MATT GOES FROM MALL RAT TO LIFE COACH:
GEELONG- BORN Matt Lavars concedes he was once someone from whom you would never take advice.
A self-confessed mall rat in his younger years, he was expelled from school twice and regularly drove drunk.
Mr Lavars, who is now a successful life coach, went off the rails after his family fell apart from when he was eight years old.
He became increasingly disengaged and mixing with a dodgy crowd, even becoming a mall rat in his mid-to-late teen years.
“I was always angry, school didn’t understand, I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone, so I started taking party drugs and mixing with the wrong crowd as a way to escape,” Mr Lavars said
Now 34, he said some of his friends from those years have ended up dead, in jail, or addicted to drugs.
“I use to hang out at the fountain, smoking weed and being drunk,” he recalled.
“I used to drink and drive on a regular basis and ended up being caught by the police three different times, one time I crashed a motorbike drunk and nearly killed myself and a friend. I have permanent injuries from this.”
“Looking back now, I think I had low-grade depression and anxiety and really just didn’t know any better.”
Eventually he started to pull his life together, and at 23 he moved into the fitness industry.
He left Geelong at the age of 24.
Mr Lavars set up a personal training business, and later worked on a cruise ship.
While on the vessel, he met a man who worked as a life coach.
“When I met him I just thought ‘What is this job that you’re doing’?” Mr Lavars said.
“I decided I wanted to become a professional speaker and I stumbled across The Coaching Institute,” Mr Lavars said.
In February 2012, at age 26, his “life-changing” journey at the institute began.
The Coaching Institute specialises in life and business coaching, offering programs in training, teaching, customer service and communication.
Mr Lavars, who is now Melbourne-based, is now not only a coach himself but a mentor for other aspiring coaches.
“As a man, we get bullied, we get told to toughen up and we get told to get on with it. All of these messages destroy men,” he said.
“TCI is the first place that gave me the tools to reprogram my self-doubt, find my true self and create the life I want.”
“Today, I am the happiest and healthiest I have ever been and that is exactly what I want to show others how to achieve.”
He did all the training available at the institute, and now works as a master coach, speaker, trainer and mentor with the institute.
TODAY, I AM THE HAPPIEST AND HEALTHIEST I HAVE EVER BEEN AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO SHOW OTHERS HOW TO ACHIEVE.
MATT LAVARS