Meet Michael Marchesan

We recently connected with Michael Marchesan and have shared our conversation below.

Michael, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?

My confidence and self esteem was developed over many years through countless experiences.

Growing up, I was introduced to things such as skateboarding, surfing, tools, fixing things, being in the garage and other such activities that were often associated with getting hurt and dealing with pain. I will never forget my dad and older brother always saying, “Take the pain.” if I ever fell on my skateboard or smashed my finger with a hammer while trying to fix something. When they would tell me that, I associated it with strength and something to strive for. You could say that little saying was a key phrase in calibrating my moral trajectory in classifying what I found to be a worthwhile quality to strive for in being able to withstand pain and hardship. Many years of this kind of behavior in my early childhood gave me a high physical pain tolerance at a young age which certainly bred a fundamental sense of confidence within me.

My second most significant element to self esteem and confidence growth was the many years I trained and taught martial arts. The amount of physical, mental and emotional endurance that was required to be on the mat training, teaching and sparring was incredible. I have vivid memories of pushing myself physically to the point of wanting to puke countless times. Not to mention fighting people that were extremely aggressive such that my nerves would shoot through the roof out of my adrenaline surging. After about 15 years of training and teaching students of all ages, sizes and ranks, along with a 1st and 2nd degree black belt, I feet accomplished to say the very least. Day to day life seldom tests my physical, mental and emotional capacity after that level of training and that has allowed me to attain many high level goals.

The final element where I truly found my core confidence and self-esteem had to have been when I finally achieved a notable competence in math, science and overall problem solving after completing my B.S. in Civil Engineering from CSUN. Contrary to popular belief, most of my students don’t believe me when I say I struggled in math and science for a good portion of my K-12 education. It wasn’t until my senior year in high school in AP Calculus that I felt somewhat competent at math. Completing my degree was an incredibly difficult workload of intense math, physics and engineering problems that polished my critical thinking and problem solving skills to a high level.

Needless to say, these combined experiences have undoubtedly laid the bedrock for my daily confidence and self-esteem which allow me to shoot for the stars with hope and momentum.

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?

Without a doubt my favorite idea to integrate into my business is the amalgamation of art and science.

In the past, when people asked me what I did for work, or what my passions were, I often felt perplexed because I’m into so many disparate activities that it seems like I’m a jack of all trades, master of none. As I got older, I learned to lean into this aspect of myself because it was simply the truth of my being. I’m as passionate of the arts as I am the sciences.

Though my degree is in civil engineering, and teaching math & science has been my daily job for the last 14 years, I’ve always had a deep passion for the arts–particularly, music, photography & cinematography.

Truthfully, I initially wanted to get my degree in filmmaking, but the though of leaving university as a potentially broke artist struck such fear in me that I decided to pursue a more technical field that though I found somewhat interesting, certainly didn’t captivate my passion quite like the fine arts.

Now that I’m done with university, I’ve been able to not only pursue my passions by doing photoshoots & music videos, but I’m actually able to integrate such skills and practices intimately with what I’m currently developing as my own brand of math education.

Modern day education, particularly the STEM subjects are often so dry and uninspiring, especially when administered in a digital format. It has been a dream of mine to produce math courses for students that are not only technically sound, but are beautiful, aesthetic and pleasant to watch.

It is almost a fact of human nature that once the basic mechanics of a system are met, we tend to focus on beautifying that system. Once you can cook a steak, perhaps now you can make the steak with beautiful presentation. Now that you can write your name accurately, try writing your name in calligraphy. Integration of beauty with function is a wonderful thing across the board, and I am creating that for the world of math.

Even though my math content will be digital in format, I want it as personable and organic as possible, as though I’m right there with the students. As technology progresses, which is overall a positive thing, we can often lose sight of the benefits of the past. I am a true believer in the student-teacher relationship so my course content will be produced in such a way that it feels much less like a teacher on a screen, but rather someone teaching you right by your side.

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?

Perseverance, brutal honesty with yourself, and constantly increasing your capacity.

The development of perseverance is crucial to any worthwhile endeavors in life. As lofty as one’s dreams might be, the process of manifesting those dreams are anything but pleasant most of the time. Perseverance is a necessary quality to be able to survive through those tough times. I would say development of perseverance is something like voluntary discomfort. This can be improved upon by activities such as maintaining a consistent workout routine, taking ice baths, making your bed each morning etc.

Having brutal honesty with yourself is one of those traits that is not as simple as it sounds because we can often live in an echo chamber of our own confirmation bias, as well as the confirmation bias of our close circle of friends, colleagues and family. This is why I feel perseverance is primary to brutal honesty with yourself because you have to have the spirit of perseverance alive and fresh within your soul to have the desire to seek brutal honesty with yourself, because that is almost always a difficult truth to face. You can only see to it that your deepest desires and goals will come to fruition when you are true to yourself, and that means being truthful with your talents as well as your shortcomings and bad habits. Surround yourself with honest people, don’t lie, and always do the right thing–all of these behaviors are conducive to living a truthful life which will consequently lead you to the most authentic expression of yourself, and thats how you find your true path.

Since I was a young child I was always endlessly curious about everything. Science, history, cultures, food, music, martial arts etc. Its as though once I’ve delved deeply into a topic and become satisfied, I go on to the next thing. I do believe this is more of an innate quality rather than one that can be developed if it is non existent. However, increasing one’s motivation might be a more universal quality that is applicable to everyone. I have noticed that finding something you are passionate about is primary, thats where motivation and enthusiasm begins. This is a discovery that comes with seemingly no effort for some, while others need to do some serious soul searching to find their passion. If you feel you cannot find your passion, then just keep trying new things, you’ll find it. From there, thats where you can focus your efforts like a laser beam with discipline and perseverance. Once that is complete, thats when a passion can turn into a craft, an art and perhaps a career. There is a Japanese word “ikigai” which roughly translates to the incredible feeling one gets when they do something that has a trinity of intersectionality with what they are good at, what makes them money and what the world needs. Find your passion, focus on it, and then develop it through discipline. Perhaps then, others will ask you for your abilities, that is your ikigai–and that is a wonderful state to be in.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I am always looking for ambitious, open minded, competent and driven people to collaborate with

This has not always been the easiest for me to find for many reasons.

Many professionals in education are embedded in the academic structures and are more interested in keeping a steady job rather than providing unique and novel solutions in response to the current system which is severely lacking in providing to students in an engaging, efficient and cost-effective manner.

This goes hand in hand with open mindedness. When I was studying civil engineering in university, I had many acquaintances in my major, but few close friends. I noticed that my closest friends were the one’s that were truly open minded, curious and artistically passionate. Engineers and others in the STEM fields are often incredibly powerful problem solvers, but often lack in the interpersonal skills, emotions, and artistic perspective departments. If something is not logically sound, an engineer tends to label it as unnecessary and superfluous. But sometimes, aesthetics and feelings truly matter even if they can’t be justified with “logic”. Sometimes, its just a vibe–and engineers tend not to operate that way. Words I will never forget from my martial arts instructor, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”. There is certainly a time and place for cold stoicism in business, and even if its most of the time, its certainly not 100% of the time. People are people first, we can never forget that. Unfortunately I have found that these traits of art and science tend to be mutually exclusive with very little intersectionality especially at their extremities. Usually engineers are killer problem solvers, but poor communicators and visual designers. Artists have incredible design instincts and impeccable visual taste, but often push critical thinking and surgeon-scalpel level precision to the side.

I suppose this means the individuals I seek to collaborate with are ones that have a burning passion to improve education, have strong competence in their domain of specialty while also having the emotional capacity and personal skills to effectively communicate with all kinds of people.

I would love to meet such individuals and they can find me on instagram @mikeemarch as well as contacting me via my website www.nuumath.com

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nuumath.com
• Instagram: mikeemarch
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nuumathtutoring