We recently connected with Matt Maceachern and have shared our conversation below.
Matt, we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?
My generosity comes from my parents.
My mom was a single mom who raised 4 of us as a Waitress in Chicago.
Everyday, she would get up and go to work, come home, and take care of us.
Yet our house was the one our friends would come to play and mom always had something for them.
When she remarried, my dad was a hard-working, car mechanic.
He worked 2 jobs just to put food on the table for us and he seemed to love it.
I remember on Saturdays they’d make dozens of sandwiches and all the neighborhood kids would run in from playing, grab a sandwich, and keep going. My mom and dad would just laugh and make another sandwich.
They taught me to be generous, and to share what you’ve got. They were happy despite having so little.
My wife is incredibly giving, of her time, compassion, she’s always serving others and that reminds me to be more generous.
( I still take off to go rock climbing, or ice climbing, or hiking),
I think being ‘generous’ also means ‘seeing the best’ in others – and letting them know you see them.
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?
My purpose on the planet is to re-ignite a sense of hope and possibility in everyone I meet.
I’m so grateful that my small business allows me to do that…in 3 ways really:
1/ I teach ‘leaders’ in organizations, how to lead their team members in a way that those people feel VALUED, like they matter. So many people go to work (virtually or in-person) 5,6, and 7 days a week.
That should primarily be a positive experience and it’s the ‘leaders’ that have the biggest impact on their experience. The strategies I teach help make the leaders job easier too, so everybody wins.
2/ I coach (who doesn’t right? ) I love coaching because you get to meet these amazing people with their goals, dreams, challenges, and frustrations. I get to help them get clear on what they ‘do’ want, overcome challenges (often it’s our own limiting beliefs that hold us back) and see the best in themselves so they can start taking action toward what they want. My wife can always tell when I’ve been coaching because she says I come ‘bounding up the stairs’.
I’ve been certified for years (Coaches Training Institute (CTI) but I just completed another 60+ hour certification program through David Bayer and it’s been awesome.
3/ Personal resilience. I help people to ‘re-ignite’ a sense of passion, vitality, or even calm so they feel their best. I share these proven strategies that the most resilient people on the planet have in common. People think you’re either born resilient or not but you can develop it, there’s no question.
I’m so grateful for what I get to do.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think being empathetic, curious, and self-aware are important qualities. (these can all be learned).
Most people are doing their best with what they have, and having compassion for others goes a long way to helping people feel like they’re not alone.
For skills? Listening, framing my words in a way that others will understand my intent, and then ‘doing the work’ on myself too. Being grateful, being positive, exercising, eating right, and continually learning – yes rest is in there too. I’d call those skills.
For knowledge – there is such a ‘fusion’ between what we learn through sports, recreation, work and life.
For example, I played a million hours of basketball in high school. (pretty sure it was a million).
I noticed how for some coaches, I would have run through a brick wall for them, while others seem to make me feel small and unconfident – and so my performance would go down. When I got into the working world, I saw the same thing with leaders. Some leaders would take the time to learn what motivated different people and they’d adjust their style to motivate that employee. Other leaders who treated everyone the same would get lower performance and wonder why people would leave their team.
So for knowledge? leadership. How to coach people in a way that’s motivating. I took my Masters in Leadership, read over 100 books on leadership, motivation, psychology, neuroscience, and personal leadership. Probably because I needed to learn this stuff for myself.
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
Of course my parents were incredible role models in being kind, working hard, and staying positive.
They also dealt with a lot of adversity but then they’d just pick themselves up and keep going.
You could call it perseverance. But not like a dragged out, exhausted, ‘I must keep doing this’…trance, but with purpose and happiness.
I would also say my family, friends, my wife.
Friends seem to see more potential in us than we see in ourselves. They call that out in you.
Not only in ‘telling’ you but by ‘being there’ through thick and thin.
When someone is there for you – it’s PROOF that you matter and so you have to allow your saboteur or inner critic to take a back seat.
A good example is when I’m climbing. I’ll be 10 feet above my last piece of protection and I’ll be scared, hesitating. Then your partner down below, patiently holding the rope will say ‘you can do it’ or ‘you got this’ and you know they mean it. Even as I write this I can feel myself choke up because of how incredibly uplifting it can be to have someone else see the best in you. It can help us to push through something uncomfortable whether in recreation or in life.
Family and friends see the best in you and it keeps you going even when you have self-doubt.
I don’t mean this as a plug for coaching, but coaches do this. They really do look for the best in their client, and they help the client to see the best in themselves, and this can give them the motivation they need to keep going.
To know we matter. To know someone sees the best in us and for us to see the best in others. This is what the World needs more of right now.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lidera.ca
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattmaceachern/
Image Credits
photo of ice climbing by Mike Stuart. Rest are all my own.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
