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, we took a long time finding it.The way that we shoot Just a Dash is we shoot for 10 hours, 12 hours, and then we find everything in the edit. We’re always cooking one dish. There’s all these sub-stories and things and stuff.When we made the season, it wasn’t with Netflix. It wasn’t with anybody. It was still just self-funded with the Canadian Arts grant that we get. We wanted to make something that was a little bit... so this was us putting in a little bit more effort.We had six or seven more people on set. We had costume, we had set deck, a couple producers.I had a little relationship over with Netflix and they were kind of looking for something and I was kind of looking to see if they were down.It was a very easy thing. We showed it to them. They were very excited. It’s a no brainer.And it was funny. I even told them when we first started to meet, I was just like, I pitched you this show like six years ago.I guess they weren’t ready for it. Obviously because of The Bear I got a little more juice. Yeah, I got a little bit of Hollywood juice from that. We get to put something like Just a Dash out there and let that ripple out.I’m glad that you got that juice because the show is great and it’s allowed you to stay in this game for so long, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules for making your own show.When I watch this season, there’s just such a levity, such a formed world with the people behind the camera and you in front of it. I just feel that you’re letting us into your home and into your life, which is a big part of your rule number one.Rule #1: Cook Something You Love or HateRule number one is cook something that you love or hate because then there’s no middle ground.So you need to have feelings. For the type of content that I make, either I love it or I’m trying to figure it out and I hate it. Then the plane starts crashing and then I have to land the plane every episode.That’s our snake eating its own tail thing that we’re always doing. We’re excited, we get smoked, and then we land the plane.Always cook something that you love or something that you don’t understand. By cooking something you don’t understand, by the end of it, you’ll probably understand it and enjoy it.Rule #2: Work With FriendsCreating that space from a production point of view to allow you to cook something that might work or go off the rails is really determined by the people who you work with and the relationships you have, which makes up your rule number two.I love working with friends. Working with friends has given me an incredible life and has allowed us all to continuously work together.Having somebody like that that knows you and knows how to work you. On the first two seasons of Just a Dash we had no producers, no writers, no nothing. Whoever was there that day was there.It was just me, Camera B, Sound Guy, Tor, Michelle, myself.It is a thing of trusting your crew. Believing in your crew. Also having this thing where everyone is level. Everyone is a part of it. Everyone is adding to the cup.That’s the thing that’s the most important. Everyone is on the level. Everyone is a part of this. Everyone is equal. Everyone is doing their thing making this video.Maybe that’s just because I naturally want everyone to have fun and everyone to be hanging out.That’s why my videos just genuinely organically went to this. Oh yeah, what if we just turned the cameras around and it was just all my friends hanging out and we’re just making this video and I’m just the idiot in front of the camera, but the whole show is the 360 of five idiots hanging out about making a thing.Rule #3: Get Everyone Behind YouBeing able to lead a group of people, having the ability to take a stand and say, no, this is what we’re making, this is what you get, is a fundamental tenant of your rule number three.Rule number three is believing in yourself enough to get everyone behind you.Yeah, I’m always like just get me something to cook. Let’s not overthink it. Get me all the ingredients. If I don’t have all the ingredients that will make it better.But that comes with a lot of trust. You need that trust to be able to communicate how to cook at the same time as be funny, to be present or unpresent, but still keep the train rolling.The reason why I can be so funny or be so ridiculous at times is because the cooking, I’m not thinking about the cooking. I’m never really thinking about the cooking.You know it. I know how to make pasta. I know how to make a cream sauce.Cooking is very funny to me. As long as you understand the foundation, you can do multiple cuisines and multiple things and there’s only certain amount of things you can do. You can fry, you can roast, you can broil, you can boil, you can simmer.Also finding your path throughout the video is part of my journey where I’m like a lot of the times I have an idea what I’m cooking and then I’ll get a feeling or an excitement about something as I’m doing it. And then that can switch a lane really quickly for me.And then we just are going down that path. But for everyone else to be able to go down that path is that freedom.Oh, I’m going to make grilled chicken fajitas. Okay, and I start doing it. I’m like, yo, what if we made a fried chicken sandwich fajita? Hell yeah.Food isn’t different to the journey. It doesn’t really matter what I’m cooking. As I’m finding my happy place, truly, while I’m cooking this thing, I allow the happy place to get turned upside down and set on fire.And then everyone around me is watching and not helping, but that’s part of it.It is a thing knowing that that is what makes everything click, is us understanding our levels of where we’re going. Are we actually getting upset or are we just a little bit upset?I don’t think we’ve ever had to fully take a break or something like that where we go on these emotional voyages.Believing in yourself, knowing that you’re going to finish and finish strong, people will believe in you and that’s consistency.Rule #4: Invest in YourselfOn the other side of believing in yourself creatively is the reality of production, what it takes to actually get something off the ground, which usually deals with finances.And sometimes it’s hard to get people to invest in you before you invest in yourself, which makes up your rule number four.Spend all of the money you have on yourself.Exactly. Invest in yourself.Yep.Very low to the bottom of the barrel where I have risked financial risk for my family multiple times to believe in myself and to believe in that the project we’re working on, it will just continue.I didn’t make Just a Dash to sell it at first. I made Just a Dash because I wanted to get Just a Dash.I made the first season of Just a Dash when everyone said no.I had left Vice. I went to LA. I had meetings at every frigging place thinking I had dead set on life. I had It’s Suppertime. I had Munchies.And I was just like, oh. Easy, new show, new me. Yeah, like I’m over here now.And everyone’s like, who the f**k are you?And I was like, oh, okay, cool.Got to the point where I was just like, I’ll pay for myself and start my own YouTube channel.That’s what every single person does. But back then it was like a different thing.I still don’t know how to make content on my phone. Like I meet all these Instagram chefs and people that are making content. I’ve done a couple of collabs and I’m like, you literally just shoot all...Then I’m going to f**k with myself, believe in my friends and believe in the people that I’ve made all these things with.I believe in them. I know that they can make good s**t. I know that I can make good s**t. And I know that people like it.I may not be this valued person to all these networks. The internet, which was my fanbase at that time, enjoyed it and fucked with Just a Dash hard.And as you believed in yourself and as you built out this world, you just continuously go.At the beginning, it was this incredible time of you and your friends making something, doing something, putting it out there.Consistency and FansIt’s all because of the fans.Every day I wake up and I’m so grateful for everybody and everything that’s happened to me.I have spent the last 10 years being very consistent with output on a lot of different fronts.I’ve given a lot of myself to a lot of videos and things all around the world. I’ve gotten that back, that reciprocal, and I think it is a beautiful thing.Being able to be in the game for 10 years, making all these videos and work with so many people...Rule #5: Be YourselfYour fifth and final rule reminds anyone who wants to make their own show to keep this point of view when you’re creating something for yourself.Rule number five, try to be yourself. You are a hundred percent original.Everyone now wants originality, authentic, whatever authentic means anymore. You are original. Don’t try to be me. Don’t try to be something.When I was making Dead Set On Life, I was like, I don’t want to watch Anthony Bourdain shows.Still to this day, I’ve only seen two episodes of anything Bourdain’s ever done. I’ve read all of his books multiple times. I love his books. Of course.But I was just like, if I’m going to be making this stuff, I want to put the blinders on.Now it’s even more difficult because everyone is in their own echo chamber.“Oh, I saw you do this recipe so I’m going to do the same recipe.”Being viral sucks so bad. It’s so whack because I’ve never really been viral. It’s just been this continuous...I’m not at home whipping up f*****g chorizo lasagnas, shrimp cocktails with a sauce from scratch. No, f**k that. Cocktail sauce from scratch is disgusting.I even talked about that on Just a Dash. It was like people that put lemon zest in cocktail sauce. It was like you guys are maniacal. Get out of here. What are you doing?It’s ketchup and horseradish. Maybe Tabasco. Stop it.ClosingMatty, I really appreciate not just the show, but you showing people who actually want to get out there and still make something original and authentic how to do it.If people want to watch Just a Dash or see the other things that you’re working on, where can they go? How can they see what you’re up to?Just a Dash is on YouTube still, bi-weekly, new cooking something on YouTube. You can watch all three seasons of Just a Dash on Netflix.You can get my cookbooks wherever you can get cookbooks, I feel.Matty, so good to see you. Congrats on everything. I really do love this show. Hopefully we’ll run into each other somewhere in the world soon.Hey, I’ll see you when I see you buddy. It’s nice to see you right now. It really is. Get full access to Five Rules for the Good Life at fiverules.substack.com/subscribe