Live by your standards, not your excuses with Matt Formston

Summary What does it really take to stop making excuses and become someone you can trust? This conversation isn't just about blindness, sport or breaking records. Matt Formston AM joins Amy to explore identity, trust, accountability and what it really takes to stop making excuses and become someone you can trust. Guest Matt Formston AM is a world champion surfer, world champion cyclist, Paralympian, Guinness World Record holder, business leader, keynote speaker, husband and father of three. Overview Matt Formston AM has built an extraordinary life across elite sport, business and leadership. Diagnosed with macular dystrophy at the age of five, Matt was told he would lose most of his sight and face a life of limitation. Instead, he went on to become a world champion athlete, business leader and author. In this conversation, Amy and Matt explore why blindness was never his biggest fight, how bullying and anger shaped his early years, and what it took to rebuild himself through trust, accountability and what Matt calls his hard standards. They discuss the difference between genuine limitations and inherited excuses, why "standards without consequences are just wishes", and how self-trust is built one small promise at a time. Key outtakes Why blindness can be deeply isolating, and what people often misunderstand about it The difference between genuine limitations and inherited excuses How Matt's parents helped shape his "Why Not?" mindset Why standards, consistency and time are essential to building trust How one small non-negotiable helped Matt rebuild self-trust   For more information:  Matt Formston https://www.mattformston.com/ Pre-order the book 'Why not?' https://www.mattformston.com/books/why-not-pre-sale   Transcript  Amy: Welcome to the Really Good Conversations Podcast. Today I am joined by Matt Formston. Matt is a world champion surfer, world champion cyclist, Paralympian, Guinness World Record holder, business leader, keynote speaker, husband and father of three. At the age of five, Matt was diagnosed with macular dystrophy and told he would lose most of his sight. He now has less than three per cent peripheral vision and no central vision, but has gone on to build an extraordinary life across elite sport, business and leadership. His story is featured in the Netflix documentary The Blind Sea, and his new book Why Not? explores what he calls his eight Hard Standards: the principles that helped him rebuild his life from the inside out. This conversation isn't just about blindness, sport or breaking records. It's about identity, trust, accountability and what it really takes to stop making excuses and become someone you can trust. Welcome to the podcast, Matt. Matt: Thank you, Amy. That was a bit of a mouthful, so I appreciate you getting through all that. Amy: There is certainly a lot to include in your bio, across life, work and sport, so thank you for joining me. People hear about your achievements, the Guinness World Record and the Netflix documentary, but in your book Why Not? you have the opening line: "Blindness was never my biggest fight." So we'll start there. What was? Matt: People often assume that because I'm blind, that is my biggest challenge in life. And there can be an excuse for that. But actually, I went through school and got bullied a lot. Kids would say, "How many fingers am I holding up?" I was one of the first kids in Australia to have a laptop, and I'd write stuff on my laptop, walk away, come back, and they'd highlight everything and delete all my work. It was endless bullying. It escalated to the point where, if I was running after someone, they'd run under a tree branch and duck, and I wouldn't see it, so I'd run straight into it. It was full on. Because of all that, I found that the way to resolve bullying was through physical altercation. If someone bullied me, I would end up fighting them. I learnt that if I hurt someone, they would not bully me again. So I had this learned behaviour that if you fight someone, you get an outcome. Talking never got an outcome. The teachers would say, "It's okay, Matt, they only just did this," because they didn't see the mountain of little things that built up to th