About Me
Service has taken a lot of different forms in my life.
I'm Matt Talafuse. I'm a husband, dad, full-time professional firefighter, combat veteran, business owner, author, and speaker.
At 19 years old, I deployed to Iraq with the Colorado Army National Guard as a Black Hawk helicopter mechanic and crew chief. I went there expecting to fix helicopters. Instead, I found myself volunteering more than 600 hours inside a combat hospital, helping receive wounded service members and eventually helping prepare 14 fallen Americans for their final journey home.
Those experiences became an important part of my story, but they aren't the whole story.
For nearly 15 years, I've served as a professional firefighter in Colorado. I've also spent time working in peer support, helping fellow first responders navigate difficult calls, trauma, and some of the things that inevitably follow us home.
Outside the firehouse, I'm an entrepreneur and business owner. I've built a successful career in real estate, led teams, spoken at industry events, and learned that many of the lessons I first discovered through the military and fire service apply just as much to leadership, business, and everyday life.
But the roles that matter most to me are husband and dad.
My wife, Lindsey, and I are raising our three daughters, Tenley, Genevieve, and Emersyn, in Colorado. When I'm not at the firehouse, working, writing, or speaking, you'll probably find me coaching one of my daughters' softball teams, hunting, playing golf, fly fishing, spending time outdoors, or simply being Dad.
My family and my faith are at the center of the life I've built.
From My Story to Yours
Over the years, I've started to see a thread connecting experiences that once seemed completely unrelated.
The military taught me service and responsibility. Iraq showed me how quickly life can change. The fire service taught me what it means to show up when someone needs you. Business taught me about leadership and relationships. Marriage and fatherhood changed my understanding of purpose. And my faith helped me begin making sense of the chapters I couldn't understand while I was living them.
Those experiences eventually led me to write my memoir, Between the Living and the Dead: A Story of War, Faith, and Turning Pain Into Purpose, and develop my signature keynote, The Weight We Carry.
Both are rooted in something I've learned through nearly every part of my life:
Everybody carries something.
We aren't meant to carry all of it alone, and sometimes the hardest things we've carried become the very experiences that allow us to help someone else.
Today, that's why I write, why I speak, and why I continue to serve.
