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Up and Adam is an Operation Podcast production. For your podcast needs email us at [email protected]. This show is filmed at IBBLE studios in Austin, TX.

“How do you get into that ‘state of flow’ within your business? It’s all about finding that intersection between what challenges you and what you can truly be the best at.” ~Geno Mattioda

Geno Mattioda is the founder of the Austin-based wellness hub known as theDEN. Geno joins Adam on this episode of Up and Adam to discuss his long and turbulent journey leading up to theDEN’s founding.

Football was Geno’s first love and was the center of his life all the way through college. It was an outlet for him to express himself and do something he was truly good at as he struggled academically growing up.

He reached a crossroads right after college in the early 2000s when he was offered an opportunity to go into business in Chicago. In a single night, Geno went from being a guy who had nothing but football in his life to lacing up his new loafers on his first day in corporate America—a world he would be immersed in for the next ten years. In 2008, he was bankrupt and foreclosed while raising two kids under two.

Resiliency always came naturally to Geno, whether on the football field or in an office building. His determination to stand tall and take the blows that came his way allowed him and his young family to persevere during those tough years ushered in by the Global Financial Crisis. He eventually went down the path of entrepreneurship and founded the commercial business insurance company Wolf Point Advisors® LLC in 2013. A few years later, right after the birth of his fourth child, Geno once again found himself penniless.

This was a turning point in his life. He knew he needed to heal. And that was when Geno became obsessed with ritual, personal growth, and biohacking. His new path led Geno to move to Austin, where he began to conduct retreats via theDen whose activities draw on the convergence of spirituality and science with the ultimate purpose of finding flow in every facet of life.

 

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Key Highlights

• For Geno, love and vulnerability are vital to every man’s growth. He and Adam give their thoughts on finding a role model as a man in the 2020s.
• Geno reflects on a career filled with unforeseen challenges and how he was able to find the courage to keep going.
• From relying on the outlets he was most familiar with—such as the gym and the football field—Geno eventually gained the courage to step out of his comfort zone and find new ways to recharge and grow. He shares the many “levers” he pulled in his quest for flow.
• theDEN combines social and health, and brings together spirituality and science. Geno explains how and why.

Powerful Quotes by Geno

• Hard work ethic and a warrior mentality will get you through anything—until it doesn’t.
• We all need our gurus and mentors, and it can’t just come even from the best father in the world.
• Resiliency defined my early adulthood. Standing tall in those moments became a real badge of honor.
• How do you get into that “state of flow” within your business? It’s all about finding that intersection between what challenges you and what you can truly be the best at.