“Although Matt and Sandee were both building successful businesses as singles before they met, they came from radically different backgrounds. “I was average in everything I did,” says Matt who was born and raised in Hawaii. “I just did what everybody else was doing. I played a number of sports, but I also got involved with some of the wrong things like drugs and alcohol.”
By the time Matt reached college he already felt beaten down by the system. He could see that people all around him weren’t making it financially no matter what they had chosen for a career. He saw couples getting married and having to move back in with their parents because of the high cost of living in Hawaii. Others were getting more and more into debt, and everyone was always complaining about money. “Partying, drugs, and alcohol were my way of escaping reality,” he explains.
Two weeks before he saw the plan, Matt sat down and had a heart to heart talk with his mom. “What should I do with my life, Mom?” he asked. “It’s going nowhere. Jobs aren’t paying and I don’t know where I’m headed.” For once his mother didn’t have an answer for him. Two weeks later, when Matt saw the Quixtar Sales and Marketing Plan, he got excited even though he didn’t understand it very well. He jumped right in and started doing the steps required to build it. The unwavering conviction of his upline mentor was so strong that Matt began to change and grow and apply what he learned. “I took a lot of no’s,” he remembers. “My friends and family didn’t really take me seriously until I hit the Ruby level. That’s when my business really started to grow because people figured that if a young bartender who had never finished college could do it, then they could do it too.”
Sandee, on the other hand, had always been self-sufficient financially from a very young age. She was 12 when she got her first job and by the time she turned 19, a bank had offered her a position as assistant manager. “Things were going great for me,” she recalls. “I was on my own, debt free except for the mortgage on my condominium, and I was making a lot more money than any of my friends.” When Sandee made the decision to move from California to Honolulu, things began to go downhill. She took a huge cut in pay and at the same time found that the cost of living in Hawaii was much higher. At one point she even sold her car to pay off debt. For the first time in her life, Sandee was financially broke. “I was very depressed and extremely stressed out,” she admits, “but right at that time I saw the Plan and immediately got excited. I saw this business as a way to supplement my income at work. It was wonderful to be around positive people and to see everyone shooting for a common goal.”
Sandee and Matt met at a Free Enterprise Day function in California and four months later they were married. At the time, Matt was a Ruby and Sandee was a 4,000 Pin. They struggled initially in their marriage but they have learned to celebrate their differences and even laugh about the early times as husband and wife. Together they quickly went on to Emerald, then Diamond and now Executive Diamond. They know the power of sharing the same vision. One of the greatest joys for them was when they were recognized on stage and heard the words “Welcome to Diamond Club”.
The WorldWide mentorship system provided the teaching and support to them in achieving their success. Their unfailing desire gave them the energy to work hard, the will to change and overcome their challenges to be the people they needed to be.
“More importantly, our business allows us flexibility, the opportunity to be full-time parents to our girls, Taylor, 9, Madison, 8 and Mariah, 6 months. In our opinion, being able to raise our children, instead of having someone else do it, is one of the greatest blessings this business has given us. Our kids spell love T-I-M-E. Because of a dream, our upline’s help, and the WorldWide system, we know that the best is yet to come!” Sandee believes that the greatest blessing of being free will come one day when she sees her children facing something difficult in their own lives and watching them make the right decisions because of the foundation of values she and Matt were able to instill in them.
Recently Matt ran in the Honolulu Marathon, which he says is one of the top ten experiences in his life. He sees many parallels to building their Quixtar business. Not always are we prepared or properly trained to be successful as we begin. We all have seeds of doubt at times that we need to persevere through. There is always a wall that we hit and must break through and at times we may stop and feel sorry for ourselves but we must choose to pick ourselves up and keep moving, even if it’s slow at times and we then finish the race that we began. The true victory comes when we look back and say, “I finished the race”.
His advice to all is to finish your own race to Diamond and join the most exclusive club in the world. Going Diamond for Matt and Sandee has meant their freedom, associating with people they admire and respect and having a cause to fight for.