In Season 3, Episode 23 of WyzeCast™, we’re joined by Matthew McCarthy, an MBA holder with over two decades of corporate experience turned founder of a boutique consulting firm. Matthew is on a mission to propel purpose-driven companies toward strategic transformation. Tune in as we explore the profound insights he shares with leaders, emphasizing the significance of tracking progress not only in profits but, perhaps more crucially, in the positive impact these companies make on the world. Join us for a conversation on “Measure Your Mission: The Power of Tracking Your Progress for Increased Impact.

Watch on YouTube – Premieres January 5th, 10 AM ET

Listen on Spotify – Premieres November 21st, 7 PM ET

Melanie McSally
Welcome to another episode of WyzeCast™, the show that elevates the voices, shines the light, showcases the gifts of our heart-centered guests, and amplifies the positive differences they are making in the world.

Folks, I have a special treat for you today because after receiving his MBA and working for over two decades in the corporate world, our guest today started a boutique consulting firm where he focuses on strategic transformation. He works with leaders of mission or purpose-driven companies to help them increase not just their profits but, arguably more importantly, in my opinion, the impact they have on the world.

My name is Melanie McSally, your host for today’s episode, and without further adieu, I would like to give a warm welcome to the charismatic, charming, and thoughtful Matt McCarthy. Matt is joining us today from Florida in the USA. Welcome, Matt.

Matthew McCarthy: Thank you so much for having me, Melanie. How are you?

Melanie McSally: I’m well, thank you. How are you?

Matthew McCarthy: Good. Good.

Melanie McSally: Awesome. So, you speak a lot about measuring your mission. Can you tell us more about that?

Matthew McCarthy
Yeah. So, in business, there’s long been a saying: what gets measured gets attention, and what gets attention gets done. But all we seem to be measuring are metrics related to typically money, or maybe time, or maybe production. Companies who are focused on achieving something, we’ll just say greater than profits, often lose sight of that greater mission. But by having measurements related to it, it puts the focus on that as a number of benefits, but definitely, arguably, can lead to better productivity and profitability. But as you eloquently said before, more importantly, more impact.

Melanie McSally
That’s awesome. I often say that my currency is freedom because when I first started out as an entrepreneur, of course, when you’re at the beginning, you’re broke all the time, right? Money was going out so much faster than it was coming in, and I was always feeling bad. I always felt negative inside, like I wasn’t doing a good job, and it wasn’t until I realized that I didn’t actually care. I mean, I care, but it wasn’t so much focused on how much money was in the bank more so that I wanted to help elevate the world. Help build a better tomorrow while creating a sense of freedom for myself, and I don’t just mean financial freedom; I mean mental, societal, material possessions, and all the freedoms. So then I realized when I focused on what I cared most about, the money just started flowing. Because it’s just how things work; when you stop thinking about what you don’t have, then you end up having it. So what made you start creating this focus on mission and purpose, as opposed to just focusing on the bottom line?

Matthew McCarthy
So I’ve long had kind of a mission-driven or purpose-driven mindset, probably since I was a teen, but I pigeonholed myself into more of a, we’ll call it a corporate way of life, or at least the standard mainstream cultural way of life where you achieve, you make money, you earn enough to retire, you buy the house, you have the 2.3 kids, and so on. I followed that line, but all along, I was watching these companies, and I wouldn’t just pick on companies but organizations; they may be governmental or corporate, always focusing on the bottom line, and I noticed a shift in engagement. My own engagement. Other employees around me would literally say things like well, all we really care about is our profits. I’m not surprised people are getting laid off, or what have you. I even noticed from an external perspective that there are a lot of ways that financial incentives are driving companies to do things that really aren’t healthy. I look at the food industry, the healthcare industry, and the fitness industry; they are cycling the same ideas, which results in a really unhealthy lifestyle. We’re no longer eating foods that came out of gardens or what have you. We’re eating foods that come out of factories. We are treating the resulting health issues with medications that likewise came out of factories, which may have dubious outcomes, even according to the studies. And why would companies do that? It’s really coming down to the financial incentives. So if we’re going to manufacture something that’s less expensive for us to make, increase sales, so we can make them more profitable. Oh, and we also engineer the foods to be addictive, which has been proven; this is not making conspiracies up; it’s been proven. And yet those foods are contributing to, we’ll say, inflammatory states in chronic diseases, again, that’s been linked. So rather than spending the money on these things, a normal human being can go back and make lifestyle changes. Sometimes, they’re harder than the treatment, but still, lifestyle changes. And without incentivizing the system, they can become more healthy. So that’s a long-winded example, but I observed those things. And again, as an employee and observer, I realized I’ve been supporting this all my career. Is that aligned with my values? No, it’s not. What is aligned with my values? Well, I would love to say that all corporations should no longer put their focus on money and so forth. That’s never going to happen. But what can I do? I use the analogy of if you have a lawn. Sometimes, you’ll see weeds crop up. You can use weed killer and seed bare patches, or you can use a good fertilizer and make the lawn more healthy, which will crowd out the weeds. Now, in this case, we have more weeds than lawn, but you can still build more lawn and kind of start squeezing out the weeds. So, I decided to take it from that perspective. So now, my purpose is consulting for companies that do want to drive the good in the world and the positive impact and helping them with the things that are keeping them from scaling that impact or running profitably so that they can make more impact.

Melanie McSally
I love how your analogy says that we can. It’s basically… So, I’m in the tech world, and there are phases to rolling out tech: there are the early adopters, and then the early adopters encourage the next phase, the next phase, and the next phase. So it’s a similar analogy, in that you’re promoting goodness by getting the people doing good to outweigh the people who are not and encouraging them to sort of shift into their more divine path, we’ll just say it. When I was in the corporate world myself, I found that the higher you went up, it’s true everybody’s looking at the bottom line. But when you’re in tech, you need to look at innovative ways to pave the path for the future. Almost always, doing so is not profitable, at least in the short term, and it’s usually backward. It’s going to cost you way more at the front end, and then only if you come up with something great will that return on investment be there. So it’s a lot of risk, and even when we were doing things that were just internal, like what systems to support ourselves, trying things that were new, we were often discouraged because… Well, they’re not tried and true, so it could end up being a risk. It could end up in expenditure that we don’t want to pay. So every company needs money to survive and thrive, to build innovations, and to help, so how can companies shift to not focusing on profits but yet still have the money to survive and thrive?

Matthew McCarthy
Okay, if they already have a mission in mind, and that’s primarily who I’m working with, companies that have their mission in mind, we do this for the world. If they have that, and yet they’re focusing on the profitability already. I’m asking them to introduce another metric, or it may be a few metrics, but that’s going to be directly related to the impact that they want to have. For example, if they calculate lives changed or tons of waste removed from the ocean. I’m just giving some examples that are out there. It does a couple of things.

Matthew McCarthy
And I’ll tell you not to take too long on this. But I’ll tell you, the cohort that’s going to have the hardest time with this are the publicly traded companies. Those companies are pushed by the shareholders, by law, to provide profitability, which has to be their number one goal. So that’s what they measure. Now, companies that are privately held, can be family-run, can be just a smaller number of shareholders not publicly traded, they can be more deliberate about saying, we measure based on our impact, we also stay profitable, so you get a return. But we measure mainly on impact.

Melanie McSally
Yeah, I love this because I’m a digital nomad, and there are so many governmental infrastructure issues that I run into by being a nomad. For instance, it’s now open enrollment for health care, and they want an address. They are saying you have to have a doctor at your physical address. I’m currently in Florida, visiting my parents. I can give them my parents’ address, but my PCP is in Boston because that’s where I grew up and that’s where my company is, but I can’t have a PCP in Boston because I no longer have a Boston address. This is just an example. It happens every year and also happens during tax season. So, I would argue that for a bigger mission, we can change the way that public companies report their numbers. Maybe their numbers are social impact, or maybe their numbers are waste cleanup or energy or saving the planet; those kinds of things. So anyway, just a sidebar, here’s another perspective or another thing that can be changed.

I always love it when guests come on, and they give advice, and I’m like, yeah, I’m doing that. So, I like to be Oz; I like to be behind the scenes. I know you can’t tell in this setting. My mission is to help heart-centered businesses that have a big mission. Help them get their message out there and help them save time, money, and energy so that they can make an even bigger impact with less. I can very easily track my own success on that mission based on their success. Unusually, I have to start out small, and by small, I mean make affordable services available because their budget is less, and then we can ramp up and do more over time as they are more successful. So, I see that progression, and it’s good for me because it brings in lifelong partners who are making a difference in the world. So, I love it. So, how does supporting mission-driven companies work with your consulting business and impact your own mission?

Matthew McCarthy
So that is my mission. I’m measuring it a couple of different ways. One, I’m measuring the number of companies that I’m able to help. I can also adopt their impact to some degree. Look, I can’t claim credit for doing what they do, but if I’ve enabled them to do more of what they can do, I measure that. The other thing that I do is speak on measuring your mission. And that becomes not just a corporate or business perspective, but it’s also ourselves at work if we’re a W2 employee or a contractor. How is our impact on that company or the people in that company measured? Even if you have a personal passion or mission outside of your work, you can measure that as well and understand if you’re doing what you set out to do. Am I really accomplishing what I thought I was? Maybe you are. Fantastic! How can you do even more? Maybe you’re not. Oh, it highlights that, and maybe I can think of ways that I can change that. So, if I’m measuring your mission, what I’m saying is, how many people are hearing the message: Oh, wait, should I have a mission? To what is that mission? How am I going to track it? How am I doing? So, I have a number of different stages that I am measuring. So, it’s those two ways, companies, and how many people are furthering their mission because of hearing it?

Melanie McSally
Yeah, I love that. I love that because if you’re people are impacting the lives of other people, then you get to take credit for that.

Matthew McCarthy: In theory.

Melanie McSally
Well, you’re saying I myself… Let’s say you have ten clients. I know you have more, but let’s just say for round numbers, you have ten clients, and they impact ten clients. Then you’ve ten-x’d, you have a bigger impact, and you might not be physically doing what they’re doing, but that is your impact on the world. That is the all-ships-rise mentality. Also, there’s this concept that you can lead from anywhere, and I love that what you’re doing is giving people a way to measure that because that saying is one of those sayings that’s easier said than done. Oh, yeah, you say I can lead from anywhere, but in my boots-on-the-ground job, I don’t feel like a leader. I don’t feel like I can get anything done. My mission is to help build a better tomorrow, and that manifests in so many different ways, but in my personal life, I like to say just smart giving a smile to somebody who looks like they need one or a customer service rep is not so nice to me being nice to them and helping them have a better day. You can, in fact, lead change, and you can, in fact, measure it on a personal level, which leads me to ask you, what are some examples you’ve seen outside of business of people having a mission and measuring that mission?

Matthew McCarthy
Yeah, so one example down the road from me is a Turtle Rescue hospital. So, there are a number of people in our area who are passionate about sea turtles, and yet they get injured. Sometimes, it’s through manmade causes; they get caught in a net, or they get hit by a boat propeller or something like that. Sometimes, it’s a shark bite. Sometimes, it’s something else natural. Well, there are people who care enough to bring that turtle in from a boat, from the shore, or what have you, bring it into the hospital, where there are vets that will nurse it back to health. Then they have these big release parties, where they put it back out in the ocean. This services a good fifty miles of the Florida coast, at least. So that’s one way: how many turtles are we saving? And then, by extension, what does that do to the ecosystem out in the ocean? You’re keeping the right balance, undoing possibly some manmade negative effects. So that’s just one instance.

Melanie McSally
Cool. Yeah, I love the commercial with the guy who has his Jeep, and he’s clearing the way on the beach of all the plastic and everything because then the turtles are going to come in. I don’t know. I just find it cute.

Matthew McCarthy
Absolutely, and there are groups that don’t necessarily do it with a Jeep, but they do cleanup days. Every Saturday, they go out at eight o’clock. They’re carrying buckets, or they may have their little pickup tongs, and they’re cleaning up garbage off the beach. And that helps the whole beach ecosystem. Not to mention just makes the beach nicer to go to.

Melanie McSally
Yeah, absolutely. So, you talked earlier about public speaking. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about how you use public speaking to help with your own mission?

Matthew McCarthy
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it goes to that second measurement: who’s hearing? You know, they may be hearing it through my podcasts. They may hear it through an upcoming book that I may be in the process of writing. Not out for sale yet. But a third way is by doing public speaking in a variety of environments. This may be an association; it may be a corporate retreat, or it may be a broader audience. Because if you hear it, there are really three different ways or three different kinds of niches you can measure your mission in. There’s probably more, but I chose to focus on three.

One is, as a business leader, how are you focusing your company’s mission? And how do you use measurements to improve that? The second one would be that personal mission. What’s your personal passion? And how are you contributing in that way, measuring that, and making sure that you are really having the impact that you hope to? And then the third is your mission at work. So if you’re an employee, and maybe your company is just generally profit-driven, they’re in an industry, they may be doing something cutting edge or something old school, but you have this forty-hour-a-week job that you go in and do. Well, how does it relate to you as a person? How do you get fulfillment through that? That may be through supporting your fellow co-workers. Maybe you’re an office worker, and you go in, and you know, XYZ person has been struggling with, you name it, and you just spend a little bit of time listening to them, encouraging them. If that resonates with your values and your mission or purpose, that’s a great way to do that. And I would encourage people to measure that. Now, it’s not something you’re going to post on your cube wall. But it may be something in your journal. Hey, I got to speak to this person today, or maybe you managed to do it with three or four people. Those are lives you’re impacting. I mean, to take it to the worst possible, that person may be so far down on their rope that they’re ready to be done with life, and you may have pulled them away from them, or maybe this had a bad day, and you made them smile. Having that kind of impact at work is really important. So, anyway, going back to, I will, again, speak to, it can be a group of Realtors, it can be an association, it can be within a corporate setting. I plan on doing a couple of TEDx’s later next year. So that’s just anywhere. If you’re a person, the message is for you. If you’re a business leader, the message is for you. If you’re an employee, the message is for you.

Melanie McSally: Yeah, I mean, basically, what you’re saying is in order to amplify your impact, people need to know it.

Matthew McCarthy: Absolutely

Melanie McSally
Because your people don’t know how to find you if they don’t know you exist. And so if you’re out there socializing, the fact that you exist, what you do, what your purpose is, that gives people the opportunity to get on board.

Matthew McCarthy
Yeah, and I appreciate this platform because this is a way to have a discussion about it. So I’m not just a single talking head preaching my message. It’s a platform that your listeners will also hear. I can use it to show on social media. Hey, I’m not just a talking head, and so forth.

Melanie McSally: Yeah, absolutely. So you speak on stages. Do you also offer stages?

Matthew McCarthy
Oh, that’s a good question. Maybe that’s something for the future. I’m not setting up my own events at this point, but maybe down the road, there will be a Measure Your Mission Conference. That’s a great idea.

Melanie McSally
It’s funny because I recently saw a little video from the founder of Click Funnels. They were hosting a big event for all their top customers who use their platform. It was an event to reward the people who, I think it was a million dollars, whose funnels had produced a million dollars. So they gave them sort of, they walk across the stage and receive this award kind of thing. I think that’s a great idea. I think that one of the things that is hard with mission-driven companies is that you see what you’re doing. But you don’t always know if other people see what you’re doing or if other people value what you’re doing. So, being able to come together and talk about your mission and hear about the missions of others and champion each other, I think, could be amazing—just food for thought.

Matthew McCarthy: That’s a meal for thought. That’s, that’s really interesting. Thanks for that.

Melanie McSally
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you talked about bucket number two, which was a personal mission. Do you want to share? Is your personal mission different or personal passion different from your business mission?

Matthew McCarthy
I think for me, it’s not. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about corporate America. What the effect is on me, on the people around me, on the world in general. Really, I can think of nothing more important to me than to do what I can to help adjust that balance.

Melanie McSally
Yeah, I mean, the world needs it, so that’s one of the main reasons why I put together this platform to help even more. Like you’re saying, we’re in these little bubbles, and how can we make that bubble bigger and bigger and bigger? Honestly, when I first started it, it was to help the entrepreneurs and the small business owners who didn’t know how to leverage podcasts and to show them the way. I wasn’t really focused on the listeners as much as I was focused on the guests and helping the guests. Then it evolved because I had the internal intention. I wasn’t actually saying out loud that I wanted heart-centered businesses with a mission to help build a better tomorrow. And they were just coming in; it was incredible. I was listening to all these amazing stories, and it is just so inspiring for me. I’m very selfish on this level. It’s just so inspiring. Then the listeners grew because, basically, this channel is just all about people sharing their heart-centered mission and how they want to help make a better tomorrow. So thank you for being here because you’re one of those people, and you’re sharing how you’re helping make a better tomorrow.

Matthew McCarthy
I’m so happy to be here, and I’ll tell you, it’s not selfish. Or rather, it’s okay to be selfish in that way. If it makes you feel good, but it’s doing something good for the culture, for the world. Whatever the measurement is, there’s nothing wrong with feeling good about that.

Melanie McSally
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, and thank you for saying that. Absolutely. So, is there a final thought that you would like to leave our listeners with?

Matthew McCarthy
Well, I would say if you are interested in having me speak, I think my contact information will be in the show notes. Please reach out. I’m happy to chat from a business perspective. Likewise, if you’re interested in having me come in, I do more than just tell you to find a measurement for your mission, its end-to-end strategic, and even digital transformation work, looking at what the holes are in your business or barriers to scale. I am happy to have a conversation about how I may be able to help; definitely see the show notes. But in terms of a final message, look at what you’re doing for a mission or purpose and see if you can find a way to measure it. I would love to hear about your stories.

Melanie McSally
Awesome. Yeah. So, one of the big things that I remember when I was at the higher levels, when I was working in the C-suite in corporate, but I wasn’t top-notch; I was a direct report to the top-notch, even at that level, sometimes when you’re trying to influence the top leadership, it’s often better to bring somebody in from the outside as the expert in that topic. So, if you’re looking to shift the focus away from profitability, centered around profitability, and more so around mission and still building your profits, but focused more on a mission and the positive difference you’re creating out in the world, I highly suggest that you invite Matthew McCarthy over to your business to be that expert influencer for you. Also, just encourage building a team around you looking to make that shift. Or, if you’re just looking for ways that you can broaden your impact or measure your mission, I highly suggest you reach out to Matt.

So Matt, thank you for being here. It’s been a pleasure having you on WyzeCast™.

Matthew McCarthy: Thank you so much for having me.

Melanie McSally
I want to thank our listeners for tuning in. If you like what you’ve heard here today, please do like, share, and comment. We are trying to get WyzeTribe™ to be a hot new release. So if you feel inspired, if you feel moved, if you feel called, if we earned it, please do like, share, and comment. It is free for you to do so and really helps the podcast grow. And we really do love your engagement.

This was another episode of WyzeCast™, the show that elevates the voices, shines the light, showcases the gifts of our heart-centered guests, and amplifies the positive difference they’re making in the world.

If you want to learn more about WyzeCast™, you can visit our wyzecast.com. We dropped ten episodes every month on the 21st, so you can binge-watch or spread them out over the month. Whatever suits your mood and lifestyle.

Once again, my name is Melanie. It has been my pleasure being your host today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching, thank you for your engagement, and I invite you to come back and join me once again for our next episode of WyzeCast™.