Life & Work with Matthew Cossolotto of Ohio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Cossolotto.

Hi Matthew, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My story is reflected, at least somewhat, in different geographic locations. I live in Oberlin, Ohio, now – not far from Cleveland – having moved from Brussels, Belgium, during Covid 19. Before that, I lived in Los Angeles, New York, and the Washington, DC, area. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and studied Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley. One highlight of my college years was spending my junior year studying abroad at the University of Lund (Sweden). That was eye-opening, mind-expanding, life-changing. I highly recommend studying abroad to all students.

After graduating from college, I was offered a paid summer internship on Capitol Hill in Washington. Then I found a job working as an aide to Congressman Leon Panetta – one of the most accomplished and truly honorable public servants we have. I later spent a few years writing speeches for the Speaker of the House, Jim Wright.

I’ve also worked as a speechwriter for senior corporate executives, for the Chancellor of UCLA, and most recently for top officials at NATO in Brussels. In short, my executive communications career has spanned the corridors of power and influence on both sides of the Atlantic.
But geographic locations and career highlights don’t really capture my story, not the story of the person I am today. I’d say my story really begins with a promise I made some 25 years ago. That promise was a real watershed moment, a life-changing turning point that put me on my current path as a personal empowerment author, speaker, workshop leader, and coach.

Here’s the gist of that story. I made a promise to my mother on her deathbed that I would finish writing a book she had been encouraging me to write and dedicate it to her memory. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said: “You do that, Matthew. You do that. This makes me very happy.”

I had not planned on making that promise. It was a spontaneous decision. After I made that heartfelt promise, I knew right away that failure was not an option. I’m proud to say I kept that promise. But here’s the rub. The book I promised to write wasn’t really in my comfort zone. It was a self-help book, and at the time I didn’t think of myself as a self-help author. So keeping my word wasn’t easy.

Making the promise helped me persevere and plow past lots of doubts and difficulties. Looking back, I think my mother knew some things about me that I didn’t know about myself. I think she encouraged me to write the book precisely because she knew it was outside my comfort zone. She seemed to know long before I did that writing the book and speaking about self-help ideas was something I was destined to do.

Which brings me to the most recent few years on my journey. I’ve been putting all of the pieces together that will help me fulfill my personal empowerment mission: to help millions of people around the world reach their peak potential. So, I’m now pulling together the three main strands of what I call my Triad Empowerment System, which is fueled by three essential “power tools” — Habits, Speaking, and Promises. I’m sharing a graphic that depicts this Triad. I’m also sharing my PEPTalks logo — my Personal Empowerment Programs. The tagline I use for all three topics in the Triad is: Success is an inside job.

My PEPTalks guide audiences in replacing disempowering habits of thought with empowering mindsets. I’m now seeking opportunities to share my personal empowerment insights with audiences here in Ohio, the United States, and beyond.

This Triad and these PEPTalks are based on the three books I’ve been working on and talking about for several years. The Joy of Public Speaking is the first book in my personal empowerment trilogy. Effective public speaking is a key skill for leaders and for career success. I think I’m unusual in stressing the personal empowerment aspects of public speaking. I like to take my readers and audiences on a journey – from stage fright to stage delight.
The second book in my trilogy was published a few months ago: Harness Your PromisePower. This PromisePower book features an extensive and revealing foreword by Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. I am deeply grateful to Jack for writing such a remarkable foreword in which he reveals the purpose-defining promise he made to God when he was 27 years old. Here’s a short quote from Jack’s foreword:

“There truly is something special about a promise, and I congratulate Matthew for shining a spotlight on this unique power through this book, his speeches, and his workshops… Perhaps after reading this book and learning more about the power of making a promise, more people will take advantage of this amazing, irresistible force for positive change — a resource that should be regarded as one of our greatest treasures in life.”

The third book in my trilogy — which is due to be published in the coming months — is Harness Your HabitForce. This book highlights the seven habits of FAILURE and SUCCESS. I won’t go into detail here. Suffice it to say that these two powerful words in our culture feature prominently in the book in the form of two side-by-side, easy-to-remember, seven-letter acronyms.

I’m especially motivated now to use these three books and my PEPTalks to fulfill my overall mission. I’m determined to spread the word about the crucial role public speaking plays in personal empowerment, along with the role that empowering SUCCESS habits and the power of promises can play in changing lives and transforming the world in wondrous ways.

And I’ll just briefly mention two key empowerment tools I employ across myTriad Empowerment System: The Six Axioms of Personal Empowerment and the Empower-Me Band. You’ll see the Six Axioms graphic on display in this interview. I don’t have time or space here to elaborate, but the graphic should give you an inkling of what the six axioms are all about. I cover these six points in detail in my books and workshops.

The Empower-Me Band helps people remember important commitments, examine habitual thoughts, and interrupt negative self-talk. I like to introduce the band with bit of humor, describing it as perhaps the greatest personal empowerment tool ever devised in human history. I might be exaggerating, but only slightly.

The Six Axioms and the Empower-Me Band play a vital role in all three disciplines in my Triad Empowerment System. They emphasize that success is an inside job. That thoughts influence actions. That actions become habits. That habits shape character and direction. These Six Axioms and the Empower-Me Band offer a powerful recipe for personal change and empowerment. I hope I have piqued the curiosity of your readers.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There were bumps in the road, to be sure. In fact, I often tell the story about suffering a difficult failure earlier in my career and my attempts to learn positive lessons from that setback. I like the idea of turning a misstep into a steppingstone.

One lesson I learned has to do with monitoring and transforming negative or disempowering thoughts. I’ve come to learn over the years just how powerful our internal dialogue can be. This idea is central to my notion that success is an inside job. Ultimately, we become what we think about. Thoughts truly are self-fulfilling prophesies.

I learned this lesson the hard way after failing to launch what I called “Comedy TV.” It’s a long story. I’ll keep this brief. But as it turns out, this Comedy TV story relates directly to the promise I made to my mother about writing a self-help book on the habits of FAILURE and SUCCESS. So, I think the story is relevant to our conversation today.

Way back when I was working on Capitol Hill, a friend and I came up with what we thought was a great idea. We wanted to launch a cable TV channel called Comedy TV. This was in the infancy of cable TV and there was nothing like Comedy TV at the time. Comedy Central came a few years later.

I can sum up what happened in a few words: I blew it cuz I didn’t pursue it. Somewhere along the way, I talked myself out of launching this great business idea. That disheartening experience prompted me to embark upon a personal quest to learn more about what separates people who succeed from those who fall short. The difference between those who start and lead successful businesses and those who just talk about doing so.

That quest led me to consume a bunch of self-help books and videos – by Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Stephen Covey, and many others. In fact, Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People had a major impact on my thinking and on the promise I ultimately made to my mother.

After reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I found myself wondering whether there are also seven habits of highly ineffective people. You know, seven habits that hold people back. Seven negative habits that keep people stuck. I thought maybe there should be a book that focuses on these disempowering habits to help people who fall short of their potential.

It occurred to me that these negative habits could be called “failure” habits or failure traps. Then I suddenly realized that the word “failure” has seven letters. And, surprisingly, it hit me that the word “success” also has seven letters. What are the odds, I asked myself, that these two powerful words in our language, these two opposite words, would contain seven letters. I thought: Maybe I could create two, side-by-side acronyms. For every habit of FAILURE, there would be an equal-but-opposite habit of SUCCESS.

Well, I shared these ideas with a few friends and colleagues. And with my mother. She got a kick out of this idea, and she urged me to write a book about the seven habits of FAILURE and SUCCESS. And the rest, as they say, is history. A few years later, my mother was diagnosed with cancer that had metastasized. The last time we were together I promised her that I would finish writing the book and dedicate it to her memory.

So, my bumpy road went from failing to launch Comedy TV to reading a bunch of self-help books – including Stephen Covey’s – and then promising to write a book about the seven habits of SUCCESS and FAILURE. There’s a direct line from Comedy TV to my Triad Empowerment System, my trilogy of personal empowerment books, and my PEPTalks.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I mentioned some of this already, so I’ll be brief. Long story short, after graduating from college I was offered a paid summer internship on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Then I found a job working as an aide to congressman named Leon Panetta. I spent about four years in that role. I also spent a few years writing speeches for the Speaker of the House, Jim Wright.

After my years on Capitol Hill, I worked as a communications executive and speechwriter for several Fortune 100 companies, for the Chancellor of UCLA, and most recently for top officials at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In short, my executive communications career has spanned the corridors of power and influence on both sides of the Atlantic.

Those are some of the key milestones in my professional career. Along the way, I wrote a couple of books on European politics. Then, powered by the promise to my mother, I ventured into an area that has become the focus on my creative endeavors: writing books and speaking about personal empowerment topics.

What matters most to you? Why?
Great question. Not easy to answer. It depends on what the context happens to be. But overall, I think it boils down to doing my best to reach my peak potential — and helping others do the same. I’ve always been struck by something President John F. Kennedy said at a press conference in the early 1960s. He was asked whether he enjoyed being president. His answer has stuck with me for many years. He said he enjoys being president and then he explained why by quoting what he called the Greek definition of happiness: “The full use of your powers along lines of excellence.” Happiness? What a concept, right? Pretty important. Interesting that our Declaration of Independence refers to the “pursuit of happiness.”

In my personal empowerment workshops — my PEPTalks — I ask for a show of hands
How many people have the uneasy feeling that you’re falling short of your potential – in your career or in life more generally? Almost every hand goes up.

Why is that? Why do so many people – probably most – go through life with the vague suspicion or the strong sense that they are not reaching their peak potential? In other words, they know that could achieve more, they could make a bigger difference in the world, but they simply don’t or can’t bring themselves to do so.

I’m convinced there is almost always gap between how a person performs and what they are capable of if they are firing on all cylinders. What’s holding so many people back? The first step in the change process is self-awareness. People first need to recognize the gap exists. The next step is to understand why this disempowering gap exists in the first place. What causes the gap and how do you about closing it? This is where what I call HabitForce comes in.

At its most basic level, HabitForce is the collection our thought habits, our mindsets, that have been acquired or programmed since childhood. HabitForce functions very much like a software program or Personal Operating System. It can either work for you or against you. Most successful people have been lucky enough to develop a collection of success-oriented habits of mind. Those who fall short of their potential – a large majority of people – are saddled with habits of thought and behavior that hold them back and cause them to fall short of their potential. Here’s the good news: You can reprogram your HabitForce so it works for you, not against you. And that’s what my HabitForce programs are all about.

Why does all of this matter? I go back to the question of happiness. In the film A Bronx Tale, one of the characters says, “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.” Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote something along the same lines: “Many people die with their music still in them.” Then he says it’s because they are always getting ready to live and before they know it time runs out. That’s unspeakably sad. I think that’s what Henry David Thoreau was talking about when he said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation.

If you go through life holding back, falling short of your potential, feeling frustrated and trapped habits that hold you back, by definition you’re not making the full use of your powers. I believe personal power and happiness are intertwined, inter-connected. This brings me back to my mission: to help millions of people around the world reach their peak potential. Yes, it’s about achieving goals, accomplishing important things, and making a positive difference in the world. But it’s also about the pursuit of happiness by reaching your peak potential.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://matthewcossolotto.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-cossolotto-the-empowerment-pro/
• Other: https://www.timesla.com/jack-canfield-co-creator-of-the-chicken-soup-for-the-soul-series-contributes-an-extensive-and-revealing-foreword-for-matthew-cossolottos-new-book-harness-your-promisepower/