I went on a three day bender watching Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge Amphitheater for Labor Day Weekend.

LABOR DAVE!!

Right before I left I told my community about the mastermind that I’m launching and the current community they’re in will be phased out. The current community investment is $297/quarter ($99/mo). My hope was to offer heart-centered leaders the support they need to create content and a brand they truly love at more accessible pricee.

There were plenty of success stories…

However, it just felt incomplete to me which made it hard to promote and sell.

Deep down, I created something lower ticket because I was too afraid to own the transformation I truly wanted to offer people. Not just social media growth. True personal expansion.

I was afraid because offering this level of support would ask me to step into the leader I always dreamed of being.

I had to stop playing small.

So I told them that.

“I’m sorry for playing small because it has allowed you to play small.”

It’s time for something bigger in my life and in theirs.

Then I head off for Dave Matthews Band.

I knew I was gonna drink even though deep down I’d rather not. I’ve already labored (lol) on this desire last year (​watch this reel​).

Instead of committing to not drinking, I thought maybe I can just drink and allow myself to have fun. Instead of stewing in shame while I beat myself up over not just being sober.

I tried that.

It wasn’t working.

At night I’d lay in my tent looking up at the stars at 3 AM. I’d think about the Voldemort Project [​read about it here​] and the man I want to become and I wasn’t happy with my choice to drink.

Yet, I continued to drink each day.

On Sunday right before Dave got on, there was some conflict. Drinking had nothing to do with it. There was just a misalignment in priorities that fractured the group and those who were upset chose not to communicate their feelings and sit elsewhere.

This inhibited me from enjoying night three as well as I could have.

I take full responsibility.

I realized that by not acting in integrity I am playing small and it’s allowing others to play small too.

Why couldn’t I have commitment to not drinking and see if I could have navigated having fun sober because that’s the man I wanna be?

I firmly believe if I acted in integrity and did NOTHING else different on Sunday, it would have empowered the other party to not play small and communicate what they were feeling and lead to a much more enjoyable night.

It reminds me of freshman year of college in 2008. I was studying business and didn’t like it. Overall I wasn’t having the college experience I thought I was supposed to have—the one they portray in movies. So I’d spend my days in the gym working out.

One day I looked at myself in the mirror at the gym and I said, “I’d love to be a personal trainer, but that’s not a real career path.”

Eventually I switched majors to civil engineering, graduated, got a great job in New York City, and full 10 years after that day in the gym, I quit my job as an engineer and moved to Colorado to become a personal trainer.

I had to move states to pursue this new career path. There’s no way I could have pursued entrepreneurship in NYC surrounded by the same community in the same energy in which I built my current life.

That’s why it’s so difficult to go to Labor Dave and not drink.

I place myself in an environment where drinking is the core activity for socializing and connecting.

I place myself in community with my best friend from middle school where we grew up chugging Keystone Lights in the basement. It’s how we bonded, grew together and became best friends.

If I were to not drink I would separate myself from the pact and the person closest to me and risk being an outcast. The fear is too great. So I drink because for internal safety to bond and relate even though I don’t want to.

I think all of us deep down know exactly what we want and need to be doing, but we hide it.

Sometimes we’re so good at hiding it we tell ourselves we have no idea what we want, but the truth is, we do know, but if we say it out loud then we can’t put it back.

If we say it out loud and we can’t put it back, we have to go for it.

That means we gotta do the work to get what we want and by dong the work we will become a completely different person.

Different than the person your friends and family know which means you risk losing everything you have for the unknown of maaaaaybe something better.

It’s so scary to put all that at risk, so we bury it.

We bury it until the pain is staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change and then we change.

The Voldemort Project started because I wanted to commit to sharing the thing I was too afraid to share publicly. Just as Harry Potter was the only one to say Voldemort’s name and was the only want to defeat him, I wanted to name my greatest fear so I could defeat it.

This project continues to show me all the things I’m afraid to say out because intuitively we all know how powerful our words are.

When I say, “Abracadabra,” you think of magic.

In Aramaic, Abracadabra translates to, “I create as I speak.”

Words are magic.

They create your reality.

I have been too afraid to say, “I quit drinking,” because it feels like a life sentence.

It feels like I’m committing to memories I’m not ready to give up.

It feels like the safe known life I’ve constructed for myself over the last 35 years will combust.

If I say it, it’s all over.

It’s interesting because I already have evidence that this new path is more enjoyable.

I did ‘Dry January’ this year. Incredible month. Felt so good.

Then after my breakup I stopped drinking for over 10 weeks from May into July.

I felt unstoppable.

True bliss.

Then I allow myself to have a few drinks and the bliss is gone.

I’m not an alcoholic and drinking doesn’t ruin my life, but it definitely prohibits me from being able to consistently regulate my nervous system as I navigate the fears that come with owning and pursuing my deep truths and desires.

The fears of this unknown life I am creating as I become a man who makes $150,000 in 6 months.

Can I trust myself to find safety in the complete unknown?

Trust that I can find new friendships if this means I lose the ones I have.

Trust that I can find love and partnership as a man I’ve never been before.

I do trust that.

So I’ll say it, I quit drinking.

And I’m sorry for playing small because it has allowed you to play small and I really don’t want to do that again.

Thank you so much for being on this journey with me. It’s truly a blast to navigate these waves with you and if this post resonates with you I’d love to invite you into the StoryGrowth Mastermind.

It’s a year long commitment focused on pursuing your deepest desires and unapologetically going after them. Together we support each other in achieving are big bold goals, navigating the fears and blocks that come up and using the pursuit of your big bold life as the source for your most aligned and embodied content (this email is a perfect example of doing just that).

The Mastermind is application only to keep the integrity of the group filled with leaders who can hold space and take messy action.

To learn more, click ​here​.

Applications open tomorrow!!

With love,

Matt

PS – We will be retreating as part of the mastermind which limits spaces. There are already 5 people signed up from the waitlist, so don’t wait! Be on the lookout for tomorrow’s email.