Navigating Transitions with Matt Slaybaugh

Tim Fulton 00:00Welcome to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week — transitions can be transformative, but they're often filled with uncertainty. In this week's episode, I sat down with Matt Slaybaugh, an achievement skills coach, playwright, and former artistic director of Available Light Theatre. We explored Matt's journey from leading a theater company to becoming a coach, helping people navigate change and pursue what matters most. From the principles of positive psychology to the creation of his new audiobook, Ready for the Quest, we explored how practical tools and mindset shifts can empower individuals to overcome resistance and take meaningful steps forward, whether it's a career pivot, a personal goal, or simply creating healthier habits. Matt shares insights in the hopes of inspiring others to embrace their quests and unlock their potential. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Matt Slaybaugh, author and achievement skills coach. Matt, how are you?

Matt Slaybaugh 01:29I'm great.

Tim Fulton 01:31What is an achievement skills coach?

Matt Slaybaugh 01:33An achievement skills coach is a coach who helps you figure out what are those skills that you need to accomplish what matters to you most.

Tim Fulton 01:43Is it a term of art? Like, is this a school? Like, there are different kinds of yoga or whatever — but is this a term of art, like, you are doing a certain set of evaluations with somebody?

Matt Slaybaugh 01:57It comes from somewhere. Also, I think I've claimed it for myself. I was able to get the URL, achievementskillscoach.com, or something like that. In the world of positive psychology, which is where my training is — my training as a coach — there's this acronym, PERMA-V. And each of those letters stands for something, and each of them is sort of like one wing of a library, and you can go learn about the qualities and skills in that wing. The A in PERMA-V stands for achievement — achievement and accomplishment. And it just so happens that, both based on my experience, and what I learned in that education, and what I've found myself doing as a coach, that's where I spend a lot of my time. And that's the stuff that really gets me excited, too.

Tim Fulton 02:44And the stuff that you like to do, right?

Matt Slaybaugh 02:47Oh yeah.

Tim Fulton 02:48So let's step back, your background. I know you personally from the fact that I used to work with your brother Stephen at Columbus Alive, but then also got to know you when you started Available Light Theatre here in town. So, in addition to that, and including that — what is your "yes, and"? Who are you?

Matt Slaybaugh 03:13Who am I? Well, yes, I was one of the people who founded Available Light Theatre in 2006. Before that, there was a group called Blue Forms Theatre Group. And theater was the center of my life for a long, long time, 20-some years, and about 15 of those years leading Available Light Theatre. And Available Light changed and grew and was really successful in a lot of ways. And what happened along the way is I found that I was not always healthy and not always happy, despite all the success we were having. And I took a number of years to look at that, and try to make adjustments, and try to figure out, how can I have a life that's better for me while also doing this? And the truth is, I was not able to figure it out. And I wanted to change. I needed to change.

Tim Fulton 04:03You're, obviously, you're proud of that work, but it just wasn't for you anymore.

Matt Slaybaugh 04:08Yeah, it just wasn't working for me. I mean — I don't want to over-dramatize it, but really —

Tim Fulton 04:16Unintended there, "over-dramatizing," right?

Matt Slaybaugh 04:19Yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for that. I don't want to overstate it, but it really was getting really unhealthy for me. It would have just continued to get worse and worse. I was having physical problems and emotional problems and mental problems. And it seemed like, yeah, I just really need a big change. So, what did you do then? Well, the first thing is, I told Available Light — this was in 2019 — I said, I'm going to do one more season. We made plans for that last season, and they made plans to start a transition, and that season would have ended in the summer of 2020. What was going on in the summer of 2020?

Tim Fulton 04:52I don't imagine there was a lot of live theater.

Matt Slaybaugh 04:54There wasn't a lot of live theater, no. So, as you can imagine, that end was a little messier than we had planned, and they didn't transition in quite the way they had planned. But I did eventually finish my tenure, and that was no longer my full-time job. And I had not made plans ahead of time.

Tim Fulton 05:13Because you figured you'd have a year to figure out what your next thing was.

Matt Slaybaugh 05:17Yeah. And the urgency of declaring that I'm making a change was the first thing. So I didn't have another job lined up. I didn't say, okay, now I'm gonna go do this other thing. The one thing I did have, and that I started during that last year, and it continued through COVID, was my education in positive psychology. Which was nine months long. It was online by design. There were students from eight or nine different countries. We met during Eastern Standard Time daylight hours, people from all over the world. And so I was gaining something even as I was finishing this other thing. And I just had an inkling — this positive psychology stuff, it really speaks to me, it really seems cool. Maybe this will lead somewhere.

Tim Fulton 05:57And was your interest in positive psychology — is that what led you to say, hey, maybe my time at Available Light is coming to an end? You knew something about it before you started educating yourself on it, and so you knew some core tenets of it, maybe not how to actualize it. But then, in exploring it, you were like, I can't be happy or healthy doing this job anymore. Is that — yeah, you just told the story better than I ever had. Yeah, feel free to go back to the transcript of this conversation. I'm just trying to get to — I think a lot of times in these conversations, people compartmentalize, like, I did this, and then I did this, and while I was doing this, I did that, and that transferred into this. But there may not be a through-line through all of it, but there's certainly something leading to something else.

Matt Slaybaugh 07:04Yeah, absolutely. It's not necessarily linear, but there's a sequence of events. So, let's bring that in. Michelle Lowry, my dear friend, one of the founders of Available Light Theatre — she got an education in positive psychology, because it was very useful and effective in her educational world, professionally. And there literally was a coffee date where Michelle and I sat down, and she says, I have to tell you about this. And I feel the world moving and opening up as she's telling me about this. And I go, wow, I need to know more. And so I did what, in those days, I always did when I wanted to learn about something — we made a play about it. That play —

Tim Fulton 07:47That's not a bad strategy.

Matt Slaybaugh 07:49It's worked for me. It worked for me then. So we made this play called Remain in Light. Because of COVID, it turns out to have been the last play that I made with Available Light Theatre, and it was based in those tenets of positive psychology. And you're absolutely right, a lot of what was in that play was me processing what was going on with me, exploring that, learning about stuff. And I'm not gonna say it's the play's fault, but somewhere in that process, I came to that realization and finally made the decision.

Tim Fulton 08:17And so your journey to coaching was — yes, it was through that positive psychology, but that's not why you were studying positive psychology.

Matt Slaybaugh 08:27Not why I started, no. Now, we studied coaching as part of that long course. I knew some people who were coaches, had some interest in it, and then I got to try it. I really liked it. They had a longer program specifically for the coaching training. And also, honestly, I realized that I was always a coach. The way I directed, the way I worked with actors, the way I worked with artists, it was very much not about my expertise, which is — that's not what coaching is about. It was about asking questions and figuring out how to bring out the best in people. And that was my favorite thing in all the art we made. I just like being in the rehearsal room and trying stuff with people and working on solutions, and then seeing them surprise themselves, and the look on their face, the way they would light up. That's what I was there for. We always had this joke that, like, Matt made a theater company so he could have rehearsals. Everyone else cares about their performances. I was just there to be in rehearsal with people.

Tim Fulton 09:26You enjoy the process more than you do the product.

Matt Slaybaugh 09:29Yes, yes. The process is the thing that lights me up.

Tim Fulton 09:34And so you then — you finished that initial course, the world is shut down, you decide to continue on that coaching track, correct? And so then, talk about building your — we'll talk about what coaching looks like in a minute, but I'm actually curious, what was building your book of work like at that point? Getting — what do you call your clients? — getting those clients, figuring out the niche that was going to be best for you. Can you talk through that a little bit?

Matt Slaybaugh 10:09I certainly can. I mean, in terms of the niche, I did not start with a niche. That was something we talked about in the course. And the advice was, if you can limit your scope and say, I'm a coach about this, for these people, you'll actually build your business faster. I don't know — that's always been a thing that's been a problem for me. At Available Light, I was always bad at describing who's in the audience, or who it's for, that sort of thing. And I guess I just like the idea of exploring and finding out. That's who I am. I said, I'm just gonna get on the road and figure this out as I go. And it was a similar thing with the clients, wherein I started by looking at the people around me and just sharing — literally making a list of people and sending emails, and saying, hey, this is what I'm doing, this is how I think I'd like to help people, who do you know that needs this kind of help? And let's see who I can connect with.

Tim Fulton 11:00Yeah. Offering maybe, like, initial sessions for free? So, talk about onboarding a client. What is — let's maybe just develop a quick persona of what kind of person tends to come to you. What issues do they tend to have? And how do you start exploring how to solve those issues, or address them?

Matt Slaybaugh 11:23It's interesting. I've been listening to some of the podcast, and in other ones, you've shown this interest in how a business works, or the mechanics of that sort of thing.

Tim Fulton 11:33Great. Well, yeah, welcome to it.

Matt Slaybaugh 11:37I'm really happy to talk about it. The sort of people who come to me — I can coach to any need. But what I've found now, having a bunch of clients over several years, and looking at the trends among them, I find they tend to be people who are going through some kind of transition. That might be a divorce, that could be leaving a job, moving to another job, it could be moving to a new city. But they're leaving the old thing and they're starting the new thing. And I tend to be useful in that moment, because there's a lot of uncertainty there. You're sort of in this big cloud, and it's hard to know what the priorities are, it's hard to know what matters and what to do first. And I'm pretty good at helping people map that out, get it all out on the table, and figure out, okay, here's the small thing I should start with, here's what I should do today, and here's what I need to do this week so that I can get to this other thing a year from now.

Tim Fulton 12:29Okay. And that's everything from divorce, to reaching out to folks in your network, to how to be a good leader to somebody that's transitioning to a larger role, that kind of thing?

Matt Slaybaugh 12:45Absolutely. And another trend that has emerged more recently is that I have a lot of people that I work with who are moving from a structured environment to an unstructured environment. That's their transition. That might mean work from home. That might mean they used to have a corporate job, and now they're trying to go independent. And as you probably know, when you've got a lot of freedom, that is fantastic, but, man, that is also really hard too. It comes with a whole bag of challenges that you didn't realize were there for you.

Tim Fulton 13:14And so, talk through — and then, so, what, that's been like four years?

Matt Slaybaugh 13:20It's been three, a little more than three years.

Tim Fulton 13:23And then you decided — I don't know how long ago you decided — to write an audiobook. And you did. It was just released. That's the occasion of you being here today. Yes, thank you. The book is Ready for the Quest. We'll get into the pieces and parts of it, but what's the elevator pitch of the book?

Matt Slaybaugh 13:46This audiobook teaches the skills you need for accomplishing what matters most to you, and tries to do so in a really practical, hands-on way. That is also encouraging and uplifting and inspiring.

Tim Fulton 14:03Okay. Does it help identify what those things that you want to accomplish are, or do people sort of need to come with that?

Matt Slaybaugh 14:11Well, it does also help with that. There's a bit of that at the beginning of the book, of how to use the resistance you're feeling — how to use that as a guide, a bit of a compass, to say, well, this might be the thing that holds the most potential for you. Because we often find that the things that are scariest to us, the things that, when we think about it, it just glues us to the couch — very often, that's the thing from which you'll learn the most. That's the thing that'll benefit you, and perhaps the world, the most. The thing that is holding you back, the thing that you feel most fearful about going towards.

Tim Fulton 14:45Define resistance. Is it the simplest thing? Okay, yeah, resistance.

Matt Slaybaugh 14:51Steven Pressfield wrote The War of Art, a pretty popular book. He's the guy that really defined and codified this. And the simplest way to put it is, resistance is the force that keeps you on the couch. It's what keeps you from getting your butt in the chair and doing the work. It's that little voice in your head that's saying to you, no, you're not good enough, you don't have the tools you need, people aren't gonna like you, it's probably easier to just sit here and watch a few more episodes of this television show.

Tim Fulton 15:16Right. And so then, from there, it is recognizing the ability to do the work?

Matt Slaybaugh 15:24Yes. And what the book does — one way to talk about the book is that it's a group of tools that you use to overcome resistance, to overcome resistance initially, and then to stay with it for the long term.

Tim Fulton 15:37So this could be applied to anything from, frankly, writing a book yourself, to transitioning to a new career, to getting really good at a skill. Do you think it translates well to folks that just want to be more mentally healthy?

Matt Slaybaugh 16:04Yes. Yes, absolutely. Because when I talk about the book — of course, it's Ready for the Quest, and I like to talk about things in kind of grand terms — but you also can use this for things that are more specific to your needs. And it's not necessarily about you doing something to change the world. You can use this because you want to get healthier, mentally or physically. You want to increase your vitality. This might be about figuring out how to spend more time with your kids. This might be about figuring out how to read more books. Absolutely.

Tim Fulton 16:33Let's say you had listened to this book before you transitioned, before you even made the decision to transition away from Available Light. What would you have done differently?

Matt Slaybaugh 16:46Hmm, that's such a good question. Well, the first part of the book would have had me thinking about my fixed mindset around things. What were my beliefs about what was not gonna change, and which of those were true, and which of those could I talk back to and make adjustments to? This growth mindset / fixed mindset duality is one of the problems that we address, and figuring out how to deal with that, how to make change over time, is one of the skills that I talk about in the book. So that would be one thing. The other big thing is that it would have had me figuring out how to make a plan for that over time, and what I could be doing in the immediate present to affect that future — helping me to not be overwhelmed by the difficulty. If I was looking at that transition — this is the only thing I've ever done with my life, and now I want to do something else, and I don't know what that thing is — if I'm sitting there on a Thursday morning and saying, okay, now I will figure out what to do with the rest of my life, that's completely overwhelming. I have no idea how to do that. Okay, so let's say that's the long-term goal. What's the part of that that I can do now?

Tim Fulton 18:09So give an example of that.

Matt Slaybaugh 18:13Well, I'll give an example of something that happened in the process of the book, if you like that. The book took a while. This was not an easy process. There were lots of ups and downs. How long are we talking? Well, depends on how far you go back and count. Because when I started this project, I didn't know what I was making. There was a period where I was writing, but I didn't know what this was gonna be. So we're talking like two and a half years, three years, depending on how far back you go. In the middle of that, there was a period where I ignored it for a while, because I was really busy with some other stuff, good stuff, wonderful stuff. But when I came back to the book, it was this overwhelming moment of all these half-started pieces and concepts, and there's stuff on the whiteboard, and I've recorded some things, and these pieces need rewritten, and I've got lists of what needs done. But, holy moly — same sort of idea. If I sat down and was like, okay, how will I finish this book today? It would never happen. And this happened again and again. So I turned to these skills and said, alright, I need to build up my belief in myself that I can do this. I need to build up my self-efficacy, is what we talk about in the book. I need to build up the belief that I can handle this process. And I do that by figuring out what's the one small thing that I definitely can accomplish today. In this case, it was, let's just make a list of what I already have on tape. Let's just make a list of what's recorded. I'm certain I can do that. And I did that. And then the next step in this process is you make a very small reach — small meaning 5%. So I made that list, and then I said, okay, well, let's look at what's the next thing on the list to rewrite. Not even, let's do it — let's just assess that. And that's all I did on that first day. I made a list, and then I had, okay, chapter five, part B needs rewritten. And then I walked away from it, and I came back the next day, and I started with, okay, chapter five, part B needs rewritten. And over time, I built myself up. I got momentum going, I built up my motivation, and I built up the belief that, okay, yeah, I can actually handle this. This is a big, big thing.

Tim Fulton 20:18When you're establishing a practice, like you are doing — it is a whole lot easier to get up and run five miles if you've done it for four days in a row before that.

Matt Slaybaugh 20:18Yeah, right.

Tim Fulton 20:18And the task management part of it — I'm sure a lot of task management philosophies are this way, but the one I'm familiar with, Getting Things Done, David Allen — David Allen is very much, get everything out of your head, put it all on paper, and then start providing context to everything. Like, you need to go grocery shopping. Well, you need a car for that, and is that available to you right now? Or, you need to have a discussion about what the holidays are going to look like for your family. Okay, who needs to be involved in that? Let's provide context for everything. So there's the similarities there, right?

Matt Slaybaugh 21:16Oh, yeah, more than similarities. I mean, I'm super familiar with his work. He's got the brilliant insight that our brains are not naturally good at this stuff. When you make a list of the stuff you want to do, your brain doesn't know which is more urgent — make the dentist appointment, take the trash out today, or achieve fulfillment in my life. And it just says, I got to do all those things before I go to bed tonight. So your brain is kind of dumb in this way. It needs some help. This, in fact, leads us to one of the big moments of revelation for me, and part of the reason I wrote this book — the realization that we really confuse being good at something and being good at getting that thing done. So, you talk about a runner — you're a great runner, you're a super-duper athlete. That doesn't mean you're necessarily great at logging your miles and getting your training regimen done. You might be a fantastic musician. We probably both know people who are incredible musicians. They pick up any instrument and genius just flows. They can just do it. That doesn't mean they finish writing songs, that doesn't mean they're organized to get a band together, or make an album, or get shows together. Being good, and being good at finishing the thing, are not the same. We're just not born with these skills. They're also not really taught in school.

Tim Fulton 22:35Right. And so, is the goal there — it's a self-assessment, or an assessment in general — to say, you want to do this thing. Let's go back to the music example. You want to do a little mini-tour. Okay, great. Can you get other musicians? Well, I'm not really good at coordinating schedules. And is it, well, let's get good at that? Or is it, what can I offload, or what can I task someone else with, to clear your plate? Or is that not in line?

Matt Slaybaugh 23:11Well, in line, but you would probably get there. What I would be recommending to that person, or working on with them as a coach — to use your word, the practice — what is the practice for that person that leads to them ending up on tour? The practice itself might actually be, I put in three hours of work, three days a week, on this. And at the beginning of those three hours of work, I eat a bee stick, because it gives me some energy, and then I light a candle, because it inspires me, and then I look at the list of problems that I made at the end of the practice the day before, and I figure out which ones I can most readily accomplish. That's my practice.

Tim Fulton 23:49It's Pavlovian, to an extent, right? Or is it, like — I mean, that feels spiritual. It feels like when a school bell goes off, or — I don't know if you have to use Slack, but when you hear that Slack message, you're like, oh God, I have to respond to that right now. Or a text message alert, or something like that. You're talking about creating that for yourself.

Matt Slaybaugh 24:25That can be part of it. And in fact, we know that our brain responds to that. So, yeah, let's take advantage of that, let's take advantage of that architecture. So chapter 10 is all about habits and rituals. And I read James Clear and Wendy Wood and Katy Milkman and a whole bunch of other people, to try to say, if the practice is what we want, what can we learn from the science of habits and rituals, and how can we apply it? And that's part of it.

Tim Fulton 24:52And so, what's next in the book, then, after that?

Matt Slaybaugh 24:55Yeah, well, that's chapter 10. And then we get to chapter 11, in which I deliver the bad news. The bad news that everybody already knows, which is that you cannot control the outcome. No matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you study, no matter how well you think you know what's going to happen, no matter how much confidence or self-efficacy you have about it — you know that eventually you're going to make effort, but then your effort collides with the world, and we don't actually know what's going to happen. And so, when you're trying to accomplish something really difficult, really important, something that's important to your life, and probably, therefore, in my opinion, important to the world — this is a huge amount of uncertainty. We'll use writing as an example. How do you sit down for hours a day and write and write and put in that effort? And that is really a lot of hard internal work, depending on what you're trying to produce. How do you do that work every day, knowing that there's a very real chance that it will lead to not much?

Tim Fulton 26:05How do you do that? Is it just that, you know, radical acceptance of, I don't have control over this outcome, but the payoff is, one, the work, and two, doing it?

Matt Slaybaugh 26:20Yeah. Yes, that is part of it. That is part of it. This is part of why I call it Ready for the Quest. Because whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish, whether it's this big, grand thing — you're trying to produce a great work of art, you're trying to change the world — or whether you're just trying to have better habits in your life, for your own health, the goal that you're going after certainly is really, really valuable. But it may be that the effort you put in, what you learn along the way, the growth that you'll go through — that's the real prize of the thing. That's the reason it's a quest, because you went on this journey and you found out about yourself.

Tim Fulton 26:58Well, to make it an analogy a bit — let's say somebody picks up the audiobook and says, I just want to have a healthier relationship with my partner at home. You may be doing that work in order to foster a healthy relationship, and that person may decide, I don't want to do this anymore. But the payoff is that you are now empowered to have healthy relationships, or you are better at having healthy relationships.

Matt Slaybaugh 27:24Let's go back a second to that writer, that poor guy who's trying to put in that work all that time, and facing that very daunting ending, that you don't know what it's going to be. I think we mentioned this a little bit before — if that's what you focus on, every day you sit down and say, well, I'm going to try to write a book and become a success and become famous, or move people. And every day you say, did I do that today? Did I write the book today? Did I become famous? And today you're logging 257 days of failure. So this is why it's so crucially important to choose your measure of success. To focus on that. Because if you focus on, I put in three hours today, and that's success — I learned something new today, that's success. For something different, right? Maybe you have a profound reason why you want better physical fitness. Maybe you're a grandmother who wants to be able to continually pick up her grandchildren, so you're trying to do some squats every day, you're trying to keep your knees in good shape. You've got this profound reason behind it. Maybe your practice is trying to make it through another day without getting completely depressed by the world of sorrow around you, so that you can come back and fight for the people you love the next day. And maybe success is, I made it through another day, I'm going to be here and do this again tomorrow. But again, if you were to focus on the end game, the huge task at the end of it that's so daunting, you might not even get started.

Tim Fulton 28:59Let's sit back. Talk about this — after you realized, oh, I'm going to write a book. Talk about — because there are many people in this, folks that you, I imagine, solicited to participate in the book. Were they just reading the things that you wrote for them? Or was there a bit of an interviewing process?

Matt Slaybaugh 29:21Well, there's a mix. There are three of the chapters that have sections that are interviews. So there's a conversation, we recorded it, I went back later and picked the chunks that went into the book. Mostly, what you're hearing is people — I gave them a quotation from someone else, we spent some time, just like this, and that ended up in the book.

Tim Fulton 29:43Talk about your editing process, and grooming, and — was there a — did you do it like, I imagine they do Saturday Night Live, or like a messaging calendar, where it's like, okay, I've got this many chapters, and here's what's in each one. Is that how you laid out the book, the structure of it, basically?

Matt Slaybaugh 30:08Eventually. Again, it wasn't a totally linear process. But yeah, it started with me saying, what are all the things I want to put in this book? And that was 250 things. And so I worked really, really hard — I still have this photograph of the whiteboard, of me crossing things out, and, okay, this one's really, really important, this one makes it in the book.

Tim Fulton 30:27Similar to your theatrical writing process?

Matt Slaybaugh 30:31Well, yeah, I took a lot of — I learned —

Tim Fulton 30:32Because the obvious thing that I haven't said yet is, please — your book is just the next play, right? Like, it is you — you wanted to both research and expose this thing that you wanted to learn about. So, is that process similar for you, in terms of, like, I've got, literally, just throw everything up there, and then let's start prioritizing, and let's start categorizing? And let's create — what are the characters, then? Let's take this analogy all the way. Like, in a play, you have characters, and you are assigning some — forgive me — role to them of, like, this is going to be — each thing is going to be an aspect, or a combination of aspects, of the intellectual pursuit that you're going after. Like, the ingenue may be some connection to not knowing what this thing is. And then there is a wise father figure for them. And then there is a protagonist that is just doing it wrong, and the story arc is them learning to do it right. What are the characters in the book? Or is it just a totally different way of working?

Matt Slaybaugh 32:00Well, the truth is, I think there are two, maybe three, main characters. There are three main characters. One character is, for sure, the listener. This is a book — you know, we haven't said, I'm just gonna drop this in here — this is an audiobook. Yes, there's no such thing as the physical book right now, correct? I didn't write, I didn't publish a physical book. It's all audio. This was chosen intentionally. So this is one of those books where I'm speaking to the listener, and they are very much part of the journey. Another one of the characters is me. There are a whole bunch of personal stories in there about my life, about things that were happening during this time. It's a document of these three years of my life, in a very real way. And then the third character, sort of the mentor character, are those 36 other people who recorded to be part of the audiobook, and the voices that they bring in, which are voices of research and books from all across the spectrum. There are theater directors who are quoted in this, there are people from the positive psychology world, there's Rodney Mullen, the architect of freestyle skateboarding. All sorts of voices show up to help guide me and the listener on this quest, so we can eventually get to the ultimate end of it, which is having the tools you need to face the uncertainty, to face the unknown, and move forward anyway, doing that really, really important work.

Tim Fulton 33:27How did you know when you were done?

Matt Slaybaugh 33:28Oh, boy. How did I know when I was done?

Tim Fulton 33:33Is it because, at some point, you mapped it out and you said, okay, these are the ideas that I'm going with, and then, you know, a week per concept?

Matt Slaybaugh 33:43It happened in stages. And there did come a part where I said, okay, I'm done writing, I'm not going back and writing anymore. I thought. So I thought I was done, and I moved from there into recording. And there came a point when I thought I was done recording, and I moved into editing. Now, I did have to go back and re-record, and I did have to go back and rewrite. But eventually there came a point where I was close enough. And this happened just this past spring. I was in Yellow Springs — I did a whole lot of this work while I was house- and dog-sitting for Art and Alisa Isaacs in Yellow Springs. It's a big part of the book. It was an honor and just a huge blessing to have their home to work in. So I had 11 days in Yellow Springs, and that was the moment where I said, you know what, I'm close enough, I'm going to get to the end of this by the end of these 11 days. And when I was done, the thing was complete, in that I could have handed it to you and you could listen to it from beginning to end. I still made some changes after that, I recorded a few more people, etc. But that was the moment when I said, I'm done now, I'm just doing the cleanup work.

Tim Fulton 34:50Is that the moment when you're able to say, like, okay, this is gonna come out in September now?

Matt Slaybaugh 34:50Yeah.

Tim Fulton 34:50Got it. What do you want — if people could take away one thing after having consumed the book — what, other than the elevator pitch that you gave at the beginning of this, what do you want them to think about it, or to tell people about it?

Matt Slaybaugh 35:18To tell people about it? Well, I'll tell you, my favorite feedback that I've been getting is a bit of a trend, and it's people just saying that listening to the book is making their day better. Not even that it's necessarily about the content. But a friend texted me and said, you know what, I was having a really stressful day, and on my way home, I put your book on. It doesn't even matter what chapter it was, I felt a lot better by the time I got home. Just that the stance of the book, the attitude of the book, is encouraging, and will lift you up. That's the point of the thing. I mean, if I can zoom out and speak to the purpose of the whole thing — the book, the coaching, Available Light Theatre too — we need you. When I'm talking to you, and I'm talking to everybody who's listening, we really need you to reach your potential. We need you to go after that thing that is your calling, and we need you to add whatever it is you can to the plus side of the equation, because that's how the world moves forward. That's what I think. That's why I'm a coach, because I believe that everyone can and should reach their potential. I made the book because I wanted these tools to be available to everybody.

Tim Fulton 36:35Okay. I mean, that's the most reasonable — any interview. But I do end every interview with the same two questions. What do you think Columbus is doing well, and what do you think Columbus is doing not so well?

Matt Slaybaugh 36:52We've got another hour, right? Well, here's what I want to shout out about what people are doing well. It's the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the support they're providing specifically for individual artists right now. That is a big change. That's a new thing. There were organizational reasons why it was more difficult for them to specifically target individual artists for a while, but they figured it out. The number of artists they're supporting, the amount of money they're providing for artists — I will praise it by saying, I'm jealous. I can't imagine what it might have been like 10 or 15 years ago if I'd had access to those resources. This money, I'm sure, is life-changing for some people. It's going to support a lot of work. And the fact that they are seeding Columbus with all these artists who are getting support — I can't wait to see how that's gonna grow and develop over the course of the next few years. In terms of the creative and artistic life of the city, it's phenomenal. I'm not sure that everyone realizes how different that is from other places. It is not like this everywhere. This is incredible.

Tim Fulton 37:57And what is it Columbus is not doing so well?

Matt Slaybaugh 38:01I'm gonna use this to get real specific about a need. It's an ongoing need that you know about, and it's for space. Space is hard. Spaces come and go — Skylab, right? And people have been trying to solve this problem for a long time.

Tim Fulton 38:22To be clear, you're talking about art spaces, whether that's performing, or exhibiting work, or generating work.

Matt Slaybaugh 38:28Well, I'm talking about art spaces. And what I really specifically want to get to, since I've got the microphone for the moment, is space for performing arts. Space for theater, space for dance. Because they do demand something else from a space. It's not actually the same as having a space that's really suitable for having bands play every night. It's not necessarily suitable for a group that wants to come in and say, well, no, we need it for seven nights, or we need it for seven nights and two weekends after that as well. It's just not built for that. A lot of people have tried to solve this problem. Lord knows, Michael Herring has tried it, like, six different ways. And so I'm just putting this out as a call, because my belief at this point is that what it takes is someone who's invested in those art forms and has the ability to make an investment in the space. This isn't going to come because the artists who wanted it got together and said, let's just make it happen. There needs to be an outside force to support that. I really believe that.

Tim Fulton 39:23Do you think it would be — if we made it a norm? So, I had a lot of success with, like, the original Team Tim, bringing live music and outsider art together in order to get an audience for outsider art. We did events in spaces that we were like, that's vacant right now, and that's gonna be something else someday soon — like, when Functional Furnishings in the Short North became — like, that row of retail that was just all open. And I contacted — COVID, shout-out, Andy Schiffman — I contacted the landlord for the space and said, this is going to be vacant for a while, can I use it for an event? I will get liability insurance, and it will all be taken care of. And they're like, yeah, do you mind if we have a table about the condos we're selling upstairs? And I'm like, absolutely, I'll even let you get up on stage and announce it. But, like, making it — and with John Dranschak, finding a strip mall space that's going to be vacant for two months, we should contact the land holder and say, hey, can we just have a key? We won't — we just need to rehearse. I guess I'm wondering, yes, permanent space that's affordable and accessible is essential, but absent that, if there was more of a norm to take advantage of those transitional spaces? And I'm sure you've used them too, tried to.

Matt Slaybaugh 40:55We're Available Light Theatre. It's in the name — we know where the light is. We've performed all over town, in all sorts of spaces. If that was more of a norm, if there was sort of a process — I don't know who it would be that could facilitate that. The person on one side saying, well, here are the 12 vacant places that we have available in the next three months, artists who need it, let's talk to you. Because you gain some expertise in that, and there's a lot of work to it. I mean, part of the reason I really want to talk about this is because it's so important for young, emerging, developing artists. I didn't have the connections, and don't have the connections, don't have the resources yet. When we started, the Short North Playhouse existed, right near Buttles and High, one block off it. It was like a 99-seat theater, really well-equipped. That's how our theater company got started, being able to have a space like that.

Tim Fulton 41:48And it couldn't have, really, without it, or something that we could actually afford at the time.

Matt Slaybaugh 41:54I mean, it was a stretch. We all pooled our money together, but we could pull that off. And I'm not sure if that exists anymore. And so I wonder, where's the next Available Light coming from?

Tim Fulton 42:03I guess I am super thankful that this one is actually actionable, in terms of, what are we not doing so well. So thank you for that. Very good. Matt, thank you for your time today.

Matt Slaybaugh 42:14Oh my gosh. This was so great. This was so fun. I'm really grateful, Tim.

Tim Fulton 42:29Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, and share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite playwright. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.