In this inspiring episode of EPIC Begins With One Step Forward, Zander Sprague welcomes Dr. Matt Kutz, professor, author, global leader, and prostate cancer survivor. Matt shares his extraordinary journey from athletic training and academic research to writing leadership books that reached Fortune 500 companies worldwide. But his most powerful lessons came after a life-altering diagnosis. During 40 days of radiation, Matt wrote the foundation of his new book, Becoming Epic, which introduces the EPIC Leadership Loop: Excellence, Perception, Inspiration, and Compassion. He also opens up about launching the Battle for the Bulge foundation to raise awareness for men’s health. With candor, humor, and resilience, Matt shows how adversity can become fuel for growth. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking to rise above mediocrity and embrace an epic life.
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From Radiation To Revelation: Dr. Matt Kutz On Living Epic
Looking Back To Matt’s Epic Journey
I am honored to be joined by Matt Kutz. Matt, tell us who you are and what you do.
Thanks, Zander. I appreciate being on your show. I’m a professor. My day job is a university professor, probably here because one of the best things that I know to get the word out is to write books. I write books. I’m an author, speaker, and researcher as well, so I’ve been able to span that gap. A lot of my research has worked into that space.
I wrote a book. It’s coming out in December, so it’s not out yet. It’s called Becoming Epic. I’m excited about that. That comes with the story and what happened to me to get to that place to write that. My day job is a college professor. I teach in a doctoral program at Florida International University in Miami. I live in Ohio and work in Miami, so I’m a telecommuter. I have a lot of fun with that. I get to do quite a bit of traveling and things like that.
That is great. What are you a professor of?
I am a professor in the Doctor of Athletic Training program, so I teach in a doctoral program for healthcare clinicians, athletic training in particular. For most of your audience, it is probably more familiar to say sports medicine. Sports medicine is the space. Within my particular doctoral program, because it’s an advanced practice doctorate, we specialize in particular focus areas. In our particular DAT, we focus on leadership development. We focus on professionalization skills, entrepreneurship, and global leadership.
My PhD is in global leadership. I serve as the vice president for the World Federation of Athletic Training and Therapy, editor of two different journals, and stuff like that. I have the very traditional academic tenured professor, journal editor, scholar stuff. The real fun stuff that I get to do and the thing that brings me a lot of joy is the writing and the speaking in that space, more of a leadership development space. Mindset preparation is what I like to call it. I do a little bit of a lot of things.
It’s too bad you’re not busy there, Matt.
I need one more thing to do. That’s for sure.
You know that I absolutely have to ask about the fact that you also have ‘epic’ in the title of your book. I obviously have EPIC Begins with 1 Step Forward, my book, my podcast, my TV show, all things Epic. Let’s talk a little about your epic journey.
I’ve been in this professor gig for almost 30 years. I’ve always been incredibly fascinated with leadership, leadership development, and leadership thinking. I believe it was 2013. I had my first foray into writing something other than academic books. I’ve written textbooks, journal articles, and all those things. I always joke that textbooks are a great place where people hide information because nobody reads textbooks. Who wants to read a textbook?
That frustrated me a little bit, so I tried the professional trade book route. I wrote a book, a spinoff from my dissertation years ago, called Contextual Intelligence: How Thinking in 3D Can Help Resolve Complexity, Uncertainty and Ambiguity. That turned out to be a huge hit for me. It won the Leadership Book of the Year a few years back for innovation and cutting-edge perspective. It launched me into this public speaking, corporate training space that I didn’t know existed as an athletic trainer who was primarily working with injured athletes, taping ankles, rehabilitating orthopedic injuries, and all that stuff. I had known from working with athletes for as long as I had that there’s a certain mindset to how they approach things, especially the successful ones.
I began to think about that and wrote that book. That launched me into the space that I’m in, like I talked about, corporate training, etc. That was a ton of fun. I’ve been super blessed. Most of my clients are Fortune 500 clients. I joke about it with my colleagues. It’s like a three-beer story because it’s one of those pinch-me kind of things for an academic. I wrote an academic paper once. Somebody found it, read it, liked it, turned it into a book for me, and helped me do all that. It launched me into this space. I find myself in this space, enjoying life.
In November of 2023, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It was supposed to be the easy kind. There’s such a thing as the easy kind of cancer. It seems ridiculous to me. What I was told is that the easy kind is not going to be a problem. We move forward with the treatments, biopsies, and all the different things. Long story short is it wasn’t the easy kind. It turned out to be a Gleason eight, which is how they score prostate cancer, a little bit different than stage four or whatever, but it would be equivalent to stage four. In fact, it had metastasized.
It was already metastasized. It worked its way out of my prostate. There was some in my pelvis, some in my lymph nodes, and in my groin area. All of a sudden, this easy cancer is now going to kill me if I don’t do something about it quickly. We did. We aggressively moved into treatment, therapy, and all this stuff. We did all the things that we needed to do. One of the things is 40 days of radiation, and particularly intense radiation. Because of the radiation schedule, I had to cancel three of my speaking gigs that I had during those 40 days, which is hard for me. It wasn’t even about the money at all. I actually love it. I love doing it. I get a lot of emotion and energy from that. It’s such fun for me.
I didn’t want to waste my time. I made a personal vow to myself that during these 40 days that I had to sit here in the house and wait for radiation, I would write 1,000 words every day for 40 days. I intended it to be a catharsis journal. What ended up happening from that is about a year or two before that, I started developing a module that I use in my doctoral class on what I call the Epic Leadership Loop. The Epic Leadership Loop is what I call four leadership maxims.
Those four leadership maxims are excellence, perception, inspiration, and compassion. Those are the four things you need to have. It was an accident. I looked at it and it’s E, P, I, and C. It spells EPIC. That’s what I call the Epic Leadership Loop. Those are the four things that I believe every leader worth their salt needs to invest time and energy into being excellent, learning to be perceptive, learning how to cultivate and disseminate inspiration, and then learning how to practice compassion, both personally and to others. I had that in the backdrop and in the back of my mind. As I was going through these 40 days of writing, it was day three of the writing that I remembered that.
I started putting that in the journal. It’s time for me to practice what I preach. I’ve got to be epic. I’m not kidding you. It may sound kooky and wacky, but something just snapped in my brain in a good way. It just got in my brain. The next 37 days, I unpacked everything that I thought I knew or that was in me for the last twenty-plus years of research, reading, and writing on leadership, leadership development, leadership thinking, and all of those things. By the end of it, I had this book, a very first rough draft, or what Brené Brown calls the SFD, the shitty first draft. It was that, but we turned it into a book. I pitched it to some of my publisher friends, etc. It’s coming out here before the end of the year, probably late November or early December.
Congratulations on that. Having written three books myself, I know that it is an epic journey. Oftentimes, the hard part isn’t actually writing it. It’s getting through all the proofreading, all the edits, all the whatever. I’m guessing that right about now, Matt, you may be coming to the point where you’re like, “I love my book, but I don’t want to reread my book.”
I don’t want to even talk about it anymore. It’s so funny, it hadn’t even come out yet. People ask. It’s like, “I’m done. I’m on to something else. I’m thinking about something else.” My publishers and marketers hate it. I’m like, “Yes, let’s do this.”
I totally get it. I joke all the time on my show that by the time my books came out, I didn’t want to look at my book for about a month or two, because I had spent six or eight weeks. I’d reread my own book seven times. I was like, “I know what’s coming up.”
I wish I had said this differently. That’s what I do. I read. I’m like, “I could have said that so much better.”
I guess the difference is I’m a talker, not a typer. I’m like, “Yes, I don’t need to,” unless it’s really egregious. I’m like, “No, that’s not reading the way I want it to.” Honestly, you’re like, “I’ve read this sentence seven times now. It’s good enough.”
I get to that place, too. It’s like, “This, I’m not changing it. It says what it says.” You’re right. I’m excited and not excited, if I can use that, because I will start the recordings for the audio.
I’ve done that, too.
I’m going to have to redo it. It’s a thrill. This is the stuff you don’t hear in the author workshop because you’re right. Getting the ideas out there on the initial paper is the fun, easy part. Taking it from that to a readable book, and all that happens in between that, is definitely an epic process, like you said.
What Epic Truly Means
You shared what epic meant to you. I’ll tell you what epic means to me. In my context, every pilgrimage includes commitment. I believe that no matter what your epic journey that you’re on, whether it’s writing a book or overcoming what I term your prostate cancer, the epic, unexpected, these huge things that change our lives, but you had no idea were coming, how do I get through it? It is a pilgrimage.
It is not in that religious sense, but more in the larger pilgrimage of you’re on a journey, and there is effort and struggle. There’s good, there’s bad, and there are detours. There’s all of that. The only way you get through those epic things that we say we’d like to do, I’d like to write a book, I’d like to travel here someday, I’d like to run a marathon, or whatever, is a pilgrimage. It takes time, effort, and education.
Everything worth having is a journey, or a pilgrimage, as you put it. I couldn’t agree more. We call those bucket lists, as if it’s easy to reach in and grab. I want to finish my doctoral degree, I want to write a book, I want to retire in Maui, I want to run a marathon, and all those things. People think, “I just have to get up and do it,” but it’s a journey. It’s a discipline. We lose that a lot, especially in the culture that we live in. Everything is quick. Everything is easy. Everything needs to be instant.
Everything worth having is a journey.
We lose that. It’s strange to me. That’s actually partly why I wrote the book. If we’re going to become epic, the subtitle is Overcoming Mediocrity. I believe that the major thing that’s plaguing society is mediocrity. We’re settling for good enough. Nobody wants to be the last or the worst. We’ve got that part down. Fewer and fewer people want to do what it takes to be the best. They settle with, “At least, I’m not as bad as so and so,” or “At least, I’m not the worst. I’m somewhere here in the middle.” They live life that way. The longer you live life that way, the more bitter and resentful you become in the process.
I’d also add that there are things that we all dream of doing. It’s been my own experience that although some of these things are challenging, they’re not nearly as hard as I imagined they would be. Be it writing a book, running a marathon, or starting a podcast. Like I say, it begins with one step forward. You said, “Here I am. I have two things to do. Go get radiated and be at home. I want to write a book.” That whole decision to say, “Let me write this book,” the whole process, you may go, “That’s a daunting process.” The fact of the matter is, you can only do it one step at a time. You’ve got to start off with that first sentence.
You find, “That wasn’t too hard. Yes, I can write 1,000 words. Let me repeat that tomorrow.” As I work with people, this whole idea, “I’ve always dreamed of doing it.” Today is the day. It’s my experience. Some of these big lifelong column bucket list dreams, I don’t run anymore, but I did run. I’ve run four marathons, ten halves, and a 50K ultra. I’m not bragging, but when I finished my first marathon, I was elated. Honestly, probably about ten minutes later, I was like, “Now what?” I had focused for six months to achieve this thing. I said, “Someday, I’d like to run a marathon,” and I did it. It was awesome. You’re completed. It’s like when you were working on your doctorate. There’s all this blood, sweat, and equity that goes into it. Once your dissertation was accepted, you’re like, “All right.”
My colleagues and I talk about it in this way. It’s very anticlimactic to accomplish.
It’s so disappointing.
When I got tenured, it was the same way. When I finished my dissertation, it was the same way. When all that happens, it’s like, “We did it.” You’re so anxious about this process. It gets there. It’s done. You’re like, “That’s it? They brought me a piece of cake in the break room and said congratulations.” Everybody went about their business like normal. I expected the heavens to open or something, and it doesn’t.
I totally get it. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many places. One of the places I got to travel to was South Africa. I went down to the Cape of Good Hope.
I’ve been there.
You’re probably going to totally relate to the story, Matt. I’m going down. I get there. Here I am at the end of the African continent. I didn’t think I had expectations. However, I guess in my mind, if I were to think about it, I thought that it would be like Monty Python-esque with a tent with the streamers up on the pool and maybe James Earl Jones, “The end of the African continent.” Folks, let me tell you. I’m standing on a rocky outcrop. Technically, to my left is the Indian Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean is on my right. It was anticlimactic, just like Matt said before. You’re like, “I could be standing on any rock.”
It’s the exact same place. I took my kids there. As a matter of fact, I have a picture of it on my wall. We’re standing there. You’re exactly right. This is supposed to be where the two oceans merge. This is Indian. This is Atlantic. It’s hilarious.
You’re at the end of a continent.
It’s like, “You could spin me around. I could be standing on a rock in Lake Michigan.”
Not to take away from how epic it was to be there and literally be standing at the end of the African continent. It’s totally cool, but it was in some ways, I don’t know what I expected. Somehow, I expected it to be a lot grander.
This is why I think people settle for mediocrity because they have experiences like that. They begin to tell themselves over time, “It’s not worth it.” They begin to tell themselves, “This is too hard. I started this process. It’s harder than I thought, so I’m just going to settle here in the middle.” We need to shake ourselves in a good way, a little bit, to encourage ourselves. We need to speak to our own souls, wake ourselves up a little bit, and say, “No, wait a second. It is worth it because there’s more at stake here than I can actually see.”
Difference Between Foresight And Fantasy
To your point you made earlier about this whole idea of dreams and different things that we have when we start down then, I wrote in my other book that I mentioned, Contextual Intelligence, using this 3D thinking grid. 3D thinking is hindsight, insight, and foresight. It’s been a lot of fun for me. One of the things that I explain is the difference between foresight and fantasy. A lot of us come to that place where we say to ourselves, “I want to finish my graduate degree. I want to write a book. I want to run a marathon, whatever that thing is. I’d like to have a good relationship.” It’s this inner voice.
I always talk to people, my coaching clients, in particular, too, about what your inner voice is saying. I call it the “I can’t because clause.” If they say, “I’d like to run a marathon, but I can’t because,” “I’d like to be in a healthy relationship, but I can’t because,” or whatever it is. It’s that “I can’t because” clause that indicates to me that you’re living in a fantasy instead of living in foresight. I believe this is part of the perceptive in being epic. We’ve got to perceive more accurately what’s in front of us. A lot of times, we move towards these things.
When the first obstacle comes up, “It’s harder than I thought. It’s taking more time than I thought. I’m not getting the feedback that I thought.” We start with the “I can’t because,” then we know we started our pilgrimage with a fantasy mindset, versus starting off with a foresight-based mindset. I teach it to where the foresight-based mindset is when you encounter that first obstacle. I promise you it will come. Whatever that obstacle is, when it gets there, do you see only the obstacle, or do you see beyond the obstacle? If you can see beyond the obstacle, then I call that foresight. You’re like, “I know this thing is here. Here’s how I’m going to pivot or react or respond to adjust to what’s in front of me.” If you do that, then I believe you’re taking that step in foresight.
I’ll pivot on that just a little to say, when I’m working with people, they’re talking about whatever their epic dream is. I’m like, “Let’s plan this out. Let’s create the structure that allows you to do it.” Structure is our friend. It helps us. It makes us feel comfortable. We’re like, “I know what I need to do. I need to do this step, this step, and this step.” I know when I first started to train for a marathon, I had no idea how I was ever going to do it. I joined Team In Training. They handed me a training schedule. I looked at it, and it goes, “Go run for 45 minutes.” I can do that. I was done for the day. I didn’t have to worry about it. I’d follow that schedule. I’d be fine. In school, you follow, “Take this class, this class, and this class.” Next thing you know, you’ve got your doctorate.
You stick with it. That’s the thing.
I hear people. They’ll put the roadblocks in front of themselves. I joke all the time that my roadblocks are a mirage. Oftentimes, they aren’t. I’m putting them in front of myself. I’m telling myself why I can’t be successful versus accepting that, yes, there are going to be some roadblocks and some detours. Here’s the thing, Matt. You got up this morning. You did not have the answer to every single question you’d get, yet you still got up and you’re still proceeding with your day.
Each of us does that. If we keep in mind that we don’t have all the answers, we are going to make mistakes. Mistakes are part of the journey. Hopefully, we learn from them. Sometimes, you come up against something and you can’t move forward. A perfect example was a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor. I had to have 3,000 hours of internship before I could take the exam here in California. I finished that up in February of 2020.
I had all kinds of, “I’m going to take the licensing exam. I’m going to do all this stuff.” We remember what happened about three weeks after I finished up my hours. I could barely leave my house. What did any of us do when all of a sudden there was a global pandemic? There were things I could not do. I couldn’t go out and give speeches. No companies were hiring because everyone was at home.
Same here. We all had that major obstacle to overcome. Some did better than others. Those are the things that we have to come to terms with. There are things outside of our control, like what you just mentioned. There are also those self-inflicted wounds that you were talking about.
Dealing With Things Out Of Your Control
You’ve said a successful relationship or success in my professional career. There are things that happen that are completely out of your control. There are things that are in your control. To quote the Rolling Stones, “You don’t always get what you want.”
You can tell me about that. Even in my own story, being diagnosed with prostate cancer, I was one of those rare people who had no symptoms whatsoever. I was completely blindsided. In fact, I was training for a triathlon. The picture on the back of my book is me just finishing a training 5K. I’ve got my thumbs up. I’ve got my Epic Life t-shirt on. Little did I know that only nine weeks later, I’d be diagnosed with this horrible cancer. I was totally clueless.
There are things outside your control, and there are also self-inflicted wounds.
I was healthy. I was active. I was running. I was training. I’d like to do triathlons. I’m doing all that stuff. On a training ride, I crashed my bicycle, got a concussion, broke my hand, subluxed a couple of ribs here in my chest area, and all this stuff. I’m just doing a follow-up visit with my doctor because I’m having chest pains. By the way, I totally forgot that I had this horrible bike accident where I did that. This is several months later. I’m like, “I’m having these chest pains.” “You’d better come in.” You know how they’re super cautious about this stuff.
Hopefully, yes, Matt.
It should be. They’re supposed to be super cautious about that stuff.
Chest pains are generally not a good sign.
He’s like, “You better come in. We’ll do the test and all that.” I did the EKG. They put the nose thing on. I’m running on the treadmill and doing the whole thing. Everybody is impressed. “This guy is in great shape. Why is he even here? Heart’s totally fine.” It turns out it was just that subluxed rib from the bike accident. Here’s what happened. At that visit, at that time, I’m standing there with my doctor and his nurse. They’re going to my chair, like, “You never came in for your 50-year-old well check.” It is the colonoscopy, the blood pressure, and all that stuff that you’re supposed to get at 50.
I never did that primarily because I felt great. I was active. I didn’t need to. He convinced me to do it there that day. I only did because I was already there. I otherwise wouldn’t have. They called me two or three days later after the blood work came back. They were like, “Your PSA score is off the chart. You need to see a urologist right away.” We did. I went from being great to the next day having cancer and a couple of weeks after that, bad cancer. You talk about recalibrating and all that. I went through all this stuff.
I didn’t mention this, but during that same process, I wrote another book called Diagnosed. Its subtitle is It’s Not Your Battle to Fight Alone. That’s more of my memoir about how I dealt with the emotions and the disappointment because I live by a certain code of ethics and a faith. I have a very faith-based orientation. Here, I felt like God let me down. I’ve done everything right, as I know to do it and as right as I know to do it. How come I’m being cursed with this thing now? That’s a major shift in your mind.
So often, stuff happens to us. I was laughing. I also rode a bicycle. I haven’t crashed as badly, but I did crash on my mountain bike. I shattered my shoulder and broke my humerus.
That’s a bad wreck.
I broke the head of my humerus into nine pieces. It was like Humpty Dumpty. Luckily, I was riding with someone.
You lay there on the road, just thinking, “I was paralyzed and dead.” That was crazy.
My friend’s like, “Are you okay?” I’m like, “I think I dislocated my shoulder. It really hurts.” It turned out I also had a hairline fracture in my pelvis. I walked 1.5 miles out. That was the minor thing. It was more of the shoulder. Technically, I did dislocate my shoulder, just not the way I thought. There was no ball for it.
Make it in the right places. It’s not there.
It was not the same way as having cancer, but I had that whole, “I’m living this healthy lifestyle.” I’m not going to obviously be able to exercise for a long period of time here, but I knew I was going to get back on the bike. I was like, “I am getting back on the bike. I’m not going to let that scare me.” I’ve been on my mountain bike, but I haven’t taken it on the same trail I was on. I’m choosing not to do that.
You’re doing something. This is what is so unique. I know I’m not here to self-aggrandize either one of us, but so many people won’t do that. What I hope your audience understands and gets is when these things come along, you’ve got to understand, yes, they’re hard, they’re unexpected, they definitely are a setback, but it’s also part of life. I’m definitely not the shake-it-off and do n’t-worry-about-it. There are some significant and meaningful things that we need to spend time talking through.
My brother is a professional counselor. We worked together. I’ve got a tremendously, incredibly close community around me, friends. My wife has been fantastic. You need that help. You need that support. If you don’t have it, it does make the journey more difficult for sure. For me, it was a major part of my mental recovery. I can also tell you, I’m still not there yet. It’s because I still have nine more months of treatment, therapy, and different things.
You need to find the right support. Without it, your journey will be more difficult.
A funny thing is, after my fourth or fifth visit with my oncologist, I noticed I got an email from some total stranger who wanted to talk to me about prostate cancer and how I’m handling it. I come to find out with my physician, he goes, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been giving your email out to my patients to talk to you because I’ve never seen anybody handle this like you and your wife are handling this. Whatever your secret is, you please have to share it.”
My wife and I, after the initial diagnosis, found it was worse. We started looking for help ourselves. There’s really not any because men don’t like to talk about prostate cancer. It’s not the cancer. It’s the side effects of the cancer, incontinence, and sexual dysfunction. For men, that’s shame. Those are two areas of incredible shame. They don’t like to talk about that. That’s why it’s not a lot out there, but there’s breast cancer stuff everywhere.
The prevalence of prostate cancer is the same as the prevalence of breast cancer, but we never talk about it because men don’t talk about it. I’m not telling people I’m incontinent, have sexual dysfunction, or whatever that is. We started a foundation called the Battle for the Bulge. It’s tongue in cheek. We really liked it. It’s got a lot of things. We have the BattleForTheBulge.com. It’s a fundraiser and awareness campaign that we do for prostate cancer education and awareness. We tie it to a 5K every year.
We do a walk and a 5K to raise awareness. That’s where I distribute the book Diagnosed, I was telling you about, and all that. My point in saying all this is simply that if we leave it to however it plays out and don’t try to take advantage of the adversity, this is where I believe epic takes you. Whether it’s the pilgrimage you’re talking about or four maxims that I talk about, I don’t think it matters. Living an epic life is about taking the things that come your way, expected, unexpected, good, and bad, and using them all as learning opportunities to do something that you wouldn’t have done before. That’s what we’re trying to do with our stuff.
Get In Touch With Matt
I couldn’t say it better. It is an epic conversation on so many levels. I want to thank you so much for joining me. How can people, if they’re interested in finding your book, getting a hold of you, or working with you, get a hold of you?
Two places, I already mentioned BattleForTheBulge.com right there. My contact information and all my stuff are there. You could also go to MatthewKutz.com. That’s my website. My books are there. My research, email contact, and all that stuff are there.
Thank you so much. I want to remind everyone that if you’re ready to begin your epic journey, go to EpicBegins.com. As always, remember that epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
Important Links
- Matt Kutz’s Website
- EPIC Begins with 1 Step Forward
- Contextual Intelligence: How Thinking in 3D Can Help Resolve Complexity, Uncertainty and Ambiguity
- Brené Brown’s Website
- Team In Training
- Diagnosed
- Battle for the Bulge
- Zander Sprague’s Website
About Dr. Matt Kutz
Dr. Matt Kutz – Ph.D. in Global Leadership, award-winning author, award-winning educator, researcher, and speaker.
Matt is most excited about being a husband, dad, and grandpa, and in his spare time, is insanely passionate about helping people gain perspective and overcome the adversity and uncertainty that life brings.
He does that through helping others to develop an EPIC mindset and practice Contextual Intelligence and 3D Thinking. Check him out at his website www.matthewkutz.com