We recently connected with Charlie Mato-Toyela and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Charlie, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
My confidence and self esteem come from several places, some within and some without. You are told when you’re very young to always be honest, what people don’t tell you about is how far that really goes. If you can be completely honest to someone you care about and not feel fear of hurting their feelings, then you can be completely honest! I’ve also heard that honesty will set you free. If you are a very outgoing person and you are simultaneously honest, in any society you will eventually find conflict. This has led me to understand an ancient adage which I personally believe is the correct way of saying a very mistaken phrase: “Truth is in the eye of the beholder”. Many people believe that it should be “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, however I think truth is really what it’s all about. In Truth, something which is ugly to one person can certainly be beautiful to another. Both of these opinions can be simultaneously “True”. And since “Beauty” can be a “subset” of this particular idea of “True”, it’s obvious which one is the primary set! As soon as I learned that everyone has a different notion of what is “true”, regardless of field or background, business or religion, I realized that countless people believe different things to be “true”. Once I come to the understanding that the truth is different from person to person, I learned to believe as long as I’m speaking my truth, and I have no conflicts with it then I should be proud of it! This certainly doesn’t mean that I’m always right or even have a good grasp of an idea or concept, although it is a good place to begin! If you are confident, you can also be confident of the questions you are asking to lead you to a “new truth”, when you don’t know yet what the “truth” is (or will be to you)! The word “secure” doesn’t offer the amount of weight that the opposite word does, and for this reason I never feel that I want to be “insecure”! The only option then is to be confident! If you can say to yourself “I have a good self-esteem”, then you do! If you can’t say this to yourself, try to find out why not and realize that it is likely that you are not being honest with the most important person – You!
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I have been making and playing Native American flutes for about 38 years now. In that amount of time it has taught me a great deal about people, business and hard work. Most people don’t realize the plight of their fellow man and although I can honestly say that I don’t know what plight other people go through, I can most definitely attest to the fact that they do not know what I go through! On a daily basis, it can be anything from tons of customer service to production and design of new products and promotions! Those are the generalizations of course but what most people don’t know is that from 7:00 a.m. until about 11:00 p.m. everyday it is work! Sometimes I may even wake up in the middle of the night and a customer in another country has emailed me and I’ll respond to it.
My main focus is customer service and quality products with our business. Since the beginning of my Native American flute making career, the focus has changed in my artistic endeavors from the actual creation of the flute to how I promote it! We make countless videos and post them on various social media platforms to both educate the public on how to play these instruments as well as how they can make their own and to show how ours are made. This has also helped me to grow a huge community online of people with similar ideology of sharing their skills and experiences. When I had started making Native American flutes, I found that more people wanted to keep these things to themselves and were even angry and violent against nearly everyone else in the field. To me, that had to stop! To keep things positive and to offer an ongoing artistic outlet, my wife and I make videos to teach and show the a fore mentioned processes. This style of offering others something for free has helped greatly to alleviate the stress of trying to determine its value and is very fulfilling!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I have worked for countless types of businesses throughout my life, some were customer service, some travel business experience, woodworking, nurseryman as well as line production. With all those jobs, I learned and developed skills and experiences that helped me later with my business and the importance of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction doesn’t mean you’ll make everyone happy, however it does mean that you try!
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
The most helpful person in my line of work has been my wife Jessie! She has taken up the slack anytime I fall behind. Jessie keeps up with our records, customers, finances and so much more it is truly unbelievable. Although I created the company with my own skills and experience, she helps me make it through all the challenges.
Contact Info:
- Website: bluebearflutes.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/bluebearflutes
- Facebook: facebook.com/bluebearflutes
- Youtube: youtube.com/bluebearflutes
- Other: https://tiktok.com/@bluebearflutes
Image Credits
The cat in one picture is “Renault the Snake Killer”. My daughter Makasha Mato-Toyela is the young lady pictured. She helps in the shop on occasion and was doing a apprenticeship program with me in the photo. The old man pictured beside me is Canela Cervantes, a very close friend who passed away a few years ago. Other than his wisdom, charisma and general “power” as an individual, he was a very close friend and brother as well as mentor and flute player.
