MATT McMILLAN, JD, CCJAS
Founder, A Better Man Project ✧ Master Certified Life Coach
Matt grew up the youngest son of a Baptist minister. He was always active in organized sports, playing baseball for 11 years, football for 10, and wrestling for 3, as well as track & field. He became an avid runner in his forties and fifties, with
He is also a certified addictions specialist, working with thousands of men and women to achieve sobriety and remain in recovery for life, finding happiness and contentment in their sober lifestyle.
Matt has been a Board of Health approved continuing education provider for licensed therapists for over 20 years, helping therapists better their skills and abilities in the areas of domestic violence, substance abuse, medical errors, and laws and rules, and has written and published numerous courses for mental health professionals. He has trained thousands of therapists, police officers, probation officers, judges and victim advocates, child welfare workers and protective investigators, and started the first Court Watch program in his hometown.
Matt is a Master Certified Professional Life Coach and is currently obtaining his Masters in Psychology. He is also a proponent of healing through plant medicine and is pursuing becoming a sacred space holder for plant medicine healing ceremonies, including psilocybin, ayahuasca, peyote, MDMA and bufo.
PAST POSITIONS
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✧ Former police officer
✧ Former prosecutor
✧ Former criminal defense attorney
✧ Former county judge
✧ Former Clinical Director of DCF
-- licensed outpatient substance abuse agency
running times in the top 2% of all runners across the United States in the 5 and 10K class. He has been somewhat of a gym rat since his teen years.
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After college, Matt became a police officer and then went on to law school. He served as an Assistant State Attorney, criminal defense attorney and County Judge. Matt cofounded the very first state-certified batterers intervention program in the state of Florida in 1996, founded another program in 1999, and A Better Man Project in 2022. Matt has been working with men to have healthy, satisfying relationships for over 30 years.
✧ Co-Founder, the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project
-- the first Florida certified batterers intervention program
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✧ Founder, Men’s Work / A state certified batterers intervention program Pinellas County Florida, Department of Health
✧ Approved Continuing Education provider for licensed therapists in the areas of laws and rules, domestic violence and medical errors
ETHOS, MISSION & METHOD
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Men…we are called to have a purpose-driven, passionate, successful and rich life!! So, what happened? Many men have just given up on their dreams and have settled for a mundane existence. For other men, the ideal life always seems just beyond their grasp. We can see it, sense how it might feel, but never seem to be able to find the path to get there.
Meanwhile, the light within us gets dimmer and dimmer. We fail to appreciate the miracle that we are, the creativity we possess, and the power within us. We become detached from the richness of our being, and our place in this divine universe.
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It is time to take measured, concrete steps to regain your zest for life,
live into your dream and to resolutely go get what is rightfully yours!
I will partner with you to find out what you really want, and what has kept you from achieving those results.
In cave man days, relationships were simple. Survival, on the other hand, was another matter. Survival was difficult. In the modern day, it is the opposite. Survival is easy. There are social safety nets and opportunities abound. No one is going to starve or be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. But relationships have gotten complicated. And so has manhood. There are so many expectations and conflicting messages about what it means to be a true man today. It is easy to lose one’s way. It is easy to be confused as to what contemporary manhood and masculinity look like.
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MISSION
My goal is to help men find their way again. Find joy and passion in life and fulfill their expectations of life, love and themselves. I have found myself on the hamster wheel, racing through life, seemingly without much meaning or thought. Twenty-five years flew by. Then I moved to Costa Rica for three years and lived in one of the world’s five Blue Zones. I began to understand that there was more to manhood than working. That life and happiness were not tied to money and possessions.
For thirty years, I have worked with men and women in the criminal justice system who needed help finding their path and their meaning in life, battling addictions, traumas, and violence. I have seen their struggles, and some common themes emerged. It was this work that inspired me with the desire to help men become the best version of themselves in whatever areas of their life they think lacking…and perhaps some areas that they were unaware.
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METHOD
My coaching practices incorporate meditation, yoga, nutrition, exercise, character building, sobriety (if necessary), love, lifestyle, spirituality, accountability, mindset and motivation. Becoming the best version of yourself may require a multi-pronged approach. But it will necessarily require honesty and integrity with both yourself and me. Do you really want to change? Do you want a passion-filled life? Let’s get started.
We are not punished for our sins, but by them.
Each bad choice diminishes us in a particular way,
just as each good one adds to us.
COACHING & CONSULTING
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A Better Man approach to coaching
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There is no approach and no one-size-fits-all to coaching. You, yourself are the agenda, and you are the approach. We challenge you and lead you to what you truly wish to manifest in this life. We ask tough questions. We work on the lies, self-deception, and the fears in you about money, relationships, health and wellness and about the power you perceive to be outside yourself in other people. We work on your difficulties with making decisions, and inability thus far to make bold choices in life and to then follow through and trust yourself completely to do so. The possibility of your transformation is the approach. Transformation is the only objective. The irony for some people is the very thing they want the coaching for in an indecisive, half-hearted life, is what’s keeping them from deciding whether to get coaching.
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A Better Man approach to consulting
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Consulting involves drawing the coach’s expertise and experience in a given domain to enable the coach to give advice on the direction you should take towards a particular goal. Many of the ideas and steps are generated by the coach, which may or may not actually align with your true desires, goals or intentions. There is beauty in consulting! But there is an adage that says “The only thing better than a good idea is your own idea!” When you are the source of your wisdom, and I believe that we all contain everything we need, you can readily take ownership of the ideas and course of action to take. You will then truly embrace it with your heart and mind to see it come to fruition, free from fear and self-doubt.