And I like to joke, but it's kind of not a joke. It's kind of real. If you, if you're from New England, you're either Catholic or Jewish, but nobody knows 'cause nobody talks about it anyway.

That's basically what, what a lot of that is disagree for. That's not totally true, but, but there's a lot of that. So I grew up in a Catholic church some Sundays. Then it became, as we got older with my mom, we kind of didn't go as much with my dad. We did go. So I had this weird, uh, back and forth faith journey.

Where I was early on in fourth grade, I visited my aunt and uncle in Texas for just a [00:17:00] trip. And as any good BA Texas Baptist should do, they started talking to me about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And, uh, I had never heard about that really? In, in Catholic church. That's not really the language used in the Catholic church.

Mm-hmm. Um, but I was in the midst of this season as a child where my parents had just been divorced. You know, as a, as a child, young child, your parents seem to be your rock. That's the thing you need to depend on. And that seemed to be breaking. Uh, that was hard. And this faith thing that, that they were talking to me about, this relationship with Jesus seemed to be the thing that would not fail me when the rest of the world did.

So I really asked him into my life then. So I guess you could say I was saved then, and that was maybe the infancy of my faith. But I really didn't grow. If that was a seed planted, there was not really much more than a bean sprout for probably the next 20 years or so. It wasn't [00:18:00] until my professional career in baseball that I would say that that seed really started to blossom into anything.

And it was because I had chased everything the world had to offer and F came up empty. I really didn't know anybody that was a Christian, and I hate to say this, but I didn't really know anybody that was a. Solid Christian that I actually could relate to. Growing up, it just wasn't in my friend circle. My parents didn't cultivate that community.

Anybody that I knew that was like heavy into church was kind of weird. I don't mean to say that, but that's still true. Yeah, there's a lot of that for sure. But in baseball, they have this thing called baseball chapel because on Sundays you play day games and you can't go to church on Sunday mornings.

You're at the ballpark. So basically church comes to you. It's a local pastor from a, any denominator really. Wherever you're at that, yeah, wherever you're at in the country, they come to you and [00:19:00] literally come into your dugout after you've already done your baseball work right before the game.

So you've been on the field, you're dirty, you're sweating, you know, some guys have seeds or gum or chewing tobacco. I mean, all of it. Like it's all there in your dugout element. And there's a handful of guys. That are there with you that you clearly get along with. They're your teammates. They're chasing the same ridiculous dream.

They're into the same things you are sports, healthy, living like you, you have a lot in common. And then you're learning about Jesus with them and the biggest eye-opening part of that for me was in the clubhouse. Some of these guys that were from all around the country, you know, they're here talking to me about Jesus and saying his name out loud.

As matter of factly as they are talking about like the game last night or tying their shoes. And that was a new experience for me. But that's the thing that got me curious to say like, well, alright, let me learn more about this. Like I, I believe [00:20:00] I was never not a believer, but I never understood that you could be a normal person into the things that we're into and be a strong Christian.

Like, talk to me about that. So that's where my faith really started to grow. I don't know what you wanna call that seed today, but it feels like an oak tree and it's pretty big. It's, it's grown because it's foundational to every decision I make today. That feedback loop you talked about, right? Like faith is now influences every decision I make, and that is reflected in the life I live, which goes back to I won't make another decision without another, without it being a faith-filled one.

Which leads to probably some different version of me and. A year, two years, five years, like God will continue to mold and shape me. Absolutely.

Scott Maderer: So talk a little bit in the intro. When I was talking before you talked about, relationship with money, talking about transforming people's relationship with money, and that's language that [00:21:00] I use as well.

I talk about how people relate to money and, and yet that's kind of a weird financial, people talk about math. We don't talk about relationships and mindset and beliefs and, and limiting beliefs and how do you think about it and what do you do? We don't talk about all that stuff. It, it's just a math problem.

So how did you come to that realization that it's not just a math problem?

Matt Morizio: Yeah I love that it does sound woowoo, you know, when you talk about relationships with money, like, what are you talking about? It's dollars and cents math, not opinion. Just tell me the bath. The journey or the education that I experienced, it's a firsthand education that I'm now trying to share.

It's my truth that I want to share with other people. I learned it because. I grew up in this scarcity world of, of money. I, I didn't know it actually until I really got into the world of [00:22:00] finance. I say that I was, I learned finance through immersion in the same way you learn Spanish by moving to Spain.

I was hired as an advisor to get into the world of finance and teach people finance when I was. Prior to this, I was in finance and accounting staffing, so not personal finance, financial advising. I understood numbers and money, but it was not my role. So now I had to learn that new language of money. And as I learned it I started to realize, oh my gosh, uh, I have a pretty unhealthy relationship with money.

And I never, I never even knew I had a relationship with money because I grew up. In a home where I got, yeah, I got screamed at. I got in a lot of trouble if I didn't turn the heat down when I left in the winter in Boston and in, you know, it's cold and it's an oil heat house. So if I didn't turn it down to 58, like we got, we heard about it and you couldn't turn the heat up beyond 64 if you're still [00:23:00] cold.

Put some sweater, a sweater on or something. Mm-hmm. Uh. If you're still cold, it means you're not wearing enough clothes. It doesn't mean turn the heat up, right? That was the mindset is that we are conserving every dime, every penny. It's a finite resource you got. You better be grateful for every, every dollar you have.

'cause it's gonna be hard to break out of this cycle. And that was sort of the, it wasn't instructed to me, it was what I caught as a child, you know, as a, as a child, more is caught than taught. And since society doesn't allow you to speak about money, we didn't talk about it in our house. My mom didn't talk about it in her house with her parents.

They didn't talk about it with their parents who are products of the Great Depression. We just adopted, everybody just kind of caught this unhealthy scarcity worry mindset around money, and some of that will serve you, I think. Sure. So I'm not saying that having a scarcity mindset about money is in itself a problem.[00:24:00]

What I am saying is that when it controls you and you don't control it, it becomes a problem because it's limiting who you can become because. God. I mean, I know in John 10 10 he talks about an abundant life. The thief comes in at night to steal, kill, and destroy. But he wants you to have a life in full, in abundance, and it is impossible to live in full in abundance when every single minute of your day is spent worrying about tomorrow.

Right? Like you can't live in abundance and in worry simultaneously. And I recognized that as I started to learn about money because. Many of my fears about finances were fears of the unknown. So when I started to understand it, the fear sort of started to dissipate. Think about like. Your freshman year, going into your freshman year of high school, you're an incoming freshman.

That eighth grade summer is a very nerve wracking August for most people where they're about to enter their freshman year for the first time. They don't know their [00:25:00] classrooms, their teachers, the school layout, they're worried about a lot. There's a lot of fear and anxiety about becoming a high schooler until a week or 10 days go by of your freshman year.

And you know, 80% or so of those fears are gone. It's because what was once unknown in the summer is now known and a lot of the fear goes away. And I've learned that most people in their life, financially speaking, live as. Incoming freshman, I was that same person. I was living like an incoming freshman because there was this world of high finance, you know, investing, figuring out how to work with budgets and trading.

And I didn't know any of the terms. I didn't understand them. I thought I couldn't, unless I had this pedigree of finance and this history of degrees of some of the best schools in the, in the world, you know? I didn't have that in my family, so I felt like I wasn't privy to knowing that info, um, until I was forced to learn it and realized, [00:26:00] okay, this is actually not what I thought it was, and my fear went away.

So that's how I under started to understand my relationship with money existed, first of all, and then I learned it existed. It was not very good. And then you fast forward a few years and decade and thousands of conversations with people about the money. And I learned I'm not alone here. We all shared some on the spectrum of health.

We all share some v varying degree of unhealth with a as it relates to our money. And, uh, I've learned personally as my relationship with money has changed, my entire life has changed. Like I don't live in this worry and fear mindset. That I didn't even recognize was just sort of sitting in the back of my mind all the time.

I can be more present with my kids, more present with my wife. I can make more courageous decisions financially. Obviously, it's prayer led first, but I also know mm-hmm what levers to pull when I need to pull them, if I need to pull them. And there's some [00:27:00] comfort in the understanding of that. So for me, I'm, after trying to, to help people live the life that I.

Now live because I used to live the life that they're probably living right now.

Scott Maderer: Well, and I think too I relate this back to what we were talking about earlier about, you know, folks that in a well-meaning way tell you things about your dream that. Quashed it a, you know or seemed to quash it or could have quashed it or whatever.

And again, nothing that they said was wrong. I mean, it's not untrue. It's, it's how did they approach it, right? How did they set it up? How did they couch it? What was the next thing you know? In other words, it's, Hey, this is gonna be really hard stop. Or is it, Hey, this is gonna be really hard. What can I do to help you?

What do you need to do to make this happen? Are you willing to work for it? [00:28:00] That kind of the rest of those. And I think with money, we have a lot of that same thing where money is finite. Yeah. It is. You know, and yes, you have to make opportunity choices. And you, if you do one thing with money, you can't do.

That's not the same as saying it's scarce. You know, even though those seem to mean the same, those aren't the same mindset, uh, right. What a great distinction. You Right. You know, treating the, Hey, maybe we don't need to turn the heat up as much because we wanna. You know, we don't wanna spend money there that we could spend somewhere else, is one thing.

Mm-hmm. Hey, we can't spend money anywhere, you know? Yeah. It's a different thing. It it, so, it is weird how sometimes it's not just the, it's not even just the way that we say these things to each other. It's the, it's the rest of the sentence that comes after. You know, because even if you're in a limiting situation where you've got struggles right now with money.

Yeah. But what are we gonna do to change it? Yeah. You know? What action are you gonna take? What work are you gonna do? What, [00:29:00] what's the next step?

Matt Morizio: Great. Instead of we can't, it's how can we, it's this subtle nuance difference that you're talking about and that's so powerful and so well said.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. And that is that is the difference between.

Scarcity and abundance. 'cause I think you're right. A lot of times people hear the abundance mindset and think it's woo woo. You know? It's the Yeah. Well if you, if you believe it, it'll come true. It's like, no, no, like that. There's some, some steps in between those two, you know? Yeah. You better put

Matt Morizio: some feet on those beliefs.

Scott Maderer: So what are some of the things that, uh, you think have, have shaped. The, that change in beliefs, you know, you mentioned taking the, the financial job and learning more things, but I think it's probably more than just information. You know, what, what about the baseball career? What about the family life?

What are the, the different kind of nuggets? If you could pull out a couple of those that helped you begin to look at it a little different?

Matt Morizio: Yeah. I think being around wealth. [00:30:00] Helped me change my mind on it. Growing up, there was a section of the town that I grew up in that was the wealthy section, you know, and like, I didn't know people from there, nobody knew people from there.

That was just like the, you know, the, the mysterious exp wealthy part of town. And, um, I, that was sort of my understanding of wealth is that like it's unattainable. You come from the other side of the track sort of thing. Uh, but then I got. Into pro sports, and it was a funny dynamic in the player's parking lot when you go to spring training, you could see who the big leaguer cars were and who the minor league cars were.

Oh,

Scott Maderer: wait, you mean as a minor leaguer, you weren't paid hundreds of

Matt Morizio: millions of dollars. Oh man, Scott, my first paycheck, $600 after taxes every two weeks. Uh, and I was paying $500 a month to live in that hotel. Yeah. So that's where my pa and I only got paid in the season. So the season's basically April, may, [00:31:00] June, July, August, and a week of September.

You don't get paid in the off season. So that's a, for anybody doing that math, that's a sub five figure. Salary. That's a four figure salary. Yeah. Uh, no. So you don't make quite enough money to buy the Tricked out Escalade that I saw, or the Lamborghini next to it in the drive, in the parking lot. But what that did do to me is that it brought this feeling of unattainable wealth right to my face, and it made dreams become a reality because here I am on the same ball fields doing the same life.

With the walking to the same parking lot, with the same kind of person who just happens to get in a car that's worth a hundred times whatever other cars we're getting into and that actually does something for you mentally. It makes you kind of believe like that dream or that unattainable vision is now in my face.

It makes you run a little bit faster knowing that you, it can happen to you too. Like, for example, today, uh, this [00:32:00] evening I'm going out to dinner with an amazing friend, couple of ours going on a date. And this man has a private jet. This man, halfway through the year, he is done multiple nine figures in his business.

And rewind to the childhood version of me, those people were not part of my life. I could not fathom that. And now that I experience that and I do life with people like that, it makes it reali, it makes me realize like, this is actually possible. And I think just the belief, everything starts with the, an idea of being possible first.

If you can never get there, it can never become a reality. If Steve Jobs or whoever it was, never thought of the iPhone. The iPhone doesn't become a thing like it was an idea first. So that, that has really helped me shape what's possible and will shape my mindset and my relationship with money. I will tell you though now in hindsight, after having experienced.

Thousands of combos and a lot of people's financial [00:33:00] situations. And really, again, like using my truth as primary example, number one, I am case study number one, the single biggest impactful exercise or discipline that I've created that has actually changed my relationship with money biologically speaking, has been giving it away.

And I have created what I put, what I call a blessing accounts. It's a separate bank account for me because I knew if it was in my own bank account, I'd find reasons that I couldn't give it away. I needed it for this or that or whatever. But if it's in a separate account, it's outta sight outta mind.

So I'm almost putting up my own guardrails, like getting outta my own way. And that came from the decision to finally tithe consistently. I wanted to give consistently. I had tithed and then not tithed and tithe, and then not ti, depending on the season of my life. And. And as you could hear throughout my journey, like there's no part of me, [00:34:00] pro athlete, seven children, homeschooling entrepreneur.

Like there's no part of me that rides fences. Like if I do something, I'm going all in. Except when it came to giving, I was fence riding and I couldn't stand that about myself. So I really felt God laying it heavy on my heart that like, you need to be consistent with this. So the way that I figured out to be consistent with it was committing to it, but by committing to it for me meant opening up a separate account and putting money into that account, designated for other people for the ti.

And I learned that very quickly as I started to do that. Money lost its hold on me. It lost its grips on me that I didn't even realize it had so much so that I like no long. I actually enjoyed giving money. I look forward to earning money so that I could give it more, giving more away, which was like not ever me, that was not my mindset.

Not like I was a stingy person. I just never thought about it. And I had to [00:35:00] ask some friends of mine who, uh, have PhDs in psychology, like what is happening here? Mm-hmm. How come I'm not really worrying about money? I'm not earning boatloads more money. It had had nothing to do with the income. It had nothing to do with my expenses to income ratio, any of that.

It was the fact like I started giving it away and now I feel a lot better about my finances and what's happening. So I talked to these PhDs in psychology and I asked can you help me understand this? And then they said to me, look, I think what's happening you in psychology, we often say there's two root emotions, love and fear.

And then tho the rest of the emotions sort of stem off of those. Your desire to hold onto money, rip it tightly, was a rooted in fear. It's a fear-based emotion, but then your conscious decision to give money away was a love-based emotion. Love is always the stronger of the two emotions, and we know in psychology, you can't simultaneously experience both [00:36:00] emotions about the same thing at the same time.

You can have both emotions, different times, different things. Even for the same thing, different times, but at the same time, you can't. And what they said in your disciplined, consistent act of giving what's happening is subconsciously your brain's basically telling itself, Hey, that thing you used to worry about, you know, holding onto that money.

Like, turns out we can give it away now. We don't have to worry. We don't have to hold it so tightly. I was subconsciously rewiring my relationship with money toward abundance, and I didn't know I was doing it. I did it because it was a calling on my heart that I, that God was convicting me to say, you've got to, you've got to commit to this.

But biologically speaking, my mindset is being rewired because of that generous act. Mm-hmm. And there's science behind it. There's brain scan studies in on generosity that, that I could get into, but that's what was happening. And that has been the, had the most profound effect on my relationship with [00:37:00] money.

Right.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. I, I, I point out to people because I, I often end up preaching on, on money in church, and one of the things I, I put to people is when you look at the ti this, oh, I'm giving this because God needs my money. That's really a very arrogant. Way of looking at it because you know, if God needs your money, God's just gonna take your money.

You know, God is really funny. God created the Earth, everything, earth of the Word. He doesn't probably need your money. I don't think he needs the money. So if God is asking us to give and give regularly. It's not because God needs the money, so it must be something that we need. So wow, great. That's where it comes from.

You know, it's well said. God is asking us to do it for us, not for God. So when you're looking at it that way, you realize, oh yeah, nevermind. I should probably do this. For me and not in a, again, that's not a greedy, selfish thing. It's just a, that's where God's telling us to rewire ourselves and [00:38:00] yeah.

I I I love that. Wow. I love that idea of love and fear too. 'cause I think you're right. It is a fear-based versus a love-based mindset. Yeah. That's so good. Come on. That's, yeah, it's an act of obedience. That's really well said.

Yeah. And it's, for us it's, you know, it's, again, it's done out of kindness for us.

It's it's that, that gentleman that said, Hey, you, you wanna, you really wanna be an athlete? Get up at 5:00 AM and show up all summer and we'll see what happens. Yeah. Because you could have chosen not to show up. True. You could have not shown up any morning, you know? Yeah. But, but you did.

And you know, that's what changes you because you know, it changed you. It's the same thing with giving. You can stop giving anytime you want.

Matt Morizio: You're right. You're, that's exactly right. And you know, it's not the amount I'm learning, it's not the amount that you give, it's the disciplined act of giving.

It's a consistency. What I like, what I like about that blessing account in particular [00:39:00] is that it. It feeds both giving needs. The, both the consistent disciplined act of giving and the opportunity for spontaneous giving. Spontaneous, yeah. Because the account's there, so when you can have both and kind of fill both cups with the same thing, to me that's a big win.

Scott Maderer: Yeah, my, my wife and I actually have a line item on our budget that's called Spontaneous Giving. So we give a tide that's a regular tide that's, you know, I love it based off of everything, but we fund a line on our budget that's called spontaneous giving. And so we use it a lot for like if my wife's out to eat or we're out to eat and we see first responders that are there, well, we'll pick up the tab, you know, and, and we do a lot of it anonymous, just.

Call the waitress over and go, Hey pay for their stuff. Don't tell 'em who did it kind of things. 'cause so great. You know, oh man, buy the G on that. Can I to somebody? Or that kind of thing. So, oh, that's,

Matt Morizio: wait, what did you just say? The occasionally

Scott Maderer: we'll pay for groceries for somebody, or, I love it.

You know, just those just it, if we're [00:40:00] called to do it, it's the line that lets us go. Okay. You know, I don't have to, I don't have to think about it. I don't have to get permission. I don't have to worry about are we gonna not be able to pay the electric bill or whatever. 'cause we've actually set aside money and designated it for those acts of spontaneous giving.

Matt Morizio: That's so good. Can I say something on that, that, that, that idea of giving so that it comes back to you or giving so that the person will Thank you. Is not generosity. That's, to me, that selfishness disguised as generosity. Mm-hmm. It really is about a heart posture of like, I am giving because I feel called to do so, and I want to I want it to be anonymous.

That's fine. I, I think that's like, that's the heart posture of giving. I did the same thing one time. I was out with. My three of my kids or four of my kids, they won. Which is funny. I set up this contest of brushing your teeth in my house and if they. Hit 14 times, twice a day, seven [00:41:00] days a week, we would go out to ihop, which is probably the wrong id, wrong reward for a toothing,

Scott Maderer: go go to IHOP and pour the syrup on.

Matt Morizio: Exactly. Drink the syrup straight. And uh we were there and because I include my kids in the finance convos and the giving convos and everything in between, and the starting the business convos. Mm-hmm. Because I recognized like my unhealth with money was because nobody talked about it. So I'm intentional with speaking about it, giving, using money as a tool for good.

I think that's the most important thing a kid can see. So they know the blessing account exists. We're out to eat, and this isn't the first time we've done it, but they said, Hey Papa, they call me Papa, which is great. I don't have to get changed when they become a grandfather, but they said, Papa, let's bless this waitress.

She's been so nice to us. I'm like, okay, guys. Like. If you're feeling called to give, let's do it. So what we did was we doubled the bill you know, whatever the bill is. That was what the tip was too. And it was ihop so it wasn't like it was like [00:42:00] this super or, or ornate big meal that was over super expensive.

But they were so excited we were walking out the restaurant giddy, except like if anybody listening to this has young kids, they understand they had to go to the bathroom. Of course one had to go to the bathroom, the next had to go to the bathroom, right? And then the next had to go. And they don't all go at

Scott Maderer: the same time either.

They go.

Matt Morizio: So I wound up standing outside the bathroom after we paid for like 15 minutes because one had to go, one had to go. It wasn't, it felt like that, it was probably more like eight or nine minutes. But they, she's already bust, bust the table, cleared the thing. But I, I got to kind of have this bird's eye view of watching her and she picked up the check.

And was very clearly emotional about it, and it, timing wise was, was beautiful because my last child had just come out of the bathroom as she made like this beeline to me, which at first I was like, oh crap. Like I didn't want her to know this, like, mm-hmm. I didn't give [00:43:00] this, I didn't give for this reason, but she's making this beeline to me and I can't move now.

I'm in her, I'm in her cross hairs. She comes right to me and doesn't say a thing. She just gives me a giant hug. And then starts to tell me a story after that. Her purse had just been stolen the week before, and this was around Christmas time, and she had really lost a lot of hope. She had a lot of worry about not being able to give to some important people in her life, give gifts and that simple act of generosity, act of kindness.

Renewed hope in her. Mm-hmm. And she was so grateful. She was crying and my kids got to see all that. And I thought after like, wow, thanks God for that, that exchange. Because now my kids see money as this like incredible tool. To pour into people and, and brighten their day and change their life mm-hmm. As opposed to anything negative.

And I'm like, if we can all see money that way, and more importantly use money that way, what an incredible like, chain break, generational chain breaking [00:44:00] effect that can have. Yeah, absolutely.

Scott Maderer: So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I go there, is there anything else about this idea of relating to money that you'd like to share with the listener?

Matt Morizio: I think I just want to leave the listener with any, li, anybody listening with maybe an image that can stick with you. 'cause sometimes stories might stick, might not stick, facts may not stick. But I think an image, I look at it like this, and this is what's happened to me. This is sort of the language and the imagery that I've figured out in my own life.

Is that like. I kept money tight, like 10 clenched fist. I held tightly. I had this perceived illusion of control. I don't know how else to say it, where if I gripped it harder, I could do better with it. I didn't wanna release it. And then you think of the concept of receiving something. Like if someone's gonna throw me a, a football pass, for example.

And if I wanted to maintain those clenched fists, I'm not going to effectively, consistently receive that [00:45:00] football. Like I can't catch it very well as soon as I start to loosen my grip and open my hands a bit, which I did with money. But you want to use the image of I open my grip, loosen my hands, somebody throws me that football.

I am now in a position to receive that football. And I would say like I am now, because I've loosened my grip on money. I am much more in a position to receive the calling on my life, to receive what God has put into my heart and put into my life and be able to go and live it out in abundant abundance.

You know, the way he is designed, because I don't have that tight grip on it. I've driven up the control. He's in the driver's seat now and I'm in the passenger seat. So I think that in areas of people's lives where they feel like there's a struggle and there's a constant pull, you probably need to loosen up your grip.

That's probably the problem. Absolutely.

Scott Maderer: Well said. So my brand has inspired stewardship, but I kind of run things through that lens of stewardship, and yet I love it. Over the years, [00:46:00] I've kind of discovered that's one of those words that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

Right. So when you hear the word stewardship, what does that word mean to you?

Matt Morizio: I think it's, I think it's using your time, talent, treasures. Well, I think it's using them as God has uniquely called you. To use them on this earth. I think we all have a gift in us, and I think that as soon as we learn how to use those gifts in the service of others, we are now being good stewards of what God has given us.

Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. Imagine for a moment that I could invent this magic machine. And with this machine, I was able to take you from where you are today and transport you into the future, maybe 150, maybe 250 years. And through the power this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life, see all of the ripples, all of the connections, all of the impacts you've left.

What impact do you hope you've left in the world? [00:47:00]

Matt Morizio: My gosh, what a cool machine that could be. I look at Legacy a lot like the way Craig Elle, pastor Craig Elle, who's also a leadership coach. He says, legacy isn't what you leave for people, it's what you leave in them.

Scott Maderer: Hmm.

Matt Morizio: And for me, I want that legacy to be.

First off that I've taught my children and they've, and the people that live the lives that I've, I've touched, I've taught them what it looks like to live a faith field, life to live almost with reckless abandon toward faith. You know, like to have this level of obedience that borders insanity. I don't know how else to say it.

And I can tell you like starting a businesses with four at 40 years old with seven children as the sole providers. Can sound pretty insane unless it's God led. And then it's just another act of obedience. And [00:48:00] if I can teach or exemplify that in a way that my kids teach, my kids catch it, or the people in the lives that I hang out with and interact with, catch it.

I think that well, I know that that will leave anybody the, the proper mark on anybody because then anybody that. Does that is now listening to God's calling on their life and they will live to the fullest. I don't know if that answered it great, but that's the vision I have when, when you talk about that s that answers it.

Scott Maderer: That answers it. So what's on the roadmap for you? What's coming next as you kick off? Uh, 2026.

Matt Morizio: 2026 I think will be a year of adding staff to reconstructing wealth. We launched middle of the year of 24. So in the, in the business' eyes, it's a baby business. It's really an a continuation of everything that, that we've, that I've learned as best practices as an [00:49:00] advisor for the last decade or so.

But we're getting to a place where I think I. I know that I have this God-sized vision and mission on my heart for the business to be able to serve and break generational chains in the way we've talked about, but to do it at the magnitude that I feel like he's put on my heart, I, it's not for me. I, I can't do it alone.

So I think there's gonna be business growth, and I'm also excited to see where my children, how the school year goes for my children and what direction they, they head to. I think. My biggest ministry, my most important ministry is always in my home. So I look at that as, as calling number one. So that to me, I'm excited to see what this change in, I don't wanna say mentorship, but change in how they're learning and who they're learning from.

I wanna see how that impacts who they're created to be and impacts their nature. We'll see.

Scott Maderer: So you can find out more [00:50:00] about Matt Maurizio over@reconstructingwealth.com. Of course, I'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. Matt, anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

Matt Morizio: Yeah, the last thing, thank you for asking.

The last thing I'll share is if anybody is on Instagram listening to this and, and wants to understand more, maybe doesn't wanna have a conversation, or maybe they do. You could follow me and send me a DM about this podcast, I could. I'm happy to send you a link to a course I created. It's free, it'll just cost an email address, but it's a free video course, three-part series, six to eight minute long videos, all about going from a scarcity, fear-based mindset to an abundance big life.

Mindset on money and it dives into some nuts and bolts of personal finance. It talks about the science behind it. It talks about my faith. It talks about a lot. So, uh, if you want, I'm happy to send that to anybody who listens. Just follow me. It's just my name at Matt Maio [00:51:00] on Instagram. Send me a DM about this podcast and I will send you that link.

No problem.

Scott Maderer: Awesome. I'll add that too as a link in the show notes. So for anyone that uh, needs to find that you can welcome to come over there and I'll have a link to that as well. Thank you so much for doing that for the listeners. I'm sure that's gonna be something that folks will take advantage of. I hope so.

Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/.

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