What Happened When I Tried to Find Work?

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Timestamps

00:00 Intro

06:25 The night that changed everything (college brawl → jail)

12:48 “I saw scared racism for the first time”

19:40 I spent six months in jail — and then decided “I’m never coming back”

25:50 How the justice system traps you (and how he beat it)

35:47 200 job applications… and 200 rejections

40:12 “No one would hire me, so I hired myself”

46:33 The $3,000 house that changed his life

55:40 I lost $170,000 in Houston, it was a betrayal! (my blood was boiling!)

1:03:22 The birth of Goodies: How I turned a $1,000 truck into a $1M business

1:09:55 The SYSTEM that makes restaurants print money

1:22:58 How to find the hidden “opportunities” in any market

1:27:40 This 1 mindset made me successful

About the Guest / About the Episode

Dawon Matthews is the ultimate underdog, he went from being kicked out of college, jailed, and rejected from over 200 jobs to building a $1.2M food truck in 11 months. His story is a masterclass in resilience, reinvention, and building systems that scale This episode will shift how you think about adversity, opportunity, and what’s truly possible when you refuse to quit....Enjoy

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services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Crypto trading provided by Zero Hash LLC. Zero Hash LLC is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by NYDFS and is not a registered broker-dealer or a FINRA member. Crypto is highly speculative and involves significant risk, including loss of principal. Cryptocurrencies are not protected by FDIC or SIPC. See disclosures for more details: https://docs.zerohash.com/page/us-licenses-and-disclosures. Alpha is an experimental AI tool powered by GPT-4. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. *3.6% as of 11/14/25. APY. Rate may change. See terms of IRA Match Program here: public.com/disclosures/ira-match. Matched funds must remain in the account for at least 5 years to avoid an early removal fee. Match rate and other terms of the Match Program are subject to change at any time.