Long time lurker, first time poster.
Known Matt for several years but have never considered myself very close with him. I worked with him when acting was his main gig. For all that's been said on this thread I thought at the time he was a swell guy and a very good actor.
It may be well far back in the threads but I noticed the big change in Matt when he had Katie Hopkins on his podcast 'Rich In Success'. He started it with his cousin, Dan (also a good guy) and they achieved some brilliant things together, but I didn't see much of them working together on social media after their world record (they recorded for a long time or something, can't remember exactly what).
When Hopkins appeared, he was already on Llewy's radar and he backed Matt very strongly when a lot of people, people who were closer to him than I was, were disgusted that he platformed her. It must have been very difficult to take criticism like that from people he respected, but obviously as we know now, it probably pushed him closer to TTT and into the brainwashing machine.
Noticed that recently, when announcing he was finally disembarking the crazy train that Dan is back on the scene as a personal trainer, and helped him in his competition prep. Also his 30th birthday posts got comments from his Mum and Dad, which makes me think family has potentially intervened.
What this means for future clients/victims I don't know. And its especially tricky to think about the damage he might have already done to people. But I think Dan is genuinely a good guy and is a good influence on him. If he goes about it the right way, he could genuinely use his charisma to make a difference to people, as one poster has recently reported.
But many many times I've read this thread and thought "maybe if I say something, even if he barely knows me, maybe I can just make him evaluate enough to stop". Never did though. And the £600 thing really did weigh on my conscience.
I just hope this marks turning the corner for the three that have exited.
And I hope the twins get put on a rocket and blasted out of our solar system. No saving those twats.
I know Matt and know people who still work with him, and those that no longer do. He is still friends with the people who have stopped working with him, mostly on good terms as well. I've by and large defended him through this thread, he's not as bad as you think, though that's not to say he's completely golden. He has previously turned people around to what they want to become, he's helped people come out of severe drink/drug addictions, depression, etc. He is qualified (
not through industry recognised places in the UK though, however my friend paid £5,000 to become qualified at one of these places and they were vastly unhappy with the training, and the qualification hasn't actually got them any work.) and I know Matt has undertaken coaching qualications from Tony Robbins Leadership Academy which costs around £10,000 and is a very detailed course. You wouldn't do that or spend that amount of money if you weren't truly invested in life-coaching. I know Tony Robbins is a bit like marmite, but I teach and use many of the techniques that he created, and they definitely are massively helpful.
I can't personally, from experience, say that Matt is in it entirely for the money. Yes it's all done under the rich-guy bravado and Llewy-style enthusiasm and cringe, but the amount of real personalised help he gave my friend (and I sat and listened to their calls specifically to catch him out if I could) left me pleasantly surprised.
***That being said, however, his affiliation with The Twins brings a LOT of this into question.*** It brings his ethics and morality under a microscope. His money-hungry persona wearing designer gear and having a huge ego is not it, it's not real and it's an ugly character. Whether that is a
genuine ego or just a facade to stir a reaction and bring in more clients, I really don't know. I honestly think he was brainwashed over the years by Llewllyn and pushed into raising his prices to astronomical levels in order to keep up with his fees. £600pcm for a bi-weekly personal call and to be in a Whatsapp group is
bleeping ridiculous and I can never condone that. That is
not what life-coaching is about.
I witnessed as well the standard slipping towards the end of my friend's time with him. At the start, before he got so many clients, my friend was getting personalised content and their calls were very structured and really targeted on the actions they needed to take in order to reach the next step. It was very clear and easy to implement, and my friend found having someone there at his beck and call very helpful in achieving what they wanted to do. I was always there in the background listening and advising my friend afterwards on what I thought, and I was happy with what he was teaching for the most part. Gradually, he stopped preparing for meetings and the first 15-20minutes were spent catching up on the previous 2 weeks and rehatching the content that was already emailed over weeks before. I think it was a bit like the SA situation where Matt had just too many clients in order to give enough time.
He should, if he was genuinely wanting to make an impact on
every single one of his client's lives (which he should as a life-coach), have turned people down. I know that he was at one point in the office from 8am-11pm some days with no time to get food and that is beyond what anyone should be doing. But if you have someone in your ear telling you that you're
tit and worthless if you don't do that, what do you do?
I think that Matt is just another victim of Llewellyn, one of many. Though that doesn't excuse the damage that Matt himself has caused by being a puppet of Llewy D. Even if your intentions are pure - if you've hurt someone the outcome is the same. I honestly think that if he is a genuine coach, and he wants to carry on his own way and help people from a real place, then he should apologise and refund people that aren't happy with the services that he provided, just like in any other industry.
This is where things get tricky for me. On the one hand, we do have evidence that life-coaching helps and that Matt has personally helped people overcome difficult things, but on the other there's the famous "incongruency" in his ethics, overcharging people for basic services, taking vulnerable clients in when he should have turned them down, etc. It's not a black and white situation, which makes it so hard to guage whether he is going to end up like another Llewy D or not. I just really hope that we gradually see a much more genuine person emerge as a result of the escape from The Twins. Someone that isn't so money-hungry and self-absorbed. You can't have 30-50 clients daily between 5am-11pm and expect a great outcome of that.
I don't think we can deny life-coaches as a whole as it is a
vast industry - just like personal training like someone mentioned, you can get some really
crappy and unethical personal trainers, but you can get some fantastic ones that have only the most basic qualifications, it depends on the ethics, morals, and skill of the trainer.
It's so vast that you can't paint everyone with the same brush just because they're involved in that industry. Not every life-coach is a scam, but they definitely do exist and the damage they cause is immense.
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Also, on a lighter note, super happy that Llewellyn Davies and Rhys Davies are FINALLY getting some karma and losing their inner circle. My God that's been long overdue. I also love that neither of them are even mentioning it, and can't wait to see how they spin their undoing. Hilarious that Champions of Mind has been taken down - potentially because of money laundering/embezzling/tax evasion and hiding their trail??? Though might be because they realise they're nearly finished as coaches. What a pair of idiots.