God’s Got This With Matt Crump

 

A lot of people have been around the whole idea of Christianity, believing in God, and that God is working things out. For Matt Crump though, it has a lot of meaning. In this episode, host Rodney Flowers is joined by Matt who opens up about his battle with stage four cancer and how he developed his mindset of “God’s got this.” Matt is an author, speaker, singer, songwriter, and coach passionately encouraging people everywhere who are struggling with their own challenges. He shares how having a strong faith in God enabled him to create and do things in life that are seemingly impossible. Listen to this conversation and be inspired to have hope in life and achieve your dreams.

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Listen to the podcast here:

God’s Got This With Matt Crump

I have Matt Crump in the studio with me. Matt is an author, speaker, singer, songwriter and coach passionately encouraging people everywhere. Here is what’s interesting about this. Matt encourages people with a hope that he discovered through life travels and his battle with stage 4 cancer. Matt believes that God’s got this and he boldly shares this with everyone he comes in contact with.

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It’s my pleasure, honor and privilege to welcome Mr. Matt Crump to the show. How are you doing?

I’m doing fantastic, Rodney. I’m super excited to be here. I hope that I have enough energy to keep up with you.

I don’t see that’s going to be a problem. Based on the pre-conversations that we’ve been having, Matt, I’m loving your energy, I’m loving what you are about and I love your motto, “God’s got this.”

He does.

I don’t know if you know that you and I grew up in a similar location. I’m from and where you are from in the southern parts of North Carolina and raised up in the church. When I was coming up, you had to go to church on Wednesday, Thursday sometimes Saturdays and every Sunday. I’ve been around the whole idea of Christianity and believing in God and God working things out. For you, it has a lot of meaning. I want to get into some of that with you.

I’ve always been a passionate follower of him, not always. I started off pretty rough. It was a long time ago. I was a drug addict, alcoholic and did everything under the sun that you shouldn’t do and ended up giving my life to Christ. He changed everything. Fast forward through all kinds of mess because we don’t have a lot of time going on that for this show. During 2011, I ended up having a hernia that was causing some problems and I had surgery got botched. I had to go Duke to get it redone by a specialist. During that period of time, my wife was always hounding me for something she saw in my back, this black spot in my back. I was like, “Whatever,” and I always blew it off. Finally, we get there to do this meetup with this doc and my wife says, “Will you do me a favor and just look at my husband’s back?” As soon she looks at it, she goes, “We can’t even do the surgery until it gets looked at.” I ended up going to another appointment at Duke a few days later and I had cancer. I had to do surgery with the hernia on the back burner.

They put me on surgery, 2011 was my first rounds of surgery for cancer. It started on my back, melanoma. They did a pretty long spot on my back. One is about 8 inches long and it’s 2 inches deep into my back, 2 inches wide and another spot is about 4×2 as well where they take out a bunch of cancer and a few lymph nodes. A little bit after that period of time, you’d have to go back for follow-ups and whatnot and I went back for about a year until they told me, “We think you’re good to go. Everything is good. You’re fine. Go home. Your cancer is over.” I said, “That’s awesome because that’s we’ve been praying for who we believe in God for.” Fast forward again, 2015, I’m on stage getting ready to lead, worship and I started coughing up blood. It doesn’t happen often.

I felt like I had some chest congestion. I don’t know what was up. I got through the day, went to see a friend of mine who has a clinic, he’s a VA. I went there the next day. He took some x-rays and he said, “You got pneumonia. We found a spot in your lung. We’re going to give you some antibiotics and take care of it.” I said, “Cool.” I did that for seven days, but the coughing blood didn’t stop. I went back seven days later. I said, “This didn’t stop.” My buddy said, “I need to tell you something.”

If you give your life to Christ, He will change everything. Click To Tweet

I said, “What?” He said, “I think that spot in your lung. You need to go back to Duke.” I said, “For what, for a cold?” He said, “No, I think your cancer is back.” He was right, except at that point I was already at stage 4. It started in my adrenal gland. I had three down there. It was by my adrenal gland, by my kidney muscle wall, by my leg had and had traveled to my lung. At that point, I had to start going in for all kinds of stuff. I had to go in for treatments in immunotherapy trials, all kinds of different drugs on me, some radiation, and surgeries. During that trial period while I was going through all the treatments, I had a business. I had shut the business down.

It was too much to do with cancer and economy and everything at the same time. It was a good thing, not at the time, but it ended up being. Within two months of shutting the store down while on treatment, I ended up having to be medevaced to Duke because I had a bleeding brain tumor. I had to have emergency brain surgery to remove a brain tumor. It traveled to my brain. At that point, that’s when they did some more evaluations on me. They said that the medication had done all it was going to do. There was no more they could do. I was not operable and the doc told me that without any meds, at that point I had eight months to live.

Let me stop right there. Where were you mentally, emotionally and spiritually? Because you’re the only person that I know that I can talk to that has had stage 4 cancer. That’s the reality of it here, but here you are. After hearing that type of news, can you share where you are?

It’s amazing, especially being the guy who was a pastor, who would counsel people for years. I can give you all kinds of scriptures and pray for folks and believe God, which I still do and did. The difference is when somebody says, “Mr. Crump, you have cancer.” When they say that to you, it didn’t change my faith. It just affected me in a sense as a person of my mortality and wondered if I had been a person who has accomplished what I was set to be doing on this planet during that period of time. I felt that the answer was no.

Some of those moments would be driving down the road in a car and then stuff would hit you spontaneously. I could be driving down the road in a car and start thinking about my daughter at whatever age. She is fifteen now. Let’s say she’s going to be married at twenty. What if I’m dead, what if I can’t walk her down the aisle? What if my son who wants to be some wild guy, has a rock band or starts some business or something and wants to say, “Dad, check it out,” except I’m dead. Those things get to you pretty hard and it affected me a lot.

I want to go back to that moment. I get that after hearing it, you may have left the hospital and you’re driving in a car, so you’re thinking about things over and over in your mind. I want to go back because you had me in the hospital with you and they were coming to you and they say, “This is stage 4 cancer and perhaps there’s nothing we can do about it.” It’s where you are going with this.

That didn’t bother me so much at that point. I’m solid at my faith. I know where I’m going. That didn’t bother. The biggest thing that bothers me is relationships, having to say goodbye to people. That’s what hurts the most. I didn’t care about the stuff. It was bummer, obviously, but for me, it was about relationship and at that point when she had come to me at that state, I had already started the whole God’s Got This movement where that whole #GodsGotThis part came about. A buddy of mine, he and I would travel back and forth to Duke together a lot. He was in need of a kidney transplant and he was one of my best friends. We started a Facebook group called Two Sick Guys and A Camera. We would go to Duke every week. We would do videos and shoot every week to share our story and our journey.

During that period of time, one day on our way home, he shared with me a story about a guy who made a bracelet that said, “God’s got this,” on it and that term, “God’s got this” for some reason at that moment, it was a call from God for me. It’s that statement. I added the hashtag symbol to it because kids are hip with hashtags. I did the #GodsGotThis thing is where it took off for me and thousands of people started following my story and following the link, which of course, my book came out with the same title, #GodsGotThis.” Oddly enough, the funny thing is I own #GodsGotThis.” I bought the trademark right to it. I never thought I would buy a hashtag. That’s crazy.

It’s been phenomenal how God has been able to use those words to open doors for other people to share a hope that is ending. There’s a big difference between happiness and joy for example. You talk about emotions at that moment. Happiness is an emotion. If you look it up, you can find the word unhappy and happy. The difference for me is I have joy. In the dictionary, there’s no such word as unjoy. You can tell me my life is falling apart and I lose everything, which sucks. That doesn’t make me happy. However, I still have joy inside me. You can’t take joy. There’s no unjoy. The difference between happiness, the emotion and the gift that’s in me of joy is enough evidence that it has empowered me to be able to do what I do for other people to encourage them. I still have cancer. I’m still fighting every day.

It’s has been an amazing journey where I can help other folks with that, but there’s a big difference because people are always looking to be happy. Happiness is not where it’s at. It’s nothing. It’s a fleeting emotion. It’s good to have, but if you don’t have joy and understand the gift that’s inside of your joy, happiness and unhappiness are going to destroy you. Joy is where it was at for me. That’s one of the reasons that I’m able to share things with people, the hope that I give, the things that I do. People say, “You’re so positive.” It’s only because that gift that’s in me, that joy is able to work. It doesn’t always work because sometimes it sucks badly for me and I can be sucked into life and be a human, feel bad and have pity parties. Things like that occur in my life. I’m not Superman. It does happen. For the most part, it’s where I roll and that’s what it gets me out of bed mostly.

You’re one of the most vibrant energetic people that I’ve interviewed and then you made a statement that you still have cancer. You’re still fighting. You showing up even this fight what you’re currently going through, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to interview you. That is amazing. Has life taken on a different meaning for you?

It has. I have been a pastor for over 30 years and I never thought that would change. There were some things I wanted earlier in my life when I was younger. I’m a singer and song-writer. I had a recording deal back in the day. I thought maybe I would be a singer one day. God had different plans. He brought me home and I ended up being in pastoral ministry instead, which is fantastic. I’ve had a chance to lead people and sing to people and do things that go all over the world, but it’s done in a different way. It comes down to as a call aspect of things where we’re living into what God has called us to be. When I had this moment of my life, that whole 8-month thing, that’s when I said, “Matt, if you have to check the box on life and I’m checking out in eight months, do I feel like I have accomplished what I’m supposed to accomplish if I’m dead eight months from now?” That’s when I knew the answer was no.

There’s a book out that’s written Jim Collins called Good to Great. It talks about good being the enemy of great. For me, anybody that knows me knows me well. You can probably tell about my personality. I’m a guy that goes 110 miles an hour. I do a lot daily. I had taken a lot of work, a lot of things to get done, I do. It’s the way I’m wired. People always knew that I could do fifteen jobs. I have in my business, which is a fulltime job and my pastoring job, which is a fulltime job. My assistant one day at the music store stopped me and said, “I have a question for you.” I said, “Okay.” She says, “I just need to know how in the world do you get to do you?” I said, “What do you mean?” She says, “I have no idea how you accomplish the things that you do. You do stuff all over the place, all over the world, all of the community everywhere and I don’t know how you do it. How do you sleep? How do you manage these things?”

I realized that one of the things she was saying was that I had a life that wasn’t simple, memorable or reproducible. I was going so fast doing so much. I could be a good singer, a good song-writer, a good writer, a good pastor, a good leader, a good business owner, a good father, a good husband and be great at nothing. That’s when I decided that it was time to make a drastic move in my life. I felt that God had called me a different direction. I did have a phone call about that and I’ll tell you why I made that choice. I knew at that point that I had to resign from everything.

To resign from being a pastor, a church that I love, a church that I helped build from the ground up was a tough call. I got a phone call from a prominent writer who’s a famous New York Times bestseller, he writes for many other people. He called me up, offered himself to me, heard my story and said, “You need to write this book.” Let’s do it. When he did that, that was my sign to say, “This is it.” I stopped everything, I poured myself in that book and I wrote that book for about a year. During that period of time while writing the book is when I launched into the other areas I’m doing now with coaching, consulting, and a LinkedIn content creator. There are some things that happened as a result, but none of those things would’ve occurred had I still been doing all the other things that I was doing. You can’t do it. It’s impossible. Sometimes in life, you have to stop and reevaluate.

Is this the turning point where you became the purveyor of hope that you are?

People are always looking to be happy, but happiness is not where it's at. It's nothing but an emotion. Click To Tweet

That’s not what I became. That’s what I realized that’s who I was. I was looking for terms for myself. I love marketing, I’m a marketing and branding guy and I was trying to put words on myself. For a guy who had been highlighting and talking about Jesus all the time, one of the main difficulties for me doing this now and going to my life was shifting the gears and point the light on Matt Crump instead of Jesus Christ. It’s a big pill to swallow for me. I thought about the religious church community. It was tough for me to figure out how I could that. I was looking for words that effectively communicated who I am and what I’m trying to do. I will never abandon my faith. That’s my hope and goal. I’m human. I could screw up. I hope I don’t. In everything that I do, I’m hoping that my integrity, my life, my everything would point to who I do it for.

Of course, if you know me long enough you’re going to find out exactly who I do it for. I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ at all. Everything I do is around that, you’re going to find it all in my materials and things we’ll be talking about, you’ll get that. On the front side, I had to learn how to back off and be me because at the end of the day people didn’t really want my book. What they wanted was a hard pill to swallow. They wanted me. They want know how do you what you do. It was that secretary talking to me. I have to think, “I don’t know.” That’s how I had to start putting things together to figure how that’s possible.

That’s what I’m working on now and that’s what I share with people I do these things. How I had been through all the stuff I’ve been through in my life and be able to show people how they can do it too and get through it. I know all the things you shouldn’t do, that’s for sure. I got good at bad. I have all those things written down and along the way I’ve learned some pretty good things too. I have a thought that I think I can offer people, just like you. You’ve been through some incredible moments in your life that had you not been, you wouldn’t be able to share some of the things you share today. It came from your experience, same as me. That’s where I’m at with that.

What are some things that you would share that you discovered?

There’s more to life than just what we would do. Identity is a big thing for me. Understanding identity is vital specifically in the business world. I’m happy to be playing around a lot of LinkedIn lately. It’s been fun for me. I love the business world entrepreneurship. There’s a big issue with identity there and legacy. I’m passionate about those two things. That’s two of the letters in my coaching program that I use. One day, I was at my grill cooking outside and I knew that I was going to be launching a coaching program that I’m doing now, but I didn’t fully know what I wanted to do with it. What I was going to call it, none of that stuff.

God said, “You need to tell people how to flip the script on their lives.” I said, “Flip the script? What are you talking about?” He said, “It’s everything about your life.” It’s FLIP, faith, legacy, identity, and purpose. Flip the script on life. Faith, do you have faith? You believe in something bigger than yourself. You have a foundation that you think is going to work. You have faith in something. L is for legacy. Do you know what it is, do you know what it means? You got hit by a bus, God forbid today and you died. Does anything live past you tomorrow?

Identity, you’re telling me that who you are in your job, you’re a podcaster, you’re an athlete, and you’re a business person, a real estate person. Is that all there is to you? Because that’s much. For me, because I’m a follower of Christ, in the Bible, God says all kinds of things about his people. That’s my identity, that’s who I am. I love cars, guitars. I sing, I write. I got all kinds of stuff around me in my studio that I collect. I’ve got a beautiful car downstairs. You can take all that stuff away from me which would suck, but it wouldn’t ruin my identity because that’s not where my identity lies.

The last thing is the purpose. Faith, legacy, identity. When you get those three things taken care of and we launch into purpose, anything is possible at that point. That’s when I knew you could flip the script on life and you deal with those areas. I have an eight-week, seven-step system that we work on where we deal with those pillars, faith, legacy, identity and purpose. That’s where people learn how to flip the script in their lives. Through the things I’ve been able to do in my life, I apply those into what this program is to help people to achieve their number one goal. Whether it’s to be a millionaire, be an entrepreneur, to be healthy again, to be an athlete, to lose ten pounds, to quit smoking.

 

There are people out there who think that way. When you go through the program, you’re going to be able to apply all these principles in your life and then do it. You’re going to be able to flip the script in your life. To me, I thought that was one of the most important things that he has called me to do right now with the tool, obviously of my book as well. It’s still available. Three of the weeks of the FLIP program are three tools inside the book that people have to use. I implemented those three tools in God’s Got This into the FLIP. For all those folks that say, “I don’t want anything God stuff, I don’t want any Jesus stuff, and I don’t want to do that stuff.” People know me as the FLIP guy and not God’s Got This guy will be able to learn a little bit about God and do the FLIP too.

That is a beautiful branding in my opinion. It’s relatable. Are the steps in order as it’s portrayed, FLIP?

No. FLIP are the pillars, but there is an eight-week, seven-step system. Each module that we go through every week is geared around the premise of faith, legacy, identity and purpose. We will attack all those areas through the modules that we do every week as we’re digging into your faith, legacy, identity and purpose in your life and being able to find what that means for you, who you are or what you’re supposed to be doing. We rebrand and remarket you. It’s specific for people that are in the business world. We offer a lot of different things there as well. It’s awesome, but it’s going to give people the chance to own those things now to be able to firmly say, “Now I know who I am and what I’m supposed to do. There’s no doubt about it.”

We can’t get into all four of them on the show. What’s the most important one for someone who’s reading and maybe going through a traumatic experience in their life? What is the most important one you feel they should focus on?

They’re all equally important. I honestly would say faith as a Christian. I believe that identity is one of the most important ones in FLIP. If you are insecure or unaware of who you are, then none of the other stuff matters because you’re just wandering, you’re not who you are. You don’t know anything about yourself. When you understand the realness of what identity is that it’s what you do, it’s not the title that you own. When you understand what that means, I think that faith, legacy and purpose has a completely different look.

The whole reason I did it because of all the people I had been working with over the years, all of the things that I had been doing with folks, it is all accumulated into what I’m trying to accomplish now with the FLIP. All of those little things I have been doing with people from marriage counseling, drug and alcohol stuff or people in their businesses or advice, marketing, branding, all of those things that I’ve done, put them all in the big giant box, shake it around and dump it out. That’s why I said, “Let’s put these all together,” and that’s where the FLIP came from. Everything that I’ve been able to do, I could pour into this one program. Everything I’ve done is accumulated into what this program is all about.

What I’m trying to get at is, is this an area that most people struggle with? I wouldn’t want to wish stage 4 cancer on anyone or either being paralyzed from the neck down, but I understand that everyone has their proverbial stage 4 cancer. Not everyone has the ability to overcome and have that joy that you’re displaying in your life. What I’m trying to do is focus on a particular area that a person can start right now from reading this podcast. What is an area they can focus on based on your experience with your client you feel is one of the most common areas that need attention in the FLIP?

No doubt, you were created for something incredible. That’s a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. Some people don’t buy that. Some people don’t believe it. Some people have been beaten up so much that they can’t even see it. Some other people are freaking hungry for it but they don’t know how to get there. I think the point is that we were all made for greatness. We’re going to get scriptural here for a second. Jesus didn’t do much while he was here, just little dumb things like raising people from the dead and helping blind people. Nothing much. While he was here when he did those things, he said, “You’re going to do greater things.” What are you talking about greater things other than raising somebody from the dead? Are you serious, greater things? What greater things are we doing?

Sometimes in life, you just have to stop and reevaluate. Click To Tweet

I’m not going to be all be scriptural about it and talk about how you have to do things like Jesus. Greater things could be what you’re doing Rodney that you were told you would never walk again and here you are walking. You got out of a wheelchair. That’s no miracle. It’s a miracle when somebody says, “I don’t that I can live. I want to shoot my brains out because I can’t handle the pain that I’m in right now because I’ve got chronic pain and fatigue. I can’t handle all of the issues and the pressure that I have. I’m sick and tired of answering questions. I’d rather blow my brains out.” It’s being able to say I want to continue on through something. There’s a big difference.

The bottom line is you’re not alone. Everybody’s life sucks at certain points. The suck just sucks. There’s no way around it, but eventually on the other side of suck is freedom. If you’re willing to endure and you understand how to, you can get to that other side and find something incredible. I would never in a million years wish anybody to go through what I’m going through or what he’s going through. However, the one thing I can say is I’m thankful that I’ve been allowed to be a person to go through what I’ve gone through because I’ve learned more than I ever would’ve known before because of it. I’m thankful for it. Sorry, Christians folks. I’m thankful because God didn’t give me cancer in the first place. However, through it I’ve learned incredible things just like Rodney has with his life and he’s going to write books and be an influential person that he never would’ve had, who knows? You could’ve had a desk job, Rodney. Who knows what you can be doing right now.

The bottom line is there is something greater for you. Here’s a guy who’s in a wheelchair, got books and shows and stuff. Come on, I’m supposed to be dead, not alive. They gave me eight months to live. I went to Duke recently and my radiation and oncologist that has been there for over 40 years said, “You’re that guy.” “I’m that guy.” “I saw your stuff. I’m amazed you’re even alive. You shouldn’t be alive from what you have with that brain cancer.” Thanks a lot. I appreciate that. If you’re supposed to be dead like me or not even walking like Rodney, yet we do, you can do this. You can. There is hope. For me, that’s all about hope and that’s about the joy. There’s no difference between me and Rodney and you, none whatsoever. The thing is when you feel you’re alone, when nobody is there. Alone sucks, but you’re not alone. You could choose to be. You can choose to be alone or you could reach out for help and there’s plenty of it out there. That’s one of the things that I would love to do.

You say you’re grateful for your experience for where you are. Is that a choice? Talk to us about that because I’m with you. I feel that level of gratitude for going through what I fought through. When I look back over, it was hard. It’s tough and at some point, it’s still tough but yet I’m grateful. I know that’s a challenge for a lot of people. No one wants to go through anything and I’m not saying you should go around to look for, “I want cancer. Can somebody give me a glass of cancer so I can get that?” There’s something to be said about going through a thing and being grateful for where you are. It’s almost contradicting in itself.

I had to learn to be grateful. I had to learn gratefulness. I’m still learning how to be grateful. There are moments where I’m not. There are moments where I get angry. There are moments when I get pissed off where I’m at. You don’t see a lot of those inspirational videos of mine online, but I’ll be like, “Screw you all,” I don’t care about it. There are days I don’t even want to talk to anybody and I’m Mr. Extrovert. It’s a choice. The longer we do stuff, it’s a habit like your job. You go somewhere. Maybe you have a job. You’re a teenager and you got a job a tire plant and your job is to be on the line. One of the things you do on the line is you’re supposed to be a thread inspector or something. You never thought you’d do that at all, but then you have to do it for 30 years when you could be a thread inspector in your sleep after that.

It’s never something you grew up doing and liking or even though you would aspire to do, you learn how to do it. It became second nature. I believe that’s it’s possible for people to live with gratitude, gratefulness as a second nature through learning how to do it. There are circumstances and situations that will challenge your gratefulness, your gratitude. You can be challenged in gratitude with selfishness, self-seeking, complacency, depression, anger, bitterness. Those things will kill you faster than what I have. See to know the difference between them and be able to walk in that second nature of learning how to be grateful.

Which is challenging for people that we’re dealing with because that’s where it comes down to. It’s the Woe Is Me Syndrome that gets a lot of people.

You’ve been through those moments yourself. Folks that read your stuff a bunch know this. I don’t know anybody that doesn’t experience it. It’s a matter of what you do with it. We have a choice. I could die, honestly. I could go to bed tonight, stay there and I could probably be dead in a few weeks. I could probably quit taking my meds. I could stop trying, succumb to the fatigue and the pain in my life and let cancer spread and die. It could happen easily. I know I could do it that way, but it’s not going to happen. I got things to do. I got two beautiful kids and a wife that I love and a reason to be here. I’d never would’ve been on your show if I’m dead. This is good.

 

What’s the alternative? You described it well. The alternative is death. Let’s be real about it. It was death for me too. Even though for me it’s not being able to walk, but to give up would be to die. That’s what kept me going. It’s not going to beat me. My life isn’t over even though it felt like it was over. I had to find what was meaningful in my life, what gave me life, where did my joy lie and it tested that. I had to make some changes to be transparent here because I found a lot of joy in playing football, I found a lot of joy in the camaraderie with my teammates. I had to find other things that made me happy to find that joy. I started going towards them. There were other things that pulled me forward, made me want to get out of bed. One of those things was being able to do just what I’m doing right now and that makes a difference. Create a positive impact. I feel that you feel the same way where you are in your life, what you’re doing and why do you get out of bed in the morning.

Absolutely. I could make a choice not to, just like you. When I do, good things happen. The bad things can. You can be negative as you want. Negative things can happen. However, flip the script and you find that there are plenty of good things that can happen too. I’ll take a bunch of good over bad any day and they’re available, you just got to go for it.

I believe in being aware that there are good things. There’s a lot of good things that are going on in a lot of people’s lives. Consistently we have to be mindful that number one, it could be worse and number two, be grateful and thankful for the good. I teach a course called the Progress Process. One of the things that we talk about in there is recognizing the good, being thankful for the good things. This is simplistic. It’s one of those things that’s easy to do, but it’s also easy not to do. You have to realize what’s good. I call that harvesting the goodness in your life.

I’m admired by you because here you are. We started this conversation, you started telling your story about cancer and you didn’t go back to it with that woe is me type of attitude. You have been giving, contributing, and outlining the value that you’re attempting to bring to people. You’re showing high energy on the show and you have cancer. To me, you’re someone who recognizes the good in everything around you and you’re harnessing that. There is no better person in my mind that can model what it is that you teach. You’re modeling this right here on the show. I’m grateful to be in your presence.

Thank you for that. You said, “You got cancer.” The difference there is that I may have cancer, but cancer doesn’t have me. People look at my beard. They don’t know a lot of my story about this beard. I don’t talk about it. Everything is cool because it is. I have a cool beard. It’s awesome. You have to look at my website because this is a podcast. You can’t see it, but it’s pretty long, pretty bold, and pretty powerful. I always had a beard and mustache of some sort. My mother-in-law, she was battling cancer as well a few times. We lost her years ago and at that point, I knew cancer was coming back into my life. I said, “I’m going to do I’m going to quit cutting and shaving my beard.”

A lot of times people when they go into chemo, treatments and radiation, all stuff like that, the first thing that happens is they lose their hair. I said I’m going to grow this thing to the floor if it wants to go. I’m going to let it go as long it wants to go. When I get the report from the doc and they say, “Mr. Crump, you’re 100% clean. You’re good to go, no more cancer.” If I decide to cut beard, it’s my choice. Cancer can’t take it from me. As far as I’m concerned, cancer, watch this thing right here go to the floor. I will tie it up and put it up over my shoulder if I had to keep it growing long. You can’t have it. I’ll make the choice when it comes off. That’s one of the reasons why I have this beard.

I’m wondering if I’m ever going to see your beard in a little ponytail.

You have to look at some pictures from me back when I have my recording contract. I have long hair and a ponytail back then.

There's more to life than just what we do. Click To Tweet

That is Game Changer Mentality at its finest right there.

It’s the mindset. It has to be. You got to click the gear. You got to go somewhere with it. You can’t just put it in neutral. Sometimes you got to put it in drive. It’s one of the things I teach in the program, FLIP. I’m a car guy. I love to go to exhibitions and I love to watch people drift. Have you ever seen them in cars and the car slides? It looks so cool. The thing is it takes so much effort to learn how to do that. Here’s the deal, we were never called in life to be drifters. Were supposed to be people that are supposed to know to drive. You can’t drift from here to California. You got to put in D and go. At some point in another, you got to learn to drive. One of the things that we talk about is the difference between drifting and driving in life and it’s so important to learn the difference. Sometimes you got to go.

Some people feel they can’t drive if they have cancer, a spinal cord injury or if they’re divorced. Give us some advice on that.

Put it D and press the gas. That works. It’s called to go.

A lot of times, whenever we’re in those situations, we look for something profound.

We look for something to validate how we can’t do something. Do something. You can die if you want to, ball up, or do something. Put it drive and go. It’s simple as that. Here the thing, it’s so simple that it’s hard. Follow the line. Get somebody to help you with that. It’s much easier when you have somebody that you can have behind you. Some person that’s your companion, friend and coach and then it’s easier. When you go by yourself, it’s not so much.

How can people connect with you? If they wanted to have you as their cheerleader, someone who’s going through the process, who’s put it in drive when you had every reason to put in reverse. How can they connect with you?

I’m so famous. I’m on this thing called the World Wide Web. I don’t know if you ever heard it before. This thing, I’m on it now because I’m popular in this thing. You can type MattCrump.tv, I’m right there or you can go to GodsGotThis.love. The whole movement for our ministry in God’s Got This is at GodsGotThis.love. MattCrump.tv is more about me and things that I do with events and clinics, workshops, speaking, some of those types of things, the FLIP program. That’s going to be a little bit more about me, whereas the movement, God’s Got This you’ll find all of that. Plus all the resources that we offer folks many for free at GodsGotThis.love.

 

Awesome. You have a YouTube channel if I remember correctly.

I sure do. We got some fun stuff on there. I got some videos, some stuff that I do. Most of the things that I do now, I’ve been blessed to have some good groundwork here, but I’m on LinkedIn lately and I have become a content creator. I do daily content there. You’ll find daily videos from me on my LinkedIn channel. You’ll find something every day about life, about the FLIP stuff or business or anything. You’ll find that stuff every day. Unfortunately, I’m bad about taking those videos and putting them over to my YouTube channel. I’m working on it, but right now all of them are on LinkedIn. Many of them are on my YouTube channel. Many of the ones from past are there, plus my music is there. I got some songs there as well, all kinds of stuff on that YouTube channel. You can find that up. Of course, all of the links to my social media connections are all on those two sites, GodsGotThis.love and MattCrump.tv.

I want to say thank you for coming on the show. This has been a wonderful conversation. It’s awesome being in your presence. I feel that way about you when I see because I actually found you on LinkedIn and his personality is big, full of energy, and then when I started reading more about you, the story behind it solidifies that you’re a legend and who you are and what you stand for. It’s an honor to have you on the show. You are a certified game-changer.

I’m feeling good now. I made it.

Thank you for coming on the show. As we bring this thing to a close, any final words, maybe a game changer mentality or message you would like to leave with us?

I gave you a bunch of them, but again the last thing to remember is you are not alone. It feels like it sometimes, but you’re not, I promise you. There is a way through it whether you can talk to a guy like me or a guy like Rodney, or girls you can find somewhere. There is somebody out there that you can relate to whether you think you can or not. You might not be looking hard enough because I guarantee you there are plenty of people out there that can help you to find the greatness that you have been called to do. You may think, “I can’t do this, I can’t do that,” it doesn’t matter. You can do something and that’s something that you can do is what you’ve designed to do greatly. A guy like me is the guy that helps you to find out what that is and then you can do it greatly. Do what you do, put it in drive, put the pedal to the floor and get to it. Let’s FLIP the script on life and show people, “God’s Got This.” I don’t care if I got cancer. Watch me.

I love it. Flip the script. You heard it on the Game Changer Mentality podcast. Matt, thank you for coming to the show.

Thanks, Rodney. I appreciate brother, it’s been fun.

Absolutely. As always, if there’s anything that we can do to support you here at the Game Changer Mentality headquarters, please let us know.

Important Links: 

• Matt Crump
• #GodsGotThis
• Good to Great
• MattCrump.tv
• GodsGotThis.love
• YouTube – Matt’s YouTube channel
• LinkedIn – Matt’s LinkedIn page
• Is Life Knocking You Down? Read Rodney’s inspiring story – Get Up! I Can’t. I Will. I Did… Here’s How! https://rodneyflowers.com/get-up-book/
• Recognize Your Positive Potential – Essential Assertions by Rodney Flowers https://rodneyflowers.com/essential-assertions-book/
• Get Access to Rodney’s Daily Inspiration in your Inbox Today https://rodneyflowers.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=01f76a038256f77a6fbc93590&id=307d726734

About Matt Crump

Based in Fayetteville NC, Matt has been singing and speaking on stages, events, churches and businesses around the world for almost 30 years.

He found his true calling after giving his life to Christ while serving in the United States Army at his first duty station, the NTC (in the Mojave Desert) before leaving for the Berlin Brigade and the Gulf War.

Matt’s past was plagued with drugs, alcohol and morally depleting. Although he could share some wild stories, he’s learned he’ll never be a perfect example but hopes his journey can share how to be a living one.

Matt has been married to his wife and best friend Robin since 1989. They have two incredible children (just ask them), Mikayla and Gehrum. Together, they live as a family desperately chasing after the heart of Christ, not always getting it right and always inviting people along for the journey…because who wants an empty house?

Matt has been an entrepreneur as well as a pastor, counselor, business owner and coach for years. He has owned two businesses, both passions of his. One was in the automotive field and the other in music. A large local Auto-lube, Tunnel car wash and detail facility with corporate and local clients and a staff of about 30 people. He also owned a local music store that grew into one of the largest stores in his community and closed at the beginning of his stage iv cancer attack.

He has also served as a missionary in Youth For Christ, toured the world singing and speaking through his own non-profit organization called Servants and Witnesses. Matt was also a World Vision Touring Artist and worked with NSOUL records.

As a pastor, Matt has been on staff at several churches serving as a children’s pastor, youth pastor, worship leader, Sr. pastor, Executive Pastor and was most recently serving as Executive Pastor of Crossroads Church where he and his family still attend. Since 2015 and the battle of stage 4 cancer, Matt has had some time to reflect and hear God’s voice calling him to something new. He’s recently finished writing a book and it will soon be released.

Matt is touring the country and world sharing his passion and message of #GodsGotThis and sharing his system called THE FLIP through his published book #GodsGotThis available online at major book dealers everywhere, stages, businesses, coaching and more.

If you’d like more information about Matt or are interesting in scheduling him for an event, you can visit his scheduling page at his #GodsGotThis site by clicking here: https://www.godsgotthis.love/

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