Wake Up with Patti Katter and Matthew Hurtt

0:00Welcome to Wake Up with Patty Catter, Patty Catter, a place where light overcomes darkness. Here we share powerful stories of people who embraced their strength and came out on top. Get ready to wake up, discover your purpose, and rise. Oh everybody you're listening to Wake Up with Patty Catter. Today I have Matt hurt from the Leadership Institute with me. Welcome Matt. Thanks so much Patty for the opportunity and we're here at Leadership Institute Studio to talk about what we're doing. The kinds of trainings that we provide and is the Director of Professional Services here at Leadership Institute. A lot of what I do is help prepare people to to enter the workforce, to improve their interview skills, to clean up their resume, and to identify the job that is right for them in the public policy process. Which is actually pretty cool because I know since COVID a lot of people are finally getting back out into the workforce, a lot of people were forced into

1:03remote work. Now I'm from Florida so we didn't really have that big of a deal, you know, but can you tell us a little bit more in detail about how do people come to you, tell us about why Leadership Institute? I know a lot of my listeners probably don't even know about Leadership Institute so I'm really excited for you just to kind of dig into that a little bit more. Well Leadership Institute was founded in 1979 to identify, recruit, and train conservative activists in the public policy process. So if you're listening now or watching and you want to be a candidate for public office, you want to run for county commission or states senate or even congress, or if you are an activist in your political committee, your local partisan committee, your local unit chairman, and you want the tools to be successful, absolutely we provide those trainings. In addition to that, my division, our careers division, provides training on how to land the job in the public policy process that you want to you want to be in. So for instance we have a lot of great partners in Florida and across the country. The Heritage Foundation is you know

2:07one of the most prominent conservative think tanks in the country. We help staff the Heritage Foundation. We help identify opportunities and openings at that organization and many many others for individuals who are looking to make an impact. Not only here in Washington DC, but also in state capitals and in communities across the country. And we do that primarily through conservativejobs.com, which is our free online job portal, which connects job seekers and employers with the opportunities to go out and make a difference into advanced conservative principles. So I'm going to throw you off a little bit. You probably didn't know I was going to go here, Matt, but tell me a little bit about how you grew up. Like did you just one day think I'm going to work, you know, I'm going to be a conservative, you know, tell me more. You know, it's a great question. I thought I was adopted for the longest time. My parents, both my parents were apolitical, not political at all. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and there was a local issue that was impacting a lot of the people who went to that church,

3:09a local property rights issue dealing with a rock quarry. And this older gentleman by the name of Jim, he since passed away, he said, you know, Matt, I'm too old and too mean to run for office. You should run. And I was the oldest member of my youth group. So a lot of responsibility fell to my shoulders. And I said, you know, this is interesting to me. I had been casually interested in politics at 16, 17, 18 years old. And at 19, I ran for local office back home outside Nashville, Tennessee. I came within 92 votes of defeating a 16 year incumbent. I tell people I got it out of my system. So I ran at 19. So I didn't have to do it again. And that was really the point where I thought politics and public policy is super interesting to me. I was very involved as an undergraduate at middle Tennessee State University. I was in both pro-life groups. I was a member of the College of Publicans. I had a radio show on on campus for two years with my best friend and was involved in student government. And when I graduated from MTSU in 2009 during the first economic

4:14downturn of my life, I was looking at law school. And a lot of my friends were going to law school. I thought, maybe I'll do this. And I got a job offer from Leadership Institute. And so I moved 650 miles away from my parents. I'd never lived further than 15 minutes from them. And I took a job up here in 2009. And then, you know, I was here for about 10 months the first time working with college students. And I maintained a relationship with Leadership Institute and came back in October of 2021 in the capacity of them. And now helping connect people with employment opportunities and movement connections, having built up over the last 14 years a role of decks of respectable, conservative movement allies and people that, you know, are doing the real work that it takes to advance public policy. Again, here in Washington, but across the country. And it's a real blessing to be here. So, yeah, parents weren't political. Now they registered to vote. And I asked for their vote. I think they voted for me. But now my dad, he asks about election issues all the time. And

5:17he's a little bit older now and doesn't get out quite as much. But when it's election time, you know, and I'm home, I try to take him to the polls and get him out to vote. One interesting thing that's going on in my listener, you know, my listeners are messaging me all the time asking, how can I get into politics? And I'm thinking, I don't even know where to start to tell them because some of them, they're older. I mean, is it possible to start, you know, getting into politics? And I mean, when is too old? Is it possible that somebody would be too old? I had a like 50 something year old military veteran write me the other day. And he's like, I'm fed up and leading into 2024. We have to change some things. And they wait until like right before election to have this idea and then it kind of fizzles out. So what's your opinion there? What are the facts? You know, you can be any age and get involved in politics. And for many conservatives or many patriotic Americans who didn't think about politics before, it's because they were raising a family. They were building a business. They were planning for retirement. They

6:20were making sure that food was on the table at dinner time or that they were ready for, you know, to provide for their children to send them off to college. And many, many, I would say millions of Americans didn't have time to think about politics. And now they're at a different stage in their life. Maybe they're retiring or they're approaching retirement or, you know, they've had the kids moved out of the house and they have some free time. You know, my dad retired and he's busier than he's ever been. You can really engage in politics at any age. And I would say if somebody is interested in getting involved for the first time, regardless of the age, you should go to leadership institute out training and see if there is, and there are trainings available for people who are interested in sticking their toe in the water the first time, but then show up to your local unit committee. Every county, every city, even a place like Arlington, where 80% of my neighbors living in dead voted for Joe Biden, almost every county and community has a Republican committee or a democratic committee. And if you're conservative, you know, you decide which one of those committees you

7:23want to visit, go to their website, find out when the next meeting is, and show up. All of these committees are volunteer only. So if you go to vote, Patty, you know, you go out and vote on Election Day and you don't see a Republican poll greeter handing out a sample ballot or you don't see somebody waving a sign for the candidate of your choice. It's probably because there weren't enough volunteers to do that. And so we're constantly looking for volunteers. I had a guy called yesterday. I'm the chairman of my local Republican committee here in Arlington. That's what I do outside of the office. And a guy called, he said, you know, I went to vote on Election Day and there was no Republican representative outside of my polling location. And I said, Jonathan, thank you so much for calling. There was nobody there because we didn't have enough volunteers. And how can I plug you into this opportunity? And sure enough, he is in his 50s. And he has been a casual observer of politics and now he wants to get involved. So anybody at any age with any level of experience or no experience in politics can get involved.

8:26That's so true. And that reminds me of I believe it was about a year or two ago. We started this program one more mission.com and military veterans could sign up and go help out at the polls and watch the polls and all that fun stuff. So you actually had an interesting experience recently at the polls. Could you please tell us about that? I did. So in Virginia, you know, the motto of Virginia is Virginia is for lovers. We joke that Virginia is for lovers of elections because we have elections every year. And we had an election just a few weeks ago here in November 2023. And I was a poll reader. And what that means is that I had Republican sample ballots. And when a voter approached the polling location well outside the 40 foot boundary or however far the boundary is, I would approach them and say, hello, my name is Matthew. I'm a Republican poll reader. Would you like a Republican sample ballot? And in Arlington, where 80% of my neighbors voted for Joe Biden, most people are fairly polite. They say, no, thank you or they take mine or

9:29they take both mine and the Democrats or they just move past. And I had a gentleman who, as I would say, came in hot. I saw him about 30 yards away. I said, good morning, sir. It was about 8.50 AM. It's a good morning, sir. Would you like a Republican sample ballot? And he immediately flew off the handle clearly an unhinged individual, yelled at me and got in my face. And then he went into vote. And the reason you know about the story, Patty, is because I assumed when he came back out, he would continue the tirade. So I slipped my phone into my pocket, my, my breast pocket, and started recording. And sure enough, when he came back out, he continued his tirade. I caught it all on camera and then immediately shared it on social media. And it took off and was on, Jesse Waters primetime that night. But I did that and I showcase it for your viewers and your listeners to say, not every experience at the polling location is like that. There are some people

10:30who are nervous about getting involved in politics because they think they'll have that kind of interaction. I almost never have an interaction like that, even in a place like Arlington. But it's important for us to have for conservatives or people who love this country to have a presence at polling locations, even in a place like Arlington, to stand up for our principles and stand up for our values. And so your effort with one more mission and, and really channeling the energy and the desire to serve this country that many of our veterans and their allies and their family members have is so important. This is another opportunity to ensure that our American Republic survives and thrives. Now we talked about the older generations. What about the younger generations? How are you getting to them? How are they finding you? I know social media is huge, obviously. But what else do you do? The great thing about Leadership Institute is we have an aggressive outreach program on America's college campuses. We've got more than 2,000 student groups.

11:32So if you're pro-life on a college campus, there's probably a student group for you. If you are pro-Israel, there is probably a student group for you. If you support the Second Amendment or traditional conservative principles, there's probably a student group for you. And if there isn't, we have representatives who show up to college campuses and encourage that kind of activity and provide resources and tools to be successful. Beyond that, a lot of young people are weird like me. I was 19, I ran for office, and we're finding young people who are interested in public policy. They are conservative. Many of them are conservative because they want to pursue the American dream. And they're finding our Leadership Institute training and taking our training and being getting involved at the local level. As a unit committee chairman, I can tell you, if young people showed up to our next meeting and they said, we want to get involved, I would have 100 different jobs that I could hand them. And from door to door, to phone banking, to showing up at rallies and protests and other political events, it's a really great opportunity to meet other people who

12:35are like-minded and to develop a personal and social network of people that you then have something in common with. And that's what you find really at any age, at a Republican or a Democratic party meeting, and we're non-partisan here at Leadership Institute. But if you show up at a local partisan committee meeting, you're going to find people that at least on the very basic level, you're going to have shared principles. And so you can build a friendship or a relationship from that. Tell me more about conservativejobs.com. Sure. So for the better part of 30 years, Leadership Institute has used what we call our Employment Placement Service. The really cool thing about that is in the 90s, we had a Broadcaster in Lism School, which taught young enterprising, want to be television reporters, how to be TV reporters. And once they took that training, we would connect them with local affiliates. So ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates, I still get the faxes to my email saying, you know, there's an opening in Rochester, the ABC

13:38affiliate or in Chattanooga with the NBC affiliate. And we would basically connect one-to-one resumes to job opportunities after that training. That grew in the 2000s into conservativejobs.com, which is a platform that allows any conservative organization from members of Congress to great organizations I mentioned moments ago, the Heritage Foundation to state legislators even recruit on there to state-based think tanks and other organizations to post jobs at no cost to them. This is supported by our generous donors at Leadership Institute. So they post jobs and then job seekers can log in at no cost to them and identify job opportunities that make sense. And right now we have, you know, since the beginning of the year, we've relaunched in October of 2021 when I came and took a handle of this division. And we have thousands of job seekers connecting with hundreds of job opportunities. And we're seeing every month, month over month growth,

14:44because there are so many opportunities. There is a job in the public policy process, I think, for almost everyone. And especially as you look to 2024, if you're interested in a presidential campaign, you've never been involved in politics, so you want to dip your toe in the water, there are job opportunities for you. And so we try to connect in addition to the platform, conservativejobs.com. We also will take your resume, we'll give it a look over, give it a makeover, encourage you to go and improve it. And then we can make direct connections. So instead of just applying for a job through the platform, through the portal, if we think you're qualified, we'll make what I call a warm handoff. So just earlier today, young man named Ruben, who's taken about 20 of our trainings, immensely qualified for a couple of jobs. One company is hiring for six or seven jobs. And he's really qualified for maybe two or three of them. And I sent his resume over to my friend, Barrett, there. And I said, Barrett, I'm introducing to Ruben, he's got a resume that is, you know, I think he's qualified for a couple of these roles. I think you guys should have a conversation

15:49and see what happens. And so we'll see. And in a week or two, this young man may have a new job opportunity, but it is all taking, you know, we're taking their skills, they're what they're enthusiastic about doing and coupling it with an opportunity to go out and make a difference. That's amazing. So I do have one question to ask all of my guests. And I did not give you a heads up. So it's going to be really lively, probably. But what is one trial you've had in your life? And how did you overcome that trial with triumph? You know, there's a lot. I think, you know, my mom passed last year. And we were very close. And that's something that I still think about today. She's my parents from both fair and encouraging. And so that's something. But I had a professional setback in late 2020. It was a situation that was had joined a team of people who later found themselves in trouble. And I was removed from that situation. It was a situation that, you know, I didn't have control over.

16:55I tell people that I was setback professionally about five years in that in that separation from from that employment opportunity. But it allowed me to be back in Virginia where I where, you know, eight months later, I grew into this position. This position became available. And I tell people, especially in the career space, you know, we deal with a lot of people who are in between jobs, who are looking for work or who have may have experienced a professional setback recently. And all of those present learning opportunities. I've got, you know, so many stories of people who who have come through, who have failed and learned something from it and grown from it. One of our favorite programs and I'm not I'm not giving away the goose here. But Chris, my colleague does this program called Rising to the Top in DC. And the keynote presentation is from a guy named Paul Teller. And Paul was very publicly and spectacularly fired about a decade ago from the role that he occupied. And he could have sat on his hands and said, oh, what was me? I can't accomplish anything.

18:01But instead, he bounced right back and he grew tremendously from that and seized every opportunity sense. And it is such an awesome learning experience to now that you're, you know, outside of the the tragedy and you can look back at it, you can say, wow, I learned a lot from this. And I'm going to help other people who are in similar situations. So I would say that my, obviously, my mom passing is something that I'm, I still think about a lot, but also these professional setbacks and how they've impacted my life. But, but also what we can learn from that and what I can share with the people that we interact with. Thank you for sharing both of those things. I know I also lost my mom in 2015 though. So it's been a while. And I do talk about that on occasion on the show. And it is a difficult thing. And then the career, losing a career, that can be a huge setback. I've had a few people on my show talk about, you know, they were just devastated for, for years and they were embarrassed for whatever reasons. And so I think it's really great that leadership as institute is giving people a second chance, so to say. So tell me a little bit more,

19:09I guess, about what happens if somebody comes to you and they say, hey, I just, I was just fired. I mean, what's your response to that? Because I mean, I'm sure you're going to say, why, why were you fired? It's going to hinge on that. But I mean, like if it was just something kind of silly, do you try to help people like that? I have a really great story. And I don't, I don't want to, I'm not going to mention the organization. But in the last year, there was, there was a well-known conservative organization that went through a bit of a budget hiccup. I'm speaking very colloquially. And they, they downsized about 40% of their staff. And I remember distinctly, I was at the Kennedy Center. I was at a, a musical. And I, I heard about it. I learned about it. And that night, I went and, and the good news about leadership in suit is we've trained almost everybody in DC. So we had their email addresses, usually their personal email. So I went up to the, I went to the website of the organization. And I looked at the cast version of the website. So I went back two weeks.

20:10And I looked at the staff page and then I looked at the staff page for that night. And there were 20 people missing. And I emailed them all. And I said, I said, I know how you feel. The wind has been taken out of your sales. This is a precarious 48 hours for you. And I want you to know that leadership institute is here to help you. So the most dramatic example is a situation where there were 20 people who were, who were let go, you know, almost without notice in a very short period of time. And, and we proactively reached out to them. But that not a week goes by that we don't hear from somebody who is either underemployed or they, they missed an opportunity or they experienced a setback or they were fired. Now, one of the good things about me and my role is it's not a hiring conversation. So I can ask questions that hiring managers can't ask. And so I do like to, to dig in if, if people are comfortable about that. If it's, if it is something, if it's a budget issue, not a big deal. If it's a deep integrity issue, then it really causes me to say, okay, well,

21:11what? Maybe this isn't the industry for you. You know, there's, there's more than a few people out there who are contract door to door. They knock on doors for these door to door firms. And they lie about their numbers or they don't do a good job. And they are released from their contracts. And some of them say, you know, I learned a lesson here, but others don't. And they say, I was wronged or I was terminated unfairly. You really have to have an honest conversation with yourself to say, what happened here? How much of it was my fault? How much of it was the circumstances that I was in? And how do I learn from that and change course, either to improve my own? What I'm doing, my own behavior, or to improve the situation to allow for a better outcome next time. And we are willing to at least have those initial conversations with anybody. Now, if it's an integrity thing, as you and I were saying before we started this, there's, you know, your reputation will get out in front of you. And we do a little bit of training on reputation management and

22:14brand management through the careers team. And so if you're still early in your, in your career, we can help you sort of stave off some of those problems. But if it is, you know, a systemic or endemic or deep-rooted issue, that's something that you're going to have to deal with on your own. Right. Absolutely. So tell my listeners, where can they go to find more information on leadership institutes? We are at leadershipinstitute.org. If you go to leadershipinstitute.org slash training, you can see all the training that we have live in person here at our office in Arlington, Virginia, across the country and online. And we're on all the socials. So Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and maybe not TikTok. But we have a presence on social media to get our message out there. And you can engage at any level with us. We know that a lot of your listeners are, they work full-time or they're balancing their family and civic responsibilities or professional responsibilities at leadershipinstitute.training. They can take online on-demand training at their pace

23:20in the evenings after the kids go to sleep or, you know, on Saturday morning before the kids wake up. All of these opportunities to maximize your ability as an activist to get enough training to go out and be effective. Okay. So wait a second. So when I go on your website and I look at the trainings, I did see something like online training. Does that, so that means you can just do that anytime. So for great example, as we're recording, we're preparing, my team is preparing for the Foreign Service Opportunity School. And that is in person here in Northern Virginia. It is a two-day program. However, we have an online option. And so if people were interested in being part of that, they could participate via Zoom. We have four-day trainings, campaign management, future candidate schools that are available via Zoom. Now I do encourage, if you are thinking about running for office and you're going to participate in a four-day training at leadership institute, you should fly up here. You know, we can get you squared away with housing for a few days. And all of that could be taken care of. But if you're, you know, if you just want to learn to get

24:22more involved in your local partisan committee, or you maybe want to run for county commission, or you want to learn how to push a local initiative, we have training online at leadership institute.training that you can take at your own pace when, you know, during your lunch break, or like I said, when the kids are at soccer practice, or when they're asleep, or whenever to make it as easy as possible, again, to be as effective as possible. That's amazing. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you so much for being on the show. Is there anything that you want to add before we wrap it up today? You know, I want to go back to the point you made about individuals who are interested in getting involved. And maybe they never have been. A lot of people, it is their first time being involved. And in 2016, we saw conservatives saw a wave of new people who had never been involved before. And in 2020, and in 2021 in Virginia with the school board things, don't let that keep you from getting involved. It takes a tireless minority of people, as Sam Adams said, keen to set brush

25:23fires in the minds of men. All it takes is a handful of people to make a difference, a handful of parents in Loudon County to change a state, a handful of activists in their community to change. And, you know, we're waiting on you to turn out and show up and to be involved. So please, please get involved where you can. That is so true. And nothing's going to change and tell people start showing up, right? So thank you. Thank you, Matt. And everybody, make sure you head over to the Leadership Institute website. And again, that website is... LeadershipInstitute.org. Or if you want to take those trainings on demand on your own time at home, LeadershipInstitute.training. Great. And if you're looking for a job... You can go to conservativejobs.com and there's a way to contact us directly. We'll look at your cover letter. We'll look at your resume. We'll give you some pointers on how to clean it up. And we can connect you with your next opportunity. Awesome. Thank you. And thank you, everybody, for listening. Until next time, tune in to some of our old recordings. Go into that old archives and

26:23take a listen if you missed any. And make sure you follow me on social media at PaddyCatter. Thanks for tuning in to Wake Up with PaddyCatter. If you enjoyed these stories of resilience and leadership, visit PaddyCatter.com to connect with Paddy and learn more. Until next time, stay inspired and keep pushing forward. When the world watched the heartbreaking withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, lives were shattered, families were displaced, and children were left with nothing but uncertainty. Out of that chaos came a mission of duty and compassion to stand by those who once stood with us. The Black Feather Foundation is committed to helping refugee children heal and thrive. Through sports, health, and education programs, we're giving these children a chance to dream again to become citizens and leaders of tomorrow. This is a call to action. How you can help? Visit our website, theblackfeatherfoundation.org. Volunteer. Join us in making a difference for

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