Fixing Your Mistakes

I found this interview with Matty Matheson incredibly inspiring. I’ve been a fan of his ever since I stumbled upon the clip below on Vice. He’s incredibly refreshing voice within the food industry and perfectly fills that Anthony Bourdain sized void in my life. His redemption story is something to marvel at too. Hard-drinking, hard-partying, hipster chef (I know he’d hate me saying that) turns his life around for the better, it’s easy to see why people love him!

He recently sat down for an incredibly honest interview with HYPEBEAST which you can read in full here. But I’ve picked out a couple quotes that really hit home with me and I hope you get something out of it too.

You turned from your previous hard-partying lifestyle to being this industry figure with all these different projects, along with becoming a family man. Can you tell me about the time when you decided, “Okay, enough’s enough. I’m going to get it together?”
Yeah. I was going to lose everything. I got to the point where nobody even gave a f*ck about me anymore. Like my friends. That’s really what clicked—when I had my intervention, nobody was there except for four people. I was like, “Where is everybody?” They were like, “Nobody cares. Either you do this or you don’t, so why the f*ck do they need to be here?” I was just kind of like, “Okay. That’s even harsher than them being here.” Everyone’s like, “It’s up to you.” Everyone was already done with me. I was such a mess.

I was smart enough to not completely throw it away. Then I just learned every day. Every day is different, every day is literally a blessing. I just don’t take advantage of things anymore. We only got a certain amount of time in the day. I’m in a position already where my year is fully booked. I know every single day for the next f*cking three hundred days. If I’m at that point, every single day has to matter. Every single day, I need to be moving forward. Every single day, I need to be well aware of what’s happening and doing what I need to do to make sure that my family is taken care of. That’s it. That’s all I want. I want my kids to have Christmas every year. I want my family not to worry about stuff like that. It’s a wild thing.

I used to not do anything for a day. I would do enough drugs and alcohol and bullshit that I would sleep for a day and not give a f*ck. What did that get me? Nothing. Now I’m in a position where I get what I give. I work really f*cking hard. I’m very consistent. I see results. That’s all that matters.

Do you think that you’d be doing the same things as you are today if you didn’t go through that partying stage and overcame it the way you did?
No, because I wouldn’t know either side. I have no regrets. Luckily, I never f*cking hurt anybody. I was never a full piece of shit. I don’t have burned bridges and I don’t have to look over my shoulder, but I know what it’s like to be in the mud. I know what it’s like to be down. That gives me an opportunity to be extremely grateful and to know what it’s like to not have things.

I know what it’s like to not have friends. I know what it’s like to have people not f*ck with me. I know what happiness feels like. I like being happy. That comes from love, commitment, consistency and compromise. That comes from learning a lot of different things. It comes with a lot of communication and it comes with a lot of self-awareness. It comes with a lot of praying, intention, meditation and a f*cking lot of stuff. I wouldn’t want to change my past.