EAP 199: Rising From Ruin – Matt Paradise on Breaking Cycles of Addiction, Homelessness, and Financial Trauma
In this moving episode of the Early Accountability Podcast, host Kimi Walker sits down with award-winning financial educator and author Matt Paradise to explore his powerful story of redemption, resilience, and purpose. Matt takes listeners on a deeply personal journey, from facing homelessness and addiction in his teenage years to overcoming a rare and life-threatening cancer diagnosis in adulthood. Along the way, he shares how mentors, recovery, and a spiritual foundation helped him not only survive but thrive, eventually dedicating over two decades to financial education and launching his own mission-driven business.
Matt and Kimi dive into the concept of whole health wealth, a holistic approach to financial wellness that prioritizes mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being alongside money management. Matt unpacks societal myths around money, explains how trauma and behavioral patterns influence our financial choices, and emphasizes the power of taking the next best step, even in times of uncertainty. With warmth and wisdom, Matt reminds listeners that no matter where they start, healing, growth, and hope are always within reach.
Topics Covered in This Episode:
- Transforming trauma into purpose through resilience and mentorship
- Breaking cycles of financial trauma and building whole health wealth
- The emotional side of money and why personal finance must stay personal
- How addiction, recovery, and spiritual growth shaped Matt’s journey
- Navigating uncertainty and taking the next best step with confidence
- Financial wellness as a foundation for emotional and relational well-being
About Matt Paradise
Matt Paradise is a Financial Wellness Speaker, award-winning author, and a living example of resilience. From homeless teen to millionaire, Matt now helps organizations reduce employee financial stress to boost focus, productivity, and performance. His inspiring story of survival and success, marked by overcoming bile duct cancer and a liver transplant, makes him relatable and memorable. Today, Matt's practical tools help leaders and teams overcome financial stress, resulting in stronger individuals and better business growth.
Connect with Matt
- Website: https://www.mattparadise.com/
- Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-paradise/
- Email: Matt@mattparadise.com
Connect with Kimi Walker:
· Visit: earlyaccountability.com
· LinkedIn: Kimi Walker
· Facebook: Kimi Walker
· Instagram: Kimi Walker
· YouTube: Kimi Walker
Transcript
All right, Kimi Walker here and welcome back to the next episode of
Speaker:the Early Accountability Podcast.
Speaker:Today I'm very happy to have my guest here today.
Speaker:We have Matt.
Speaker:He is a powerhouse of resilience and transformation.
Speaker:He is going to talk today how he went from.
Speaker:Homelessness battling addiction to becoming award-winning financial educator.
Speaker:He also is gonna talk about surviving a rare cancer diagnosis.
Speaker:Matt's story is nothing short of extraordinary.
Speaker:He's gonna teach others.
Speaker:He's gonna teach others, us, everybody how to break cycles of financial trauma.
Speaker:We're gonna redefine our success and he's gonna tell us about
Speaker:how we can build what he calls.
Speaker:Whole health wealth.
Speaker:So we're gonna talk about living a life in confidence, purpose, and wellbeing.
Speaker:So Matt, first off, thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker:I'm so excited to have you as a guest.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:It's my pleasure.
Speaker:I'm excited to be a guest.
Speaker:I love having conversations like these and I love the wellness.
Speaker:US work that you do and the ways that you help so many people.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:Why don't you tell the audience, you have a very dynamic story, so why don't
Speaker:you just tell us about you, like start.
Speaker:Beginning and tell us about Matt.
Speaker:I really want to hear more about your background and how you got
Speaker:to doing the work you do today.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:And it, it is a long and winding kind of road.
Speaker:There's some people that just go straight.
Speaker:My wife is much like that.
Speaker:She was the best student and did everything right and went to
Speaker:college, got a job, career, and.
Speaker:Never really got in trouble.
Speaker:That just wasn't me.
Speaker:I was the opposite.
Speaker:We're polar opposites in a whole lot of ways, and ultimately we can look at
Speaker:problems together and solve them together as a team, which is important that
Speaker:we work with the people in our lives.
Speaker:For me, a lot of the trouble came in high school.
Speaker:So before that I grew up in Connecticut, northeast Connecticut.
Speaker:My parents actually moved us to a rural area to shield us, protect us from.
Speaker:All the trouble that might happen in the world.
Speaker:And ironically, the data backs this up, but ironically, a lot of
Speaker:people, young adults, teens in rural areas get into drugs and alcohol.
Speaker:'cause there's nothing else to do.
Speaker:There's not a whole lot of arts and culture and different outlets that I think
Speaker:it really critical to be able to explore.
Speaker:Not just creative, but vocational outlets, variety of things.
Speaker:There's farms in this beautiful land.
Speaker:But I didn't appreciate that as a teen.
Speaker:So come sophomore year, a lot of the different feelings of wondering
Speaker:that identity work that most sophomores in high school start to
Speaker:think about, who am I in this world?
Speaker:Where's my place?
Speaker:What's my place going to be?
Speaker:How am I gonna get bought?
Speaker:All of the things really came together in depressive tendencies,
Speaker:suicidal ideations, and ultimately.
Speaker:Drinking and drugs and overdosed when I was a sophomore in high school.
Speaker:Barely got by.
Speaker:So it really, by grace, survived nothing of my own doing.
Speaker:Eventually, my parents gave me an ultimatum.
Speaker:I had two younger siblings.
Speaker:They said Either get out or get sober, get right.
Speaker:And for me, if only it were that easy, first of all getting through
Speaker:addictions, growing, changing on a dime, very difficult.
Speaker:I. In the teen brain that's still developing in my frontal core,
Speaker:cerebral, all of that stuff just
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Change on a dime.
Speaker:So I left and I became a homeless teen.
Speaker:I bounced around.
Speaker:There were times that I slept on the streets, slept on friends floors
Speaker:or couches, wherever I was able to.
Speaker:Eventually was living in a house where we sold drugs out of and was raided by
Speaker:the police frequently and was crazy.
Speaker:So even in high school, friends would come over after school and hang out and
Speaker:be stopped by the police down the street and interrogated and told, don't go in
Speaker:that house because it's being watched.
Speaker:And the life that I lived, I knew that one, it was tearing me apart
Speaker:inside because I knew that it was bringing destruction to people's lives.
Speaker:It was ruining relationships.
Speaker:I also knew that personally it was inevitable that the path that I was
Speaker:on would lead to death, jail, or insanity, knew that I needed to change.
Speaker:So with a friend of a friend moved to Massachusetts to get away from that
Speaker:whole life and the poor decisions and the world that I was part of.
Speaker:Anybody who's tried to go through internal change by moving.
Speaker:Knows that wherever we go, our baggage comes with us.
Speaker:Our baggage just is carried around and there's a lot of internal
Speaker:work that needs to be done.
Speaker:And within the world of addiction, there's the important two factors.
Speaker:Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.
Speaker:We need somebody who can guide us lovingly in a healthy path.
Speaker:And for sometimes I needed a quick swift kick in the pants to be able to get
Speaker:on track and quote unquote tough love.
Speaker:And other times I just needed a hug.
Speaker:I also needed to have that internal, that intrinsic motivation to want to
Speaker:change because if that desire's not there and people from the outside.
Speaker:Start trying to help.
Speaker:Sometimes it just sounds like nagging and I think that's a difficult thing
Speaker:that many encounter when helping and loving someone through an addiction.
Speaker:And maybe listeners don't necessarily relate to drinking or using drugs,
Speaker:but there are so many process addictions that there's some say
Speaker:everybody at some point suffers from.
Speaker:And obviously there's everything from with my
Speaker:Ooh.
Speaker:Social media overworking,
Speaker:Most definitely all of that, spending and their
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:anonymous and gamblers anonymous and all of that stuff, for sure.
Speaker:So whatever that the device is, some of the brain chemistry is similar
Speaker:ultimately, at the end of the day, and.
Speaker:I think that it is something that is so pervasive in our society that some of it's
Speaker:just more accepted than others, right?
Speaker:We know that, okay, drugs.
Speaker:Drugs, that's bad, but shopping.
Speaker:That's what the economy's built on.
Speaker:Of course, we go shopping, retail therapy.
Speaker:I feel good.
Speaker:I got those new shoes or new outfit and I'm looking feeling good, but
Speaker:ultimately struggling to pay the bills.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that it's an interesting thing that's a societal thing.
Speaker:It's such a big deal.
Speaker:So that's a little bit of that and that transformation.
Speaker:Ultimately somebody, when I mentioned the extrinsic motivation, somebody cared
Speaker:enough about me and had a vision that my future could be better than what it was
Speaker:because I didn't have that at the time.
Speaker:There were whether suicidal ideations and just my vision was clouded.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I didn't have hope for the future, and when we fail to have hope for a
Speaker:better future, we tend not to make decisions in our best interests today.
Speaker:We need to have that hope is critical.
Speaker:Fortunately I had some people, some mentors in my life that
Speaker:helped to steer, guide me, open my eyes to a world of possibility.
Speaker:I didn't envision surviving to 20 years old.
Speaker:So all this time I was like 16, 17, 18, 19 years old.
Speaker:I didn't necessarily see a clear future for myself.
Speaker:And extremely grateful for those people that were in my life as mentors
Speaker:and guides, and people who again, helped to show the possibility of a
Speaker:future and made a world of difference.
Speaker:So I ended up getting into a Bible-based drug recovery program back in 1999.
Speaker:Somebody reached out to me.
Speaker:I was.
Speaker:Musician, still am Love Percussion, gym Bay and Congas and bongos and all of that.
Speaker:It is fun.
Speaker:So he had a band, went out, played with the band, but ultimately he
Speaker:wanted to just help me be a mentor, be a friend and stuck with me.
Speaker:And through that program, ended up sober.
Speaker:I've been sober now 25 years by
Speaker:Oh wow.
Speaker:it continues to be one day at a time,
Speaker:Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker:Congratulations to you.
Speaker:When in that part of your journey, when did you go through cancer?
Speaker:So that was more recent.
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:So professionally I needed a job.
Speaker:At that time I'd bounced around.
Speaker:Not lots of people wanna hire a high school dropout who sold drugs and it
Speaker:doesn't look great on a resume though.
Speaker:There are lots of transferable skills.
Speaker:Yes, it's true.
Speaker:It's true.
Speaker:That's a lot of things.
Speaker:There could be.
Speaker:There's some things that you could take out.
Speaker:A lot of stuff.
Speaker:It's so true, but for listeners I don't condone that.
Speaker:I'm not advocating, don't do that.
Speaker:Don't go there.
Speaker:I don't recommend it.
Speaker:It's a world of hurt and pain but it doesn't look great on a resume.
Speaker:So I just needed a job and ended up working at this place called American
Speaker:Consumer Credit Counseling and was a nonprofit credit counseling agency.
Speaker:It's now Forbes top.
Speaker:A credit counseling agency in the US and worked there for 20 years.
Speaker:So they gave me, as a 19-year-old kid gave me a chance and had the opportunity
Speaker:to grow with the organization, obtain my GEDs, some education college, some
Speaker:different certifications around credit counseling and financial education.
Speaker:Eventually was.
Speaker:Went from basic customer service to counseling one-on-one to eventually,
Speaker:I had the idea to help people proactively rather than for if anybody's
Speaker:familiar with credit counseling.
Speaker:People call in to get help with their debt, essentially by and
Speaker:large, and mostly credit card debt.
Speaker:It was stressful like as a 20-year-old, 21-year-old kid still.
Speaker:I have a 15-year-old son.
Speaker:He'd probably be upset that I'm calling 21 year olds kids.
Speaker:But my perspective is different now.
Speaker:But I was a kid.
Speaker:I thought I knew everything but reality, I knew like nothing.
Speaker:So people would call just stressed out talking about financial infidelity and
Speaker:asking me as a kid whether or not they should divorce their spouse because of the
Speaker:credit card debt that they were racked up.
Speaker:And it was heavy.
Speaker:It was heavy, it was emotional work because money and
Speaker:personal finance is emotional.
Speaker:It.
Speaker:It takes a toll on lot millions of people's mental health, which
Speaker:affects the workplaces overall.
Speaker:So seeing that I wanted to be proactive and bring education rather than reactive
Speaker:in providing critical counseling, which is still important to help
Speaker:people before they got to that spot.
Speaker:So started the education outreach group where we did.
Speaker:Upwards of five or 600 different workshops in a given year.
Speaker:And it was a small, it was me to begin with, and then eventually
Speaker:got some employees to get out and about and expand our work.
Speaker:But went into homeless shelters, family shelters, domestic violence
Speaker:shelters into public schools, inner city schools, places that wouldn't
Speaker:otherwise receive the information, but was critical sometimes just for
Speaker:getting into a safe, secure place.
Speaker:Went into prisons, I worked with the federal deposit insurance company, the
Speaker:FDIC, to create a volunteer program where we had financial professionals go into and
Speaker:work with the Department of Corrections, so pre-release as well as lifers, people
Speaker:who were there for quite some time to talk about not just money, dollars and cents.
Speaker:How money and finances are part of overall wellbeing and thinking, not
Speaker:just financial wellbeing and having bills on, but also the ways that
Speaker:impacts our mental health too, and that too often is forgotten about.
Speaker:It's I gotta get my money.
Speaker:I need that money now and.
Speaker:Ultimately some of the different mental wellbeing is neglected or forgotten about.
Speaker:So that being said, long-winded answer to your short question
Speaker:about the cancer I left.
Speaker:That job that I loved in 2018, and the main reason my wife and I adopted a child
Speaker:who had more needs than we had capacity to thrive emotionally and spiritually.
Speaker:We were okay financially, but she worked really long hours.
Speaker:I worked long hours out and about speaking and the administration
Speaker:and overseeing other speakers where we came up with a plan that.
Speaker:I would leave and create my own business, leverage some of the
Speaker:relationships that I had built over the years, and have flexibility
Speaker:so that at that time he was in.
Speaker:Second grade and needed just more services.
Speaker:So we worked with the school to get an IEP and eventually into a
Speaker:daytime therapeutic school and made all the difference in the world.
Speaker:So I, I had the freedom to drive him back and forth, and through that
Speaker:transition made just a huge difference.
Speaker:So when we think even again about our financial health, and
Speaker:yes, initially that took a hit.
Speaker:But our spiritual health, our mental wellbeing, that was more
Speaker:important to us at the time and is really a priority still.
Speaker:So I left there.
Speaker:Left that job and six months after I started my LLCI was diagnosed
Speaker:with cholangiocarcinoma, which is called AKA bile duct cancer.
Speaker:So went through chemo and radiation, and then in 2021 by Grace, survived and
Speaker:had a liver transplant and was wild.
Speaker:It's hard to fully describe
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:that whole journey.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:But yeah.
Speaker:So you had a donor.
Speaker:A donor.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:wow.
Speaker:Oh my.
Speaker:it was an intense journey.
Speaker:Oh, I can imagine.
Speaker:I can imagine.
Speaker:It is a lot.
Speaker:This is a lot.
Speaker:So what does, what pivoted you to want to focus on finance?
Speaker:As far as like coaching what made that 'cause you, you've experienced so much.
Speaker:What made that the niche for you?
Speaker:So I think a couple things.
Speaker:One, it's my professional background.
Speaker:When I started it, I didn't know anything about money or
Speaker:credit or anything like that.
Speaker:Again, it started when I was 19 years old with American Consumer
Speaker:Credit Counseling I loved it.
Speaker:I saw the importance of, just in time education and information I saw the
Speaker:transformative power of mindset shifts from, there's a saying that's oftentimes
Speaker:misquoted as money is the root of all evil, and that's not the actual quote.
Speaker:The quote that actually came from the Bible is the love of
Speaker:money is the root of all evil.
Speaker:And when we put money above all things.
Speaker:Our lives get twisted.
Speaker:Things get turned upside down because then it gets stressful if something
Speaker:doesn't go my way financially, and all of a sudden it feels like the world
Speaker:is collapsing around me and gonna end.
Speaker:But things like relationships, things like our health, which I learned all
Speaker:the more with cancer, way more valuable.
Speaker:There's no amount of money ultimately that can just buy health, right?
Speaker:So when we.
Speaker:Have our health, then it's easy to take it for granted and consider
Speaker:so many other things important.
Speaker:When our health is taken away from us, nothing else matters.
Speaker:We really only have one singular problem, and that's trying to get well, and that's.
Speaker:At the end of the day, what we're hyperfocused on the idea and the concept?
Speaker:When I, and I wrote my book from while I was in and out of the
Speaker:hospital, so through that journey of cancer treatments, I wasn't able
Speaker:to get out and about on stages.
Speaker:It was also through COVID.
Speaker:I I did some things on Zoom when I was able to, but.
Speaker:Someday.
Speaker:I was intubated multiple times and I kind of joke ' cause levity I important,
Speaker:but I say it's really difficult to talk to people while you're intubated.
Speaker:So it's like just not possible.
Speaker:So when I was able to, I could sit up and try to bang something out
Speaker:on my keys and I wanted to give.
Speaker:I wanted to serve.
Speaker:I felt like that was part of my purpose.
Speaker:Ultimately, the best of what I have to serve others with my journey is something
Speaker:that I think is a gift in a lot of ways because I really, I shared a little bit
Speaker:now, a lot more stories all in between, but really just by grace that I survived
Speaker:to be here and grateful for that.
Speaker:And my wife and I talk a lot about not wasting that.
Speaker:Not wasting the pain, the challenge, the difficulty because in that there's a lot
Speaker:of lessons that we've learned and grown through, whether it was my illness my
Speaker:history, working through adoption of just all kinds of stuff that can help people.
Speaker:And if we can help alleviate pain and suffering from somebody else from
Speaker:the lives that we've lived, then in one sense the first word that came
Speaker:is shame on us for not doing it.
Speaker:And I don't
Speaker:It's true.
Speaker:It's true from gate keeping.
Speaker:You're gate keeping it.
Speaker:You wanna Yeah, leave it empty, leave it, eat when you leave.
Speaker:It's not about me.
Speaker:It's not just yeah.
Speaker:So ultimately I mean it, one of the, i'm from the Boston area and not to throw the
Speaker:Celtics out there, but that could, I don't wanna start anything with listeners, but
Speaker:Doc Rivers, back when the Celtics were like winning everything with Doc Rivers I.
Speaker:I didn't mean to say winning everything, but come on.
Speaker:They were good.
Speaker:They were good.
Speaker:Doc Rivers introduced the idea, he didn't create it, but the idea of Ubuntu, I
Speaker:am translated, I am because of you.
Speaker:And the idea that as people we're interconnected, dependent
Speaker:on each other, and there's a lot of different perspectives and
Speaker:philosophies to think about that, but.
Speaker:Ultimately, at the end of the day, what I do affects the people around me.
Speaker:And if I can bring some hope to other people, then I feel called.
Speaker:I feel, because I'm able to do that and I consider that part of my purpose too.
Speaker:Oh wow, that's really good.
Speaker:Okay, so I wanna I guess I wanna pick your brain a little bit about the
Speaker:whole financial wellness and health.
Speaker:So I do have a question.
Speaker:So I know we are in kinda like different times or different political times,
Speaker:especially with, political climate, I'll just say political climate.
Speaker:So what do you recommend for people as far as having financial health and wealth?
Speaker:Or just wellness.
Speaker:If they're in a time where things are uncertain or they are dealing
Speaker:with a hardship, like a loss of job, how can they prioritize that area?
Speaker:When you are in a deficit or coming up on what you, bleep may be a deficit.
Speaker:I think, a couple different thoughts come to mind.
Speaker:I think one, given that the audience is diverse and there's more than
Speaker:one person, obviously that's the hope more than one person listening.
Speaker:Then we're all in different situations.
Speaker:Even here sitting, you and I Kimi, we have different situations and what's
Speaker:best in our family here in Boston may be different for you and your loved ones.
Speaker:right,
Speaker:when I think about personal finance.
Speaker:I believe that it's critically important to keep it personal, that we really
Speaker:do figure out individually what's most beneficial for us and our family.
Speaker:So I think that's important and too often overlooked because I
Speaker:think that there's not, I think I know, and I've worked with, I.
Speaker:Organizations and people who say that, okay, if you just follow this
Speaker:specific scripted path, then everything will turn out all and life just
Speaker:doesn't, in my experience, and over a hundred thousand people that I've
Speaker:helped coached counsel and work with, that's not their experience either.
Speaker:That life is so much bigger and more unpredictable than that.
Speaker:And I think that really is important.
Speaker:Take the next best step, whatever that is.
Speaker:I don't know what's gonna happen five years or 10 years, or.
Speaker:My wife and I were talking tonight even just about making plans through cancer.
Speaker:Like it was minute by minute.
Speaker:She would wake up in the middle of the night and check just to see if I
Speaker:was breathing and didn't know if we would survive to live another day.
Speaker:And some of that trauma came through with my cancer experience.
Speaker:Towards the beginning, before I was fully diagnosed, I had an incident in 2019 of.
Speaker:July where I had to call 9 1 1.
Speaker:I was home alone, went in by ambulance and coated on the table and they
Speaker:told my wife that it's likely I wouldn't survive the night and to
Speaker:start planning and preparing for that.
Speaker:And I had like bag, I had eight bags of blood that needed to be
Speaker:transfused and main arterial lines and all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker:So when I say take the next best step, and we don't necessarily know what's gonna
Speaker:happen five, 10 years, I don't say that in an ominous, like the sky is falling.
Speaker:The world has never been worse.
Speaker:And though sometimes it can feel that way.
Speaker:So it's a balance of taking it one moment at a time, taking the next best step.
Speaker:And also with the idea that things in the future will be
Speaker:different than they are today.
Speaker:And it's all together possible that they're way better than
Speaker:what we can even imagine.
Speaker:There's a book called Fact as even you brought up, not to make it all political
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There's a lot of strong feelings that friends of mine are,
Speaker:have been out this weekend.
Speaker:Wondering what's gonna happen, like
Speaker:With any, yeah.
Speaker:all of that.
Speaker:So not to say one side this, one
Speaker:Or the other just.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like feeling like dire.
Speaker:And the book Factful is a looks at the data extreme
Speaker:poverty throughout history and.
Speaker:Ultimately what it shares with the data and a hopeful perspective that
Speaker:things have never been better in the history of the world than they are now.
Speaker:So when we think about violent wars like a thousand years ago, or death,
Speaker:illness, disease, or a lot of crazy stuff that even, crazy stuff before
Speaker:the United States even existed.
Speaker:And also looking at the fact that things are still really bad, that
Speaker:segregation today is greater than it was pre segregation in the sixties.
Speaker:When we think about academics, institutions, and schools, and we
Speaker:talk about prison like schools to prison, pipelines, and a lot of
Speaker:different things that are horrible.
Speaker:Most every account.
Speaker:We look at the Uyghurs in China and being completely suppressed
Speaker:in like over a million people that are there, or wars in Gaza, Israel.
Speaker:And all around the world, things are really difficult.
Speaker:And the way that they propose the data and looking at the past, and again,
Speaker:looking at extreme poverty like the people who are living less than a
Speaker:dollar a day and starving to death.
Speaker:That's improved over the past several decades and rather than, or, but
Speaker:things have improved greatly and they still need to improve significantly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I agree with that.
Speaker:Gratify never satisfied type of a thing that you're grateful what you
Speaker:have, there's always that push to do more to exceed acce and keep excelling
Speaker:and within reasonable, parameters.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think it's, there are people who are struggling to survive today.
Speaker:It's 2025.
Speaker:As we record this and have this conversation, people who are wondering
Speaker:whether or not, like the mortgage is gonna be foreclosed on, or whether
Speaker:or not there's gonna be food for kids on and being able just to get by.
Speaker:Not even build crazy wealth.
Speaker:So when I, with my book.
Speaker:It's called Financially Capable, A Friendly Guide to
Speaker:Building Whole Health Wealth.
Speaker:It's really broken down into three sections.
Speaker:So the first section is the environment in which we live, and in this crazy world,
Speaker:we operate within a system that we don't have individually full control over.
Speaker:So that includes whether it's financial regulation and different systems like
Speaker:that, that includes systemic racism from.
Speaker:Education to looking back throughout history, within finance, things like
Speaker:redlining, things like exclusion act, things that systemically prevented
Speaker:certain parts of the population from accessing tools and vehicles for wells
Speaker:that other people had, and that systemic racism is part of the history in the
Speaker:United States and affects people today.
Speaker:That's not long distant past.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'll leave it there.
Speaker:We could talk about that for a long time.
Speaker:But strong feelings.
Speaker:But I that, so that first section of the book is about all of that.
Speaker:And it's important because it affects all of us when we think about just
Speaker:getting by just another day as well as trying to improve our lives, being
Speaker:economically mobile for ourselves, our neighbors, our friends, our families.
Speaker:It's important to understand all of that from a historical context,
Speaker:but also of where we are today, legislation and a variety of things.
Speaker:The middle section of the book, the second section is about.
Speaker:Behavioral and economic psychology.
Speaker:So it gets into, we talked a little bit about addiction in some of my
Speaker:past, but it gets into as well the process addictions that we touched
Speaker:on and the ways that impacts people.
Speaker:And without resolving and working through those, thinking about.
Speaker:A budget is outta touch.
Speaker:I wrote a LinkedIn post this past week about starting with why is
Speaker:not necessarily best for everybody.
Speaker:It comes from a place of privilege and opportunity.
Speaker:If I say I. Start with why.
Speaker:That means that I already have enough stability that I can think deeper than
Speaker:my survival mode if I'm in survival mode.
Speaker:Starting with why is a few steps beyond because I need to get from survival
Speaker:into being, it just stability in being able, knowing that I'll have a
Speaker:meal, knowing that I'll have safety and security and my own wellbeing,
Speaker:and the wellbeing of my loved ones.
Speaker:All of those things is what belief systems and value and coming from a
Speaker:perspective of being financially well from a system of values is really important.
Speaker:And that again, ties into the importance that I mentioned.
Speaker:Personal finance being personal because my system of.
Speaker:Beliefs and values is different from my neighbor down the street, and it's
Speaker:not me to judge or condone or lift up what, whatever that it's the system
Speaker:that I believe, and that's part of the United States and the freedoms that we
Speaker:have the freedom to be able to seek this prosperity ultimately in, wellbeing.
Speaker:That's what, yeah that's the ideal that we're working towards.
Speaker:Ultimately, the third section of the book is really nuts and bolts, so understanding
Speaker:budgeting, and even as I say, I named the chapter the dirty B word, 'cause budget,
Speaker:all of a sudden people got feelings, even
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:word.
Speaker:It's budget, come on.
Speaker:That tells me how much money I don't have the bills I gotta
Speaker:pay, how much fun I wanna have,
Speaker:The anxiety.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:All of that.
Speaker:So the nuts and bolts of personal finance and ultimately the whole health
Speaker:wealth aspect of really building wealth is that it's like in my mind when I
Speaker:consider and everybody defines wealth and success differently, in my mind
Speaker:it really is about holistic wellbeing.
Speaker:And wealth is being able to live unencumbered, to have freedom,
Speaker:to live, express love, build the lives that we want to.
Speaker:And I know that's an ideal, that's not always possible for everybody,
Speaker:but wealth in my mind is not just who's got the biggest pile of cash.
Speaker:There's so many people that get big piles of cash that are miserable.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:My mind.
Speaker:Wealth is something that is a domain of wellbeing.
Speaker:So within the eight different domains of wellbeing.
Speaker:One is financial wellbeing, certainly, and that's part of my professional background,
Speaker:but physical wellbeing, emotional, relational, environmental, occupational,
Speaker:psychological, the different domains of wellbeing come together ultimately
Speaker:in building whole health wealth.
Speaker:And in my mind, that's far more important than just a pile of cash
Speaker:because when someone's unhealthy.
Speaker:Sick.
Speaker:We'll use cancer as a specific example.
Speaker:Money in the bank doesn't really
Speaker:If you're laying in a hospital bed, who cares how many stacks you have?
Speaker:It doesn't matter.
Speaker:right.
Speaker:That's a good point.
Speaker:That's a super good point.
Speaker:Matt, you so many great things.
Speaker:You have a lot of Jims, you have drop dropped on us.
Speaker:So where can the audience go to learn more about you, stay connected,
Speaker:purchase the book, tell us all of it.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:I do have a website.
Speaker:Easy to remember.
Speaker:Matt Paradise.
Speaker:Com.
Speaker:So just my name, no dashes, slashes, none of that.
Speaker:Just M-A-T-T-P-A-R-A-D-I-S-E, map paradise.com.
Speaker:There are a lot of different free resources on the website and through
Speaker:that people can also connect with me if they'd like on LinkedIn or find my book.
Speaker:It's on Amazon or Barnes and Noble and all the places where books are sold.
Speaker:But yeah I'm happy to be a resource.
Speaker:And re and remind me.
Speaker:The name of the title of your book,
Speaker:Financially capable, A friendly guide to building whole health wealth?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Cool.
Speaker:Okay, Matt, tell us what are some words that you live by?
Speaker:Do you have a daily mantra that you use to guide you?
Speaker:Yeah, I think there's two things and they're tied together.
Speaker:So one, I don't know if a mantra as much as an ethos, but I. Gratitude to maintain
Speaker:an attitude of gratitude always, and I know what it's like to have very little
Speaker:and not know where my next meal is coming from and go days without eating, and
Speaker:not sure when that will come around.
Speaker:I also know what it's like to eat in some of the best restaurants in the world, but
Speaker:my happiness is not dependent on those things either way, because my joy is.
Speaker:Intrinsic is deeper than whatever happens to me and around me, and
Speaker:I can find joy in everything, even in suffering, in my suffering.
Speaker:That joy produces perseverance and perseverance.
Speaker:Character and character hope.
Speaker:And hope never disappoints.
Speaker:And that's the last word that I wanna leave with people is there's always, hope.
Speaker:No matter how difficult, how frustrating, when it feels like the sky is
Speaker:falling and politically the world is collapsing and hatred might be abound.
Speaker:There is always hope and love never fails.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Thank you so much, Matt.
Speaker:I'm so excited that you were here.
Speaker:I love wellness is, if you know me, you know I love wellness.
Speaker:So when a wellness word comes on the show, I'm always like, yes.
Speaker:Wellness people.
Speaker:Wellness people.
Speaker:So I thank you for this and I love financial wellness is definitely something
Speaker:I think that's important, critical for people to, to look at and examine.
Speaker:So definitely check out.
Speaker:Matt, you also, in the show notes, we're gonna have everything
Speaker:linked, matt paradise.com.
Speaker:But we'll make sure to have LinkedIn where you can go to buy his book.
Speaker:We're gonna have all of it linked so you can get to it, but
Speaker:it'll all be in the show notes.
Speaker:And thank you so mad for gracing us with your presence into the audience.
Speaker:Until next time.
