Winning Plays and Game-Changing Goals, with Matthew Mayberry – Episode 155 of The Action Catalyst Podcast

Matt Mayberry, a former NFL linebacker for the Chicago Bears, acclaimed keynote speaker and peak performance strategist, and CEO of Matt Mayberry Enterprises, talks about going from a teenage drug addict to the NFL, getting a major life lesson from Zig Ziglar, creating a gameplan for his life, the strategy to coming up with your one game-changing goal, and how you will become what you believe.

About Matt:

Matt Mayberry is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker and leading global expert in leadership development, culture change, and organizational performance.

His insights on leadership and business performance have been featured in Forbes, Fox News, Business Insider, Fortune, NBC, ESPN, Entrepreneur, and several other major media outlets.

His clients include a diverse list of who’s who in business with organizations like JP MorganChase, Allstate Insurance, Phillips 66, Ambit Energy, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, Optum, Mack Trucks, Fifth Third Bank, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and WESCO.

Prior to becoming an in–demand keynote speaker, author and management consultant, Matt was a linebacker for the Chicago Bears. Matt took the lessons he learned on the field and in the locker room straight to the boardroom. His playing days give him a unique perspective and platform to apply those lessons directly to business with a laser focus centered around leadership, culture, peak performance, and teamwork. These invaluable lessons as an athlete have been instrumental in helping him build stronger leadership teams and execute high–impact cultural transformations enhancing the performance of organizations in every sector for over a decade.

Matt’s unique experience as a professional athlete along with his extensive real–world examples of working in the trenches with leading organizations, Matt delivers actionable strategies that drive impact where it matters most. Matt has also authored the books “Winning Plays”, and “Culture Is the Way”.

Matt practices what he preaches and is an avid lifelong learner. He frequently publishes client case studies and insights on leadership, culture, and organizational performance.

Matt passionately believes that every organization has a deep responsibility to build a workplace where people love coming to work each day and become the best version of themselves inside and outside of the workplace. His life’s work is dedicated to helping organizations do just that.

Learn more at MattMayberryonline.com.

The Action Catalyst is presented by the Southwestern Family of Companies. With each episode, the podcast features some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Learn more at TheActionCatalyst.com, subscribe below or wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to leave a rating and review!

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(Transcribed using A.I. / May include errors):

Host: Matt Mayberry, I believe is one of the next big things in this industry of speaking and authorship. He already is a huge author. He has a very popular column in Entrepreneur. He was a former Indiana University and linebacker for the Chicago Bears, so he played in college, went to the NFL. He’s been featured in ESPN, Forbes, NBC. Just an incredible guy, tremendous life story and we’re excited to have him. So, Matt, welcome to the show.

Matthew Mayberry: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

Host: Tell me your story, brother. Talk to me about what life was like specifically in like, middle, late, middle school and in high school.

Matthew Mayberry: Sure. I’m a former teenage drug addict. You know, at 16 years old I started to hang around with drug addicts, people that were committing crimes, robberies, um, even murders. Obviously I wasn’t doing those type of crimes, but, uh, those are the people that I was hanging around with. So ultimately I adopted their habits.

So right at 16, I’ve done every single drug you could think of besides heroin. My mother seen me do cocaine five times. Wow. Um, my best sport growing up was baseball. I was actually, Scouted by Major League Scouts to forego my college education and go play right in the major leagues. A lot of people don’t know that baseball was absolutely my best sport growing up, so I got kicked off my baseball team for stealing one of my teammates wallets.

And now all of a sudden, here I am, I lost my absolute best sport, which I really had the most fun playing baseball. So from that event, right. I even spiraled down further and it was to the point where I was gonna get expelled. You know, there was not gonna be no more suspensions, there was gonna be no more detentions, I was gonna be kicked out of that high school.

And that’s when I entered a, entered a drug rehab program where I really started the process of rebuilding my life. And I would’ve gotten expelled if I didn’t go to that program. So it was in that moment in time where I really, I didn’t want to go, and the only reason why I went to that drug treatment program, was because my grandparents offered me at the time, $500 if I went, huh.

And I started to think about all the drugs that I could buy with the $500 and then in turn sell those drugs. So that’s kind of where my mindset was at 16 years old. Wow. And then ultimately two weeks into that program, I didn’t want to go there. I was pissed that I was at the treatment program, but I, that’s really when I had my awakening.

When I came home one night, two weeks after dinner with my mother and father and younger. And for the first time in really three years, I had a heart to heart conversation with my father. Mind you, my father’s been an ironworker for the past 40 years. You know, the strongest man I’ve ever met throughout the course of my life.

It’s not 330 pound lineman that wanted to rip my head off in the N F L. It’s my father. So to, to see him break down in tears and really just tell me, you know, Matt, is it something that me and your mother did wrong as parents? What did we do wrong as parents? We don’t know if we could go down this road anymore.

You know, my, your grandparents are gonna have a heart attack. Um, so it was to that, it was that bad. But that conversation transpired me to go into the bathroom and take a shower. And when I got outta the shower for the first time in three and a half years, I had the courage to look myself in the mirror.

And that’s when I saw, for the first time, I saw it so vivid. I saw anger, I saw depression. I saw a monster. I saw the tears that I put on my mother’s face. All the people that I hurt throughout the course of my life that loved me, that I loved most. And in that moment in time, that was my true awakening.

In the moment of a second, I collapsed to my knees so hard, to the point where I almost dislocated my kneecap. You know, just in an instant I just collapsed to my knees. And that’s when I cried out to God and I just cried out to God and asked him, God, can you show me the way to get outta this dark depraved world that I’ve been living in for?

So, That has nearly killed me, and that’s when I started to hear over and over again athletics. Athletics.

Host: So athletics then, you were already playing, I mean you were already doing baseball, so did you, did you just overnight get back into it?

Matthew Mayberry: So after I knew that athletics and really getting a Division one college scholarship was really my only lifesaver.

That would be how it would save my parents financially. From all the money they spent. I knew that that was gonna start the building blocks towards creating a bigger future for Matt May. And as well as giving back to my mother and father for all their, their sacrifice, dedication, and financial support that they’ve given me throughout the course.

You know, those three years where I was living in such a dark world and I, my father was leaving, he, he would always leave bible passages laying around the house or motivational books. And this book at the time was Zig Zigler. I’ve learned a lot from Zig as well. Uh, his book, see You at the Top, and it was actually bookmarked on the power of goal.

It was in that moment in time where I really discovered that we can be, do, or have anything that we want in the world if we just put our mind towards it, 120%. Come up with a game plan on how we’re gonna achieve that, and then persistently and passionately work every single day to make that become a reality.

And that’s when I set a goal to get a Division one college scholarship. It was in that moment in time and I made a list of 50 things that I had to do. I had to run a 4, 5 40 yard dash. I had to bench press 185 pounds, you know, 25 times. I had to reach out to these many colleges, you know, per day. So I started to create a game plan of everything I had to do, and it was that moment in time working seven days a week perfecting on my craft, getting better as a football player, you know, cause I already got kicked off the baseball team.

So the only sport I had left was. And football wasn’t a sport I was extremely excited about. Um, it was just a sport that I was, you know, naturally gifted at. I wasn’t a LeBron James where you say Matt Mayberry’s gonna play in the n NFL one day, but I did have some natural God-given ability there. You know, I think that’s where a lot of people, you know, why goal setting maybe hasn’t worked for them in the past, that they might set some, some huge goal that they’re extremely passionate about, but behind that, there’s no action plan as to how they’re gonna achieve that.

Just like as a football team, you gotta come up with a game plan as to how they’re gonna win the Super Bowl. Everything from practices is scheduled out to the daily meetings, to meetings with your position coaches. The same goes through in the, in the world of business and in the game of life. You need a game plan as to who do you want to become, what are the characteristics that you want to develop, you know, what are your values, what are your goal?

All that stuff matters. And I think when I created the plan that really showed. One extremely important characteristic. Where I think a lot of people miss out on in goal setting is to really come up with a plan. And that’s what I do in all my goal setting programs. When I speak all across the world, it’s not only do we set a goal, a game changing goal, as I call it, one goal that’s really gonna transform your entire life that year, but also creating a list of 25 to 50 things that you have to do in order to achieve that goal.
And I learned that at 16 years old, a year later, I ended up with 19 Division one College Scholarship.

Host: And so talk to me now about how, how do we translate what you learned into the big highlights that you’ve pulled out?

Matthew Mayberry: Absolutely. Well, I think you know what I just talked about. You know, right there with the one game changing goal, I encourage everyone to sit down and really take whether it’s during the weekend, preferably as soon as possible if you haven’t already.

And just sit in solitude. You know, some of the greatest thinking in this world has been done in solitude. And I think when we can black out this noisy, distracting world that we live in, you know, just turn on cnn, Fox News, whatever it may be, you’ll see what a, you know, what a noisy world that we live in.

So I encourage everyone to turn off the news, you know, sit in solitude for 25, 30 minutes, half hour, and just really think about what do you want for your life? And I encourage everyone to pick one game changing goal. At 16 years old, my game changing goal was to get a division one college scholarship.

And I say game changing because I think a lot of people, they might have 20 goals that they want to achieve and that’s great. You know, I think you should have a bucket list for things you want to do before the day you die. But in this instance, what is this one goal that’s gonna be a game changer for you. That’s drastically gonna take your business and life to the next level. And what this is doing, it’s, it’s creating Zoom focus as John Gordon, you know, his zoom fo focus translation there. That that’s what it’s doing. It’s, it’s putting every ounce of. Effort and time into this most important goal, and it’s gonna increase your energy, your focus, and ability to get the job done every single day.

So I encourage everyone to pick one game changing goal. A lot of times it’s gonna be a business or financial goal, but it’s drastically going to. You know, make a difference, positive difference. You know, I think when you, when you spend that time in solitude and really black out the noise, I think we, the funny thing about it is a lot of people will say that they might not know what that game changer goal is, but if you listen to your intuition, your heart and soul, more than likely you will develop that game changing goal.

I always tell people to go what you’re most passionate about right then and there. For me, I was extremely passionate about getting a division one college scholarship offer, but the. So why? My why behind why I wanted to get a division one scholarship was to pay my parents back for all their sacrifice, devotion, and love throughout the past three years.

So I always tell people to focus on what are you most passionate about? And not only that, what’s gonna bring the most significance to your life? Cuz ultimately that’s what success is to me. Fulfillment and significance. Doing things that we love when we want with people, we. . So that’s what I truly believe success is.

So when you take the time to really think about what is something right now, wherever you are in life, in business, what is one thing that’s drastically gonna change? Really, you know, the, the, the future of not only your business and professional life, but also your personal life, life with your family. And, uh, I think more than likely you’ll be able to come up with that game changing goal is if you really do some soul searching.

Host: With some of the clients that you work with now, are there any, any ideas for getting to the why behind the goal?

Matthew Mayberry: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s really all about, you know, what is the ideal. So if a company, for instance, they got their vision or mission, mission statement. So every goal, every game changing goal, you know, within that organization has to be revolved around, you know, that organization building closer and closer to that vision and mission.

But ultimately, I always say an organization can only become the best version of itself if the individuals within that organization are working and striving every day to get better and grow and become the best version of themselves. Mm-hmm. . So a lot of the work that, you know, for instance with, with big corporations, um, you know, it’s more of developing the people within that organization, which will eventually build.

Building the organization’s future even greater than what it currently is. So I encourage all of the executives and sometimes even before a keynote, I’ll sit down with two days bef with the executive staff. Really going over ways we can incorporate different methods and strategies to develop the people within the organization.

Whether it’s a 500 person organization or 50,000 person organization. What are ways that we can help the people within this organiz. Like Apples, the Googles, the companies that are just dominating, they give back to their people and they let, they help their people grow every opportunity, every day that they can.

And I think ultimately that’s why those people are so passionate working towards, you know, for a Google or Apple. So developing the people is the first step to developing the organization.

Host: So what do you think are some of the, the real poor, obviously drugs we talked about, but what else do you think people are doing that sort of sabotages them?

Matthew Mayberry: I mean, honestly, I think it’s, it’s pretty straightforward. I, I think a lack of persistence. I think so many people want instant gratification. The world that we live in today, whether it’s in the business world, athletics, whatever it may be, Everyone wants to put forward minimal effort with instant gratification in return, and I think that is the biggest mistake for a lot of people that are going after their game changing goal or really to make a major success of themselves make a tremendous difference in the world. I think a lack of persistence and focus is the two things that is sabotaging people left and right every single day.

Host: Talk to me a little bit about where do you want people to go to connect with you? Uh, where, where can they find ya?

Matthew Mayberry: Uh, you can go on my website, Mattmayberryonline.com. You know, feel free to connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, all those social media outlets. And, uh, you know, I think that’s a good first step.

Host: All right, so here’s my last little, my last little question for you. So let’s say that there is somebody out there listening right now, and either it’s them or maybe it’s their kid and they are going through what you were going through. They’re making all the wrong decisions, they’re hanging out with the wrong people. What would you say directly to that person?

Matthew Mayberry: Oh, man, that’s a, that’s a great question. Uh, there’s a lot of things that I would say, but I think that the two most important things I would say is number. Hang around champions, you know, do everything you can to hang around positive like-minded people that believe in your vision that are gonna help, you know, uplift you and take you to the next level.

I wasn’t raised in an environment where I was gonna become a teenage drug addict. It was because of the people I was hanging around with. Hmm. It wasn’t until I passionately and persistently worked towards finding champions, people that were gonna help bring out the best in me to my life, really started to get.

So I think association is everything. You know, whether I’m talking to executives or a college football team, I’ll always say, you are who you hang out with. Association is everything. The second thing I would say is probably one of the most important, and that’s to create and expand a beautiful vision for your life.

You know, Oprah Winfrey once said, create the highest grandest vision for your life because you will become what you believe. And at 16 years old, I saw myself as a, as a scumbag drug addict that didn’t have a bigger future for him. , and it wasn’t until I was really to create a grand vision for my life until my life really started to change for the better.

So I think once you can see yourself succeeding as a victor, as a champion, that’s when you’ll really start to achieve those results that you never thought was possible. You know, create a vision board, a notebook, you know, set goals for your life. Look at those every single day. Post quotes throughout your computer, bedroom, mirror on the, in the bathroom, whatever it is to move you and inspire.

Listen to audio books while you travel. Read good books every single day. Do whatever you can to expand your vision from your current level of thinking. I think that’s one of the, the biggest thing that holds people back is they, they stop expanding their vision for what’s possible for their business and their life.

Host: Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Mayberry, what I tell you. So Matt, we wish you all the best. Brother, thank you for, thank you for your story.

Matthew Mayberry: Thanks so much for having me.