Matthew Woodward
At the end of time, when I'm done teaching when I am when I am dead and gone, I don't want them talking about our trophies. I want them talking about the the love that we felt I want them talking about, you know that time we were laughing so hard that I was rolling around on the ground, barely able to breathe, because I feel safe enough to roll around on the ground in front of my students. And that it's going to be that feeling of love, as opposed to oh man, you remember that trophy? That trophy was so shiny and pretty. No one talks about that they talked about the connections, they talked about the moments they shared.

Jeff Ma
Hello, and welcome to love as business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We are here to talk about business. But we want to tackle topics that most business leaders shy away from, we believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I am your host, Jeff Ma. And as always, I love having these conversations with real people doing real things out in the real world. And so I'm excited for our guest today. His name is Matt Woodward. And he has been teaching music for over 20 years 22 I believe. And he's been teaching at MacArthur High School in San Antonio since 2007. And Matt, welcome to the show. First and foremost. Thanks, Jeff, I appreciate that. If you're not watching the video, which statistically, you might not be because our videos don't get a lot of views. But there are video components to this. Matt's got an incredible amount of is that sheet music is that what does that

Matthew Woodward
This is our music library. It's about 60 years old now. So like, if you look up that corner, that's probably from like the 70s. And then down in that corner, we're talking 2010s. But this is all the music that our our choirs have done over the last 60 years at this school.

Jeff Ma
Yeah, and you can tell the papers get wider as you go down. So Matt, full, fully upfront loaded up, you're not the typical guest to the show. You're not it's we haven't we haven't had a high school teacher definitely haven't had a choir music teacher. But I'm really excited about this conversation. Because, you know, Love is a Business Strategy, the word love comes first and really talking about really human things is we always have something to learn. I have a lot of those, you know, you know, office, you know, managers and those that corporate executive experience in this space or time, but I'm really excited to hear your story. And I know you have some things that you can share with the audience here today. So I'm really really

Matthew Woodward
excited. Absolutely, man, I got lots, I'm ready.

Jeff Ma
But let's start with the basics. I mean, obviously music is a big deal in your life. But can you tell me describe your passion if it's beyond just music and, and tell me how it came to be.

Matthew Woodward
Music is definitely a really big one. And it's a vehicle for the larger passion, which is connecting to people. You know, as a as a kid who stutters, it was always really tough to connect, because all the other kids could talk and could play games. And it was great. And then I would try to talk and they would immediately exclude me because I talked funny. So finding my way to be accepted was in choir where I could sing, and I was fluent. And I was pretty good. So I kept doing it. And I got really good. And then because I got really good, girls were suddenly attracted to me for the first time ever. I really liked that. And I just kept doing it because I really enjoyed the way that music helped me feel and connect. And it helped me reach other people in a way that I couldn't have other other wise. Teaching is also a passion in the same idea of I really wanted to share the things that I had learned with other people and to help them have their same like moments of connection in the same moments of love I had felt. So those are kind of the big two.

Jeff Ma
I love it a lot. And and you know, when I just recently went to a meeting at my kids Elementary School, and they're talking about emotional intelligence and learning, you know, through SEL, I don't know if you've heard that. Sel Oh, yeah, yes. Yeah. So I'm sitting there and I'm going, adults having figured this stuff out. I know. They're like they're like, talking about vulnerability. The bears are talking about all the stuff that we wrote about in the book. And I'm just like, yes, like it needs to start from, from a younger age, we need to be talking about kids about their emotions or feelings and making them whole individuals. And so yeah, like, go on, sorry, I'm talking about on you go,

Matthew Woodward
that needs to be more important in more classes and in more fields. And I think part of the issue with a lot of programs and a lot of education, currently is that it's results driven. And for for social, emotional, learning to take place, it has to be the day to day grind has to be the goal. The the road that you take every day with those kids is the goal, it can't just be teaching them to the test or for for for us, it's teaching them to the performance. You know, it can't be all about, let's get that great concert. And I don't care what it takes. No, you you absolutely should care what it takes to get that great performance out of your your kids. We were just talking. In fact, because I had told all of my students, I'm going to be on this business podcast talking about love. And they went, That's cool and random. I said, Yeah, it is. And I was asking them, like, what are the things that that you guys see, that we do in this program that don't occur in other programs. And the responses were, were really cool. Because none of this is arbitrary or accidental, it is absolutely intentional and on purpose. And it was things like, you know, the environment in this class, are is so welcoming, it's like an open door and a warm hug at your abuela house with like fresh tamales, on the stove. And it was they see that we respect them the students first and because we respected them and who they are, they in turn respect us. And it's not the other way around. It's not the old, you know, you show me respect, and I'll spare you. We give it first. They told me that they like how we treat them like people and human beings and individuals and not just students or the same type of, of, of kid that comes in every year. And we just typecast them, we don't do that. We see each individual kid we're vulnerable with our school. Students, my code director, and, and again, and I both work really hard to let these kids know who we are and what we have been through so that they feel empowered to come to us and tell us what they are going through also. And it really pays off. Because when things get tough when it's contest time, and when it's time to push, they know that we're pushing them with love and from a place of, of real caring, that isn't only Well, I want to get another trophy. I don't need another one man, I got plenty I want these kids to come out of here as great people that is way more important. And they know that because it's intentional love that we talked about. And again, makes makes these these these these kids do acts of love on our campus, it can be as simple as writing a note to a person that you you care about and just say hey, I hope you're having a great day. I love you know, it's easy, but it's it's intentional. You know it, it's it's gotten as big as we go and feed the homeless a couple of times a year. And not everybody can can go but it's open to whomever wants to come out and help out on that day. And Anna really brought in the intentional action. Before she was here we had a culture of love but it was less of an intentional one, she really brings out the action that needs to occur in in a continual culture of love.

Jeff Ma
I love that so much. And if you're listening and trying to draw the connections, I'll spell it out for you. You know, Matt, you work with high schoolers? Yeah, most of our and these are young adults, these are these are people making decisions in their lives going through stuff. And somewhere along the lines, in, you know, the corporate world or in the business world, we are taught something otherwise. And you know, as a, as a, as a teacher to the students, we also in the workplace, have leaders to their, to their team, to their, you know, the people who work, you know, for them, if you will. And that relationship to me is so, to me, at least is so clearly, you know, just comparable, like they are just the same concepts work. And in your example, the way the work, if we took where you what you're doing with these students and converted it to how corporate America handles it, you would be now we're here just to win the next singing competition. We're here just to get better at singing, I only want to hear your voice, I don't hear anything else, I just want to hear you sing those notes. I want you to go home and practice. And that's, that's, that's the equivalent of what we kind of do in the workplace. Right. And so nothing you've said so far has been about singing, everything you've said has been about acts of kindness and how we treat each other. And I love that I love that we can have those conversations. And I'll tell you, I saw you know YouTube video of your acapella group of those singing, and these kids look like they're just having so much fun. They're just they you can tell that they're doing something that they're really passionate about. But you know, with people that they they really care about. It's just it shows in the output of these types of things. So I just wanted to just commend you for, you know, building that kind of foundation with these kids. Because starting at that age is such an a, like, I'm really passionate about how you are able to like start that then. And I hope that you know, the hope is that it carries through into their adult lives.

Matthew Woodward
Yes, yeah, we, we are intentional about talking about love. And we are on on purpose. It's more important to us that they are good people than they are talented. And we tell them that at the beginning of of every year, we say as good as you are, you will absolutely not advance in this program, if you also aren't a kind person, if you also don't give back. So we talk about servant leaders ship and we've got student leaders that guide warm ups that guide classes. So we empower our students to run their own little programs and their own little shows. By telling them that you can go do this, and you can be that upperclassmen that was good to the underclassmen. And we used to have the ability to say Do you remember like that one or two upperclassmen that was not that good. And everybody would go, yeah, I remember that guy. They were terrible. But now we don't really have that example. Because it's been it's been, you know, 10 plus years of us, focusing on the people as opposed to the outcomes. And that's allowed all of our underclassmen to look up and see that the upperclassmen support them and cheer them on and consider them as equals. Earlier, you know, I was I was asking him some prep things for this podcast. And one of them told me that one of the upperclassmen had reached out and congratulated her on an audition, not really even knowing who this kid is, but this upperclassmen thought I need to support this underclassmen, it wasn't the thing I told them to go do. It's just they know that that's the culture, they know that they want to pass down the culture of supporting each other. And it's really, really, really important that that's bigger than winning anything that's bigger than being ready for the test or any of that because at the end of time, when I'm done teaching when I am when I am dead and gone. I don't want them talking about our trophies. I want them talking about the the love that we felt I want them talking about, you know that time we were laughing so hard that I was rolling around on the ground, barely able to breathe, because I feel safe enough to roll around on the ground in front of my students. And that it's going to be that feeling of love as opposed to oh man, you remember that trophy? That trophy was so shiny and pretty. No one talks about that. They talked about the connections they talked about the moments they shared The music is certainly a part of that. And because I am a music teacher, maybe I should talk a little about the music.

Jeff Ma
I want, specifically, again, connecting the dots to the audience here for this podcast, right? I really want people to understand that if you really kind of empathize with what we're hearing from, from Matt here, if you put yourselves in the shoes of these high schoolers, these music competitions, these performances are a really big deal. I mean, they are, they are, I just want the context. Because as adults, you might say, oh, kids, and singing competitions, whatever. But like, at this point in your life, there's nothing bigger going on, you really, really want to succeed. And what we're hearing is, you know, comparable to the big thing we got to do at work, the big, the big projects, the big deadlines, the big presentations, all these big things we're doing at work, it's the same and I love that, despite these big things going on, when the focus is on each other, and supporting each other and loving each other, you actually get to the outcome you have together in a better way. That's what

Matthew Woodward
I mean, I can tell you that, that our our contests are hundreds, if not 1000s of people that compete hundreds of different acapella groups compete against us. And years ago, when I went when we made the conscious decision to pick good people over talent, I was talking to a arranger and I was I flat out just said you know, we're we're going to cut all the the poop head, arrogant kids that that are dirtbags. And we're going to take the really good people, because that's the culture I want to get at. And he said, you sound good. And I said, I don't know yet, man, we're gonna find out. And we did, we did sound good. We it was, it was a rough road, I'm not gonna lie to you, there's some videos out there, you can dig up some, a couple of like, oh, man, those were some fun choices that they made. But we we have consistently ranked in the top 10 in the country. And I can tell you that there are groups with more talent, without question. But we, we are able to showcase our connection to each other. Because we spend so much time on and that connection is very attractive to other people, they see how much my kids love each other, and how they like to help and support each other. And that, in turn, allows us to perform at a higher level.

Jeff Ma
And it shows up in other ways, again, to draw the tangents into the into the workplace team is you, you end up you know, putting in extra effort for each other not because you have to but because you want to you end up putting in the work and time that really makes a difference, you end up making every moment count as opposed to just getting through the work. And and it creates that that environment where you really are there to make sure your your your your team doesn't fail not because you want to be a superstar. And that's another powerful thing that I'm hearing is you put a lot of good talent together and everyone's kind of fighting for the spotlight and trying to be whereas you bring you bring a good team with a good culture together and they're going to prop each other up into the spotlight. Yep. And and support the person who's in the spotlight. You know, so there's always got to be a soloist. Right, someone someone's got to sing the solo. Sure, yeah. But yeah, but the difference is, is it a team of people who are secretly fighting for that spot and secretly, you know, politics and you know, you know, upset with like, trying to get trying to like, sabotage each other so they can in that spot, or is it people going you know what, you know, Kelly should be the soloist for this song, because she would do the best job and making a sound great. That's absolutely it. Yeah. I love it. And well, thank

Matthew Woodward
you. I've got to say that there is no I in choir, and the kids always, always laugh. But I really believe that deeply. Like, you can't operate a choir as an individual person. You can't be the base that stands out like I was that guy. For sure. When I was, I was younger, I thought, I'm gonna prop everyone else up. I don't know how anybody tolerated me. I was so arrogant. And it took me a long time to get to where I could see that it really wasn't about me. It really was about the group of people. My wife is an absolutely amazing teacher. And she she's a reason that I feel like I'm able to express love with these, these kids because of how she teaches them, she, she taught at the school that feeds my program and her kids love her to death, they would take a bullet for her, because she focuses on the individual kid so intensely that they'll, they'll have entire days where they don't sing a note, they just talk about the music. They talk about the way that it makes each kid feel. And that's, that's really the root of this is taking that time to communicate with each kid. How are you today? How does this song impact you today. And she does a great job of that. She's, she's incredible. And I copy a lot of what she does in what I do. And that approach of tell me how you're doing that a lot of other teachers, maybe just don't do enough of they don't take enough time to back away from let's fix the addiction. Let's fix the technique and say, Okay, let's talk about the human human side of this program. That's, to me it, it's so much more important to do that. I think for me, it began with a really kind of cheesy song, but the climb by Miley Cyrus and my group back in 2011, that performed it. That's that song gave us the vulnerability to talk about our own individual climbs and our own individual problems. And so I think I don't know how it began. But it got to a point where we would take time, every day to talk about each other's climbs. And it was with no judgment. And it was with no correction of well, have you tried doing this? If you tried smiling? It was none of that. It was just, you know, I'm a person. I'm vulnerable right now. And I'm opening my problems up to you. And the reaction was no judgment just supportive that person, and that that was a pivotal point for us.

Jeff Ma
I'm honestly, just working through different motions right now and feeling on it. One of them is like jealousy, like, like, Where was this? Where was this in my high school? Seriously experience? Because that's just something that we kind of have to unlearn nowadays in order to get to, which is so much harder than just having it available to us when we're young. And wow, that's amazing. I hear that you make all your students sign an agreement. Yes. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Matthew Woodward
Sure. We have to Kaitlyn was my first co director. And we came up with a, like a conduct agreement, which was like their contract of how they should, should be. And it came out of a year where their egos got a little bit a little bit too big. And they began to do things that kind of you would think, parents, but then problems for us began to come up when their parents would say, oh, you can't go do this performance, because you screwed up. And I would go way way, but I need my tenor, he's lose real important. So we came up with this contract that Kaitlyn and I wrote out and it just like the short version of it, is that everyone will be committed, be punctual, show respect, provide constructive comments, be on task. Remember to be humble and grateful. And then my favorite line, demonstrate great conduct becoming a champion. So they had to make sure at all times that they were at the level that everyone expected them to be at. And it and it it started as you you you had to practice that you you you had to learn it. And really remember that you don't get to just go be the typical high school kid that goes to goes to parties, you have to say no, thanks. I'm not going. And I did tell them like you can say your choir director is going to yell at you to get out of those things if you need to. But we wanted them to realize that all of them together have to be a part of this and then they all sign In this at the same time, and they all agree to support each other in keeping up that that goal. That's one of them. That was the first one. The second one is more of like a social dynamic one. And we created this with Anna again. And actually, my favorite thing about it is that Anna, and I didn't really create it, the kids did. We were having issues with rumors and drama, and this girl was talking about this girl, and this guy was kissing this girl, and everybody was like, everybody was fighting about it. And at the end of the day, like that's a communication breakdown, like when people talk about their problems and are honest with each other, those kinds of things don't come up. So we sat him down, I think it was like a week, we took a week of classes to talk about this and to fix this. And we typed it all out. And it's a, it's a six layer, I'm sorry, seven layer thing. And it's layer one, if you have a problem with anybody else, you need to go talk to them about the the problem, it cannot be text, it's got to be verbally speaking. And the next one is if you can't go talk to that person, then you can come talk to us, the directors. The next one is you hear anybody else spreading rumors, or talking about anybody else in a negative way, shut it down, shut that discussion off, tell them come see us. And it continues from there in this way. It's very clear, like if you have a problem with another person and what they said or did, here's what you go do. And my group came up with it on their own. And they all agreed, like this is what we need to do, and how we should treat each other. And they all agreed signed it and it's been a part of our audition every year is is discussing that. And I will tell you, it works beautifully.

Jeff Ma
Now, as I say it works beautifully. Because when you can get a group of adults to do the same thing. It works as well. It's like yeah, it's like we forgot after like, we think we're too we're just too big for these. These like because you hear you hear these stories in their high schoolers and we're very easy to do you know, ought to be honest, it's easy to just miss that story, as you know, kids, and they need these kind of extra guardrails. But I can't tell you how many fully grown adults who've been in the workplace for 20-30 years. Just finally get together and make some working agreements finally get together and actually discuss how they want to resolve their issues and make and kind of sign on the line. And yeah, like, like, I can't help but contain kind of like, my kind of, I just love this conversation. Because, like, what I'm really connecting the dots in my head, I know where between high school, you know, where between childhood? And where we end up as adults? Do we lose a lot of this? Where do we kind of lose sight of kind of how how it can be? Because I would argue and if you can please validate for me that high schoolers? Yes, there's a lot of stuff going on. It's a very interesting time in life. But for the most part, it feels like they're still kind of trying to at least be or bring their whole self. You know, wherever they go. Yes, there's a lot of pressures of, of social things creeping in. But in that youth, we're still trying to figure all that out. So, you know, I feel like between then, and then adulthood, we create the second persona that we need to be for others, or to fit some sort of more than we get good at it. We get really, really good at it. And I liked that high schoolers aren't very good at it yet. Like there Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So like we're all doing, we're trying, but we suck at it. So we ended up having these opportunities to be ourselves in real in these spaces. Is that what you're seeing?

Matthew Woodward
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I see that something happens probably right around like the end of high school, beginning of college, and certainly as they are trying to get a job where they think they have to become something that someone else wants them to be as opposed to just being who they are. And that's there's some there's a double edged sword in that like if you want to join a really great company there. probably looking for a specific type of person. So you put on the suit and the tie and you try to be that person. But if you're not true to who you are at your core, then that company at some point, there's going to be a breakdown. And we we try to build up who these kids are organically, and tell them that they are beautiful, and they are amazing as they are. And a lot of our kids go on to be really successful because they have a strong sense of who they are right now. And it just grows from that point.

Jeff Ma
Yes, so much of the work I do. Is trying to figure out who these people like so much of the work is around introspection, so much of the work is around figuring out your self awareness. Because we've we've lost ourselves in the adult world and man I, I cannot like this makes me want to like I don't know, I'm working through some feelings right now.

Matthew Woodward
This is right on. That's what I do to people, I know are our acapella group is P F.C. And there's like this running comment about what it really means, like what is PFC and recently, it's been People Frequently Crying. Because we very often cried during class a lot like we bring tissues on days. And I will tell them, hey, don't wear eyeliner, because I'm going to break you tomorrow. And we are going to break down those walls and we're going to cry, and they know it. The freshmen don't. The newbies will come in and be like, are you really gonna make us cry? I go, Yes, I am. And we delve into the emotion of the music, the emotion of how things connect, but between us, and sure enough, everybody is crying, and they love it. And I think something occurs, where we feel like once we become adults, we've got to be tough, and we can't cry. And we can't feel and that's a load of garbage man. We got to keep feeling we got to keep crying. It's so cathartic. It's so healing to get those emotions out.

Jeff Ma
Yes. I mean, we it's in our it's in our society, right. We're saying, don't be a crybaby or saying yeah, toughen up, man. Yeah. And toxic masculinity.

Matthew Woodward
Well get off, rub some dirt on it, all of that

Jeff Ma
garbage. Man, I'm just, I wish we had more time. Because, to be honest, to be honest, I want to like I want to just be at high school right now. And like, go go to San Antonio. Come on, man. Come on your school. I want to experience this. It sounds incredible. But Matt, what an incredible conversation. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for sharing your story.

Matthew Woodward
Thank you, Jeff.

Jeff Ma
I appreciate this. Yeah, and I hope we get more chances to be in touch maybe you know, talk about more of this but I really hopeful for if you're listening. I really found a lot of impact and how this connects to the to the I'll be honest, coming to the episode wasn't sure. I wasn't sure sure if it would all connect, but it's never been clear to me. Yeah, this is this was a great. So again, thank you so much. This is a really good conversation. Thanks, man.

Matthew Woodward
Thank you, Jeff. I am so honored to be able to to share

Jeff Ma
awesome and and thank you to our listeners. As always, please do continue following and giving us your comments and your support. If you haven't checked out the book yet. Love as a Business Strategy available on Amazon. other online retailers and subscribe rate, tell your friends. I'm sure there'll be maybe a high school high school choir listening to this episode. Pretty sure they will. So shout out to the choir class at MacArthur High School. Yeah, you got a good one. You got a good teacher here. So awesome. With that, we'll see you guys all next week. Have a good one.