8. JUSTIN MATHEWS: Real Success Is Other People

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio or video for exact quotes.

Father Justin Mathews: We do not realize how lonely people are. You know, there’s, uh, I’ll paraphrase a quote from Mother Theresa. One time. She said that America is the most impoverished country because we’re the loneliest.

Michael Hyatt: Hi, I’m Michael Hyatt

Megan Hyatt Miller: And I’m Megan Hyatt Miller.

Michael Hyatt: and this is the Double Win Podcast where we talk about winning at work and succeeding at life.

Megan: And here at our company, full focus, we have identified nine life domains, body, mind, spirit, love, family, community, money, work, and hobbies that you can cultivate to help you be the person that you wanna be and live the life that you wanna live. Well, today’s guest covers a lot of ground, but especially ground in the area.

Of community, which I think you’re gonna love because it’s not an area that, uh, maybe we think as much about. And he has some fantastic insights for us.

Michael Hyatt: We’re excited to introduce you to Father Justin Matthews. We’ve been friends for about 25, maybe 30 years since he was a teenager. Not really, but a young adult at any rate. But he’s an orthodox Christian priest. He lives in Kansas City where he is a native 25 years experience in developing and executing successful strategies for mission driven.

For profit and nonprofit organizations. He’s a real entrepreneur, but he runs, uh, reconciliation Services in Kansas City, where he is the CEO. He’s a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Kansas City Business Journal, named him a next gen leader in 2022 In 2021, father Justin Co-founded the Social Venture Studio designed for social entrepreneurs to grow their business and increase their community impact. And what’s really interesting, he’s kind of a rock star and I, and by that I, I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean, he’s an artist, a singer, a songwriter, and quite amazing at that.

We’re gonna talk about that toward the end of the interview. But I love his music. He’s very, very good. Without further ado, here’s Father Justin.

Megan: father Justin. Thank you so much for being here today.

Father Justin Mathews: It’s an honor to be with both of you 

Megan: well, 

we’re really, really, excited. Yeah, this is gonna be a great conversation. So

why don’t you tell us a little bit about, um, reconciliation Services and Thelma’s Kitchen so we can just kind of understand what world you’re living in, and then we’ll get into this conversation about community. 

Father Justin Mathews: Sure. So Reconciliation Services is a, a 30-year-old nonprofit social venture located in Kansas City, Missouri on Truss Avenue, which is the economic and racial dividing line of our city. And, uh, as a result of the history of. 

Michael Hyatt: of. 

segregation. 

Father Justin Mathews: history of economic disinvestment that went along with that, which we could talk about more perhaps.

Um, there is an entire part of our city that is struggling to survive and succeed, and the work of reconciliation services is to cultivate a community that is seeking, uh, social and economic reconciliation to reveal the strength of our city. We do that one person at a time, one family at a time. And we begin with Thelma’s Kitchen, which is a social venture, pay it forward restaurant, where we bring together people from east and west, black and white, rich and poor.

Uh, you could be a CEO or you could be a client who is struggling to find housing. Uh, but we all eat together. We all break bread together, and as a pay it forward model, everybody eats and there’s real dignity and community in that model. Uh, from there we move on to social services, case management, and then trauma therapy.

And finally, uh, economic community building through job training and, and trauma informed workforce development is what we call it. 

Megan: Wow. 

Father Justin Mathews: that work in Kansas City is with about 3,500 people a year.

Michael Hyatt: The interesting thing about Thelma’s Kitchen, and we were there I think two summers ago with Moses, Mm-Hmm. sons, and this is not some, you know, off in the corner Soup kitchen. This is like a five star restaurant and you cater to corporate events. You do a lot of that kind of stuff, but it’s. It’s a place you want to eat, not a place you have to eat because you don’t have any other o uh, options.

Can you say more about that and what, what your vision was for providing such an excellent service? 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah. Thank you so much. I, I think at the heart of it, the reality is that we’ve been divided. As a community for so long that what we needed was something that would make that reconciliation more possible today than it was yesterday. And it’s something we’re always gonna be striving for, but there’s something magical that happens around the Thanksgiving table.

There’s something eucharistic about that, and we wanted to extend that. To a daily experience where we can break bread with our neighbors, but we wanted it to be an excellent restaurant, one where everyone felt welcome. Though very often, uh, many of our neighbors on the margins of our cities and society feel excluded from the places that maybe we take for granted.

And so by creating this restaurant, we actually are welcoming people, as I said, from all different walks of life. We’ve gotta learn, I think, how to get proximal with the people that are our problems. And you know, we often look at other people that maybe we’re afraid of or have a different culture, a different lifestyle.

We look at them as, as problems to be solved. If they were more like me or if they just wouldn’t do this. But what I have found is that when you come to know each other’s family stories and when you break bread together at a community table, and. You’re in each other’s presence, there’s something that happens that begins to lower those fears and those barriers to entry into relationship.

And that’s what Thelma’s Kitchen is, is all about. It’s also a restaurant. So we seek to be profitable, we seek to, uh, self sustain, and that’s sort of the essence of social venturing. Where community need and, uh, market demand intersect. You have this scalable, sustainable, measurable impact, and that’s what we’re chasing.

I.

Megan: It’s so cool. I love that. Okay. I have a couple of questions just to kind of further put the frame. Around this conversation. 

Um, the first is when you talk about the idea of reconciliation, what do you mean that may not be a familiar idea in this context for people. And then secondly, can you kind of describe maybe what your typical client, like, what their life is like when they come to you, what do they need and what’s the ultimate transformation of what you do with Thelma’s Kitchen and reconciliation? Services because when you were talking, one of the things that really came to mind as you’re talking about Thelma’s Kitchen was just how humanizing and dignity, um, affirming that experiences for the clients and, and actually everybody that comes. I think it can be dehumanizing in both directions when, um, we’re isolated from each other and, and not in community with one another.

So anyway, those two questions about your, your typical client and then what does reconciliation mean in this context. 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah, I always like to, um, give a framework that starts with people, places, and then things. So lemme tell you a story about a person. There was, uh, a man named Dave. And Dave had been coming into reconciliation services for years, and when we opened Thelma’s Kitchen, he was one of the first patrons to come in.

He is a, a very tall man that always carried around with him a suitcase, and he had most of his life possessions in that suitcase. He, he wasn’t always homeless, but he was sort of transitionally homeless off and on, sometimes couch surfing, sometimes on the streets. Um, but. Dave came in one day and he was sitting there, uh, eating in Thelma’s kitchen, and he was weeping.

He was crying, and I had just gotten done talking with him, and I said to him, Dave, did I offend you? What, what’s happening right now? I’m so sorry. I mean, I, I didn’t mean to make you cry. What’s going on? And he said, no, you didn’t offend me. He said, actually, you remembered my name. 

Megan: Hmm. 

Father Justin Mathews: ever calls me by my name.

And I don’t know, the last time somebody remembered my birthday and it had been his birthday that week, and I had, I had said, Dave, happy birthday, and he just began weeping. Um, we do not realize how lonely people are. You know, there’s, uh, I’ll paraphrase a quote from Mother Theresa. One time. She said that America is the most impoverished country because we’re the loneliest.

Megan: Wow. 

Father Justin Mathews: there are people in our communities that are not known by their name, and I think we all desire to know and to be known. So reconciliation, to answer your question, can start just simply by remembering somebody’s name, acknowledging their presence. Being in common space together. Ultimately, you know, from a, uh, from my lens as an Orthodox. Christian, there’s a ministry of reconciliation and that has to do with, you know, reconciling God and man and, and finding, uh, uh, salvation being reconciled back to him.

And we have a whole. Uh, thing called confession, where we confess our sins and that that service, that sacrament is called the service of reconciliation. So that’s kind of the, the, the kind of religious framework from within which I work. But, but then reconciliation that extends also to individuals. Um, families who are broken, people who are at enmity with one another, and then beyond that kind of widen the circle.

Communities. So in particular in our context, Kansas City is still very much a hyper segregated city, no longer by law, uh, but certainly by economics. And because of that history, and we need to be reconciled and there need to be tangible acts of reconciliation. And by the way, I don’t think this is just the domain of.

Of church or nonprofits or, you know, uh, CSR officers and corporations. I mean, this is, this is the work of the human heart. We each need to undertake this, whether we’re, uh, priests or nonprofit CEOs or CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, this is something that we need to do to become our best self and to become, you know, the, the great.

A country that we want to be, um, and the great community that we’re striving to be. 

Michael Hyatt: we were fully reconciled a community, what would that look like? 

Father Justin Mathews: Well, so first of all, I think it’s something that we’re always striving for. I don’t think there’s perfection on this side of heaven, but you know, the idea of being reconciled means to be friends with one another. I. That, that may also mean healthy boundaries. So many of our folks, the majority of them, uh, who are struggling to survive and succeed, but also many of us deal with pretty serious trauma.

Um, we deal with mental health issues. We deal with, um, grief and loss and sorrow at different levels. And so reconciliation can actually mean. Um, making peace with your past, not moving on. ’cause I don’t think we ever move on from those wounds, but moving forward and figuring out how to be reconciled.

Sometimes we need good, healthy boundaries. Um, I don’t have to be somebody’s best friend in order to forgive them, but I do believe that I need to forgive and I hope to be forgiven. And so reconciliation when accomplished, I think leads to, uh, a sort of piece that transcends all understanding. Or the pursuit of that piece.

And it’s a mutual effort. I can only do my part. Uh, but each, each neighbor, as we encounter one another, we have to strive for that. Sometimes it’s harder than than others. I think where it gets really interesting is not only on the human level, but how do you do that organizationally? You know, you have a lot of leaders of organizations listening to your podcast.

How do we take that value, that virtue, that aspiration that we may have, and we may try to practice personally and then then build that into the culture of our, of our company or our organization. Uh, that’s, that’s where it gets difficult. Um, but it is possible. I do believe it’s possible and we can live into that. 

Michael Hyatt: what are the biggest impediments. I. To reconciliation both at the individual level, then it’d be really interesting to talk about it at the corporate level and not the nonprofit level. But for somebody, people like us that are running a for-profit business, what are the biggest impediments to reconciliation? 

Father Justin Mathews: Well, on a personal level, I believe shame and lack of forgiveness are, are major barriers to reconciliation. Um, when you feel ashamed about maybe something you’ve done to somebody else or something that’s been done to you, um, there can be a real roadblock in forgiving one another and in being able to even contemplate being in relationship with one another.

But then moving beyond that, I think an impediment is the hardness of heart In the, um, workshops and lectures and keynotes that I give in, in for-profit settings and in nonprofit settings, I often talk about, um, the fact that the work that we need to do, I call it hard heart work because the work is hard, but we need to be working on the hard parts of our heart and that hard heart work.

When you don’t do it, um, it becomes a major impediment to moving forward in relationship, uh, with your neighbors, with your family. But then, you know, as an organization, if you’re not willing to have that kind of vulnerability that’s so commonly talked about, that empathy now that’s so commonly talked about.

Um, when you don’t have those things, I think it’s difficult to engender a culture of reconciliation.

Megan: you think about community, what does that mean to you? What is our responsibility as people that live in a context and a place for people who may not be naturally our, our friends, you know, that we’re interacting with at, you know, church or Starbucks or our kids’ school? 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah. So not unlike the domains of life that, uh, you all speak about in your work. I think we move out in concentric circles in our life when we think about community. Um, we certainly have this, uh, I think innate created desire for community or communion with God. some of our listeners today may not share my same faith tradition, but in the, in your own way that you understand that, I think that we all desire that, that spiritual communion, Then moving on from there, your, your spouse, your family, the people that you’re in close relationship with, having healthy community with them. And then finally, I think in that wider sphere of influence that you work in, it could be, you know, your, your church, your neighborhood, your neighborhood association, the organization that you work for, you know.

But if I. Think about community, there’s this concept in my faith tradition of, uh, carrying your cross or bearing that, that burden that we each carry. And when we think about community, I think, uh, there’s a great quote by one of my, my favorites. Her name was Mother Maria of Paris. Uh, you can Google her and find her.

She. Uh, was, uh, martyred in a Nazi concentration camp in Ravens Brook, but was an incredible, um, gatherer of people and builder of community. And Mother Maria once said, our neighbors cross should be a sword that pierces our soul. In other words, our neighbors suffering what they’re going through. Shouldn’t be something that we hold at arm’s length if we’re interested in community.

But it should even be allowed to pierce our own soul so that we can co participate, co feel cos sufferer co relive with our neighbor. And I think that is what love is, and that is the, uh, prerequisite for true healthy community. We can’t just be monads. We actually have to allow, the cross of our neighbor, the suffering of our neighbor, the situation of our neighbor, their reality, both present lived experience as well as past, um, to affect us, to impact us 

to pierce our heart.

Megan: And I feel like that happens a lot for us. Um, you know, when we’re hearing about some tragedy in a far off place or we’re watching the news or something like that. Uh, and we find that we kinda get this fatigue because it’s just so much and it’s so, uh, it’s so concentrated, it’s so frequent, all those things.

But I feel like the antidote for that in many ways. Is looking at the local level one person at a time, and I love that reconciliation services is so focused on. Individual people. You know, it’s probably very inefficient in, in some ways, you know, when we think about scaling, for example, I mean, you can’t really scale, um, helping people recover from trauma.

That has to be done through relationships one person at a time. But it’s also beautiful. And, uh, I just, I love that that’s the approach here. And I think, um, challenge to all of us that it’s okay if it’s messy, it’s okay if it’s slow, it’s okay if it’s one person. It doesn’t have to be, you don’t have to change the world, so to speak.

Thousands or millions of people at a time. It’s enough that it’s one person. 

Father Justin Mathews: You know, being vulnerable myself, one of the things that I struggled with a lot and, and I’m still struggling with it, um, when I became a CEO. Um, my inclination, my kind of entrepreneurial mindset and my, um, kind of just natural personality really leans towards efficiency. Like, I want to cast a vision and go get it.

I wanna, you know, I want to create the company and, you know, see it thriving. Um, and I was challenged by the founder of Reconciliation Services. I’m, I’m the second, uh, CEO and he said to me one time, he said, you, you are placing efficiency. Over the people that you’re in relationship with. And he said you have to pursue relationship, not efficiency.

And it, you know, that’s not an earth shattering concept. There’s lots of different ways to say that, but man, I think as leaders we lose that perspective. You know, even when I’m writing my domains down, my goals, my, my, you know, annual plan, I want to be there tomorrow. I don’t love, I’m not one of those guys that just sort of poetically loves the journey.

You know, I’m, but I’m, I’m learning to live into that and in my leadership in the organization that I serve, um, putting people first and, and putting people before progress is something that I’ve had to really learn how to do.

Megan: Wow. 

Michael Hyatt: You know, I’m reading a book right now that, um, has to do with American Foreign Relations and one of the things the author keeps pointing out. Is this cultural mindset that we have that we take for granted that sometimes really hurts us on the global stage. But it al also, I think, hurts us here. And that is sort of this rugged individualism that we have as Americans.

And I know not everybody listening to this is American, but you probably recognize it in us. I know that that for me particularly, you know, that coupled with being an introvert. You know, I’m busy, I’m doing all these things. Community’s kind of the last thing I think about I just wanna take care of me selfishly, and I don’t, you know, I don’t feel good about saying that out loud, but it’s a fact and I think that a lot of people struggle with that.

So do, do you think that’s an impediment, that kind of cultural mindset of individualism? 

Megan: And also why should we. Engage beyond the moral reasons, which I 

Father Justin Mathews: Mm-Hmm. 

Megan: um, you know, a good, a good case for why should we against that natural inclination of individualism and invest in people who are our neighbors that maybe we only recently started to think about as our neighbors. 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah, I, I think first of all, life is full of paradoxes. You know, we come to the light through the darkness. We learn how to, you know, to feast because we fast. So I, I think that there’s nothing wrong with that kind of self-care and. Of protecting your space and, and cultivating your personal community with great intention.

who we spend time with is a really important, part of our leadership development, but I also believe that, uh, one of the temptations is sort of twisting that and it becomes a selfishness. Where we are denying the reality that we are created to be in relationship with one another. It’s not just a moral thing.

It’s not just a, a social good, you know, A should have, you know, what if I could do better, I actually believe it’s sort of, I. Ontologically or, or part of our creation, you know, it’s, it’s part of who we are as humans, that we are created to be in community with one another. We are born to a mother and father.

And, even when those relationships aren’t what we want them to be or what they should be, we seek them out, you know, innately. Um, and we find people to be father and mother and brother and sister, and so. I think in order to be healthy in your, in your life, you have to, you know, be in community with one another.

I also think organizationally, if I, if I sort of go to the other side of the coin. 

I think the, the future of business, the future of, um, the way that we do our work needs To look more like a social venture. In other words, we need to center differentiated purpose that’s measurable in its impact. And in its ROI, right?

We can’t just seek ROI in order to please stakeholders, but actually there are white papers written by, you know, Stanford, uh, journal of Social Innovation and many others that prove time. And again, that the organizations and the companies that actually. Uh, focus on community and focus on not just return on investment, but social return on investment.

Or once it’s been said to me, we ought to focus on return on relationship. That the organizations that do that far outperform others. And I think that’s a reflection of how each of us is created innately, what we need. It flows from there.

Megan: You know what I love about what you didn’t say is kind of, um. versus them idea of we have so much, therefore we need to be giving. I don’t think he used the word give one time since we started this conversation. And I think, you know, for those of us who are, uh, middle, upper, middle class wealthy, oftentimes white, you know, like my dad and I are, we talk about people who are in places of suffering in our community. Or who don’t have what they need to be in a place of thriving and and success. As you said, when we began the conversation, we often think about what can we give or what can we do to fix that situation? And I know that is a part of the conversation. I. we actually as, as the people who think of ourselves maybe as coming from a strong position, actually have a certain kind of poverty within us that is only answered by these kinds of relationships.

And I think that’s really a paradigm shift. It certainly is for me. 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah, that’s well said. I agree with you.

 

Father Justin Mathews: The idea of, um. Possessions and giving is an interesting one. I mean, we could do another podcast on that sometime, but, you know, we shouldn’t hold anything so tightly. Um, we shouldn’t view anything as so valuable or so sacred that we can’t share it. And, um, when we do that, you know, we become possessed by our possessions.

And I think that learning to be a good steward of all that we’ve been given. 

Is is quintessential to building community, but also one of the problems in community, particularly in the world that I live in, in this nonprofit world, it gets very transactional and not relational. And part of the problem, and this is why I love social entrepreneurship, and again, another podcast, but.

The part of the problem with the old kind of 1950s nonprofit model, kind of sleepy, tired model is that it’s super transactional. You usually have one person who holds the power and the resources, and the other person who needs it, and I will give it to you. Housing, rental assistance, therapy, whatever. If you are willing to jump through my hoop.

And the hoop may not be set up there intentionally. You know, I’m not trying necessarily to make it hard on you, although you could look at examples of that, but that power dynamic of the model isn’t reflected on enough. And that’s why I think looking at these models, like the double wins. Right. Looking at the framework for how we live our life is critical.

Looking at the framework for the way that we do, uh, philanthropy, which by the way, I like that word, uh, the love of mankind much better than charity. Um, I think that the way that we set up those frameworks is really important because it influences how we do things. It’s like, it’s like language, how our language shapes our reality.

When we learn new words, we can think, you know, and dream of new things. Um, I think organizationally we have to do the same thing. So giving is critical, but it needs to be relational, not transactional. How would we set that up? Right? How do you set that up with an employee in an organization? How do you set that up in a soup kitchen?

You know, that thinking is what led to Thelma’s Kitchen rather than a soup kitchen. 

Megan: shift the conversation a little bit to being practical, but before I do, I feel like there’s one. Kind of philosophical thing that we haven’t touched on that I think may be kind of a, a stumbling point for ourselves for, um, those who are listening.

And that is, you know, we talk here about this idea of the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life. And we’re talking about all these life domains we’re talking about. You know, how do you free up the margin you need to attend to your health, to invest in your community, to, um, invest in your most important relationships in your family, all that kind of stuff. I think it’s really important to acknowledge, you know, that’s a tremendous privilege to even get to have this conversation 

Father Justin Mathews: Yep.

Megan: the double win. I mean, if you’re on the margins of society, you’re not thinking about that. That’s not, that’s not a luxury that you have that’s been afforded to you. You know, if you’re looking at Maslow’s hierarchy, the conversation about the double win is kind of at the top of the pyramid and the conversation you’re talking about is much more at the bottom of the, of the pyramid.

And so I just wanna. I wanna acknowledge that first of all, that it is a privilege that we get to have this conversation and that a lot of people don’t. But 

second of all, you know, I think our own guilt about that can get in the way, ironically, of us actually investing in our community, being in relationship with people who are in different circumstances than, than we are particularly socioeconomically. How do you think about that? Um, as we kind of move into, okay, what are we gonna do with this? 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah, of course. To whom much is given, much is expected. And so I think that, 

Michael Hyatt: that, 

Father Justin Mathews: um, without having guilt, we should feel a sense of stewardship, a sense of accountability. I want my neighbor to thrive and succeed because I know, even just sort of on like a practical sense or on a community development sense that like regional prosperity is a superior economic growth model.

Than what we’ve got right now, like when all ships are rising together as it’s been said. 

But on a personal level, um, I think as you, you use the word acknowledging, you know, I think we have to acknowledge what we’ve been given and acknowledge the systemic. And, uh, personal, um, inequality that does exist because if we don’t acknowledge it, we, we end up sort of, being oblivious to it, being blind to it, or choosing to be blind to it.

We’re never gonna enter into community. I remember a story one time. There was, um, a lady who was. an immigrant and she was, uh, a grandmother. And the grandson, they were together serving in, um, Thelma’s Kitchen, uh, in one of the early iterations of that at our Friday night meal. And, uh, father Alexi is actually the one this, the one of our found, our founder, that told me the story and the grandson was inspired being there, serving the meal in the community.

And went to the grandmother who was back in the kitchen, you know, stirring the, the soup and helping make the food and prepare it. And he said, you know, yeah, yeah, why, why haven’t we been doing this all along? You know, serving the poor, caring for the poor. And, you know, she looked at him and said, son, we were the poor a generation ago. And, um, that reality of circumstance and the fluidity is important to remember most of. The neighbors that we have live, uh, one or two paychecks away from being in a really difficult situation. And so again, we need each other. You know, uh, we are each other’s bootstraps. We, we are called to be in relationship.

And so I feel like what we have to do in moving forward is to look at what we’ve been given, think about those concentric circles, think about the different levels of community that we’re in, and make sure that we’re not neglecting one or the other. Because I’ve seen plenty of people who pour their life out.

In, uh, ministry or in nonprofits and they are warriors on the front lines caring for the homeless, and their children are neglected or they’re workaholics and they are neglected, right? So, um, sometimes we can chase after virtue at the expense of actually having healthy community, which is more than just the one who’s struggling, but it’s, it starts with our own heart and then moves out from there.

Megan, I don’t know if I answered your question. I think it’s a, a complicated one.

Megan: think that’s really good because I think the insidious lie that can creep in and kind of why I think this is important to talk about before we get practical is it’s easy to think if you really haven’t done research, walked with people to think, well, basically I’m just doing better than other people.

I’m working harder. I, you know, have more frustration tolerance. I’ve made the most of my opportunities. You know, all those kinds of things. Because we don’t really understand the systemic forces in play that would cause the kind of trauma that holds people back at an individual, at a community level. The kind of forces in terms of policy that keep people stuck and unable to move forward and thrive.

There’s so many things and you know, as you said earlier, that could be a whole other podcast or, or like a dedicated podcast ’cause there’s so much there. But I think that we can create this kind of. Superiority in our, uh, assessment of ourselves unconsciously. That really blocks us from being able to love in a way that, um, assumes that we’re truly equal.

You know that we’re not better than, we’re just different. Yeah. 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah, I think if we kind of come out of the, the, you and I have both kind of approached the answer to your question in a more of a philosophical or, or 30,000 foot level if we. 

You know, we’re working with people every single day who live on less than $10,000 a year. If you’re a single dad or a single mom, you don’t have a car.

Your kid is in the free daycare across town, and you are looking for a job, right? There are people who aren’t. Interested in, you know, laziness is real. There are people who are interested in moving forward. The majority of people that I know, 99% want better for themselves and their children and, and their life.

So part of the practical reality is I’ve, I’m a single parent. I’ve got a kid in daycare, I need a job. But in Kansas City, 80% of the better hourly wage work that’s available is two to three bus rides away. 

And a lot of those jobs don’t come with benefits. Right. And if I don’t have a car, how do I even get to that job?

Or if my kid’s sick, I can’t leave early. You know, there are so many barriers and even just having a little piece of plastic that Id, that we all carry around in our wallet or our purse, it’s not just about having the dignity of being able to prove who you are, but it’s about being able to apply for a legal job, get healthcare, fill out a, an apartment application, right.

And if you don’t have the, the day off to go to the DMV and then when you get there, if you don’t have the two forms of ID that you need or a mailing address that’s stable, you can’t get that. And uh, so you know, we’re one of the largest providers of document birth certificate and ID assistance. For, uh, residents here in Kansas City o over 2200 people a year come to us just for that little piece of plastic or a birth certificate.

But when you give somebody that, that’s like drilling a deep well of possibility because with that, now I can access so many things to be able to move forward. So it doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be big and philosophical. It can really be as simple as. An id, a job opportunity, a stable place to live, right?

When we’re talking about those who are really struggling to survive and succeed.

Megan: Hmm. 

Michael Hyatt: is probably a good transition into what we can do practically, because that people are listening to this and they’re thinking, okay, but how do I get started? It seems so overwhelming, maybe I need some training first, or whatever. Maybe we should talk about first the two or three common mistakes that people make when they get excited and they kind of jump into this, but not really thoughtfully. 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah. Well, so I have an e-course called the Social Leader, uh, and the Social leader e-course. In that I teach a framework that I call the Integrated Priorities Framework. Uh, and Michael, what it does is it helps you walk through this four step process for identifying your values, and then from there, not acting, but listening.

Really, you know, and I think that’s the, the big mistake that people make. You know, they, they wake up and they say, I want to make a difference in whatever it is. You know, I. Cancer or homelessness or, or whatever, and they rush with their solution to the work. Uh, without knowing the people who are, um, struggling with the problem and without listening to their neighbor and the solutions that, that they have.

Um, very often, you know, if you take what’s called this asset-based community development perspective or, or also called like a strengths-based perspective, you know, you’ll find that the answer to the problem is already in the community and what’s needed is. Hmm. Not to do it for somebody, but to really be with somebody, to walk with somebody to help them accomplish what they already know, uh, needs to be done.

Now, sometimes we also need to step back and look at our motivations. I. And we need to look at, um, why am I passionate about this and why do I want to fix this problem? And we have to do that kind of hard, hard work to make sure that we’re not misplacing that energy that’s really needing to be focused on us and maybe changing something about ourselves.

But in that integrated priorities framework, you know, I want people to identify at the end of that. What moves them, because I believe that what moves you, motivates you, and very often we sit in our cubicle at our desk, wherever we are, and we’re just doing our work, and we think about that social good that we want to do.

Or that community good as the thing that we do on Sunday, or the thing that we do in the margins of our life with our excess. But I wanna encourage people that what moves you, motivates you? And so when you bring that social impact, desire into your daily life and work, and you figure out how am I gonna integrate that systemically into my company and then personally into my life, my values.

Then all of a sudden your life takes on new meaning and new purpose and you’re, you’re driven to be able to go even further, I believe. 

Michael Hyatt: Correct me if you disagree with this. But it seems like one of the things that people like me who are entrepreneurial, when I think of getting involved, and I’ve seen this happen over and over again where people decide they’ve gotta found a not in profit or a ministry instead of plugging into something that already exists.

So I see a lot of duplication of effort, a lot of kind of a crazy distribution of resources that if they were consolidated. Would make a huge difference. Do you, do you see that in your, your work or could you speak to that? 

Father Justin Mathews: Sure I do see that. Um, and I think there. There is good and bad. There are a couple of, um, kind of fundamental things. First of all, some of that is not the fault of the organization that’s seeking to do that good, but it has to do with the funding mechanisms. So if you’ve got every different foundation and private donor with their own pet project or their own theory of change.

Funding different things. If there’s not coordination in the way that we fund and resource efforts, it becomes very hard for local organizations to, um, collaborate and coordinate because we end up competing for the same, for the same resources. Now also at the same time, I think that there, there’s a flip to that, that we don’t allow nonprofits.

To compete or fail when it comes to their programming, right? So if I’m running a business, I have an r and d department, I’m developing, you know, the full focus plan, or I’m developing some new product, whatever it is, I’m gonna test that. I’m gonna market it, I’m gonna be able to pivot. But in the nonprofit world, part of why there is that waste is there’s an expectation that, hey, if I give you 10 grand, you better accomplish.

Exactly what I gave it to you to do. But it’s not that way in the for-profit context and. You know, the human heart is messy. You know, solving these problems are, I would argue, you know, more complex than the creation of a retail product or, you know, the delivery of a simple a service that’s sort of B2C or B2B.

Um, we’re dealing with the human heart. I can deliver trauma therapy all day with high quality, high trained staff, but I cannot control the healing that the other person participates in. And so part of that competition and that, you know, perception of lack of resources or waste of resources, um, needs to be reframed so that we acknowledge the fact that it’s okay to fail. Because if I’m given the permission in the space as a social entrepreneur to iterate, to test, to pursue lean startup principles for social impact, then I’ll eventually come to a better solution. And that, you know, that process isn’t often given, um, to a nonprofit or afforded to, to a ministry.

Megan: That’s so interesting. Okay, so as we kind of wrap up this part of our conversation, I’d love for you to give us. Two or three of steps or some kind of a plan. If we’re like, yes, I wanna do this, I wanna really invest in community in this way, how do I get started? Figure out where to plug in in a way that ultimately is not only good for me, but it’s also good for the people that I wanna be in community with. 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah, well, I’ve touched on a little bit of it so far, and I think the first thing is learning to understand what moves you. Why, what in your past is driving you and giving you the resources, the abilities, the talent, the access that you have. And then as you begin to understand that, then begin to explore your values.

And, One interesting way to do that is to think about, uh, a time when somebody made you really angry and to think about what bothered me right then, what was transgressed right then Why did I get so upset about that? Um, and we often think about our values sort of in a, in a positive sense, but I think sort of, it’s interesting to look at it from the other, the other lens.

But at any rate, when we identify our, uh, our motivators. And we identify our skills, our resources, our talents, our abilities, our access personally and professionally. And then when we look at our values, now we’re prepared to then go apply those things to community. But before you do that. You have to stop and listen like we talked about, listen to the people, get proximal with the problem.

Begin to understand who’s already doing that work, how can I join forces with them? And then as you do that, you might see a gap in, in the service delivery or in the market. That’s your opportunity then to innovate. That’s your opportunity then to plug in in a meaningful way. I have a radical aversion to duplication as well, Michael.

Um, but we have to give ourselves time and do that hard, hard work and the preparation work that integrated priorities framework in order to get to the place where we can do the most good. 

Megan: Great. 

Michael Hyatt: Well, the big takeaway that I have so far is that listening aspect, I’m an achiever, I’m a doer, uh, you know, I’m a ready, fire, aim kind of guy, but to just slow it down and elicit is a Great. 

Megan: guys are never gonna guess. This. 

Father Justin is also a very serious, can I call you a rock star, 

Father Justin Mathews: Uh, art. 

Megan: a singer? I, you know, like my paper says Rock star, and I’m like, yes, I love this. 

Father Justin Mathews: Yeah. I, there’s no rock star there, but I am an artist and a songwriter, and I, yeah, I, I, I do indie rock music as well as some folk music.

Megan: That’s awesome. And the reason I want you to talk just for a second about this, I know we’re running short on time, but you know, hobbies is one of our life domains, and I kind of think about the world that you live in is like very serious, very morally upright. I mean, you’re doing all this good in the world and yet. You have this really cool hobby. You’re also a priest, which is like another, another thing we could talk more about another time, but Okay. Why music? What does this do for you? Like, just talk to us about this hobby of yours. 

Father Justin Mathews: First of all, I never use the H word hobby.

Megan: Sorry, did I just No, you by No, no, he’s cringing right now? He’s, if you’re not watching this video, he’s 

Father Justin Mathews: no. It’s obviously not my full-time work. But you know, as an artist and as a songwriter, um, you know, I have a project called Not Made by Hands. And not made by hands is not just something I do on this side. It’s really a part of who I am. I woke up. Um, I, I used to be signed to a record label, was in the music industry in the late nineties, early two thousands.

And when I kind of moved on in life, my, my career took off. My family grew. I had kids, um, became successful in other domains as an entrepreneur and social entrepreneur. But I woke up about a year ago. And I had not produced or recorded a record on my own since like 2004. And I, I felt like, I said to my wife, I’m like, T-Rex.

My career body is like really big, but my art arms are really short in atrophied. 

And, that. Such a good visual. 

and I said, I, I cannot go any longer. Um, kind of denying or suppressing or burying that part of, of my identity. And I said, I know it’s gonna be weird. Uh, I don’t always wear a collar, but, you know, people know me for what I do.

Uh, but I said I have to do it. So I, I partnered together with some good friends. I actually came to Nashville and saw you guys and, and, and stayed in Franklin and, and was able to record that record. And I’m, I’m very proud of it. If you like indie rock music, you’ll, you’ll like it, but. 

Michael Hyatt: excellent. 

Father Justin Mathews: Thank you. Thank you.

But it’s really important, and I’ll tell you it is. I believe that we’re, we are really made for co-creation, right? So from my religious and worldview and perspective, if we’re created in the image of the creator, then we are to be creators, right? That’s why I love entrepreneurship. That’s why I love. Art.

And art is, is just another expression of, of my vocation. Um, and I just don’t ever call it a hobby. I have other hobbies like fly fishing.

Megan: Okay. Noted As you should. 

as you should. I lo. I love that. That’s fantastic. Well, I think that’s a great example. You know, I think we need more examples of people who are pursuing things outside of the professional, uh, you know, the work domain that are really meaningful and ultimately enhance your work. So thank you for being an example of that for us.

Okay. 

 

Megan: have some questions that we ask every guest on the Double Win podcast. Um, what’s the biggest obstacle, and this is a little bit like rapid fire, so you know, just 

Father Justin Mathews: All right. 

Megan: but what’s the biggest obstacle for you in getting the double win currently? 

Father Justin Mathews: Uh, I love the, um, almost manic feeling of creativity. I love having, uh, multiple books on my nightstand, multiple things being created. You know, I, I love running a nonprofit, you know, making a record, being a priest, dreaming about the next social entrepreneurship opportunity. And I just love doing it all.

And there’s a real, um. There can almost be an addiction to that feeling, that feeling of kind of hyper intense, amazing flow and creativity. And I think my obstacle is slowing down and being quiet. I’m a raging e extrovert and so like, I am always around people and I love it. I, I thrive on that, uh, particularly really creative people.

But, um, man, I need more time. Uh, I call it like forest therapy. I need time in the mountains and I need time to reflect. And I’ve made myself do that this year. Um, and I’ve been journaling on some really powerful questions and it has opened up a whole new world for me. You know, I’m approaching, I’m approaching 50 in the next couple of years, and I’ve got big questions as a lot of people my age do.

Megan: Yeah. 

Father Justin Mathews: if I don’t slow down, I’m not gonna answer those questions the right way, and I might regret where I end up if I just drift there.

Megan: Hmm. That’s really good. Okay. How do you personally know that you’ve gotten the double win or that you’re, you’re close to it on any given day?

Father Justin Mathews: Um, my wife and children are happy with me and there’s speech in my home. Um, no, I, I think that part of that is, um, daily and weekly and quarterly and annual practice. Obviously, I’m a, I’m a practitioner of the. The, the things that you all teach. Um, but, but also for me, I think there’s just an innate sense of being in the center, of being in God’s will of being at peace.

Um, knowing that I am, um, doing the right thing. It’s not always easy to discern that, but when I’m practicing the, the right practices daily, those disciplines, I can get into that space. And then when the difficult or uncertain times come, I’ve got the. Fortitude, the resilience to be able to weather those.

That’s how, that’s how, I know when I’ve got

that.

Megan: Well, 

that’s a perfect segue into our last que question, which is, what is one ritual or routine? that. helps you do what you do well. 

Father Justin Mathews: Uh, there are a lot of daily practices that I have, but I’ll be honest with you, and this, this may not resonate with every listener, but for me as an orthodox Christian priest, I can get, um, really distracted with lots of things, but if I lose my. Kind of my, my prayer, if I lose my reading of scripture, if I lose my participation in my core community, which is, you know, the church that I am a part of, um, then actually it begins to, if I’m honest, it begins to almost feel good.

Like, oh, I’m free, you know, I can do all these things. But then I quickly wake up and realize, man, I am off course, and I’ve lost that inner peace. When I return back to that core practice of prayer, of participation in, in the sacramental life of my church, I end up feeling very grounded and I realize that’s the core of my being, and that’s how I can, can, um, be my best self and do the most good for the short amount of time that I have on this earth.

Megan: That’s amazing. It’s kind of like when you go on vacation and you’re so excited ’cause you’re not gonna. Eat your normal food at home and you’re eating out and you’re like, this is amazing. And by the end of a week, you know, you’re like, I just need like some grilled chicken and salad at home. You know, I just need to get Yeah. like a grownup plan here.

’cause I can’t, Right, eat burgers and fries every day. It doesn’t actually feel good after very right. Yeah. And I think each one of your listeners, even if they don’t share my faith perspective or my tradition. Each of us, I think, has that spiritual practice, um, that we need to pay attention to. And, uh, we don’t teach that very well in the modern world. I. 

Michael Hyatt: Well, this has been a great conversation. Father, thank you so much for joining us. You know, this has been enlightening to me and this is something I try to participate in and try to focus on, but I’ve gotten some great 

Megan: Mm-Hmm. 

Michael Hyatt: during this conversation. So thanks again for your time and for what you do in the 

Megan: Yeah. 

Michael Hyatt: making a difference. 

Father Justin Mathews: Well, thank you for the opportunity to just share a little bit of my story with your team to share about Reconciliation services and Thelma’s Kitchen, and I follow you all and I’m very grateful for what you’ve taught me as well over the many years. So thank you both for this opportunity.

Megan: Okay, so if people wanna learn more about your work and more about you, where should they go? 

Father Justin Mathews: So reconciliation services can be found online at RS 3 1 0 1 org, but it may even be easier just to Google Thelma’s Kitchen. And if you’re in Kansas City, you can order the. Best lunch to be catered in in the United States. Or you can sometime visit Kansas City and come to Thelma’s Kitchen at the, at the corner of 31st and Truss and come experience community with us.

Megan: Thanks so much for being here, father Justin. 

Father Justin Mathews: Thank you so much. Bye-Bye.

Megan: Well that was an amazing conversation. I literally had to cut myself off. I had like 10 more questions I wanted to ask and I was looking at the clock and I was like, this clock is not cooperating. Which is because it was just, I found myself so engrossed in the conversation we’re having.

’cause I think it, it’s just so important.

Michael Hyatt: You know the thing I, I love about Father Justin. Izzy’s one of the most thoughtful people I know. You know, I mean, he just, he has deep, philosophical and theological reasons for why he does what he does. That really resonate with me. But the thing I appreciate about him, and I think you actually said this in the conversation, Megan, he doesn’t make you feel guilty or shame for what you’re not doing, but he really gives you a vision for the kind of impact that we could have.

And how we can change our communities in a concrete way and really take care of our communities so that there really is reconciliation and friendship and neighborhoods.

Megan: Well, I think that, um, it’s easy to think about this conversation of philanthropy, as he called it, as like just writing checks. You know, like if we’re successful in any way. We probably have something that we can financially give, but what he’s really calling us into is a kind of deep relationships with people who are very different with than us.

You know, whether that’s racially or socioeconomically, whatever it has, whatever it might be, that we need to develop relationships across those lines that rarely get crossed. Because we need each other. There’s, there’s a kind of of poverty that is universal. Um, it may, it may look different in different communities, but we all have a certain kind of poverty that really gets answered in relationship and in each other.

And I, I just love that. I love how he thinks about it. I love his vision and I felt like he gave us some practical application. And in particular the idea of listening. You know, that’s one of the things that I. Have learned kind of the hard way in the journey that our family’s been on with regard to racial justice and understanding racial history.

It’s so easy to rush in with opinions and ideas and things to say when in reality, I. What we need to do is we need to understand, we need to listen, we need to kind of approach it with humility, um, before we start activating and especially as high achievers. You know, the activation part comes really easily.

And, um, I think that that how we challenged us to start the process of engagement was really wise and, um, based on a lot of experience.

Michael Hyatt: Well, that was definitely my biggest takeaway was listen, first and years ago I read a book. This is after I came back from Ethiopia. I’d been there with World Vision and I was profoundly impacted by that experience. But somebody advised me to read this book when Helping Herz by Steve Corbett, and it’s a fantastic book because if we go off without being thoughtful, without being informed.

We sometimes can do more damage than we do good. And that’s, that’s not an excuse for staying out of the fray and not activating, but there’s a way to do it. And I think listening first is, is the first and most important principle I.

Megan: The other thing I loved about this conversation was just kind of the overarching theme of dignity. Honoring the humanity of the people that we are in relationship with, and in some cases serving. And I think that’s one of the points that that book makes that I really took away from reading that was just that.

We have to ask the question of, does, does the work that we’re doing that we wanna do, you know, this, the helping work, does it, um, affirm human dignity and affirm human autonomy and flourishing or. Sometimes are the things that we’re doing really motivated by, we feel good when we do this, when we give this or that, or help in this or that way.

It makes us feel good. It makes us look or feel like the hero, but in reality, it takes something away from the person that we’re in relationship with. And so, um, I, I just felt there was just so many nuances in this conversation that were good reminders and really empowering and exciting to consider.

Michael Hyatt: I will say that I was also inspired by Thelma’s Kitchen when I went there because the food. Was fantastic and I have very high standards, but the food was fantastic. And to see that kind of, uh, service delivered with such excellence in the, in the non-profit world was really inspiring because I think sometimes we think that we’re gonna do this work, you know, it has to be bare bones, it has to be substandard.

We just have like a different set of standards for that, but not Father Justin. And so that’s inspiring to me. To whatever we do. And I, I think it’s part of this, you know, giving people dignity is to do whatever we’re gonna do in our service to others with a level of excellence that’s inspiring and really respects their dignity as people made in the image of God.

Megan: Okay. What did you think about his response to me talking about his, and I put this in air quotes, his hobby of music. I thought that was so interesting.

Michael Hyatt: Well, I ki I kind of get it because for me music is a hobby. You know, it’s, I’m not as serious about it as he is because he’s literally recording albums. He’s on Spotify. I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, at the same level of anybody that you hear that’s recorded. I mean, it’s really good stuff. Mine is a hobby, you know, I’m not recording albums.

I’m not playing small concerts. I’m not doing anything. I’m just playing for my own amusement. So, so I get that. It’s more integral to who he is, and it definitely is who he was because when I first met him. He wasn’t a priest, he was a layman. He had moved to Nashville to make his mark in the music industry, and he was signed to a record deal.

He was writing songs, he was doing all those things until God called him into this service as, as a priest. And so, uh, so I get it.

Megan: well, what I took away from that, besides just, I thought that was an interesting way of thinking about it, that there’s kind of a spectrum of hobbies in terms of how serious you are about it and, and, and the way in which you pursue it. When he said something about like this was a part of himself that he hadn’t expressed and that really for him to do his best work in the world, like he needed to literally give voice to that and express that and explore that.

You know, that’s one of the reasons I think that hobbies, I. I use that term, you know, in a, in a neutral way. In this case, not a pejorative way at all are important because there are things about who we are that don’t directly relate to our work that need to be nurtured and. Expressed and it ends up benefiting our work and our impact in the world.

But it, it’s not just about like something fun to do, it’s also about giving expression to the full breadth of who we’re made to be. And for most of us, none of our work is gonna do that. A hundred percent. That’s not a

Michael Hyatt: That’s right.

Megan: so I, I found that very inspiring.

Michael Hyatt: Well, and I think it’s important because when people do lean on work to supply all those needs, it’s usually pretty disappointing and people are either bored or they’re frustrated. But if we don’t have such a high expectation of work and we can express ourselves fully in these other domains, then there’s an opportunity for real satisfaction with life.

It’s not just job satisfaction, but it’s life satisfaction.

Megan: Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation as much as we did and and learned as much as we did. Um, if you did, I wanna just ask you to do two things. First of all, I would love for you to subscribe to this podcast so you can make sure to get it every week. Um, that helps to increase our visibility out there in the world, as does leaving us a rating.

I would love for you to do that. You know, we are. Passionate about the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life. And we wanna get that message out to as many people as possible so that they also can get the double win. And the best way to do that is to have more visibility on this show so that people can be introduced to this conversation.

So if you take just a second and do that for us, we would be so grateful. And um, thanks so much for listening. Thanks for being here with us in this conversation, and we will look forward to being back with you next week.