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Welcome to Milestone Moments, the show where we explore the journeys that lead to success.

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I'm Sheila Slick, your host and founder of Five Milestones. In every episode, we will bring you

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insights from the minds of entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts who will share not just their expertise,

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but the milestone moments that have reshaped their journeys and led to significant achievements.

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So if you're looking for motivation, you're in the right place. Subscribe now and discover the

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milestones that mark the path to success. Welcome to another episode of Milestone Moments in Business

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and Leadership. I'm Sheila Slick, your host. And today, my special guest is Matthew Sensari.

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Matthew is a business coach and owner of Prime Consulting, helping leaders get unstuck,

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reclaim their time, and scale into success. Welcome to the show, Matthew.

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Sheila, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

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So what was a pivotal moment that led you to a significant shift in your approach or philosophy

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towards achieving your fullest potential?

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Oh, that's a great question. It's interesting because for me, especially starting out when I

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was younger, I felt like the word potential was something that was exciting, but kind of always

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hung over my head. There was always things to accomplish. There was things that I could do.

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Really, the world was my oyster. And so I hustled, did the grind, tried entrepreneurship the whole

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bit, and I had never really found success or measurable success. I had always felt like little

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pieces and bits, but then in about 2012, I got into a traumatic car accident that changed my life.

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And I was driving home late one night. I think it was 10 minutes to midnight, middle of the summer,

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and two horses jumped on the road in the last second. And I was driving an SUV to give people

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context, and the horses were bigger than my SUV. So slammed on the brakes, couldn't do anything.

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Car absolutely totaled. I ended up being three inches from taking my life is what the accident

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ended up being. And as every young, dumb man in his 20s does in the aftermath, I just kind of assumed

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that everything would go away. I had never experienced anything like that. I had a great

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job at this time, I was traveling North America doing public speaking. And all of a sudden,

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I started to get these headaches. And these headaches would incapacitate me minutes, hours,

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days, weeks at a time. And before you know it, physical, chronic pain, depression, all of that

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set in. And I found myself unemployed. I actually had to leave my job because I couldn't work anymore.

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So I sat here, and I was like, man, I can't work. I don't know what's happening. The challenges

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in my life are mounting. Finances are out of control. What am I going to do? And I had always had a

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passion for business and entrepreneurship. And so a friend of mine said, hey, you know what,

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I know you're good with computers, which wasn't on my radar. I'm working at a business. Can you come

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help out for a few hours and just help us with some problems? So I said, yes, I went in and started

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chatting with the business owner. And we kind of hit it off. He asked me to go for lunch. And that

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lunch turned into hiring me as his marketing consultant. Didn't go to school for marketing.

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And I used that first client and that trust to basically educate myself, teach myself,

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and launch my marketing business, which I ran for 10 years. And so for me, it was that moment

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that was really, really pivotal in my life to me reaching my potential and going down this

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business journey now, now on to my third business. Because honestly, my back was against the wall.

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And I actually had to figure something out. I couldn't live the nine to five. I couldn't do

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what I thought I was going to do. And so I had to find a way to provide. I had to find a way to

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build my potential. And so went down that journey, even though it was difficult.

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Thank you for sharing that. There are so many different lessons and things that you overcame

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in that story alone, right? How to take a negative and see the light at the end of the tunnel,

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turn it into a positive, turn it into entrepreneurship, said yes to opportunities.

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So as a business coach, based on your experience, what are some of the most significant

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obstacles individuals or organizations typically face on the path to achieving their goals?

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Yeah. So it's so interesting because I think for me, now stepping into a business coach,

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I functioned as a marketing consultant. I worked as a pastor. I've done real estate. So I worked

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in a variety of industries, but being a business coach for me now and a consultant helps me

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capitalize on all the things I learned and all of what I went through. And so now so many of the

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things that I find that my clients and even just in conversations with business owners,

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entrepreneurs of what they're struggling with are things that I battle fairly on. And so,

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to tie it back to my story, in full transparency, my business for the first few years that I started

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it was abject failure. We were barely surviving. I didn't know what I was doing. And so I started

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to realize because of my chronic pain that everything was so out of control that I didn't

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really have a handle on the business. So as quickly as I was getting clients, I was losing clients.

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There was no way to build a business. And I remember coming to this point where I was like,

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I have to build differently. I can't keep building this way. And now I always ask clients this

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question. And to be honest, it's probably one of the most overarching questions for any of my clients.

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I say, if anything were to happen to you, God forbid, and you were to stop working for a month,

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what would happen to your business? And I can, I instantly see the fear kind of come over people's

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faces when I ask that question. It doesn't matter what industry they're in, whether they're lawyers,

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real estate, yoga, health, all of them, they all look at me and they say,

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probably after a month, most of my business would be gone. And I tell them and I say,

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then you don't have a business, you have a job. Because when you stop showing up to your job,

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you don't get paid. Let's build you a business. And so that lesson that I had to learn was,

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I need to build different. I need to build something that runs in spite of me, in spite of

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me showing up, regardless if my health is good or not. And as a result of that, I get to do the

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things that I'm actually really great at. And the very reason why I started this business,

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giving strategy, managing people, developing people, actually giving vision to the business.

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And so, so many of my clients, everybody's got different issues, different things that are going

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on, one of the predominant things is when I ask that question of reflection, and just like a little

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checkup, more often than not, they say, oh, crap, we do not have the systems or the structures in

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place for this business to thrive if something were to happen. And so I always find that that's

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such a pivotal way to ease in to starting the coaching journey for them.

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You went through a lot of change. How do you help your clients adapt their strategies or their

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operations in response to a change? Yeah, really good question. I think for me,

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it's funny because as a business coach, not everything is strategy and not everything is systems

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and structures. Because my work is so relational, there's an emotional component. And so I challenge

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my clients, I'm always honest with them, I challenge them and say, you need to live in reality.

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You need to live in reality. And that reality says that change is inevitable, right? Something

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could happen to your business tomorrow. Your best employees might leave tomorrow. So what we need

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to do is we need to try and build an operation and build a mindset that is flexible, not so that we

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can avoid change, but that we can always be ready for when it comes. A great example of this is in

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a lot of my business, in a lot of my clients and even in my own businesses, what we do is we create

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workflows across every job description, every component of the business. And I encourage people

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to get things on paper and to get the team to refine those processes so that if something happens,

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we can onboard somebody, we can transition someone. And it's not like, okay, we built this

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entire thing on one person and when they're gone, we're screwed, right? Otherwise, we're in the exact

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same problem that I illustrated earlier. And so, yeah, it really is about how do we run a lean,

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effective operation so that we're prepared for change because change is the one constant,

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as cliche as it is. Great, I love that. So what made your trends or challenges do you foresee?

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And how can individuals or organizations prepare to navigate them effectively?

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You know, it's interesting, I think going along with this idea of running effective,

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inefficient companies, so many industries right now are seeing buy-in from venture capital,

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hedge funds, you're seeing major players start to roll up a whole bunch of small and medium

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businesses in different verticals. And that can be scary for a lot of small business owners,

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right? You think in competition, all of these things. And to me, instead of giving into the

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fear of something we can't control, I think we have an opportunity to say, okay, what's working

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for them and why are they doing that? And so one of the things I'm working with my clients again,

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in so many of these ways is how do we systemize our business, right? How do we get really,

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really good at people development? You know, one of my models is if we build people,

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we will build business. So how do we get so good at building the people in our business,

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developing them, skills transfers, internal promotions, all of these things so that

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we are actually building businesses that people want to stay in, they're proud of,

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that actually take market share, not just from running a great marketing campaign,

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because these are what the major players are doing as that trend continues. And we continue to see

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that in business of a lot of these industry rollups as more and more businesses start to get acquired.

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I think we want to position ourselves. How do we position ourselves to succeed,

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just like everybody else does? And so I think it's always looking at, okay, who are the major

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players, that big trend and saying, what are they doing? How can I replicate that? I think it's a

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great place to start. So what is your next milestone? Oh, man, there's so many. Sheila,

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I'll tell you right now, I'm not someone who struggles with vision and I'm a dreamer, but I

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would say, you know, I was a pastor for many years and I absolutely love that. And as I get into

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business coaching, so much of my favorite interactions are, you know, whether virtually

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or in person, even though I prefer the in person, is to be able to communicate with you, talk with

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people and hear their stories. And so for me, I think my next milestone is not hoping to get back

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into the public speaking and try and, you know, use my story to serve and inspire more people,

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you know, the pain of what I went through. The truth is, I still go through a lot of those things.

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I still have a lot of the injuries, still the same pain 12 years later, it has not gone away.

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But my perspective has changed, right? And I've found purpose in that hopefully I can serve a few

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people and maybe inspire a few people on the way. So a major milestone for me would be to get back

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into that arena and try and influence and impact as many people as possible to tell them that

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it is possible to keep going and that you don't have to stay stuck in whatever it is that's keeping

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you stuck. Well, I look forward to continue to follow your journey and see you back on the stage.

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So where can my listeners find you? Yeah, I love connecting with people. So you can go to my website

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consultingbyprime.com. So consultingbyprime.com. Or you can look me up on LinkedIn or Instagram.

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Again, reach out. I'd love to connect with you. Matthew Sanjari Sanjari Sanjari Sanjari Sanjari.

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So before we wrap this up, can you offer one key piece of advice that my listeners can implement

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right away to lay that groundwork for achieving success?

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I think a really, really pivotal moment for me. I was about three or four years into the business,

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2016, I believe. I was very, very overweight and unhealthy. So to compound everything that I was

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going through, I was really struggling with that area of my life. I remember at one point,

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I was walking up the stairs and I couldn't make it. I was struggling to breathe. And I'm an extrovert.

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I love being around people. So it became really, really hard. And I remember getting to a point

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where I said, this wasn't breathing. I was saying, you know what, enough's enough.

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I can't control my depression. I can't control my physical pain. I can't control my headaches.

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But maybe I can control some of my health. And so what I started to do was I started to just

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take a measurement every day, how I was feeling, my mood, where the scale was at.

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You know, and, you know, a lot of people at the time thought, I don't know, this is a good idea.

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Well, you know, fast forward a couple of years later and I lost 150 pounds. I got into the best

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shape of my life. But the principle for me was I couldn't manage something that I wasn't even

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measuring. I wasn't even looking at the metrics of what success, what was success, what did it look

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like in my health? And so I couldn't actually grow something that I had no idea what the baseline was.

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And so what I tell people is this, I love talking to entrepreneurs and business owners and I say,

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okay, what does, what does growth look like for you? What does success look like? Everybody wants

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to make a million dollars, 10 million dollars, 100 million dollars. But what does success look

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like for you? And I think it starts with, what are you measuring? Right? What are you measuring?

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So if success looks this way, are you measuring the indicators that are going to help you get to

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success? Right? It's easy to set a number target. It's easy to set a sales goal. But what if you

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get there and you're still incredibly unprofitable? Right? So let's figure out what success looks like

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and let's find ways to measure it. I think just starting to measure the things that matter

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is a huge way for us to just take control of our business and start to get a good grasp of reality.

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And that reality may be, oh, this is incredible or oh crap, we need help.

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Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Matthew.

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Oh, Sheila, thank you for having me. Honestly, it's an honor to be on the podcast. I really

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appreciate it. And thank you to all of the listeners for tuning in to another episode

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of Milestone Moments in Business and Leadership.