Matty Matheson

Matty Matheson has spent the last decade carving out his own lane by doing what most people are too scared to do: making things before anyone gives them permission. On this episode of Five Rules for the Good Life, Matty joins Darin to talk about creating Just a Dash, finding his on-camera voice before “content creator” was even a career path, and why the best ideas usually start with a couple of friends, a camera, and a willingness to see what happens. They discuss trusting your collaborators, investing in yourself before anyone else will, and how consistency matters more than virality. Matty shares his Five Rules for Making Your Own Show, including why you should only cook things you love or hate, why working with friends changes everything, and why originality still matters in a world built on algorithms and imitation.There’s something deeply inspiring about Matty’s journey because none of it feels manufactured. It feels earned. Watching someone continue to create for years, through rejection, uncertainty, changing platforms, and shifting industries, is a reminder that momentum is built through consistency, not shortcuts. The conversation is really about the value of showing up over and over again, trusting your instincts, and building with people you actually care about. There’s a specific kind of joy that comes from making things with friends, from laughing through the chaos, from figuring it out together in real time. Even when something fails, even when it gets messy, the act of creating is still better than standing still. Making something, anything, is how you find your voice.Photo by Sid TangerineFive Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life.I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz.It is always a good time when I get to sit down with today’s guest, Matty Matheson, whose new season of Just a Dash is out on Netflix right now, along with the fifth season of The Bear coming out on FX and Hulu on June 25th.He’s here today to share his five rules for making your own show.We chat about the importance of working with people you trust, that to get everyone to buy in with what you’re making, you need to...So let’s get into the rules.Getting Started in VideoMatty, so good to see you. I love to hear the birds chirping and the sun streaming through in Canada. Thanks for making the time to sit down and chat with me.You’re very welcome. That’s our canary, Waffles, and Waffles is just having a beautiful day it seems.You are no stranger to TV. I’ve seen you cooking across different mediums for such a long time. Not every chef is drawn to that type of pursuit. What made you want to get involved in the first place?Well, great question. The first video I ever made was my cheeseburger video. We made that over 10 years ago now.My era, the beginning of that, when I was 26, 27, 28, if you were on TV, you were a massive star. There wasn’t any middle ground. There wasn’t any content. It wasn’t anything.Some producers at Vice hit me up to see if I wanted to do something. In Canada, we shot a cheeseburger video, and that’s what it was.It’s funny, I look back on that stuff. There’s no persona. There’s no yelling. There’s no anything. It’s just me being funny and talking in my regular voice.I was just drawn to it because they wanted to do something different. It wasn’t some big TV show. It wasn’t a competition show. It wasn’t some thing that was out there that was on some major network.That was what drew me to that, was just hanging out with people that I already hung out with, my friends that worked at Vice. It was still purer then. There was no anything. It wasn’t creating. We just made a cooking video, a how-to video.Finding an On-Camera VoiceYou had a chance to evolve before this new ecosystem of creators. What do you remember about learning that time and finding your on-camera persona before it became such a commodity to do content?I would do a video every two, three months.What a cadence compared to today.I did that and then I did my pancake video and then I did my get-you-laid lasagna video. It was just like a thing where we made it when we made it.I think I got paid 500 bucks a video at that time too, which was kind of nice.Seems about right.It was more money than I ever made in a two, three hour span of time. It was incredible to get that amount of money when I was that age. It was more money than I ever made.There was no references.Building Just a DashWe shot Just a Dash two years ago. It’s amazing. It took a long time to edit. Tort and his crew, w