Oct 23, 2026 · 1 hr · 15 segments
Matt Shenker is the Co-Founder and Chief Learning & Development Officer of Mattermore—a personalized AI analytics firm—he's a Mental Health Counselor, Behavioral Scientist, a Mindfulness Meditation…
So you were leaving Steel with your mom back then?
Because there was some part of me that just thought for some reason that was the right step.
So you had the support of your family when you were going through all of this?
The difference can be just having one person that you at least believe is trying to love and support you.
It's called the Harvard Happiness Study or the Harvard Adult Development Study.
And they basically had a question saying, what are the predictors of somebody living a long, happy, healthy, successful life? And what they've found over and over again, the last few decades is it's not the greatest determinant is not how little you smoke, how much you drink, or how much money you make, or how often you exercise.
Do you have at least one person? And that's backed up in the trauma research, too.
The greatest determinant of resilience after experiencing trauma throughout your childhood is do you have at least one person that tries to build a trusting relationship with you? So I was lucky, you know, throughout most of my childhood and adolescence and teenage years, I didn't feel loved by anyone anywhere.
But as I went through withdrawal, I could see intellectually that my parents were trying to love me as best they could.
And having that is really what saved me because I couldn't imagine strapping someone with the guilt and the grief of losing me when they were trying so clearly to love me, even if the ways they were trying for some reason weren't clicking to create the support that I felt like I needed.
So you needed something that you couldn't find or nobody was giving it to you.
And that's the case for, I would argue, the vast majority of people in our modern society.
It's because the systems that we have created, maintained, and reinforced in this modern world don't meet our needs because our technologies have advanced so rapidly and socioculturally we have not been able to evolve to keep up.
And so by the ways that our systems are designed, we are overwhelming the nervous systems of the people on this planet.
So you were leaving Steel with your mom back then?
Because there was some part of me that just thought for some reason that was the right step.
So you had the support of your family when you were going through all of this?
The difference can be just having one person that you at least believe is trying to love and support you.
It's called the Harvard Happiness Study or the Harvard Adult Development Study.
And they basically had a question saying, what are the predictors of somebody living a long, happy, healthy, successful life? And what they've found over and over again, the last few decades is it's not the greatest determinant is not how little you smoke, how much you drink, or how much money you make, or how often you exercise.
Do you have at least one person? And that's backed up in the trauma research, too.
The greatest determinant of resilience after experiencing trauma throughout your childhood is do you have at least one person that tries to build a trusting relationship with you? So I was lucky, you know, throughout most of my childhood and adolescence and teenage years, I didn't feel loved by anyone anywhere.
But as I went through withdrawal, I could see intellectually that my parents were trying to love me as best they could.
And having that is really what saved me because I couldn't imagine strapping someone with the guilt and the grief of losing me when they were trying so clearly to love me, even if the ways they were trying for some reason weren't clicking to create the support that I felt like I needed.
So you needed something that you couldn't find or nobody was giving it to you.
And that's the case for, I would argue, the vast majority of people in our modern society.
It's because the systems that we have created, maintained, and reinforced in this modern world don't meet our needs because our technologies have advanced so rapidly and socioculturally we have not been able to evolve to keep up.
And so by the ways that our systems are designed, we are overwhelming the nervous systems of the people on this planet.
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