52 Cups of Coffee: 417 Edition - Cup 20/52 - Matt Morrow

Here's the weekly boilerplate intro if you've already read anything from past cups of coffee skip ahead to the cup of coffee below the name!

After hearing about the book 52 Cups of Coffee on a Podcast, I thought it sounded like a great opportunity to connect to people in my community. Initially, my plan was to just have coffee once a week with someone I know. I was thinking of friends, family members, or colleagues with whom I could spend some quality time. But the opportunity to engage with my community is always in the back of my mind. So I thought it might be interesting to ask the same set of questions to a diverse cast of influential and interesting people in the 417 area and share them here on my LinkedIn page. At the end of the year, who knows what we'll have... at the very least it's 52 interesting conversations. It's a loose plan. I don't have any real intentions and I think that's the beauty of it. Curiosity. Community. And a chance to learn a little bit from each person. A big thanks to the folks at Travellers House Coffee & Tea for being willing to provide a place to chat and several cups of coffee throughout the year!

**I don't like taking notes while having coffee and conversation so I've trusted Otter to do the transcribing. Any editing issues are my own. I'm not a professional. :) I've included a list of books we discuss throughout the conversation at the bottom.

Matt Morrow - 20/52

Matt is another example of a person who is exactly where they are supposed to be. His personality, passions, background, interests, etc... all intersect in such a way that it doesn't make sense for him to be doing anything else but representing Springfield through the Chamber of Commerce. He's also the kind of person that is a joy to have a conversation with because while you can tell he's a very sharp human being with a ton of background in his field, he's humble and present in the conversation. There is a kindness in his delivery that is consistent across every interaction I've ever had with him and this conversation is no different. As someone who loves this community, I felt happy to know that Matt is one of the loudest voices in championing what we have to offer here in this area. I grow a little more proud every week knowing the caliber of humans we have here. Matt takes that pride, harnesses it, and turns it into economic development! I had been looking forward to meeting with him and he didn't disappoint. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Rhett Roberson?

The first question, starting from the top, what is the CliffsNotes version of the story of you??

Matt Morrow?

I am 51 years old, and I was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. We moved to Bolivar, Missouri when I was young. I barely even remember it, so 2 to 3 years old. I grew up there. I'm a Bolivar Liberator. That's one of the most unique High School mascots that you probably find anywhere. Lots of Tigers and Bears and Lions and Falcons and maybe Chiefs, but not a lot of Liberators.

Rhett Roberson?

I don't think I've ever heard of another Liberators school mascot.?

Matt Morrow?

Yeah, so I'm a Bolivar Liberator. My dad was a teacher at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar and had moved into administration there by the time I became a college student. I was involved in a lot of things in high school; I played baseball,? student government and a lot of other things but my passion was in speech and debate. At the time, SBU had had one of, if not the top ranked programs in the country which was unusual for a very small school. I could go for free because my dad was an employee there so that's where I went. I met my wife, Rachel, there. We were on the debate team together and we won a couple of national championships as a team. And that was really exciting and fun and then had to go get honest work. Through college I worked at a radio station doing mostly news and sports broadcasting. Right out of college I managed a small market radio station. I was always really interested in politics, too, and I had the opportunity to go to work for John Ashcroft when he was our US Senator, with some help from Roy Blunt, who happened to be the president of Southwest Baptist University when I was there. I did that for about five years until we lost an election and then really had to get honest work. Then I found my passion professionally, and that's in Association Management & Leadership and particularly, now, Chamber of Commerce. For 14 years I managed professional associations of homebuilders. That's business advocacy for those who are in residential construction; builders, remodelers, subcontractors, suppliers here in Springfield. Then we moved away to Birmingham, Alabama and I did the same thing there. My wife, two kids, and I moved there and then we moved back when my predecessor, Jim Anderson, retired. There was a national search for his successor. That's now been almost 10 years ago. Rachel and I have two kids; my daughter Annie is a sophomore at the University of Arkansas. She's a Glendale graduate, she was valedictorian of her class. My son Alex is a junior at Glendale right now and just got back from DECA internationals. He's really involved in DECA and FBLA and loves business. It's a fun time in our life and we're making that transition where our kids are moving to that next step. We're really active and involved in Second Baptist Church here in Springfield. I'm a deacon there and my wife and I teach a small group Bible class, as well. That's probably it in a nutshell and there are other things that are even more boring than that about me.?

Rhett Roberson?

(laughs) I confessed to you prior to starting the recording that I was a Parkview student. I did the DECA program over there while I was at Parkview. So, I did the Anaheim trip to international competition.?

Matt Morrow?

This is his first time doing that and it impacted him. He just got back on Wednesday of this week. Glendale had, I don't know if you had this, this was just kind of a gift to him, but they had 10 or 11 of their of their students from Glendale all qualified to go which means they got to go and have fun with a bunch of their friends for a week, which was just great. It was a lot of fun. He had a great experience.?

Rhett Roberson?

I saw that they had just gotten back because Parkview DECA posted some pictures. That's a fun time, I have a lot of good memories.?

Matt Morrow?

It's pretty special. You've experienced this, I talked to my son about this a little bit, too, just being able to do something that you put everything you have into and then to see that work rewarded. To know that you're doing something of excellence. That can happen in so many different ways. But that is a defining thing in the life of a person.?

Rhett Roberson?

What did you do for Ashcroft??

Matt Morrow?

I was one of his press secretaries, his in-state press secretary, and District Office Director for Southwest Missouri. I did live and work in Washington DC for a little while working in our communication department. That was in the late 90s. My wife and I were dating at the time and became engaged while I was out there and so it worked out, thankfully, that I could come back and work out of our office here in Springfield while we got ready to get married, that was in 1997. But it was a really great experience. It's incredible, incredible preparation for all kinds of things to be able to work in the US Senate. And just saying that sounds much more glamorous than anything I ever did. (Laughs) It's really good experience, you get to be exposed to a lot of things that are, if nothing else, that teaches you that there's a lot more to everything than meets the eye or is on the surface. We all see what we see in terms of politics and government and there's just a lot going on below the surface that sometimes actually makes you feel better about it than you would just by trying to follow along like most of us do. But, either way, it's just a good lesson.?

Rhett Roberson?

That was absolutely my experience. I did a call on Washington with the American Trucking Associations. Getting to go meet with Senators and Representatives and to see, for lack of a better term, to see how the sausage is made. It left me feeling encouraged at a time when, to be really honest, I've been pretty discouraged by political discourse in the country. To see that there's a lot more going on than the talking points.?

Matt Morrow?

It's very easy to get discouraged. I do sometimes, myself, right now and we're actively involved with the Chamber of Commerce and advocating all the time at the federal and especially at the state level. If you get close enough to it to where you actually get to ask a few questions like you're doing today, and mine that a little bit, what you find is that there's lots of disagreement, and some people don't like each other very much and that comes through on TV or wherever else. But the reality is, for the overwhelming majority, these people are there because somewhere along the way they wanted to do something good. They wanted to help their state. They wanted to make their community or their nation a better place. They wanted to contribute and sacrifice for that. They may not all agree on how to do it and sometimes, for all of us, personalities can get in the way but if you work with them, you do start to recognize and realize that there is something there that, whatever you agree or disagree on, is authentic, it's real. Everybody who's there has sacrificed to do it and they're doing it because they believe there's something bigger than themselves that matters. And, again, that doesn't always come through in the political climate, right now.

Rhett Roberson?

What brings you joy??

Matt Morrow?

My family brings me great joy. The greatest joy that I have, and it permeates everything that I get the privilege of doing, is what I find in my faith. My Lord has been extremely good to me through good times and challenging times. I'm a cancer survivor and there are some things that were pretty scary during some of that time. But He's just blessed richly through trials, tribulations, and seasons of blessing, as well. But in every case, there's just tremendous joy that can be found. In the book of Philippians, you read that joy is not a product of our circumstances or the people around us or the things that we have in our lives or don't. True joy is independent of those things. That's, for me, what I find. Yes, of course, I love to experience that in various forms. I love going to Cardinals games, I love getting out on the river and kayaking, especially with my kids and my wife. Those are all byproducts of joy and multipliers of it. But, for me, that's what that looks like.?

Rhett Roberson?

I see you everywhere, which is the nature of the job. If I go to the Chamber, the chance that you'll actually be at the Chamber...?

Matt Morrow?

I was going to say, that's the one place you might not see me is at the office. (Laughs)?

Rhett Roberson?

(Laughs) So, I know you're a busy man, constantly on the move. I'm sure that, eventually, as we all experience, it starts to wear on us a little bit. What do you do when you need to recharge??

Matt Morrow?

I like to get out on the river, or I like to go to a baseball game, those are the things I really enjoy. Now, this is more rare, but when we can, I love to be able to spend some time on the beach somewhere. My wife, kids, and I all enjoy doing that; those are good times. I try to recharge every day with just some quiet time alone in the Bible and with the Lord. That's the daily fuel that is needed for me. There are some happy places and many of them are really nearby. I have a kayak trailer that I built, and it's set up so that you can take it apart and fold it up for the winter. But about half of the winters I never take it down because I'm just ready to go as soon as we get a good day to go out. We have a lot of good opportunities for that around here.?

Rhett Roberson?

What's your favorite drop-in point for the kayaks?

Matt Morrow?

The easiest one for me is Creighton's Access on James River because it's five minutes from my house and we can do that easily and do it a lot. It's probably not my favorite one even on James River. A lot of times we'll do Hooten Town or something like that. But I also really love getting to the Current River, to the Eleven Point, which is a faster flow which is a lot of fun. If my son and I want to fish, we'll sometimes go to the Elk River down around Pineville. It's a less scenic float but the small mouth really bite there so that's fun, too, and he loves to fish.?

Rhett Roberson?

You're serious about it, you were able to name six different, real spots right off the top of your head!?

Matt Morrow?

We have a lot of great opportunities here. Some of the great things about the Ozarks, as you know, you've grown up here, the natural beauty and the places that are available to experience. Even if you don't want to get on the river, a lot of people don't realize, you can get on Fellows Lake which is owned by City Utilities as part of our water supply. It is absolutely beautiful and it's just to the north of town. It's easy to get there and get on, I almost said it's free, but I think you have to pay $5 for a tag for your kayak for the whole season and you can get off and on as much as you want. You can fish there, if you want to do that. You can't swim in it, that part is different, but it's a beautiful way to get out. Especially, for beginners, I would really recommend that because you're out on the lake. There's no current, there's almost no way to get in trouble out there and it's just a peaceful, gorgeous place.?

Rhett Roberson?

I do feel like that is one of the most underrated places in the area. I'll just drive out there and read a book sometimes.?

Matt Morrow?

It's just gorgeous and I think you're right. I think it's one of our best kept secrets in some ways.?

Rhett Roberson?

How would your colleagues describe you?

Matt Morrow?

The people who I get the privilege of working with every day, I hope, would describe me as someone who is passionate and authentic about the work that we do together and about the people that we do it with. That does not mean that I don't stub my toe daily in various ways, but I hope they would describe me that way. I hope they would describe me as someone who's humble. Humble enough to listen to counsel when it's needed. But I don't think a lot about how others would describe me, hopefully they would describe me in the way that I treat them, and I hope that I'm always treating them honorably.?

Rhett Roberson?

Based on what I know about you and the interactions we've had, I can't imagine anyone thinking any other way.?

Matt Morrow

Let me say this, it is one of the great privileges of my life to get to work with the people I get to work with. We talked earlier about joy, that brings me joy, too. I took this job almost 10 years ago and there were a few things that I felt like I knew about it, but a lot of things that I knew I had to learn. But a couple of things that I was familiar with enough to know that it was attractive to me were that I had served on the board of directors here at the Chamber before moving away. At that time just knew that we have this incredible ecosystem of business leaders in our community and community leaders who are overwhelmingly committed to the greater good. That's just not the case everywhere. I've lived in other places and it's not a knock against anyone else but the rule, here, not the exception, the rule here is that people who don't have to sacrifice for the good of their community do it anyway. And they do it by putting the interests of the community ahead of self-interest, ahead of even the interests of their own business, recognizing, I believe, that that investment does benefit themselves and their business. So, it's not a foolish investment in terms of self-interest but it is a prioritized decision. That was one. The other was, and I've had the chance through some of our interactions with the Chamber when I was with Homebuilders Association here, and I had the opportunity to work with several members of the team, as well. Not all of them but several members of the team. And I just remember being incredibly impressed by their professionalism, by their work ethic, by their by their integrity and thinking what little slice of that I got to see I'd love to wake up every day and get to work with people like this. And every single day since then that has only been reinforced. Some of the people are different today than they were then but that has remained constant and it's a great privilege.?

Rhett Roberson?

It's a great team at the Chamber and the board is great. It's an awesome organization. Do you want an interesting piece of trivia that I didn't think about until you said Homebuilders Association? You know the jingle, the 'Homebuilders Association,' when it was revamped, Sibley did it, I sang it.?

Matt Morrow?

Did you really? When was that? How long ago?

Rhett Roberson?

Oh, gosh, it's been years now. (Singing) 'Building better tomorrows' (Laughs)

Matt Morrow?

Yeah! I didn't have anything to do with it other than to say, "yes." But when I was there was when we started doing that; marketing and advertising and put together that jingle. That's really funny.?

Rhett Roberson?

I don't know what the deal was, we didn't change anything. It was the same thing, just updated.?

Matt Morrow?

New vocals, probably a refresh? So, I was there from 2001 to 2012. Early in that time we did it and then I think before I got out of there was at least one refresh. Around 2009/10/11,? somewhere in there.?

Rhett Roberson?

That was the time I was recording over there.

Matt Morrow?

Well, isn't that funny? That's hilarious. Well, you did a great job. Hey, couldn't have been more pleased.?

Rhett Roberson?

Thank you so much. (Laughs) You talked about the people that you do the work with. For everyone that doesn't exactly understand the nature of your position, me being one of those, to some degree, can you describe the work that you do??

Matt Morrow?

The shorthand I use for it is that everything we do as a Chamber of Commerce is designed to help create jobs, expand economic opportunity for everybody who lives here, and grow the economy. That's a shorthand for a lot of day-to-day work. For us that mostly sorts into about four strategic areas of focus. We're business advocates, first and foremost. So, we do a lot of work in the public policy arena to try to help bring about those kinds of investments in our community and those kinds of policies that help businesses flourish and, as a result, people thrive. That can happen at the local level and city council and regional partnerships. It happens a lot at the state level in the legislature this time of year. We have a member of our team in the Capitol every single week of the session working through that and a lot of volunteers who are involved, as well, in carrying that message. Volunteers build out our legislative agenda so it's all member-driven, all member-based. We have about 1,550 member companies of the Chamber of Commerce. They choose to invest in and be a part of that and we're honored by that. We always take that very seriously and try to listen well to make sure that our board knows what the will of that collective group is in terms of advancing those policies. We have a lot of process to help support that advocacy work. I tell our team, if you know you're doing something that not everybody's going to agree with the outcome, you better really have a bulletproof process. So, that's what we try to lean heavily on when it comes to that work. There's economic development, which is the work that we do to help attract new business to the area or help existing businesses, companies that could do the work they do here anywhere, to grow deep roots and expand here in this market. A lot of times that's in the form of a large global or national company with multiple sites that could, and sometimes have in the past, we've had those companies pick up and move out. But what we want is to try to get the investments happening here so when there's a plant expansion that happens somewhere that we are able to compete for that. Good examples of that are Kraft, 3M, John Deere, those kind of companies, but really 75% of the jobs that will be created here over the next 10 years be created by companies that are already here today. So, a lot of the work is what we call business retention expansion. In economic development, part of the function is getting, just like we are right now, across the table from plant managers, from general managers, from CEOs of companies that could be doing what they're doing here in other places. Learning from them and aggregating that feedback, confidential conversations, but the aggregated feedback is something that we use to help guide our work. We're in a strategic planning process right now, part of that will be to identify targeted industries that make the most sense for us to be highly competitive, for helping to attract. That's really exciting and fun work in the economic development space. The third of the of the four areas of focus is very closely related to that and it's workforce development. We picked that up as another area of focus about nine or ten years ago because it's the number one question we have to answer for any company if we're going to get them to invest and expand in our market. We have some advantages as a region in the sense that our population is growing, we have good partnerships with higher education, community college training, a lot of really good assets that are collaborative in nature that give us some good advantages in terms of answering that question. But we have to build the right programs and build the right connections to take advantage of those benefits. Then, finally, and this is the bread and butter for any Chamber of Commerce or any membership organization, and it's about helping our existing members grow their business. Our lifeblood is membership, we need members to have a high level of confidence in the work that we're doing to invest their dollars and their time. And in the course of doing that we work to provide a lot of programming that highlights their work, highlights their successes, and helps provide educational resources for business owners and operators. 85% of our members are small businesses. We had our Small Business Award lunch earlier this week, you were there, and that's just one of a lot of different examples of how we try to highlight and bring resources to the table for those companies so that they can grow here, as well.?

Rhett Roberson?

How did you get into this? How do you become the President of the Chamber of Commerce??

Matt Morrow?

I don't know how most people do it, but I don't mind telling you how it happened for me. I told you I was in broadcasting and politics and thought that was my path. Through a series of events that were completely out of my control, I ended up needing a different path.?

Rhett Roberson?

Did you think you were going into politics??

Matt Morrow?

I did.?

Rhett Roberson?

Are you going to run for office??

Matt Morrow?

I am not but I thought then that I was. That's a good example, in fact, I want to be respectful to your time.?

Rhett Roberson?

I've got all the time you need.?

Matt Morrow?

Probably like a lot of people, “I'm my favorite subject!”?

Rhett Roberson

(Laughs)?

Matt Morrow

Rachel and I thought that's what we were going to do. I was working for Ashcroft at the time, I knew at some point I needed to not be doing that, but I wasn't ready to run yet. This opportunity with the Homebuilders Association came along, they wanted to get more active in the political scene. They wanted to advocate effectively for policies that would help us build more houses and sell them. They gave me an opportunity I did not deserve and was not ready for, but they were very gracious to me. I was 28 years old, and they hired me to be the Executive Director of the Homebuilders Association with some goals. At the time, said, 'listen, we know you probably have in mind to run for office at some point.' And I did, and they said, 'we'd like you to commit to at least two years here so we can get a political action committee up and running, start some advocacy work and then you can hand it off to somebody else when you need to.' So, I commit to doing that and, in the course of that, I just really fell in love with the work. I loved the work, I loved working with those guys. I loved being able to see what they do every single day and how it impacts the world around them. The risk and the challenges that they take on, I don't think there's a more pure form of entrepreneurship in the world than building houses. They borrow money to buy the supplies and pay the contractors to build a product that, at the end, they don't have a buyer for until they do on very little margin and if they hold that house very long at all, they can be upside down. And then they just do the whole thing over again with the next house. I was inspired by it. The other thing that happened during that same period of time involved my family. My wife Rachel grew up in a single parent home. Her dad left when she was very young, and we were talking about having kids and looking forward to someday doing that. We talked about maybe running for the legislature and she said 'I'm completely supportive of that if that's where the Lord's calling us. But,' she said, 'I think it probably means that we don't have kids, at least not anytime soon. Because I was a part of a single parent home, and I don’t want to be a single parent home. I want us to be able to do this together.' And that kicked me right in the gut because I had always envisioned we would have a family and I also believed I was being called to this particular form of public service, which is elected office. And so, I just prayed. I prayed that if this thing that I thought I was being called to, if this is not you, Lord, or if this is me instead, I need you to break this desire I have because I don't think I can fight this desire. I will just say that he did it, he did that. I don't have any desire at all to run for office. Professionally, he replaced it and by teaching me that you can have a tremendous impact in public service in a lot of different ways. And that's how I ended up in it. The path, the avenue for me turned out to be that I found a knack for managing associations, for working with boards, for advocating for business and then a couple of other areas and then the opportunity came to come here, back home and we're really incredibly thankful for it. I love doing it, I've been doing it for about 10 years.?

Rhett Roberson?

And the 417 area code is better for it!

Matt Morrow?

That's very kind of you to say. I hope so, I hope it is. That should be a goal for all of us.?

Rhett Roberson?

Who is the best boss or leader you've had the opportunity to work with and what made them so good??

Matt Morrow?

One of the great privileges I have is to be able to work with some tremendous leaders in this role. One of the drawbacks of the way that my career path and trajectory has gone is that I haven't very often had a supervisor in the workplace. Only, really, during the time of Ashcroft did I ever have that. So, I missed that because there are mentoring opportunities that come along with it. For me, what that has meant is I've had to seek those out more intentionally and in often cases separate from the workplace. Several really good ones, you've interviewed some of them. I have the benefit of the last 23 years of having boards of directors that I report to. Over the course of that time, there are so many people I have had a chance to meet with. I'll mention a couple from the Homebuilders days and some now, too. I will say John Ashcroft was a really great mentor. If you agree or disagree with his politics, the man operated with integrity every minute of the day. When we lost that election in 2000, and it was a difficult election to lose. I don't know if you remember, if you're familiar with it, but our opponent was the sitting Governor of the state of Missouri at the time and he was killed in a plane crash three weeks before the election, tragically. One of the oddest series in American politics played out over the course of the next three weeks. And you talk about a kick in the gut. We felt like we were in a good place to try to win and then lost to someone who is not alive anymore. That's tough. It was tough on everybody and the way he handled that in the aftermath, we were taking a lot of incoming correspondence from supporters who said I think you have legal grounds to challenge this for all kinds of reasons. You don't have to take this lying down. And his attitude, his mindset, again at the time having no idea whether there was a future for himself at all, was to say, 'if we say that we have faith in direction from the Lord on anything that we're doing, but we only have that faith when it turns out the way we wanted it to or what we agree with and that's not faith, that's something else. It's just self-reliance or whatever. This is a test of whether we are authentic in our belief and our faith that there is something greater than ourselves going on here and we can trust in that.’ And that was only one of several, but a huge impact on me at a very early age. I've gotten to work with people like Brett Godfrey and Sam Bradley and others who are homebuilders. Names you may or may not know, but who are just tremendous leaders and have mentored me in a big, big way. Then in the role that we're in now, you've met some of these folks, but Mayor McClure, Clifton M. Smart at Missouri State University, and Brian Hammons , who's my chairman of the board right now, tremendous wisdom and selflessness that I try to learn from all the time. I think that's probably been the biggest key to not having a direct supervisor in the workplace very often. To recognize that if I ever reach a point where I feel like I've got this then that's probably when you need to hang it up because it's not true. That'll never be the case. So, if I think it's the case, then I'm probably not equipped very well for what's ahead of me.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yes, I absolutely see that. Turning that direction the other way, instead of what's ahead of you, looking backwards, as a child, what did you want to be when you grew up??

Matt Morrow?

Oh, I wanted to play for the Cardinals. (Laughs) For the St. Louis Cardinals, I wanted to play second base. I wanted to hit second in the order. That didn't last very long because I did not have those skills, but I love the game. I still love the game and so much so that when it became evident to me that I was not going to have the skills to come anywhere close to doing that, I was just lucky to make my high school baseball team, and when that became evident I thought, well, you know what, I do seem to have an affinity for public speaking and for some of the debate events and things like that. What if I could call baseball games? Maybe I could be Jack Buck or Mike Shannon and be able to call games on the radio. So, that's how I got into radio broadcasting. It's still one of the most fun times that I've really ever had working. You have to be very good at that and get a lot of luck, also. You have to be much better than I ever was at it to be able to do that professionally and make a good living at it. But it sure was fun. When I was in small market radio, the whole name of the game was to make the broadcast sound bigger than it really is. You have the imagination, the theater of the mind, to create it and so we would do all kinds of stuff in small market radio to accomplish that and, particularly in sports, we would call high school football games. I'd be up in the booth, and I had an unpaid intern who was the same age I was because you don't have any money and so he was a sideline reporter. His job was to go down by the sideline with a tape recorder and, if a kid scored a touchdown or did something big, find that kid on the sideline and interview the kid on tape. He had to open it by saying "thanks, Matt, I'm here with..." and then close saying "Back to you, Matt." And then he would bring the tape up to the booth, through the stands, fans everywhere all around him. He'd give me the tape, I'd put the tape in the boombox and then I physically take the microphone from my mouth and say "We're going to go live on the field, now" and then I just push it over the speaker and hit play. So, you do stuff like that all the time and it was a really fun time. That's more than you asked.?

Rhett Roberson?

But that’s the good stuff! We're getting to see behind the curtain there a little bit. (Laughs)?

Matt Morrow?

The magic! (Laughs) That game has changed a lot in the time since I left it, for the better, I'm sure.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yeah, technology has made it a little easier to jump sideline to booth.?

Matt Morrow?

Not only that, when I was doing that was at the time where even cellular phone technology was starting to penetrate a little bit. In the five years or so that I was doing sportscasting, we would call a local towns phone company a week ahead of time and ask them to install a phone line in the booth of their football field. Which they did about every week for some radio station and then uninstalled it. You'd pay a phone bill, one week's phone bill and one long distance call. We had some machinery that you could hook up through a phone line and you had somebody running a (sound)board back to the station and you were basically doing a game over a phone line. Then that shifted to doing the same thing over a bag phone which was much more convenient. Very expensive at the time, but much more convenient. And now what you're doing. This is the way, it's easy.?

Rhett Roberson?

What book has had the most significant impact on your life? Now I will say, we use the Bible caveat. It’s a valid answer, but you have to follow up!?

Matt Morrow?

There's no close second for me. I do like to read, and I do find value in a lot of those. I love business books, communication books. I also really love reading history. This year, I've read a couple of books that have been really good, 'Radical Candor'. The other is a book called 'The Advantage' by Patrick Lencioni. 'Radical Candor' is about being able to have honest and direct and productive conversations in the workplace, in particular, or outside the workplace. 'The Advantage' is about building highly effective leadership teams and then using those teams to help shape the best possible workplace culture. Those are both really good books. I think people are familiar with them, probably, for the most part. A couple of old favorites of mine, there's a book called 'The Wisdom of Crowds' by James Surowiecki, which I really love, and most people haven't heard of. There's another one called 'The Vanishing Neighbor' which is a good book about how we have shifted culturally about some of the social capital that we build among people and how we use that effectively for others. Another one of my favorites is a book called 'The Time to Build', it's by Yuval Levin. That's a book that's about the trend in declining confidence in institutions in our culture, in our country, and what he says contributes to that and what kinds of things can be done to help restore confidence in those institutions. I think there's a lot of wisdom in that, too. There are some institutions that still enjoy a high level of confidence but the ones that have seen that decline have some things in common. There are some really good lessons in there for people like me who do the kind of work that I do. We work with so many key organizations in our community and none of those, especially in Springfield, where you live in a place where so much of what we do is collaborative in nature. Our best stories are stories of partnership. But we're really only able to do that if people have a high level of confidence in those institutions, those organizations are working together. So, it's pretty important topic. I mentioned history books, one of my favorite of all time, they just made it into a series on Apple TV+, it's called Man Hunt. It's a book about the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Great book. Great, great book.?

Rhett Roberson?

I'm going to have an impossible list of books.?

Matt Morrow?

I'm sorry, you got me going!?

Rhett Roberson?

Oh, I'm grateful for it. But this 52 Cups is going to line me out for books to read for the rest of my life!?

Matt Morrow?

Even if we all only gave you one! Probably, everybody's like me where they say five or six that they really like. Oh, great, now I have 400 books to read! (Laughs) I think C.S. Lewis said that the measure of the value of a person's library is not the books in the library that they've read, but the books in the library that they are still looking forward to reading. That's the measure of success.?

Rhett Roberson?

That's a good problem. By that measure, I'm doing well.?

Matt Morrow?

He said that's when you really get a sense for people. This is what I want to be, this is what I aspire to.?

Rhett Roberson?

What is the most important lesson you've learned so far in life??

Matt Morrow?

One, it's not about me and, two, you don't do anything well by yourself. Those are related to each other but any work that I'm doing, or others are doing, it's really easy for us to make it personal. And especially when you believe passionately in the work that you do. And that's good, it's good to have ownership in that work. But I've worked for 20-plus years for organizations that are membership organizations and boards of directors. And I've been, and still am, deeply passionate about that work. I have to remind myself at the Chamber of Commerce that I can and should have deep passion for it and wake up every day thinking about it, go to sleep every night thinking about it. About what can I do to help advance our mission and do this work. But at the end of the day, this Chamber of Commerce has been here for over 100 years. It'll be here for a long time after I'm gone, and it always has belonged to its members. It always has belonged to its community. It's never belonged to the people who draw a paycheck there. It's just not about me or any of the rest of us. I remind our team of that a lot. It's important that we have passion for it, and we feel ownership, but we don't own it. It's really important. And then, related to that, of course, is that all of our best stories as a community are stories of partnership. So, anything that we want to do well and with excellence requires each other. It's one of the things I love most about our community, the size of our community, that there's a lot of components of it. We're big enough for we can do almost anything, there's almost nothing we can't do. But we're small enough that we're going to need each other to do it with excellence.

Rhett Roberson?

What advice would you offer to young professionals entering the workforce?

Matt Morrow?

Broadly, I think it's important to approach everything you do with a strong work ethic and humility. The people who I've known over the course of my life who've had the most success have had that in common. A really strong work ethic and a high level of humility. Even more important than the underlying talent. You're born with a certain amount of talent, you don't get to pick that, but you do get to pick how hard you work and your attitude about it. I've seen a lot of people have a lot of success in that way while the ones who lack one or both of those tend to have a ceiling that they hit earlier than they wanted to. I think that's important. I tell this to my kids, because my kids are about this age, my daughter is 20 and my son is 17 and they both have jobs. As they go to school, I try to encourage them, and this is just good practice for life, to try to try to think about everything that you're doing with your work or the questions you ask from the perspective of your employer. And that's not because the employer is more important than the employee, they're intricately connected. There's no way one succeeds without the other. But it's more a life principle of humility. Which is to say, if you believe that it's not about you, if I believe it's not about me, I should be able to demonstrate that by frequently putting myself, always trying to put myself in the shoes of others. And in the workplace, that's my boss, and that has the added benefit of getting lots of room to run and grow in the workplace.?

Rhett Roberson?

What are you most proud of??

Matt Morrow?

I'm proud of our community. I'm proud of Springfield. I'm proud of the area, I'm proud to be a part of it, proud to live here and to be in this place. I've told people before, we have had the privilege of doing what we do in other places, but this is home and we've had the privilege of going away and coming back. And I say privilege because it does give you a set of eyes for the community that I've found very helpful. And I wouldn't want to do what I do anywhere else. There are people in my profession, lots of really good ones, and they will go to a community and do this work for five or ten years and then go to another community, often moving into a larger place. I do not want to do this anywhere else. I want to do this here because I love this place, I'm proud of this place. I'm proud to be a part of the people who are here. We have problems, we have challenges we need to work on like anybody else. If we didn't, we'd run out of work to do. But that's not what defines us. I think what defines us is that we're a uniquely compassionate and caring community. We're a uniquely entrepreneurial community. We're a uniquely collaborative community, at least among the ones that I've had a chance to experience and live in. I don't take that for granted and I hope our community members won't take it for granted and that they will continue to contribute to it in a meaningful way. But I'm really proud to be a part of that.?

Rhett Roberson?

Yes. Same. While I am a little bit biased, I don't think it's because of the bias that I really believe this is a special place to be. Not just for what is offered around us, the Ozarks is a beautiful thing to exist in, but the economic infrastructure here and the people that truly care about the community and the people in the community make it a special place.?

Matt Morrow?

I don't want to oversimplify it. I don't want to pretend that there aren't barriers and challenges. There absolutely are. But I do think we have more on-ramps here to success and to leadership than most places that people will encounter. We've talked about this a lot with our Network for Young Professionals who are under 40 and engaged in the Chamber of Commerce work. In Springfield, you have a path, you have an opportunity to shape this community for the future when you're 30 years old. There aren't many places where that's the case. But it's real here and it's one of the things that makes us special.?

Rhett Roberson?

Last question, favorite question. How do you hope the world is better for having you??

Matt Morrow?

That's a big question. I think the world is better when communities are better, and I hope that I'm doing something to contribute to my community. It's a hard question because the role that I'm in, I'm uniquely aware of the fact that nothing happens without a lot of people all working together and rowing in the same direction. So, our job as a Chamber of Commerce, my job is very often to help mobilize and convene those influential parties to help them find their commonality and row in the same direction. That's incredibly rewarding. It's also incredibly challenging sometimes but it's incredibly rewarding to do, and it also makes me acutely aware of the fact that I can't impact anything by myself. So, it's only through mobilizing and engaging other people and helping them find their common direction and common language that things start to happen. But when that happens, things really start to move in a positive way. That's incredibly rewarding, incredibly gratifying, and I do think it has a significant impact and it can have impact on communities of any size and on our world.?

Rhett Roberson?

Is there anything I didn't ask you that I should have? Anything you'd like to add or have on record??

Matt Morrow?

I can't think of what it would be. I appreciate you doing this. I've enjoyed reading and I'm going to read more of what you've done so far. I had only recently become aware of this work and want to congratulate you and thank you for doing it. You're creating a good record for our community of things that are going on here and people that are making an impact and I've enjoyed starting to read some of those for myself.?

Rhett Roberson?

I'm getting all of the benefit here of getting to absorb wisdom. I think somebody said early on in these that mentorship is the only accelerated way forward, the only real acceleration. So, this is like getting as many micro-mentorship moments as I can. It's really great.?

Matt Morrow?

Well, I think that's awesome and I'm glad you're enjoying doing it and I'm grateful that you're sharing it with the world, too. That this is something you're not just keeping for yourself, you're sharing it with the rest of us.?

Rhett Roberson?

Well, thank you so much for making time to join me.?

Matt Morrow

Thank you, Rhett. It's been a lot of fun.

Books:

Radical Candor – Kim Scott https://a.co/d/hisz4AC

The Advantage – Patrick Lencioni https://a.co/d/an7lyEu

The Wisdom of Crowds – James Surowiecki https://a.co/d/17FEwFW

The Vanishing Neighbor – Marc J. Dunkelman https://a.co/d/79pDFD9

A Time to Build – Yuval Levin https://a.co/d/0Xj9ugn

?