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Hard Work Works with Artist and World Series Champion Matt Szczur
Hard Work Works with Artist and World Series Champion Matt …
In this episode of The Radcast, listen as Matt Szczur shares his journey to victory in sports and art through hard work, consistency, teamw…
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Hard Work Works with Artist and World Series Champion Matt Szczur
August 01, 2023

Hard Work Works with Artist and World Series Champion Matt Szczur

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In this episode of The Radcast, listen as Matt Szczur shares his journey to victory in sports and art through hard work, consistency, teamwork, and understanding others.

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Welcome back to The Radcast! In this episode, we have a special interview with Matt Szczur, a true superstar who has conquered the world of sports and art. Not only is he a Cubs World Series Champion and a versatile athlete, but he is also an incredibly talented artist.

From his days as a standout athlete at Villanova to achieving his dream of becoming a World Series Champion with the Chicago Cubs, Matt's work ethic has always been unwavering. He believes that consistency and hard work are the keys to success, whether it's on the field or in the art studio.

But there's more to Matt than just his personal achievements. He values the importance of teamwork and understanding others. He knows that true success comes from supporting and listening to those around you.

Matt embodies the spirit of a winner, both in sports and in life. His story is filled with dedication, passion, and a relentless pursuit of excellence. Tune in to this episode to discover how you can pursue greatness in both your personal and professional life.

  • Matt shares his inspiring story of achieving success with the Chicago Cubs after growing up playing multiple sports in South Jersey and earning a full scholarship to Villanova. (02:07)
  • Ryan and Matt discuss their experiences as professional athletes, emphasizing the importance of hard work and dedication in achieving success. (03:05)
  • Matt's story of becoming a bone marrow match for an 18-month-old girl from Ukraine and staying in touch with her family has brought awareness to the importance of privilege. (09:40)
  • Matt from being an athlete turned into an artist who co-founded the Noble Gallery to support fellow artists in the sale of their works. (15:20)
  • Through consistent hard work and discipline, Matt  was able to build an art career with his paintings of icons and celebrities, culminating in a Cubs World Series painting selling for $40,000. (22:42)
  • Ryan and Matt emphasize that success doesn't come without hard work.(28:21)

This episode is packed with information, wisdom, and passion and we know you will get a ton of value from this.

If you want to learn more about Matt Szczur, follow him on Instagram @superszcz4 and his websites https://linktr.ee/superszcz4.

If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE. 

Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding

Learn more by visiting our website at www.theradcast.com

Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/RadicalHomeofTheRadcast

If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, Like, Share, and leave us a review!

Transcript

00:01
You're listening to the Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it.

00:13
Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey, guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. We say if it's radical, we cover it. We've got a radical story today, my friends. Got a lot of good storytelling transition. We're talking with former Major League Baseball player.

00:34
Let's call him a baseball badass. He played his whole life. We're just going to call him. I like the hyperbole here, Matt. Matt Caesar, former world champion. Not even a former, he is a world champion with the Chicago Cubs, former major league baseball, and a hell of a fucking artist, if you say so myself. I went down the rabbit hole, I'm like, damn, this is some brilliant shit. So Matt, man, it's a pleasure having you on the show. Thanks for having me on, man. Really appreciate you bringing me out here. Yeah, man. In Jersey.

01:01
That's my best Jersey. That's as good as I get. I can't, it gets bad from there. It's a Jersey, I guess. I got my Southern accent. Yeah. I don't have much of an accent. I'm from the South part of Jersey. So I don't really, I don't have that thick New York accent. Yeah. They call it the Long Island Lockjaw. That's what my, my ex client when I was in New York used to always say, we got that Long Island Lockjaw. I'm like, okay, whatever that means. I have more of that silly water accent. Yeah. You go anywhere in the country, in the US for.

01:29
a glass of water and they look at you like, we don't have that. Water. Yeah. What's the water? We're just the y'all crowd down here in South Carolina. Y'all, you guys. I'm trying to mix in the you guys, but it doesn't feel as natural as y'all. What y'all doing? Oh, man, Matt, it's good to have you on the show. I've been following you and obviously doing some research with my team and seeing everything that you've done with bone marrow and all that. And I know we'll get into all that. But let's tee it up, man. Pro athlete.

01:58
from right out of the womb. I don't know, man. Baseball, football, Villanova, right? Yes, sir. Let's tell everybody, we'll give everybody a little bit of your background. All right, yeah, like I said, I'm from South Jersey, born and raised here, ended up coming back after I retired. A little bit of background, you see all these professional athletes always advocating for when they have kids. Tripper Jones just came out with something about, I'm going to let my kid play whatever he wants. And dude, that's what my parents did for me.

02:25
I was in hockey, wrestling, basketball, football, soccer, and then just gradually went to football and baseball. And then in high school, I went to track. So it was just an all around thing. And then whatever I was best at, I went for it. And yeah, I went to Villanova, full scholarship for football and played baseball there as well. So it was two sport athlete, got drafted in the fifth round. But wild story, I was able to put myself up there pretty high on the radar as a football player. So I had.

02:53
the potential to get drafted in the third or fourth round. That was like my main focus, man. I was like full bore on going to play football in the pros in the NFL. What position? I played wide receiver slot. So I was like the inside guy, shifty little wide receiver, Julian Edelman. At the time it was Wes Welker. I feel like me and Edelman are the same age. So yeah, dude, I went to like a combine training facility. I planned on to go to the combine and the senior bowl.

03:20
And then Jim Hendry, who was the GM of the Cubs, flew out to me and they offered me a new deal. Paid you not to play football, right? I got lucky though, man, my junior year when I got drafted, I actually went to play baseball, short season Boise, played for, I think it was like 30 days, batted 400, dominated pretty solid. And then I came back to senior year for my, for my senior season football and had a pretty solid season.

03:47
just set myself up for that bargain. I love it. Hunter, I'll call you the Hunter Renfro, the slot. That's my boy. I would do Clemson. Clemson, that's the modern day slot guy. Yeah, you're right. He was a one star out of college. Dabo Sweeney picked him out of nowhere. And he turned into a pretty good pro for the Raiders, actually. Yeah, yeah, he did. That's a little bit of a story. Yeah, so a college athlete, played two sports, good at both.

04:15
End up in baseball. It's funny how things work. Right. And I know you had the minor league career and then you get with the Cubs and you've got these guys that play what like 30 years and never win a title and you're a world champion. Isn't that awesome? Amazing. One thing that people really can't take away from me, man. I was, was a part of that, that 2016 special team. And you said you follow me on Instagram and socials, man. I do a lot of posting about it because it was just a special thing. I was able to win an FCS division one AA national championship with Nova.

04:45
And it was like, it's on a different level, but it's the same type of camaraderie in those, in those club houses or that locker room. Just everybody pooling for everybody. Nobody being like a single eye guy, friends and family off the court or off the field. So it was a tight-knit group and man, it was a lot of fun. I can't say that enough. Did you miss football?

05:07
Yeah, I did. It's just a different, it's a different animal, man. It's, it's blood, sweat and tears. And you're really going to war with those guys in the field. So that's, I think that's what I miss the most, but I learned to adapt and have that same feeling in baseball as well. It's just a different kind of feeling. What's it's always hard. I've talked to a lot of athletes and I've talked to, and I've got friends that play pro and all, but it's always hard. I think you've got fans and.

05:35
those of us out here, I had the talent but busted an ankle my senior year. So they said sayonara to all of it, but didn't play. So the us's out here, it's always hard to describe. You played at the highest level in baseball. We're on the path for football. That experience, that camaraderie slash the toughness of football and then baseball's different. But it's always hard I think for people that didn't play to understand.

06:03
I don't know the culture, the inside side of those things. Do your best to describe maybe, and I know football just, it stopped at Villanova and you didn't play pro, but like you were at the highest level though. You were going to get drafted. So do your best to describe to me like what that feels like playing at that high level, the buzz of that feeling. Yeah, dude. And that's what I told you off camera was what I'm searching for. You can't replicate that feeling, but like the buzz of the feeling, you can ask a lot of,

06:33
professionals and I feel like they would have probably something similar. Dude, especially for baseball, you like, I went through five leagues before I got to the big leagues. It's, it's Arizona fall league. It's short season. It's low way it's high a double a triple. I said that's six leagues before you get to the big leagues. The only thing that's different. Yeah, you're playing better players, but is the atmosphere. And when you get out there, when you stand on that field for the first couple of times, you're like, wow, holy shit, man, this is it.

07:00
And then it's a game and you're competing, you're trying to win. And there's a bigger picture. So that, yeah, you're always going to hear people yelling at you, screaming at you, but it's, it's in one ear out the other for me. And that's how I always looked at it. And I think you'll get the same answer from a lot of professionals that yet, when you get there, it's wow, I made it, but it's time for business. Now we want to win. It is business. That's the thing. Like for fans, it's craziness. That's fandom. We're crazy about it. My team, the Cubs, sitting out like I'd spit.

07:30
worked a summer and plus some out in Chicago. And so I know that crowd. It's crazy. And it's great, though, the culture and everything like that. But it's fandom. But at the end of the day, it is a business. And you've got to perform. The pressure to perform. And especially going through the different leagues, I'm sure. Was it overwhelming? Or did you feel like you kept it in check? I don't think it was too overwhelming.

07:56
And I just, I had that background, like, man, I played at Nova. So I'm not saying that we had a ton of people there, but we played at West Virginia when there was 80,000 people, like they were number two, two C in the country. We played a temple. We packed the link. I'm not saying that it was overwhelming, but I feel like I was able to build that base to almost work my way into it and prepare for something like that by not even knowing I was doing it. It was.

08:22
I could see it be overwhelming for some people if they get pushed up too fast. But at the end of the day, man, everybody's going to adapt. These guys are professional athletes. You see these young guys get up there and they might struggle for a couple of weeks or maybe a month or so, but they adapt, man. It's super impressive to watch and it was cool to be a part of. Are you a fan of the game still? Do you watch a lot of football? Are you a fan of pro sports?

08:45
Growing up, I was never a fan just because I played it so much, man. I had no time to really watch anything. And that was on me, man. I just, I was at the field nonstop, man. I was just talking to my wife about it. You look at everything and I've earned everything. I was growing up and I wasn't the fastest. I wasn't the strongest. I'm like a little 5'11 white guy that's just running around trying to catch football. So I earned everything I did because I worked so freaking hard. It's, that's just, that's just how it was. You earn everything you get. That's.

09:14
in life. That's how it is though. It's in everything. Everybody wants to hand it to them, but it's either it will be fleeting or it won't mean as much. Yeah. And that's and at the end of the day, man, like you can win the lottery, but if you earn yourself a hundred million dollars, like you've been through that. So, you know, you, you appreciate it so much more where if it's just handed to you, you're just like, oh, okay. Now I'm still searching for some kind of feeling. That's just life, man. You got to earn it.

09:45
around there, you'll correct me with dates, but the bone marrow, the, how did that all come about? So that was the most impressive part of your story. And even today now, I want to do justice to us. And I want you to tell that story, how that came about the impact it's had, all of those things.

10:05
a little bit of a story. So that's okay. We're about stories here. Go for it. Yeah. Let me give you like a nice short, simple version. So when I got to college in 2007, don't know the head coach was Andy Talley and he runs a foundation. It's called get in the game. And he's actually super brilliant for doing this. So he was with be the match who, you know, is does the bone marrow donations and like handles everything. And he's let me, let me put this in

10:35
from 50 to 100 healthy guys. And he's, let's get them all to do cheek swabs and tests and have the potential to save someone's life who needs some bone marrow. So in 2007, he would have these kind of rallies where as freshmen, we would just round up as many people as we could. And then at the end of it, we would test and it was simple. And it's still simple. It's actually easier now than it was back then. It's like a simple cheek swab. You have these long Q-tip looking things. You put them in every corner of your mouth.

11:05
and you literally just put them back in and they sent them away. Is it essentially DNA? Like, you mean that? Yeah, that's essentially it. They get your saliva and then they just buy the saliva. They can see if you know, you're a potential match. So yeah, I did it in 2007 and I got called to donate in 2009 and it was right before we went to the playoffs for football and I was a pretty solid part of that football squad.

11:29
So I went into my coach and I said, hey, I just was called to donate and I'm going to donate. He just looked at me and put his head down. He was like, Matt, I know you would do that. You have all the support from us. So I did the blood. So after they do the saliva, they take your blood, they see if you're a potential match. So it got down to five people and I was one of those five people. And then a week later they called me and they were like, hey, you're the match. You are the perfect match for this little girl.

11:53
We're going to your donation was I think at the time it was like November 21st or whatever it was. I said, okay, I'll be ready. They called me back two or three days later and the little girl was too weak to accept the bone marrow. So I couldn't do it. And they just pushed it off. And we ended up winning the national championship game and I was the MVP of the game. So that's like that part of the story. So later in the year, it was my junior year. So it was like, if you're any, if you're in a sports at all, like that's your, your

12:21
your biggest year for NFL, baseball, all that kind of stuff. So I was doing really well baseball wise and I got called to donate again. At the end of the year, it was like our last 12 days, no, it was like the last month of baseball. Called to donate, told my coach, I said, hey, I got called again, I'm going to donate. So I ended up donating. They give you this drug called Nupagen, which increases your white blood cells and it enlarges your spleen. So they treat it like mono. You're not allowed to do anything for, I think it was like three to four weeks.

12:51
So right before I started taking this medicine, I remember like it was yesterday, I was at Canada River Shark Stadium, we were playing St. Joe's. My last at bat, I hit a home run, opposite field, and I like using, never do that. So went to donate, I'm out for three to four weeks. We have one more series, and it's the West Virginia series, we go down to West Virginia, and they were in contention to make the playoffs, and if we beat them, we knock them out. So my first at bat back, I hit a home run too.

13:19
So it was like a sandwich home run and I got in really hit any home runs that year. And it was just like, wow, man, this is, this is pretty special for this to happen. Long story short, I ended up donating to bone marrow. The girl was from Ukraine. She was 18 months old and now she's 14. So everything worked out and I stay in touch. And yeah, that's, that's the short and simple story. That one transplant. Is that all she needed to get to worship? Is it that's cheering or whatever you call it? Yeah, that's all she needed, man. It was.

13:49
She, so what she could have, there's two procedures. There's one that's through the hip, which is like a little bit more painful, but now they put you to sleep and you're just sore for a couple of days. And then the one that I did was they put a needle in one arm, they extract your blood, they filter it through a machine to get the white blood cells out. And then they put a needle, they have a needle in the other arm where it puts the blood back into it. And that's, it's anywhere from three to six hour procedure. So at the time she could only accept the stem cell, which is the one I did.

14:16
But yeah, man, she's, you said you watched the story. So like you said, she's in Ukraine. They're not, the family's not only fighting for her life and trying to find a way to keep her, keep their daughter alive, but they're fighting these wars as well. So it's just a wild story, man. They moved from place to place as refugees. They went to Israel, Canada, back to Ukraine, back to Israel, and now they're in Canada. So it's like just a wild story itself. They're in Canada now?

14:44
Yeah, they were able to get over. They went to Israel right when the war started, when everybody was leaving. And they were there for three months. And they were just waiting for papers to go transfer to Canada and start a new life there. Isn't it crazy how much we take for granted? Like, just, we live daily lives, and we think we've got problems, and we don't have bombs being dropped on our head. Like, it's- Dude, you couldn't be more right, man. And then the awareness you brought, I know that obviously stuck with you.

15:13
as you've come in out of baseball, you, we talked pre-episode, damn artists. Look, Matt, you can't have all the damn talent, dude. MVP of the championship football team. Good looking guy. Baseball player. Chicago Cubs, World Series. Did you have the ring on? Did you put the ring on Matt? No, I, you know what? I like, was in my safe and I literally looked right at it.

15:39
I can't do that. I was yet, but maybe around too. Okay, for sure. I got you. But man, and you're an artist. Come on, man. You can't have it all. Can you share some? Yeah, so that's, like we were talking about before, how I got started and I give so much credit to my parents because they just let me do whatever I wanted. You know, it wasn't, nothing was forced on me. No sports, no, not art, not school. It was...

16:06
The only thing that was forced is that I couldn't quit. You can't quit. You have to stick it out. And that's how I was, I feel like that's how I was raised. And that's what has gotten me so far just to push through stuff, even if it didn't work or I didn't like it. Like I said before, it was, my dad was, was very creative. He was always a huge fisherman, created bucktails, sold them online. He was like a little hustler entrepreneur, did construction, carved fish. He did it all. So I was always like at his side.

16:33
At night, that was like one of his ways to calm down after work. I literally, probably the same for every dad. They come home, they sit on their couch. Mom makes dinner, he eats dinner, goes back and sits on his couch and watches TV and does his hobby. So I was always like right there next to him. And I took that. I did in grade school, did art in grade school, high school, college. And it was it was a way for me, like we mentioned, like there's so much stress in baseball and there's high energy. There's got to be a way to kind of.

17:02
come down after that game, because you're on for three hours, three and a half hours, not to mention you're at the field for four or five hours before. So a way for me to wind down was always to have my art pad and draw. And then later on the line was an iPad and I had an Apple pencil and I was able to do a little bit more with digital. And when 2020 hit, I was like, not that I was scrambling, I was always a hustler and everybody would see.

17:29
me post this art and they were like, Hey, we want some of that. Why don't you share it? So I just tried to do what was relative to the times we were living in. And I'm sure you watched the last dance. And that was like, dude, everybody was watching the last dance. So I'm like, wow. Chicago Cub. Yeah. World series champion. Oh yeah. Grew up with Jordan. Yeah. Dude, exactly. I painted Michael Jordan and I freaking crushed it. And I learned how to hustle. I learned how to.

17:56
sell prints online and have then sleep and make money because I had that third party. They would go, they would buy the prints and that was that dude. And I took a lot. I took love to that love to make art and being able to have this therapy away from this madness of the world was happening. COVID was going on. Nobody could leave. So for me to get away, it was getting away from baseball. It was getting away from the madness in the world. And I was able to just put that on on canvas.

18:23
paved my way for my future, but it almost helped me retire because I was able to transition the one thing right after I retired. That's helpful. A lot of athletes don't have that. And I've talked to a lot of them. The highest of highs maybe had a longer career in whatever. And they're trying to replace that, not just their energy and time, but it's just hard to have a career. Because they consider it a business, a business where

18:52
that level of accolade and that level of awareness and the crowds and the fans and all that stuff. And even if you're not like self-absorbed about it, trying to replace that is tough. Yeah. I mean, I think it's irreplaceable, man. And that's what I said earlier is I'm still searching for that. I'm searching for the team. I'm searching for.

19:16
that atmosphere and I know that I'll probably never get it. I'm gonna work for it and if I can find a way to do it through art or something else, through social media and almost, you miss making a difference too, man. You can motivate and inspire so many more people when you're on TV. They see you on TV and you say one word and you inspire so many kids around the country. And that's tough to leave too. You see all the impact you make in some people's life when you're playing baseball. And I think that's what I'm searching for too because

19:45
I was able to share my story much easier while I was playing, than while I'm not. Yeah, man. But you're able, and you're seeing this. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. But like, the power of social media, and just us sitting here talking, the reach that you have, and the influence that you can have with your art, can and will go to places that you may not even know.

20:08
And so it's powerful. What I know you've transitioned and you mentioned the NFT thing, the digital side of stuff. That's right. My, my own and ad agency. So that's right in our wheelhouse with marketing and things like that. What's that been like? What's that process been? Yeah. So that's like I said, man, in 2020, I was not that I was searching because we were smart with money. We didn't blow it. I was never one of those guys who just went and bought everything.

20:31
But I want to be successful. So if I can't make the money that I wanted to, I could have made a hundred million dollars in baseball. And then as soon as I would be done, I would want to find something else. So that was just like how I was like bred. So in 2020, we just had my son. My son was like a couple of months old and I had so much time to just figure things out. So I would literally, I would paint all day and it was like the last dance. I crushed it with doing in real life paintings. And I was just like,

21:00
searching for things online because I know people were crushing online. And I ran into a friend who was never a teammate, but was a baseball player that came up with me. His name was Michael Johnson. His name is Michael Johnson and he's, yo, see, let's do this. When the George Floyd thing happened and he's let's do an NFT of the George Floyd and I was like, what's an NFT? I had no idea what it was. And he was like, it would be great. A white and a black baseball player come together to make this painting and sell it as an NFT.

21:28
So I said, okay, let's do it. So I put all my trust in him because like I said, he's a fellow baseball player. I knew he had a great background and we did this thing and it sold out in eight minutes. We made like 60 grand. And I was like, Mike, what the heck, what just happened? He's welcome to the new world. So I'm like, okay. And I literally did, I grinded for days on end. I had no idea what Ethereum was or Bitcoin was, but I figured out how to sell this digital art, put it on the blockchain, create these NFTs.

21:58
really well doing it. And we go back to the team thing, like I had this individual success, but I was still searching for more. It didn't matter how much money I was making. I'm like, I need, I don't need more money, but I need more. Like I need, I was passionate about it, but it just didn't feel the same. So then now I, I'm one of the founders of a company called the Noble Gallery. And what we do is we bring on artists and we have a community and artists will make a painting for us. And we essentially sell our sell their art.

22:27
We take a percentage, and we pretty much guarantee their sellout. So they know that they're going to sell out with us. We make money for putting them on our platform, and they get their money. We really take care of the artists, and that's one of the reasons why I feel like everybody wants to drop with us. And it's been good. Is that an NFT bubble burst, though? It was all the rage two years ago. And I know that digital art has longitude, latitude. It's got a long life, because obviously that's where it belongs. But is that?

22:56
Talk to you about the NFT world two years ago versus now. I think the bubble burst, I don't know if you can say the bubble burst. Maybe the PFP route. Yeah, maybe the PFP route did all like the board apes. The punks are going to be around forever just because of the fact that they were the first. And that was like the originals. But I think as far as PFPs, they could be over because it was just like, dude, it was free money. Like you could buy a PFP for 0.08, which was like a hundred bucks.

23:25
And then in two days later, you could sell it for $5,000. It was incredible. And I think it was just like the new thing. So people were just doing it and they felt the FOMO and they wanted to buy it for whatever the price was. But I think the art wise, digital art, that's just another medium. Like people paint on canvas, they spray paint, they paint with acrylics, they paint with watercolors. I think this is just another form of medium for artists. And the artists that have stuck it out, like they still do well. Like they still sell at high prices.

23:54
So I don't think the art bubble has burst, but I think the PFP NFT bubble has probably is digital now. All yours. No, dude, I do everything, man. I still I just I signed a deal with fanatics to do some of the paintings with them. Yeah, dude, like I said, I'm a hustler, man. So I enjoy doing all this stuff. I enjoy spending time with my family. I love golfing, but I definitely find ways to work. What's your handicap of golf? I'm like eight.

24:23
Eight, nine. All right. I'm anywhere from like high 70s, low 80s. There you go. That's where I am. The bat, yeah. I thought you were going to say a plus five or something. I'm going to be like, dude. Nah, not that good. You never know. Those baseball players, sometimes it's either a struggle or it's like unreal. You hit it a long way? I hit it pretty far. Yeah, I struggled early on with the slice. But you know how it is, man. If you put any work into anything, you can be good. I hate the guys that get pissed off when they stink.

24:52
play once a month. Come on, man. If you were working your job and you only did it once a month, would you be any good? Of course not. What's a bad day for Bat Caesar? Bad day. I'm not hearing many bad habits. So like, he seems to have it put together. Well, what's a bad day for you? My bad days, both my parents have cancer. So those are bad days for me. My mom had a couple of strokes last summer. My dad called me. I'm up early, man. 4.30, 5.00, I'm up grinding, working out. And.

25:22
My dad knows I'm awake and he just had reached out. He called me, he's like, hey, mom's kind of unresponsive. She had a couple of strokes, had some brain surgery. So those are bad days. Those are bad days. Like you said, we wake up and we're grateful to open our eyes and be in this country and have the freedom to do what we wanna do. So I'm grateful every day, man. I get to see my mom and my dad all the time. They're right down the street from me. And part of the reason why I think it was meant to be for me to retire was.

25:50
because I'm here, because I'm spending these moments with my family. They're watching me. They're helping me raise my kid. So it's a blessing in disguise, I think.

26:01
So I talked to guys like you and I think people listen and I think you've touched on a few of them. But I always liked to at least attempt to uncover it. Like what's the play plan? You've been successful in everything you've done. You've worked hard, you've earned it all yourself. But like when you talk to other people, and I'm sure you do just by the nature of your freaking Cubs world champion, your ex world championship.

26:26
football player, amazing artists. I'm sure you get asked and all this, how'd you do it? How'd you get successful? But what were maybe some of those like really tactical things that have been like in the map, Caesar playbook of success? I think any success is consistency is key, man. Even it's funny because people think these YouTubers, these creators, they just became.

26:51
popular overnight. These dudes are grinding. Like when I was doing paintings, like I was grinding doing paintings and like just posting to try and get some interaction. I got lucky. I did a few paintings and my wife and I started a foundation and we raised money for the people around here who have cancer. We donate food, donate presents. And for one of our events, I did paintings of myself at portraits with football and baseball and they both sold for 500 bucks.

27:20
And I continued to work and continued to paint icons and celebrities. And we won the World Series that year and the Cubs reached out and they were like, Hey, what about you doing Cubs World Series painting for our bricks and Ivy ball? And maybe I had a little head start, but they would have never asked me if I wasn't putting in that time, like doing cool artwork. Yeah. So they sold that for 40 grand and then my, my, my art career skyrocketed. But I put in the time to do it, man. I've been doing it my whole life. And that's the same thing. Like I said,

27:49
Dude, I've been grinding at 430, five o'clock pretty much my whole life. And I did that because I did that at Villanova. Our workouts were 536 a.m. in the morning and I got better. That discipline that helped, we didn't have to work out that early, but the discipline helped me get better. And same thing right now. Dude, I'm retired athlete. Don't need to be working out at five o'clock in the morning. But my ass is on the beach Monday, Wednesday, Friday at five o'clock in the morning, putting myself through suffering pain because I need to.

28:21
Success follows winners, man. You're a winner, dude. It isn't accidental. People like to think that, oh, man, he fell into that. He was so blessed to be naturally born as an athlete. Yeah, bullshit. No, I think I said, I was having that conversation with my wife today because I was just an average kid in grade school. Kids were faster than me. Kids were doing more pull-ups than me. I just wanted it more than everybody else. Your parents did a good job, brother.

28:50
Where can everybody keep up with everything going on? I know you still evolve the bone marrow stuff. Let's talk about some of the hit lists where everybody can stay following you, learn more about the things that we can only go so far on. Yeah, dude, all my stuff's on my Instagram social and SuperC's for, and my art websites, Matt Caesar art.com. I know that last name is a little bit.

29:12
difficult to spell. Spell it out for everybody. We'll have it on the show notes in the list, but spell it for everybody. Dude, it's S-Z-C-Z-U-R. And listen to this. The funny part is, when I go to places and they're like, all right, can you give me your last name, please, I literally spell out the last name for these people. And they can't even write it down right. Yeah, it's a weird combination of letters. You don't write it long. What's funny is when you said the letters, it sounded more like the name than the.

29:41
name it, looking at the name. I don't know if that makes any sense at all. But yeah, dude, that's me, man. Um, you can find me on socials at the super sees for, and then my website has everything as well. Really appreciate it, Matt. I want to stay in touch. I'm gonna text you my number. I'd love to just continue your relationship. I love talking with people that are driven like you. And I know that our audience, we had a lot of value from a brother. Thanks for having me, man. It's always great where I can.

30:10
show a story and raise awareness. Yeah, man. Hey guys, you'll find us the Radcast.com. Search for Matt Caesar. Or just search for, hell, just search for badass artist. You'll find all the highlight clips from today. World champion, Chicago Cub, Matt Caesar. You know where I'm at. I write and offer it on all the social platforms. You'll see that blue check. I had it before you could buy it. We'll see you next time on the Radcast.

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To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, v.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.