When Your Life As You Know It Ends, That’s Where It Truly Begins

Reflections on Strength and Surrender by Aaron Lazar

I was sitting in the studio with two other “middle-aged white alpha males” — all of us dudes who’ve been dragged through the fire and come out with stories we never planned to tell. I looked at Matt Dawson and said something that I think a lot of us have felt at one time or another:

“We’ve been through hell, we’ve gone through recovery, we’ve changed and grown, and now we’re using whatever our stories have been to help other people empower themselves to change and grow.”

And that’s what stood out to me about Dawson right from the jump: his mission is very similar to my own: to inspire people to discover and pursue their purpose.

Matt told me, “Life is a very simple thing, but it’s not easy.” That’s a line I had been saying for years on the road as a keynote speaker with the original incarnation of my Impossible Dream speaking platform and for the next two hours, I would realize that Dawson and I have way more in common than I could’ve ever imagined.