Starting Over: My Conversation With Matt Denny

Starting over is rarely part of the plan.

Entrepreneurs love talking about growth, momentum, scaling, bigger clients, bigger stages and bigger opportunities.

We don’t spend nearly as much time talking about what happens when everything suddenly stops.

That’s exactly why I invited my friend Matt Denny—better known to many as Mohawk Matt—back to the E-Heroes Podcast for episode 417, the episode that officially kicks off the ninth year of the show.

Matt has been on E-Heroes three times before.

When I first interviewed him on episode 107, he wasn’t even an entrepreneur yet. He was working in the government world, but I could see the entrepreneurial qualities in him.

By his later appearances, everything had changed.

Matt had built businesses, invested in companies, developed the Mohawk Matt brand, landed speaking opportunities, consulted with organizations and seemed to be everywhere.

He was riding high.

Then life pulled the emergency brake.

When The Roller Coaster Drops

Entrepreneurship is often compared to a roller coaster, and Matt described it perfectly.

One day you’re wondering whether anyone is going to pay you.

The next day you land the biggest contract you’ve ever had.

Then you’re climbing again.

Then falling.

Then climbing.

Sometimes the drop comes because of a bad decision.

Sometimes the marketplace changes.

And sometimes life simply decides that you’re getting off the ride whether you like it or not.

For Matt, that happened in the summer of 2025.

He woke up one morning struggling to breathe and initially thought he was having a heart attack.

He was eventually diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism.

What followed wasn’t a quick trip to the hospital followed by a few days of rest.

Matt spent months dealing with extremely low oxygen levels, hospital stays, specialists, medications and rehabilitation. For roughly six months, he relied heavily on supplemental oxygen.

Things most of us never think twice about became exhausting.

Standing up.

Loading the dishwasher.

Doing laundry.

Eating a sandwich.

Talking.

His business essentially stopped.

So did much of his income.

And the guy who had been traveling, speaking, consulting and constantly moving suddenly found himself going primarily between the couch, the bed and doctors’ appointments.

That’s a massive adjustment for anybody.

For an entrepreneur—and a former Marine accustomed to being in control—it was even harder.

When Your Business Depends On You

Matt’s experience illustrates something entrepreneurs don’t like thinking about:

What happens to the business when you can’t work?

Years ago, my father-in-law operated a successful roofing and carpentry business.

While working on a roof, he fell.

He actually drove himself to the hospital.

The doctors couldn’t believe it.

He had broken his back.

He spent an extended period recovering and had to lay off his employees. The business he’d spent years building essentially disappeared, and it took years for him to rebuild.

Eventually he became a solopreneur because he never wanted to experience the responsibility of laying off employees like that again.

I’ve thought about that lesson throughout my own entrepreneurial career.

I’ve worked through surgeries.

I’ve worked while sick.

I’ve worked through cracked ribs from coughing.

That’s what entrepreneurs tend to do.

We’re stubborn.

But there comes a point where determination can’t override biology.

Eventually the body gets a vote.

Matt learned that the hard way.

Butterflying

One of my favorite parts of our conversation came when Matt described what he’s been doing during his disappearance from the business world.

He called it:

Butterflying.

He had recently seen an image of a caterpillar in a cocoon with the words:

Caution: Butterflying Work In Progress.

That’s exactly how he began looking at his recovery.

His body needed time inside the cocoon.

His mind needed time inside the cocoon.

His confidence needed time inside the cocoon.

And eventually new wings started forming.

There’s an important lesson there.

Sometimes you voluntarily enter the cocoon.

You step away.

You rethink your business.

You take a vacation.

You change your environment.

You simplify your life.

Other times your body decides for you.

Matt put it beautifully during our conversation: sometimes you need to go into the cocoon on purpose before your body finally says, Nope. You’re going whether you want to or not.

You Don’t Start Again At Full Speed

Entrepreneurs are terrible at gradual recovery.

We want to go from zero back to 100 immediately.

Matt found a simple reminder sitting in his office—a small foam dagger.

It became symbolic.

Maybe he couldn’t carry the full sword yet.

But he could carry the dagger.

Maybe he couldn’t attack everything he used to do.

But he could do one thing.

Then another.

Then another.

That’s how you rebuild.

We always hear the cliché:

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

But sometimes you don’t understand the meaning until life forces you to live it.

The step you take tomorrow might be smaller than today’s step.

That’s okay.

It’s still a step.

The Mental Battle Is Often Harder

Matt’s physical recovery was difficult.

The mental recovery presented another challenge entirely.

When your work disappears, it’s easy to start rewriting your own story.

Maybe I failed.

Maybe everyone forgot about me.

Maybe my network disappeared.

Maybe I can’t do what I used to do.

Maybe nobody cares.

Those thoughts can become louder when you suddenly have far more time to think than you’re accustomed to having.

Matt admitted he struggled with those feelings.

Then he did something entrepreneurs frequently struggle to do.

He asked for help.

Not money.

Not clients.

Not a job.

Just help.

He created a post explaining that he was returning and sent it personally to hundreds of people in his network.

His request was simple:

Share it.

Comment.

Tag someone.

Send it to somebody who might benefit from knowing he’s back.

The response surprised him.

Hundreds of people engaged.

Conversations started.

Opportunities appeared.

Within days, Matt had nearly 20 conversations scheduled around consulting, speaking, employment and other possibilities.

His network hadn’t disappeared.

He simply needed to reactivate it.

Sometimes You Just Have To Ask

One of the most valuable skills an entrepreneur can develop is the ability to ask.

Ask for the introduction.

Ask for the meeting.

Ask for the sale.

Ask someone to share your message.

Ask for help.

Most people are terrified of hearing no.

But I’ve always looked at it differently.

What if they say yes?

A teenager might avoid asking someone to dance because he’s terrified she’ll say no.

But if he never asks, he has already guaranteed the outcome.

No.

Business works the same way.

If someone tells you it takes 49 no’s to reach the 50th yes, you’d probably race through the first 49.

The problem is that nobody tells us where the yes is hiding.

So we stop asking.

Matt didn’t.

He asked.

And people responded.

Your Network Doesn’t Disappear

There was another powerful realization during our conversation.

Matt worried that people had forgotten him during the year he was essentially gone.

But relationships don’t necessarily disappear simply because communication slows down.

Years ago Matt and I met through the community surrounding our late friend Steve Sims.

Eventually we met in person.

We’ve shared meals.

We’ve stayed connected.

We don’t talk every day.

We don’t need to.

When Matt was sick, I’d periodically send him a message.

Essentially:

You alive?

Matt jokingly told listeners they need an “asshole friend like Rob Anspach.”

I’ll take that as a compliment.

Because sometimes friendship is simply refusing to let someone disappear.

And there’s a lesson there for all of us.

If you’re doing well right now, look through your contacts.

Find somebody you haven’t heard from lately.

Send them a message.

Not because you need something.

Because maybe they do.

Your Story Might Save Someone Else

Matt has always shared the difficult parts of his life publicly.

Not because he’s looking for sympathy.

Because he understands that stories create impact.

Several years ago he recorded one of his motivational videos while waiting to undergo kidney stone surgery.

His philosophy has always been simple:

If something he’s experienced can help someone else get back into the fight, he’s going to share it.

Then something remarkable happened.

While working an event in Tampa, a stranger approached Matt.

The man recognized him as Mohawk Matt.

Matt didn’t know him.

The man explained that years earlier he had been considering taking his own life.

Something Matt had shared helped convince him not to.

Matt had no idea.

That’s the power of putting your experience into the world.

You never completely know who’s reading.

You never completely know who’s watching.

You never completely know who’s listening.

And you may never know what happens because of something you said years earlier.

Build A Safety Net Before You Need It

Our conversation eventually turned toward marketing.

When I became seriously ill during COVID in 2021, I learned something important.

My marketing needed to operate whether I was operating or not.

That’s why I started building marketing systems months ahead.

Content gets created.

Content gets scheduled.

Podcasts continue circulating.

Articles continue appearing.

Older content gets recycled.

Because here’s something entrepreneurs forget:

Most of your audience never saw the content the first time anyway.

I’ve had people reach out to me about E-Heroes episodes recorded years earlier as though they were brand new.

To them, they were.

Good content has a long shelf life.

Creating a content library and scheduling marketing in advance gives entrepreneurs something incredibly valuable:

continuity.

Your marketing shouldn’t completely disappear simply because you did.

That’s especially important for entrepreneurs because we’re usually excellent at maintaining our clients’ marketing while neglecting our own.

That’s backwards.

Your business needs oxygen too.

Learn. Build. Experience.

The conversation with Matt also reinforced something I’ve become increasingly passionate about.

Entrepreneurs frequently try to skip steps.

They want to build something before learning how it works.

Then they assume building it automatically gives them experience.

It doesn’t.

The order matters.

Learn.

Understand the fundamentals.

Build.

Apply what you’ve learned.

Experience.

Discover what actually happens when theory meets reality.

Then repeat the process.

Matt’s last year is another version of that cycle.

He learned things about himself he probably never wanted to learn.

He’s rebuilding.

And now he has an experience he can teach from.

That’s incredibly powerful.

Because the best teaching doesn’t come from theory.

It comes from scars.

The New Version Of Matt Denny

Matt isn’t trying to recreate exactly what existed before his health crisis.

That’s another mistake people make when starting over.

They attempt to rebuild the old version.

Sometimes the interruption gives you an opportunity to build something better.

Matt realized that although he became well known for marketing and branding, those aren’t necessarily the things he enjoys most.

What he loves is strategy.

Workshops.

Facilitation.

Helping organizations and entrepreneurs work through complicated problems.

So that’s where he’s heading.

Not backward.

Forward.

He’s continuing his work with Thrival Energy, exploring speaking and consulting opportunities and rebuilding the Mohawk Matt brand around the work he actually wants to do.

That’s what starting over should look like.

Starting Over Doesn’t Mean Starting From Zero

This may be the biggest takeaway from my conversation with Matt.

When everything stops, it feels like you’re back at zero.

You’re not.

You still have your experience.

You still have relationships.

You still have knowledge.

You still have your reputation.

You still have the lessons you’ve learned.

You still have the people you’ve helped.

Matt discovered that when hundreds of people responded to his request for support.

Starting over isn’t starting from zero.

You’re starting with everything you’ve learned from the last version of yourself.

And sometimes that makes the next version much stronger.

Matt spent the better part of a year inside the cocoon.

Now the wings are coming back.

He’s butterflying.

And I suspect we’re going to be seeing a lot more of Mohawk Matt again.

Matt Denny can be found across social media as Mohawk Matt Denny and through Denlyn.Group. His relaunched Mohawk Matt Denny website is also coming online as he returns to consulting, strategy, workshops, facilitation and speaking.

And if there’s one lesson worth remembering from this episode, it’s this:

You can fall. You can disappear for a while. You can even crawl into the cocoon.

Just don’t confuse being down with being done.