A photo of guest Matt Paxton smiling into camera
Episode 359 – Matt Paxton – Finding the treasures in the trash

It’s Ingrid and Lesley go global week and today we are heading to the States to interview Matt Paxton. Matt has been on the show twice before but his insights always leave us wanting more. From the intense cleanups of Hoarders, to the heartfelt family moments on Legacy List, to the wild finds of Filthy Fortunes, Matt joins us to talk about grief, legacy, and what our possessions say about us. This conversation is bound to be full of stories and insights that’ll be both entertaining and heartfelt - exactly the way Matt likes it best.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Speaker 1  00:00
It's Ingrid and Lesley Go Global week, and today we are heading to the states to interview Matt Paxton. Matt has been on the show twice before, but his insights always leave us wanting more, from the intense cleanups of Hoarders to the heartfelt family moments on legacy list to the wild finds of filthy fortunes. Matt's talk joining us today to talk about grief, legacy and what our possessions say about us, this conversation is bound to be full of stories and insights that will be both entertaining and heartfelt exactly the way Matt likes it best.

Speaker 2  00:40
You're listening to the declutter hub podcast bringing you tried and tested no nonsense, tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here's your host, Lesley Spellman.

Speaker 1  01:02
You Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Lesley. We're delighted you're here to join us as part of your decluttering journey. So whether you're brand new today or have been listening for ages, we want to say thank you so much for being here. It means so much to Ingrid and I that you turn up every week to listen to and support us while we talk all things decluttering and organizing. We'd love to help more people with their quest for a clutter free home. And our podcast is a fantastic way for people to be inspired to take action. We have a favor to ask. If you like what you hear, be sure to hit the follow, subscribe or like button on your podcast player. Share us with your friends, or share your thoughts on the podcast by leaving a review. Matt, welcome to the podcast for

Speaker 3  01:45
the third time. Thanks for having me. I'm like three timers, like a three timers club. I like

Speaker 1  01:49
it. I know exactly, but we saved the best till last, Matt, because this time you've got me and you've not got Ingrid. So you know, third time lucky, as they say. So thank you so much for giving us more of your time. And so it's exciting to see you. Loads and loads of our listeners will have seen you. Will have heard you because you've been around on our screens for a long, long time. Tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 3  02:10
Yeah, I've been I was on hoarders for 15 years, and I kind of got known for cleaning the messiest houses in America. And I've been doing it for 25 years. I met me cleaning out houses. You know, I started 20 really, 26 years ago. I was 24 my dad, my step dad, Both my grandfathers passed away, and had to clean out their houses. And so a lot of people, like a lot of people in industry, it kind of found me. I didn't mean to do this. I was a banker, not a particularly good one. And after I cleaned four houses, I just fell in love with it. And and my grandfather always said, if something sucks, do it as a job, because other people will pay you to do it. And and the houses I was doing were heavily emotional situation. I mean, I was cleaning my grandfather's house out with my grandmother, and they built that house with their own hands. I mean, they literally drove into the woods, cut the trees, made the I mean, they built that house. That was the first house I ever cleaned. And then my dad's, I mean, it just really, it just really made me realize that I wanted to do that for career forever. And now, I mean, I turned 50 this year, so this I've been doing it longer than I haven't, which is really crazy. Oh,

Speaker 1  03:20
that's great. So it's challenging. It's challenging work. And so as a professional organiser, I've done it, not to the extent that you've done it, of course, because you've, you've spent your life really working in those challenging environments of you know, people with hoarding disorder, hoarding behaviors. So what? What's the most challenging thing that you feel not not inject, not as an individual thing, but, you know, in general, what do you find most challenging about doing these cleanups?

Speaker 3  03:46
Well, it's so emotional, right? There's always, especially on the hoarding side. You know, half my career was just hoarding, and then the second half has been really more stay clean out and downsizing, but I still do hoarding, and at the end of the day both of those situations is life has happened, something challenging has happened to them, and they're being forced to go through their stuff. Nobody calls me and is like, hey, I want to get ahead of this. I mean, it's always an emergency, and it's caused by trauma, and so that trauma is really the hardest part for my clients, and them understanding and accessing it. I would say them understanding the trauma, because the more extreme the hoarding, the more important it is to understand the trauma, or there's really no point to even clean it. I mean, I actually think it's unethical, as a professional to clean the house, unless you are unless the client's actually in therapy. In some form of therapy doesn't have to be the standard therapy that we started 25 years ago, but they have to be doing something to understand what that trauma is, and I think that's just the hardest part for any of us, because it's the rawest, it's the heart. You know, nobody wants to face their challenges, nobody wants to face their fears, no one wants to face their weaknesses, and that's what you have to do before you do an extreme cleanup.

Speaker 1  04:55
And I think that's the thing that always struck me as I was watching hoarders, really was. The emotional piece that you came with to understand the clients and to give more than just, you know, because it can be quite sensationalist, can't it? To go to have, you know, all of that stuff, and everyone's like, wow, but then to be able to dig down and to go into the emotional connection that that client has got with clutter, and to do it so well, that was always what struck me, and that's what you became known as, really, as the host of Hoarders, wasn't it?

Speaker 3  05:23
Yeah, thank you for saying that. I mean, there's a couple things I'll unpack there. First of all, let's just get right at it. I made a TV show that put a mental disability on television for entertainment. Yeah, there's no way to dance around that, and if we didn't provide the therapy, we provided a year of therapy for each person on the show, and if we didn't pay for that therapy, I absolutely think it would be more than sensationalism. I think it's just unethical to do it, yeah, and that's actually why I stopped doing the show, is that the network stopped paying for the therapy, right? Therapy? I said it was time for me to leave, and that's why a lot of the top experts left. But, yeah. I mean, I have found for me, if you So, if you're if you're a professional organiser, if you're a professional and you're listening to this, I found it was easier for me to share my mistakes and my challenges and my fears and my losses, if I just shared that up front. My clients were more willing to to share theirs. And so, you know, I'm lucky. I mean, I've been very open about this. I had a gambling addiction. I lost everything at 23 like I owed a bookie $40,000 and he beat me up, and he broke my nose and and I considered everything from robbing a bank to prostitution, and I could laugh at that now, but at the time, it was a really dire place to be. And what you're willing to do in those low points to get to zero. It's pretty awful. And for every other part of my life, I was ashamed and embarrassed and I didn't want to share those stories. And then I started working with hoarders, and I was like, not only can I share these stories, it actually lets me connect with the hoarder and lets them know that, like I told that story one time. I mean, I'll be really blunt. I mean, I was like, I might have to prosecute myself to get out of debt. And I told to order that. And she was just like, Oh, that's horrible bad. I feel really bad for you. And she gave me a hug, and she was looking down on me, like she was judging me, and we had reversed our roles. And it was that day I was like, Oh, I gotta not only share my faults. I gotta share them deeper, because it let the quarter feel safe, and then they would tell me things that they would never tell anyone else. And so I, I was very lucky at a early age to realize, you know, how do you have that that balance with your client? And for me, brutal honesty and, you know, deep sharing of emotions. I'm not saying that's for everybody, but it did work for me. And I hope a professionals listening can can find their balance for that, but, but, I mean, I found that by the By day three. I mean, I was we were pretty close me in the hoarders, I could say some really blunt things, like, really we're going to keep this like, because they've already shared much bigger emotions and stories. And what I would say is, when you're able to share those really intense emotions with your client, that's the hardest part. The clean out becomes pretty easy once. I mean, the clean out is really downhill, and everyone's avoiding the clean out. And I'm saying, let's get to the emotions early, and then let's just it's, it's easy after that. And so I ended up finding that, like, the first day I would get nothing out of the house, it would be all talking, and people on the show would get nervous. They were like, no trash has come out. We gotta there's a there's a show about trash. And I was like, No, I'm here to help this person. This isn't about trash. And I would, you know, they'd look in the trash can. It'd be one piece of paper in there. And I'd be like, just wait tomorrow. We'll get a bunch out. And we would, because they trusted me at that point, because we shared all these emotions. So, yeah, I I'm very proud of that. It's probably my, my favorite thing about that point in my career was really, yeah, I think

Speaker 1  08:49
it's really about that shared experience, I guess, of hitting rock bottom, which is, you know, obviously, from what you're saying, then all of a sudden, if you say that the the person with hoarding behaviors or hoarding disorder is then, you know, feels as if, oh, it's not just me, and this person's probably not going to judge me, because they felt similar kinds of emotions. And then it puts you on more of an even playing field, I feel. And if you you can be vulnerable like that, that that definitely seems as if it works. And you're right. It takes. It is about that emotional breakthrough with with any, with anybody, with any level of clutter, really, it's, it's about feeling safe and feeling ready and not feeling out of control, I think, isn't it? Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 3  09:29
are you going to have more fun in a posh club with a bunch of people with their noses up, or are you going to have fun at a dive pub around the corner with a bunch of other low lifes that are just like you and me? I'm going to have more fun at the club and that or at the pub, and that is my theory on cleaning. I am going to go to rock bottom with my client. I'm going to stand there right next to him. We're going to hold hands, and we're going to share all of our equal embarrassments, and we're not going to have people looking down at us, right? You can't help somebody looking down at them rock bottom. You have to go down there with them. And let's be honest. I mean, if you. You don't have a rock bottom I don't want to hang out with you like you're boring, yeah? And

Speaker 1  10:05
I think that's, you know, you're so right? Because that's the kind of work. And very soon, I've been doing this, not as long as you Matt, but I've been doing this work for kind of 15 years, and I worked out very you know, so the way that I got into things was that the house that I'm living in at the moment was lived in by a hoarder, and it was so we did, like, a big, you know, renovation on the property. And obviously it was, you know, fall to the, you know, standard holding territory, really extreme. And whilst everybody at the front gate was kind of like, I love what you've done with the place, it looks amazing. That was very kind of them to say that. But there was this air of judgment about thankfully, it's not the same as it was before that person was terrible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of the sort of negative things. And it really stuck with me, because this was not a job that I was doing at this moment in time. You know, I never, I didn't have any thoughts about being a professional organiser. And it was that connection then, because of the things that people were saying that brought me into professional organizing at that time. Because I was like, that's not kind, you know, to misunderstand, to not see that that's, you know, you know, a mental health condition, really, that he needed help with. I really struggled with that, and that's what brought me here, to be fair. So, so yeah, I do get it. And I think early on in my career, you know, I I went into people with very full homes right at the beginning. And I also went into kind of more privileged homes, where it was, where was where I was more of a hired help to kind of tidy things up and make things look pretty and very soon I was like, this is really not for me. I don't want to work independently just tidying things up and folding things. I actually want to get stuck into the nitty gritty of changing lives, and that's that sounds exactly the same as what you've done for all those years and what you continue to do and what makes you tick.

Speaker 3  11:46
Yeah, it just works for me. I mean, I prefer a really nasty, messy house that has a lot of challenges, because I had a lot of challenges. And, I mean, it just works for me. It's not for everybody I tell I mean, hoarding, cleanup is not for everyone, but, man, you put me in a wavy toy house with, you know, organizing 1000 purses. That's not for me either. I'm a jerk in that situation, and I actually will judge in that situation. And then here I am on TV preaching, don't judge my hoarders. My hoarders are really good people, but man, you put me in a, you know, in a in a house with 1000 purses where the closets bigger than my entire house, I'm not going to be, you know, the right guy. And so I've always learned to, like, choose the work I work into. I mean, I I'm going to jump ahead really quick, just because this is important. I it took me 20 years to realize, you know, what's really going on in a hoarded house. I cleaned it. You cleaned it to the best of your ability. Every day. You're there to help the client as you can. But in our career, you learn more each day. And as you said, it's very easy to judge and shame order. And so we would, even us as professionals, we'd walk into the house and think, oh, this place is gross. It's so disgusting. And you keep it to yourself. You're professional enough to not say it out loud, but you'd still think it. And what I learned probably around year 15 was it's very simply. I mean, this is the punch line of my entire career. At this point, you hold on to things because of the emotions attached, the emotions and the people attached to those items. I don't hold on to a chair because it's leather. I hold on to the chair because my grandfather sat in my father sat and I want to sit in it someday. And now my kids sit in that chair. So I got four generations sitting in this chair. It's not about the leather, it's not about the wood, it's about the men and the women that sat in that chair. So we hold on to things because of all the love that we have to people in the in the people that they've made us who we are, these, these people, these men and women, and that's why you hold on to things. And so I started going into hoarded houses, and I would change my mindset from Wow, this is really disgusting. To Wow, you loved a lot of people. And I would verbalize that. So I would walk in and say, oh my instead of saying, Wow, this place is disgusting, I would walk and say, Wow, you had a really full life, and a lot of people loved you. Tell me about them, and I would just open the door, tell me about your family, and I would just shut up and listen for like, and it's hard to believe I'm a talker, but I would shut up and listen, and I would hear these incredible stories of family, and they just, they just needed to release that. They needed to share those stories. And I have a whole belief system on that now, but, and that's really my whole cleaning method now, is about telling the stories. But, man, I sure didn't know that at first, but I promise you, yeah,

Speaker 1  14:23
yeah. So it's so interesting that you that your career, because you've been doing this a long time, and there's obviously, you know, shifts in pattern in that time. So you started out, you know, working in hoarded houses, and then you moved on, probably around that time that you're talking about now into doing, you know, the things that we see then on TV and the books you've written into legacy list, where you started to look at people's legacies. And so that's what you talk about now, is these stories that sit behind this stuff so powerful, aren't they? Matt, it's just so it was so how privileged are we to be able to listen to these stories of people that we've never met? You

Speaker 3  14:57
know, I used to tell want to make sure I. Mean, when I started this career, I would ask people, What did you do during the war? And we were talking about World War Two, you know, this is 25 years ago. So those women, the 70 year old women that I was helping, they were Rosie the Riveter, or they, you know, one lady she, she was a welder on World War Two planes. One of my clients I met, had, I had a client that was, that was an Auschwitz, you know. I mean, like, I had these incredible, fascinating women that would share these stories with me. And you're right. I mean, it is the secret of our career. We get to meet history, like we get to sit down with people. I mean, I met the ninth guy on the moon, the ninth guy to ever go to the moon, and I just met him cleaning out his house one day, you know. I mean, like, it's incredible the stuff you get to hear. And I think that did kind of shift my career from just focusing on the mess to say, Okay, well, I really want to capture these stories and and I'm still to this day, fascinated with some of the stories. I think everyone is interesting. Like everyone, most people think they're interesting. I think every if you're listening right now. I bet you're fascinating. I bet you are very interesting. You just need someone to ask the right questions, you know. And we, we all, we may not be a good storyteller, doesn't mean you're not interesting, right? And, and it's why the stuff that's on our shelves behind you right now that we're looking at right like, that's what makes us interesting. It's because, like, I'm looking at your shelf right now, it looks like a tea set in the back on your left. Yeah. Whose tea set is that? I want to know if it's this important, that it's in your, like, your major frame, yeah, story behind there, right? Like, and I want to know that. And that's, to me, that's what is a legacy. And so, yeah, I went from hoarding to, okay, wait a minute. I know it's love. This is you're hoarding love. You're not hoarding crap, you're hoarding love. So let's learn about those people. So that was kind of phase two of my career. I was really lucky to just kind of hear the stories. And I created, then I created, I wrote my book, keep the memories, lose the stuff. And we really focused on the legacy list at that point. And that was a TV show I had as well called Legacy list. And a legacy list is just the top five things in your house that matter most. How

Speaker 1  17:04
do you then go from, because I hear you, you know, we're big advocates of kind of share the stories while you've got time as well. So it's, you know, pass those down through the generations as well. But when you've got, so, I've got these, you know, you've mentioned these things that are sitting behind you, for those people that are watching on YouTube, and they are definitely a curated collection of things, from my grandparents, from my mum, who's passed, and all of those. You know, lots of people that I've lost, and I just have these individual things. So how do you then, when somebody feels so sentimental about something or and many things, how do you sort of encourage them to choose the really special ones, because that's the skill, really, isn't it?

Speaker 3  17:45
Yeah. So everything can't be special, yeah, say that everything can't be special, so we have to prioritize it. And so that's why I created a legacy list. A legacy list is the top five things that matter most, that number five, how hard? How firm Am I on that? Number five? I'm not it could be seven, yeah, but it can't be eight. Everything can't be special, right? And so part of that process is you dwindling it down to under 10. And if you're you're having a hard time thinking about this. Basically, if your house burned down, what are the five things you'd want to take out with you, right? What are the five things you need the most. And what's going to happen is you're going to prioritize these five to six items, and it's and then you're going to share the stories, right? There's two parts of a legacy list. You got to create it, and then you got to share it. If you don't share it, stories don't live on forever. And so you start to tell those stories, and what happens is two or three people come up, right? Your grandmother, your grandfather, your mother, your father, your your a child, a few themes start coming out, and what happens is, you know, like for me, I've got a couple items on my mom's. I got a couple items of my dad's. I've got one item of my grandfather's. By the time I start to tell all these stories on my grandfather, I had already celebrated the man that he was and the man that he's helped me become, right, same thing with my grandmother. So when I got into their garage, I didn't need my grandfather's entire set of National Geographics wrapped in twine. I didn't need all of his underwear that my grandmother had saved because it was good rags, right? All the stuff. I didn't need the coffee can, coffee tin filled with screws and nails, because I had already celebrated the person that truly mattered to me. And so I think, you know, people often get lost organizing and downsizing and right sizing, no matter what words you use, it's not about getting rid of everything. It's about getting rid of the stuff that doesn't matter. So you make space for the things that that do. Yep, let me say that again, downsizing, to me is very simple. It's about getting rid of the stuff that doesn't matter so you make space for the stuff that does and that that legacy list helps you prioritize what's at the top. And I promise you, if you share these stories enough, you start to really not care about the stuff the other stuff at the bottom, and you can then equally sell it or donate. Pretty quickly.

Speaker 1  20:01
So powerful, such a powerful saying. So that seems like a fantastic place for us to take a little break, and we're going to come back a minute and talk about the next, the next kind of phase in Matt's life where he's moved on to his new TV show and everything that goes along with that. So we'll see you in a moment. So welcome back everybody after the break. Thank you so much, Matt, for being here and for sharing your experiences of working on the two TV shows, hoarders and the legacy list, and, of course, all your fantastic work surrounding that. Absolutely love what you were saying about legacy list. It's something that we feel very, very passionate about. Here is telling those stories and curating the important things and keeping the things that matter so legacy list kind of that was a few years ago, and now you've moved on to your new TV shows. We want to talk about that. I only found out, literally just before we hit record, that it's actually out here in the UK already, which is incredible. So you need to tell us about it. So everybody, normally, when we do the people, oh, sorry, you can't listen to it in the UK or watch it, but you can, so it's fantastic news. Tell us a little bit about filthy fortunes. So

Speaker 3  21:05
filthy fortunes is a very simple show. It's basically a mix of Hoarders and American Pickers. And if you've never seen that, we basically, we go in because, you know, the reality is, economies in the world have changed, and people need to sell some of their items. I mean, 10 years ago, I would donate everything. I would say, Let's donate, Let's donate, Let's donate. But a lot of times now families, they're keeping less, but they they do want to monetize more. And so for the last 10 years, privately, I mean, we still, I still run a business called Color cleaner, and we clean houses all over the country, and now starting to clean them around the world, and people need to sell that stuff. And if it's 50 years old, there's often some value, right? And so we're cleaning out grandparents houses that have a lot of cool stuff from the 1980s and 1970s and that stuff sells. And so the show is very simple. We're going into houses, we're finding treasures, and we help sell them for the families. Then we give all the money back to the family, and they've definitely that was on the Discovery Channel here in the US, in the UK, it's on Discovery UK, and then it will start streaming on april 28 worldwide, on on streaming service Max, along HBO and all those things. And so we're, we're super excited to get the exposure that we need. But it's a, it's a fun treasure hunting show. It's finding, really, you know, gold in your grandmother's jewelry box. It's finding, you know, all the the money that people hid in the books 50 years ago. It's finding out that grandma's fur coat is actually worth $5,000 US. You know. It's finding out that the Beanie Baby collection is actually worth nothing, you know. And it's, you know,

Speaker 1  22:37
don't, don't spoil everyone's, dreams of the millennial Beanie Baby, smart

Speaker 3  22:44
now the the couch package kids are worth something. Not the Hummels collection, not worth anything, right? No, no, you can't sell it. And so it's it's very interesting to see what does sell, what doesn't sell. Typically, the things you don't think will sell, do, and the things you do think are going to sell for a lot don't, but it's a treasure hunt. And along the way, we get to hear some really fascinating stories, you know, and that's just been the funnest part for me, is to find, you know, we, in fact, we were cleaning a house out last summer, and we found a bunch of baseball cards. And this guy, one of my employees, is walking through, clipping through these baseball cards, and he's like, who's John Wilkes Booth? And I'm like, well, he's the guy that shot Abraham Lincoln when Lincoln was president of the US. And he's like, Oh, I found his baseball card. Like, I don't think he found played baseball Well, the guy had been an actor right in the in the US. And so we found an autographed picture, like a play bill from this play he was in in Washington, DC, at the theater where he shot Lincoln as an actor, right? And and we, I mean, like, this is live history, like this guy, this guy held this and so we found it, and ended up selling for quite a bit of money. And the family didn't want it. They just wanted the story to be told. And so we really have a mix of finding treasures, the curiosity of finding out what it's worth, and then, more importantly, we're able to clean the entire house out. And so these families, mostly it's inherited houses, where people have just inherited massive houses, and they need to sell the house. They need to clean it out and sell it. And so it's always fun, because we're actually able to make them a lot of money too. So we get them an empty house, and you could find out some really cool stuff, and you get to learn a little bit of history, and then they get a big check at the end of the show. And it's really fun. I love it. I'm having a blast doing it.

Speaker 1  24:26
Oh yeah, having a blast. And so you've already said some, like crazy things that you found. So what is the most is this something that's the what's the most valuable thing that you found? You don't need to tell us what it is, because we don't know any spoilers, okay, but Well, what sort of money are we talking with some of these,

Speaker 3  24:41
oh, millions. I mean, oh my gosh, I found two and a half million US dollars in stocks, like printed stock certificates from the 80s. We found, we found a Picasso, and we found a, we found a really interesting Monet, not Monet, but Monet. We found a beautiful Monet last year. So. Um, gosh, we found a collection of wine from this 1970s that was worth a couple $100,000 I mean, I found a bottle of bourbon last week that's worth $100,000 you know, only 20 bottles of this bourbon. And then equally, I found, you know, a couple dead rats. You know, I feel like you know, at the same time. I mean, you just never know the emotionally significant items, I would say, are what's the most. I mean for me, and this is a very US history based item, but like we found a in 1969 there was a, you know, the American Civil Rights Movement was really clicking here. And I want to say it was 62 or 69 but it when it was a summer in 19, I want to say 62 but anyway, in Alabama, in Birmingham, Alabama, there was a church, the 16th Street Baptist Church, that was blown up. There was actually bombs there. And four young girls, seven year old girls, were killed, and by this bomb, and it was part of the, you know, horrible part of the of the American, African American civil rights movement. And one of the four girls, fast forward, 60 years later on, cleaning out her mom's house. And we were deep in this house, and we're cleaning out these old hat boxes. And we found, we found a bunch of telegrams from everyone from the Queen of England to Martin Luther King, all these people wishing her best wishes. And then we found a entire folder of hate mail from very racist people around the world telling her, I'm glad your daughter died, you know, blah, blah, blah. And on top of this, she had saved them all. And on top of it, there was a note that said to forgive. And this woman, after losing her daughter to a hate crime in a very charged time in American history, she had decided to not only save all these but to forgive these people. And it just moved me in a different way. I'm like, I'm looking at my team, and I'm like, I don't know if I could forgive someone if they killed mine really don't. And it just really made us all think. And so we ended up that's, that's, we've now submitted that to the simpsonian Museum here in the States, because it was such a significant part of history. And, you know, the emotional stuff is always, you know, what's the lesson here for all of us listening? The emotional stuff is always much more valuable than the monetary stuff, right? I mean, the treasure, I'm on a treasure hunting show. It's a great show, but the treasure is the story. I mean, let me be really blunt here at the end of the day, that this, the story is the treasure. And so I I love, I love my show. It's fun. It helps pay for a lot of clean outs for my families. But these, these family stories we get to tell are just the greatest thing in the world. And I love it. And I mean, I can't imagine ever not doing it. I just love it.

Speaker 1  27:40
But what a privilege as well, though, Matt, for you to be able to have, you know, such a varied career, and to come across people with those kind of stories and this kind of stuff, which is so enriching that surprises you, because sometimes we've done so many, so much over the years, and we've seen so many homes that it's like nothing surprises you, but then something does right and guess, I mean, let me say to

Speaker 3  28:02
the professor, I know you have a lot of professionals that listen to you, my career looks really easy. I mean, I cleaned hoarded houses for, you know, $15 us an hour. You can do the conversion. I don't think the dollar is worth anything anymore, but it used to be, but how many pounds that is? But, I mean, I did it for very little money for five years, before I even got on TV, nobody knew I was doing it. Yeah, I knew I was doing something special, and I could bear. I actually could not pay all my bills, but I did this for five years and no one noticed. And then I got a break, right? And so you have to at 25 years, I'm coming on here with all this compassion and excitement and energy, but I had to do that quietly in people's addicts for five years with just as much energy and excitement, knowing that something bigger would happen. And that's always kind of hard to hang on to. And then at year 15, I was on a hit show, and I decided to leave it and to focus on stories. And I had, you know, I pitched. I pitched 20 some stations, 20 like 20 networks said no on the show legacy list, they said we're going to pass. And I quit hoarders, the number one show in America. Quit it with no other job, because I knew that that was the right way to go. But no one else knew it yet, right? And so I made a huge pivot, and then five years ago, I had to make a third pivot. And it gets easier to pivot when you see it work out. But like, the big wins came professionally have come when I took the biggest chances and I had to believe in my way and my the way I did it. I mean, no one knew that hoarding was not even a mental disorder. Yeah, of course, now it's a protective mental disorder in the States, right? Yeah, but like, I had to really trust in my beliefs. And I believed in positivity, I believed in stories, I believed in families. I believe very big positive things. And that was not always a popular thing, but it has paid off over 25 years. But there was a lot of times where the rest of the. Industry was like, I don't believe in that, you know. And I had to, I had to win them over with proof and lots of evidence. So I just, I would say, if you're working on a small business, if you really believe it should be done a different way, then do it that way. Do it the way you think it should be, and be proud of it. And if you're doing it right, people here, people will find out, and you'll do very, very well. Another

Speaker 1  30:19
thing, you know, I think, you know, I think it's important, you know, to know. I mean, obviously you've been able to help lots of people personally, in their homes. You've been able to help lots of people that are on the TV shows as well. But I think, you know, you're helping people via the medium of TV and media, in the same way that we are on the podcast, by making them feel understood and heard. And I think that's the thing, you know, people go, Oh, actually, Matt understands Lesley and lingu understand. And I think it's so important to get that message out there, because the types of things that we're talking about are so secretive to a lot of people, that is something that they don't share, and for them to see themselves represented on TV or spoken about on a podcast is so, so important. So, so, yeah, so thank you. We, we all appreciate the work that you've done as professionals. I'm sure our clients, our members, our listeners, all appreciate that as well. We love watching the TV as well. Before we go, Matt, I want to talk about you personally. So because this is not an easy job, there are days we love it, right? Professional organisers, most of us absolutely love the job that we do. You know, you've got this added bonus of being on TV, which is exciting as well, but it must have taken its toll at some point, because there are days that are hard when you take the job home, right? So what part of it do you think is the hardest being to do over the past 25 years, in terms of the emotional toil that it's taken?

Speaker 3  31:40
Well, I lost my first marriage over it. I mean, in and she and I are very good friends. Now, she actually lives up the street, but we were both not mentally mature enough to handle the stress of TV and become I tended to put my clients ahead of my family that point, and I think that's one thing a lot of professionals forget you when you help people for a living, you that becomes your identity, and so you tend to naturally put helping people strangers over the energy you put into your own family. And I got lost in that, and you're smiling. So you know what I'm saying. It's a bit very delicate thing to say out loud here, and my ex wife is okay with me saying this, and my and my wife is okay with me saying this, but it took a toll on us, because I didn't have the mental health that I needed, and I drank too much, and that ended my marriage, to be quite honest. And so what did I do differently the next 15 years? Well, I had to get sober, and I have seven kids now. And I mean, people think we're crazy. My My wife had four, and I had three, and I had full custody of my boys. So seven of us live together at the end of the day. I had to learn to put my actual family first. And so I had to learn, as a professional, how to say no. And man, it took me 20 years to say it's

Speaker 1  33:03
hard to find those boundaries smart. It really is. Sometimes, because we take it on, we naturally are empathetic people that take other people's problems. And there has to come up. I want to help everybody. I

Speaker 3  33:13
want to help everybody, but I had to put my I had to put my family and my wife first, and that's something I will always work on. Yeah, but I think if you're listening now, like, May, remember what you're doing this for your family, so make sure you're putting them first. And it's okay to say, hey. Like, now, I mean, I really protect all my kids. Then again, I got seven kids. I got six boys, one girl, and I got a like, I don't I will not travel in May because we have end of year stuff for all the kids and my dad never came to the reason I got into this is because my dad was was gone, right? So he never showed up for any of my stuff, even before he died. And so I want to show up for everything, and so I don't work, I don't travel in pain. And I've learned now I might give up some income because of that, but I've also learned that if you just focus on helping people and doing right, the income will find you right, like, if you really just focus on helping people, the money comes. If you just focus on making money, it doesn't. And so now I've put very clear boundaries. I'm okay with that. I can put boundary in, and it works out, but I will say the career highlight for me was just a couple weeks ago. Oh, really. And my 13 year old son, and I was trying to go to his jiu jitsu practice. And he goes, Dad, you don't have to come to every practice. And I go, I kind of want to. And he goes, Dad, your childhood trauma is not my childhood trauma. I go, excuse me. He goes, I know your dad didn't show up. He goes, you show up plenty for us. I'm good, dad. I don't need you at every practice. And I was just like, first of all that my son can see that, second of all, that he has the ability to say it out loud, yeah, means we doing this, right? You know, he said, go to work or something, get some emails done. I actually went up and hid in the back of jiu jitsu and did some emails when I watched him. But like, I'll just say, you. Don't get lost in changing the world, if it's going to mess up your world. And because I let it, and that was the biggest and and I make sure you have a proper decompression. I mean, they could make a documentary about the wild pottery. Potter part the wild party we did the first five years of Hoarders. Yes, we would go wild after we cleaned the house. And, I mean, it out broke the TV budget because we were drinking so much, it was debaucherous. I mean, just crazy because we didn't have the proper things in place to decompress. Yeah? And so now, like, I have a when I go do a really large hoard, especially if there's kids involved, I actually have a full day that I can decompress before I come home, so that when I get home, I'm there to be fully present on my kids, you know? And if you're just, I'm just driving home, I'll pull over for an hour and I'll listen to music and just decompress properly so that I can be present for my kids when I get home. Because my kids aren't asking me to go find 100 dead cats. They're not asking me to find out about the trauma that this client went through, but I had to give myself a proper decompression. And so I think that's that's probably more detail than you guys wanted. But like eight with age, with gray hair, comes wisdom and learning how to decompress and then learning when to say no and just always put yourself. And I mean, like I was late for this podcast because I went for a five mile walk. I need that walk every day now, that's what shows me on and that's a good opportunity. And I sleep, you know, I'm sleeping eight hours a night now every night.

Speaker 1  36:31
Yeah, such helpful insights that we can all learn from, for sure. So it is Ingrid and Lesley Go Global week to mark the the publication of our book in the United States and Canada this week, which we are very, very excited about. So before we go, I want to talk to you, actually about your two books and how you find, how did you find the book writing process? Because we've done we're just fresh out of it. We're just Ingrid and I are also just kind of coming out and seeing the lights after two years of like crazy. I don't know

Speaker 3  37:03
if you, if you know, Ingrid asked me when you guys were talking about writing that she's like, what's your opinion on this? I was like, because what happens is you get so I didn't, I don't really want to write a book. I just had too much in my head, and I knew I had to get get it out there. And I actually wrote the book because I was tired of answering so many emails, emails from people needing advice. And I was like, I should probably write a book. I had a I had a perfect I did it probably differently than you guys did. I had a ghost writer. I'm very open about that a ghost writer helped me. And so I am not. I actually have a reading disability, like I struggle to read. And so what's in my head, and I'm also very confident. So what's in my head, I think is brilliant, but when it gets on paper, it's not so brilliant. So I had to hire a professional to help me, right? And it took us a year to make it and what happened for me, this is actually a great story. In the middle of the book, I fell in love with my now wife, and I had to move and for 20 years at this point, when I wrote this book, is 21 years ago, I've been given advice, and I honestly thought I was the best guy in America at this if Peter Walsh is in Australia, I'm the best guy in America. Peter comes back to the States I'm not in. What was I thought this book was going to be brilliant, and then I had to go into my attic and clean out my stuff, and I got stuck. And I was moving from a town I grew in, grew up in, and lived there 44 years, and I struggled going through my stuff and my grandparents stuff and my dad's stuff, and, you know, my high school track stuff and love letters from girlfriends and he's all that crap. And I got stuck, and I called my publisher, and I said, Guys, this book sucks, like, I can't move my own stuff. So they, they, he goes, Hey, if you want to rewrite it, that's fine, but it's still do at the end of the year. So like, you, you do what you want, but you got, like, three months, and so I ended up doing that day was I sat in the attic and I went through every emotion that I had, and so I rewrote the book around emotions, not just tips, and it was a very and then you write it, and you turn it in, and then you don't know if anybody can like it for

Speaker 1  39:12
like, another year. I know it's hard. It's really hard, isn't it? You know, you don't know how it's doing, you don't know how it's selling, you don't it's like, Oh, whatever. So yeah, we're just at that at that stage in the UK already, right? Yeah, launched in the UK in February, launches in June, this week, 24th of June. It's already launched in Australia and New Zealand and obviously in Canada at the same time as America. How many

Speaker 3  39:34
times a week do you go on Amazon to see where?

39:39
Too much? Matt, too many

39:40
I still do it.

Speaker 1  39:43
Oh, it makes me feel so happy that you're doing that ridiculous kind of, you know, like refreshing of the Amazon listings every week as well. I don't know, because it's like a little baby, isn't it? It's like having this little baby, and it's something, you know, it's a real privilege again, you know, we talk about, it's, you know, it's a privilege to. Have this job, it's absolutely a privilege to be able to bring that to a wider audience with the in the format of a book. And so it means a lot to us. And so So yes, I'm glad I'm not the only one. You made me feel so much better. The

Speaker 3  40:12
biggest win for me now is when someone will bring me a book at a book signing. And my book signings are very simple, I'll sign a book, and then someone will hug me for like five minutes. There's all these, these people do feel like they're not alone when they read me, or they read me a book, or they see me on TV, they think, Okay, I'm not alone. And he gets me. And so I get, I get hugs for like hours, and it's actually wonderful. I'm very honored to do that. But what I think and when I see someone that has highlighted my book and put post it notes in it, and I know you guys we'll we'll see that when you see that someone has taken the time to not only buy your book, but actually absorb your words and, like, analyze it, study it, I feel so blessed, like so blessed. And I can't believe my book has ended up doing very well. At year four, it did okay. Year one, nothing happened. Year two and three, and then this year it exploded. Right? And when I beat Swedish death cleaning, and when I beat Marie Kondo, I go nuts, right? I gotta take pictures of it. I'm super excited, because I know those books are better than my book, and that's okay, but I can't believe I'm even on. I'm honored to even be in that same genre, you know.

Speaker 1  41:14
But, you know, watch out, Matt, because we're right behind you. Watch it. Brilliant. I haven't

Speaker 3  41:19
checked yet today. So when did it launch today? When did it launch in the US this week? Yeah, I can't wait to see it. Anyway. I remember when Ingrid was you guys were talking about doing this, and I was just like, go for it. You'll never different person, because this, this piece of you lives even beyond you, right? Even when you like, the other day, my kid goes, Oh, well, does that mean, like, when you die, we'll make some money off this book. And I go, Well, you're getting aggressive on sales, but maybe that's kind of cool. He goes, when you're dead, stuff use people will still listen to stuff you said. And I go, I can definitely say that in my career, that will happen, yes. And he's like, Well, that's cool then,

Speaker 1  42:01
all right. And that's your own legacy, Matt, which takes us nearly on to the end of this podcast. We could sit here and talk all day, but I'm sure you've got other things to be doing, and it's coming to the end of our day here. So thank you so so much for sharing your story, your career so far, your highlights, your low lights and your legacy. I really appreciate your time. Matt's book is available, but be you know, make sure you buy mine as well. Do you know what I mean? Really, really important, because I've gotta knock Matt off that top spot. So Matt, what's the name of your book, and where can people find out more about you? Keep the

Speaker 3  42:38
memories, lose the stuff you can find out me on I am Matt paxton.com, but go out and buy your new book. This is the time to buy it's the week you need to buy it, especially here in the States, absolutely.

Speaker 1  42:48
So our book, just in case you don't know about it, but I'm sure that you do is reset your home, unpack your emotions and your clutter, step by step. Thank you so much everybody for listening, and we'll see you all next week.

Speaker 2  43:06
Thanks so much for listening to the declutter hub podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player so you don't miss an episode and we'll see you next week.
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Recent Posts
Episode 395 – Don’t Fade by February – Keep Your Decluttering Momentum High

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Episode 392 – The clutter advice I’d give my 30-year-old self

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Episode 359 – Matt Paxton – Finding the treasures in the trash

Episode 395 – Don’t Fade by February – Keep Your Decluttering Momentum High

Episode 394 – The Hidden Story Behind a Hoarded Home with guest Eileen Stukane

Episode 393 – How a Clutter-Free Home Strengthens Relationships – A Valentine’s special

Episode 392 – The clutter advice I’d give my 30-year-old self

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Reset Your Home

Unpack your emotions and your clutter, step by step
