Gold Nuggets
- A lot of people don’t plan on doing a certain entrepreneurship. It just drops into your lap.
- Appreciating the opportunity to serve the community and meet with so many different people and successful business owners is a blessing.
- Mentors love to help you.The importance in dealing with the questions that we usually don’t think about because of the business in running businesses.
- Women tend to much more create collective groups of other women. So it’s easier to ask for help.
- Understand that collaboration is a key thing in business.
- The universe is sending us a message. It’s repeating it, usually you pick up when you hear it, the first time you pick right up on it.
- Have the courage to step out of your boundary and try something new and some entrepreneurs go full hundred, they will actually quit their job.
Meet Charles Matthews Jr.
Charles Matthews Jr. is the owner of CMJ Entertainment an event planning and production company in Toronto – Host of the Charles Matthew Show podcast – a TV Talk show host and radio personality
Smart Man, Smarter Woman References
We talk about a lot in each episode; however, we don’t want you to miss a thing! Here are some key items were mentioned if you want to take a closer look.
Website Recommendations:
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Transcript
Please specify the URL of your fileSteve Loates (00:00):
Hey, everyone and welcome to our podcast, Smart Man Smarter Woman, a podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And thank you for joining us today. I am Steve Loates.
Juliet Aurora (00:14):
And I am Juliet Aurora.
Steve Loates (00:16):
And we are your co-hosts. But before I introduce our special guest for today’s show, let’s hear from my wonderful co-host, the smarter woman herself. How are you doing today, Juliet? You look fantastic, by the way.
Juliet Aurora (00:30):
I appreciate that. Thank you. I’m actually a little nervous about what this show is going to be, just based on the last couple minutes as we’ve been kind of prepping and making sure that everyone’s equipment is working. I’m not sure what’s coming over the next half hour, so that’s kind of where I am. We’ll see what the next half hour brings. It should be interesting.
Steve Loates (00:54):
Isn’t that the great thing about life? We never know what’s around the corner. We never know what’s coming next. Makes it interesting. Makes it exciting. I’m really looking forward to today’s show. As I mentioned at the beginning, our podcast is for and about entrepreneurs and our goal, as you know, with every episode is hopefully to provide you with some entertainment. I’m pretty sure we’re going to do that today, but most importantly, some values, some insights, a gold nugget or two that can help you, an entrepreneur, on your own journey.
Steve Loates (01:27):
We have a great show for you today with a very special guest all the way from Brampton, Ontario, so he’s in our neck of the woods, which is great. Charles Matthews Jr. is the owner of CMJ Entertainment, which is an event planning and production company in Toronto. He is the host of the Charles Matthews Show podcast, which, if you haven’t checked it out, make sure you check it out, it’s awesome. TV talk show host and a radio personality, so he doesn’t have much going on, as you can tell. I’m sure he has lots of free time. So let’s bring in our guest for today’s show, Charles Matthews Jr.. Welcome Charles, and thank you for joining us today.
Charles Matthews Jr. (02:09):
Thank you for having me. I’ll be honest with you, since I signed up to be on your show, I’ve been so excited. I wanted to see the combo. I love the name of the podcast. I’m so hyped to be here. I had it programmed in five different areas on my phone to make sure I’m here on time. Let’s go, let’s have some fun.
Steve Loates (02:26):
Awesome, sounds great. Well, you have a very interesting background, to say the least. Lots and lots of things for us to talk about. But before we do, why don’t you share… let’s start off, if you could share a little bit perhaps about your own entrepreneurial journey, and your own experiences through that journey, that would be great.
Charles Matthews Jr. (02:46):
Okay. I started as entertainment. At age of nine, I used to do Michael Jackson impersonations. I used to be a Toys R Us kid dancer. They had dancers back in the days. I did fashion shows and modeling, and anything to do with entertainment, I was in it. I just loved being on stage in front of a crowd. So once I found my better half, my beautiful wife, we were planning our wedding, and then I realized that I was kind of overdoing the planning myself. You know what I mean? Because of my entertainment thing. I’m like, “Oh, baby, we can do this, oh, we can do that. We can do this.” And a good friend of mine, Nick [Alampi 00:03:26], he’s like, “Why don’t you open up your own business?”
Charles Matthews Jr. (03:28):
I’m like, “Nah, I ain’t doing that.” He’s like, “What do you got to lose?” I thought, “You know something? Why not? Let me try it.” So I put up a small name, small business. Next thing you know, I’m getting these phone calls. And another phone call, and another phone call, and I’m like, this is something. Okay, maybe I need to look into it. But then I stepped back, and then I was working at another job and this guy came in, and I gave him all the props, as well, Richard Benton.
Charles Matthews Jr. (03:59):
He was from a radio station called THRY, and he invited me up to the studio. Then he’s like, “Oh, my other guy’s not here, answer some phones.” So I’m answering phones, and then he’s like, “Hey, we have Charles here,” and he flipped the switch. I’m like, “Okay, it’s either I could have dead air, or I could actually say something.” So I actually said something, and then that’s where my journey started.
Charles Matthews Jr. (04:23):
Because I took what he gave me of being on air, and my friend Nick about entertainment, and I decided to put them together. I ended up being a professional MC for my entertainment company, and I just kept branching out, branching out, and branching out. Now, I’m a two-time event coordinator planning champion, so it-
Steve Loates (04:42):
Awesome.
Charles Matthews Jr. (04:43):
I didn’t plan it, it comes to you. That’s the main thing that I realized. A lot of people don’t plan on doing a certain entrepreneurship, it just drops into your lap. That’s what it did, it dropped into my lap.
Juliet Aurora (04:54):
Okay, okay, so hold on. What is… you have to go back, here. What is, I didn’t even know there was such a thing, a two time event planner championship. Please, do elaborate as to what that would even look like.
Charles Matthews Jr. (05:08):
Basically, there’s a company called [By Blacks 00:05:12]. You’re voted, and someone voted for my company. The reason I love this award so much, because it’s people’s choice award. So people from all around the world, all around the country, who’ve worked with me, who knows my company, have seen my company, went online and voted for me. They go through all the events I’ve planned in the past years, and then you get voted on. For me again, so it was two or three other companies. I won the competition two years in a row.
Juliet Aurora (05:40):
Excellent, excellent.
Charles Matthews Jr. (05:42):
It’s people’s choices. People voted and say, Yes, he’s done my wedding, he’s done my corporate, you know? They voted for me. I just love those ones, because I know that I’m doing a great job, because the people voted.
Juliet Aurora (05:55):
Right, absolutely. When you said that, and I’m thinking in my head, Okay, it’s like a cook off or something that they give you a certain amount of time and you have to plan an event, but no, that’s excellent. It’s always nice when you hear from the people that you’re actually helping, to hear that they appreciate it.
Charles Matthews Jr. (06:12):
Yeah.
Juliet Aurora (06:13):
So excellent, congratulations.
Charles Matthews Jr. (06:15):
Thank you.
Steve Loates (06:16):
Awesome, awesome. I guess what I got from that, that you really didn’t start out thinking that you were going to be an entrepreneur, or that that was even on the radar. Did you have something on the radar, or you were just like most of us? At a younger age, where we’re just sort of drifting and trying to figure out what we want to do?
Charles Matthews Jr. (06:43):
You know, to be honest with you, being an entrepreneur wasn’t really instilled in me. Here’s the thing that I realized growing up in the school. The one thing in school that I think that we fail to teach our kids is to become entrepreneurs. Go after what you like. We are taught books, books, books, now go out there and work for somebody. We weren’t taught, okay, here it is, if you like this, why don’t you learn to become your own boss? Here are the tools you can learn to become your own entrepreneur, to being your own boss.
Charles Matthews Jr. (07:15):
We don’t do that, so me growing up, always thought I had to just learn my education and go find a job. Go work from somebody. So when someone said to me, “Be an entrepreneur,” I’ll be honest with you. I was panicking, you know what I mean? To put your name on the dotted line as it’s your company, you have to get your own business cards, do all those things. It’s a scary thing. And the thing is, a lot of the kids growing up now, they’re not taught of being your own boss, the value of being the boss. There’s so many great things about being your own boss that is not taught in school.
Juliet Aurora (07:50):
That could probably be an entire five or six episodes, all by itself, as to how our education system is not meeting the needs of the kids today. That certainly isn’t the purpose of our podcast, although maybe I’ll be able to convince Steve to let me veer off on a tangent, because it is something that I feel very strongly about, but you’re right. That there is nothing…. Even there are, when you’re in high school, that they are, I think it’s in grade 10, where you have to choose what career path you’re looking. So grade 10, you’re 16 years old, and all of your schooling up until then has prepared you to go work for someone else, and you don’t have business options or anything until you’re in high school. So it really doesn’t. There isn’t anything that helps you prepare for it. You’re jumping in blind [crosstalk 00:08:43].
Charles Matthews Jr. (08:42):
You are, and for me, I was always taught, If you’re the smartest guy in your group, get out your group. Okay? I mean that seriously. There’s nothing wrong with the friends you hang around with, but if you’re not involving… There’s only so much the five of us can teach each other. One person needs to jump up to the next level, learn from all the next level, and then bring it back down to your friends and say, hey, this is what I learned. We can add this to what we’re doing and keep growing and growing.
Charles Matthews Jr. (09:12):
So growing in my business, for the first I’d say three years, I didn’t really push my business. I followed everybody. I learned all the tricks. So for limousines, I went and cleaned limousines, drove limousines, learned about how limousines worked before I can actually sell a limousine for my product. I went to a banquet hall, I learned how to set the table, be a chef in the kitchen, wash the dishes, roll up the tables. If I didn’t learn that stuff, when my brides come to me, I can’t tell them, It’s better to put the tables here, here’s why it is, because I learned from it. I sat there and learned from it.
Charles Matthews Jr. (09:49):
The thing that I noticed about entrepreneurs, we dive in, but when we have another entrepreneur that wants to tell us little tricks, we’re like no, no we got it. No, no, I’m doing it this way. To me? Shut your mouth. Listen to what he’s saying. Even though you know A, B, and C, he might give you A, B, C, D, and E, and F that you might not even think about. So the thing with me is okay, how do you learn and take it to the next level? Let me ask you this, because I’m a man, you’re a man, but we have one beautiful lady here that can answer this question. Men are scared to ask a question when it comes to another business man. But a lady will ask right off the bat, Oh, how’d you get that? Where’d you get that deal? Where did you find this? I don’t know if I’m wrong, but Steve, talk to me. What do we do?
Steve Loates (10:43):
Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize that was direct towards me. Unfortunately, I agree. I’m sure there’s some deep-rooted psychological reason for it, but it is really true. What you said I think is also, it’s a great testament to the importance of mentors, right? And people who have more experience, more knowledge than you, and never being afraid to ask them to share time with them. Because mentor, at least it’s been my experience, and I’ve had a number of them throughout my career, but it’s always been my experience that mentors love to help you. They can’t wait for you to ask questions, and so it really is something that we’ve had many guests on our podcasts. What’s the most important thing? Or what’s really important? It’s been coaching, mentors, and masterminds groups. But it’s been so much of finding other people, and I love your comment about if you find yourself as the smartest person in the room, you probably are in the wrong room. You need to move so that you can find some people who can help you grow. And so I think that’s just great advice.
Juliet Aurora (12:13):
Sorry, just my two cents. Yes, it absolutely true that men do not ask. [inaudible 00:12:20], and that women-
Steve Loates (12:21):
I was sort of hoping we were just going to skip right over that. Go ahead.
Juliet Aurora (12:26):
And I think that part of it is that historically, men have always needed to have all the answers. It’s kind of their role that men always needed to have the answer. And if you were always expected, as you were growing up, to have the answer, then as you get older, you’re not prone to go out and ask for help. Whereas women tend too much more create collective groups of other women, so it’s easier for us to ask for help, and that’s my two cents.
Charles Matthews Jr. (12:57):
I agree with it. Here’s the funny thing, and I’m always bringing this back to kids, because I have a passion for young entrepreneurs. I have a passion for when I see young teens wanting to learn from me and I want to give my knowledge I learned to other people. But the problem is, perfect example, they have a superstar they love, they follow them every day on Twitter, they follow them everywhere they want to go. But when they’re in the room with that same super star, and they’re too afraid to go up to that super star and say, “I’m a fan. Can I have an autograph? Can I pick your brain for two minutes?”. We do that in business. We see somebody doing what we want to do, but were too scared to go over to them and say, “hey, can we go for a coffee” or “can I pick your brain on something. I would like to collaborate with you or do something”. We as entrepreneurs don’t do that.
Charles Matthews Jr. (13:47):
We find that we’re too scared to go ask the question. But here’s the funny thing, collaboration is a key thing in business. Because some people that you have that person wants and some people that they have, you want. Every business, I don’t care what business it is, has a way of collaborating with each other. I don’t care if there’s another company selling toilet paper, and I’m an event planner. Guess what? I have banquet halls that need toilet paper. We can work together. I don’t care what the business is, you just have to find the right niche, and you can work together.
Juliet Aurora (14:21):
Do you think that part of that is because if you’re an entrepreneur and you have staff, that you feel like you have to have all the answer for your staff all the time? That it just reinforces that you have to have all the answers and so it’s harder for you to ask other people?
Charles Matthews Jr. (14:40):
You’re absolutely right but here’s the one thing that I… I was working with one company and the boss, every Thursday, before the long weekend, because the weekends were the most, the boss would ask us what do think we can do this weekend to make it easier for everybody in the room? He did that every Thursday. And then all the employees would say look I do this but I know I can cut off five minutes by doing A, B, and C. Another employee would be like, we do this sir, I know it’s a norm but can we try this this weekend because A, B, and C. And he got more product out of us because we gave our two cents in to him. Yes he had the last word, but because we work as a team, we’re on the floor, he’s not. We’re seeing things, he’s not seeing.
Charles Matthews Jr. (15:26):
So he gave us the go through to say, okay, you see something? Bring it to me, lets try it works. And he wouldn’t just do everything, but he would implement one at a time, see how that works and see how that works. Because the thing is, if your employees feel like they’re contributing to the company, they’re going to want to stay to the company. But if you’re never listening and they feel like they’re the worker ants, pretty soon you’re going to lose your ants to another… you know what I mean? So it’s always about working together, finding out how do you grow.
Steve Loates (16:01):
That’s great advice for every entrepreneur out there. Don’t ever be afraid to ask your team, and even tell your team, I don’t have the answer. Do any of you guys have the answer? What would you do? What do you think we could do? And it’s sometimes being transparent, being human, being real, makes you a much better entrepreneur, and helps build you a much better team. So that’s great, great advice. Speaking of advice, can you think of perhaps, one piece of advice you have received in your journey that has really stuck with you. It comes back to you over and over in different circumstances.
Charles Matthews Jr. (16:51):
Yeah, this is from my grandmother growing up, and it was even before I got into entrepreneurship. She used to say, “your skin is not thick.” And with my grandmother being Caribbean, she would talk to you and you would say, “Okay nana” and you would leave and you would be like, what in the world [inaudible 00:17:09] saying. Because she’d say it in these little Caribbean styles and make you walk off and go off and I’m like, what is she mean, my skins not… and I’m like, oh don’t have thick skin. So I would think about it and come back to her and go, nana did you mean, when people give me advice, don’t take it to heart, don’t have thick skin about it. Take the word of advice and go with it.
Charles Matthews Jr. (17:38):
So if someone says to me, oh Chuck you did a great job, but you could have done this and this, I don’t get upset. I go, okay thanks, because they see something I’m not doing. I’m on stage and they see something, I don’t see it. So instead of being, well you know I did my best job and blah, blah, blah. No, no, no hold on slow down. At first, they said you did a great job, but here’s something I think you could improve on. Take it. That’s the one thing I see a lot of business and entrepreneurs do is, we go something and we say hey Bob you did a great job. This event was good but you know what happened? We were trying to get into the door and my cue card never worked and we tried a couple of times. Well that’s the company’s mistake. It’s not my mistake. Okay hold on, I don’t care if it was the companies mistake or your mistake, I’m telling you what my experience was and maybe 30 other people had the same experience. Your show is great, I’m just trying to help you out.
Charles Matthews Jr. (18:33):
We have thick skin when it comes to entrepreneurship. Its like no one can talk about our baby. You know what I mean? If you talk about our baby, like they say the mama claw come out. You know what I mean, we want to scratch their eyes out, don’t talk about our baby that way. Instead of just saying, oh okay great, I’m going to improve it for next time. So, you know.
Juliet Aurora (18:56):
Very, very wise advice from your grandmother.
Steve Loates (18:59):
As most grandmothers usually give great advice probably comes a little from the experience, I think. You’re involved in a whole bunch of things, radio, TV, podcasting, event planning.
Juliet Aurora (19:16):
Yeah.
Steve Loates (19:17):
Do you enjoy one more than the other? Or is it like your children? None of them are your favorite or you have a favorite but you can’t really say?
Charles Matthews Jr. (19:29):
I like how you put that. You know what it is? If you look at my company, my company is a branch of everything I love to do. So for example when I was in entertainment, that’s where I got into the entertainment company. And then because I love radio and the podcasting, and being an event MC, I added the MC into the event planning. And because I love this part, I added everything. So everything I do, is a branch off of another part of my company. So I used to do music videos back in the day when I was younger, so if you go to BET and type in some music videos, I’m the dancer in the front. So I learned how to do videos, so now what do I do? I do video marketing for companies with voice overs.
Charles Matthews Jr. (20:09):
So everything is always implemented into the same thing. What I feel a lot of people do is, once you branch out of what you love, that’s when the company fails. It has to tie in of the part you love doing. So for example, if you love making pizzas, stay into that realm, and then don’t be going to sell furniture somewhere else. It doesn’t fit. But, if you love making pizzas, pizzas go to catering, and then from catering it becomes cooking chefs, and from cooking chefs it comes to be a podcast on how to make the best sauces. It branches out. Stick into your niche, that’s the problem. We, as entrepreneurs, and I think especially in Canada, I’m going to put it out there, I know I might get a lot of slack, but when it comes to businesses we’re like that dog and squirrel. We have one idea but when we see the states and other people doing something, squirrel, oh what happened, okay. We run off to do something else. We don’t hone our crafts, deal with it, then we branch out.
Charles Matthews Jr. (21:13):
So, me, and I’m going to be honest with you, I was like that too. I see things, I see big events in the states and I go, oh I should do that and I branch off, and I lose my identity of my own company. And people are like, are you this? Or are you that? You need to stay in your lane. Stay in your lane, branch off from your lane.
Juliet Aurora (21:34):
That’s interesting that it’s probably a guess that we had, a couple of episodes ago that gave us a lot the exact same advice and I never really thought about it before, so Steve and I were thinking of branching off and starting a new business of some sort, of staying in something that is related to what we’re already doing, but now we’ve heard it twice in the last three weeks so I guess the universe is sending us a message. It’s repeating, I must not have gotten it the first time. So it’s repeating it for me again.
Steve Loates (22:07):
That’s not like you. Usually when you hear it the first time you pick right up on it.
Juliet Aurora (22:12):
I guess my skin was too thick so I didn’t.
Steve Loates (22:18):
Yeah. My mother always used to always say to me “don’t have a thick head”, but I think she was talking about something completely different than this.
Juliet Aurora (22:26):
I think so.
Steve Loates (22:29):
Not that I could every be accused of that, right Juliet?
Juliet Aurora (22:32):
No, not at all.
Steve Loates (22:32):
No, no absolutely.
Charles Matthews Jr. (22:35):
Wait, here it is, let me ask you guys this, because I love this. I’m watching you two, and I love the vibe and I love what you guys do. In a business, how do you guys make the decisions? When it comes down to it, how do you weigh out the decision? A lot of people, pros and cons, sit there for weeks and months later. How do you guys makes your decisions when it comes into something for your business? As an entrepreneur, everybody is always asking me, how do you know this is right time to do this? Or how do you know this is the right time to do that? How do you know?
Steve Loates (23:06):
I’ll start, Juliet, and then you can fix it after I’m done messing it up. I think for us, it usually involves a fair amount of wine, usually over a period of time, preferably on a beach somewhere. The bigger the decision, in fact I would say probably the best decisions we have made, have been in those circumstances, where we have been away from business, away from real life if you will. Somewhere else where we could really focus on the decision and really be honest with each other about it. All of the pros, all of the cons, and I think it’s really, really difficult to make decisions, and again I’m talking about important decisions, not every day decision, but important decisions, if you’re still in the every day, dealing with the business, and so we have found that’s important for us.
Steve Loates (24:14):
The other thing we have found very important for us is, and I think probably one of the reasons we’re still together is, we are very clear on dividing responsibilities.
Charles Matthews Jr. (24:25):
Okay.
Steve Loates (24:25):
So we have a very hard line where, these are my responsibilities, these are Juliet’s responsibilities. We discuss every major decision we make about our business and always have. But, the final decision comes down to, whoever’s area of responsibility the decision falls under. And we have found, I won’t tell you that that is a 100% perfect way of doing it, but I will say that probably 95% of the time, which is pretty good odds, it works out well for us, doing it that way. What did I miss Juliet? Or did I get the whole thing wrong. Was I jus living in a different place there?
Juliet Aurora (25:12):
No. I think you pretty much got all of it right. When we’re on the beach it’s not wine, it’s mud slides, but other than that. I think that the other differentiation with Steve and I, and not everybody has this within their own business, is Steve and I have very different opinions on things. We look at things very differently. And so when were looking to make a decision we’re usually between both sides are able to cover off most of the worst case scenarios and the best case scenarios because we look at it differently. So I would recommend that if you don’t have a partner that has a different viewpoint, that you find someone. Again, it sometimes back to that, ask questions of other entrepreneurs because I think that would really help make sure that when you make a decision, that you’ve thought about all the implications.
Steve Loates (26:01):
But try to find someone who you know doesn’t think like you do. Perhaps sees the world a little differently because that’s what you need. You need that different point of view to arrive at what is hopefully the right decision. And I think the other thing is that, Juliet and I, obviously we trust each other, but we also respect each others ability. So there are times we’ve done things where I have said, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do but it fell under her area and she said nope, we’re doing it and it wasn’t easy, with my personality, we both have strong personalities but to just sit there and just bite my tongue and say “okay yeah we have this arrangement” so, like I say, most of the time it’s worked out for us and were still together.
Juliet Aurora (27:00):
And how about you Charles? [crosstalk 00:27:02] so let’s put that question back to you Charles. When you’re making a decision, what process do you go through?
Charles Matthews Jr. (27:16):
Okay I’ll be straight honest with you, I procrastinate. And I did that from the beginning, and I’m learning now not to do that. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve done my podcast for over two and a half years now, okay?
Juliet Aurora (27:30):
Excellent.
Charles Matthews Jr. (27:31):
I’ve been radio, I’ve been on stage in front of 10 people to 10,000 people. It took me a year to get my podcast off the ground because of self-doubt, listening to other people, worried about was going to happen, do I know what I’m doing, until I had to put it down, there’re some things that with entrepreneurs like myself, I had to put that pin in it and say listen, if I fail, I fail, if it works, it works, but how am I going to know if I fail or not, if I don’t even start the thing? So what I do when I tell a lot of people is, put a deadline on yourself. So it was October and I said I’m going to do it on my birthday in November so that gave me one month to get this thing off the ground. Stop researching it so much, stop doing it so much.
Charles Matthews Jr. (28:19):
What I tend to do myself is I will do a whole bunch of research and sometimes I over research. And when you over research, you tend to give yourself doubt on everything else you did. So that’s why I asked you that question because for me, I love that you guys can bounce it off each other. So what I’m doing now is I take my top three, I break it down, and then I look for my pros and cons, and at the end of it, I give myself a week deadline and whatever information I find out, I have to make a decision by that day. [crosstalk 00:28:53] So I pick one of those three. And the thing about it is, we listen to too many people. As a single entrepreneur, we listen to too many people and then positive and negative. So for example I’m going to start a podcast. Oh why would you do that? You’re already on the radio. Why would you want to do this and you’re like yeah stay on the radio, airwaves, it’s free and then I start thinking, yeah he’s right, maybe I shouldn’t go there.
Charles Matthews Jr. (29:22):
And then I get somebody else, like my wife saying oh babe you can do it. You do it all the time. People know your voice why don’t you do it? Then I’m like, yeah she’s right I don’t know what I’m saying. That happened for a year. Here’s one thing, be confident in your craft. That’s one thing that we don’t do a lot of. I’ve seen a lot of ladies that are bakers out there, they bake 24/7 and I said to this one friend of ours, why don’t you open up a company? Yeah okay I’m just doing some more research. Like six kids later, why don’t you open up a company? You know what I mean? You just got to go for it. So to answer, I’ve narrowed it down now, I take myself a week, I take the top three and I break it down money-wise, business-wise, and what’s it going to affect my company in which big way. And that’s how I make my decisions now.
Juliet Aurora (30:14):
That’s a good process. And it most is fear, I think. Fear of failure, whether it’s the first time you’re trying something or you’ve been successful at something and you’re going to try something new, I’m already successful. Am I going to mess that up if I try this new thing? How is that going to impact the success I have already. But it’s fear in many different forms.
Steve Loates (30:39):
It’s great advice and I could relate to it so much because I’m still not great at it, but I’m much better, but I used to research things to death. I knew everything about doing it and now I have a couple of sayings when I find myself doing it that I repeat over and over in my head that I’ve heard from other people. And the first one is, knowledge isn’t power, action is power.
Charles Matthews Jr. (31:11):
Yes.
Steve Loates (31:12):
And so it doesn’t matter if I have all that knowledge if I’m not doing anything with it, who cares. And the other one is, don’t let excellence get in the way of perfection. And I keep those two things rolling around in my head and eventually it gets me past it but I love your advice about, I like that setting a hard deadline for yourself. I’ve heard that called a trip wire as well where its got to be done by that date, doesn’t matter, do it. So I think that was great, great advice.
Juliet Aurora (31:46):
It’s interesting that your deadline, though is only a week. That’s a really short deadline. That obviously works for you.
Charles Matthews Jr. (31:57):
You know what it is? Okay again, I’m mounting it off of everybody that I’ve talked to and stuff. If you give yourself more than a business week, then you tend to make more other decisions. So I give myself a business week, Monday through Friday. This is an actually business. Things happen in the week. For example if someone came to me and said, I want to hire you guys, lets get started, you’re not going to wait longer to get the contract to the person. You’re going to get that contract out written, you’re going to get him his invoice, you’re going to get it going. So I flip the script back on myself. Why would I take longer than a business week to make the same decision? So I look at it that way.
Steve Loates (32:37):
That’s great, that’s great. And that brings us, I believe, to the Smart Man Smarter Woman version of James Lipton’s question and answer from Actors Studio. And so this is certainly one of my favorite parts of the show. I hope it turns out that it’s one of the guest’s favorite part of the show. I know that Juliet actually informed me, just a few days ago that she thought it was very, what was the word hokey or corny
Juliet Aurora (33:11):
Hokey, it was hokey.
Steve Loates (33:12):
Hokey? Until we actually started doing it and then you came on over then thought maybe it’s not quite as hokey. But anyway, I digress. So if you are ready Charles, I would like to proceed.
Charles Matthews Jr. (33:26):
Let’s go buddy, I’m here.
Steve Loates (33:28):
Awesome. What one word best defines an entrepreneur?
Charles Matthews Jr. (33:35):
Ooh I like that one. One word defines an entrepreneur? Risk taker. I think a risk taker because for you to step out of your boundary and try something new and some entrepreneurs will go full 100. They’ll actually quit their job and dive into their other job which I praise them for them. Yeah, Id say a risk taker. You’ve got to have some risks when you want to be your own boss and do your own thing.
Steve Loates (34:05):
Awesome. What profession other than your own, even though you have multiple ones right at the moment, what profession other than your own would you liked to attempt?
Charles Matthews Jr. (34:18):
Wow, you know something? I’m sticking with helping people, so anything to do with in the field and be a firefighter or something like that. I could see myself rushing into a fire, saving damsel in distress then jumping back out.
Juliet Aurora (34:35):
I can see that as well. I can see that as well.
Steve Loates (34:38):
I thought you were going to say, dancer based on some of your comments earlier but hey we can go with fireman, that’s perfectly fine. What profession would you like never to attempt?
Charles Matthews Jr. (34:53):
You know something, I think I can but the rest of the people say don’t do it, so I’m not going to be a singer. I sound great in the shower okay? You know what I mean? I sound great in the shower but when I’m on the mic and people are singing and I try to do some old Canada and I start singing, their like, even my DJs have muted my mic a couple times. I guess they’re trying to tell me something you know what I mean?
Steve Loates (35:24):
And that may be the answer to this next question. What sound or noise do you love?
Charles Matthews Jr. (35:31):
Oh man, I actually love hearing a fire crackle. When you’re sitting, relaxing and you put wood on the fire and you hear that small pop, it brings me back as a kid when we used to wrap presents. We always did it the night before, in front of a fire, and it just brings me back to my childhood and you just hear that little crackle of the fire place and I remember my family, my grandmother, the whole family. So I love hearing the crackle of a fire place.
Steve Loates (35:57):
Terrific. What book would you recommended every entrepreneur should read?
Charles Matthews Jr. (36:04):
Man, you know something, people will always say rich dad and poor dad and all that stuff as well but here’s… I’m not really answering your question but, I always tell this, I tell every body to write you’re own book. Write you’re own story and then read back you’re own story and learn about yourself and go from there. That’s the main thing is, write you’re own story. Read you’re own book.
Steve Loates (36:32):
Okay.
Juliet Aurora (36:33):
Excellent.
Steve Loates (36:33):
Very good. And I’ve got one more question but before I ask it, when are you writing you book?
Charles Matthews Jr. (36:41):
Again-
Steve Loates (36:44):
Sorry, I’ll leave that with you. [crosstalk 00:36:48]
Juliet Aurora (36:48):
You have a week to decide.
Charles Matthews Jr. (36:50):
Here it is, I know a book is fantastic right? And I’ve been researching a book for a really… so I actually gave myself a hard deadline, but it wasn’t a week. I gave myself actually two months. So I’m actually in the process of doing something like an ebook, just to get my foot wet. So yes, I’m diving in, I’m doing what I say and I’m doing an ebook. So about two months it should be ready.
Steve Loates (37:20):
Awesome. Last question in this series, when your own entrepreneurial journey is completed, what do you hope your legacy is?
Charles Matthews Jr. (37:31):
Why legacy of being an entrepreneur that dealt with his customers properly. I love to over achieve. If I tell a customer I’m going to give you this, I always want to achieve more. I want to leave a legacy where my kids can know the company name. I want the company name to be out there. I actually want to leave my business to other young entrepreneurs so they can take up the mantel and branch out and be their own selves. So when you think of CMJ, I want you to think of a business that helped people. People firs. It’s always about people first.
Steve Loates (38:05):
Excellent, excellent advice. And if anyone in our audience wants to connect with you and content with your company, what is the best way to do that Charles?
Charles Matthews Jr. (38:17):
They can call me, I love talking to people. So give me a call at 416-414-8964. That’s 416-414-8964, let’s talk. I think the best way of communing with people is through talking. No emails, no texting because you never can hear the person, how they really sound through a text and an email. I want to hear you. I want to see you. So give me a call.
Steve Loates (38:43):
Did you hear that advice Juliet?
Juliet Aurora (38:44):
Yes I heard the advice. I’m an email me, text me kind of person.
Steve Loates (38:54):
I just thought I’d mention that, that’s all, no big deal, no big deal.
Charles Matthews Jr. (39:00):
Since you put it in there, I’m going to throw it back at you because you guys can’t see this but Juliet’s face just went, he’s going to ask, he’s going to ask. Juliet, what’s it, you do the podcast, you talk and when you talk, I get a nice smile on my face because I can hear your voice nicely so what about the email and not talking you don’t like?
Juliet Aurora (39:23):
I think for me, I think it’s a recent thing as well, it never used to be that I didn’t necessarily like the phone call. For me it’s I just have so much to do. Email and text is I get to respond on my time and it’s faster for me. I don’t have to deal with all the frivolous stuff. I can just get to the point and answer the question.
Steve Loates (39:46):
It sounds like you’ve been hanging around me far too long.
Juliet Aurora (39:49):
Yes, I think so.
Steve Loates (39:52):
I’m the mister non-frivolous stuff, you’re supposed to be the frivolous person okay? We need that balance in the family. Anyway, before I end this episode which has been fantastic, do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share with our audience Charles?
Charles Matthews Jr. (40:12):
Yeah, one thing I’m kind of jealous with you two because you guys are a wife and a husband team and stuff like that, I always said to this one person, get your spouse involved into your business. Okay? I know a lot of guys are like what is he talking about? Here it is, if you listen to the points they were making, bounce your ideas off of somebody else. The somebody else, to me is if you have a wife, bounce them off your wife because your wife knows you more than anybody else. Your wife sees things that you’re doing and putting out there.
Charles Matthews Jr. (40:45):
I’ll be honest with you when I put out some post sometimes, my wife will go on Facebook and go oh somewhere here I edited for you, send it back. You know what I mean? And I’m like oh, sounds much better. If you have somebody, and if you don’t have a spouse, if you have an aunt or somebody, bounce it off of them. So, I’ll be honest with you I’m kind od jealous with when I see you guys doing your thing but you know what I mean? Everybody’s got that one and two punch. Find somebody that knows you and bounce your ideas off of them.
Steve Loates (41:16):
Great, and the words of wisdom for this episode are from Mr. Walt Disney, “I would rather entertain and hope that people learn something, than educate people and hope they were entertained”. And that brings us to the conclusion. Its been a great episode, thank you Charles. Really, really enjoyed it. Its been lots of fun, lot of great learnings in there. Thank you again to my awesome co-host, couldn’t do this without you. Most importantly, thank you to you, the audience, for tuning and giving us a listen. We sincerely hope you found some value and if you did, please subscribe. You can find us in all the regular places, iTunes, Spotify, Google. You can go to our website, smartmansmarterwoman.com, we’d love to have you on board. So thank you, until next time, take good care of yourself and those you love, bye for now.
Song by Adam Vitovsky / CC BY 3.0
