If I’ve learned anything over the past ten years, it’s that the old saying, “It’s far more rewarding to give than it is to receive” is very powerful.
I was recently invited to mentor a group of emerging social entrepreneurs, all whom are focused on business models geared towards improving the lives of others, at an intimate conference called Praxis. While I was going there to help and guide others, I left with the gift of being inspired, challenged and full of hope.
Everyone I met had a compelling purpose for their business and a number of them really stood apart from the crowd. But Matt Emerzian’s brilliant story and the business he’s starting to build caught my attention.
After completing grad school with an MBA from UCLA, Matt Emerzian was in the music business. He started in artist management working with local artists, but was later hired by Robert Kardashian. While most people know Kardashian as an attorney in the OJ Simpson case, he was actually in the music business for 35 years and owned a music marketing and promotion company. Matt was hired as his senior vice president.
Now Matt worked with nearly every major and indie label, more specifically on projects for artists such as U2, Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Keane, Avril Lavigne, Black Eyed Peas, Tim McGraw and more. Matt worked in the office during the day and often found himself out at night drinking, smoking weed, objectifying women and trying to be cool in the “City of Angels.” It was a slow process, but a slippery slope, and soon the narcissism and egos of the music industry had rubbed off on him and he thought he was the center of the universe.
When he would go home to Modesto, where he grew up, everyone wanted to hear Matt’s stories because they were always the best. Imagine being from a small town and the next thing you know you’re drinking champagne and smoking a joint while driving to a U2 concert in a celebrity’s limo. Then you’re greeted at the arena by Paul McGinnis, U2’s manager, and you watch the concert with Bono’s wife and 3-year-old son. Or you find yourself in the middle of Times Square with Avril Lavigne and her team, an event you are in charge of that created such a scene that it shut down all road traffic, much to the massive displeasure of the NYPD. How does that happen? How does one process that? I guess, you don’t. You just live it up and think that’s what life is all about.
Matt thought he was doing pretty well until he went to bed on a Sunday night and woke up the next morning thinking he was having a heart attack. His heart was racing, he was sweating like he was in a Monty Python movie and he was freaking out. He jumped in his car and drove himself to the doctor’s office. Not the best idea to drive a car when you think you are having a heart attack, of course, but he needed help.
After examining him, the doctor concluded that he wasn’t having a heart attack, rather he was having a severe panic attack. The doc told him to just go home and rest, and he should feel better in the morning. Well, that didn’t work, and it didn’t work the next day, week or month. His life began to shut down. His parents had to move in with him. He couldn’t function, drive a car, eat, or sleep. At night, he couldn’t look out the windows because he thought the sky was falling. His “dream” life was literally crashing down. And, he had no idea what happened or how to fix it.
Fortunately, he was introduced to a therapist who changed his life. During one of his first visits she handed him Rick Warren’s book, Purpose Driven Life, and told him to read the first sentence, which says, “It’s not about you.” The sentence didn’t make any sense to Matt. Again, narcissism won the day. Then she told him that he would never feel better until he understood that concept. That got his attention because it was like a final life raft, something to grab onto, something to help. Just four simple words were all he needed to read. They echoed in his head every minute of the day, partially from a place of gratitude and partially because he was unsure and confused. But, he was determined to put in the work and find the meaning.
She then prescribed a heavy dose of volunteering. Every Saturday morning at 9 a.m., Matt would go out and pick up litter, paint over graffiti, feed the homeless, etc. At first, he didn’t understand it, but one day it clicked. Saturday mornings were his favorite time of the week. They provided an opportunity to go out and serve others and it was “not about him.” It was the best he felt every week.
Matt was still working in the music industry and wasn’t sure how this new concept was going to work in his life. Then one day he was walking back to his office with a co-worker when he bent down to pick up a piece of litter on the sidewalk. Suddenly it all made sense. His co-worker asked Matt why he would pick up someone else’s trash and the conversation ended in an argument.
Pissed off, Matt went up to his office and called his friend Kelly Bozza, and told her that he wanted to write a book. She responded, “Matt, you don’t even read books. How are you going to write one?” Matt explained to her that he wanted to write a book that could explain that every single one of us matters and together, we can change the world. They wrote the book together.
His thought was if it took him one second to pick up one piece of litter, what if all 300+ million people in our country picked up just one? It would still be a collective one second, but 300+ million pieces of litter would be gone. What if we each picked up five or ten? Or, what if we got our schools, companies, churches, friends, and family involved? It is just a numbers game.
What if we all smiled more, planted a tree, donated blood, wrote a note of gratitude, or took better care of our health? It just became a “what if” game. They picked 52 of these scenarios and wrote the book, Every Monday Matters—52 Ways to Make a Difference.
The book came out four years ago and has sold very well. What was more important to Matt was that it started an organization and the beginning of a movement. A month after the book came out, he received an email from a woman who saved someone from committing suicide, all because of the book. He never imagined his book would literally save somebody’s life. That was the sign Matt needed to walk away from the music industry and try to make Every Monday Matters (EMM) a household name.
From the start, thousands of people wanted to be a part of what Matt was doing. Letter writing campaigns, a weekly newspaper column syndicated in over 400 newspapers nationwide, and a K-12 school curriculum that teaches youth that they matter through self- and social responsibility projects followed.
Today, EMM is in over 1,200 schools in 43 states, impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of youths. An Employee Engagement/Corporate Social Responsibility program in major corporations across the country works to create a work culture where all employees feel as though they matter within their company and their community. Oprah.com hosted EMM every Monday for a year. PBS just shot a documentary on EMM that will air in May 2012.
The organization is committed to getting as many people as possible to make their Mondays matter and to understand how much they do. Every Monday Matters is about being able to imagine a day when millions of people all over the country or world are doing the same thing on the same day to make a difference in their life and the lives of others. Matt believes that together, we can officially change Mondays—and the world.
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