We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matt Hayden. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matt below.
Hi Matt, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
Short answer: a great shrink. Long answer: I always knew. I always knew that I was an artist; a pianist, vocalist, writer, arranger, producer, but I had to learn how to recognize and overcome codependency before I could come close to embracing it. You see, I was a wildly creative child. My grandmother was probably my first musical influence. I would sit next to her on the piano bench while she played her favorite top 20 (at the time) songs. Until I met my mentor-to-be, George, she was the first person to ever make sounds come out of that wooden box with “teeth”, in a way that I couldn’t not try to emulate.
It sounded like a 24/7 radio in my head, as it does now, when I was a kid. Intuitively, I would sit at the piano, and pick songs out, finding my own harmonies, and making things sound the way I wanted them to sound. I’d spend hours sitting there making things sound “good”. It wasn’t what my piano teacher(s) had prescribed for homework, but it felt like “the thing that I do/ what I have to do”. Man, I was on it! playing things I heard on the radio (mostly soft rock/ singer song writer music), things I heard other kids singing/ talking about on the school bus, etc. I was listening to WJJZ, the local, Philadelphia, smooth jazz station as a kid, and trying to make sense of what they were doing. As a Kid, my parents would take me to the Merion Inn, in Cape May, NJ. It was a hip shore town fine dining restaurant, where I met my best friend, and later mentor George Mesterhazy. I spent more time standing next to his piano, watching his fingers dance across the keyboard on his Steinway B, than I did at the table eating dinner. In time, he was the one who showed me how to take all of the influences that were around me (the radio, my grandmother, songs I heard here and there), and turn them into a polished sound.
As a teenager, I started dating, struggled with toxic and abusive behavior that I witnessed at home, and started a decade and a half descent into codependency and losing myself. I was a GREAT partner to whomever I was dating. I’d happily put my needs/ desires aside and would, as Brene Brown says, “be whoever or whatever you need me to be, as long as I feel like I’m part of this.” Suppressed art leads to a miserable shell of a person. I never lived with, or accepted that I was an artist and had very valid things to say and create. I denied who I was, took menial jobs that fit into the cookie cutter world that we live in, and fought my authenticity. It seemed like it would be easier that way.
It wasn’t until I went through a divorce and quickly jumped into an abusive relationship with a narcissist (by definition, not just the word everyone is throwing around these days), that I realized I truly needed help, and that there was more out there. I went through a few therapists before landing on the right one, but within the first month of sessions, we were talking about codependency, and I had found the first person (since George) who saw my worth, wanted the best for me, and best of all, wanted me to see my own worth. Debbie (who has since become a friend, and part of my “team”, not just my therapist), stayed by my side, and helped me see/ figure out who I was, what I could do, and what the “blank canvas” could look like. Over the span of about three years, she helped me conjure and execute my dream to move to New Orleans and be a full time musician. I had finally found my purpose, put it out into the universe, and took concrete steps towards making it happen. The universe will expand and put out a net to catch you, but only if you can really get clear about what it is that you’re after, and you actually jump.
“Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the [waters] edge.” -Robin Wall Kimmerer
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I was born in New Jersey, and am currently based in New Orleans. I’m a full time musician, playing four nights a week at Pat O’brien’s dueling piano bar, in addition to writing and performing my own material. After doing a ton of work with a great therapist, I took a leap and moved to NOLA. When I was asked what I might like to put on my blank canvas, playing music full time and living where I was seemed like a crazy stretch. I came to New Orleans, not really knowing what I was getting into, and was looking at properties and apartments in the airport on the way home. I was taken by the amount of music that was happening everywhere, the confidently weird people hanging around, and a sense of community that I had never felt before. It grabbed me, and is still pulling me in. When I moved here, I didn’t really have a plan; I thought I might busk in the french quarter, and invested in a good quality tent and sleeping bag while I still had steady employment in NJ. On the way down, friends of friends got in touch with me, and a solid full time gig at Pat O’s materialized. It wasn’t remotely what I thought I’d be doing, but I kept an open mind, and it’s been a wildly fulfilling journey so far.
For the last decade and a half, while ignoring my true calling, I stopped writing. I played somewhat, but not seriously, despite taking gigs that I was just barely getting through. After moving here and basking in what New Orleans has to offer, I started writing again with reckless abandon! I’m currently recording my first album of (mostly) original material. It’s a jazz/ folk album (think Shirley Horn meets James Taylor, with more Gospel and Blues). When I finally allowed the creativity to flow, I was able to process things that happened in the past, and it’s been a healing journey. I’m finding out who I am, and am claiming myself with every step of the writing and recording process.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Show up (well dressed if possible), be on time (early is better), and be willing to learn (and admit that you might be wrong). These three items have been keys for me.
Fighting through fear and anxiety, and bringing your authentic self is always going to get you farther than staying home, and doing what you “think” it is that “they” want you to do.
Timing is everything, and it usually wont hurt you to be early. If nothing else, you have an opportunity to relax into the space and get your mind settled before you do what you have to do.
If you’re not willing to learn, or admit that you’re wrong, then you’re going to be forcing things into places that they don’t belong, and expending more energy than if you just allow what’s there for you. Try to listen and receive, before you put all of your energy into showing people why you think you’re right.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown. It was the first “self help” book I ever read, and shaped the way that I show up today. It taught me how to embrace vulnerability, look for my own authenticity, and stand up for myself. It’s title comes from a Theodore Roosevelt quote…
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
It has taken a long time for moral of this quote to start to sink in, but once I started acting authentically, I was able to absorb it’s true meaning.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: instagram.com/thematthewhayden
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matthew.hayden.39/
