Episode 1585: Interview with Matt Paradise About Transforming Financial Stress into Confidence

===

Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining us on episode 1,585 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Matt Paradise: Hi, I'm Matt Paradise. 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 comparison is the thief of joy 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.

I love the book boundaries because it's so easy in a world of many, many, many demands to be overwhelmed and not necessarily take the time to think about healthy boundaries. Being healthy, one for for ourselves. I can't give from an empty cup if I'm [00:01:00] completely depleted emotionally and spiritually.

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 yourself.

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

In today's podcast episode, I interview Matt Paradise. I asked Matt about how your financial health connects to your whole health. I also asked Matt about how you can get unstuck. When you feel financially stuck, and Matt also shares with you some of his own journey and discoveries around Whole Health Wealth.

I have a great book that's been out for a while now called Inspired [00:02:00] Living. Assemble the puzzle of your calling by mastering your time, your talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about that book over@inspiredlivingbook.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 Paradise is an award-winning author, a financial educator, and a keynote speaker who helps people transform financial stress into confidence and lasting wellbeing. He combines real world experience overcoming homelessness, addiction, and cancer with practical tools to build whole health wealth.

His mission is to help you take control of your money and create a life you love. His book, financially Capable, A Friendly Guide to Building Whole Health Wealth is available now. Welcome to the show, Matt.

Matt Paradise: Thanks, Scott. It's a pleasure to be here.

Scott Maderer: [00:03:00] Absolutely. So I talked a little bit in, in the intro about some of the work you've done as an author, as an educator, talking about finances, talking about.

Health and wellness and all of these things and how they're related together. But I always think of intros as like the highlight reels or the Instagram photos of our life. They never tell the whole story. So back up for folks a little bit and walk us through your journey and some of what has brought you to the point where this is the message that you're putting out in the world.

Matt Paradise: Sure. I would say that it's a journey of grace and started. With curiosity and seeking more meaning throughout life. So even as a young kid I always wondered what else is there. I remember the first time I was able to speak on stage in front of an audience, and it was in first grade and it was reciting.

Slash reading the Martin Luther [00:04:00] King. I have a dream speech and I just remembered the emotion of it and it was powerful and something that has stuck with me to think about just the incredible power of words. So I grew up in Connecticut and ultimately my parents made the decision to move us to a rural part of Connecticut.

Though I was born in a suburb of the capital city. Woodstock, Connecticut is the northeast, the quiet corner, and they moved us there to shelter us from whatever troubles of the world might come to their kids. And the irony, I don't know if it's ironic or not, but I consider it irony that it's in rural areas where kids end.

Getting into trouble, particularly with drugs and alcohol when you think about it from a statistical standpoint, because there's little else to do besides party. I was gonna say, yeah. There's nothing else to do

Scott Maderer: other than go out in the middle of the woods and drink beer and party.

Matt Paradise: There weren't too many [00:05:00] places to look at art.

We didn't have museums really to. Or go out to listen to music, whatever, that it was, even the

Scott Maderer: local movie theater maybe had one screen, maybe two. So local movie that, that would be a novel idea. That'd be,

Matt Paradise: we didn't quite have that. Maybe someday we had an annual agricultural fair and that only came around once a year for a few days.

So I always had a deep curiosity and as I mentioned, always searching for more what else? There had to be something else to life besides go to school. Obey teachers get a job and die to put it morbidly. But those were the thoughts that I had, particularly as a teenager, and they increased. So I continued just to search philosophically looked at everything from existentialism and writings of Nietzsche to Taoism, different philosophies of Confucius and the blank.

And they [00:06:00] left me still searching for more. As a teen, all the hormones that I had really combined with just searching for the meaning as well as identity in the world along with depression really. I don't wanna say led me because there were decisions that I made along the way, but ultimately was heavily involved in drugs and alcohol and ended up with an ultimatum for my parents who were protecting themselves and my younger siblings to straighten up or get out.

I ended up as a homeless teenager and bounced around, lived on the streets found couches to sleep on, and ultimately then moved to Massachusetts to get away from me. My poor decisions because I knew inevitably they would've led to death, jail, or insanity. That baggage came with me, though I was still me, just in a different location.

And anybody maybe you can't relate to, your [00:07:00] listeners might be thinking that's a crazy story and there's so many crazy stories within that big, crazy story. You might not be able to relate to drugs and alcohol or homelessness, but you might be able to relate to. Internal changes in character growth that needs to happen, whether your sin is wrapped up in drugs and alcohol or not.

And if you've ever tried to change something deep and substantial, it takes work. It's more than just moving from one location to the other. I didn't have vision or hope for a future. I didn't have Jeremiah 29 11 at the moment, and because of that. In the deep depression that I was in, I didn't see that future and failed to make current day decisions that were in the best interest of my future self.

And again, that can be our case all the time. When we lack faith, when we lack hope, when we don't see God's vision for our own [00:08:00] life, like it says in Jeremiah 29, then we tend to make decisions that try to seek temporary comfort. Whether it's in our business, whether it's in our personal finances, whether with our health, we can become, I have become many times just discouraged and then throw caution to the wind to paraphrase.

That euphemism ultimately somebody, and again, I mentioned it's a story of grace because I was living in the suburbs of Boston at the time. This was around 19 98, 19 99, and there was. A gentleman, Eric Jones, who came from Boston to the suburbs by public transportation and taxi to work one day a week in the stock room of the retail store where I was working.

He spent just as much money getting out to the suburbs, Natick, Massachusetts, if anybody's familiar, then he earned. He was a professional musician, had a best of Boston band, was amazing, and that's how he [00:09:00] really connected with me to begin with. I played percussion and enjoyed doing that. He had vision and hope for me where I failed to.

He was a few years older, acted as a mentor and invited me to a Bible-based drug recovery program that he was involved in, and was a pivotal moment that I didn't fully appreciate with the first invite. I was like no, thanks. I'm good. He continued to befriend me. He continued to share with me a vision of possibility for a future that, again, I didn't think that I'd live to see 20 years old, nevermind.

Have some sort of prosperous future by any stretch. And ultimately was baptized, studied the Bible, got into that really drug-based drug recovery program. Sorry, that Bible-based drug recovery program and it made all the difference. I've been sober since 1999 and it's been an amazing, though, not easy journey by any stretch.

[00:10:00] It's a journey of grace.

Scott Maderer: I think for a lot of people too, like you said, they may not relate to the exact part of the story in terms of drugs or alcohol or those sorts of things, though I think there's a lot more people dealing with that than. Than we think. But what do you think it was that you mentioned getting hope from the conversations with this other gentleman speaking into your life. What do you think it was that allowed you to borrow that belief from somebody else to help you begin moving forward?

Matt Paradise: I think it was multiple things. I think that we have, even as leaders, as mentors, the ability to instill hope in others.

Sometimes it's with our own story to show, look, this is possible and I'm living proof. And I think that's important because now as an [00:11:00] adult, I'm, we'll call it the other side I can forget that sometimes the power of our own individual testimony that can bring life. To other people who are seeking it.

I think also I had to be open. So for any real change, there needs to be a balance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations intrinsically within us. We need to want to change, right? Think about at the well do you want to get well, do you wanna be healthy? We need to take action ourselves and we need to want that.

We may not need to know how exactly, that's the power of mentorship, that's the power of leaders. That's the power of community. But we need to take that first step and actually want it. And then that combination, the external and the intrinsic, critically important combination. For me the Bible made a huge difference.

It wasn't something that I had read as a kid, but it. [00:12:00] Getting into the scriptures really did peel away my layers of calluses that built up over the years of my heart. And becoming vulnerable open, along with being ready and willing to change allowed. Other mentors, whether it was Eric there, there were many, whether it was Tim Howard all of the other people in my life, the big sisters, the big brothers the people, the community wouldn't be able to help if I wasn't ready, open and vulnerable.

We need to be willing, whether it's in our business or our lives, we need to. Open ourselves to the possibility one of getting hurt. That's really the definition of vulnerability. Too often I wanna protect what's mine and as a result, shy back and live in fear. And I think that's a powerful message that I appreciate, Scott, you continue to share on [00:13:00] your podcast because stewardship is a spiritual discipline.

It takes time, it takes effort, it takes practice. And similarly. When we are not in the practice of spiritual disciplines, then we tend, I tend to let fear rule in my life. And fear is powerful. There's a reason why throughout the Bible, the message continually is do not fear. Don't fear, don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid, don't be anxious about anything. But in everything, prayer, petition. With Thanksgiving, the gratitude is huge. Maintaining that gratitude is significant and it's a daily practice.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. Yeah. I always think it's funny, whenever angels show up, the very first thing they say is, do not be afraid.

And our modern picture of angels know the bright shining light with wings and all of that. It's a why would people be afraid of that? But then when you go back and actually look at how angels are described in the Bible, it's oh yeah, that would be terrifying.

That showed [00:14:00] up. It's so yeah, do not be afraid. Probably good. Good. First words. If this showed up in my life. True. So talk a little bit about your faith journey. How has that evolved? You mentioned not being raised in it, but then later discovering the bible, discovering grace, discovering these sorts of things and how it impacted your life how has your faith journey affected the message you put out and the journey you've been on?

And then vice versa how has the journey that you've been on affected the way you look at faith and grace?

Matt Paradise: Sure. I think we'll start with the latter part of the question first. Ultimately I approach Grace as the prodigal son. I ultimately. All, so in all the ways of the story I went out, sewed my wild oats, whatever we wanna use as a euphemism went crazy and I overdosed.

[00:15:00] I literally, when I say by grace when I was a sophomore in high school, it was the nurse that called 9 1 1 got me to the hospital and was just a moment before I. I would've died ultimately. So it really is by grace and that helps me one to connect to the power of grace as I've seen it in my own life.

But it also helps me to empathize and lead with compassion. And I think it's important because now as I mentioned, it was 1999 and been sober since I really started that journey of transformation by grace. And it can be easy for me to become judgmental, to think, oh, just change. Just do it.

I did it. Why can't you? It's not that easy. I need to remember, and I think again, that the Bible is chock full of stories through the Old Testament. Remember how Moses was led and led the [00:16:00] people? Remember all the times that God averted catastrophe and led his people. Ultimately, that's the story of redemption, and it's the story of Jesus, and it's the story of Jesus in my life.

And when I'm connected with that, it helps me ultimately to love other people and know as Jesus said, people are harassed and helpless. That's why he didn't necessarily go all over the place with people's word. No. He loved people knowing that they were harassed and helpless and met people where they were.

And I think that's important as we work in our businesses and lead in our families and the community. Meeting people where they are with empathy and compassion is. Yeah, so my story of faith in the first part of your question really has also informed my work. I was living when I first started in nine and with a couple of women in unhealthy situation [00:17:00] and needed to change.

I knew I needed to change. It just was difficult that Romans, the, as Paul said I wanted to change, but the evil that was there. Really held me back. Ultimately, it was because of Jesus, the change was possible and ended up moving in with a couple of faith-filled people, faith-filled guys who had a vacancy in their home and needed a job and applied to this place called American Consumer Credit Counseling.

And as a high school dropout drug dealer on my resume, I didn't have a whole lot on paper that would've. S inform this company to hire me, but they give a kid a chance. And again, this is part of my gracefield journey. My first paycheck, Donna. Finance had to walk down with me to the bank to cash my check because I didn't have id.

And that's almost unfathomable to think about in this day and age where we are today. But 25 or so years ago, [00:18:00] that's what was necessary. I didn't have anything but I learned and grew in the organization and was led by my faith because it was ultimately, when I say it, my work, my life. It wasn't about me.

My story's not about me. I'm part of it clearly, but it's how God has worked through my life and ultimately that's helped to inform the journey of purpose and to develop and grow as a discipline the best of what I have to help others. And that's stewardship in my career. And ultimately I eventually got my GED some college classes and became certified as a financial educator.

Credit counselor. Was able to counsel people throughout the country who had debt, and debt is huge. When I mentioned the fear where we can too often live, financial stress is huge. Oftentimes it's rooted in fears of how other people [00:19:00] perceive us. We wanna have a nice car, we wanna have our kids dressed well.

We want all of these things. And sometimes in our society, in the US at least, and other parts of the world, but in the US where I, my career and expertise has been, it's easy to subsidize our lifestyle. It's part of why even the Bible says it's better to look poor and be rich than to look rich and be poor.

Credit cards oftentimes can help us to look rich, and ultimately it's just the bank's money that we're paying interest to. So that journey and your question with my long answer my faith. Really as it continues to grow and develop has led me to be a steward of the resources that I have, including my career, my talents, so that I can better help others.

Scott Maderer: So let's talk a little bit about Whole Health Wealth. That's a [00:20:00] term that you mentioned in terms of some of the tools that you use or the framework that you use, the approach. Unpack that a little bit. What do you mean when you talk about Whole Health Wealth?

Matt Paradise: Yeah, I think there's a lot.

I'll preface so I came up with a title. With my book, financially Capable, A Friendly Guide to Building Whole Health Wealth. I came up with that title while I was in the hospital dealing with bile duct cancer. So I went through chemo radiation and this was not too long ago. 2019 when I was diagnosed and coded on the table.

And crazy journey that we don't have time for to dig into all that story. But again, it's a story of grace, which is why I mention it. So it really is by grace that I live because when I coded on the table, the doctors told my wife I wouldn't survive the night, and she got on the phone, prayed the blood that was oozing, [00:21:00] stopped.

I needed eight bags of blood for a transfusion, but there wasn't a medical reason why that stopped. So whole Health Wealth, ultimately as an idea, as a concept, is well researched, well documented. The idea that the different domains of wellbeing are interconnected and ultimately inseparable. Oftentimes we wanna separate different parts of life, silo our money, our finances, and our financial wellbeing is over here.

That's that other thing. And I see in churches, and I'm. Board member of our church oftentimes finances it. It's a touchy subject. Yeah. The pastor at my church

Scott Maderer: used to make me preach on money because he was like, I'm much more comfortable preaching on easy topics like sex. It's true. Money's uncomfortable.

Matt Paradise: Money's funny, right? It's more than just math. One plus one we can agree is two, and not feel strongly about that. [00:22:00] Some do, but that's a that's neither here nor there. But when we ask what's the best thing to do with this $2, we each have a different thought opinion and oftentimes feel strongly about it.

Sometimes it's rooted in past traumas that haven't yet been resolved and worked through. Sometimes it's just informed by our own experiences or maybe our current challenges struggles, and even lack of faith. That's where the domain of financial wellbeing is connected directly to our spiritual wellbeing, as well as environmental, physical, mental, emotional wellbeing, occupational wellbeing.

So the multi-dimensional wellbeing really is as a whole. Who we are as we walk through life. We can't just say, oh, I'm gonna be a faithful disciple and do my best to bring my faith into work. But I'm gonna forget mental health. I'm just gonna work as [00:23:00] hard as possible. And that's where it leads to burnout.

It's inevitable. It's important to take care of our bodies and our minds, as well as the spiritual health, as well as the financial health. And to think about financial stress in the United States. A shocking, I say shocking statistic. We oftentimes, I get numbed by large numbers because we hear them all the time in the news.

It's estimated $4.7 billion is lost in productivity in the United States every single week because of financial stress that employees face. So for those who are leaders, listening and have employees or are leaders in your community or leaders in your family, those around you, your neighbors, those who work for you, maybe you yourself, financial stress is huge and.

More money doesn't always fix that. In my experience where I've seen most people, lifestyle creep happens [00:24:00] to pretty much everybody at one point or another. Most people if you went to college and had to live on Ramen, you know what it's like to not have much I, I've lived before, not knowing where my next meal was gonna come from, not knowing where I was gonna sleep the next day.

I've also had a lot. I'm grateful in so many ways, and again, that's part of stewardship. It's not me and my money. I can manage it ultimately to help others with that, but it's important to be aware of that lifestyle creep because it's huge. Fear is just so significant. Ultimately, gratitude helps tremendously.

But ultimately that idea of whole health wealth, I, when I turned 40, a few years ago, I made the decision that I was gonna be as healthy as possible. I had a preteen at the time. He's a teenager now, and I wanted to keep up and have him need to keep up with [00:25:00] me, not the other way around. And exercise, did everything quote unquote right.

Ultimately, it was just a couple of months after that I was diagnosed with the bile duct cancer, and it's a very rare cancer, and I mention it because being a steward even of our bodies means regular checkups. It had been five years since I had gone. For an annual physical, I still felt healthy. I was invincible, quote unquote.

My actions showed that even though I wouldn't say that out loud. And that led me ultimately to a cancer diagnosis. And it was a humbling experience because any control in my life. Ultimately, it was a fallacy that was taken away. I lost over 50 pounds of unwanted weight. It was difficult just to get up, move.

It literally took everything just to do basic tasks, walk up a step or open the refrigerator or just try to keep food down. And that's [00:26:00] ultimately where the idea of whole Health Wealth really grew strongly and ended up being the subtitle of my book.

Scott Maderer: Yeah. I'll give you a, a nugget that, that I've seen is I I've worked with, in financial coaching, I've worked with lots of clients on their money, and one of the things that has happened not infrequently is we'll be working together three months, six months, eight months, whatever it is, and somebody will come to me and be like, I'm losing weight.

Why am I losing weight? We're not working on health and fitness. I'm just working on money stuff. Why am I losing weight? And it's because as you started paying attention in one area of life, you naturally start paying attention in other areas of your life and you get more disciplined, you start making different choices.

And it's not, you didn't make any big dramatic, they didn't go on a crash diet. They just changed the way they were looking at things and living with things. And I think we forget sometimes. And the same thing can happen in reverse. I've [00:27:00] seen people. Go to the gym and start getting physically healthy, and all of a sudden it starts showing up in their money decisions because it's not, I don't think it's that any one area, but it speaks to what you're talking about us trying to put things in silos.

And the reality is, you are a whole person. So what you do in one area affects the other areas no matter what, whether you want it to or not.

Matt Paradise: That's so true. Those are great examples.

Scott Maderer: So what are some of the things that you've. Seen with folks in terms of how they get stuck when it comes to their money and what are some of the steps or frameworks that you approach it when they're thinking about getting free from that?

Matt Paradise: I think with any big goals, and I think oftentimes. People's minds who I've worked with, it's big goals and maybe that goal is get out of debt. The most debt that I've counseled one person through was 500,000 on credit cards. Then they had their mortgage and other [00:28:00] securitized loans, student loans, and it feels just insurmountable.

It's overwhelming. And maybe debt isn't a listener's concern. Maybe it's. College for kids or maybe it's retirement and will that even be possible? Or maybe it's giving, maybe it's starting to give, maybe it's increasing the ability and to give and the amount, whatever that the goal might be. It be it's just overwhelming to think about where we want to be and not take one step at a time to get there.

If we think, and I'm sure for everybody, maybe you've heard the analogy of two different ladders and one, the ladder rungs are equally spaced and a comfortable distance. Maybe it's 12 inches apart. And then on the ladder right next to it the rungs are just separated by a substantial amount.[00:29:00]

Maybe it's four feet. They both will reach the top potentially, but the one with the rungs equally spaced. Shorter distance. There are more rungs to go through to get to the top. That ladder and the person climbing it is going to help reach the top far faster than the one with fewer steps. And I personally want comfort.

Many of those who've I've counseled. It's not just comfort, but it's comfort for family. It's stability, it's all of comfort, is just one small way of wrapping it up. But for all of those different thoughts and beliefs and values that we have that drive our financial decisions, money. Is emotional and it's almost impossible for people that I've worked with over a hundred thousand people to separate the emotions from money.

Anybody can create a budget in a bubble, but even the word budget sends shivers down [00:30:00] people's spines, turns them away running. Think a budgets, that thing that tells me how much money I don't have, what I can't spend, the fun I can't have because I have all these bills and expenses and that just. Stresses me out, so no thanks.

And I've seen so many have a similar reaction. Maybe I have a little bit of hyperbole in the way that I portray it. Not much. Not much.

Scott Maderer: No.

Matt Paradise: No. I've literally seen people turn and run when I've set up a table at a conference working for a nonprofit. I worked there for 20 years and we went all over the place from military bases.

We were DOD approved to. Shelters to workplaces and regardless of socioeconomic status, seeing people look at free budgeting tools, free financial tools, thinking about whether it's trusts and estate plans, or getting out of debt and managing credit. People literally. See the free education and turn and walk away quickly.[00:31:00]

And it's just the first couple of times I was like, what? What was it me like I showered today? Am I really that repulsive? But it's amazing the emotions that are tied to our money. So thinking about making a change starts with one, the decision we need to want to improve that area of our stewardship.

Because it's a practice just like other spiritual disciplines. I don't wake up one day and say, I'm gonna read the whole Bible today. Nobody does that. But I could start by ingesting a little bit, some wisdom that I can really sink my teeth into and be transformed by as I meditate on that.

And I can do that a little bit tomorrow as well, and continue to do that with our money. Similarly. Just a simple practice. Maybe it's giving, maybe it's taking the focus off of ourselves and it's not the amount that [00:32:00] matters. The woman that was praised in the Bible for her giving was the one with a couple of small copper coins, but she gave out of her heart, out of generosity.

It was out of her poverty ultimately, in which that generosity overflowed, not necessarily her abundance. It wasn't the richest person. If the Bible's chock full of how difficult it is for rich people, ultimately, because I know that feeling now that I have found some success, it's easier to wanna keep that and think, oh if I just manage it this way and justify it and wrap it in a blanket of, this sounds good, I want to manage it well.

And too often it means holding it too close to my heart and. Not deploying it out into the world and building ultimately the spiritual treasures the treasures in heaven. So starts with one step, that decision and the next best thing. Sometimes it's giving, [00:33:00] sometimes it's writing down in detail, creating a budget.

A budget ultimately is just a list of our priorities and aligning our resources so that those priorities are covered. It's it. So if you say, as a listener, your priority is your family, even as a business leader or employee, however it might work. If your priority is your family and you're spending 85 hours a week working to make money, it becomes very difficult to provide love.

Our kids don't remember whether or not there was like extra stuff they remember whether or not we were around. Remember whether or not we, they had our guidance, encouragement, our comfort, and that really is important. So aligning our resources with our priorities and our systems of beliefs and values really is important.

And then just creating a plan, one step at a time [00:34:00] to implement that. Not necessarily in huge giant leaps and bounds overnight, but one step at a time. Yeah.

Scott Maderer: And I think what you said about priority is so important. First off, I appreciate the fact that you made it singular. It always bothers me when people make that word plural because literally the word means the one thing that comes before all others.

So to say I have priorities, plural. You have more than one, one thing. How does that work? So anyway the other part is when it comes to things like a budget I think a lot of times people look at it and the reasons they're so terrified of it is exactly what you said at the beginning.

They look at it as saying no to things.

And I'm like, flip that on its head. Look at a budget is what you're gonna say yes to. Yeah. Put the most important stuff in it first. That comes with time too. If your family's important, okay? They should show up on your calendar before anything else and then everything else works [00:35:00] around them.

You can do that, so true. But it does take taking, it looks at it a different way. You have to flip it on its head.

Matt Paradise: Yeah. And it's essential, I would say. Not only can we do that, it's necessary for our own health and wellbeing. I love the book boundaries. Because it's so easy in a world of many demands to be overwhelmed and not necessarily take the time to think about healthy boundaries.

Being healthy, one for ourselves. I can't give from an empty cup if I'm completely depleted emotionally and spiritually. And that's how I started my business. I was working, as I mentioned, 20 years in the credit counseling industry. My wife is a biochemist and we both worked really long hours because not only was I out speaking, I was also managing speakers in the administrative part.

So we adopted a child. We had more emotional needs than when it was just my wife and I [00:36:00] and we created a plan that I would stop working at a CCC and start my own business to. Really continue with the relationships that I had built so that I could speak and help other organizations around that financial stress.

That directly impacts productivity, and I think it's an important message for entrepreneurs or those who have businesses and trying to also manage employees that financial stress directly. I mentioned that 4.7 billion weekly number. It directly impacts the bottom line as well, in addition to mental health and how it continues to increase things like heart attack risk and stroke and lack of sleep.

It all is connected for sure. So it really is important. It's critical to have healthy boundaries. So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I ask you those, is there anything else about your [00:37:00] work or your book, financially capable that you'd like to share with the listener?

So people, one can find free resources on my website not necessarily out here with this message just to sell these books. My goal and my purpose is ultimately to help others with the best of what I have. So the book has lots of different resources, additional learning that can be found for free on my website, matt paradise.com.

Otherwise, the book is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all of that. But what I really love is helping businesses with their productivity by directly addressing this huge stress on the workforce, financial stress. With that being said. There's a good chance that with listeners, you feel that financial stress or your employees feel it, and therefore you recognize and feel it as well.

As a [00:38:00] compassionate, empathetic leader, I want to really offer that message that there's always hope. There's always hope things can improve. Jeremiah 29 11, I mentioned earlier, there is a promise and ultimately. I know it's so easy for me sometimes to start searching for all these other answers to that deep question.

How can this improve? How can I reach this goal? Ultimately, the goal is to take a step back, deep breath, be rooted in, centered ultimately in faith, and continue one step at a time.

Scott Maderer: So my brand is inspired stewardship, and I run things through that lens of stewardship. And you've mentioned stewardship a couple of times in our conversation today, but I've also learned that word means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

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

Matt Paradise: The first thing that comes up is spiritual discipline. People think about spiritual [00:39:00] discipline too often, and when I say people even. Close friends of mine who know what I do for work and know the importance themselves of managing money.

But often spiritual discipline. Things like reading the Bible, loving the poor, loving other people, loving God, all those things. They are important. Stewardship is also a spiritual discipline, and when we don't have the practice in our lives, things fall apart. Because we are stewards of our time, talent, treasure of the things that we have, so that the incredible message of Grace is able to be told beyond just today, but for years to come because God has done amazing things through all of our lives, and not everybody's story is like mine.

You have your own story, and that's part of what makes life amazing is that. My wife is almost the polar opposite of me. She never [00:40:00] got in trouble. She was valedictorian in high school, went, did everything that straightened narrow, and we come to the table with completely different views and perspectives.

And when we look at a given problem, whether it's raising our son or managing our finances, when we look at it together, we have a more complete view. And I think that stewarding relationships similar. Is important to our lives and our business because it just makes everything better.

Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody.

Imagine for a minute, Matt, that I invented 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. But through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life. See all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts you've left behind.

What impact do you hope you've left in the [00:41:00] world?

Matt Paradise: Three words come to mind that I hope someone with that view or whoever is viewing that way back machine and my life that Matt lived with. Faith, purpose, and love.

Scott Maderer: So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next as you continue on your journey?

Matt Paradise: Couple of things.

One, I'm really excited about being a patient, mentor, advocate, and speaker within the cholangiocarcinoma community. One of the things that my wife and I talk a lot about is we've been through a lot. It was traumatizing for her to wonder whether or not her husband was gonna die. She would stay up at night seeing if I was still breathing.

And we've talked a lot about not wasting that pain. We've gone through challenges and it gives us the opportunity. All the more to provide comfort to other people. So I'm excited to have upcoming opportunities to speak at PSC, primary Sclerosis and Cholangitis [00:42:00] Conference and to speak to the organization, CCA, the Cholangiocarcinoma Association, who does amazing work.

Ultimately, there's strength in community, hope and research. Is their tagline and helping to fund research and all of that is important. I am also excited about my business growing so that I have just m. The opportunity to work with more people, help more businesses with their workforce. So getting out there speaking, whether it's lunch and learns, keynote speeches that I've had the opportunity to do has been amazing.

It really is fulfilling in so many ways. So I'm excited about that coming up and doing more of that.

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

Matt Paradise: I would say thank you. Thank you for your [00:43:00] time. Thank you for listening. Learning about stewardship and being a steward who continues to grow, I think that's amazing and I appreciate all the ways that you're making your work, your family, your community better, and thank you.

Scott Maderer: 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. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.

Rate all one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review, and how to make sure you're [00:44:00] subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.