Transcript of How Matthew Dillon Turned Rock Bottom Into Unbreakable Determination

You swam through the shit.

I was covered in it. Yeah.

Sorry. There's a valuable lesson here for the people listening and watching. Want to try something, but afraid.

I will sleep when I'm dead. It's too hard. I'm not in the same position as you are. Well, why aren't you in that same position? Because you ain't busting your ass. Shed a tear if you must and move forward. You got to fake your shit until you make your shit. That was learned through hard, ass problematic life. And I think that's the best way to be what I am now.

I did I have to fake it. I had to fake that everything was okay because I couldn't tell everybody I was stressed. I couldn't tell everybody I was scared. Dude, this show was starting out of an extreme amount of pain.

And look at the joy you bring people now.

Talk to me about the chim, dude.

Dude, another game changer in life. It gets me emotional. It changed my life so much. Having gaze on talking about crying chimpanzees. Bitch, that's a wrap.

This son of a bitch, dude.

Welcome to the Determined Society. I'm Sean French. Thanks tuning in.

What up, everybody? I'm back here. I got my boy Matt dealing with me today. Man, I'm so excited to have him on the show. Been on his show once before the Fashionally Late pod. Founder of MD Effect. My man, welcome to the show. What's up, brother? We're here. It's always good to see you, bro.

It's always a pleasure. It's a great energy you bring, and you uplift people in a way that's so genuine and authentic. Who wouldn't want to be in this?

I appreciate that, man. The pressure's on. I know. Pressure's on. We got mama here.

If you can see, but she's well behaved. Don't worry.

Yeah, she's cool, man. She's cool. She just wanted to be next to you.

I know. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? That's all.

What are you going to do? Hell, man. You're always looking fitted. You look nice. What are we wearing today, dude?

This is something that's coming out in January for my own collection. So I'm collaborating with another company. I like to call myself a Jack of all trades. You know a little bit about me, but I think today we'll get into taking those onion layers off because it's rare that somebody can be a publicist, on camera, podcaster, chimp guy.

Yes.

I think that's what confuses people about me. They're like, You're in wildlife as well? I was like, No, that was my passion. But we'll journey into that.

I'm interested in all the layers. I'm going to, throughout the conversation, open a layer and I'll dive in because there's so much to you. First of all, being a podcaster, being out on camera, traveling, doing fashion stuff, and then being a publicist, that's a lot of stuff, dude. It is. I mean, being a publicist is enough because you have a bunch of people shit to keep straight. Correct. And now you're out there from behind the scenes now in the camera doing your thing. How are you scheduling? How's your calendar working? How are you staying locked in on everything that you have to do?

Okay, so that's a really good question. And that's something I remember when you've had her on your podcast, too. Gertie said She goes, If we're doing this, I need you to be fully involved in this. But she goes, I see how everything else is this flourishing moment to actually, which benefits everybody that's in my sphere as in PR mode. How my number one thing is, I do not believe in the term balance. I will sleep when I'm dead, and I'm good with that. I'm absolutely fine with that. You are living a life that about curating memories, iconic moments, good, bad, and ugly. I'm like, Until these nibly knees give way, I will stand up, I will rise again. But I also don't take on things that don't fit my heart. I think that's where my success has come from. If you look at the concept of burning out to a degree, I think people push themselves for the money. That's what I I originally were from Sydney, Australia. I moved to New York City. I was young, partying, wild, but would always show up for work the very next day. I had this innate thing in me that when it comes to my career, that's my number one ambition is driven.

But I really do believe that stepping into any project, stepping into yourself as a human being, that it doesn't take a lot to just stand up show up and step into something. It's like there's a lot of weak conversation now that it's too hard. I'm not in the same position as you are. Well, why aren't you in that same position? Because you're not busting your ass. I don't really hear excuses. I don't take excuses. You say you'll do something. You say you'll be somewhere. It's not that difficult. Show up, bring great energy, and do what you love. Because if you don't do what you love and you're just there for money, not everybody's built like you and I. I would say where you have that chutzpa to go and follow a passion, even when it takes you to dark levels. But I do believe that everybody, and that's where the fashion comes in and why I decided to pivot a little bit and start the MD effect, is because I do believe everybody, if they applied themselves in, it doesn't have to be at the 100 gas pedal, But if they did apply themselves, that they would reach their full potential.

Not everybody's full potential is yours, nor mine, nor my brother behind the lens over there. Not everybody's potential is unique and different. But we're put on this world to do something and be grand. Why be boring and sit your ass at home and complain about what you don't have? Don't sit in and wallow in moments of toughness. Take that moment, shed a tear if you must, and move forward.

Dude, so many good things I want to get to out of that monolog right there. But the one thing you said that really struck me, and you probably saw my physical reaction. It was not everybody has it in them to go hard, no matter how low it takes them, to the dark spots.

I don't judge people for that either. I don't I don't even know.

I want to be clear. No, no judgment, because even building this, man, and I talk about this a lot, dude, building this platform took me to the darkest days. I mean, dark, bro. Feeling unworthy, feeling unseen, just invisible, all the different words you can think of for that, right? But the ultimate thing is, I was thinking, You know what? This isn't my fault. This is because I don't I don't have this. I don't have that. I don't have all these different things. I don't have production. I don't have nice cameras. I don't have marketing. I don't have PR. I don't have all these things. But what I quickly realized when I took care of that one thing that I needed to take care of, all those things came. I got out of those dark moments, and all of a sudden, we start having these massive, massive trajectory of growth. We were up 999% on all analytics in 2025.

That's insanity.

Explosive growth, But it's because I was willing to sit there in those darkest moments and just feel those and just go with my heart. That's really nice. I'm not going to come off of this. I know I'm going to come out of it. It can't get any worse. This shit cannot get any worse. But you mentioned your heart. You When you mentioned you're from Australia and you moved to New York. That was said and just glanced over. I know.

It's like 15 years of my life that I just fast-folded through.

I want to dig into that because you have a pretty interesting story coming Australia to New York to LA, and now you're here in Florida. Dude, that took balls. That took balls, and you didn't know how you were going to get it done. This is why I think this is so important to the story because everything you've created because it's given you the platform It's given you the strength and resilience to build the clothing brand, to do all the different things that you're doing because you weren't afraid of what's it going to look like. You just knew that this is my passion. I want to get out to New York. I want to live there. The audience and even myself back in the day, would want something, but always wanted to know the how or the why. The thing that I admire about you is you might have thought about that, but you didn't act on that. You acted in such a way of just taking action. I want you to walk the audience through your thought process because there's a valuable lesson here for the people listening and watching that are sitting there stuck, want to try something, but afraid.

Okay. Let's say it's like, where do I begin? I would say, let me start with this This sentence, living in the moment. Really take pause in moments where you don't know what's happening. Even the littlest thing, the very first memory I have I love getting to New York. I had a girlfriend there that was a contributor for the Today Show. Her name was Katherine Neisman. Shout out to her. She's very, very well-established. She said, You should come over here and give it a shot. I was like, Give it a shot. I was I was really doing well in Australia, and I was 19 years old. I had my own PR firm. I kept the tax return. I made over a million dollars. I had done amazing work already. I knew coming to America, I would go back to the bottom. I knew that. Some other people don't think that. They think, Oh, I could ride what I have to get there. No, you are a clean slate. You've got to start from the beginning. I remember the craziest story was I knew Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue was like, luxury. I found a great rental on 125th between Fifth and Madison.

Now, this is Harlem back before Harlem had been gentrified, though. This is way back when. I arrived late at night. I packed my stuff in there. I woke up the next morning to go open a bank account. Now, me being somebody in Australia that really has never seen a culture like that, walked outside and I was like, What is all this? Now, I lived for it, but I was like, Holy shit, I'm one. This is everybody else. I remember the lady at the bank said to me, Do you know where you are? Some other lady behind the thing screamed at her and said, You better watch your motherfucking voice to him. He's like, He's a brother like I am, and I'm a sister to him. This is this beautiful African-American lady. So the bank teller was basically saying, You're white, we're all Black. What's happening? I'm like, I'm just trying to open a bank account. I just moved here. I'm here, and I need somewhere to take. It was shocking. I won't say the banks, but I basically walked next door and joined the banks next door. Yeah, of course you did. So that being said, that culture shop from Australia.

Because everyone thinks Australia is like, It is multicultural, but I've never been in a community where it's a lot of one and me. Unfortunately, I think the culture is so important in New York City, and I think that's what really toughens you up, that you are put in scenarios videos where you sink or swim. Are you going to stand by who you are? Are you going to listen, learn, understand, take pause, and really get involved? I think my greatest skillset is that you can put me in a room, even back then. You could put me in a room and I'm one of myself and everybody's different to me, so I'm the odd man out. You can take me to a country town, and even as a gay man, I will rock with in that town and they will end up loving me. You can put me in any scenario. I believe the statement that I'm going to say is, You got to fake your shit until you make your shit. That is so powerful to me because I was bullied in high school in Australia. I wasn't this confident person. I became this because I was like, I feel greatness in me.

Australia is pushing me down. They don't want me to unleash my beast. America just opened up the doors and we're like, Hey, we'll take you.

Hey, we like what you're doing here. Hey, you can go.

This was before I was doing anything. I just had the balls to step in and open my big ass mouth and ask questions and be respectful and learn and listen. This is a really important skills for anybody sitting at home asking, why is this not happening? Why can't I be this person? You can be whatever the hell you want to be. But if you don't know the skills, listen first. There's a difference between fake it till you make it and false bravado. False bravado, you can fool a few people, but that's when you turn into a narcissus, a manipulator, a bullshit artist. I was never that. I moved all the way to New York and I started from the ground up again. I worked in fashion for years. As an intern, I started. So I went from making money using that money that I'd saved to survive and actually interned. I've interned for Kelly Cotrown, who back in that day was on the Hills with Lauren Conrad and Heidi, major, major player. I moved into another power firm, Industry PR, that looked after Harvey Weinstein's production. Before he was popping off, Harvey, I was in with Georgina Chapman and learning from the greats on the outside of the door.

I wasn't even in the door. I was like, But I'm here. You're listening. I came all the way from there, and I'm here.

One of the things that you talked about is you can be anywhere and have these great conversations. You can be you. It's through a lot of personal development, obviously. You talk about a lot of people say, I don't like fake it till you make it, be it till you are it. It's the same freaking thing, dude. You're just packaging it differently because there's multiple moments in my journey where I did have to fake it. I had to fake that everything was okay because I couldn't tell everybody I was stressed. I couldn't tell everybody I was scared.

You're the captain.

Yeah, I'm like, dude. You're the captain. The closest people to me knew that I was just out of my depth. I was completely out of my depth, didn't know shit from shit.

But in your destiny.

Exactly.

Out of your depth, but in your destiny.

No, exactly. But the thing that I've always enjoyed about you was your level of self-confidence, or is your level of self-confidence, and your ability to make relationship with all types of people, man. That is a testament to you. Thank you. For the audience, you need to go look Matt Dylan up, and you need follow him. You need to go check out everything he's doing. His show is great. His purpose is great, but he's a great friend. I don't always read emails in its entirety, and I read your email in its entirety. I appreciate that. I was just blown away. I mean, dude, that move, it's not an easy thing. People could say, Okay, well, you just moved from Australia to here, New York. Yeah, it's going to be tough. But dude, there's so many layers to that.

Huge layers.

There's so many layers, bro.

Mental, physical, emotional. I mean, pull a year out. It's like for me, I went through drug habits, alcoholism, cocaine addiction, and still showed up and worked. Now, that's what they call the functioning. That's problematic. I changed my direction and completely changed that and shut out my initial four or five years of people that I was hanging around. I cut them all out.

So you had to start over again.

One more time. Yeah. One more time. New network.

New inner circle.

But I had people that were there that were like, If you can beat this, you can be great. The big defining factor for me was this big change where it was a Probably second or third Christmas in New York, and I was super lonely, feeling really alone in a sense of when you're surrounded by people, but you're like, This is not my people. I remember I was like, The only thing that really resonated me and made thought of happiness was seeing animals and dogs and what have you walking around. I called the ASPC out and I said, Do you guys do picking up dogs? They were like, we need people. The day after Christmas is the biggest rate of return of animals. I was like, all right, who do I meet this woman on the side of the street? She's in a sprinter van-looking thing.

No windows, it's a free candy.

No windows, sex van, what's going on? What the hell is happening here?

You have to be careful in those vans, bro.

You have to be careful. No tags on it, nothing. No English either. Now I live in Miami. I'm still a little shitty on the Spanish, but she was like, call me Mama, is what I understood. I was like, Oh, Mamacita, no problems. We went and picked dog after dog after dog. Five more stops on the thing, we come to a place, we take a dog, and I hear a dog, a square I'm feeling sound in a trash can right at the end of the blood. I'm running down there, and she's running behind me, and she's pushing me back like this, and she opens it up. She puts it back down, turns to me, and she's like, Yours, no paperwork. I was like, mine? And I open it up. It's a little geriatric. She was no more than four months, jaw hanging a little skew whiff. Where are you at? Come on. Ready? Come on. Mama. Can we see her in camera? She came out of the trash. There you are, baby.

There she is. Good girl. Oh, man.

We're now 17 years later.

17 years later?

17 years later, she came out of a trash can. She was the size of just bigger than my hand. And she lives a life that... Good girl. Let's sit you back down. No violence.

No violence. Don't choose violence today.

Don't choose your violence. We found each other. If she could write a memoir, bitch.

Dude, I'm going to tell you something.

It changed my whole trajectory. It gave me purpose, having a responsibility. I just fell in love with the fact that somebody had discarded this being, and I felt discarded. I was like, That's so woe be me. I'm being discarded. She had enough money to come to New York City, but I felt like I wasn't in my right place. So dog, man, we found our thing, and I would bring this bitch everywhere. She's here, man. She's here. She's hiding behind the thing, but she's doing well.

She's cutey, man. It's funny because I go deeper when you tell stories like that. I'm hearing it, but I think one of your other gifts is being able to see the truth or the potential in everyone. I think it was created in those moments because it's about seeing a dog in a garbage can, but it's really finding the beauty in that and nursing that dog back to health and understanding understanding that you haven't always been understood. You were bullied growing up, but I was bullied a little bit growing up, too. People like us, we tend to find the beautiful side of people and find those gifts, and that's a superpower.

Ii appreciate that. I did have that thought. If I ever found that person that did that, they'd be in the trash can, dismembered. But that's okay. I do have that little split section. Yeah, of course.

Don't we all?

But I do feel that trajectory It started a lot of growth for me, and it started ideas. At that point, I was surrounded and I was in the door. Not fully in the door, but I was getting paid now. We fast forward to the part, I think, where all that shit, because I stuck in it and I swam through it all and I didn't let it put me 6 feet under. Did it break me? Yes, at some point it did. I think you can be broken and rebuilt from broken. I think that's okay. Because I don't want to sit here and say in a sense, that determination, the whole epi of your part to me. I was thinking about it coming here. What does determination mean to me? If I was to think that through this whole cycle, it would be like, push me down, but stay tuned because I'll always get back up. I really do have... I'm never going to stop. I don't want to stop. I love I've had life that all of it, the bad, the goods, the thing. Every moment, I really appreciate. I'm like, sometimes, yeah, I'm exhausted. Sometimes we all...

But I'm like, it's a blessing to have lived so many dreams in so many ways. I always say, now I'm here living in Miami, in Florida, but New York raised me. It was 15, 16 years of hell, high moments, I'm finding family. Every major friendship I have stems from there. It's like, I go back there. I was just back there last week for some press, and I regularly go back. It really is a city that people are like, Oh, if you can make it there, and then I'm not in New York unless you've been there 10 years. I was like, Catch me. I'm a half Aussie. I did 16. I'm good. I think there's a certain twaddavi about New York where people are like, She's a tough city. They're angry. Nobody's nice in New I was like, I firmly disagree with that. They had that nice... Tell me. Come on. What you got? That'd be nice to you now, though.

I'm from California. I just want to clarify to everybody listening. Sorry, we love Cali, too. I grew up there. I love the West Coast. I see, though, no? No, I was in San Francisco Bay.

All right, San Fernando, I can play with.

Yeah, so East Bay. So like 45 minutes east of San Francisco, Contra Costa County. My best interaction interactions in this business have been from publicists and marketing executives and all from New York.

That's interesting.

Bro.

That's interesting.

The best of the best. They're so nice. They're responsive. They pick up their-They're direct?

They're direct. Okay, so that scares people, right?

But they're kind. I've never been on the bad side of direct yet. Yet, I'm sure I will be. No, we never. Never. But to It's so funny that you say that because I find the people in New York that I work with, specifically in my business, to be super approachable to a point where you would even think of texting a publicist that had a full feature in Variety magazine. Correct. Yes. Sarah, right? Hey, what's up, girl? What's up? She's the one that set up the one for us next week in your studio. But that's the misconception Dude, that's a misconception.

That'd be known. I do say that that plays 50% in your and who you are, too.

Because you approach energy. I think energy, right?

It gets energy.

Yeah. You said something interesting, and I really, for the nature of the show, want to dive into it because you say you sat in it and you swam through the shit.

I was covered in it. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I mean, that to me, though, it's just like anything. If you're in the gym or you're trying You're going to run a marathon. You're going to break yourself down. You're going to be worse before you get better. I think the problem with adversity is people see it as this never-ending loop that they're never going to get out of it. I'm right here right now. Dude, they keep talking about the same thing over and over again. I'm struggling. I'm struggling. I'm screwed. I'm screwed. Then guess what happens? They stay. They stay there.

You convince yourself.

They truly stay there.

You eat shit, go now.

I would wake up every day, today's the day. I still do. So do I. I go, today's the day, something massive pops.

Because I feel like you're at a level here, but I was like, you've got so much more to go. I feel like I'm just starting. I'm 43 years old, damn proud of it, and I'm just starting. Yeah, dude.

It's just beginning. I think there's so much more to me and so much more to the show that hasn't even been touched yet.

You've scratched. That scratch has been impactful.

Yeah, it's been an impactful scratch.

It's been an impactful scratch, but I'm way too shadow.

Not herpes or anything like that, but just...

What is this podcast? What is this show? I'm confused. The Determin Society, sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.

Sponsored by Valtrex.

I was saying something like that.

It's not really just kidding, guys. No, dude, I just think that it's such an important point because in everybody's life, there's individuals right now listening that don't understand what it means to fight through those moments. I'm not here to judge. I'm here to educate and help. For you, when you were neck deep in shit, what are some of the things that you did every single day? Like little decisions, micro decisions, micro actions that started leading you out?

Okay, so the first major decision I did was eliminate humans and bad seeds in my life. I think that's harder than one thinks, but easier to action. My darkest thing was I was doing cocaine 24 hours a day, almost.

That's crazy.

I would go into the bathroom. I would do it. I would I would party on it, and then I'd wake up the next morning and need it to get out of bed.

I've never done it. I've never done it.

It's just good, but it ain't right. I've never done it. Sorry. I've never done that. I'm on 100. It is what it is, but we good. We're good. Where I come from that story is, though, when you're functioning on that level, imagine the personality I have just being this. I'm on a hundred million.

I wouldn't be able to handle it.

But they were living for me. At that point, I was like, doors open, we're ready to go. I think what really struck me was that it had internalized with me. I started to go, I went to rehab once. I seconded that, started to just self-analyze. I think when you're sitting in those deep moments, start really taking a mental note or write it down. I was like, I'm doing cocaine in bed with my dog sitting next to me. That's not what this was. When you get to a level of life where you have everything in the back, but you're pushing it to the side and you start making up shit to counter, Oh, I'm not going out tonight, blah, blah, blah. You're sitting in solo and wallow mode. It happened like my mind clicked and I was like, This is ridiculous. I will not do this anymore. I should be a bajillionaire by now, but I'd rather spend it on bullshit. When I'm doing this shit, X, Y, and Z happens. I never want to do this again and again and again.

It's a cycle that you have to-It's vicious, but it does it sense.

To answer the question using that as my core, darkest example, is to say, sit in that moment, give yourself the ability to breathe. I think people get to the point where we're trying to keep up to just survive right now. If you can just sit there and be like, Nothing's going It's a change till tomorrow anyway, or the next day, sit there and just breathe. Cry your heart out. But when you get through that little moment, and you will, you will. I believe everybody is innately strong. I don't believe everybody is, and this might be controversial, I don't believe everybody's meant for greatness up on these levels, but I believe greatness is introspective. When you be like, you've got millions of downloads, you're the number one podcast, so we're looking at what dreams, goals, everything. Live in reality is part of this because some people are like, I want to be a singer. You can't hold a Sorry, that's not going to happen. Be a realist in your own life. So don't lie to yourself. Live in the reality of what you love. And when you start to look at what people around you, eliminate things early.

That's called living in things. When you're in your 30s and you hit your 40s, that's when you really should have things, at least in a better push. At least in a better push. Not everybody has the innate perception to really understand how important it is you are who you surround yourself with. And that takes time. But that also takes time. And when you realize that and you eliminate certain things, it's like this exhale moment. The person that you were doing the bad shit with or the person that was emotionally abusing you. There's so many layers to humankind and the reasons we go through, teenager, young adult, and the reasons some win, some lose, and what have you. For me, it was eliminating people, really just getting down to the thing of being okay talking to yourself up here. If that makes me certified to be crazy, then, man, I know a lot of people that talk to themselves, and they're very successful.

Bro, daily. I think another point that I would add for me is when I make changes, when they don't stick, it's because I'm shaming the out of myself. Correct. If I were sitting there at that point with you, if that were me next to my dog.

I was the most ashamed.

I bet. But it's okay to be ashamed in a moment. It's okay. I think a lot of people struggle with that. It's okay to feel shame, but to turn it into a month long shame fest on yourself is really not going to play well. I found, Hey, You can feel shame, but don't shame yourself. I feel it. I'm like, Okay, well, now I need to do this is my problem. I'm going to do this today. I'm going to make it digestible. I'm going to make it to where I can do this again tomorrow. Then I keep going and I keep going, and I would continue on that path until something broke free.

It's very indicative of I decided to do a coffee date with a friend in New York City, and I pushed away a lot of people that could have been lovers, friends, business associates, because I was like, best not to see them. You take a nighttime thing and you go for a walk with a dog. You go here. I used to live near a big bridge. I was on the upper east side. We used to walk the bridge back and forth, and that took 45 minutes, and then I would be exhausted and I would go to sleep. It's things like that where you look at... It's taking those principles that you're speaking about and that I'm speaking and saying, Hell, it's okay to not be okay, for sure. Secondary to that, your dream is not my dream, your dream is not their dream, and that's okay. But you put on this Earth to do something, chase your dream. Don't diminish what God gave you and the body and what have you. Really, and it took me a long time later in life, so I put my body and my mind and everything through hell. To be able to sit here and say, Now I'm like, I could be so further along, but I would not be the human that I am.

No, it built you. Ever. It built you. I would not be able to be cutthroat in my decision making. I think that's what differentiates me from everybody.

You have really good discernment. When you're decision making, I've noticed when I've asked you questions in certain things, the answer is there. It's there. I trust that. That's somebody I can trust.

I trust that in myself now.

Because that's why we're friends. That's why I can trust because I see that in you.

That was learned through hard-ass problematic life. I think that's the best way to be what I am now. That discernment isn't cocky, it isn't ego, it's knowing for a fact, if I say, I can do this, I'll call this person, I'll get you this, I'm going to do so.

Well, that's the thing because when you go through things like that, you build up the person that you want to become. Correct. You have this vision, and for people listening and watching, you have this vision of yourself that you want to be, that you want to become. What would that person do? Would it keep his word or her word to yourself? Would you keep your word to your friends? Would you do what you said you're going to do? It's basically what it all boils down to here in life. Key life factors. Do what you said you're going to do for others and yourself. And your life will get pretty damn easy because guess why? Those two things are very hard to It is very hard to do. Keep your word to yourself is the easiest thing to break because no one knows. No one knows, dude.

But we live in such a hustle society. We're on social media, we're looking at this. We're looking at that. I want to be you. You want to be me. Nobody is you. Nobody is me. It doesn't really matter. At 43, I realized I am who I am. I'm broken, I'm scratched, I'm bruised, and I'm pretty damn bloody good at what I and who I am as a human being. Now, I like animals way more than I like humans. You're an exception. I got a few exceptions, but I tell you what, lock me in with the chip and the dog, put me on a refuge with a hundred of them, they won't hurt me. You watch. Jane Goodle is the G master of my life, and I look at people like that and I'll be like, damn, I wonder if I got time to get enough money, and then by 70, I'm going to open a big ranch somewhere.

Talk to me about the chip, dude.

Dude, Another game changer in life. The pandemic happened in 2020. I was scrolling Instagram. I was in LA at this point. Bless California. It's just never been for me. It's a tricky city to maneuver, but at a different age.

The access is so hard there, dude. It's very difficult in LA.

I don't care about access anymore. That's not on my bingo card now. I think access comes through relationships and those that were there 20 years ago are now where we are now. I'm like, Oh, we got the dynamic down now. I'm scrolling through and it was fashion. It was February of 2020 when the shit was, Is this something? Is this a pandemic? Are we having anything? What's going on? I'm doing a photoshoot. I remember with Common Electra. I'm here, I'm there, and I'm scrolling, and I saw this chimp in a banana costume on a skateboard, skating. I was like, Is that real? I looked and it said, ZWF Miami. I was like, I'd been to Miami probably twice in the whole nearly now, where in 20 years of living here in America, I'd been to Miami twice. I had no purpose to come here except to meet a chimp. I go to Fashion Week, I take a fly from New York to Miami, I get in an Uber, and this is out in Homestead. If you know anything about Miami to Homestead, it's not it. Now, we're driving. The guy's like, Which way? I said, I don't even know where place is.

He takes a turn into a cornfield. And I'm like, Wow. Fast forward, I was with the guy for five years, but this instance here, I'm like, This is like Jurassic Park, bro. This is sick. Come The gates are there, the whole thing. Now, it's a refuge for animals, and these become my family. So I go in, I'm a customer for the first thing. Within three days, I'd probably given $5,500 to just spend 10 minutes with that chim. Wow. Then I meant, this is how I play the skill game. Then I met somebody that worked there who was a volunteer that brought me in the next day and brought the dog in. I have these videos of all three of us interacting at the very first time, and the chimp takes my jaw like this, and we're all kissing like this. I remember looking at the chimp, and I was like, Do you want me to come back again? It was like a yes. I went back to LA. All right. Maybe never again. The owner of the zoo, Mario Tabrawi. If you know anything about him, I got to have him come on your part.

His life, his base, well, he is the cocaine cowboy. He's a major player in this town, but he has served his time, done his Jews, and devoted his life to wildlife. He called me and goes, Lombani is having his second birthday. Do you want to come? They don't know me at this point. I fly all the way back again. Within six months of that second birthday, I've moved to Miami. Dude, it just changed my life. You asked about balance before. I would show up five days a week if I could there, but I'd be like, night times, mornings, whatever, take him out, runny. Imagine from a two-year-old to He's 20 years old. So just so your audience is aware, Limbani is probably the most famous chimp in the entire world. He has 1. 1 million followers on social media. He's gone viral. Gael King spoken about him. He's been on The Five on Fox. Every network has done a story on him. Bbc, we're killing it. I became his publisher, his best friend, his inbuilt caretaker. I remember. This is interesting. I don't like to because you like to keep this shit evergreen, but we are currently December 2025.

Yesterday was one year since the day that we surrender him and did the right thing by him. And he now lives at Save the Chimps. That is Jane Goodell approved. And he has a friend now that's a chimpanzee. He's working towards being on an island with chimpanzees. So one year ago, my whole life crumbled again.

One more time.

But I didn't do cocaine this time. That's good. I didn't do this. I didn't do that. So you ask about this chim, it just changed my life. I was Auntie. That was my family. And even Gertie was like, You know, he could rip your face off. And I was like, maybe he could.

He could.

I mean, if you go to my Instagram, it was the purest form of love. He would pick her up and like... No way. Yeah. I'll send you a B-roll to InSplice while I'm talking about this. For some reason on the property, there was a shopping trolley for Marshall's. Nobody knows where that ever came from. But he would put me in the thing, and he would push me in the shopping trolley. Are you kidding me? And then we'd take turns. Yeah.

Let me ask you a question, because while life's interesting, right? I remember in college, I went to LSU, and one of the tailgate days, after baseball practice in the fall, we'd go right across the street, go to Mr. Popcorn, Okay. His name was Mr. Popcorn. This dude was serious. He had beer for us. He had a bunch of food.

And he had a monkey, I bet you.

No, he didn't have a monkey. What did he have? No. A couple of tailgates down one year, I think it was my last year at LSU, there was Tiger Cup, this big. It was Saber. You could pay 20 bucks to take pictures with it. I'm like, Oh, I'm fucking paying for that. I went over there and I held this Tiger. I'm just like, Dude, I'm literally holding something.

Yeah, that you're not supposed to I'm not supposed to be holding.

And by the way, in a year, this thing could maim me. It was liberating. I will never forget that moment. It's one of my favorite moments of my life. Something special about that. With the champ-I know where you're headed. Yeah, it's like you have this powerful, powerful wild animal. Literally, you're submitting your safety to this animal.

And thus he's submitting to me saying that I'm one of your caretakers. His origin story, his mother, when she birthed him, he broke the mother's ribs. So somewhere along the he became not able to go back to the wildlife. So there's chimps that are out and about in these roadside scenarios, which the WF is not, that are used like circus toys, and I disapprove highly of that. Now, people have said to me, and I've received millions of DMs because his videos would go into the billions of views. That's crazy. My other's DM is filled with, I hope he kills you, You're a homo. I hope he rips your face. I have that in one, other's folder, and then others that are like, You use him like a circus toy. And then the lovers. So it's like this equal thing. Let me tell you this. Everything that went viral of his was an activity that he was obsessed with. He painted, he chalked, he rode a skateboard. We didn't say, Get on the skateboard and skate. We didn't say, Hey, there's a paint brush. Do what you want. These are all mental enrichment activities. He's already in the scenario he is.

We didn't put him in that scenario, but for nine years, we showed him what love felt like. And that is, my friends, your I said, If you ever want to come at me, you want to come at Mario, you want to come at any one of the core five to six people that works with him, that is a total bullshit that we ever did anything to him. The bigger he got, the news things, Save Limbani, Peter, save Limbani. The ending of this journey ended with Peter basically having to retract the post that they put on their Instagram because they said, We won another one. I had the place he went to say, Show the letter that shows that we brought him there because we made the decision, Mario made the decision. And the reality is there's good and bad in every scenario. Would I have preferred? Would Mario have preferred? The reality is with humankind and human people, the wildlife is not really that anymore. It's so foresting and deforestation and tours going in now into South African jungles and Rwandan jungles doing tours with big ass gorillas. I'm like, that distinction has been lost.

Maybe it was a part of the problem, maybe it wasn't. But what I did give the world for eight years, six seven, eight years, was a portrait of love that has, funnily enough, you take all these wildlife people. Most of them have stayed on my fashion journey, my PR journey, and they're rooting for me, and they're rooting for Limbani, and I was taught life books. I've got so many books in me and so many moments, but that chimpanzee gives me hair still.

You still see Lombani? I haven't seen him at this date.

I went back probably too soon. We dropped him in this very time last year. I went back for my birthday. The understanding was he was hugging me. He was this. It's a no contact anymore. Can't even reach out and touch his fingers because he is a chimp. I didn't want, and we all discussed collectively, I didn't want to push him back in his progress. Now we see him with another big ass chimp called Tuffy, and they're pulling each other's asses and like, That's hard, man. I intend to see him in January. I would like to. I don't know whether my psyche can handle it. I think for me, and Mario and I speak about it, perhaps that's a chapter. When he gets to one of the islands where he'll be living free and wild, maybe I can see it. It gets me emotional. Maybe I could see him from afar.

Fuck, man.

It changed my life so much. Sorry, this is bad. No, it's not sorry.

It literally just came out of me. It's amazing, man.

It's the biggest thing I've ever done and ever will do in my entire life. I'm so grateful to you, Lombani. No matter what the world thought.

You know, Matt, and thank you for that. No apology needed, dude. The bottom line is-I've been trying to hold that in for a second. I know. I've been feeling it brewing. It doesn't matter what the world thinks or the world thought because you know your intentions and you know what was going on. This is a little bit of a lesson for everybody that does listen to the show. Guys, if you're an audience of this podcast, please don't ever pop in to Buddy's DMs or in their comments and spew some hatred bullshit. It like that. That's not what we're about here. This is not what America should be like. It's not what the world should be like. What we should do is potentially say, You know what? I bet you there's more to the story. I bet you there's more to the story than what I'm seeing because people are just going happy and calling you, I hope you ripped your face off, calling you derogatory terms. It's wild to me. But dude, to have something in your life that has given you so much love and so much joy.

Purpose, my man. It's given me purpose, and it's made me a better publicist, a better friend, a better human being totally, because I have respect for what people's time him and understanding because the way we communicated, we're talking. I can listen to you. I can see you do that. His would be touch, and that's it.

But you're learning energy, too, though, right? Because you know what I'm saying?

That's why you can pick up. You can pick up. I can see people's energy and understand you're not good for me.

That's a gift. That's a gift.

He gave that to me.

He gave it to you. I just find it fascinating because my- My only regret is you weren't around in my life at that time because you and the kids would have gone. That would have been so cool.

Ape shit, no pun intended. That would have been so freaking cool.

It would have been amazing.

It would have been so freaking cool. We're going to visit him at the other place. We just can't see. The other place is hundreds of chimps together. Name a chim that was in a movie That's it. That's the way Limbani is now. Chimp Crazy, the one that was with Robin Williams. Yeah, it makes me happy. I always wonder, does he cry? And I spoke to a girl that works there, and they're like, every now and then, he'll sit in a corner and think, and I'm like, he thinking about us.

Yeah, I bet you he is.

He creases my mind every now and then, and I'm like, keep going, bitch.

I'm working. Man, that's impactful, dude. I just think that little thing, it's not a little thing, but I'm just going to call it little things like that. It builds who we are. It's so funny because before we hop on, we talked about so many different layers we can go through, and in so many different directions we can go with this episode here. But I truly feel the overarching theme is building yourself as a true human being of who you want to be. That has been the essence.

That's big and important.

It's massive, and it doesn't matter how you do it. Well, hopefully it's constructive.

I think constructive, yes.

Yeah, that It's going to be a prerequisite, right? God damn, I hope so. Good Lord. Do it the right way.

We got a problem.

We got a problem here. But I just think that there's so many different lessons. I just really want to empower the audience to not prejudge any situation that they're about to into or do. I'm like, Oh, this isn't going to help. This is stupid. You may pass on an opportunity. You may already pass on an opportunity that's going to really enrich your life.

Be open in to close this with anything. Obviously, I've had some big moments. But my chimpanze could be your walk down the street or meeting somebody at a coffee shop. But you take the chimp in the seven years out of it and say, That was a defining relationship that I had. If you're looking at and you're looking at understanding how you can be the best version of yourself, which I think you were saying, this is the underlying thing for me, showing up, stepping into what your greatness is. That's different for everybody. Everybody. Levels on partner levels. I'm not even saying your ambition might be have a roof over your head and have a beautiful family. That's iconic. Yes. That's iconic. Why is it not? Dude, my mother taught me that. Bless her, She said, not everybody has grandiose in those big dreams. Because I would use to be like this, what is wrong with that person? Now I appreciate that life is made above all of this. I've never had any ounce of not jealousy, not hatred, not I'm better than you. So don't judge anybody's story. If you don't really know anything, nobody's a director of anybody else's life.

No. Nobody.

There's a place and a thing for everybody. It's funny because Because there's a lot of people that wouldn't want to do what I do. There's a lot of spouses that wouldn't want their spouse doing what I do.

Having gaze on talking about crying chimpanzees. Bitch, that's a rep.

This son of a bitch, dude.

Listen.

I love the gaze. I'm giving you good clips, bitch. This is a great clip. I'm giving you good clips. This is a great clip.

I know you do. We good, dude. That's great.

But I lost my train of thought with this son of a bitch.

Welcome to the German Society. I'm Shawn French. Thanks for tuning in.

Matt Dylan, everybody. My wife will get things thrown at her from her friends like, How do you do this? His Instagram is massive. There's got to be people popping into his DMs. Does he travel? She goes, I ain't got to worry about him. He doesn't have a bad bone in his body. Everybody has a different path. But my point is with this, when we talk about, and this is a question that I hate, when you're at make a get together and another man comes up to you and goes, What do you do? I hate that question. Because you know what it is? It's a dick measuring competition. It's all it is. I want people to come up to me like, Hey, what are you teaching your kids right now? What are you and your kids reading? Where are you guys going through right now? Have a great conversation.

I want to say, Hi, how are you? I think start with some empathetic situation.

Yeah, it's like, What's your name? It's just funny because there's a lot of people, my Long, drawn-out point is a lot of people look down on others for not doing things that are as big, and this is air-quoted for people that are listening, as big, right? But I can look at... My wife was an amazing salesperson. Now she's a badass teacher. Well, that's her passion right now. Go be the best you can be because the kids need a really great teacher. Those are heroes.

I got a lot of respect for her for that. I have a primary degree education. I know. I did read that. Don't worry about that. I mean, God, can you imagine me as a primary school teacher? Oh, my God.

That'd be hysterical. Everyone, shut up. I don't think you'd be that way.

I think I'd have an amazing time, but I'd pick the favorite and be like, What's wrong with you guys? Have some ambition.

He would be the kindergarten teacher that every book was about a fucking chim.

That'd be amazing. Come on, that's life. Chims, good people, podcasting, television.

And mama.

Let's bring her up for the finale.

Yeah, bring her up for the finale, man. Mama, you love that.

What do you got to say? Say, Thanks, Daddy, for changing my life.

Give him his flowers on air, mama.

I'll give her her flowers.

No, but man, I just think that there's so many great people, so many great things that they're doing. It's so funny. A little I do small things, dude. In the morning, every garbage day, I'll go outside, and if I run into them, what's up, boys? What's going on, man? But then other people just diss the shit out of them. Here's another bag, and they put on the...

I was like, Yeah.

They are not your servant. They're actually doing really well for themselves.

To be quite honest. Let me tell you, anyone in that service like that is making good money.

They're making great money.

I want to be a window cleaner up high on the rooftop because I could make more money in a couple of hours.

No, fuck that, dude. Uh-uh.

Yeah, they make danger money.

I know. Danger money. Keep it. Keep it. Keep that shit, man. I'm not all about that.

Clearly, I'm on a theme. I want to clean windows at the top of the thing.

That's just crazy to me. That's just crazy. I'm going to stay on the ground.

He's like, Let's walk a red carpet. Yes.

What else you got going on, man?

To wrap it up, let's just say PR business is great. Fashion business is great. The MD effect changed my life. To sum that up really fast, the MD effect is a curated approach to making others capable of wearing, looking, and understanding fashion. It's like small, medium, large, extra, extra, wherever you rely on that, black, white, Chinese, whoever you are, fashion is an integral part of life, but it's so much more than that. It's about feeling good and really loving who you are. I think I started this because I didn't love who I was. I love that, too. Now I love who I am. Dude. I truly can look at that and be like, I love the man I've become because it took a long time to find him.

I I feel that, dude. I feel that. I always love how- It took a little-little lady. Yeah, a little lady. It's always great. Just what you said there was, I started this because I wasn't happy with who I was or I didn't love myself. It's like a lot of great things. Most great things, are originated out of some source of pain. Bunkers, right? I mean, dude, this show started out of an extreme amount of pain.

And look at the joy you bring people now and the education and the perspectives that come. I must say, you have a greater potential and reach because you feel like you're somebody's best mate. And that, my friend, is your power gift. I've learned so much sitting here with you. I didn't think I'd ball on it. I was not planning on doing half the things or discussing half the shit that I did, but you really make somebody feel seen. Thank you, man. And I appreciate that. I hope that in my life, in my career, that I can do that for everybody, not just the people that are in in front of me, that I can do that for everybody because I think that's the greatest gift we can leave anybody. Being seen, feeling important, and just that. What else is there?

I hear you, man. I appreciate that, dude. I really do. It's the truth.

One thing I don't do is be a bullshit.

No, I don't do that.

I'll be like, Bitch, this is a waste of my goddamn time.

You ain't it, bro. You ain't it.

You are it.

No, I appreciate.

That and a bag of chips. For sure, bro.

Let's take it higher, man. We are.

Don't worry. Stay tuned. Stay tuned.

Mdeffect. Com.

Themdeffect. Com. Listen, I got a lot going on. Follow me at mattdilin1983 on social. I want to do books. I want to do the whole thing. I want to come into this 2026 period and really look at life and take some time from me now, too. Really, not the balance word, but really pick and choose what serves me mentally so it really keeps the engine's tuning. That's really it. There's no big formula in life, I think. Pick things that make you happy.

My big thing for you, man, Chase Presence.

He's going to make me cry again this week.

Chase Presence, man. Change. Not presence, not like gold and shit. No, I'm at a present. Presence.

Cnc, whatever you spell that, that's bad, bitch. I'm dyslexic now. All is being revealed.

Well, he's been found out. No, but man, thank you so much, dude. I appreciate you, man. You're a great friend, man. I appreciate you. I love you, buddy. Thank you. For the audience, share the show with somebody you know, love and trust. Go follow him at @matdillon1983. Go check him at mdeffect. Com and go listen to his show, the Fashion with the Late Pod. I was on it. It's a good one. And always, guys, I appreciate everything you guys do with sharing the show, telling your friends about it. Keep sharing this thing out, guys. And until next time, stay determined.