Hey, I’m Tim Matthews, Founder of The Powerful Man, it sounds kinda weird to say that.
Not that I’m embarrassed, I just never planned on being the founder of such a powerful movement (no pun intended) that has taken on a life of its own… it might sound cliche but I stumbled into it…
Around Easter time 2014 I reached my breaking point, and little did I know that my outburst would lead to this!
Some friends cast me out, others thought I was going insane (literally) and the rest thought I’d joined a cult!
A little while earlier I’d reached a point in my life where I was sick and tired of wearing a mask.
You see, I was that guy who appeared to have it all together – although I seemed confident on the outside I was wavering on the inside.
Most of my life I’d hidden behind different masks…
In high school I hid behind my ability to play sport at a semi-pro level and attract the hottest girls in school, as I went into my late teens and early 20’s I buried it with drugs, sleeping with countless women and making money.
By my mid 20’s I’d jump from one bad business deal to another out of desperation, it cost me tens of thousands before my grand finale was proposing to a girl that I shouldn’t have been with for so long.
I went as far as booking the wedding, buying a detached 4 bedroom house and getting within months of the marriage until one day, I’d had enough.
All of my life I’d been a people pleaser.
I was insecure and I chased the buzz of the next business deal hoping that someday I’d make enough money for all my shame to go away.
But, as you might imagine, it never went away.
Back then I was a fitness franchisor and I couldn’t understand why no matter how hard I worked I’d always attract problem clients, undercharge for my services and never seem to get ahead.
[I was more like a firefighter than a business owner].
The more money I made the more chaos I brought into my life.
I was confused, I thought I was doing all the right things…
Listening to podcasts, working from 6AM to 9PM, even 10PM sometimes, driving from one meeting to the next.
Persevering, hustling, grinding, pushing.
One night I remember getting into bed after 19 hours of work and I laid there with the biggest grin on my face feeling like I was THE MAN, “I’d crushed it!”
Little did I know I was being busy instead of productive.
The reality, most days the only thing was I out-running was myself.
Every day I’d fight to escape a prison but little did I know that the prison was inside of me!
Maybe you can relate?
If you can then you’ll know how tiring it becomes trying to keep up a false facade of what other people think of you.
You’ll know what it feels like to walk into a room, have people see you but in reality, they’re not seeing you at all, they’re seeing your representative.
Instead of taking your guard down to the people you love the most, you build bigger walls…
…terrified of anyone seeing the real you so you pretend like you’ve got it all together when in reality it’s falling apart.
Eventually, I couldn’t keep going, something had to give otherwise I was going to give!
I called off the wedding, didn’t move into the 4 bedroom house, got out of the business deal, got rid of all the franchisees and went about doing life my way for the first time ever…
…listening to what I really wanted to do, and more importantly, who I wanted to be!
One thing led to another and The Powerful Man was born.
It feels strange saying that I’m founder because I didn’t set this up intentionally, it’s not like I did market research or had a long desire to lead a men’s movement.
All that I knew was that something was bubbling inside of me that I couldn’t ignore, ignoring my gut was what made my life so difficult for the first 28 years.
Life today is very different and I’m blessed to be part of such a powerful movement.
Every day it inspires me to be just 1% better in all areas.
Success means something different to me today than it did 15 years ago and when you realise that money is a tiny percentage of true success your life deepens with meaning, motives, and POWER.
There isn’t a price tag to being able to put your head on the pillow at night know who you are, what you want and being in the world, to me that’s powerful.
A POWERFUL Man knows himself, he lives a whole, purposeful life and realises that it all starts with him.
Money doesn’t define him, money isn’t his legacy, HE is his legacy.
I can barely believe it’s been 5 years since we started, here’s to the next 50 and the millions of men we’re destined to support.
