In the world of advertising, Matt will be the first to tell you there’s a whole lot of crap out there, and unfortunately, to get to the good stuff, you sometimes need an iron stomach and a good dose of patience. The process of placing the story above the product, however, is worth it, and it’s something that continues to shape the way Matt creates.

After years entrenched in the big-agency marketing world, Matt joined up with some like-minded folk and founded Kickstand - a cause strategy agency located in the heart of Oak Cliff. Still in it’s inaugural year, Kickstand combines advertising and brand promotion with the desire to help contribute to something authentically good. The company is in many ways the amalgamation of both Matt’s craft as well as his desire to motivate people to do more with their lives than buy stuff they don’t need.

Three years ago, Matt and his wife, Ashley, decided they wanted to broaden their perspectives as a family. After finding an orphanage in need of help in a small town in the middle of Nigeria, Matt took a sabbatical from his job. Then together with Ashley and their three kids, the Bull family headed into the unknown world of small-town Africa for three months. They returned to Dallas with a lot of take-aways - including, but not limited to, a fascination with chickens and a deeper desire for real community.

“It’s impossible to even put into words what a life and mind-altering experience that was and how beneficial it was to us as a family,” Matt says. “The big lesson for me that summer was just how much I have this desire to be useful and work to do something better, but the single best thing I have to give anybody is presence. That was really all I had to give anybody that summer, but it was a gift to them.”

But back in the U.S., Matt found himself once again immersed in a world of needless consumption, and at work, he was faced with re-defining his career priorities.

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