In this episode of the NTP Podcast, we sit down with Matt Gardan, the Founder of Digital Native. Matt shares his career journey to date, including his experience working overseas. He discusses the problems that Digital Native is solving, and how the internet has changed the workplace. Matt also shares his insights on building resilience in the face of adversity, achieving work/life balance, and the importance of networking. This is not an episode to miss!

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Here you can source all the things we have talked about in the podcast whether that be books, events, meet-up groups and what’s new in the Newcastle tech scene.

• • Matt’s LinkedIn
  • Digital Native’s LinkedIn
  • Digital Natives’s Website
  • Medium’s Website

Find all local Newcastle Technology Events

• Event’s Page

00:00:20:02 – 00:00:38:19
Ellen Bennett
Hi, and welcome to another episode of Digitally Diverse, where we take a deep dive into the careers and journeys of some of our leaders in the design and tech industry. Today we are joined by Matt Gardan, the founder of Digital Native. Thank you so much for joining us, Matt.

00:00:38:25 – 00:00:40:20
Matt Gardan
Pleasure. It’s lovely to be here. Thank you.

00:00:40:23 – 00:00:49:11
Ellen Bennett
Thank you. So I guess to start off, Matt, would you give us a bit of an overview of where you’ve come from and your career to date?

00:00:49:16 – 00:01:30:05
Matt Gardan
Yeah, I’d love to. So, Elena, I have quite a unique background in the sense that I’m what’s called a third culture kid. So I was born overseas and spent a lot of my time overseas and travel a lot. And my career has kind of reflected that finished union in New South Wales, stumbled into a job in an ad agency, ended up in Europe just after the turn of the century and worked for it for a fantastic brand over there called Innocent Smoothies, a very well known European brand like Nudie Smoothies over here, then came back here and was the digital brand director for Westpac for a couple of years, went from like crazy, innovative start

00:01:30:05 – 00:01:57:07
Matt Gardan
up to a very traditional corporate role, kind of wanted to experience both ends of the spectrum and then started my own business about ten years ago and was kind of doing half consulting, half just side hustle gigs around content creation and copyright about trade and then sort of digital natives off off the back of that. And it’s kind of grown from from strength to strength as it’s kind of evolved.

00:01:57:08 – 00:02:17:15
Matt Gardan
There are seven of us now and we’re on track to kind of double this year, which is, which is good, lots of lots of stuff in the pipeline. And basically the business is very mission focused. We’re very mission driven. So our objective is positive pixels. And basically that means, look, there’s enough cash and I swear on here.

00:02:17:18 – 00:02:19:11
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, yeah.

00:02:19:13 – 00:02:39:14
Matt Gardan
Something, yeah, something like yeah, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not very big swearword but you know there’s enough good online and we want to make the web a better place one site at a time. So that’s kind of our mission. And positive pixels really helps us make it very easy for people to work with us and also make it very easy for us to decide that we’re not the right fit.

00:02:39:20 – 00:02:44:26
Matt Gardan
And this keeps us being passionate and motivated about about the work we do.

00:02:44:29 – 00:03:02:16
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, I love that. And I love the fact that you are selective with who you work for. I think because that just shows the values that you guys adhere to and the people that you do work with. You obviously really mesh quite well together. So yeah, I mean, I’d be curious to hear like what are the problems that you’re solving?

00:03:02:16 – 00:03:04:12
Ellen Bennett
Like who are you working with?

00:03:04:15 – 00:03:40:06
Matt Gardan
Yeah, So we, we work in kind of three key areas. One is kind of renewable, renewable tech. So we work with a couple of great companies in solar and battery energy storage and helping them get their messaging out, have websites that are engaging and comply. And one of the companies is is listed on the stock exchange. So with to make sure that all the investor data is is up to date, then pitch decks, brand announcements, branding logos, all the kind of visual stuff that you that you associate with, with, with a successful company.

00:03:40:08 – 00:04:08:02
Matt Gardan
And then so that’s one sector is kind of renewable technology which you’ve got to work in blockchain and cryptocurrency. I’ve been deep into that space for about six years now, so we help some some clients in that space and usually it tends to be using blockchain for good. So one of our favorite projects was a project called the Emin Project, and that was helping migrant labor laborers in Thailand, not get ripped off when they signed contracts to go and work in factories.

00:04:08:04 – 00:04:25:15
Matt Gardan
So it’s really lovely. One of the things about the blockchain is once you put something on that, you can’t change it. And so what was happening was that recruiters would be going out into the fields and getting these people from the country and bringing them back to work in the factory. And by the time they got to the factory, you know, miraculously the contract had changed and their conditions changed.

00:04:25:15 – 00:04:50:25
Matt Gardan
And what they’d signed up for in the field wasn’t what they were ended up doing. And so this application just helped them lock in the terms and conditions at the at the field as opposed to allowing them to change the factory. And then the third is the kind of charity space we do a lot of work with charities in New South Wales just helping them have have great digital presence, better donation funnels, better marketing materials, better branded material.

00:04:50:27 – 00:05:14:01
Ellen Bennett
I love that. Yeah, I think that’s something super important that I never really realized before is that charities actually applying for funding and that that is a whole massive, massive process that they just don’t have the bandwidth usually to, to dedicate someone to do. So if like someone can come in and really make that efficient and do that for such a like, well deserving sector, that’s fantastic.

00:05:14:03 – 00:05:16:07
Ellen Bennett
I love that. Okay, cool.

00:05:16:09 – 00:05:43:05
Matt Gardan
And look, you know, I mean, not to put on trumpet, but we’re pretty good at what we do and we want to use those skills to help people as opposed to just work for, you know, large multinationals that could get anyone to do their work. So we kind of want to try and in our own small way level the playing field and give the sort of quality of work that usually is only accessible to large multinationals, to smaller players, and to people who are trying to make positive pixels.

00:05:43:07 – 00:05:53:23
Ellen Bennett
In regards to like how you got started in tech and design, did you go into regular tertiary education or how did you get started with everything?

00:05:53:25 – 00:06:20:16
Matt Gardan
Yeah, look, to be honest, totally randomly. And that’s one of the messages that I want to kind of leave listeners with today is just trust this excellent adventure that you’re on and say yes to those crazy opportunities because invariably they’re the ones that lead you in a totally different direction that you never would have ended up if you did what was expected or what people thought was the same thing.

00:06:20:19 – 00:06:43:08
Matt Gardan
You know, I take those risks, especially when you’re young, you’re not going to stuff it up. The worst thing that’s going to happen is you die and you’re going to die anyway. So, you know, it’s there’s really no risk when you’re young in taking in taking that kind of crazy gig or the job that really excites you or the thing that could work out or not work out at all.

00:06:43:10 – 00:06:47:27
Matt Gardan
I mean, obviously don’t jump out of a plane without a parachute, but you know what I mean.

00:06:48:00 – 00:07:01:12
Ellen Bennett
Yes. It’s it’s it’s good to take those risks early on. So it was the first job that you got in the in an agency. It was that like a really risky move for you at the time? Like, what was your thought process?

00:07:01:15 – 00:07:22:29
Matt Gardan
Yeah. Yeah. So I started I did an arts degree at U and S.W., so I did history and philosophy. You know, nothing to do with with anything that I ended up where I ended up now. And to be honest, my job wouldn’t exist without, you know, without the iPhone, because that kind of completely transformed the Internet for us and and completely changed what we were doing.

00:07:22:29 – 00:07:54:18
Matt Gardan
So started history and philosophy was the editor of one of the student papers, and they sent me on a graphic design course and was like, Oh, I can draw now. And then out of that, finished uni and ended up at a dying Harvard Association Society and the graphic department doing posters and ads in newspapers and stuff. And then from there I went and started the first time, started my own little, little advertising agency, and there were three of us then, and that was a little bit, a little bit hectic and crazy, but but great fun.

00:07:54:20 – 00:08:17:28
Matt Gardan
And then ended up at TBWA. That was like a really big international agency. The biggest risk I took earlier in my career was going to Europe and just seeing how that would go and, you know, saving up enough pocket money for a year, packing up my bags with the woman who would eventually become become my wife. And we went over and, you know, we’re supposed to stay for a year and we stayed for ten months.

00:08:18:00 – 00:08:27:29
Matt Gardan
So that kind of, you know, adventure and being able to do that really changed the trajectory of my life considerably.

00:08:28:02 – 00:08:45:09
Ellen Bennett
I love that. And I think it’s a it’s something so important that I hear all the time with not only Europe myself as well. You plan on going for one year and then you end up being there for in your case and my case seven like it’s just you don’t know where those decisions are going to take you.

00:08:45:09 – 00:08:53:27
Ellen Bennett
So yeah, sometimes you just have to really lean into it and yeah, I think What was the biggest thing that you kind of learned about your craft while you were in Europe?

00:08:54:00 – 00:09:06:20
Matt Gardan
I think. I mean, and even the way I ended up working for innocent, you know, I’d gotten a job, we turned up there without any work, and I was just kind of meeting people for coffee. And every time I met someone for coffee, I’d ask them for one other name, you know, And it was like, Do you have any work for me?

00:09:06:20 – 00:09:22:23
Matt Gardan
No. Okay. Do you know anyone else I can talk to? And it just kind of little by little, just kind of edged it out that way. But then this crazy car drove past on the street that had, like, synthetic grass all over it. And that’s how innocent used to have their delivery vans. They were, like, covered in synthetic grass.

00:09:22:25 – 00:09:40:14
Matt Gardan
And I was like, That looks like a lot of fun. And so I just went up to the person delivering the things and started talking to them, got a name, ended up getting a meeting with the guys back at head office in the UK, worked throughout the night to put this crazy pitch together, went in and pitched the idea and they loved it.

00:09:40:14 – 00:10:05:27
Matt Gardan
And then I helped them set up the company in France. And so, you know, it’s like if I had if I just kind of seen the truck go past and laughed at it, it would have been a very different life to me, you know? But taking that risk and going off and saying hello or, you know, clicking on that link or applying for that job or going to that coffee, like to go that extra step.

00:10:06:00 – 00:10:18:02
Matt Gardan
And, you know, they said, And how many times have you, like not wanted to go out or not wanted to go to a thing or been about to cancel. And in the end you go and it’s just an experience that completely transforms your life.

00:10:18:04 – 00:10:39:25
Ellen Bennett
Mm hmm. Yeah. What’s what’s the worst that can happen, I think, is is something that kind of goes through my head now as I’m a little bit older, especially that it’s when you just get out of uni, it’s like, Oh, you know, I’ve got this, I’ve got this piece of paper now that says that I am qualified. And then the fear of rejection and the fear of like someone being like no is massive.

00:10:39:25 – 00:10:54:27
Ellen Bennett
And really if that’s the worst that can happen and someone saying no, then you move on and you just try and try again. And as you as you said, Yes, got to take those opportunities as they come up. Look out for the grass covered car.

00:10:54:29 – 00:11:00:28
Matt Gardan
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And yes, you are going to have to use a lot of frogs before you find your prince.

00:11:01:00 – 00:11:22:16
Ellen Bennett
100%. And that just goes for like not only anything in your career, but just like in life in general. You just have to try stuff out. Yeah. And practice. Practice makes perfect. It’s like a muscle that you need to flex. But exactly along with that, do you do you have any other advice for for people just starting out?

00:11:22:18 – 00:11:48:00
Matt Gardan
Yeah. I mean, first of all, take the risk. Take the risk is is the first thing. Try and I wish I wish we were more mission focused a lot sooner, like at work, having this banner of positive pixels that we stand on that just makes us much more efficient in the type of work we do with the type of people we work with, and we just waste a lot less time.

00:11:48:02 – 00:12:16:13
Matt Gardan
You know, everyone starts out, I can do that, I can do this, I can do that. Try and specialize in an area that you’re passionate about. And if you can try and add some value or some meaning to yourself to what you do. So I’m really interested in accounting and horses. Okay, Try and find something that marries those two things together or I’m really interested in the environment and painting.

00:12:16:18 – 00:12:38:25
Matt Gardan
Okay, Try and find a solution that marries those two things together and being clear about what your values are and what you’re prepared to do just makes it much more efficient in finding the people you can line up with. Your tribe is out there, okay? You’re trying to go out there. You now have some skills. Your job is to find your tribe.

00:12:39:02 – 00:13:00:25
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. Yeah. I think there’s something a lot of people, you know, when you find your crew like something, just click. Okay? Yeah. This is moment to you right now. Did did you have perhaps some opposite times in your career where you were like, Oh, no, I don’t line up with this. This feels icky. How to how do you go about being faced with that?

00:13:00:27 – 00:13:26:00
Matt Gardan
Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s a gut feeling, right? Like, you know, when you’re turning up at work and it’s not working and you don’t like it and you’re just there because you need to pay the rent, it’s awful. It’s awful. And and it was it it was much, much more common 20 years ago, let me tell you. Like, I don’t think people realize the just revolution that the Internet has has brought to us.

00:13:26:03 – 00:13:46:21
Matt Gardan
You now can reach almost anyone in the world right. And so if you like actually accounting for horses while wearing green socks, you can put that out there and you will find, you know, it’s pure maths is 8 billion of us on this planet. You will definitely find at least another thousand people who like horses, accounting and green socks.

00:13:46:23 – 00:14:10:24
Matt Gardan
It’s, it’s, it’s that’s what we didn’t have before was that technology to easily connect everyone. Now we’ve got that technology in that communication. Even ten years ago, Ellen, you and I couldn’t do this cast together because bandwidth wasn’t there, the platform didn’t exist. You know, this ability to create content and be true to who you are has just become so much easier and so much more efficient.

00:14:10:26 – 00:14:11:13
Ellen Bennett
Yeah.

00:14:11:14 – 00:14:29:27
Matt Gardan
And try and live within your means as much as you can. So if you can stay at home, stay at home as long as you can and just build a little bit of little bit of a nest egg to give you that freedom to go and try stuff because there’s nothing better than being like, This job isn’t working and I don’t have to stay.

00:14:30:00 – 00:14:33:19
Ellen Bennett
Mm hmm. Yeah. That must be so empowering to be in that position.

00:14:33:21 – 00:14:46:03
Matt Gardan
Yeah. Yeah. And look, there’s been lots of times in my career where I wasn’t in that position, and it’s awful. And you just kind of have to muddle through. But it’s not that hard to get into that position.

00:14:46:06 – 00:14:47:16
Ellen Bennett
You know? Yeah.

00:14:47:19 – 00:15:05:08
Matt Gardan
You don’t need a new car every three years. In fact, you don’t need a car at all at the beginning. Just get a bike or use public transport. You’ll be amazed at the amount of money you save. And while you’re on the bus or train, if you don’t get seasick, you can work or read and or listen to fantastic podcasts like this one.

00:15:05:11 – 00:15:30:27
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, there’s so many different ways that we can like absorb content now, and anyone and everyone obviously can make a podcast and put content out there. So it’s yeah, it’s, it’s a whole new world, especially over the last few years when you get the bandwidth to create and connect online and work remotely as well. So what, what kind of speed bumps have you faced so far in your career and how has that been shaped by them?

00:15:30:29 – 00:15:51:19
Matt Gardan
Yeah, I mean, look, I think one of the biggest speed bumps was was sadly my first wife when I got divorced. And then we had to come back to Australia. We started a family in France. I really want to stay, but I kind of wanted to see my kids. And so we came back to Australia, ended up in a job I really didn’t like, felt like I was kind of stuck, you know, needing, needing the money to support.

00:15:51:19 – 00:16:12:14
Matt Gardan
This family was moving out, living in a tiny apartment. It was just kind of a hard couple of years. But I know it was important because I was being true to what what really mattered to me. And this is the thing about adversity or about setbacks is you will always get through it. You know, it doesn’t matter how bad it seems, you will get through it.

00:16:12:14 – 00:16:37:11
Matt Gardan
And so having that that kind of trust that you will work it out makes those moments more bearable. And if you look at if you look at every kind of great invention or every kind of great leap forward or even every great shift in your own personal life, typically they start with there’s a problem that I need to overcome, especially now when life is so comfortable.

00:16:37:11 – 00:17:01:27
Matt Gardan
We try and avoid all the problems, but actually dealing with the problems and facing the problems leads to new thought, leads to creativity, leads to better outcomes. You know, and we see this in in life all the time. You look at it like huge storms come through and blow out, clear out all the deadwood, clear everything away. It’s massively dramatic and traumatic while it’s happening and it is a tough experience.

00:17:02:00 – 00:17:13:08
Matt Gardan
But after that you come back stronger, you build back clearer, the old stuff’s gone and this is kind of regeneration that happens. And that’s a very natural process on this planet.

00:17:13:10 – 00:17:32:14
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with that. Like, I think my, my granny has a saying where it’s like a muscle, right? You have to, you have to stretch yourself and you need to, you know, stretch the confines of your comfort zone, because the more that you do that, the more things that you will eventually be comfortable with and can take in your stride.

00:17:32:14 – 00:17:42:27
Ellen Bennett
So yeah, that’s no long term. That’s not much point, much point in trying to stay held up in and be a little hermit crab going to get out there.

00:17:42:29 – 00:17:51:28
Matt Gardan
Yeah, Yeah. And I think and, you know, we all know people who play it really safe and you kind of know they’re really not happy.

00:17:52:00 – 00:17:56:24
Ellen Bennett
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s almost like restricting in a way.

00:17:56:26 – 00:18:20:23
Matt Gardan
It is. It is. All this. They’ve done the same thing. What everyone thought they should do all the time and, you know, end up with a nice little house and a white picket fence and coming home and watching TV every night. And that might be fine for them. But I think for us creative people and if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re in tech, you’re there because of the excitement of being in one of the most cutting edge industries on the planet.

00:18:20:23 – 00:18:28:21
Matt Gardan
And you want to create new stuff and you want the excitement of the new and your soul craves that too, you know.

00:18:28:24 – 00:18:56:19
Ellen Bennett
And I think as well, like with this community, people taking risks and celebrate the failures just as much as the successes, because if you fail, it means that you tried something new and you’ve learned something from it, where perhaps in some more traditional industries that is not as looked upon so favorably. So I think, yeah, we’re we’re really lucky that we’ve got such a supportive community in it where everyone’s like cheering each other on to do crocheting.

00:18:56:23 – 00:19:08:25
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, I love that. Is there, you know, kind of like on that same vein, is there anything that, that you do yourself to like keep that motivation and productivity going or things that you do for your team too?

00:19:08:28 – 00:19:28:05
Matt Gardan
Two questions there for the I’ll start with the team because it’s kind of easier. We’re very focused on being a high performance team, so we talk a lot about what that means. You know, what we did well, You can only really do three key factors for hot performance Team One is trust. You have to trust the people you’re working with, and part of that is a trust.

00:19:28:05 – 00:19:50:24
Matt Gardan
You’re going to do your job well and our trust, you’re going to support me when I stuff up. Yeah. So we’re very big on like, I haven’t done that yet. I need help with this. This isn’t working. Does anyone know how that works? I’m still figuring this out. Having a culture where you can say you don’t know everything, especially the team’s quite young, really helps people grow and be invested in the work they do.

00:19:50:27 – 00:20:07:24
Matt Gardan
Communication is super important. Again, it’s going well. It’s not going well. It’s on track. It’s not on track. This is what I need. This is what I’ve done. And then just holding yourself to a standard of excellence. So is this the level that that you’re proud of, and is it the work that you want to be known for?

00:20:07:24 – 00:20:35:22
Matt Gardan
And is it the work of a high performing team now? Sometimes there are constraints to that. Look, it’s you know, it’s a one page flight. We’re not going to spend six months on it, but we’re going to make sure that it’s a really well done one page flight and that we got it done efficiently. And then personally, I’m really big on on meditating, so I meditate every day, lots of mindfulness, and that really helps me just kind of manage the the stress and chaos of the day.

00:20:35:24 – 00:20:59:20
Matt Gardan
And then exercise is so important, you know, even if it’s just getting out and walking around the block. I’ve gotten back into swimming recently, which I really love. So I’ll swim like, you know, four or five kilometers a week and just kind of get get that out. And I’ll find also that’s a really nice meditation to just kind of be doing laps and thinking about nothing and having stuff come through and having, having ideas come to you come to that.

00:20:59:21 – 00:21:24:19
Matt Gardan
So we definitely recommend, you know, some form of meditation. It doesn’t need to be sitting and closing your eyes. It can be writing or some sort of, you know, ironing or, you know, swimming or running, just some sort of activity that’s kind of low level brainwave stuff. It’s so helpful for everyone. So find what you love that kind of distracts you and make sure you do that every day.

00:21:24:21 – 00:21:57:02
Ellen Bennett
Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s yeah, I will. I really do agree with the fact that, yeah, sometimes we do need to just lower the brainwaves a little bit. We work in such a high pressure and high noise industry, which is, you know, lots of things bombarding us all the time. And yeah, the opportunity to switch off for a minute, even if it is like gardening or I love sewing or just like something to take your mind off things is so, so important and you do feel really refreshed afterwards.

00:21:57:02 – 00:21:59:19
Ellen Bennett
Like it’s like taking a nap. Yeah, that’s great. Yeah.

00:21:59:22 – 00:22:07:04
Matt Gardan
Another hack I got recently, which is really good, is I don’t sleep with my phone in my room anymore.

00:22:07:06 – 00:22:08:15
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, I need to do that.

00:22:08:18 – 00:22:26:01
Matt Gardan
That’s. I mean, that’s a great change. And basically what you do is you put the phone outside of the room, then when the alarm goes off, it forces you to get out of bed and I turn the phone off and I don’t touch it for 15 minutes. And you just have that space to be like, What am I going to do with the day?

00:22:26:01 – 00:22:38:18
Matt Gardan
What’s the intention? I’m sitting for the day. What are the things that are important to me? And just that little bit of intention and setting. This is the key thing I need to get done for the day will transform your day. Yeah, because otherwise.

00:22:38:19 – 00:22:39:01
Ellen Bennett
You’re.

00:22:39:03 – 00:22:46:24
Matt Gardan
White, I guess, and the first thing you stimulate yourself with is either chaos or doomscrolling.

00:22:46:26 – 00:22:50:07
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, Guilty.

00:22:50:09 – 00:23:12:16
Matt Gardan
All been that. And I see my kids do it and it’s just like complaining. Like, just don’t do that. Even just start with 5 minutes. You’ll be surprised how much better you feel and little by little, wake up to 15 minutes and if you can afford to not touch your phone for the first half an hour before you get up, you will be smashing all your goals in the next six months.

00:23:12:19 – 00:23:19:29
Ellen Bennett
Then you go focus gardens real to and smashing all your goals is don’t touch your phone in the morning.

00:23:20:01 – 00:23:23:04
Matt Gardan
Vacuum vacuum and let me know. How you going?

00:23:23:06 – 00:23:42:09
Ellen Bennett
Yes. Oh, cool. I kind of like along that vein. Is there any media that you do consume, like for example, podcasts or like, you know, thought leaders or business leaders that you follow, that you find motivation and inspiration from?

00:23:42:11 – 00:24:02:18
Matt Gardan
Yeah, I spend a lot of time on Medium and I follow. There’s a couple of business platforms on Medium that do good stuff and they send me that daily email update. And so I just check and see what the stories are from there. The guy recently I just started following does an email called Just Find It for You?

00:24:02:21 – 00:24:17:03
Matt Gardan
Yeah, Bend Me and there it is. And he’s actually what I really like about him is he sends one email a week and it’s one system hack that you can use and he’s happy about having a phone outside was was one of the employed and it’s really it works really well.

00:24:17:05 – 00:24:18:01
Ellen Bennett
Okay cool.

00:24:18:02 – 00:24:34:17
Matt Gardan
So good I’m a huge football fan and so I was I have a football team in the UK that I follow. I consume a lot of their content podcast and then of course, you know, meditation and spirituality. This is a couple of podcasts that I listen to on, on that front.

00:24:34:19 – 00:25:02:13
Ellen Bennett
Fantastic. That’s great. I it’s great that you’ve got like a good blend as well because there’s some some people that definitely think just consume media that’s just related to their job. And it’s good to keep a mix, right? Like sports. And I listen to like a lot of comedians, podcasts and like just lighthearted stuff to take take some of that heavyweight away from the day is is really great too to get into as well.

00:25:02:15 – 00:25:19:07
Matt Gardan
Exactly. And that’s where inspiration comes from, right? It’s not if if you’re too deep into your niche, you just end up doing what everyone else in that niche that’s like the big inspiration comes from, Oh, what if we put this and board over here? What if we did? Look at what they’re doing over there? What if we applied that to here?

00:25:19:09 – 00:25:35:06
Matt Gardan
You know, is that famous Ford quote where he says, If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have just said a faster horse, you know, and all you did was focus on horses. You would have missed this whole thing of automate a machine, transfer transportation.

00:25:35:09 – 00:25:56:02
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, yeah, I have heard that before. And it’s it’s, it’s spot on, isn’t it? Because people let users just know what they know. They don’t know what is possible. So. Yeah, yeah, that’s really great. Thanks for that. You know, I think that’s kind of all of the major things aren’t said. Is there anything else in particular that that you want to chat about?

00:25:56:04 – 00:26:15:00
Matt Gardan
No, look, I mean, it was great talking with you, Ellen. Thank you. I hope you know, I hope the guys listening have found it. I found it useful. I would just end on on kind of three things like find what you love, find your mission. Definitely travel as soon as you can walk. That will completely open up your world.

00:26:15:04 – 00:26:35:05
Matt Gardan
Try and do a little bit of meditation every day, whatever meditation means to you. And then please, please, please take it from an old crusty bugger like me. It will work out. It will all work out. Definitely not the way you planned, definitely better than you planned, but it will all work out.

00:26:35:07 – 00:27:01:27
Ellen Bennett
I love that. Thank you so much. Met your all pleasure. So, Matt, you’ve obviously worked in quite a few realms of design and tech, like being in big agency land, then going into banking, then consulting and now owning your own smaller consultancy. So what was it like to jump between those four very different worlds in retrospect?

00:27:01:27 – 00:27:33:19
Matt Gardan
It was it was great and it was super interesting at the time. It was scary, you know, going from somewhere where you hadn’t been and kind of arriving and not doing things the same way everyone else did. So that can be a little bit lonely sometimes, too, when you’re going from somewhere. I think especially, you know, I’m grateful for the time I had at Westpac, but it was it really wasn’t right for me and I kind of was very patient with me, you know, while I was there, just really trying to realize that it wasn’t the right thing for me.

00:27:33:21 – 00:28:01:15
Matt Gardan
And I learned a whole heap of stuff and got a couple of great projects out the door. What I found was I really like working in a, you know, faster paced, quicker organizations where you’re delivering stuff and getting stuff done and this kind of, you know, projects are shorter and sharper that sometimes those transitions were forced. You know, we had to come back from Europe and there were reasons beyond work that that kind of forced me to do stuff.

00:28:01:15 – 00:28:22:18
Matt Gardan
And when when you’re young, you you kind of don’t think that life is ever going to get in the way. But as you get older, life kind of crowds in to the sort of things you want to do. You know, you might have a relationship break up that that means you need to move somewhere. As was my case, you might have a health issue that that kind of transforms how your life is dramatically.

00:28:22:18 – 00:28:33:14
Matt Gardan
Or you might have to move somewhere where, you know, there’s different environmental concerns. Maybe the pollution of the city is getting too much for you. Maybe you’re allergic to, you know, the pollen in the air. I don’t know.

00:28:33:17 – 00:28:34:25
Ellen Bennett
Life happens.

00:28:34:27 – 00:28:56:17
Matt Gardan
It happens. It does. It does. And, you know, again, that’s part of the thing of just trust that it will work out. And sometimes when things don’t go to plan, that’s kind of the best blessing you could possibly have. And even recently, a couple of years ago, Cove that everyone was like, Oh my God, what’s happened? And, you know, COVID was an awful thing.

00:28:56:17 – 00:29:18:18
Matt Gardan
And and lots of people suffered deeply because of it. But out of the back of that, we now have a much stronger acceptance of working remotely that we didn’t have before. And we now have a much stronger understanding that you can do things online and everyone knows what the QR code is and everyone knows how to use, you know, how to use these types of platforms.

00:29:18:18 – 00:29:25:24
Matt Gardan
And so even that is something that’s kind of quite awful. There are benefits that have that have come from it.

00:29:25:26 – 00:29:47:09
Ellen Bennett
Definitely. Yeah. It’s a yeah, you’re right. Like when life happens to you, it changes your priorities and in ways that you know, you can’t predict. So you just kind of go to roll with it. And you’re right, things don’t go to plan. But a lot of the time they don’t go to plan, but they end up better than what you thought they would.

00:29:47:12 – 00:29:48:23
Ellen Bennett
So yeah.

00:29:48:27 – 00:30:07:27
Matt Gardan
Exactly. And that’s why, you know, having a kind of a North Star that’s important to you or some sort of mission or values that are important to you, they really crucial in those times when life’s not going to plan because then it’s like, okay, what’s important to me? What are my options or what are my options? You know?

00:30:07:29 – 00:30:29:11
Matt Gardan
So I really value freedom. So actually it’s not an option for me to go back to a 9 to 5 job, right? That’s just never going to be an option. So my solutions are always going to be outside of the box and that’s just what works for me. And if they can include travel, then great. And that’s the kind of focus I put my attention on when there’s a problem that needs solving.

00:30:29:13 – 00:30:47:09
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, yeah. Having that North Star and having that mission and focus, I feel like as as many storms come through, if you’re tethered to that, then yes, you’re going to get knocked around a bit, but you’re not going to go flying off into the wind like you’re going to still feel secure. And, you know, you just kind of weather it and keep going.

00:30:47:10 – 00:30:49:03
Ellen Bennett
Keep on trucking. Yeah. Yeah.

00:30:49:06 – 00:31:18:27
Matt Gardan
Exactly. And look, over time, you know, life is long. That North Star can shift a little bit. But typically, you know, and play around with it. Okay. You know, Yeah, I’m passionate about human rights. Okay, great. And actually, at the beginning, that might be wanting to smash the, the, the, the corporations and all of that. But after a while it might be actually just making it easier for people to get employment because you understand that for certain people, having a little bit of money is better than having no money at all.

00:31:19:05 – 00:31:31:08
Matt Gardan
And actually having a little bit of money from a corporation is better than having no money at all. And so you kind of start to get a bit more nuanced in, you know, your your beliefs about what the solution could be.

00:31:31:10 – 00:32:16:01
Ellen Bennett
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I totally get that. And actually kind of reminds me of one of our first episodes with Lee in our horn. She came in and she works with Bracken, who are like a quite a, quite a well-established mining company here in Newcastle, and she’s quite green and realized that she could actually make such like a such a big impact actually joining one of the big like one of the big boys in the industry and making change from within rather than joining a really like a really like young small start up and you know changing the world with like how much impact could she actually have And she actually really loves working with

00:32:16:01 – 00:32:29:11
Ellen Bennett
Brodkin now because she’s doing really, really big things with them. So yeah, it’s all about kind of like, yeah, being flexible with, with your values and how do you measure impact? Yeah.

00:32:29:13 – 00:32:37:23
Matt Gardan
Exactly. I mean, not flexible in the sense that you’re going to compromise on them, but just flexible in the sense that there’s different ways to arrive at the same goals.

00:32:37:25 – 00:32:38:09
Ellen Bennett
Yes.

00:32:38:12 – 00:33:03:12
Matt Gardan
Yeah. You know, I think I think that that point you just mentioned about about a person is is fantastic. She got into the organization and then started to create positive change from within which which is much easier because people trust you and also you have access to the right people. Right. If you’re chaining yourself to two trees, you’re never going to be able to talk to the CEO or the or the financial officer of the company to change the way they do that.

00:33:03:12 – 00:33:08:19
Matt Gardan
Logging. But once you’re inside, if you have access to senior people, you can start to shift the conversation a little bit.

00:33:08:21 – 00:33:33:03
Ellen Bennett
You know, And like the thing that she realized as well is a lot of these a lot of these big C-suite people in these big, big companies, they actually do want to do good impact stuff like they do want to be involved. But they need they need people like yourself and like people who are really passionate about these things and really knowledgeable about these things.

00:33:33:03 – 00:33:58:00
Ellen Bennett
To come in and help them out. Because at the end of the day, they’re they’re just trying to steer the ship. But if they don’t have other people helping them and advising them, then they can’t really do the do the good work. So, yes, thanks, Matt. So, Matt, is there any other tidbits of advice that you’d like to give to the young designers or younger people in tech when they’re just starting out?

00:33:58:02 – 00:34:23:06
Matt Gardan
Yeah, definitely. I mean, two things. One is and this this has become more apparent as as as I get older and as I know more people by your network is your net worth businesses, people doing interacting with each other and transacting with each other. And so if you can’t connect with the right people, it’s very hard to get the right deals done and it’s very hard to have access to the right opportunities.

00:34:23:08 – 00:34:50:18
Matt Gardan
So one of the ways when you’re young that it’s really easy to do that is to go and look for mentors, mentors by definition at a very generous with their time, want to help you and want to give you their advice, and they will also be able to connect you to people within their network. And so it’s a very easy way to, you know, if you want to get into horse racing with green socks, find one of the best jockeys and talk to them or find one of the best trainers and send them an email.

00:34:50:20 – 00:35:12:22
Matt Gardan
You know, you’d be surprised how just a will word email about, Look, I love your work, I’m really interested in this. I’m just starting out. Could we meet once a month for coffee? And can you just give me some basic advice? I find it really useful. Nine times out of ten people would be like, absolutely. I’d love to tell you, you know, what my story was and and what to avoid.

00:35:12:25 – 00:35:19:16
Matt Gardan
People tend to be too scared to ask, but there’s no harm in asking. And until you ask, the answer’s no. Anyway.

00:35:19:18 – 00:35:21:12
Ellen Bennett
What’s the worst that can happen?

00:35:21:15 – 00:35:44:27
Matt Gardan
Is that exactly? Yeah. Find a couple of mentors, you know, even people you admire in your family or in your community or people you admire in the industry. Reach out to them. See? Got time for coffee, potentially. See if there are mentoring networks that that that could be useful. I think this is especially important so for women starting out men kind of tend to do it almost organically.

00:35:45:04 – 00:35:53:06
Matt Gardan
But I think women definitely need to to foster, you know, girls clubs. It’s much more efficient way of reaching the right people.

00:35:53:13 – 00:36:16:00
Ellen Bennett
Yeah, I’d literally just got back yesterday from a Women in Tech event in Sydney and it was so like so wholesome and so great to be in such a smart, smart like just surrounded by such smart, smart women. So I think that’s something that’s kind of changing. Definitely like less competitive, I think, than what it used to be and more a culture of like building one another.

00:36:16:03 – 00:36:40:20
Ellen Bennett
But yes, you’re right. It is something that should come quite naturally to everybody. And yeah, it’s like it’s like a muscle. You got to you got to work it. And I think as well, now that it’s so much more easy to reach out to people through LinkedIn, LinkedIn is such an easy way to connect with people. It’s literally what it’s there for, just paying them a pink pink people connection request.

00:36:40:20 – 00:37:06:25
Ellen Bennett
I do it all the time. I just like and that’s how we became connected. I’m just like, This guy’s doing something, so I want to talk to you. And that is honestly so easy. People want to chat and share their knowledge. People love getting their ego stroked like it’s it’s a win win for everybody, right? So, yeah, if you ask the right questions and a polite, then lots of doors will open.

00:37:06:27 – 00:37:07:26
Matt Gardan
Absolutely.

00:37:07:28 – 00:37:13:27
Ellen Bennett
Absolutely. Yeah. Right. Awesome. I think that how do you feel that that all good with you.

00:37:14:00 – 00:37:16:24
Matt Gardan
Yeah yeah that’s great to meet.

00:37:16:26 – 00:37:22:25
Ellen Bennett
So good. Yeah, I feel really good about that. I feel like this like lots of nuggets of gold and it’s awesome.