Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jason Matthew. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jason, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I started a brewery with my friend and his father in Seoul, South Korea. We started working on it in 2014 in the US and officially opened in 2017 in South Korea. I was very proud of what we accomplished and it is now the most award winning brewery in the world since 2018. I left during covid due to the uncertainty of what would happen next. After almost two years of isolation I was tired of being away from friends and family with no end in sight. I also felt creatively stifled towards the end as my vision and the owner’s vision were no longer in alignment. So it was just time to move on.

After this, I went to Alaska to run three breweries. I once again found myself miserable, this time working for an owner who didn’t seem to care about me or the other employees. As the abuse went on my gut would tell me each day to quit, but I would ignore it. The signs were all there, but I wasn’t listening. I suffered through it every day until I finally could take no more and officially quit.

I had no plan. I had no money saved up. I had nowhere to go. But I decided that the universe was sending me all sorts of signals that no one was going to be the kind of boss I wanted other than me. So instead of resisting this new path, I accepted. And that was one of the best days of my life. This is how I learned that inner peace comes through acceptance.

After I quit I drove from Alaska to Florida over three months visiting friends and family I hadn’t seen in years and reconnecting with those I loved. Upon arriving in Florida I opened up my own brewing consulting business called Everything is Alchemy LLC, and I have been on the road ever since. This has lead to so many wonderful experiences that I had to write it all down in a series of books.

I believe that inside we all know what we should do. Our intuition is very strong. But we allow fear to control our actions. I think as humans we are all guilty of this. We know what we want to do, and we want to do it, but wanting is not enough to overcome the fear of the potential unrealized consequences of that choice. This is often seen in relationships or a job where the person always finds a reason to stay even though their soul is screaming for them to leave. I think that is the heart of depression, when we are out of alignment with what we know to be our path deep down.

I still have the fear, it’s there. It is part of being human to want to control where your path will go. But what I have found is that you should set the intent of what you want to have happen, and then not fight the path to get there. You imagine the end result, but then you let God, the universe, the All, whatever you want to name it, control the means to guide you there. Because once you do, everything unfolds for you. You are a monk on a canoe. Set the goal, paddle when necessary, but don’t fight the current. Be water my friend.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I always felt a bit like Jane Goodall watching the primates as I grew up. I could never really seem to connect with the kids in my neighborhood and school. I think many artists can relate to not really fitting in anywhere. I had two devout Catholic parents. One was a stay at home mom and the other was a chemical engineer who worked at the oil refinery. I was also the oldest of four. Neither knew what to do with a hyper creative kid with ADHD so they figured leaving me to my own devices would be the easiest course of action for them. At school I was friends with everyone but close with no one. That is, until I met my friend Rory in College.

I was into all things creative and taught myself to play music as a kid. I never learned theory but had a knack for learning things by ear. My neighbor Jonathan was a guitar virtuoso from the day he touched a guitar. His first guitar was a $3000 Gibson semi hollow-body his dad had bought off Ted Nugent when he was playing spot gigs with him. Mine was a peavy predator I had bought with money I’d saved from mowing lawns. Jonathan would be running scales like Eddie Van Halen while I’d sit there pounding out power chords in my musky basement bedroom wishing I was Kurt Cobain.

One day our mutual neighbor Brandon, who was a musician, junkie, and about 20 years our senior came over to talk to me. “You know Jonathan is much better at playing the guitar than you right?” “I do” I begrudgingly replied now flush with embarrassment. “Yeah, but he can’t write a song. He is so good at reading or copying, but he lacks that it factor. But you, man, whatever you are doing, keep doing it. I love listening to what you’re writing. He may be better technically, but you are a songwriter, and he never will be.” A few years later Brandon OD’d, but those words always stuck with me. It was one of the oddest backhanded compliments I’d ever received. But maybe he was right and I did have that “it factor.”

When I was around third or fourth grade age I went to our Catholic School’s annual church festival. It was complete with standard rides like a ferris wheel, games of skill and chance, gambling tents, and carnies chain smoking while sneaking sips from Busch light cans in between rides. The smell of axel grease from the hastily setup attractions always lingered in the air. The matted grass was littered with cigarette butts, crushed empty plastic cups from the beer tent, and failed pull tab tickets just as the Lord intended.

That morning my mom gave me $2 to spend. First I went into the bingo hall, which legally, I really never should have been allowed to take part in in the first place. I ended up winning two of the four games I played much to the chagrin of the older women who surrounded me. From there I went to the gambling tent where I bought pull tabs with some of my winnings. How they were letting an 8 year old kid gamble was beyond me. I ended up pulling a $50 winner plus a few more small wins. When it was all said and done I had turned $2 into $82.

As I was gleefully running from the tent an ominous looking clown stopped me. His beard was covered in crusty paint, his eyes were magnified through his thick glasses, and his pores leaked the spirit he wished he still had. He was swaying side to side and was heavily slurring his words. “I’ve been watching you boy. And you’re the luckiest little boy I’ve ever seen in my life.” Then suddenly he reached for me. Wide eyed I ducked and took off running with my winnings firmly clasped in my right hand. “What a weird clown” I thought as I ran. But maybe he was also right, maybe I was the luckiest boy.

Being lucky and just having that it factor became two mantras for me throughout my adolescent years and beyond, and they have served me well in this life. Life, this game, the simulation, however you want to think about it is all about belief. That is the most important thing to understand. You can only achieve that which you believe is possible. This belief that I am luckier than most has lead me to accomplishing things I could have only dreamed of before. And the belief that I have that “it factor” gave me a confidence greater than I would have had on my own. I am not saying that I am luckier or that I actually have that it factor, but I believe it, and that is enough. So thank you Brandon and Mr creepy drunk clown for instilling those beliefs into my subconscious so many years ago.

I went to college and had a lot of fun in my 20’s, but those are stories for another day. I played music for a long time before realizing that there really wasn’t much money to be made in it. I was watching the band Electric 6 play live to a half filled concert hall when the lead singer started running around the stage ranting. “You too can do this. You too can make 30k playing 300 shows a year.” These guys had just had two hit songs on the radio and now they were playing one of the largest venues in Columbus. But they were only making 30k a year? It was in that moment that I realized playing music for a living might not be plausible.

Right when I graduated college I found my good friend and bandmate Vivek dead from a heroin overdose. This would become one of the major traumas of my life and forever changed the trajectory of my life. Instead of going to grad school I quit my job and went into deep isolation and depression. The loss of my good friend lead me to doing music longer than I had planned because it was how I found comfort. It was my outlet through all the grief. It was how I would express myself.

The last band I played in was called The Spruce Campbell’s. Over a few years I recorded, mixed, and produced five four song EPs and then assembled them into a 25 song concept album complete with B sides. After I finished this undertaking it kind of felt like my time in music was also finished. I would go on to record just a few more songs after this as the studio was my sanctuary. The last song I would release was the goodbye anthem to my deceased friend, 10 years after he passed. I would put it out one month before heading to Korea to start my new life. When one door closes, the next opens.

While making beer with my dad as a birthday gift for him I came to see I had a talent in it. From there I switched creative pursuits and went all in on learning the craft. My Research Communications degree from THE Ohio State University was now worthless as I headed off to brewing school in Chicago and eventually Germany. I was only a homebrewer at the time but my business partner saw a potential in me. I had that “it factor” he said. So I was recruited straight out of beer school to lead my own multi million dollar brewery. I went from raw amateur to pro overnight with no formal training or mentoring. It was quite the leap. But we believed we could do it and that’s what mattered.

Once I agreed to the job we got to work. We spent over two years planning, waiting on equipment fabrication, and working on pilot recipes. Once it was finally time we headed off to South Korea to begin construction. It was a crazy four years but we did a lot. We laid the foundations of something great and then built off of it.

Then we started winning medals and awards. We won Best Brewery and Best Overall Beer in Asia two years in a row at the largest all Asian brewery competition called the Asia Beer Championships. We won in the US, Germany, Belgium, Australia, Japan, and more. Eventually we turned ourselves into the most award winning brewery in the world. And that mindset still lives there to this day.

While in Korea I started teaching at the local brewing school. And it was there that I realized my true passion was in teaching and mentoring others. After Korea I went and worked in Alaska before quitting and starting my own consulting firm. I was determined to never work for anyone else other than myself ever again. I now travel around the world teaching and helping people become better brewers and human beings. In my free time I also enjoy painting, writing, cooking, baking, writing music, reading, learning, and anything else I can use as a creative outlet or a source of inspiration.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I want to level up my soul. I want to help teach. To spread love and joy. To help people become better versions of themselves. To help others heal. By doing so I help myself grow and heal as well. We get back what we put out. I found that I am never without inspiration when I am doing these things. Once you find your path and go all in the universe conspires to give you what you want. Life just unfolds in front of you in this really beautiful and wonderful way.

But to get there involves submitting. You have to give in and let whatever name you give to a form of higher power take over. “Jesus take the wheel” as people say. Because the more you learn the more you realize just how little control you actually have. Whatever grand plan you come up with will never be as wonderful and rewarding as whatever the universe is planning for you. So all you can do is set the intent and then take on each challenge and task as it is presented to you. And through that life becomes even more rewarding in a way you never really expected.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Every day I feel inspired. Once I decided that I was going to live the life I’d always dreamed of and stop resisting everything came together. I still get challenges. I still have difficult days, but I’m not depressed anymore. I am not out of alignment with myself. I was born to create. To connect with something greater than myself and channel it out as a way of expressing myself. And through this I find purpose. I find connection. And I find peace. We only have one shot in this current avatar so we may as well make the best of it.

And I think being a creative allows me to connect with people in a way that I couldn’t as a child. Because even if we don’t share all the same likes or beliefs, parts of myself that I put into my work finds a way to resonate with people that I’d never really interact with otherwise. The first time someone told me “I was feeling really down and I put on your song and it made me feel better.” That was a powerful moment. It let me know that my art had the power to help change people’s moods, even from far away. And that is really rewarding. To be able to connect and help people from a far.

Contact Info:

• Website: thetoastedshaman.com
• Instagram: everythingisalchemytome