10/06/2026
Still Becoming
The Journey of a Chief Encouragement Officer
By Matt Upton
On October 10, 1958, in Redding, California, my life began.
There was no way to know then where that little boy would go, what he would live through, or how many people would one day hear him say:
“I see you. I believe in you. Let’s move forward together.”
Before I became a speaker, a coach, a husband, a father, or Granddad, I was a child learning what it meant to find my place in the world.
And some of the people who helped me find it served school lunches.
In third grade, I was told I would have to repeat the grade. That announcement hurt. When the lunch bell rang, I carried more into the school restaurant than an appetite.
The School Nutrition Professionals noticed.
They sat with me. They encouraged me. There may or may not have been a fudge-sicle or two involved that day.
A small moment in an ordinary school day became something I would carry for the rest of my life.
They could not change the news I had received. But they helped a little boy feel that he still mattered.
Decades later, when I stand in front of School Nutrition Professionals and say, “We Serve Students,” there is a child inside that statement.
That child is me.
As I grew, the world was changing around me. The civil rights movement challenged our country to reckon with dignity and equality. Human beings reached the moon. Possibilities that once seemed beyond imagination became part of history.
My own world was changing, too.
On my birthday, while I was in eighth grade, my parents split up. Our family was ravaged by that separation.
A birthday can hold more than one memory. Mine carries the beginning of my life and the memory of my family coming apart.
I want to tell that chapter with care—for the boy I was and for everyone whose life was tangled in those events. There are things a child experiences before he has the words to explain them.
Later in that same eighth-grade year, I met and began believing in the person named Jesus.
My relationship with Him began while I was still young, in a season when so much of my family life had been shaken.
There was much ahead of me that I did not understand. There were choices I had yet to make and consequences I had yet to live through.
On January 6, 1976, at seventeen years old, I entered the Army.
The following year, I was in prison. I remained there until October 21, 1977, eleven days after my nineteenth birthday.
And in July of 1977, while I was still incarcerated, I was reintroduced to Jesus.
Looking back across my life, I believe He has always been close to me—even through the journey my choices have created.
Some people who share my faith have distanced themselves because of the choices I’ve made. That has been painful.
I can acknowledge my choices and their consequences while also acknowledging what it feels like when people step away.
When I speak of Love, Acceptance & Grace, those words carry something personal. They belong to a life that has needed all three.
The years after prison deserve their own careful telling.
The distance between a nineteen-year-old leaving prison and the man you know today contains a great deal of living. A life like mine cannot be explained by jumping from the hardest chapter straight to a microphone and a message.
There are people to remember. Relationships to understand. Decisions to examine. Work to recount. Moments when a new possibility began to take shape.
One of those chapters includes my own choice to go through a divorce.
Earlier in this story, I shared what it was like to be a boy whose parents separated. Years later, I was the adult making a choice that brought anguish into my own family.
I need to acknowledge the pain I exposed them to. It was challenging for everyone, and their experience deserves a place in this story alongside mine.
Just as we were going through that upheaval, COVID was ramping up.
In a matter of days, all of my speaking, coaching, and training work disappeared. The work I depended on for income was gone, and I began hunting for another way to earn a living.
That search led me to start a handyman business, which I operated throughout the duration of COVID.
My days took a different shape. I went from speaking, coaching, and training to doing handyman work—finding another way to use my abilities and earn an income during a deeply uncertain time.
Earning a living was one part of that chapter. Acknowledging the anguish my family experienced was another. Both belong in an honest account of those years.
When I speak today about difficult choices, change, and moving forward, I bring this part of my life with me. I know that my decisions affect people I love. I know that finding the next step can be hard. And I know that Love, Acceptance & Grace matter while we are living through the consequences, with much still unresolved.
I am still becoming, too.
Today, encouragement is central to my work and life.
I help people have conversations that create connection. I encourage leaders to make people a priority. I invite teams to look for the treasure within conflict. I ask people to consider what might become possible if they take a courageous step beyond the familiar.
I care about the person standing in front of me.
The School Nutrition Professional whose effort goes unnoticed.
The leader carrying a difficult decision.
The colleague who wants to be heard.
The child who needs an adult to slow down and listen.
And the person whose journey has made others hesitant to come close.
I remember what it meant when someone made time for me. I also know that a person’s story holds more than the choices others remember most.
A School Nutrition Professional gave me the title “Chief Encouragement Officer.” I treasure that. It connects the work I do today with the people who encouraged me when I was small.
My family belongs at the heart of this story, too.
Betty. Our children. Our grandchildren—my VP’s, my Vice Presidents. The life we share at the place we call “The Resort.”
Being Granddad gives encouragement a very personal responsibility. I want my grandchildren to experience my love in the way I listen, the time I give, and the words I choose.
I want them to know they belong.
I want the adults around them to remember that childhood deserves patience, dignity, and room to grow.
And I am still growing myself.
As I approach my sixty-eighth birthday on October 10, 2026, I am inviting others to become Agents of Kindness. Our goal is to bring together 106,000 people willing to:
Be Kind.
See Kindness.
Put Kindness on Display.
At the heart of that invitation is L.A.G.—Love, Acceptance & Grace.
I believe kindness can change the experience of a school day, a workplace, a difficult conversation, or a family gathering. I know a small act can remain with someone for decades.
A person may forget what was on the lunch menu.
I have never forgotten the people who noticed me.
My journey holds heartbreak, faith, service, incarceration, divorce, rebuilding, family, and the continuing work of becoming. Every chapter deserves its place. Some still need to be spoken aloud.
And today, there are people I can encourage.
There are students being served.
There are conversations that can move us forward.
There are possibilities waiting for someone to notice them, nurture them, and take the next step.
That is the work I want to keep doing.
If my life offers you an invitation, let it be this:
Make time for someone.
Learn their name. Listen to their story. Remind them that they matter.
Offer Love, Acceptance & Grace while they are still becoming the human they will be.
You may be giving them something they will carry for the rest of their life.
💛 Matt, Your CEO – Chief Encouragement Officer
Empower Yourself • Empower Others • Expand Possibilities
916.708.8103 • [email protected]
