This is the Truth Network. Satan's Nightmare, Nakia Kolof. This is a war! This is one warning. Needs to be settled.
What a brawl! The fight! And it's out of control here! That's a bad man. No, that's a bad man.
No, that's a bad man. Anytime, any place, night, day, I don't care. I'm only a phone call away, my friend. Welcome to another episode of QA with Koloff, the Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back, QA with Koloff Questions and Answers, where you get the opportunity to have a personal phone call from yours truly, the Russian Nightmare.
Just go to koloff.net, put in your request. But sometimes it's not a call-in or me calling you, sometimes it's an in-studio interview. And with me today, Matt Ferguson. Matt, welcome to QA with Koloff. Awesome to be here.
Well, great to have you here. And we met just recently. Our paths cross over in Israel, of all places. That's right. Which is kind of wild because we're neighbors.
Like you're in Charlotte, I'm in North Carolina. I'm in Kannapolis, Concord area, Fort Mill. I kind of cover a lot of ground there. But we're neighbors. And then we have a mutual friend as well in Brad Johnson.
And for those who don't know, Brad, he won a Super Bowl. He was the Super Bowl quarterback for the Tampa Bay Bucks. But you play college football. With Brad. That's right, Florida State Seminoles.
Florida State Seminoles. And I didn't know, learned a little bit more about you today as we were talking that you were there kind of around the same time as Deion Sanders. Yes, sir. He was pretty well known out there in the sporting world a little bit. And who'd you say, Charlie Ward?
Charlie Ward, Heisman winner and NBA basketball player for the Knicks.
So, okay, you had said that, but so he won a Heisman in football. but opted to go into the NBA. Only person that's ever done it. Interesting. Yeah.
Wow. I wonder. Any idea why? I just out of curiosity. Charlie was just a great athlete.
And at that time when he was coming out of football, the NFL was really more into these. Pure drop back passers, and Charlie was more of a running quarterback.
Okay. And so Charlie basically said, Hey, I've got an opportunity to go to the NBA.
So unless I am going to get drafted in the first round, I'm going to go that route. And none of the teams were willing to draft him in the first round.
So I said, Okay, fine. And he had a dozen-year career with the NBA. Wow. Obviously, a lot better on your body than getting knocked around as a quarterback.
So that's a true decision for him. That's partly true. It seems like you get pretty physical under the boards there. It gets a little physical. And the Knicks were no joke back then when he was playing.
They were pretty physical. I didn't know. That's amazing. I did not know that.
So, wow.
So, you got that sporting background. Of course, I met your lovely bride, Lori, earlier and tried to get her on the show. I was just saying how I could tell from her facial expression she had no interest in being on the show. That's not her thing. Not her thing.
That's his. That's Matt's thing. It's not my thing. I love it. All right.
She says that, but she's very gifted when. She does speak. I bet she is. And of course, you guys weren't high school sweethearts, but you went to high school together. Yes.
And then 10 years later, you kind of reunite, and there's a whole story of redemption there. The Lord put us together. Lord put you together. And we talk about that on Time to Man Up on that show. Five children and one grandchild currently.
Wow. Congratulations on all that.
Now you were in Orlando, which most or some people, maybe not most people, they think of Orlando, they think of Disney World. And you were a part of Disney. Yeah, that's exactly why I was there in Orlando. I was with the branding and marketing team there in Orlando during my time at Disney.
Okay. And now currently, fast forward, you have, of course, you're a part of Storyland Studios, Ever After Group, similar type work as what you were doing at Disney? Yeah, so Ever After Group is a company that I just founded a few months ago, and I haven't even really publicly launched it yet. And right here on the show. But I just called up a few friends and said, Hey, I'm doing this and got a bunch of clients.
So I'm having a lot of fun. Actually, I have a project I'm doing with Disney and Advent Health, the hospital system, and just a nice handful of clients, and also helping some churches with their branding. Churches, nonprofits, nonprofit. Yeah, I've set up the company that our whole team is completely remote, so we've got zero overhead, so I can offer kind of better pricing to the nonprofit world, but still give them kind of that Disney-level quality of storytelling, which has been a real blessing. An honor to be able to help church.
That's pretty amazing. Of course, on It's Time to Man Up, we talk about some of your favorite projects to work on. You people, you guys will be fascinated by some of those stories and that conversation. And let's center for a moment, focus on your faith journeys. And because I'm curious how you're out there in the marketplace, you're working with secular businesses in the marketplace, working with churches, but how did you give us a little backstory on your faith journey?
Like, you grow up in church? I mean, how? Yeah. Uh and and really my faith is Everything like everything emanates from my relationship with Jesus, and I know that. All of these things that I've gotten to do in the work world and with my family, et cetera, are all from him.
And I did grow up in a Christian home. My parents are amazing. Christians, but it took me a little while to make my own decision. I mean, I think we all know that God doesn't have any grandchildren. Each person has to make their own decision.
And so it took me until I was in middle school to really surrender my life to Jesus. I was kind of a. Intellectual kid. I was labeled as a gifted kid. And so I had to go through my own sort of research.
Process to understand that this was all true, yeah, uh, before I was just going to accept it, and uh, I also, uh, You know, lived a few years of life without Jesus and long enough to know that this is not what I want for my life and kind of reached the end of myself. And so my parents led me to Christ in my living room. Come on. And how old were you at that time? Yeah, I was like 12, 7th grade.
Yeah. Wow. I wrote down, you said, God doesn't have any grandkids, grandchildren. I'm like, I don't know if I've ever heard it expressed that way before, but just sons and daughters, right? Yeah, that's right.
Just sons and daughters. And that's amazing. And so you embrace it. And, you know, the other part of that I can relate to is I tell people I knew the story of Jesus for 34 years. I wasn't, you know, oblivious to the story.
But part of my story is the story never made the 18-inch trip, as you made kind of reference to, from my head. Down to my heart until a at age 34. And so I can kind of relate to that, understand that. And I think everybody, Matt, would you agree that trying to figure out this thing called life at some point or Maybe not everybody, but at some point they're like, why am I here? What's my purpose?
You know, and have to, especially if you grew up in a Christian home, I've heard many of these stories: is that you know what, at some point you have to find your own way. You can't ride your parents' coattails. you know, forever. You you gotta find you gotta figure it out for yourself and and make that decision for yourself, right? Yeah, yeah.
And you know, some some kids figure it out young and gi give their life to Christ at a young age, and it's you know. Smooth sailing for the most part, but uh, it took me a little longer. At least I was still under my parents' roof, right? And uh, so by the time I got into high school and college, I wasn't really tempted to kind of have that foundational party lifestyle and all that. And uh, didn't interest you, God, yeah, God was able to use me in my high school and college days.
And it is interesting statistically, and I can't quote the actual numbers, but you know, the younger you come to Christ, the more uh the better chance of you walking that living that out. And then, as the older you get, the less chance to even make that decision to surrender your life. I had a friend just recently who got radically saved at age 62. Wow, and uh, in fact, just recently passed of some massive strokes that had only seen them 10 days prior. He came to our man up breakfast, hugged his neck, had a great conversation.
Big support, in fact, are our t-shirts for our man camps and other ministry I've done in the past. He was my supplier for all the shirts and stuff. And so those are more on the rare side, you know, that because our hearts harden, right, as we get older. Gets calloused, right? Just from the world.
It's a whole life. Yeah, it's kind of beat up or, you know, whatnot. Yeah. Marriage or divorce or just lots of reasons, right? Why the heart can get pretty hard.
And as we said, calloused. And so that's pretty amazing.
So, how do you, let me ask you this: how do you. How your your faith journey with the business world, how do you gel, how do you mesh that together and or do you? Yeah, I do. I mean. when I have been with companies that are completely secular.
Like a lot of my partners in my last company were not believers. And obviously, Disney is a big publicly traded company. Do you work well together? Yeah, we worked well together. I you know, what I've learned is if you just If you just love people and uh just let the love of Jesus sh Shine through.
People are attracted to that. And you don't really have to push your faith on people, but people start asking you questions about what makes you different. They're actually more likely to come to you with issues that they're dealing with, and that gives you an opportunity to say, Hey, will you pray for me? Yeah. Especially they come to learn that you are a believer, a Christ follower.
Yeah. Even though you're not out there hammering over the head with a Bible or quoting scripture to them, but they find that out. Yeah, the word just kind of gets around, and you just. Show them Jesus, and uh, yeah, I've had an opportunity to lead co-workers to the Lord, and wow, and uh, yeah, God's really blessed in that area. Wow, that's that's pretty amazing.
So, so if uh So people just want to learn more about Matt Ferguson and about what you do. I know your business, you know, we just kind of scratched the surface. We went in more detail on it's time to man up, but because I know you work with nonprofits, you work with churches, just help them with their marketing and their branding and whether it's their children's area or just a variety of different things, right? Yeah. Yeah, so it could be marketing, branding, messaging, or Places and spaces.
So, if you've got a building, if you want to build an experience, or for a church, if you need a new church campus or renovate your existing one. We can help with all of that. Help with all that.
So, how do how do they find out more? What's the best website or how do they find out more regarding that? Yeah, I mean, to contact me directly, they can just Email me at matt at everafter.group.
Okay. Matt at ever after. Dot Group. That's it.
Okay. Yeah. And if you want to learn more, if you're out there, if you're a pastor out there or a business leader and you're looking to renovate or upgrade your space, I like that spaces and places. And then Matt Ferguson, I I would highly recommend as as your guy. And well, it is Q ⁇ A with Koloff, Matt.
So we got a few minutes left here. But I do want to give you the opportunity to ask me a couple of questions. And it could be whatever you want. I have no idea what you're going to ask, but let's have some fun and just throw your first question out there. What do you do with your spare change?
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Traynaut.com. That's T-R-A-N-O-N-T.com slash Koloff to learn more. Yeah, you know, the first thing I'm curious about is you and I share a football background. You played college football before you got into wrestling. And for me, that was a really formative experience and it gave me some life skills that I can always use.
I'm curious if that was the case with you and would love you to elaborate on how your time in football has helped you in life. Parlay that into life. That's the first I've ever been asked that one.
So that's a great question. Yeah, I can look back. For real, and think about, and I guess. Immediately what comes to mind is so Some who know my story, many know my story. Maybe somebody out there today doesn't know my story, but you know, my dad left when I was three.
Raised by a single mom, and uh so my my first m male mentor was my seventh grade football coach, Bill Burke. And he kind of got a feeling looking back, he kind of heard my story, kind of knew my story and kind of took me under his wing. And so that was amazing to have him in my life. And in ninth grade, The health teacher by the name of Jerry McFarland, kind of, I embraced Jerry. He was a professional bodybuilder in addition to the health teacher.
And so at one point throughout my high school days, he and I became per like We were training buddies, right? Here's this high school or junior high health teacher, professional bodybuilder, and this high school kid, and we're training buddies, right? We work training partners and work out.
So he was like my second male mentor. And then Bill Burke fast forward. Convinced me to go to a junior college where he was now the defensive coordinator.
So, back into my life, fast forward from seventh grade to my freshman year in college. And so he's the coordinator. Irv Nerdahl is the head coach. Eventually, Dave Scrine would come in as a coach, who won a great cup with the Canadian, as a head coach for the Canadian League, coached against Bud Grant of the Minnesota Vikings. And they actually played together at the University of Minnesota.
So Dave Scrine comes in, John Richmond comes in, Ross Forchie comes into the picture. All these guys were coaches. Wow. All coaches that I just named off, who all, well, with the exception of Jerry, but he was like a personal coach, right? Yeah.
And, you know, kind of the touting today is all this personal coaching, right? People have coaching businesses now, right? To coach people in business or coach them in personal life or whatever. And you were surrounded by coaches. Surrounded by coaches.
And. And I mean, the fact that I could, you know, all these years later, rattle off all their names without even thinking twice about it should say what an influence they had on my life, what an impact they had on my life. And then the football itself, and Jerry with the weightlifting, and then all these coaches with the football, the discipline. That I learned and how to parlay that into life, how to live a disciplined life outside of the gridiron or the wrestling ring. Work ethic is another thing that comes to mind.
I interviewed on this show a while back one of my former college teammates. He said, Man, when I saw you first on television in the wrestling ring, he goes, Man, I know them eyes. I know them eyes. He goes, He played defensive back, okay, right? And I'm tight end.
He goes, Man, it'd be Tuesday, and you come, you come around in, man, to block me. And I'm like, Dude, it's like practice, it's like Tuesday, like loosen up, lighten up, because your intensity in practice was exactly what I saw in the wrestling ring, right? And so, I'm an all-in kind of guy, yeah, and so I just believed you probably did too, man. You play like you practice, exactly. And so, man, I was an all-in kind of guy in the practice, right?
So, so, work ethic, discipline. Being disciplined, you know, when you're out of line. I mean, my coaches, a handful of times, would have to, you know, in the old days, you could still grab the face mask. Oh, yeah. You probably had that in a moment.
It's a different world now, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember Jerry Turnberg, my sophomore year in high school, was infamous for grabbing that face mask and, you know, twisting the guy around like, hey, Yo, listen up here. What are you doing? Why are you slacking?
You know, kind of thing.
So, so those are a few things that come to mind: the work ethic, the discipline, being disciplined. But all of that has helped me out, whether it's out in the business world or even now in ministry, you know, of being able to, you know, raise a family and then hopefully, you know, pass on some of that to my children and now grandchildren. And so, yeah, those are a few of the things that come to mind. Yeah, I can identify with all of that, especially the coaches. I mean, at Florida State, we had coach Bobby Bowden, who's a legendary and amazing Christian man.
Like the national award for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes is the Bobby Bowden Award. And that's really who he was around us. Like, he would. Preached the plan of salvation to us all the time. He was very, you know, hard on the sleeve with his faith and an amazing man.
I'm wondering if it's him, Matt. You could probably help me with this. I thought I heard a story. that that Florida State lost a young man tragically. Yes.
had lost young man. Yeah. And everyone's in the team room. If I have the story right, everyone's in the team room. The seat where he sat is empty.
And Bowden walks in. Oh. And basically says Yeah. I mean, I don't know the exact words. I'm getting goosebumps right now.
I'm choking up thinking about it. And it basically just says to the, you know, it. He's no longer with us. When you die, where are you going to be? You know, basically, heaven or hell.
More, more. That was essentially, but it was very brief. And then, and then, Mark Rick. That's right. Is that right?
Yes. uh ends up in Bobby's office. And he was a graduate assistant. Graduate assistant. Yeah, that's right.
I remember that. Yeah, graduate assistant and not living for Jesus. No. But man, what Bobby, that one or two sentences, whatever Bobby said, grabbed hold of Mark Richt. He ends up in Bobby's office, and Bobby ends up leading him to the Lord right there in his office.
If I have the story straight. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that happened while I was still in high school. By the time I got to college, Coach Richt was our quarterback's coach. Wow.
And living for Jesus at that time.
So I didn't know any different. I thought he might have been a Christian his whole life. Yeah. And then, you know, of course, he goes on to be head coach at Georgia and Miami and, you know, had a real testimony and an impact for the kingdom.
So you know, probably. Brad Johnson, who won that. They're related now. He's married to Mark's sister. Yes.
Which is crazy, but he's brothers-in-law, right? He's married to Mark's sister, Mark Rick's sister. And so, yeah, just kind of wild. But I guess in telling, in sharing that story for you out there in listening land, I mean, One, man, if your heart's not right with Jesus, can I encourage you just to consider today surrendering your life to the Lord? Because there's no promise of tomorrow, right, Matt?
There's no promise of tomorrow. My friend, 62 years of age, gives his life to Christ, comes to our breakfast, and 10 days later has a massive stroke and he's no longer with us. In fact, I'll go to the homecoming celebration tomorrow. Wow. Actually, and so you just never know.
And so, Bobby, Coach Bowden, walking in and addressing those young, impressionable men sitting in that room. doesn't have to say much, but says enough for them to ponder their own destiny. Right, their own eternity. And lo and behold, Mark Richt and who knows how many others that day, those young men were impacted by what Coach Bowden said.
So pretty amazing. Yeah, and you know, the resistance to making that step always amazes me because. You know, it's very simple. It's just surrendering your life to Jesus. You know, if you, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe that He's raised from the dead, you will be saved, period, right?
And it's not just about locking down your eternity and where you're going when you die, but life on earth is so much better because God comes inside you with His Holy Spirit and helps you make daily decisions and gives you peace that's beyond understanding.
So it's like, why wouldn't you want to tap into that? Yeah. I mean, I look at it this way sometimes, man. I don't know if you ever have, but a personal guide. Yes.
I now have a personal guide through this journey called life. The counselor, scripture says. Wonderful counselor, right? And a helper. Jesus said, I'm going to send you a helper.
Yes. And I always joke and say, why? Because he knew, as messed up as we are, we need help. Yeah. We need help, right?
So, anyway, wow, that's amazing. All right. We got time for one more question. If, if you got another question for me.
Well, you know, we got to go to Israel together, and that was amazing. I'm wondering if there was like one moment or what's the most memorable thing about that trip for you?
So for those who've never been, let me just say before I answer his question, put it on your list, and I'm going to tell you, especially if you're a Christ follower, but even if you're not, you know what, go and it's... Go and relive history. You know, maybe you love history. Go and walk the old streets of Jerusalem. Go and sail the Sea of Galilee.
Go to some of these places. Walk up the southern steps. I mean, it's incredible. If you just love history, but as a believer, you've got to go and experience it for yourself. This is my second trip back, but this is a very unique trip because it was historic.
We were there for an ambassador's summit.
So a thousand Christian pastors, leaders, influencers like yourself that were there. And there were a number of special moments. Of course, when we went to Shiloh, where in the Old Testament, where Where I just drew a blank. Yeah, the tabernacle was there. And Hannah.
Hannah walks into the old tabernacle. We were by the old ruins where she walked in and cried out to God to get pregnant because she wasn't able to get pregnant at that point. And then she has Samuel, the prophet Samuel, who is infamous in himself, legendary in himself.
So that, but probably one of the most special, more special things, I think, where we had just finished walking the streets of Jerusalem with Red Bus Number Six, our little group, right? And God had put it on my heart earlier in the day, just had the song in my head. And I'm like, yeah, but when's the right time to do it, you know? And so. We're getting ready to head back to get on the bus.
I go, hey, guys, I just feel we're supposed to say, I go, I'm no singer, I'm no worship leader, but man, I just feel like we're supposed to sing this song. You know, we are standing on holy ground, right? And there are angels all around. And even what Aviad, our tour guide, had shared with us about the scripture etched in that wall and then standing by that school and the whole story behind all how God orchestrated all that. Yeah, that was powerful.
It was pretty amazing. And so we sing the song, couple stanzas, or whatever it's called. Again, you can tell I'm not a worship leader. We sing a couple verses, maybe a couple verses. And then, was it you or somebody comes to me as we were down by the bus waiting to get on?
They looked at me and go, I got to tell you. I did not have on my bingo card this year the Russian nightmare in the holy city singing, We are standing on holy ground. Yeah, you cannot predict what God's going to do, that's for sure. But yeah, that was definitely my most memorable moment with you. Yeah, I mean, we were in this place in the old city.
It was a synagogue, and there was like a stone column outside of the synagogue where people were keeping a candlelight vigil for all the victims of the terrorist attacks that happened there, all of the soldiers that had lost their lives. And yet, you know. You know, it was in a place where children would run through the streets and play. And there was that scripture from the Old Testament where it said that that would happen in Jerusalem. And so it was just a really special, solemn moment.
Yeah, it was. And we could do an entire show on that. Maybe we'll have to maybe come back and do a show on that and maybe talk Lori into being on the show with us or something. Sure. We can do that.
So, well, Matt Ferguson, man, man of God, out in the marketplace, making a difference and an impact in the marketplace, right? Working with churches too and nonprofits, but working out there in the secular world, Storyland Studios. Ever after group and uh one more time the way uh Email one more time how they can connect with you. Yeah, it's matt at everafter.group.
Okay, yeah.
So, hey, if you want to find out more, maybe you got a church or you got a place of business, or I'm telling you, hey, you got to know if the guy had four years of experience there at Disney World in Orlando, that he's got some expertise under his belt. And you may want to check out what his company offers and what they're doing. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks, brother. All right, and to all of you out there in listening land, my challenge to you is to go out today and just have a God to do.
If you are a business owner and would like to advertise your company or product on the Man Up Show and or Q ⁇ A with Koloff, contact me directly, Nakita Koloff at Koloff.net.
