0:00

Whoooooo! Okay,

0:02

here we go. Here

0:05

we are on

0:08

the final episode of

0:10

Matt's going away party.

0:14

Wow. I am

0:16

recording this from my house from the place I've been living

0:18

in for the past year and a half. Yes,

0:21

it is a tree house. Literally.

0:25

It's a tree house. You're going to hear some cars

0:27

driving by because there's a road right here, but don't

0:29

worry. It's not too too often. Hopefully

0:32

it doesn't get too annoying. I

0:34

am recording this from my tree house,

0:36

my house because the yes house right

0:38

now is going under construction. Like everything

0:40

is being removed. Everything

0:43

on the walls is being taken down all the

0:45

frames all the paint. Everything

0:48

that we've put up. It

0:51

looks very barren and kind of

0:53

sad to be honest and

0:55

is very representative of the end

0:57

of the chapter that we're all living

1:00

through at the moment in Yes Theory. And

1:05

I think it's actually kind of cool that I get

1:07

to record this from my house. I haven't done

1:09

a podcast here yet. So this is where I spend

1:11

honestly the majority of my time and where I've spent

1:13

a lot of the time writing the book. Just

1:17

working on my computer here on Zoom

1:20

with Darren. So we're

1:22

here. This is the context. This is

1:25

the setting and this is the

1:27

last episode. Before I begin this podcast,

1:30

I would advise anybody that's listening if you're

1:32

on audio right now, if you can switch

1:35

to video, I think you'll get

1:37

a much better experience. We're going to throw in some

1:39

clips of different stuff that's happened over the past few

1:41

years while writing the book and

1:44

I think it'll make it super interesting and

1:46

super fun to watch. So if you can

1:48

turn a video, if not all good. I

1:50

was thinking about where to start this podcast

1:52

and I wanted to start with a

1:55

story. And the

1:57

story takes place in a very similar

1:59

setting to this. this on a

2:01

front porch in nature, on my

2:05

own, on a chair. And

2:08

this was about a

2:10

year and a half ago, about three

2:12

weeks into starting the book again. I've

2:15

shared this part of

2:17

the story many times where I

2:19

quit and then found Darren, and Darren

2:21

was down to help me write the book. And

2:24

I went out to Montreal to work on it with him. And

2:26

it was

2:28

this incredibly difficult but

2:30

also beautiful experience. And

2:33

we've been working in the city for

2:35

a few weeks and I'm starting

2:37

to burn out. We're not

2:39

making that much progress on the book. We're still kind

2:41

of setting the foundation and writing the first few chapters.

2:43

And I am just

2:47

done. I'm wiped. And he's

2:49

like, okay, let's take a break. Let's change

2:51

the setting a little bit. So his girlfriend,

2:54

Sandrine, agrees to let

2:57

us stay at her cabin, which is about

2:59

an hour from Montreal. And

3:02

it's in nature. It's quiet. It'll be

3:05

great for writing. So I say, let's

3:07

frickin' do it. We get in the

3:09

car. We go to her cabin. And we start

3:13

working on the book there. And at this

3:16

point, I'm so low on sleep. I'm sleeping

3:18

so little. I'm so stressed out by this

3:20

book. Again, we're not making progress. And I

3:24

thought that being in this cabin in the

3:26

woods would help, but it's not helping. As

3:28

soon as Darren and I start working downstairs

3:31

in the basement on the book, I start

3:33

to feel this angst set in. And

3:38

about halfway through

3:40

the day, Darren

3:43

sees me struggling and says, let's go outside. Let's

3:45

get some air. And I'll give

3:47

you your space. He goes off on

3:49

a walk with his girlfriend. And

3:52

I sit out front on her porch, just

3:54

looking out at the nature in front of

3:56

me. The sun's coming down on me. I

4:00

am like, I feel 10 years older

4:02

than I am.

4:05

I am just completely broken. And

4:08

I kind of just sit down and hunch over. I

4:13

have my hands out. And

4:16

all of a sudden, this ladybug

4:18

lands on my left

4:21

hand. And

4:25

I look down at her, and

4:28

her right wing is broken. And

4:31

I feel really bad, but there's nothing I can do. I

4:33

can't really move her, so I'm just gonna, I

4:36

just decided to kind of sit there and watch her. And

4:39

she starts to do this thing with her

4:41

left side of her body, where she's trying

4:43

to fix her right side of the body,

4:45

and she's trying to heal

4:48

her own wing. And

4:50

I'm watching this ladybug for 10 minutes. And

4:53

after about 10 minutes, I

4:57

think to myself, if

5:00

this ladybug can

5:03

fly again, then

5:06

I can finish this book. And

5:11

when I said that in my head, I

5:15

was 100% sure that this ladybug was

5:21

not gonna fly again, 100%. There

5:24

was literally no chance. Her

5:26

wing was totally broken. And

5:30

so it was kind of a long shot. I was like, there's no way this

5:32

is gonna happen, so this is an easy bet with myself. And

5:36

then I kid you not, five minutes later,

5:39

after just going to work on her wing,

5:44

I watched this ladybug just soar,

5:48

just fly again, just

5:50

go off. And

5:53

I smiled to myself. I

5:55

was like, wow. Alrighty,

5:58

I have no choice. I

6:01

got to do it. So

6:03

I went back down and from that moment

6:05

on with the book

6:07

I was fully committed. This

6:11

very simple example

6:13

that was laid before me of this insect

6:18

going through the hard work to fly again

6:21

was the thing I kept thinking about throughout

6:24

the struggle of writing this book which

6:27

took me way longer than expected and was

6:30

a hundred times

6:33

more difficult than I

6:35

could have ever anticipated.

6:37

And the reason

6:40

I want to share that story is

6:46

because as I speak right now I

6:49

feel like I'm about to take flight. I

6:54

feel like I've spent the

6:57

past few years of my life working

7:01

so hard not only

7:04

on the book but to heal myself to get

7:06

better to heal

7:09

relationships to have hard conversations to

7:14

come back and say goodbye which has

7:16

been a really hard but

7:19

also marvelous experience

7:21

for me and I've

7:24

just gone through all this work and as

7:26

I record this this last podcast of

7:29

this few months

7:31

series that we've done here and this

7:33

may sound weird and maybe a little arrogant

7:35

but I am in all of

7:37

myself. I

7:41

am in all of

7:45

what a human being can

7:48

do because it was the same thing

7:50

I was a

7:53

hundred percent sure there was no

7:55

way I could be here right

7:57

now in this moment talking to this camera

8:00

saying, I did

8:02

it. And

8:05

I'm doing it. I'm talking right now, it's happening,

8:07

I'm saying it. It's real. This is real life.

8:11

At the time of recording this, it's been a little over

8:13

a week since the launch of the book. It's

8:16

crazy to think about the amount of people

8:18

that have ordered the book, that

8:20

have given feedback on the book, that have shared

8:23

what it's meant to them, how it's affected them,

8:25

how they're changing their lives because of it. This

8:28

memoir that I wrote that was my story

8:30

that I hoped would inspire people, I see

8:33

it now inspiring, actually inspiring people

8:35

throughout my life. I've struggled

8:37

with two things. One

8:41

is celebrating

8:43

myself and two

8:45

is saying goodbye. I don't

8:50

know exactly where the first one

8:52

comes from. I'm not sure why it's so difficult

8:54

for me to celebrate my own wins. What

8:58

I usually experience is more relief,

9:00

a sense of like collapse at

9:02

the finish line. But

9:05

in this moment right now, talking

9:08

to you and

9:11

sharing this story, I think

9:13

I want to take this moment to actually

9:15

celebrate myself. And

9:17

yes, I have such an enormous amount

9:19

of gratitude for all

9:22

the people that have gotten

9:24

me to this point. I've talked about them, I've had

9:26

them on the podcast, they're in the book. I

9:30

think I am pretty good at expressing my

9:32

gratitude to the people who support me and

9:34

to the people who helped me, including

9:36

this community, including you watching. But

9:40

I feel like the person that I don't

9:44

celebrate enough or express enough gratitude

9:46

for is this guy. This

9:50

guy's amazing. Like I feel like

9:56

I really just got to acknowledge. myself.

10:02

And there

10:05

are a lot of people in my life and there

10:07

are a lot of people in this community in the

10:09

Yes Fam who have noticed how difficult that is for

10:11

me and who have constantly tried to say like, are

10:13

you receiving this? Like, are you truly seeing what

10:16

you've done? Are you truly

10:18

able to celebrate? And

10:22

yeah, in this moment I

10:25

do want to take a moment to just thank

10:30

myself and just

10:33

give myself a pat on the

10:35

back. And when I say myself, yes, I mean

10:38

my adult self, but I also mean this little kid inside

10:40

of me that's just... works

10:47

so hard and

10:50

truly, truly deserves

10:53

the rest he wants and

10:55

needs. Thanks

11:02

for letting me do that. Definitely

11:05

first, definitely first doing that on camera.

11:08

The second

11:10

thing that I'm really not great at and that I'm learning

11:12

how to do is say goodbye. And this

11:18

past year has been

11:20

this long excruciating

11:24

goodbye process. And

11:27

I've shared this part of my life before, but

11:30

I'll do it again here in case anybody's unfamiliar with

11:32

it. When I was

11:35

seven years old, and also this is in the

11:37

book, but when I was seven years old, my

11:39

family and I moved from Paris, France

11:41

to Greenwich, Connecticut in the US. And

11:44

a lot of kids move

11:46

at young ages and adapt

11:49

very quickly and love

11:51

their new lives and get into a

11:54

flow. But

11:56

for me, that move triggered

11:58

something that In

12:00

many ways, I'm still working through. And

12:04

one of the things that it triggered was

12:07

the fact that my experience of saying goodbye

12:09

is a very sudden experience. Because

12:12

my family and I moved overnight,

12:14

there wasn't this gradual

12:18

goodbye process. There wasn't this realization that

12:20

this life was coming to an end.

12:22

It was like one day you're in this culture

12:24

speaking this language with these friends, and the next

12:26

day, literally on a flight overnight, you're

12:29

now having to learn this language, befriend

12:33

these new people, understand

12:35

this whole different new culture, and

12:37

try to ingratiate yourself in it.

12:41

And I'm really thankful for the experience. It taught

12:43

me so much about myself. It taught me to

12:45

adapt. It

12:48

taught me how to make friends. It

12:50

taught me to be open to the world, to

12:52

different perspectives. But throughout my

12:54

life, it's made saying goodbye really difficult.

12:58

And my

13:00

family and I moved again when I was 13 and then moved again

13:02

when I was 14. So there have

13:04

been these different moves throughout my life. And

13:07

as I grew into my late teenage years and became

13:09

an adult, every

13:12

time I would say goodbye to

13:14

a group of friends, again, it was this

13:16

like, all right, see you later. I'm

13:19

going to move to this city now and go to school

13:21

here. See you later. Or I'm going to move to this place or

13:24

start this new job. See

13:26

you later. And

13:29

quite honestly, that scarred me. Those

13:32

goodbyes, quote unquote, goodbyes

13:34

scarred me because I never got to

13:36

process them. I

13:39

never got to understand what these different places

13:41

and people meant to me and

13:44

really embody it and then properly

13:46

acknowledge that I'm leaving it. And

13:51

before I came back into

13:54

Yes Theory again, before I came back on camera

13:56

here, before we started doing this podcast. Starting

14:04

a year and a

14:06

half ago, starting in

14:08

Montreal, I

14:10

would spend about

14:14

six hours on my own at

14:17

night in

14:20

first in Montreal, then in Paris,

14:22

then in New York, and in my hometown,

14:25

going to the different places that

14:28

meant a lot to me, where I had

14:30

specific memories, places that I

14:32

never got to say bye to. So in

14:34

Montreal, I went to my old college dorm,

14:37

to my first apartment there, to

14:39

the place where I started my first business, the

14:41

restaurant that I used to work at, at the

14:44

top of the city. In these

14:46

different places, I would bring a flower,

14:48

a dahlia, and in each place

14:50

I would lay the dahlia down and just really

14:54

think about what this place meant to me. And

14:57

all these memories would start flooding back. And

15:08

every time I would cry

15:11

uncontrollably, and the crying wasn't in

15:13

the present moment, the crying was

15:15

for this past self that

15:17

never got to grieve the goodbye, but

15:19

finally there was room to do it. Finally, I

15:21

was allowed to grieve and let

15:23

it go, grieve and let it go, grieve and let it

15:25

go, so that it didn't exist

15:29

in me so intensely anymore. And every

15:32

time I went to these different places and properly got to

15:34

say goodbye, I felt a little

15:36

lighter, I felt a little freer, to the

15:39

point where I felt ready to reenter Yes Theory

15:41

and essentially do the same thing here before I

15:43

left, rather than wait for some time down the

15:46

line in the future where I have

15:48

to revisit my time in Yes Theory and

15:50

I have to say goodbye properly.

15:53

Having learned what not

15:55

saying goodbye properly did, I didn't

15:57

want to make the same mistake again. I

16:01

wanted to say goodbye to you guys in

16:03

a way that felt true, in a way that

16:05

acknowledged what happened here, in

16:09

a way that acknowledged the friendship I

16:11

had with Thomas, Amara, Tommy, everybody in

16:13

the Yes Theory team. And that's

16:15

in large part why I came back, because

16:18

I wanted to truly learn

16:20

in the present moment how to say goodbye

16:22

and how to say thank you. And

16:28

I'm not gonna lie, I mean

16:31

we can play a clip or

16:33

two, but man

16:35

it got brutal. I

16:40

feel like I've avoided sitting

16:42

down with Thomas, Amara, and Tommy.

16:47

Just really

16:49

having a goodbye,

16:53

like an official goodbye ceremony,

16:55

if you want to call it a

16:57

ceremony. I

17:00

feel like I'm in full avoidance that this is

17:02

happening. Because

17:08

in a way, when

17:11

you say goodbye to something, there's

17:15

this part of your identity, this part

17:17

of you that dies. And I know

17:19

it sounds dramatic, but it's kind of

17:21

true. Like there's this part of you

17:24

that's shedding, that you're watching leave. And

17:31

so many of us, myself included, for most of my

17:33

life want to turn away. We don't want to watch

17:35

that quote unquote dying process. But

17:39

there's beauty in that process.

17:41

There's beauty in watching the

17:43

letting go happen. That's been

17:45

a large part of the

17:47

purpose of this podcast. And

17:50

the reason why we called it a going away

17:52

party is

17:56

because each

17:58

person, that

18:00

I brought on the purpose was

18:03

to have an informal kind

18:05

of goodbye. An acknowledgement of

18:08

all the amazing things that happened and what we learned from each

18:10

other. And man

18:12

each conversation I had was just

18:16

meant so much to me. And when I

18:18

look at all the people that I had

18:20

on, that's my life. That's who

18:22

I was. That's what changed me. That's

18:25

what got me to this point. Those are the people.

18:27

And I can finally say that by

18:31

coming back here, by doing this, by

18:35

being on camera with the S Theory and going

18:37

to Turkmenistan and China with the guys, I've

18:42

learned not only

18:44

how to say goodbye, but

18:46

I've learned how essential and beautiful

18:50

it is to do so. Because

18:55

properly saying goodbye, as much as yes

18:57

it is a dying process, it's also

18:59

an acknowledgement of all the good. It's

19:02

also a celebration. It's

19:04

a ceremony for everything, for all of it.

19:07

The good and the bad, the hard and the

19:09

fun. Goodbye used to be so scary

19:11

to me, but now I know that

19:15

it's just an evolution. It's

19:17

simply an evolution and a

19:23

coming into awareness of your

19:25

own evolution of where you

19:27

were, where you are, and where you're going. And

19:34

I also got to, you know, say

19:41

goodbyes in other ways, not just with the podcast.

19:44

Leading up to the book launch, we

19:46

did meetups in London, LA, Paris, and

19:48

even towards the

19:50

end in Montreal. In

19:53

Montreal, I mean, all of them were incredible and

19:55

Montreal was the last one. I got to do

19:57

it with Darren, Des was there. We

20:00

got to do a book reading together Darren and I.

20:03

There was this big dance party at the end. All of them

20:05

had dance parties. And in Montreal

20:07

it was where it really cemented

20:10

that I was saying goodbye to this community

20:12

because I got to see them in person

20:15

truly for the last time altogether. I just

20:17

want to say that this is actually the

20:19

last meetup ever that I'm doing. This is

20:21

part of the experience. You're

20:24

gonna make us cry right now. So

20:27

I'm also really grateful that it was with you guys

20:29

in Montreal that I got to be with

20:31

Darren here and just have the whole team. So really

20:35

appreciate you guys being here. It

20:37

means the world to me. I love this community

20:39

more than anything. So yeah, just the tour

20:41

is coming to an end for the book

20:43

stuff and what

20:45

better way to cap it off. So appreciate you.

20:48

Oh. Okay, so

20:50

after the meetup in Montreal, it

20:53

was time for me to be on

20:56

camera again with Yes Theory. So as

20:58

many of you know, I went to Turkmenistan

21:00

and then China with Thomas,

21:03

Staffan, Corey, and then in

21:05

China Darren met up with us and

21:08

Yan, our new friend from China. Obviously the

21:10

episodes were incredible. I've talked about them on

21:12

this podcast and how they

21:14

changed my perspective of that whole country.

21:16

China is incredible.

21:20

I will leave it at that. China is incredible. If you

21:22

haven't seen the episodes, please go watch them. But

21:25

there were moments in between the episodes

21:28

when we would be in the hotel room where

21:30

I would realize, like I would

21:32

really come to this realization that this is the

21:34

last series I'm doing

21:37

as a part of Yes Theory on camera after

21:40

eight years being here. And

21:45

there was one moment in particular where I

21:48

felt really sad and I felt the

21:50

grief come up again. And instead

21:53

of just laying in my hotel room by myself,

21:55

I walked next door to Thomas and Staffan's room.

21:59

Staffan opened. and he saw I was crying and

22:01

we just kind

22:03

of sat together and they held me as

22:05

I just wept. I just

22:07

wept and they asked

22:10

me what was going on and I just said, I felt,

22:12

I feel so grateful. I

22:15

feel so grateful for everybody. For

22:19

you guys. For having gotten

22:21

me to this point. For inviting me in again.

22:24

For allowing me to do this. To say goodbye in

22:26

this way. I

22:30

felt so grateful for Yes Theory

22:32

as a philosophy. For

22:36

what it stands for in this world. I

22:41

felt so grateful that I got to be a part of it. And

22:46

I kid you not as I was crying in

22:48

their arms. It

22:52

was a pretty cloudy day and all of a

22:55

sudden the sun just comes literally

22:57

perfectly beaming down on

22:59

the three of us at the edge of this bed. Just

23:02

three grown men hugging each other and me crying

23:04

in their arms. And the

23:06

sun just beautifully shining on us and I, yeah it

23:10

was just one of those moments where again

23:14

I felt so grateful that I was allowing

23:16

myself to experience this. That I was allowing

23:18

myself to go through this. And

23:23

that I was allowing myself to process this not

23:25

on my own, not in the future, but in

23:27

the present moment with

23:29

the people that I experienced these moments

23:32

with. And

23:35

then the final goodbye, the final

23:37

thing that I wanted

23:39

to do was to throw a

23:41

final launch party

23:44

for the book at the Yes House. And

23:48

although Thomas, Tommy, Pedro and a few others

23:50

could make it from the team, Amar led

23:53

the charge with the team that was in LA

23:56

and some people from the team flew down to

23:58

be part of the party. And

24:01

I invited as many people as I could from

24:03

my world, from

24:05

the Yes Theory world, and brought

24:07

them all together for

24:09

this final going away party. And

24:13

it was just incredible.

24:16

I invited my spiritual

24:19

coach, his name's Jim, to do like a

24:21

stillness breathwork practice for us. And

24:24

he did, and there was dancing,

24:26

and everybody got to talking, and

24:29

I got to celebrate myself again.

24:31

And I got to allow myself

24:34

to be celebrated and acknowledged, and

24:36

Amar really

24:39

enabled that to happen like he really wanted to

24:41

make me feel seen. And instead

24:43

of describing it in full, I wanted to show

24:45

some of the clips from that as well. Right

24:49

before the party started, I

24:51

started to go on a

24:54

walk, reflect on this beautiful journey. And

24:58

if you just zoom in and figure out

25:00

what it was that I wanted to tell Matt tonight, I

25:03

had the intention right by the Venice High. And

25:05

I came to me and I said,

25:08

I can't take a hand. And the

25:10

most thing I heard was this guy that

25:12

made these toys. Friendships

25:14

are the best ships. Friendships

25:17

are the best. I've

25:23

just been so blessed to be on the most amazing,

25:26

prosperous, blessed ship that

25:30

anyone could ask to be a part of. God

25:33

knows what would have happened in my life if I didn't meet

25:35

you at 21 years old, and

25:37

you just looked me in the eye and he told me that you

25:41

can't pursue greatness. You are born to be

25:43

great. And I think the

25:46

beautiful part is that that was before any plans to ever

25:48

make any videos or do any of that. And it

25:50

was just on a human level, just

25:52

another human seeing a human. There

25:54

was no...we did not know what was going

25:56

to come on the other side. And then

25:58

the next day... The book launched. Happy

26:02

birthday! Happy

26:04

birthday! Happy

26:07

birthday! Happy birthday! Happy

26:11

birthday! Happy

26:13

birthday! Happy birthday! And

26:16

again, my team was there to celebrate with me. There

26:19

was confetti and donuts, and

26:22

at 10 am on Sunday,

26:24

December 3rd, talk to strangers.

26:27

My Yes Theory Memoir released

26:29

to the world. There

26:39

were some hiccups along the way that day, and it

26:43

was really actually quite difficult to

26:46

celebrate on that day, because logistically

26:49

there was so much going on that I couldn't

26:51

really focus on, like this moment. I

26:54

didn't know what was actually happening, that I had worked

26:56

so hard for this. But

26:59

over the coming days, as the supports

27:03

and the reviews

27:05

and the orders started coming in, it

27:08

really started to click like, Holy shit, I

27:11

did it. It's done. Oh

27:14

my God. I

27:18

can't believe it. Like

27:21

that word kept coming up, that sentence kept coming

27:23

up over and over and over again. I can't

27:25

believe it. Oh

27:28

my God, I can't believe it. Coming to

27:30

the end of this, coming to

27:32

the end of the book journey,

27:34

the podcast journey, the goodbye

27:36

journey, I

27:40

just keep thinking about

27:43

the ladybug. I

27:46

keep thinking about how, not

27:49

only for me, but for all of us, there

27:52

will be a moment or moments throughout

27:54

our lives where we

27:57

are that ladybug, where we land.

28:01

On a distant shore with

28:03

a broken wing and

28:05

we're convinced we're not going to be able to fly again,

28:08

but with enough time, enough

28:11

rest, enough work to

28:14

heal, enough support

28:16

around you, it's possible.

28:19

It truly, truly is possible. I

28:23

believe in that so much that

28:27

I wanted to get this ladybug tattooed. So

28:29

Des and Darren, who as you know have been

28:32

instrumental in getting this book out to the world,

28:35

knew about the ladybug story and I told them that I wanted

28:37

to get it tattooed and that I'd love for them to get

28:40

it with me and they greet. And

28:43

so back when we were in Montreal

28:45

together, we, the three of us decided

28:47

to get a ladybug tattoo to

28:49

represent this huge

28:52

achievement, but also more importantly,

28:54

the incredible lesson that we each got

28:56

from it of just

28:58

being able to push through the

29:00

difficult times to get to a place

29:03

that you thought was genuinely

29:05

impossible. And

29:08

so here's a little clip from our little

29:12

foray into a tattoo shop

29:14

in Montreal of us getting

29:16

our tattoos together. You going first? Yep. Go

29:19

get them. It's weird. It's

29:21

weird. It's badass. So

29:23

we saw yours and

29:27

now we're going to

29:30

get exactly that one. Aw.

29:34

I just drew it in two seconds.

29:37

Which I think is honestly perfect. Yeah.

29:40

It means more to me that you're all getting the same.

29:43

Yeah. That's a cute one. Oh,

29:46

that is so cute. That is super cute.

29:48

It's Matt's turn to get his hat. Last but

29:50

not least, I'm so excited.

29:53

I'm going to look so cool. Want

29:56

to hold my hand? Oh,

30:01

it's so cool. Cool. Cool.

30:04

Wow, I love it. Alrighty, so here it is.

30:08

I don't know if you can see it. I got my

30:10

ladybug tattoo drawn by

30:12

Darren Emera himself. And

30:15

this is what I'm taking with me. She's

30:17

coming with me wherever I go. And

30:19

now it's time for me to

30:21

wrap up this podcast, to

30:23

wrap up this series, to wrap

30:26

up my going away party. In

30:29

this series, you've seen so many parts of me

30:31

that I've never shown before in this book

30:33

that I've written. You've seen so many parts of me that

30:35

I've never shown before. And

30:38

I hope that you've gotten so

30:40

much out of each episode or

30:42

whichever ones you watched, even if it's just

30:44

this one. I hope you've received something from

30:47

it. I hope you've felt inspired in some

30:49

way. And

30:53

frankly, now that this is all

30:55

coming to a beautiful end, I

30:57

have no

31:00

idea what's next. And

31:02

I say that very, very candidly.

31:04

I have no clue what

31:07

I'm doing. I booked

31:11

an Airbnb on the other side

31:13

of the world starting in the beginning of January. I'm

31:16

moving out of this incredible tree house that I've lived

31:18

in for a year and a half. I'm

31:22

selling whatever I can from it,

31:24

giving away whatever I can from it and

31:27

just packing whatever I want, all the essentials

31:30

into a suitcase and a backpack. And that

31:32

is all that I'll own. After

31:35

eight years with Yes Theory, this whole journey

31:37

for me is coming to a close and

31:39

I could not be more grateful.

31:44

I also could not

31:46

be more ready to start this new chapter

31:48

of my life. I will definitely remain Yes

31:50

Theory's biggest fan. I

31:53

will also likely hop in and adventure

31:56

once in a while whenever I feel called

31:58

to it. But if you're curious... I

32:01

will be updating people about

32:04

what I'm doing, what I'm learning, where

32:06

I'm going with this wildlife of mine

32:08

on my newsletter. It's

32:10

in the link in the description, matt.lia.substack.com.

32:16

So if you want to stay updated with me and

32:18

my life, that's where you'll get it. And

32:22

the other thing is I want

32:25

to mention this because

32:27

it's something that's really important

32:29

for me and that I would

32:31

really appreciate it from you guys. If

32:34

you're watching this, if you've felt inspired by

32:36

what you've watched here, if you've ordered the

32:38

book and read the book or listened to

32:40

the book or

32:42

are planning on listening or reading the

32:44

book, it

32:47

would truly, truly, truly mean the world to

32:49

me if you've reviewed it

32:52

on Amazon. The algorithm on

32:54

Amazon really prioritizes

32:56

reviews. So honestly,

32:59

good or bad, it doesn't matter. So long

33:01

as you're reviewing it, it's really important for

33:03

the algorithm. And for me as

33:05

a first-time author to have a lot of reviews on my

33:07

book is game-changing.

33:09

It's truly, truly life-changing. So

33:12

I would

33:14

appreciate that more than anything in the world.

33:17

It literally takes 30 seconds. We'll

33:19

leave a link in the description below. But also

33:21

if you just type in, talk to strangers by

33:23

matt.lia on Amazon and you

33:25

just go to the book itself, it's easy

33:28

to find the reviews and leave a review.

33:30

So please, please do that. In

33:32

order to create a little bit more of

33:34

an incentive for you to do so, there

33:36

are two podcasts that we haven't released that

33:39

we've talked about before that are two of

33:41

my favorite conversations I've actually ever had in

33:43

my whole life. One

33:45

of them is with my favorite YouTuber,

33:47

Nathaniel Drew, one of my best friends.

33:50

And the other one is with two

33:52

of my other favorite YouTubers and my best

33:54

friends, Colin and Samir, who many

33:57

of you know. And

33:59

that podcast, I'm I mean, if

34:01

there's anything that you need to feel

34:04

inspired to create or

34:06

build or get through difficult time following

34:08

your dream, that's the podcast

34:10

for you. And that's

34:13

why if we hit

34:15

500 reviews on Amazon for

34:17

the book, Talk to Strangers,

34:19

I'll release the Nathaniel Drew podcast

34:21

on here as a bonus episode. And

34:24

if we hit a thousand reviews for Talk to

34:26

Strangers on Amazon, I

34:28

will release the Colin and

34:30

Samir podcast, which you definitely

34:33

don't want to miss. So please

34:35

go review if you can. And yeah, that's

34:38

the last thing I'll leave you with. Follow

34:40

me on the newsletter. Please

34:42

review the book. And again, wow.

34:58

We freaking did it. We

35:04

freaking did it. We freaking did

35:06

it. I

35:13

love you guys so much. More

35:18

than words will ever be able to

35:20

describe. This community

35:23

has changed my life more than anything in

35:25

the world. Thank

35:28

you for showing up for me. Thank

35:31

you for supporting me. Thank you for believing

35:33

in me. Thank

35:38

you for inspiring me. Hopefully down

35:40

the line while I travel, I'll get to meet some

35:42

of you. That would

35:44

be a dream come true. To bump into you

35:47

guys and go on adventures would be just epic.

35:51

So I really look forward to that. And

35:53

I really look forward to whatever comes next.

35:55

So goodbyes

35:57

or just beginnings. They're

36:00

worthy of celebrations and acknowledgements.

36:03

And we

36:05

have done our work here. And

36:08

we have properly said goodbye to each

36:10

other and celebrated everything that happened. And

36:13

now I

36:17

get to start a new life. And

36:20

it's all on a blank page. And

36:24

it's going to be filled with so much

36:27

color. Alrighty.

36:40

That is all. Love

36:42

you all.