Ed Watters: To overcome, you must educate.
Educate not only yourself, but educate anyone seeking to learn.
We are all Dead America, we can all learn something.
To learn, we must challenge what we already understand.
The way we do that is through conversation.
Sometimes we have conversations with others, however, some of the best
conversations happen with ourselves.
Reach out and challenge yourself; let's dive in and learn something new right now.
Today I am super excited because we have a national icon
with us today, Matthew Lesko.
He really needs no introduction at all, but Matthew, would
you please introduce yourself?
Let people know just a little more about you, please.
Matthew Lesko: Well, I've been doing this work for fifty years.
I'm eighty-one years old and, uh, for fifty years I've been trying to train
people how to take advantage of government benefits that nobody knows we have.
I mean, you know, if you can't, you'll never find government benefits in Google.
You know, that's the problem because you'll find 500, 000 million websites
that people want to get your money.
See, and that's why you, if you don't have money, you just
have to stay away from Google.
So I'm trying to show you how to take advantage of actually the forty
percent of our country that gives away money, forty percent of our
country gives away money and programs to help people have a better life.
Sixty percent of the money, of our country charges money to help
you, forty percent no charge.
Don't have to have a credit card, nothing.
And you get help from us, anything you want.
And that they don't advertise and people don't know what
to do and so that's my job.
I got about ten, fifteen years left, I hope to keep educating people about that.
Ed Watters: I sure hope so, because we need people like you in the world.
You educate so well.
Let's start from the beginning Matthew, you, you got started in
helping people somewhere, somehow.
Could you let people understand how you got started in helping people
discover grants and free money?
Matthew Lesko: Yeah.
I, uh, yeah.
When I was about eight, twelve years old, I remember pushing my younger brother down
the stairs, and I remember that picking him up was more, that's a bad joke.
I , I didn't know how to end that.
No, I, I don't know.
There's something in me, uh, uh, you know, you have to learn
how to feed yourself first.
And, uh, and I just, things weren't working and I found that, then I forget.
I just got rid of everything in my head because everything I tried
wasn't working, I wasn't having fun.
I wasn't, wasn't working out.
Uh, I was failing at everything after I got an MBA and all this kind of stuff.
And then I said, Boy, now this sounds stupid because why am I
being miserable to maybe have fun in thirty years for a few days.
Be miserable your whole life to eventually have fun.
And I figured, because I was thinking, Because I'm taking advice from outside.
You know, we don't know what we're doing in life.
Everybody's guessing.
Nobody knows what the rules are, they change every day anyway.
And so you try stuff that other people say is, this is perfect for you to do.
And I always keep on failing.
So I said, Well, fine, these people aren't so smart after all.
Why do they, how can they get away with charging so much money?
See, they make you believe they're so smart when they're really not.
So that's the way they charge a lot.
So I said, I gotta listen to me more, you know, and then outside.
And, and that's when it started working and having fun.
I said, Because if I'm having fun and I'm, making decisions based
more in my heart than in my head,
I didn't think in those terms at the time, but I had other
terms for them I didn't know yet.
And, uh, at least I was having fun, so I didn't have to work
ten, fifteen, thirty years to have fun doing something miserable.
I'm having fun now.
Maybe I'll fail, but what the hell.
I was failing, not having fun.
So it's a better system to fail while you're having fun.
And so I get another job for six months, I hate it and try something again.
But then this time it was from the heart, you know?
What is right for you?
We're all different.
We're all, you know, organic like the earth, or the flowers, or whatever, and
we're built to be something, you know?
And that's, I think, our whole mission is.
Because when you find that, then you don't work anymore.
You're doing something that you love doing.
It's like if you love playing tennis, and very few are good enough to make money
out of it, and the rest of us dream of it.
So you have to find out what your skill is, that you could figure
out a way to make income out of it.
So you get both pleasures.
And I'm so fortunate,
I got eighty-one, I have no idea, I have no intention of retiring ever.
I get more fun and more satisfaction out of doing this.
And the older I get, the more I see the real thing in life is helping others.
Uh, that's the satisfaction, uh, the secret about, uh, people don't
realize how selfish giving is.
It's probably the most selfish thing you do in life, because it feels so good.
But we all think we shouldn't be that way.
We have to be protective, and not, not be selfish.
I don't know, I can't, I never figured out what's in my head,
let alone somebody else's.
Uh, so that's why all I felt, it felt better the more I gave.
And you have to take care of yourself first, so there's
always limits to everything.
But even now, and that's why, what, I mean, I can't wait to
get up every morning and do this better, yeah, and help more people.
I mean, I don't feel I'm responsible for any of, these are coming programs,
they're, not like I invented, you know, a cure for cancer or something.
I just found this phone number.
And that said, so it's not even from me.
And, but the joy I receive from, somebody writes, uh, Boy, Lesko, I
just did this and I got this and, you know, uh, I was going nowhere.
And then I got this, I had no idea you could use it for that.
They teach me.
I don't know where, I was just reading that note earlier.
Uh, so the fact that I could give somebody a phone number that could change their
life, give them six months of rent or something like that, or starting a
business, um, or solving a health problem.
People don't know, uh, getting a copay made, uh, that they thought
they had to pay, but you don't have to pay, or having a big hospital
bill that will bankrupt you, but you don't have to pay that either.
So it's, it's, uh, so I'm trying to train people.
And the help is not where people think it is, I think that's the biggest problem.
We don't educate people about using these programs, we educate
people about spending money.
So that's what everybody knows how to do.
Everybody knows how to go to Google and say, I need help with my rent, okay?
And this is Google, this is our economy here, uh, whole economy in 2023.
And this is capitalism, the orange part, or yellow, whatever it is.
That's capitalism.
It's sixty percent of everything in our economy so they're
charging for everything.
They're there to help you as long as you have a credit card.
But this part is our, well, community society.
This is where communities help each other, people help each other.
It's sort of like if your neighbor's house was on fire and you went over
there, Yeah, I'd like to help you, but do you have a good credit card?
No.
They prefer a credit card to helping them.
So that's what we are, we have this community that helps each other.
And that's really made up of non profit organizations and government offices.
And they're the ones that give out an average of like 18,000
dollars every year to every adult.
And nobody knows.
And I'm trying to teach people how to do that.
Because you just, the basic thing is what not to do.
You don't go to Google.
Nobody on Google is, I mean, they're in there, the government,
non profit, they don't advertise, so you'll never find them.
Because like everybody else, Google wants to make advertising money.
So, the non profits and government don't advertise.
So it's hard to get noticed in Google, so you have to stay out of there.
And one of the basic things is to only go to websites that are
dot O R G or dot G O V, okay?
And that's, anybody else is going to get money from you one way or
another, and they're too slick to out think them because they think about
ways to get money from you 24/7.
And now with the Internet, it's so much more powerful to test.
It's all about testing.
They could, when I was doing direct marketing years ago before the Internet,
you had to do like direct mail.
And you put mail in the mail, you know, see if anybody buys and
that takes maybe months to figure out if it was worth it or not.
Now you can do 15,000 trials in three seconds to find out what,
what to say so that you get money.
Uh, so that's why they have, we don't stand a chance, you know, with these.
So you have to use these, uh, services that do it for free.
Uh, I don't know.
Do you know Find Help at all?
Ed Watters: Yes, I was actually looking at that and it is fascinating.
Says there's 1,949 programs in my area and that is fascinating.
Yes.
I'm in the middle of nowhere.
Matthew Lesko: All three of you could use those.
And that's what frustrates me.
And then the other thing we have to start teaching people is don't rely, don't try
to find an application on the internet.
Uh, because you don't know what to apply for and you can't even
understand what they mean or what, you know, it just too much.
You know, like talking to doctors, you know, they all have their own language and
you're not sure what the hell they mean.
You have to use people, you have to get on the phone.
That's the real way that you find information in America that you can
understand and use and take advantage of.
So if you like put in rent and you go and you find, probably for you, where you
live, maybe twenty, thirty organizations, uh, that help you with rent.
And the way to use that is to start calling every one of them.
If there's only twenty, what the hell?
Uh, somebody's going to give you 5,000 dollars to pay your rent, you
can spend a couple days doing this.
Where else are you going to get free money like that?
And you talk to people, see, they're all in the business of helping
people like you with that problem.
You know, so if they can't help you, they're the most likely people
in the world to know who can.
It's sort of like, well, you know, living in rural America, well, I mean, I can read
a book on it or I can call you, you know?
Because you read all the books in about twenty years or whatever.
And so that's what you want to do because there's just too much of a fire
hose of information on the Internet.
And you have to rely on people more nowadays.
They're who've gone, and the thing is, all these nonprofits and government
offices are public servants.
They have to answer your call.
They may not, but the theory is, but it's not like you're calling
a business and, you know, a lawyer and, Oh yeah, I'll help you.
You know, 300 bucks an hour.
No, these people are all free no matter what you do.
And actually legal help is available for you.
Why hire an attorney for anything, uh, when you can get better help
for free from government offices?
Like right now your credit card screws you over or whatever, your
bank, any financial institution,
you file a complaint with the consumerfinance.gov, they'll investigate.
Even though you're wrong, they'll investigate.
And see, these big organizations, they don't care about your lawyer.
Their lawyers are bigger than yours, you know?
And your lawyer's, you know, got you on the clock for 200
bucks an hour or whatever.
And the worst they could lose in fighting your lawyer is having to pay you, right?
But if you get the government involved, if they screw up with the government,
they can lose all their business.
Because they have, they get a license from the government to be in business.
You don't have that power.
You know, you just have power to sue them.
So it's easier now for them to just cave in.
Because, and also these big companies that you're fighting, it costs them too
much money to talk to the government because that's another bureaucracy, right?
So they're going to spend 5,000 dollars just talking to each other.
And you want a thousand bucks, it's cheaper to just give you a thousand
dollars and get on with their lives, you know, instead of doing.
So that's why we're not trained to use this.
All we're trained is to spend money.
That's fine if you have money, capitalism brought a lot of people out of poverty.
But it seems to be putting more people in poverty now, the truth.
Yeah.
Uh, and I never said it that way.
It just came out of my mouth because I've been looking at data,
poverty data recently, and this is for the developed countries.
So this is, you know, uh, like we have thirty developed countries in the world.
So nobody from Africa is in here, uh, the poor countries,
but we're number one in poverty.
Isn't that amazing?
I know, isn't it?
We're the highest poverty rate in all of developed worlds.
How could we be the richest country in the world?
Why do we even dare brag we're the richest country in the world?
Well, that's going away now too, but
it is, it's a pity.
I mean, we make more millionaires than anybody and that's true, but
I don't know if that's a, if that's worth saying when you're also making
more poor people than anybody.
Uh, here's the sheet.
Yeah, we make twenty-four million, uh, millionaires in our country.
Uh, we're number one for millionaires and for poor people.
Number one, baby.
Yeah.
It's, people have to do something, you know, and I think people are
beat up so much in this country.
Um, and now it's, we're going through a tough time, you know,
politically and everything.
That people are upset and trying to get through all this and in the
world, our rank is getting small.
I mean, in ten years, we're probably not going to be the
biggest guy on the block anymore.
And we got to get used to that, so that's hard to swallow.
Ed Watters: Well, it's interesting because you often say, Don't stop at no.
And my grandmother told me, The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
So that's the principle behind what you're saying there basically, is it not?
Matthew Lesko: It is, and I think it's all in life.
And that's why I used to worry about question marks.
That's why my suits used to be question marks, now they're hearts.
Because I had the question marks before, because I think that if
you have to ask the right question to get a good answer, you know?
So getting the right information that you need to make a decision
means asking the right question.
But now I believe that even if you have the right answer, it's still not,
you're still not going to make it happen
if your heart's not in it.
Say, because there's going to be problems, everything you do in life is going to
have roadblocks, bumps, problems, or whatever and fifteen reasons to stop.
So you have, your heart has to be in it so you don't stop.
And that's the way you get through that.
It's sort of, you know, I remember, my boys are in their forties now,
they're older than me, they were trying to walk and they'd pick themselves
up at the coffee table and take a little step and fall on their ass.
So you have to fall on your ass a lot of times to walk.
So when you want to do something new in life, same thing.
You're not just gonna get up out of the chair and make, make a home run.
No, you gotta fall on your butt.
And that's why I think we're, uh, Internet and professionals get in the
way because they make you believe, or try to make you believe, that it's easy.
And follow these three steps and you'll be a millionaire.
One, two, three, that's all it is.
Why aren't you doing it?
When it doesn't happen in three days, you get mad at yourself and don't believe
anybody and just start digging a hole.
And, uh, we can't do that if we want to do anything.
And anything for, you don't have to, I believe this wholeheartedly, you don't
have to know what exactly you should do.
The only thing you have to know exactly what is right is where
you are now is not right , that's the only thing you have to know.
And everybody, sorry, it's so tempting to wait for the right opportunity before
you do something different and you don't know what that right opportunity is.
I think we build it piece by piece, and the only way you do that is
taking a step away from where you are.
Anything is better, anything.
Something is always better than nothing.
And we, we get trapped in, Oh, I'm going to wait for the perfect one
before I, that's not going to happen.
And you're going to be here twenty years later waiting for the perfect one to come.
So you have to really just take a step out and try anything.
Doesn't matter what you're trying as long as it's not.
Ed Watters: Yeah.
Really, what I'm hearing there, Matthew, is a big step is believing
in yourself and baby step that out.
As you grow, you become better at believing in yourself.
Getting started is hard to do sometimes and that's where what
you're doing helps people get started.
Could you tell people about, uh, Lesko Help?
Matthew Lesko: Yes, that's a community we have now.
I just started it about two years ago and I thought it'd just be a subscription
to help pay my rent or whatever.
And it just grew, took on legs by itself.
That's not an example.
It's growing into something I never, I, knew would happened because I thought
it would have to be me answering all the questions and how much can I really do?
So it won't be big, but we have 12,000 people now.
And mainly because people are helping people, so it's not me.
And they help people better because the people who just learned about
something and applied for it and got it, they're so excited.
You know, me, I've been doing this for fifty years.
And when you have a basic problem I solved a thousand times, it's
hard for me to get excited.
But somebody who just got it and found, hey, yeah, this stuff works.
Here's what I did.
You know, it's just a better match.
And the people are so important, they are members, they're paying
to do this, uh, because they feel like I do, the joy of giving.
So they have knowledge of something and they feel, um, uh, just a
wonderful gift of giving to somebody.
And it grows their heart.
I mean, my favorite subject now is, I'm growing my heart.
I'm not, at eighty-one, I'm not going to get smarter, faster,
stronger, any of those things we work on as guys in America.
And none of that is ever going to get better and globally decrease.
But I could love better and that's the one thing I could keep
growing forever is loving people.
And wow, I mean, I couldn't even say the word a couple years ago, unless I married.
Ed Watters: Yeah.
Well, that's a huge step, learning how to love.
Because in our world, we have so much chaos, and misunderstanding,
and miscommunication.
We really are hurting for love in the world.
And I love the concept of people helping people, it's one of my original taglines.
I believe in it 100%.
Yes, I used that several years ago.
And I believe it still today that if we believe in ourself, and we start
sharing ourself, others emulate that.
And that will grow, and, and we need so much more of that in our world.
Matthew Lesko: Oh, definitely.
Uh, I mean, well, and it's selfish, you know what I mean?
It's, I don't look like I'm helping the world.
I guess I see the reaction of people, but, but it's, my real
motivation is me, how it helps me.
It helps me walking around with an open heart.
I'm not even sure what that means, but I certainly feel something about that.
And the more it gets closed, the worse the day seems.
Uh, and the more I open the heart, the better the day seems.
And I, I don't even know what open and closed heart is, I know
I'm an asshole when it's closed.
Ed Watters: We, we, we can all be there.
And, and you know, I started my journey frustrated, angry, mad.
I had to develop that sense of love and compassion, empathy, and
that, that's really how I started to grow out of my own misery.
And I understood I'm not in this alone and I really need
help to get where I need to go.
And I think really, people need to understand you can't do it all alone.
Even though I want to, I want to do everything myself, the hardest
part is reaching out, developing the connection, and asking for help.
So, I think this is truly the gift that you're giving back to the world right now
is the ability to step into a community.
And they care because they're doing the same thing as you and I.
Matthew Lesko: Oh, the other thing I'm doing too, I never thought I'd do, uh,
is I didn't know I'd be profitable.
Because I just wanted to make a, you know, uh, pay for my way.,
And it all become profitable and only at ten to twenty dollars.
People were saying when I did something like this for financial
services, whatever, it had to be hundreds and thousands.
But people that could afford that,
I didn't want to help.
I want to help people who can't afford that.
And so I wanted to charge only twenty dollars.
And just about a year ago or so we started being profitable.
And now we give out $70,000 every month to members.
And so our profits, we give it back to people in either $500, a thousand dollars
in four different, uh, grants every month.
And God, I mean, I, I thought you had to be Jeff Bezos to do
something like that or whatever.
But a schmuck like me from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania is able
to do this is, uh, remarkable.
I mean, that, that, that's amazing.
Yeah, to me anyway.
I mean, in this world.
Ed Watters: And that, that's that selfishness that you're talking about.
Matthew Lesko: Yeah.
That feels good, really.
And, because I think that's the best way to try to change people or
whatever, or the only way we really have, or maybe because I'm not,
I'm too dumb to think of any other way, uh, is by example, you know?
If you, if you don't live that, um, uh, you have to create
the world you want to be in.
So you have to create your own world that way.
If you're expecting other people that do that, you know, uh, and that's, yeah.
No, it's fun.
I, my favorite saying now is if I knew eighty-one would be this much
fun, I would have got here sooner.
Why did I wait so long?
Ed Watters: Yeah.
And that's why it's good to connect with you because you get all of
that knowledge in a loving fashion.
And I think it's really key to existence anymore.
And I do have one more question I really want to kind of dive into with you.
We have a new administration coming in and a lot of people are very skittish about
grants and the money coming in, especially with the speculation of the DOGE, you
know, Department of Government Efficiency.
What are your thoughts on this?
And do you, after all of your years in service like this, do you think
that that is actually going away?
Matthew Lesko: Uh, I'm not sure what will go away, if anything.
I would just ignore it, just ignore it.
It's all wind, you know?
It's, everybody's, I mean, it may happen a little, you know?
We got a big ocean liner here, you know, and, uh, the president has very little
control over the whole fucking thing.
He has a little bit control but there are other people involved in doing it.
And I've been watching it for fifty years, every president.
The amount of money given out in grants and stuff grows every
year, no matter who's in power.
Next year, and it's already baked in the system.
I mean, every year, uh, where is it?
Oh, here it is.
Here's, here's what's happening for already 2025.
The budget is out, it's spending already.
Now we went from a total of, now this is grants for individuals, from 4.
4 trillion to 4.
8 trillion.
It's going up.
And as soon as he, you know, takes control on the 20th of January, he's
going to give out more money in 2025 than anybody, any president ever before.
Now again, he'll nibble around the edges, which could be important.
Because if you change an ocean liner just one or two degrees off course,
you know, they miss the whole continent they're looking for, you know?
2030.
So that, that's, that.
And so much of politics and marketing and, uh, I forget what they say.
It's mostly local, stick to things like, uh, you know, your Find Help
and talk to those people, they know.
Don't believe the Internet or anybody else, talk to the
people giving out the money.
And that's not Trump.
He doesn't write,
well, he writes some checks.
I don't know.
But it's mostly local, you want to talk to your local organizations.
You want to start a business, a non profit, or you have an
invention, um, you have something called, uh, AmericasSBDC.org.
Americas, A M E R I C A S, then SBDC.org.
And they will sit down with you no matter what county you're in,
even out wherever the heck you are.
And show you the money programs, help you think through any idea, give
you free legal help, marketing help, you know, publicity, anything you
need to grow yourself or a business.
And that's who you want to talk to, you want to talk to people like that.
Or you need help with, um, debt and things like that, you go and look for financial
counseling in, in, uh, findhelp.org.
And there'll be a dozen even in where you are.
Uh, uh, that you make appointments and talk to these people and,
to get out of that trouble.
Because we carry around that worry, you know, particularly about debt
and stuff that I think makes, makes people, people physically ill.
It's just what it does to the inside somehow.
Uh, and you're waking up at night or it doesn't go away.
The only way it's going to go away is if you start talking to experts
that will help you for free.
Not people on Google because they want to get money from
you and you don't have money.
So you're just going to get more pissed that life isn't helping you.
Life is here to help you.
And actually, you know, the chart I showed you, forty percent of the life that you
live in is here just to help you, 40%.
Who the fuck would ever think of that?
Yeah, I didn't until I started looking at the numbers.
Man, their, their job is to help you.
Not only your family, we live in a bigger family.
And because, like what we're saying about ourselves, Why do they help you?
Because it feels so good.
They're selfish bastards just like we are.
Ed Watters: I love that.
Uh, you know, it's, it's a good talk that we've had today and I'm sure it's
going to reach and help a lot of people.
Is there anything else that you feel that we should add to our
conversation today before we let you go?
Matthew Lesko: Uh, no, I'm very happy.
I hope to be here.
I just can't wait to get up in the morning and do this again.
And I feel very, you know, God, just unusually special for some reason.
I've never thought of myself as being special at all, I still don't.
I'm just so grateful that I can do something every day that I enjoy
doing, and it may help people.
I think there is nothing better.
They give me a billion dollars, what the fuck am I gonna do with that?
Burn it for fuel?
I don't know.
It's what you do with your life, you know?
And then that's the important thing, you have something to give to the rest of us.
And our mission is trying to find out what is that best part of us
that we can give the most so we enjoy doing it and helping others.
Ed Watters: That's right.
Matthew, what's the best way for people to get in touch and get a
hold of this material that you have?
Matthew Lesko: Uh, leskohelp.com.
L E S K O H E L P dot com.
Or YouTube.
I got thousands and thousands of videos on Matthew Lesko on YouTube.
Ed Watters: Great.
Matthew, I want to say thank you for sharing today with us.
It's been a delight.
I've, I've wanted to know all about this for so many years and I got a
personal opportunity to share a little time with a national icon, you rock.
And I want to say thank you for everything that you do, sir.
Matthew Lesko: Well, thank you.
Get on the phone in the morning, start calling.
All right, Ed, thank you so much.
Ed Watters: Thank you for joining us today.
If you found this podcast enlightening, entertaining, educational in any way,
please share, like, subscribe, and join us right back here next week for another
great episode of the Dead America Podcast.
I'm Ed Watters, your host, enjoy your afternoon wherever you might be.