Matt's Story - Part 1

He’s in a job that’s not right for him. Then, one day, someone questions what the heck he’s doing. An opportunity! But will he take it?! Hmmm… Matt’s story is so rich in content that we wanted to share it with you in pieces. Here’s PART 1 for your digestive-heart’s enjoyment :)

‘The only reason I wasn’t doing it, was probably just fear.’

Q

What was the catalyst for deciding something had to happen? Why did you start Ouching It?

A

I think there were three things that contributed to it. 

The first is a sense of purpose that has always been within me. That could be down to how I was raised, and things I was told growing up. Simple things like ‘You’re really talented, you’re very good with people.’ Those comments build up your internal confidence in your own capacity, because it’s been what you’ve been told your entire life. 

I think I was really fortunate that I had a lot of edifying words that sat with me as I was growing up about people, about community, about the importance of doing things with people, and being honest with people - all these kinds of values, which become personal values that I guess I live by.

So that’s one element, and I think you’ll understand why they all contribute to each other.

I think the second element was that at the time I had a dissatisfaction with the job that I was in. There were some quite painful encounters and situations which made me really question what I was investing my time into and I think when you're in a place where it's quite clear you're never going to fulfill your potential and that you’re potentially misunderstood or not even wanted, then it kind of sets it up for you really. I was becoming someone that I didn’t even enjoy. I thought  - ‘Actually there’s a question here around what I’m even doing here?’

So that was the second element, dissatisfaction.

And the third one, was the catalyst moment which ties the other two together. 

‘So, why are you not doing this as your job?’

The whole time I was doing that previous job, I was also doing on the side a whole bunch of other creative stuff which I’ve always been involved in. And it was everything from small little things like helping friends out with photography, to sitting in quite influential rooms and deciding creative fates of people. I was very much part of a network and community of people who were creative so I was a go-to person to link things together.

There was a moment during a time of being dissatisfied in my job, when two really close friends of mine (they are involved in a business in Sierra Leone that is distributing power into really remote places and changing the economy and infrastructure there) and they had this product and they were like, ‘Hey Matt, can we just sit down with you for a few hours and you just tell us what you think?’

At the end of that, just us sat around a coffee table, these two friends said, ‘Hey look. In the past two hours you unpacked and understood us more than consultants and people we’ve paid. We’ve gained way more from you than anyone else we’ve used. So, why are you not doing this as your job? Why are you not building this thing and leading this thing?’

And I think it was the first time that I was challenged and I didn’t really have an answer as to why I wasn’t doing it.  All that previous edification and what I’d been told about me and my character and my greater sense of purpose, and then combined with the dissatisfaction at my current job meant that yeh, I didn’t have a reason not to be doing it. 

The only reason I wasn’t doing it was probably just fear, or feeling inadequate or not understanding something enough to go for it, not feeling qualified. I really didn’t have an answer, so I was like, ‘Ha. I think maybe you’re right…’

And so the very next day after meeting with those friends, I met with another close friend who I actually started OneSixOne with, a guy called Jared.

We were grabbing coffee anyway and he knows about how I do all this consulting, creative stuff. And I was like, ‘Mate, I’ve always thought about doing something, but yesterday I had this conversation about setting something up similar to what I did yesterday. They kind of challenged me and asked me why I am not setting something up and going for this.’

And he’s just said, like, ‘Yeh, I’m in. I’m 100%, in.’

‘…after that everything else didn’t look and feel the same.’

And I was like, ‘What do you mean?!’

So, Jared’s wife Steph is a photographer and at the time he was acting as her agent and building her brand and business and they just got to a point where they realised there was a glass ceiling because of how they were perceived. That’s because when you come across a freelancer, rather than an agency, you often get the smallest piece of the pie, you're the lowest in the food chain. So they were kind of thinking, we need to build something a bit bigger and so they had a conversation a few months before and said, ‘We need to actually make this bigger and who would we do that with, because we know we can’t do it ourselves.’

And they both agreed that the only person they would do it with, would be me. But Jared said to Steph - which is so funny, cause we’re friends and he knows me, he said -  ‘Yeh, we can never tell Matt though, because he needs to come to that decision himself, because you can’t tell Matt what to do. He needs to come to it himself and if he ever does that, then we should be like, we’ve been thinking about this.’

So, he was crazy surprised that I had even come to him and been like, ‘Yeh I’m thinking about this thing,’ because he just knows that when I get my head into something I’m really sold out to it. The fact that I was willing to put everything on the line was a big deal to him. 

That was kind of the catalyst. It was a three part thing, that led to that moment where we left that cafe in West Kensington and we both knew this is the next chapter of life and after that everything else didn’t look and feel the same.

And it was super irrational. It’s not like we had a plan or another job or savings. It was like, now we’re doing things. 

That’s how it started.

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What did Matt do next? Read all about it in Part II

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Matt Miller is Creative Director at OneSixOne, a diverse creative studio.