Matthew Lesko: Answers from the man in the question mark suit

It was such a pleasure meeting and speaking with Matthew Lesko, that I just couldn’t wait to get part of it online, and so here is Part I of our chat, posted immediately after I transcribed the recording.

I didn’t know what to expect when we met, except that he was very gracious in accepting my e-mailed invitation to be interviewed for this random blog I’ve got here. I’ve seen him around town for years, of course. His clothes and transportation festooned with question marks (something he described as “a lifestyle choice” when we met). In person, he’s gregarious, chivalrous and enormously energetic. He joked that when he was a child, he thought that his middle name was “sit down,” because all he heard in school was “Sit down, Lesko!”

You know him, he’s been on the air and around town for years. His Web site is Governmentmoneyclub.com, and he is well-known for his loud ads and wide smile.

It’s slowly dawning on me that my own calling may be getting people to talk about the things that they love. There is always something to learn, something both profound and portable – that you can take with you. While I’m still piecing together what makes me happy, it seems like these folks can tell me something.

Mr. Lesko can certainly tell me about the honor of failure:

We don’t honor the struggle. We’re all looking for that “Success” magazine, we should have “Failure” magazine. Because that’s what life is all about. You really have to train yourself for failure in anything  you want to do in life. I feel that your loved ones are your worst enemy because they don’t want to see you fail. “Don’t do that, you’re going to hurt yourself, don’t do that, it’s a bad idea…”

Well, yes, I am going to fail. It’s like, if your parents said when you were one year old, “don’t stand up, you’re going to fall.” Well, you’re right, but you have to, you have to fall a hundred times before you can walk. Do you think that once you’re a grownup that failure’s over?

And about doing what you love:

I wrote about 100 books, but only about 10 have done anything. But you know, that’s what life is. How many guys do you date before you find someone worthwhile? I mean, all of life is that way, you just have to keep grinding it out. And that’s why you have to love what you’re doing because you have no idea. You just keep going. And going. And going. And if you don’t enjoy, if you’re doing it only to make some big payday, it’s all a crapshoot and you don’t have any control over it.

I always wanted to be on a big talk show. The Today Show or something… When I finally got on this big talk show I think it was Good Morning America and I went up a day ahead of time and did three or four hours with everybody, and got on it and then you know you’re on for three and a half minutes or whatever it is, then you call your friends and then you have to go to work the next day. Nothing really changes in your life, so if you live for those three seconds?

About the motivation behind his work:

It’s that kind of philosophy of life that I think is more important to anybody’s success than what they’re actually doing. Because that’s what it grows from. I feel my work is to try to help people do that. I can show them a little hope on what that they can maybe do that, you know, there are tools in our society that maybe help you get towards that, and they live on courage. My work is not about giving you a phone number, I hated people like Tony Robbins because they jack you up and then send you outside and now it’s “what can I do, I’m all excited to go out and rule the world, but now what?” That’s why to me, giving you a starting point, to start your own business, here’s a service that can help you think through that idea for free.

About integrity:

I think as I get older now, I don’t have to worry about money and all that stuff… If you have to have all this money to make you happy, then you start working for the wrong things, and then you start making decisions that are about the money and not about what you think is right or wrong. When you start doing that, to me, is when you start giving away part of your soul. And it starts clicking away and then that line keeps moving, that’s how we all get in trouble. Oh, I’ll just put it on the credit card, just a little bit more, I’ll be able to pay, and then it keeps going and then you lose yourself and other people control you. And that for me is the worst fear in life, people controlling you.

And relationships have been that way, you know it’s bad, you know it’s not you, and all day long you suppress it and you pretend its okay, and by the end of the day you rationalize 15 reasons why you’re there and then it goes away and then you wake up in the morning and its there again.

And about art:

I believe that our art is what’s weird about us. That’s what makes us different, so why should we all be trying to figure out how to contribute to life the same way everybody else is? That’s stupid, who needs that? The world doesn’t need that. The world needs what’s special and unique about you, that’s what the world needs.

I feel that’s how we all struggle. God, I used to be so envious of anybody who had an art, a writer, dancer, singer, whatever. And then I thought we all are artists at something. There’s something that we are really good at and we have to struggle in life to find out what it is. So that we can contribute. And that’s why we’re here, it’s to contribute, to give. It’s like to love, in relationships it’s giving. The best thing in the world is to love and to give. Not to be loved and to get presents, but to do it yourself. That’s why I think that’s the most selfish thing is to give.