What is a Good Life? #157
How to Build Real Connection with Matt Zeigler
Hello and welcome to What Is a Good Life?
A project that isn’t about fixing you — it’s about noticing and inhabiting life more fully.
This week, I’ve been reflecting on my conversation with Matt Zeigler — Managing Director at Sunpointe Investments, co-owner of Excess Returns, and creator of Cultish Creative, where he makes complex ideas accessible. Matt shares his journey from disconnection to rediscovering connection.
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Take care, Mark
1. My Weekly Reflection
I was sitting on my friend’s couch in his apartment in London. Willing the words to come out, yet they wouldn’t. I was having a series of panic attacks that left me feeling a great deal of shame, and I hadn’t told any friends yet.
We were two fairly typical, striving, ego-driven lads in our early thirties—competitive with each other, but with enough shared moments where our souls were clear to see. So I told him I wanted to share something, and he sat there for a moment, wondering what was going on.
When the words finally spilled out and I wondered what his reaction would be, he first breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t told him I had a terminal illness, given the drawn-out build-up to it. He asked if there was anything he could do, told me of his respect for me, and gave me a hug. What a relief.
It’s remarkable how different it feels today. Now, as new experiences and challenges arise, there is a relative ease to it—so different from those initial forays into what felt like another world.
While my friend and I now live in different countries and contact may be sporadic, whenever he has had any major upheaval in life, I know I am always one of the first calls he makes.
There is something beautiful about that.
It makes me think of an image I saw this week of a tree’s roots intertwining—something fused or forged at a deeper level that doesn’t need constant tending.
This week’s interview reminded me of this experience. Matt maps the territory of disconnection across three domains: family, work, and community. He’s spent his life fighting disconnection in each—running from his hometown, feeling trapped in certain jobs, operating without real friendships.
He shared a rather poignant realisation from his mid-thirties, when seeing a therapist. He was sitting in the therapist’s office and she asked, “Who else are you talking to about this?”
“I’m talking to you about this.”
And she said, “Matt, this isn’t how this works. You need to talk, open up, and share with other people.”
He reflects, “I know it’s dumb but that was a lightning bolt to me.”
That he can’t just pay somebody else to be his friend – the one he shares things with; he actually has to cultivate this in real relationships.
He was at a point where he felt the people in his life were more acquaintances than friends, but he took a chance with three people the following week. He opened up a little, tested the waters. To his relief, in each moment he was told that they too, to some extent, were experiencing their own version of something similar.
Matt and I have both experienced something rather profound with relationships in our thirties. They began to take on a satisfying level of depth that, for a long time, we were scared to engage in.
There is an almost disbelieving joy with which he talks about the level of community and connection in his life, which is hugely resonant with me. It is like realising the magnificence of a sunset when you rarely look at one—yet this is more freely accessible than that.
Neither of us could have imagined we’d arrive here, or thought this was possible.
The path to both our new experiences was shaped by our willingness to be open and say it how it is. It is powerful for the person who shares, but the permission it gives the other is equally impactful. It seemingly gives that person permission to share with you forever.
To me, it feels like people really want to let something out—that we can hardly hold the performance together for much longer. I feel it more and more in conversations: a wobble in someone’s voice, a sadness in their eyes, a longing to be held.
What is clear in both Matt’s story and mine is that connection is something we do naturally. Our experiences may cause us to turn away for a time. But we don’t need to be trained to respond to someone’s inner life. To develop or grow, we just need the space and the invitation.
This innate capacity to connect at depth is already there.
Just waiting for you.
2. This Week’s Questions
When have you felt most connected to others in life?
When did you feel least connected to other people in your life?
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3. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
4. Full Episode - Building Real Connection in Everyday Life with Matt Zeigler - What is a Good Life? #157
Listen to the full conversation with Matt Zeigler below.
About Me
I am a coach, facilitator, and podcast host, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 300 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.
If you’re interested in exploring your own good life through one-on-one coaching contact me via email.