Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta. It’s time for Charitable Georgia. Brought to you by B’s Charitable Pursuits and resources. We put the fun in fund raising. For more information, go to B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. That’s B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. Now here’s your host, Brian Pruitt.

Brian Pruett: [00:00:45] Good fabulous Friday. It’s another fabulous Friday morning and we’ve got three more fabulous guests. Just a little bit of housekeeping. We will not be here next week on Black Friday because the studio front door will be locked and I can’t get in. So there will be no show so everybody can go shopping and get up early. Hope everybody have a great Thanksgiving. So like I said, we got three more fabulous guests this morning. And this is the first time listening to Charitable Georgia. This is all about positive things happening in your community. And we are going to get started this morning with Ms. Kimberly Brenowitz From Paws for life. I said that right, didn’t I?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:01:15] You did indeed, yes. Awesome.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:17] I always I have to pat myself on the back when I say the right word, because sometimes I mess them up, so. Well, first of all, you have an accent. Where’s your accent from?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:01:25] All right. I was born in Scotland, in the United Kingdom.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:28] Awesome.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:01:28] Yes. Unfortunately, too many years in the United States have sort of, like, kind of put a tinge on it, though.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:33] Well, I still it’s good to me, I like that, I like it. So you guys, like I said, you’re from paws for life, which we’ll get into for a second. But if you don’t mind, share a little bit more about your background and how you got into that, and then we’ll talk about what you guys do.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:01:44] Oh, absolutely. Yes. I’ve always had animals, German Shepherds, horses throughout my entire life. And when I graduated and I came over to the United States for a job, I ended up starting a riding school, and I got a stables in Sarasota, Florida, and started teaching down there, training horses, training dogs. My niece has cerebral palsy, so I would have her friends and family come out and we would do horse riding trails with them. So I got more and more involved in dealing with those with disabilities, and decided that this is something that I really would like to get into more and went to school, got all my designations. I had to do it like over a period of time because I had to, of course, keep working to be able to pay to do that. And then when my husband and I relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, I decided to make this a full time commitment and opened up a 500 and 1C3 nonprofit and have been training service animals since then. Awesome.

Brian Pruett: [00:02:41] Well, I have a sister in Sarasota, so it’s really kind of muggy down there.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:02:44] Yeah, I love it. I’d like to go back, but my husband won’t go back to Florida. No.

Brian Pruett: [00:02:48] Well, they do have soft beaches. I’ll give him that. That’s a nice, soft beach.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:02:51] It’s changed a lot over the years though. So. Yes.

Brian Pruett: [00:02:54] So you guys just train dogs or you have other animals that you train?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:02:58] Okay. So we actually for our service animals, there are only two animals that are allowed under federal law. One is of course dogs and the other one is miniature horses. We also do therapy dogs and they can be any kind of dog is a family pet or a dog that’s trained to go into nursing homes and children’s hospitals. And then the other one we work on is emotional support animals. That can be any basically most like 12 or 13 different types of animals bunnies, guinea pigs, llamas that can be somebody’s own emotional support but doesn’t get the full aspect of service dogs.

Brian Pruett: [00:03:32] I’ve seen a video of supposedly an alligator with somebody’s support animal. I don’t know that I would.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:03:36] Trust that either. I’ve had peacocks and I’ve had snakes and yes. So no, I don’t think I think it has to have feet. Yes.

Brian Pruett: [00:03:43] Well, I’ve got a friend who’s Daniel Lathrop. He was on the show. He’s actually a veteran and owns 1041 K9 dog training and stuff. And he used to work for TCA down in Florida, and he was talking about the animals that would come through there that were just. He had a I think he told me there was a ferret. Yes, there was emotional support animal. I’m like, and those guys stink. I had a roommate that had one of those. They stink all the time. So do you have a specific animal that your favorite.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:04:08] German Shepherd has to be my dog of choice. Yeah. And why is that? I love them, I don’t know, I mean, I’ve had German Shepherds in my family since I was, like two years old, and they’re just incredibly smart and intelligent dogs. That’s just for me. But, I mean, all dogs are absolutely wonderful and beautiful. It doesn’t matter what breed they are or what type they are, they all have their own individual personalities. So basically train any type of dog to be a service dog depending on what the disability needs are.

Brian Pruett: [00:04:33] So I didn’t get to actually talk to you and meet you in person at the golf tournament that Buffy and Matt did. And that’s where I met all three of you. And well, I met Buffy before then, but but my my favorite dog that you have was Rufus. Rufus?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:04:45] Yes.

Brian Pruett: [00:04:46] Rufus was giving I got pictures, him giving hugs to a lot of people. That’s just awesome. Tell us about Rufus.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:04:50] Yes. So Rufus is a Great Pyrenees poodle mix, and he’s probably about 120 pounds right now. He’s about the size of a miniature horse. And I actually have his sister Jojo. So both of them are very similar. They’re both about the same type of height, except she has more of the curvy female look and he has more of the guy dog long legged, long body look. But his. Yes, they’re both in training to become service animals. And Rufus is just you know, he’s I’ve definitely got to put a blog out for him because he’s just a typical large, bobble headed, black and white mop. That is absolutely just his love.

Brian Pruett: [00:05:24] Well, and like I said, I mean, he was literally giving hugs like he was up on his hind feet, paws on the shoulders. Yep. And that was just really cool.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:05:31] So his trick for the paws on the shoulders is, is basically he’s doing pressure point therapy. So by standing up and putting his paws over your shoulders, he has to have his elbows at one side of the front of your shoulders and his. Risks at the other side so that he’s doing pressure point therapy to help you. Oh, wow. So that’s the reason why we teach the hug one to make you feel good. And the other one is because he’s actually helping you, your body and your mental state of mind as well. So this is some of the things that his task trained for. That’s awesome.

Brian Pruett: [00:05:59] Well, I got to tell you, I had an ex girlfriend who had a puppy. Australian shepherd. Oh, nice. And things were starting to go bad with us. And I was at I was at her house while she was at work, still taking care of the dogs when things starting to go bad. And I was in the living room crying, sitting on the couch. And this puppy was a puppy. Like a puppy puppy. He came over and gave me a hug like he was just automatically knew there was something wrong. Something. Yeah, right. That was awesome.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:06:24] So they’re so intuitive. I mean, they’re incredible. I mean, where else, you know, can you get an animal that loves you unconditionally, will listen to everything that you have to say and not contradict you, and can detect all of your medical disabilities and try and help you tell you about it, and then give you the love for it afterwards. I mean, it’s just amazing.

Brian Pruett: [00:06:41] We have a veteran that comes to our church who has a golden noodle. Oh, nice. That’s and he detects when he’s about ready to have a seizure. Yes. It’s pretty awesome. So yeah.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:06:49] That’s a that’s a good one to work with.

Brian Pruett: [00:06:51] We we were talking a little earlier about the miniature horses and stuff like that. So how is it different training those versus the dogs.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:06:59] Actual fact horses can detect muscle movement in a human a little bit faster than dogs can, because dogs detect, first of all, by muscle movement and then by, you know, different things going on and scent, whereas horses are like a few seconds ahead of that. So they are actually more in tune with the human at that early initial stage. They’re just the same thing. They’re just as loving. They can be housebroken. They’re like 28in or 29in at the height. And for somebody who has mobility, for example, the general life of a miniature horse is like 30 years or 35 years, whereas the life of a large Great Dane or something is probably 8 to 10 years. So for somebody who has chronic mobility issues, sometimes it’s easier to get an animal that’s going to live longer, to be able to help them, then to have to go through 2 or 3 dogs versus one, one miniature horse. It’s just that people have they see a miniature horse on an airplane and they go, so a miniature horse in a grocery store, and it’s just something that you don’t see very often, I think because people with disabilities that have to take their animals, either their dog or their miniature horse, with them, it just makes you stand out from the crowd. So I think most people choose the dog instead of the horse, and the horse probably would actually benefit more in a mobility situation.

Brian Pruett: [00:08:15] Well, it’s definitely, definitely a conversation starter too. I’d walk up to somebody and say, can I pet your horse?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:08:20] Exactly.

Brian Pruett: [00:08:23] So do you guys solely work with veterans or do you work with other individuals?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:08:27] No, we work with we work with veterans, first responders, active duty and all the others in between. So and our youngest is three months and our oldest has been 87. Wow. As far as those that we have provided and are actually currently working with as far as service dogs or therapy dogs, but mostly service.

Brian Pruett: [00:08:48] So how do you determine which animal is best for an individual?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:08:53] Okay, so that’s a really good question. The thing is, if like for example, if your goal is that you want to run a marathon, the last thing that we’re going to do is match you up with one, a dog breed that you don’t like, or to a dog that can do like 25ft and then collapse because you’re so exhausted, like a mastiff or something. Masters aren’t meant to run, they’re meant to pull, and they’re meant to be like dragging something and holding you up. So we would place you more like with a dog that is like a husky or something, that that’s going to be able to keep you up. We did have one gentleman who was active duty. He got involved in an accident. He was in hospital at Grady for numerous times, and we provided him with an American, an American dog, native engineered dog, and big dog meant to drag things around and help the Indians when they were moving their wigwams and stuff like that, going back many, many years. And because they felt that he was going to end up in a wheelchair, not being able to use his legs because of the travesty that had happened to him. And it ended up that bringing the dog to him and working with him through his therapy sessions at Grady and everything else, he just rallied from a person that was given a sentence that he may never walk or live again, to being able to say, I have something to live for.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:10:09] And he then started working with his dog, and in about 6 or 7 months, he actually ended up walking out of Grady with his service animal at that time saying goodbye to everybody. He went into rehab for a while. Rehab told him, you’re doing so well, you don’t need to do it. So he actually went back into active duty. And at that point in time we said, you are doing so well that this dog is not the right match for you anymore. So we are going to trade out this big dog for somebody else who needs a mobility dog. And we’re going to give you a dog that’s going to be give you a challenge, going to make you be better than what you are right now. So we ended up getting him a malamute who was definitely full of energy. And we went and we met him and he was eight weeks old at the time and it was a love connection. They just fell in love together. And so the fact that dog and he were back on active duty and they they’d been on tour, they’ve done their, you know, the process. They were down on the, on the, on the wall. They’ve done a whole bunch of things.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:11:06] And he actually now he and his dog can run up and down Stone mountain. Wow. It’s just incredible. From from the beginning to the end of this young man’s life. And he was like 20 when it happened. So it’s just an incredible story of putting the right match with the right person. And just because you have a dog to start off with doesn’t mean that, you know, in five years, where do you see yourself being? So that’s one of our challenges. When we match you, what type of breed do you see yourself being attached to by the umbilical cord for the next 10 to 12 years of your life? And where do you see yourself wanting to be? So right now you’re in this position. Where do you want to be? Do you want to be? Go out and go and swim. Do you want to go out and you know, or do you want to stay home and just play video games? What is it that your goal is? And we want to try and help you reach that goal, using your dog to be able to help you get out the door, do the work that you need to get done to achieve what you want to do at the ultimate end of all of it. So yeah, it’s a great match process.

Brian Pruett: [00:12:03] Are there certain breeds that you can’t work with, or can you work with all and train all the breeds?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:12:08] Yeah, you can work with most breeds. Of course. Some are more stubborn than others. For us, we want to work with dogs that have that stubbornness because we need them to do deliberate disobedience. Which means if you tell your dog to go and stay in that corner and don’t budge till I need you or tell you to do something else, we want to make sure that that dog is going to stay there and is not going to move unless there’s something going on with his handler, his human, in which case he would be deliberately disobedient and he would leave that order to let you know that, hey, I’m going to show you a task because I’m telling you something’s going to happen or you’re going to have a seizure, or you’re going to have, you know, a diabetic low. So any life saving task that the dog has been trained to do, that’s the reason why the dog will disobey. So it has to be really critical. And the dog has to know that this is what I need to do. So most dogs, you know, will go ahead and do that with a lot of training. But that’s why it’s so important when you’re first working with with the animals, is to make sure that you pick the right pick. So here’s an example. For example, if you’re going to find a puppy or a dog for someone who’s a paraplegic. And so you go and you look at the litter of puppies like goldendoodles or Labradors or whatever, and you take each one of the puppies individually in the litter, and you take a piece of paper and you scrub it up into a ball and you throw it across the floor.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:13:20] You don’t want to take the puppy that runs in the opposite direction. You want to take the puppy that runs towards the crumpled piece of paper, picks it up and brings it back to you, because that paraplegic or that quadriplegic is going to need a dog that will pick up the remote or pick up a card on the floor or get, you know, go and get your water out of the fridge. So the abilities at that age and we start doing that about four weeks. You can’t do much at four weeks, but we have a general idea, and it’s about 7 or 8 weeks of that puppy’s age that we think, okay, we’ve gone through the litter. This is the type of breed that this individual wants. So we have a choice. Is there nobody in the litter that’s going to be the right match? Then we wait for the next litter or we find another one. If there is a good match in there, then we’ll take that pup. We’ll work with that pup for a while. If the pup is still being consistent, then we put the two together and we train them together from that point on for the rest of the working life of that dog.

Brian Pruett: [00:14:10] Are there age groups? I mean, you mentioned puppies. Do the dogs get to a certain age where you can’t train them?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:14:16] You can always teach an old dog new tricks.

Brian Pruett: [00:14:18] There you go. There you go.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:14:19] You can always do it for service animals. You know, so many people think that, you know, here you have this dog who’s three years old, he’s got his public access test and he’s tasking under federal law. And that’s the stop. Here’s the dog. This is where I’m at. But the problem is disabilities don’t change. Disabilities keep moving and they alter and medicine changes and lifestyles change. And so we’re with that dog. When we place that puppy with you and we’re available 24 over seven for that individual, that dog is going to change. So they need to go back and they need to do refreshers. They need to add more things. If they change medication then that changes the scent. Because whatever you put into your body, you smell like. And so the dog has to be tweaked a little bit to be able to keep going on and functioning to the best of their ability for their handler.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:04] Well, you know, we were talking I was just asking reason I was asking about the breeds is because there are certain breeds out there, mainly a pit bull that always gets a bad rap, and it’s because people will train them to do what they’re not supposed to do.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:15:13] It’s the human in that element as far as that’s concerned. But I mean, we’ve got some great pit bulls and bully breeds in our program, and they’re absolute marshmallows. So, you know, it’s a stigma, just like Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Dobermans. I mean, I’ve had all of those dogs at one point in my life. And, you know, it’s all a matter of how you handle them, what you give them. You know, the same thing with children. If you beat your kid, you’re going to have a kid that beats other kids, right? You know, if you beat your dog, you’re going to have a dog that’s antagonistic and just it’s just a rough. Round circle. So love always says a lot.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:45] So what does it look like? Is there different trainings? Well, first of all, before I ask the question, do you on the service animals, are there anything you have to do to as Daniel says, he trains the humans. Do you guys have to also train the individuals to work with the service dogs?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:16:01] Yes. So, you know, it’s one of these things is that when we match the pup and we place them with the individual or the young adult dog with the individual, the two of them will be in training with us forever. Okay. Until the working life of the dog is no longer and we either replaced with another dog or they don’t need another dog anymore. But yes, I mean the dogs are the easy part. It’s the human that sometimes causes the problems to get them trained to be able to work with the dog, because by the time our dogs are ready to go out and work in the big bad world with them, they have the capacity of problem solving of a five year old child. And so it’s the humans that have to be kept to be consistent. It’s the humans that have to know what to look for in their dog. And that comes from as far as we’re concerned. That’s one reason why we place our pups or our young adult dogs with an individual, because we want them to each learn their own body language. We want them to be able to say, like, if I place a dog with you, then tell me in two weeks time when you know that that dog needs to go to the bathroom, it’s because you’ve watched that dog and you know the telltale signs and you can read the body language. If you can’t tell me at that period of time whether it’s five minutes after they finish eating or it’s two hours after they finish eating, you and the dog are not living in a good environment together. You’re not functioning together well. So it’s a case of you have to keep pay attention to your dog, and your dog will be contingent, you know, paying attention to you. The dog is the easy part. It’s, you know, it’s the it’s the human in them that have to interact together, which takes the time. So yeah, he’s definitely correct.

Brian Pruett: [00:17:30] There’s the training different for the animals on different types of service for the service animals versus like seeing eye dog or knowing when there’s a seizure about to happen or anything like that.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:17:40] We actually in paws for life USA don’t train for somebody who’s totally blind. I can, but it’s something that I prefer not to do because it’s such a, you know, a different dedicated science because the human and the dog is basically the human who is blind is the one that is directing the dog, whereas in unseen disabilities, which is what I deal with an awful lot, is it’s a case of. A different type of training because even though I incorporate an awful lot of the guide dog stuff, by having the dogs look up to make sure there’s no overhanging branch or, you know, looking down on the floor to make sure there’s nothing that, you know, a curb that they don’t have to trip over. We incorporate all that type of training into what we do for our regular service dogs. I mean, they do everything. I mean, they, you know, we teach them to do a whole bunch of things so that there’s no surprises. And it’s always a case of the what if? What if I’m out here and my dog doesn’t do this? Well, we want the dog and the human to know what to do in any given circumstance. So we just work them through every single procedure that we can think of to, to get them to work as a good team, you know, to be able to get them to fly on an airplane and feel, you know, that they’ve been there, they can do that by themselves to get them to go to a Braves game so that they can go to the game and know what to expect, that the dog doesn’t freak out with the fireworks and all the noise to go to a, you know, anywhere, go to a restaurant and not eat the food off the floor so that the handler doesn’t have to worry about the dog, you know, doing this kind of thing. So it’s an ongoing process that they have to go through everything. And that’s Guide Dog as well as, you know, other service dogs.

Brian Pruett: [00:19:11] It’s funny you mentioned the food on the floor because when we were at the golf tournament, I brought my assistant Lauren with me, and she was helping the check in. And one of your other folks was there with a puppy, golden retriever. Oh yeah. And she was laying next to Lauren, and Lauren didn’t realize it. And she laid her chicken biscuit right down by the dog. And the dog never touched it. Yeah, that’s that’s a very impressive. And like I said, this was a puppy. Yes. So how does the training look like for the emotional support versus the the other.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:19:39] Yeah. So emotional support actually basically it’s still requires a doctor to say yes, you need an emotional support animal. And that is basically to give somebody comfort and be able to sit in their lap or be next to them so that it can release those endorphins in their brain to make them feel good. The dog actually doesn’t do any tasking, and the dog doesn’t have the same rights of a service animal to go anywhere. So with service dogs, they have the right to go everywhere. The general public is allowed to go except for like some sterile environments, churches and private property. The same thing with emotional support animals. The only difference that they now have, I mean, they used to be able to fly now that to a couple of years ago was taken away from them. But now the only thing they can do is they can go and stay in an apartment complex or a rental house that has a no dog policy, and then they can be given the accommodation to go there, but that’s where their rights end. Otherwise, service dogs, they should have the right to go everywhere, even to, you know, into an Airbnb or something else that says no dogs, right? There’s still a lot of people that want to try and say and deny that to somebody. But yeah, the law says they’re allowed to have them there.

Brian Pruett: [00:20:45] So is there a certain when we’re talking about the training aspect of it, does it do you do the same kind of training for that emotional support that you would do for the other kind? As far as like.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:20:55] So emotional support is just working with them. You know, in our program, what we like to try and do is give the dog all the basic and intermediate obedience training. Plus we like to help them with whatever, whatever their disability is, whether it’s anxiety or something else. Along those lines, we like to try and give the dog at least one thing to be able to do for for them as an emotional support. Now that’s not required, but we like to say that this is what we want to do, because we want the dog to be able to help you more than just be a a dog versus the service animal who is trained to do multiple things, cross train to not only help you, but maybe to help your family as well. For example, we have a poodle that’s out there who is looking after a little boy. And so if you’re a mother and you’re changing your son, and all of a sudden you’ve left the diaper rash cream on the table in the kitchen, you can’t leave your child who’s in the bathtub to go and get that. So we trained the dog to go and get it.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:21:55] So it’s actually helping the family as well as helping for the individual. So those dogs are highly trained and and they do more than they actually need for the particular disability that they’re working with because we want them to have an all rounded education. And so if we have a dog in the house, we actually have one dog that there is two young girls, the husband and wife, and the dog is for the youngest daughter, but the dog actually serves everybody in the house. And like one of the ridiculous things is, is that they are constantly dropping clothes on the floor. And so they asked me one day is, can you train him to pick all the clothes up off the floor? And I said, sure. I said it would be a great task for him. So he now picks up all the clothes and he puts them in the laundry, diaper and about. I think it was like four months later the husband calls me and I said, hi, how are you doing? He said, can you teach the dog to pick up all their clothes and leave mine? And I said, no, everything goes in the basket.

Brian Pruett: [00:22:48] That’s awesome. So what’s the kind of wildest animal you’ve ever worked with on the emotional support side?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:22:53] On the emotional support, I would have to say. It was a rabbit. Wow. Yeah, a rabbit. That rabbit gave me the runaround.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:02] Or the hop around as far as he’s concerned.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:23:04] Yeah. Really cute. Yeah. So. Yeah. So rabbit. And I think one of my. I have a couple of favorite as far as service dogs are concerned. Great Danes love Great Danes. They’re great dogs. And of course, Rufus can’t forget because he’s just a joiner. Love forever.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:20] Well, great. And the Great Danes in their name. So we have another family at church who has a Great Dane, and we do a once a year, one day retreat. Excuse me. And they bring him to that. And it was a couple of weeks ago we were at Red top and.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:23:35] Oh, that’s a nice place to go. Yes.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:37] We were in the little, I don’t know, not, not overhang, but it was a little building there. And he’s sitting there on the floor. And of course all the kids are loving on him and stuff. And then he walked over to the adults walk over and he would look up with his puppy eyes and he’d be like, of course he’s bigger than everybody else. But still, those puppy eyes are like, whatever you want. I’ll give it to you. Yeah, yeah. I’m guessing goldfish cannot be trained to be.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:23:59] Well, no, I don’t know about fish. I did have a golf ball goldfish, many moons ago that if you moved your finger around on the outside of his tank, he would actually swim in circles and follow you. Oh, wow. So I don’t know if that’s classified as well. It works for me. I mean, I think every animal has abilities. You just have to know what you’re talking about.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:19] And they all have personalities too.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:24:21] They all have personalities. Absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, it’s one of those things. I do know that earlier you were talking about this, this charity and community and everything else like that. So I was wondering if we could. Yeah. Go ahead. About what we’re doing. So paws for life USA is actually having a silent auction tomorrow at its school location at 3100 Roswell Road in Marietta. And all the funds from this holiday bake and basket sale are going to. Proceeds will go towards training a service animal for a veteran or a first responder. So if anybody is out there and wants to do something on Saturday afternoon from 12 to 330, please come round to us. And we’re on the corner of Old Canton and Roswell Road, and we have some wonderful things. We have homemade pies, we have homemade scones, we have pretzels that have been done. An awful lot of the items that we have for auction are being donated by an Air Force veteran, and we have some baskets that are just ready to go for Thanksgiving. They have wine in them. They have glasses, we have British tea basket, we have you name it, we’ve got it. So there’s a little bit of something for everybody. So if you’re looking for that quick and easy gift and you don’t have time to go to the store and you don’t want to worry about looking around through Black Friday, then come to us and get a basket and you’ve saved all your problems.

Brian Pruett: [00:25:43] There you go. Now I’m hungry. So yeah. Do you have any other other events after that that you want to share?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:25:48] So no, I mean that will be probably our final event for the year until we do start in 2024. It’s all right. I know it’s crazy isn’t it. Yeah. So no, that’s that’s probably our last event for the year is the the weekend before Thanksgiving. Every year we have this silent auction and but that’s good. Yes. Awesome.

Brian Pruett: [00:26:06] Well I got two more questions a two part question. And then we’ll we’ll get you to share your information again as far as contact. But so I’d like for you, for those listening who might be thinking about this is a two part question. The first one is who somebody might be thinking about starting their own business. Okay. The other one is a person thinking about starting a 500 and 1C3 nonprofit. What advice would you give those individuals?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:26:30] Okay, so as far as starting your own organization for my side of things, if we talking about wanting to become, say you want to become a service dog trainer or a dog trainer, we actually have a one of our organization is called American Canine Connection. And it’s a post-secondary department of educational certified school. And people can come and learn how to become master dog trainers or service dog trainers. So once they have gone through the one year or the two year program, they then have the ability and the certifications to be able to go out and do dog walking, run a boarding kennel, train dogs for other people and start up their own business and be able to start having a career in a life as far as working with dogs are concerned. So it just depends on how far you want to go up the ladder. If you want to go all the way, then service dogs is the way to go. If you just want to start group training and start something, you can start that in your own home and eventually migrate to having your own facility or renting it. Or you can go and work for an organization that already exists, and there are jobs out there that I’m aware of to be able to go and join an organization. You basically sort of like independent within this organization and train dogs for them and, and get paid. So it’s a great resource and you can do that forever. You can train animals forever. There’s no like limit, you know, and you can’t get fired from your job. You know, you’re training dogs or you’re doing a dog walk. And as long as you’re physically able, you know, you can you can do that.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:28:11] And as far as starting your own 500 and 1C3 in this day and age, yes. If you want to be a charity starting your own 500 and 1C3, it’s there’s a few hoops that you have to jump through legal parameters. There’s an outlay of money that you have to put out to be able to get your licenses and get the IRS to approve you. But for me, I did that back in. I got approved in 2004. It was it was the only way to go. I had done some volunteering for some shelters and different things over a couple of years beforehand, and as a volunteer, I didn’t like what I saw, so I kept on putting my $0.02 in and nobody liked me for doing that. So I thought, well, you know, okay, so I’m going to do this myself. So I went out and I did the research and I opened up my own 500 and 1C3. And I said, okay, now that you won’t let me do it for you, I’m going to do it for me and I’m going to do it for the animals. So that’s how I did my 500 and 1C3. But it definitely if you have a mission and you feel strongly enough about it, you need to go ahead and do it. It’s it’s just a wonderful thing. And for me, I live, speak and dream dogs and I want to help people with disabilities. And so that’s my whole thing I gave up working for with doing accounting was actually my my trade of choice. And I always wanted to train dogs and help people with disabilities. And I’m living my dream.

Brian Pruett: [00:29:30] Awesome. How do you guys get the word out for your for your organization?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:29:35] Word of mouth and client referrals. Okay, we have our website paws for life usa.org. We have our LinkedIn same thing. We tweet anything that we can do like that on our social media. We’re all out there okay.

Brian Pruett: [00:29:51] So again share the website. And then if they want to get a hold of you for anything else, are there other ways to do that?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:29:55] Okay. So it’s Kimberly Benowitz and it’s paws for life usa.org website. Paws for life usa.org and the same thing the same name. Got to put the USA on it though, because there is somebody else out there with paws for life. So make sure you do paws for life usa.org and that’s us. And if you want to reach me directly at (770) 402-0297, I’ll gladly answer any questions that you have. Or you can email me at admin at paws for life usa.org and the four is spelled out f o r. So it’s paws for life usa.org.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:31] Awesome. Well Kimberly, thanks for coming on and sharing. Don’t go anywhere. We’re not done with you yet. So my pleasure. We’re moving over now to Miss Buffy Payne from the Outer Circle Foundation. Buffy, you weren’t able to come with Matt a few months ago because you had an emergency to go to, but you’ve since joined the corporate world to take over more of the Outer Circle Foundation. So welcome this morning, Buffy.

Buffy Payne: [00:30:53] Thank you for having me.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:54] Um, you guys do a lot for the community and stuff. As a matter of fact, the golf tournament you guys put on, you actually gave that money to two other organizations, right? So if you don’t mind, share a little bit about your background and then we’ll get into a little bit more about the Outer Circle Foundation. Sure.

Buffy Payne: [00:31:10] So my background honestly is a security professional. I’ve been in the security industry for 25 years, recently left that with a passion to continue to help others and helping others has been, I think, in my blood, in my DNA all along, even within security. That’s what I did. Help others educate folks. I’m a survivor of domestic violence, so for many years I helped women of domestic violence help them get to a safe place, help educate them, help them see that there is another way to live. And over time, it kind of evolved into this mission, with Matt and I both having that in our blood of helping others. And so veterans and first responders, because we both work so closely with those. And Matt being a veteran, that became our passion, that became the group that we really tend to gravitate towards to help those.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:07] So you talked about the security background, what type of security?

Buffy Payne: [00:32:11] Oh goodness. You name it. It’s everything really. But most of the time when people hear me talk about security, they think, oh, that’s it. Well, honestly, it’s everything but it. Right, right. I know enough about it to be scary, but really it’s more of the Intel, the actionable intelligence, the physical security, the situational awareness, how to keep yourself safe, you know, investigations, things of that nature. It’s all the other stuff that helps keep a company or an individual safe. That’s that is our passion in security.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:45] So just get some advice for somebody listening about what to do for security stuff you just mentioned, who might be a business owner or things of that nature, just a little bit of tidbits of what they need to. Kind of keep an eye out for.

Buffy Payne: [00:32:57] Oh, yeah. So, you know, in this day and age of technology and social media and how easy it is for people to. Overshare. That’s one of the first things I really talk when I talk to organizations is about your social media awareness and what’s being put out there. So often when I go in and talk with leaders of companies, they’ll say, oh, I’m not on social media. I’m like, you may not be, but you have teenagers at home that are or you have a spouse at home that is, and they’re advertising, oh, my spouse is traveling here or there or dad is gone, right? I said, you will be amazed at those around you that overshare, right? You have family dinners, you talk about what’s going on at work and then your teenagers find that interesting. And next thing you know, it’s on social media. So there’s the awareness, even beyond just the person in the seat at the organization. It’s those around them. And then it’s the same within a company, right? You’ve got to have that good balance of education and awareness and making sure your employees understand the balance of what’s appropriate to share and what’s not.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:01] It’s funny because when social media first I remember Myspace, that was my first. I guess everybody’s first was Myspace. And people talking about, well, I’m having this for dinner. Who cares.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:12] Or I’m the I’m in the inner library and who cares?

Buffy Payne: [00:34:19] And now everybody shares everything.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:21] Yes. Yeah. Yeah, definitely, like you said, oversharing. So, um, so yeah. So I guess with that oversharing aspect of it, because a lot of people do share their pictures, they’re on vacation and stuff like that. Yeah, there are things that I mean, other than not doing it, are there any other things they can do to kind of take care and protect them?

Buffy Payne: [00:34:43] Yeah, of course there are. There’s so many things people can do. Right. And one of the stories that is always the fun one to tell, not fun for the victim, was I had family that was so excited to go on vacation taking this two week trip, and they talked about it and they advertised they did their whole countdown on Facebook, going here, going here, going here. Well, they were gone for two weeks. When they got home, their house was empty. So the tagline now is share where you’ve been, not where you are, right? Yes. So it’s great that you’re going on vacation. It’s great that you’re going to be somewhere, but you wait till you get back from that somewhere before you start sharing those pictures and those stories. Right? Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:35:21] All right. So let’s talk a little bit now about the Outer Circle Foundation. So you guys you had mentioned you work with veterans but also the first responders because Matt was actually both. Yeah. Um, so talk about what you guys do. I know he shared stuff from your now that you’re kind of running things, I guess you would say just share what you guys do and then how people can help.

Buffy Payne: [00:35:41] Yep. So in our circle, our mission is really helping focus on PTSD awareness and suicide prevention. We do also help our first responders and veterans with that transition when they’re leaving the military or leaving that first responder job, and they’re looking for their next step. So we help with that. Education pieces, resume development, how to work the network, mock interviews, things of that nature, things that are much different in the job world versus the military or versus your first responder environment. Matt, being a both a first responder and military, has suffered from PTSD for numerous years, and I’ve watched this and have helped manage this for a long time. And there’s so many treatments out there that are medicine driven and that are not effective. We, Matt and I, went down the road of different medications for him, and he was not a person. When he was on those medicines. He would sit around for hours just in this fog and couldn’t function. And so we went to market and said, there’s got to be a better way. And lo and behold, one of his teammates, a guy by the name of Dr.

Buffy Payne: [00:36:55] James Lynch, is out of Baltimore, and he helped develop the stellate ganglion block. And so that was Matt went and had that treatment. And he’s been an impressively different person just from that one treatment. And so that we’ve got a partnership with Dr. Lynch. And that is one of the things that we educate our veterans and first responders that come to us on is this is something you should consider. This is something to look at. It’s, you know, it’s not a medication. It’s not it’s not these therapy sessions, but instead it is an instantaneous change of life. And we’ve seen numerous veterans go and meet Dr. Lynch and get this treatment. And we’re seeing a change in these behaviors, which is phenomenal. It’s exciting. Right. If we could get out there and get everybody to sign up, we would. As a matter of fact, Dr. Lynch just posted yesterday a program for veterans to come and get the shot for free. Wow. And so we reposted that to our LinkedIn page yesterday so that veterans can see that and get enrolled in that program.

Speaker5: [00:37:54] Matt, when.

Brian Pruett: [00:37:55] He was here, he shared about the experience of being seeing himself on the dock at a young boys. And he said it never happened. And that was the calmest he’s ever felt. So absolutely. That’s awesome. So let me ask you this. Is as a spouse. You said you’ve seen that go through what? First of all, it’s got to be scary of certain aspects of it. But can you share? I mean, first of all, I guess there’s hope. You know, for somebody, a family member or a spouse going through and seeing their loved one do that, share how what they can do and then what how did you handle the situation or how are you handling situations?

Buffy Payne: [00:38:27] Yeah. So with Matt, you know, as being his spouse and seeing the indicators with him, with his short temper or letting something so simple frustrate him, him not sleeping, the nightmares. And they started getting worse. Right when during Covid when life was really uncertain and things were going on, he just became more intensive with everything, and it became to a point where we knew that he had to do something else, right? And the medicines just weren’t working. He would stand up and fall over because the medicines had him so out of his normal self. And then when we went and met Doctor Lynch and talked to Doctor Lynch. And agreed that we would going to do this treatment. And then that same day that Matt had his first treatment with Dr. Lynch. He slept 14 hours that night. Wow, that man has never slept before. And, you know, I woke up multiple times to check him because he slept so well that first night. And I couldn’t believe it. And to see that now is amazing. To see him not overreact to items now is amazing, right? And he, you know, even he sees it, right? He sees his reactions are not the same. So that’s been fabulous right. And he’s just a different he’s just a different person. That’s great. And for him to share that story with other veterans so that they can go, okay, yeah, I see some of myself in that. Right. And from the spouse perspective, the treatment itself is simple, right? It takes less than an hour. The side effects are done. The results are instant. For me, it’s been like a breath of fresh air. Right? Because now I know he’s feeling better. I know that the person he is, and I’m not going to get these reactions to stuff that I would get before.

Brian Pruett: [00:40:26] And I’m sure it’s come a long way, because when when you first heard about PTSD, people were like, first of all, what is that? And second of all, they probably didn’t have I know they didn’t have all the stuff that’s out there now. So it’s a it’s amazing the PR that’s come along. So one thing you touched on that I think is important to to share too, is I talk about, you know, I could be passionate in helping veterans, which I am, but I’ve never been a veteran. Right. So and I talk about this too with a friend of mine, Kevin Harris, with All In All Out Ministries. He went down the road of addiction. So now he’s helping move the addiction, right? I think it’s so important that while somebody like myself, who’s either never been in addiction or a veteran may have a passion for helping, it’s a lot more. Stronger with somebody who has been in that road and now helping those others. Would you agree with that?

Buffy Payne: [00:41:14] Absolutely, absolutely. But you know, it was interesting with Matt, he he’s always wanted to help others, but it took him a long time to realize he had PTSD. He would push it off. That’s in his responses when he would get upset. But that’s just who I am. And I’m like, it’s not. It’s not because I’ve seen you different. I’ve seen you at moments where everything’s fine and I’ve seen you at moments where I think the world is going to implode and to finally get him to recognize he had PTSD and get him to recognize and realize he needed treatment, that was a huge step. And now that he can take that story and share it with others, right. They listen and it is by far more impactful.

Brian Pruett: [00:41:57] And the other thing that that’s another thing to point out that you just mentioned, is that your situation or things that victimize or whatever doesn’t define you, right? It’s how you handle it, the way you can move on and teach others and help others. But it is not a defining moment for you. So, um, all right, so you also have inner circle foundation as well. Correct.

Buffy Payne: [00:42:21] Inner circle solutions. Yes.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:22] Inner circle solutions. Okay. Can you tell us about that?

Buffy Payne: [00:42:24] Sure.

Buffy Payne: [00:42:25] Inner Circle Solutions is a solutions company. We go out and work with organizations or individuals, understand what their risks are and help provide solutions, whether it’s solutions of technology or training or whatever it is they may need. We help bring those solutions to them. And one of the things with Inner Circle, any any work that we do, we give a percentage of every contract to outer circle. So that’s our way that we’re helping support our nonprofit.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:52] Are there certain industries with your inner circle solutions as you work with and the size.

Buffy Payne: [00:42:59] In really any industry we can work within? Right. So with my background and our team’s background, we cover all industries, everything from restaurant to retail to to finance to manufacturing. Right. We have that pretty far knowledge and scope that we can help support any organization. And we do everything big to small, right? So we’ve been working with small churches, helping them build security programs within their churches, which is amazing that our industry has shifted so much that we have to go into churches and help them build security programs. But we are doing that. So there’s there’s no company too large or too small that we won’t take.

Brian Pruett: [00:43:40] When you go to churches, do you guys do anything with like active shooters?

Buffy Payne: [00:43:43] Yes, yes. We are both certified to train an active assailant program and help educate, you know, whether it’s a church or a school or any organization about active assailant, what to do, how to behave, how. What the what to expect in the situation. And it’s it’s also sad that we have to to do that. But you know, the one thing that Matt and I really talk about whenever we talk with individuals, whether we’re in a company, talking to them or at a school or a church, talking to people, when we educate and teach you about security, it doesn’t only apply here where you are, but you can take that same training, take it home, you can take it to the grocery store, you can take it to a movie theater. It applies wherever you are. Security awareness and the training we provide applies at work and in life.

Brian Pruett: [00:44:32] Wow.

Brian Pruett: [00:44:32] That’s awesome. So share about the Outer Circle Foundation, how individuals or businesses can can get involved and help you.

Buffy Payne: [00:44:40] Yeah. So excuse me. Outer Circle Foundation, we have our website, Outer Circle Foundation.org. Certainly you can reach out to us there. And you know, there’s a means to make financial sponsorships or to sign up for volunteer events between now and the end of this year, which is not that far away. Right? Right. We are collecting gifts and we’re going we’re working with two senior citizen senior centers that have quite a large population of veterans or first responders that are there, that we’re going to provide Christmas gifts for them and do some volunteer work in their organizations in December, just helping make sure those in the senior center have a good holiday. And then after the first of the year, obviously we’ll be running towards our next golf tournament, which will be in October. But from January to October, it goes by really quick. When you start planning a golf event.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:36] Well, there’s something in between that too, which we’ll talk about in a second.

Speaker5: [00:45:38] So yeah, we’ll talk about that one too.

Buffy Payne: [00:45:40] And you know, you did you did mention that our last golf tournament, October, that the money that we raised there, we planned to gift part of that to two different organizations. And one of those organizations is Kimberly, sitting here with us today at paws for life. Us. And so what she doesn’t know is we’ve got the final check this morning from one of the sponsors. And so we have for paws for life a check for $10,000. Awesome. Giving them.

Brian Pruett: [00:46:11] That’s awesome.

Buffy Payne: [00:46:12] Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:46:13] So congratulations. Yeah. Um, so if somebody wants to volunteer or again, a business other than the, the money aspect of it, are there other ways they can get involved?

Buffy Payne: [00:46:24] Absolutely.

Buffy Payne: [00:46:25] There’s tons of ways to get involved. And I shared before we went live a little bit that we’re working on an agreement right now to partner with another nonprofit that will provide technology to veterans. And then we are going to take the veteran from the point that they receive that technology and provide education, training, awareness on how to develop your resume, what LinkedIn should look like. And yes, you do have to be on LinkedIn if you plan on moving on into another job or role outside of what you’ve been doing. So when as we’re moving in through this agreement, we need tons of resources to help, whether it’s a place to train folks or just people to come in and help us train those individuals, read resumes, you know, proofreading all of those education pieces. So our website should flurry with tons of volunteer opportunities where people can come out and help provide space, provide potato chips and a soda. Right. All of those things. Our goal is to train and help place 1000 veterans between now and 2025.

Brian Pruett: [00:47:30] Awesome.

Brian Pruett: [00:47:31] I want to go back to your thing you’re doing for the seniors, the Christmas. Are there certain gifts that you’re looking for?

Buffy Payne: [00:47:36] So right now, the centers have said most of the things that seniors would enjoy would be a book to read socks, nice warm socks that they can wear because the centers sometimes are kind of cool, and then just small individual items that they can then have for themselves. And they’re like, whether it’s, you know, a small snack, a box of chocolate, you know, little handheld games, things that they can enjoy for themselves. They said, please don’t do anything large because there’s not a lot of place to store stuff, right? She told me a story of somebody bringing a recliner one year.

Buffy Payne: [00:48:16] I don’t know what to do with this, but yeah, so small gifts that the individual can enjoy.

Brian Pruett: [00:48:22] And what’s the date that they can donate up to.

Buffy Payne: [00:48:25] So all donations need to be in by December the 7th, okay. And they’ll be delivered the next week.

Brian Pruett: [00:48:32] And where can they bring those.

Buffy Payne: [00:48:34] They can bring them to Outer Circle Foundation at three, four, two Woodland Path in Dallas, Georgia.

Brian Pruett: [00:48:41] Okay.

Brian Pruett: [00:48:42] Awesome. Um, well, I normally ask another question that you normally want to talk to you, but I got so involved talking about the animals because I love animals. Did I forgot to ask a couple questions. That’s okay. So we’re going to come back and do them all three at the end. So but I do want to go back to Kimberly for one second. I forgot to ask. You if individuals and businesses want to help paws for life. Other than the financial aspect, how can they do that?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:49:04] Oh yes. Great question. So we’re always looking for puppy raisers. So if somebody wants to take a 8 or 10 week old puppy into their home and help socialize them for whilst we’re waiting for a potential match to come along for them, we provide all the food or of course all the veterinary things for the puppy. You just have to provide the love and the attention and come to us for training. So the pup is learning basic obedience whilst you’re doing your puppy raising. So we’re always open to that. And anyone who wants to volunteer are more than welcome to have you come to any of our events. You can also make donations to us for our next year’s Veterans Holiday Basket that we’re always looking for. Gifts for that otherwise than that we’re open to. We are going to be doing a shoe drive again next year, and so we’re always looking for people that have gently used or new shoes that they no longer want. When they come to clear out their closet. Just let us know and we will put out a basket for those donations to be made. And we’ll also let you know a time when you can deliver them to us.

Brian Pruett: [00:50:05] And where can they drop those off at?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [00:50:06] They can reach out to us by, of course, calling us by phone, but they will be dropped off at the 3100 Roswell Road, Marietta, Georgia.

Brian Pruett: [00:50:13] Okay. Yeah. All right, Buffy, real quick, we have something going on in March.

Buffy Payne: [00:50:18] We do?

Brian Pruett: [00:50:19] It’s the. And we moved it because I was dumb and picked the week before Thanksgiving and didn’t realize it. So March 21st, 2024. Put it on your calendars. It’s going to be the first annual America’s Hometown Heroes Expo. That’s right. You want to share any information about that?

Buffy Payne: [00:50:36] I think this is going to be fabulous. The timing of this is just perfect, right? So Hometown Heroes Expo is going to be the opportunity for organizations to be present and share jobs that they’re trying to fill. It’s also a great time for our veterans and first responders or anybody in the community, really, to come out and say, hey, I need a job. Or it’s also think about those veteran owned businesses that want to come out and showcase who they are. What they’re about are nonprofit organizations. It’s just a wonderful time for everybody to come together, network, shake hands, hopefully find some jobs.

Brian Pruett: [00:51:10] Yeah, we’re going to have a silent auction there as well. We’ll have some food. We’re going to have a my buddy Daniel for 1041 canines, going to do a canine demonstration with his dog. So be a lot of fun. So you can go to B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. That’s B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com and get more information out as well. Or go to my Facebook page and Buffy share your website and stuff one more time as well.

Buffy Payne: [00:51:35] Sure.

Buffy Payne: [00:51:36] Outer circle. Outer circle. Foundation.org.

Brian Pruett: [00:51:39] Awesome, Buffy, thanks for sharing again. We’re not done. We’ll come back to you, but we do have another gentleman in the house. Thank goodness I’m not the only guy, because lately I’ve been the only guy in the studio. So Todd Masters from FocalPoint Coaching and Training Excellence, thanks for being here this morning.

Todd Masters: [00:51:55] My pleasure.

Brian Pruett: [00:51:56] So first of all, we just had Veterans Day this past Saturday. And thank you for your service. You’re a veteran. So happy belated Veterans Day.

Todd Masters: [00:52:04] Thank you.

Brian Pruett: [00:52:04] Air Force correct.

Todd Masters: [00:52:05] Air force yep.

Brian Pruett: [00:52:07] Can you share a little we’ll get into what you’re doing now in just a little bit. But share your background, share about your service and what you did. And we’ll go into that. Yeah. I don’t have.

Todd Masters: [00:52:14] The great military background story like Matt has, but I was on scholarship out of high school for Air Force ROTC. So Uncle Sam paid for my degree in electrical engineering. And, you know, I grew up in the 80s Top Gun, you know, all the inspirational movies, the shock and awe and things that happened, you know, during the early 90s. So, you know, every kid my age wanted to go into either the Navy, the Air Force. And I went with the one that gave me the biggest scholarship and went that way. So loved it, had a great time, you know, didn’t have a long career. Right after I got out of the ROTC program. You know, we had the big reduction in force, right? So a lot of a lot of the half the military was gone at that age, you know, when Clinton took took administration after the war, after the Bush buildup years. And then Clinton came on board and we did. We had too big of a military. So they cut it. And, you know, the last ones in, first ones out. So that was it. But I loved it, cherished that time. But it was, you know, a bit of a heartbreak, you know, for, you know, seeing your dream kind of get taken away on that part of it. But, you know, there’s always plans for, for other things. From there, I went into I had some small businesses that I did, but I felt obligated to use my engineering degree and, and go on that route. But I did have a home painting business, a home refinishing remodeling business.

Todd Masters: [00:53:33] Then I went in and became an engineer for about a year and a half, and then figured out that sales and marketing actually pays a little better than engineering. So I went into technical sales and spent a lot of time last 20 plus years in corporate sales and marketing for a very large companies, 200,000 employees, down to very small companies of ten employees, and throughout that widespread of executive sales and marketing. The thing that always drove my passion and my excitement was when I was working with individuals and training and coaching and mentoring and bringing people up, especially, you know, new sales folks that come on, on, on the, you know, in the circuit and training them up from not knowing how to do anything to being able to make a good living for themselves and their families, you know, through the sales training and other parts of it, and just seeing the change that you can make in lives. But, you know, in corporate America, it’s really hard to make a big difference in your community. And my family background is all entrepreneurial. You know, my great grandfather, you know, had a Woolworths business. My grandfather started an electrical wholesale business. Most of my uncles and aunts all had, you know, their own businesses, mostly in the home services, trade area, electrical, wholesale, plumbers, electricians, mechanics. So I’ve always seen that part of it, you know, and and seeing what my grandfather did, and he built up a good business that’s still run by family. He had a tremendous impact on the community, being able to be flexible, to help people, to give people jobs that really needed jobs and making a big dent and impacting the community.

Todd Masters: [00:55:04] I also, my other grandfather on the other side, was very active in Lions Club and some of the local local businesses and making things, you know, really help out in this day and age. And I think where our, our country is going, you know, small businesses is really going to become more important, especially as the new generation gets out and starts working 9 to 5. And the first week, as we’ve seen all the TikToks come, they’re they’re not so excited about the whole 9 to 5 thing, right? So I think there’s going to be a big push, you know, especially since they see a lot of peers. I do air quotes, you know, getting rich on social media and these quick things. Right. They think, oh, I can just start my own thing. And all of a sudden, you know, become self sustained. And that’s not going to be real. But I think they’re going to take a swing at having a small business and doing that part of it. So I think we’re going to see a big shift, you know, in the work area, especially if if a corporation still are pushing the, you know, back to the office type schemes, I shouldn’t say schemes, but that is a part of it versus the work at home or flexibility. They don’t find that good balance then that there’s going to be a lot of workers that are just going to start their own thing on that piece of it.

Brian Pruett: [00:56:13] So what did you do in the Air Force? What was your particular job? Communications okay. Yeah. All right. So you talked about being an entrepreneur and everything. So now you are a coach, right? Coach with businesses and stuff like that. Share about what you what you do now. Yeah.

Todd Masters: [00:56:28] So got out of corporate America to come back and make a difference and help people with a good background in sales and marketing. It’s it’s great to be able to work with companies and charities all suffer. You know, small businesses and charities all suffer the same problem we all have. You know, the one big issue, which is obscurity, right? People don’t know who we are. We don’t know. They don’t know what we do. They don’t know how to find us. It’s always that constant battle. And charities are small businesses, right. You know, so getting out and you know, coming from, you know, head of sales and head of marketing type positions and. You know, with large marketing budgets, it’s really easy to end obscurity when you have $20 million to work with. Right? But go to a charity in a small business, you know, funds are funds are a lot tighter, right? It’s a lot harder to do that part of it. So everybody is insanely busy and scrambling social media updates, you know, websites got to do this, got to do that. Business cards going out. You know it’s you know today’s small business owner and charities are just so overwhelmed and busy trying to do all of these things. And it’s becoming more and more competitive, you know, and if people get more and more into the small businesses, it’s going to become even, even more crazy. So I got out really of corporate world to one, make a difference in the lives of small business owners. And that’s turned into helping out a lot of charities. But from the get go, you know, my business model has always had a 10% buffer in there, if you will, of giving back to charity. So it was always going to be 10% of my time or my revenue on that piece of it to give back and make sure that I’ve got room to give back to the community and do things for, for those that I can help.

Brian Pruett: [00:58:13] Well, one thing you’ve talked about before that you kind of help and give back to is a CRM program for nonprofits. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Todd Masters: [00:58:20] Sure. Yeah. So as so I’m a certified business coach and executive coach, and there’s a lot of coaches out there. It’s a lot bigger industry than I thought it was, even though I did, you know, the market research. But there are a couple of kind of coaches, those that you know, will come to a business and kind of have some pre canned material, if you will, and focal point, you know, the franchise that I have was founded by Brian Tracy, a nice great business mind. And we come out and and coach more towards results and outcomes. And when I go in and work with a small business or a charity and, you know, we work through what, what’s the biggest challenge that you’re facing right now? You know, obscurity is certainly one of them. The next thing, one of two things usually come out of their mouths, I need more customers or I need to make more money. And so we talk about that. And, you know, a big part of small businesses is to generate leads, right? To go out and get your message out and bring people in to have engagement with you so you can have a conversation, you know, and talk about what you do.

Todd Masters: [00:59:26] So as as a coach, you know, it’s one thing to say, you need to go out and find a way to get the word out, or you need to work on your digital presence or your digital footprint and go, go find somebody that can do that for you. Whereas for me, I like to bring the people that I work with a tool. You know, I want to actually let’s, let’s get some results and do that. So I found a platform that I could white label as an agency and build a lot of custom automations and all the actions and all the things that are kind of an all in one toolbox for a small business priced for small businesses with all the features and functionality that small businesses need to automate a lot of their systems to bring all the conversations into one place, you know, to help save the time and doing some different parts of it, you know, have the website, have landing pages, SMS, email, all those features, all in one platform. And more importantly, it’s building all the automations that kind of help streamline all that piece together. So so I’ve pieced that together and and also offer that to charities as well at an extremely discounted rate in some instances.

Todd Masters: [01:00:36] But you know, it’s always a challenge when you introduce technology. It’s like sometimes, you know, given a brand new 16 year old driver, a semi truck as a first car. Right? It’s a wow, I know this thing is huge and it has all these capabilities, but I have no idea how to drive a big truck. Right. So then comes in the specialized services to do website development, landing page development, marketers, you know, digital advertising, you know, all the things that we still have to do. You know, it takes a while then to learn those skills or to find people that can come in and do that piece of it, which again, I’ve, I’ve got a certain amount of time that I can help, but it’s not a full time job that I can that I can do that. So I have partnered with several good digital marketing companies that are given veteran rates for their services with a discount 20%, and they’re going to be able to donate some hours to help out with building up some of the charitable websites that that I’m helping out with. So that’s good.

Brian Pruett: [01:01:33] So then you be part of our expo?

Todd Masters: [01:01:35] Absolutely. Yeah. We can we can bring him out. So that’d be.

Brian Pruett: [01:01:38] Great. So those of those who might be listening, who aren’t familiar with what a CRM is, share what that is.

Todd Masters: [01:01:44] Sure. So in the digital media world, a CRM is a customer resource management tool, right? So in big corporations, you know, you’ll have HubSpot or Salesforce, right? Salesforce is typically the biggest one. Oracle, SAP, you know, big, big, huge systems that cost tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to to run. And. And manage. And even at the small business level, there’s. There’s hundreds of CRMs that are out there that typically cost, depending on the features, five, $600,000 a month and all the software platforms, as small businesses start, you know, you start out with Calendly or a calendar function, you have to have a video thing. So you’ll do Zoom or Google Meet or something like that, but then you start needing to have a big email management to do, you know, large messaging campaigns. You’ll need to hire a website developer and host a website on another platform. And over the first course of the year, the first year of somebody being in business, you’ve got 20, 30, 40 different subscriptions or platforms or fees and costs that typically cost around 1000 to $2000 a month. So I’ve tried to bring this platform that does all of the customer management. So you bring in all of your customer information into one place, and you can call them from the platform, email them from the platform, text them from the platform to have conversations. You can also connect your social media accounts so your messages from Facebook and TikTok will come in so you don’t have to log into those other platforms.

Todd Masters: [01:03:14] And you can also post out to LinkedIn, post out to TikTok, post out to Facebook from inside the platform so you can create your content and just launch it from one place when you can have your. Mostly it’s the web page, right? So you have the web page engagement where you have a tracking whoever comes and visits to your web page and with your calls to action, which is very important, you know, and really with a web page, it’s very important to very quickly say, you know who you are, what you do and, and what does your visitor get out of engaging with you? And then you ask them to do something right. Engage on your website whether it’s, hey, you know, join, sign up for our newsletter. Here’s a promotion we have going on. Or can would you like to volunteer for this upcoming event? Right. And you want to capture that information so that you can then send them an email, maybe a text reminder and all those things. But if you’re talking about trying to do that for 2000 people doing that manually, it’s just not it’s not sustainable, right? You’ve got to be able to automate and bring automation into your life to do that, to make sure that no leads or no potential donors fall through the cracks and maximize that effort.

Brian Pruett: [01:04:24] So I’m not going to ask this question because I want them to contact you to find out more about that CRM platform. Sure. Share how people can get Ahold of you and talk to you about that.

Todd Masters: [01:04:35] Yeah, well, if you want to launch your own CRM, it’s just launch your crm.com.

Brian Pruett: [01:04:39] Okay. Yep. All right. So when you work in you’re talking about your coaching and stuff. Are there. You work with all different businesses? I do small businesses.

Todd Masters: [01:04:47] I haven’t niched down into specific industry, but I do like to work with small businesses that typically 1 to 100 employees is kind of ideal, right? And within a business life cycle, you know, you’ll have a start up business that has a great idea and wants to launch, have all the excitement. They may have some funding, but they hit that part where it’s like, oh wow, this is a lot more work than I thought. Or it’s it’s not going as well as I thought. Or in the rare instance, man, this thing has taken off like a rocket. I need help to scale really quickly. You know, that’s probably, you know, 5% of small businesses that start just out of the gate have some awesome product, and they’re just full of energy and it just takes off and launches the other 95% of people. It’s it’s a churn. I mean, it’s a lot of work that people don’t always realize. And then they start to hit this down cycle where they almost want to give up and quit. Certainly I can come in and help there, but it’s a high stress situation. But I, I come in and I usually do a lot of free consultations at that point to let them know, hey, from a second set of eyes, you’re going to be fine right here. Just we need to do these these things get through this hump. Right? And let’s start working together or. Yeah, you know, you’re right. This is going to be really hard to to get out. You know, you might have you maybe considered going this angle and maybe, you know, starting again doing a restart.

Todd Masters: [01:06:05] But at that point typically when you hit this, what I call a growth cycle of once you’re stabilized, you have a good product, you have pretty good systems and tools in place, and you’ve gotten over that initial shock and awe of of starting a business. That growth phase is really where my customers get the most value, especially when we’re talking about sales and marketing. And let’s okay, so now let’s ramp up, let’s optimize, and let’s really crank out your revenue. And one of the first consultations I’ll do with the small business is let’s just look at what you’re doing right now and how you’re doing things, how well you’re advertising, how well you’re marketing. How well are you selling. Let’s gauge your effectiveness and what’s coming in that you’re doing. And almost actually 100% of the meetings that I have are these consultations just by making small micro adjustments to what they’re doing in their current business model, making small micro adjustments can double their revenues by changing what they spend their time on. Let’s look at your lead management. Let’s look at your conversion rates. Let’s look at some of the I call them six levers or six main metrics that we look at. And just making small little tweaks can make such a huge impact over 12 months I’m like, okay, so let’s just do some small adjustments here. And we’re just going to turn these knobs just a little bit. And it should it’s going to double your revenues.

Todd Masters: [01:07:22] It’s going to make it easier to to work with me you know and pay pay a coach because you never consider that before. And then we’re going to work on a one year, two year, three year, five year, ten year plan. So a lot of my customers like that, especially when I come in and with the sales and marketing experience and say, okay, well, yeah, there’s no reason why. There’s no wonder why this ad’s not working. Because you’re you’re set up to go to the wrong audience or let me talk to your, your sales reps and let’s go through the scripts and see how they’re selling. It’s like, okay, if you change this one thing, you’re going to double your closing rates. And that’s happened with a few of my clients where I get a text the next day after we go through the sales training and said, hey, you know, I did exactly what you said, and I doubled my sales today. It’s just amazing, right? So, you know, there’s a lot of little tweaks, and that just comes from all the different experience that I have. But I also work with corporations and I’ve done a couple I can I do sales training and corporate communications training as well. You know, we I’m a certified disc. If you’ve heard of the disc analysis for the four personality types, which which I just love for me, team dynamics and company culture are so important to the success of a company, and a lot of culture dies because we fail to communicate how the other person desires to be communicated with, right? We we more of communicate our style and expect them the other person to to hear what I’m saying, how I’m saying it, and respond the way that I want them to respond.

Todd Masters: [01:08:49] But really, we need to communicate in a way that they need to be communicated to. So we have to understand the difference of personalities and dynamics of what types we are. So I go in and do some training. I did one last week, and you can get in there and know that there’s there’s a little fog in the air. There’s some tension going on between executives and employees, which there always is because executives typically are these high d, high driven, director style personalities, which they have to be companies need that. And then within the employee base you’re going to have all types, right? But typically the opposites of the D’s are going to be ones that are more detail, more analytical, more introverted. And there’s always that big gap between, you know, they didn’t, you know, take my advice. And now the company is going to fail because X, Y and Z. Well how do we how did we communicate that advice. Was it through a thousand spreadsheets and, you know, things had to read through, or did you summarize it in two bullets of if you do x, y happens because that’s what a D needs to see at that level. Like, oh okay. Yeah, I might have been a little too detailed there. Yeah. Yep. You were. So let’s let’s work on that. Right.

Brian Pruett: [01:09:57] So so when you, when you working with small businesses I’m guessing it’s you’re working with the owner. But if they have say up to 100 employees, do you work with the owner and somebody else within the industry or the business or who’s typically other than the owner, somebody you might work with?

Todd Masters: [01:10:11] Yeah, that’s a great question. So, you know, all my all my coaching offers are going to be customized based on on what their needs are. I love to work with the business owners, certainly. And there’s going to be more one on one coaching. We’re going to talk about leadership. We’re going to talk about communication. Certainly all the business skills and things that they need to be trained on so they can then go train their employees. The important thing about coaching and the difference between coaching and consulting is that a coach will will train the business muscles of a business and a business owner to teach them to become stronger, to go out and then do the things that they need to do themselves, where a consultant is going to be hired to come in and then go do that work, you know, off in the background and come back, and then then the company becomes dependent maybe on the consultants because they don’t know what they do or how they did it. I’m going to do the opposite. I’m going to teach you how to do it. Work with you on that part, and I’ll help train your employees. I’ll help train your senior executive staff. Right. And communication. But I want you there with me to watch me how I do it. I want you to follow the results.

Todd Masters: [01:11:16] I want you to ponder these things. Not that they have to become a sales trainer themselves or a communications trainer, but I want them to know what’s what’s going on on that piece of it. Because really, to get everybody working, everybody needs to look at at their skill sets. And you know, it’s really you know, everybody here is amazingly successful and talented at what you do. I feel a little intimidated being between you two amazing, amazing ladies. But you know, it’s it’s if you’re a hard worker and you’re putting a lot of yourself into your job, which which most people do if you’re if you’re just basically not a slacker, but you’re not as successful as the top person on your team, right? It gets frustrating. And you keep hammering at it, hammering at it, hammer it, and just can’t seem, you know, to be one of the top salespeople or win that award, you know, oftentimes. You know, the difference between the champions and the people that come in second, third or fourth or fifth place is such a small adjustment. It’s just an adjustment in one skill, one area. And it’s important to confine that awareness of what is that? What is that critical constraint? What is that thing, that one thing that’s holding you back? You know, if you think of a horse race, the difference between the in the Kentucky Derby of the horse that comes in first place versus a horse that comes in second place, you know, what’s that difference? Or NASCAR.

Todd Masters: [01:12:35] Inches inches between you know, champion and second. So you know so my training really focuses on let’s identify what the weakest link is and whatever X thing that you’re trying to accomplish. And let’s just focus on that one skill and let’s just get 1% better every month. 1% every month. Right. And by the end of the year, it’s 10% better. And you can take your average performing sales team, employees productivity, whatever. And in the course of just a few weeks or months, double productivity, double results, you know, and really see that. And and the light goes off and people’s eyes, you know, in their minds it’s like, wow, I can do this. This isn’t impossible. I can provide more for my family. I can do better. And all along, because we get paralyzed through the analysis of all the overwhelming things that we have to do, and we just can just then do nothing. And that’s that’s what coaching comes in, is help. Let’s let’s create some awareness first right of where we’re at. Let’s just find an action of make small adjustments. And then I’m going to hold you accountable to that. And we’re going to see the results.

Brian Pruett: [01:13:40] Right. So you were out of Buford Dacula. You said do you work all over metro Atlanta, all.

Todd Masters: [01:13:45] Metro Athens, Gainesville. So we travel. I can do a lot virtually, but I do like to do faces face to face as much as I can on that piece of it. You know, my websites Todd Masters, focal Point coaching.com. You can find me there. There’s links to the CRM on that piece as well. But yeah, I’d like to show up with with tools experience and and that part of it. But you know, the important part of my coaching is that I provide value first. Right? I’m going to work with you to show you what I can do, how I can help you. And then it’s going to make sense or it’s not going to make sense. My coaching isn’t for everyone, but but pretty quick we can see if it’s right for you, right?

Brian Pruett: [01:14:22] I got so many questions run through my head, but I’m going to ask two more before we kind of wrap this up. So the first question is, you know, when I guess coaches and consultants first came out, people were like, first of all, what? Yeah. And then they get kind of a bad rap, right? And they’re like you mentioned earlier, there are so many out there. Yeah. Can you maybe do a little debunked on the, the reputation for a coach or a consultant? And then second of all, how does somebody what’s the best way to choose the right person to work with.

Todd Masters: [01:14:53] Yeah. Great questions. Certainly. Yeah. There’s anybody can call him a coach. It’s not a highly regulated industry. But to be a certified business coach you have to go through a certification process. So that’s important to be certified first. And looking at the background, you know, a lot of coaching turns out to be referrals. You know Focal Point is a franchise created by Brian Tracy which which is a great business mind. And there’s very selective on who can become a focal point coach. You have to have certain number of years of experience in the industry. You have to have the right you have to pass the assessments to see if you’re actually a person that’s a good coach personality that really has the desire to help others on that piece of it. But you have to have a conversation, and you have to talk to the other people that they’ve worked with to see the kind of results. So reputation is important, referrals are important, but you have to have that conversation and then see, is this person really going to get me to this end result? Right. So you’re going to have to come and understand what is it. If you know what your goals are, ask the coach. How do you plan on getting me to reach these goals? Are you just going to fill me with warm, fuzzy feelings? You know, every Friday you know, of, of like, here’s this, here’s this famous quote from blah blah blah. No, that’s helpful. Mindset’s good. But they’re actually going to be some tools. Is there going to be some things that are going to make a dent in my business? So it’s going to take a lot of, you know, you have to have a conversation, right? So if you have a coach or you’re looking to get a coach, hop on a discovery call. You know, they’re 15 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever you want to do and, and have that conversation to see it for sure.

Brian Pruett: [01:16:34] Um, so another thing, and this goes with any industry, not just the consulting and coaching, but you know, somebody is like they’re worried about the financing part of it, especially with me when I’m doing these fundraisers and I’m trying to get sponsors, it’s when you’re sitting, you have to sit. You talked about having the conversation. I want to sit down with somebody and show them the value, right? Because they’re like, well, I’m just going to and it’s the same thing with coaching and consulting. I’m guessing that you have to go in and show the value of what you’re going to bring them, right? Doubling their sales or whatever the case may be. So everybody has to have an open mind when they’re sitting down talking to everybody, honestly. Last question before we kind of go back to all of you, because again, I get wrapped up in some of the stuff, but if somebody because you mentioned you had other businesses as well, if somebody is looking again to start their own business, share some advice from what would you advise them?

Speaker7: [01:17:27] You know.

Todd Masters: [01:17:28] Go for it. I would say absolutely go for it. You know, to do that, it’s it’s it is hard. It’s not an easy thing. Right. So there it’s not a it’s you know, there’s pros and cons to both. Right. And you’re going to work hard to be successful in whatever area that you do. You know, if you have a small business there’s no parachute right. There’s no safety net. You can’t go to your boss and ask for a raise. You can’t go and ask for an advance on your commission, right? It’s going to be you that produces your results. You do have an ejection handle where you got to bail out, right? That’s that’s the out for that part of it. So you know, a lot a lot of veterans make great small business owners in most situations. You know, not always the education in business or not always having that background of how to run a business, which is why coaches are important or all the veteran organizations. Bunker labs.org is a great veterans resource for for veterans that want to have a small business, a lot of free resources on how to start a small business on that part of it. So you definitely have to have a mentor to help you out and do that part of it. But the benefits of a small business is that, you know, you have you’re the master of your destiny, and a lot of veterans make great small business owners because they understand passion. They’ve been in the thick. They understand what it takes to have commitment. They have the perseverance, they have the drive. And you know, they can stick with it. You know, especially at that first curve where it starts to go downhill a little bit and reality sets in.

Todd Masters: [01:18:59] Well, that’s where you bunker in and, and and make it work, which is kind of where Bunker Labs comes into play at too. So I would highly recommend looking at it. So you definitely want to understand what market you want to go into and do a lot of research, right? Not just start on Google. Google, your product, your company, your service. What are you going to do in my area? Find your competitive and and do some good research up front to see if am I coming in an area where I don’t have a lot of competition that I could do well at, or other businesses like mine doing well, who can I talk to that I could run this by, right? Google in business coach. Right. And find those that do consultations like I do and say, hey, I’m thinking about starting a business. What do you think? I’m happy to spend 15, 30 minutes with you to tell you what I think from my experience and to give you some resources to go off and do some research on that part of it and do that. But you definitely need to put the work into it in advance and think through it in advance, in case you need funding in advance to sustain you and your family for a few months or years as its lean to be prepared for it. So definitely want to go into a situation like that as prepared as you can be and not just say, wow, this 9 to 5 stuff is not for me. I’m going to quit my job and start a business. That’s that’s not the way to do it.

Brian Pruett: [01:20:16] Definitely have all your ducks in a row, because I’m raising my hand because I’m guilty of jumping right in the waters. Great idea and stuff. But anyway, I got to let God handle that too. So I got three more questions for each of you. And again, I love this show because I get wrapped up in the stories and all the advice and all that. So we’re going a little longer than normal, but that’s okay as long as you guys are good. So three questions for each of you and then we’ll wrap this up. So I’m going to go back to Kimberly first okay. First question is and I normally ask these while you guys are in the middle of talking when they individually. But again I got too wrapped up in the animals. So thank you know, um, we we talked about why you’re passionate in the animals and stuff like that and all that, but why is it important for you personally to be a part of the community?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [01:20:58] Because I like to give back, and I want to make sure that anybody that has a disability can live their life to their fullest, because unless you actually know somebody that has a disability and how hard it can be, for example, you can be driving your car and somebody in the car in front of you is slow to turn around the corner, or it looks like they’re hesitating or you’re getting frustrated or whatever. Maybe that person has a disability and maybe they’re not quite to sure, or maybe they’re having a problem, but, you know, just don’t take things out. And there’s always two sides to a story. So you’ve got to learn to get a little bit of patience. And it seems that there’s no patience left anymore in our area, and there’s no thinking about somebody else and there’s no thinking. You’re all sort of seemed to be wrapped up in ourselves. We we need to think about some other people and how how we can help and how we can be there for them.

Brian Pruett: [01:21:44] Amen. Keep preaching. Keep going. Buffy. Same question. Why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Buffy Payne: [01:21:50] It’s the desire to make a difference in someone else’s life. It truly is seeing someone else overcome something or making their day a little better. Right is very heartfelt.

Brian Pruett: [01:22:03] You know the little things too. Like we talked one time I had a gentleman on that was one of my early shows that just smiling at somebody just opening the door. Yeah, right. And these days, thank yous.

Speaker5: [01:22:15] Yeah, right. Exactly.

Brian Pruett: [01:22:17] Todd, what about you? Why is it important about the community?

Speaker5: [01:22:19] Yeah.

Todd Masters: [01:22:20] You know, we’re all connected. All of us. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you think, where you’re at. We’re all. We’re all connected. For me, it’s. I want to make sure who I’m connected to, that I can help, that I can help, you know, be successful in that their families can be taken care of, you know, to alleviate the stress and burdens of owning a business. But I firmly believe that in the next 20 years, the heart of this country and the survival of this country is going to be in the small business area. And I want to do my part to make sure that America stays strong.

Brian Pruett: [01:22:50] Awesome. All right. The other thing we talk about on here all the time is the power of networking. And, Kimberly, you have the dogs that you can bring in. And I’m sure that’s just an awesome that the networking speak to that. But do you have a story in particular you can share of how the positive of networking has benefited and helped you guys?

Kimberly Brenowitz: [01:23:06] Everything as far as charity is concerned, for us anyway, has all been about word of mouth, has all been about going out there into the public. As you know, the dogs. Yes, you walk in. I was doing something with a foundation about a month ago, and I was one of the last people to arrive. And of course, what did I have? I had Rufus with me. So I walked in the door and everybody stopped. Everybody looked at the dog because the dog was the only person in the room at that time. And, you know, sometimes you just have to make a statement and you have to do something that makes you stand out a little bit more from other people, because that’s what’s going to draw attention to what you need. And then from that point on, you can make the inroads, you can do the discussion. So it’s a case of just being able to put yourself out there. I mean, we’ve had the door slammed in our faces more times than I care to remember. And, you know, right now we’re we’re trying to find a grant writer to be able to continue writing grants for us, because without those grants, we don’t get the support. We don’t get the funds coming in to operate us, because with us, we’re all volunteers. We don’t get paid for anything that we do. So any funds that we bring into paws for life USA is 100% towards the animals and the people that we’re working with.

Brian Pruett: [01:24:18] I’ll introduce you to somebody who does that for a living.

Speaker5: [01:24:20] Yeah.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [01:24:21] So so that’s one of the things that we’re desperate for. And it’s getting that word out. It’s being, you know, having that reliable content and it’s having us out there on the scene. Push push push push push. It never stops 24 over seven. All right. Well.

Brian Pruett: [01:24:36] Said, I’ll introduce you. Melanie Lambert. Just just for just for grants. That’s the name of a business. I will email you later. She’s a great lady. So as a matter of fact, that title. I meant to mention this in April, Melanie and another friend of mine, Glenda Hicks, who is a trainer for nonprofits on boards and things of that nature. She’s also a CPA strictly for nonprofits. We’re going to be hosting a kind of a half day seminar for nonprofits, and I would love to have you be involved in that with the CRM type stuff. So I’d love to help. All right, Buffy, what about you for the networking? I know you didn’t get a chance to do much in your probably your corporate career, but you kind of may be out now doing it. Do you have a story you can share?

Speaker5: [01:25:13] Yeah.

Buffy Payne: [01:25:13] So probably one of our greatest networking stories is when the Afghan government fell and we through Outer Circle Foundation and the use of our network, began evacuating our US allies out of Afghanistan over the course of two and a half years, we’ve probably helped support the evacuation of thousands of people out of Afghanistan. And probably our greatest story are the one that is most known is being able to evacuate the command sergeant major of the Afghan elite special forces out of Afghanistan. It took us two and a half years to get him into the United States. He arrived here in April of this year, and in September of this year, we were successful in bringing his wife and three children into the US.

Brian Pruett: [01:25:53] So he’s a great man to.

Speaker5: [01:25:54] Is a great man.

Brian Pruett: [01:25:55] Yes, yes.

Speaker5: [01:25:57] That’s the true power of a network.

Brian Pruett: [01:25:58] It is definitely. Todd, what about you?

Todd Masters: [01:26:02] How am I supposed to follow that? Well, my networks bring businesses together, so I love networking. It’s such an important thing, and it’s something that comes pretty natural to me. So I reach out on LinkedIn a lot to a lot of people. I think that’s how I met Matt. That connected me to Buffy, that connect me to Outer Circle and a C suite for Christ and some other great organizations. So if you get an invite to me to say, hey, let’s connect, it’s because I like to connect you with other people that might be able to help you. Once I know who you are or what you need and what you do. So I love it. I think our again, we’re all connected, right? And I think it’s very important for us to continue to work those networks so that in some case, you might be using your network to evacuate people, right, Afghanistan, or to find somebody that has a good platform that might help your business or charity out.

Brian Pruett: [01:26:47] And actually, that’s how you and we met because Matt was at a networking event, met my buddy Bob Brooks, and Bob Brooks mentored me. And I believe you reached out to me on Facebook. So that’s awesome. So, Todd, one more time, share how people can get a hold of you because they want to talk to you for your services.

Todd Masters: [01:27:01] They can call me at 67882221691. Call or text. See if you can get me there. Otherwise it’s Todd Masters focal point coaching.com.

Brian Pruett: [01:27:08] Awesome. And then the last thing as we wrap this up I always like to end this with you guys sharing a positive quote word nugget for the rest of 2023, which is only, what, 30 some days away and the rest of their life with, I guess. So, Kimberly, give us your words of wisdom.

Kimberly Brenowitz: [01:27:26] Practice patience and persistence. Mm.

Brian Pruett: [01:27:29] Buffy.

Buffy Payne: [01:27:30] Just be.

Speaker5: [01:27:30] Kind.

Brian Pruett: [01:27:31] Todd.

Todd Masters: [01:27:32] Start every day with a positive thought because your brain can only have positive thoughts or negative thoughts. So start off with positive.

Brian Pruett: [01:27:39] Awesome. And as I mentioned to the thank you is a lost art these days. So Kimberly, thank you for what you guys are doing for the community and with the animals. And please bring Rufus to the expo.

Speaker8: [01:27:48] I will definitely bring Rufus.

Speaker5: [01:27:49] And a horse.

Brian Pruett: [01:27:50] Yes. Yeah, if you can bring a horse, that’d be great too. I can.

Speaker8: [01:27:52] Bring a miniature.

Brian Pruett: [01:27:53] Horse. Buffy, thanks for what you and Matt are doing for the. Especially the first responders and the veteran community. And, Todd, thanks for what you’re doing for the business community. And again, thank you for your service. Thank you. Everybody out there listening. Let’s remember, let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta. It’s time for Charitable Georgia. Brought to you by Bee’s Charitable Pursuits and resources. We put the fun in fund raising. For more information, go to Bee’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. That’s Bee’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. Now here’s your host, Brian Pruett.

Brian Pruett: [00:00:45] Good Fabulous Friday. It’s another fabulous Friday and it’s it’s November, but it’s been 80 degrees the last several days, so I don’t know what to think. And I wonder why people get sick in Georgia because the weather can’t make its mind up. So we’ve got three fabulous guests this morning. So if this is your first time listening to Charitable Georgia, it’s all about positivity happening, positive happenings in your community. And we’re going to get started this morning with Carla Maton from American Red Cross. So Carla, welcome this morning.

Carla Maton: [00:01:11] Hey. Good morning. Thanks for having me.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:13] I always joke, I like to have people when they tell me where they’re coming, coming from. And I’m going to joke one day and see them get somebody from Macon, which I think I am getting somebody from Macon to come up to do the show. But you came from Dalton, so thanks for driving down here. So I’m sure a lot of people know about the American Red cross, and we’ll get into that just a second. But if you don’t mind, share a little bit about about your background and then how you got involved.

Carla Maton: [00:01:32] Sure. So I come from a family of public safety. And of course, this is where I sort of grew up in the world of my career. So started with the 911 center in Whitfield County and worked as a dispatcher for about ten years, and then moved on to an ambulance and worked for a couple of years there. Learned very quickly that that is a tough, tough job. But through my years in public safety, you know, we respond to emergencies and we bring patients to hospitals and drop them off. And I found myself like, man, I wonder what happened with that family or with that patient. And one one particular call. We took a family, actually a mother and her son to the hospital who had been involved in a house fire. And they excuse me, they were her husband actually had passed away in that fire, and they did not have any working smoke alarms in that home. This happened in Chatsworth and we delivered the family to the hospital. They were they were okay. They had some injuries, but they were able to be released and they were just weighing on my heart. And when I went back to the hospital, you know, on a different shift a couple of days later, the Red cross was there, and they were meeting with her because she had nowhere to go. The hospital couldn’t release her because she didn’t have a home. And the son had just got there to pick her up. And they were, of course, devastated because of the loss of her husband. And the Red cross was just hugging and consoling this lady as she was trying to figure out what her next steps would be.

Carla Maton: [00:03:11] But that’s exactly why they were there. It was. Here are your next steps. Here’s some funds. You can go get a hotel. You can get some clothes. She had nothing and it just touched my heart. And so we I just continued to monitor what does the Red cross do in this area. I never knew they responded to disasters. I was always correlating Red cross with blood donations. And when I started learning more and then they had a position open in in the disaster team, I jumped on it. And so I was hired by eight years ago and became manager of those disaster volunteers who would go out and meet with families. And that gave me that, that next step of working with families that I was missing when I was working in public safety. So now I still work. Our teams do hand in hand with with those fire departments and emergency managers and just delivering that next step of care to families when they’re going through crisis. So that’s what brought me to the Red cross every day. I learned to love it more. I just can’t I can’t hardly explain what it is like to work in an organization where 90% of the people around you are volunteers. I mean, they they choose to be there and they do it for the mission. And when you’re working in a room full of mission driven people, it’s just a different kind of atmosphere. So it’s very fulfilling to be here now.

Brian Pruett: [00:04:30] Yeah, well, it does take a special person. I was actually used to be a 911 dispatcher for the city of Kennesaw, and I wasn’t there very long. But you’re right, it takes a special person. You got to have passion for the people. Have a heart. The worst call I ever took was listening to a lady call and try to get help. And having a stroke, and died on the phone. It was. Yeah, and that can take a toll on people. So. So you had mentioned that you there’s different chapters of the Red cross and you are in Northwest Georgia. Share what that means when you talk about Northwest Georgia in the chapters.

Carla Maton: [00:05:01] Okay. Sure. We so I’m the executive director for Northwest Georgia, which means I get to advocate in our communities about what our services are, what those are. And no matter where you’re at in the country, the Red cross is services are aligned. You’ll find that we we do blood collection. So we are the nation’s largest blood collector. We deliver about 40% of the blood supply to hospitals across the US. So that’s one of our biggest programs. Obviously, we have our disaster cycle services team. So it’s not just responding to the large scale disasters. House fires are the number one disaster we respond to. So this time of year especially, we’re encouraging folks to take fire safety measures. Listen to those tips your fire department’s giving you. We have preparedness programs through that as well, that will deliver free smoke alarms to families who need them. That is what will save a life. If you have a house fire to get you out early. And there’s some really incredible YouTube videos on our on our Facebook page, we shared recently of a demonstration we did with the DeKalb County Fire that showed just how quickly a bedroom catches on fire and then is just completely engulfed. We did that as a demonstration to show when the smoke alarm went off and the smoke was just starting, and then in less than a minute, you couldn’t see the room anymore. It was just fire. So, so important to have working smoke alarms. So test those. If you don’t have them, call any Red cross office and we’ll come put them in for free. And then we have our training services, which is our CPR first aid courses. You can take those online now. Covid brought that to us. We had to adapt. And so we don’t necessarily have to be in person to teach you those skills. You can go online to teach, to learn that. And then finally our service to armed forces. Of course, it’s Veterans Day this weekend and or today and.

Brian Pruett: [00:06:50] Tomorrow, but.

Carla Maton: [00:06:51] Tomorrow.

Brian Pruett: [00:06:52] On this it is Marine’s birthday today. So yes.

Carla Maton: [00:06:54] Okay. It is Friday, right. So Service Armed Forces is where the Red cross was born. We were we were assisting military members in in Civil War times. So that’s how we came about. And we just want to take this time to recognize those military families and the work we do with them every day.

Brian Pruett: [00:07:13] Yes, yes, all the veterans out there, we thank you for your service and those that are serving now. So Amen. It’s funny you were talking about the the fire in the bedroom. And I just recently read where why they tell you to keep your bedroom door closed when you sleep. And it’s because of the fire, which I didn’t realize that. Can you share about that? Do you know about that? Yeah.

Carla Maton: [00:07:32] When we do the smoke alarm installations, we do some fire safety education with the families as well. And that’s one of the tips that that we will advise is as well. And it’s it’s just that barrier, if the door is closed, it takes the fire longer to break that barrier to reach inside your bedroom. It’s crazy. Again, YouTube will show you some some fires where a bedroom door has been closed and that bedroom looks untouched, where the rest of the house can just be completely crisp. So yeah. Incorrect. We put smoke alarms inside your bedroom and then outside in like a common hallway is what we would recommend because we want you to shut that bedroom door. So. Right which side of it catches on fire? You’ve got an alarm that’ll signal you.

Brian Pruett: [00:08:14] Right. So you talked about the different areas of and you say the northwest chapter. Can you share what what is the northwest chapter? Sure.

Carla Maton: [00:08:25] Our headquarters office is in Rome, Georgia. So if you want to visit an actual office, we’re there on Mondays and Thursdays. And then the rest of the the time we’re serving in community. So our chapter services as far south as Bartow County, and we go as far east as Union County. And then kind of that triangle from Union down to to Polk County and all of the northwest corner of Georgia. Okay.

Brian Pruett: [00:08:53] And what is the biggest thing, I guess, for international, you guys still travel and do international disasters too?

Carla Maton: [00:09:01] We do. So the Red cross, we are the American Red cross. And just about any country you can think of, you can place, you can replace American with it. So each each there’s over 192 countries across the the world that have a Red cross crescent movement or installation within it. So each of our Red cross operate under the same mission is to alleviate human suffering. So in some countries you may see their services look a little bit different. In Mexico they run the ambulance service same same and a few other countries. But yeah, the Red cross is worldwide. And when something catastrophic happens, war happens. The American Red cross is part of that entire world movement will will of course, support it in the way we we can best do so.

Brian Pruett: [00:09:47] Well, you mentioned Kimmy being in the community and serving the community. And one of the things I love talking about on here is why is it important for people to be in part of the community? So why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Carla Maton: [00:09:58] For the Red cross.

Brian Pruett: [00:09:59] For you and you personally.

Carla Maton: [00:10:01] Oh gosh. Yes. So you know I’m in Dalton, Georgia and and so that’s where I call home. But I feel like all of our northwest Georgia communities I’ve, I’ve became a part of just through my Red cross work. So each community has its own challenges, has its own gaps to fill, if you will. And I love being part of the solution. So just attending those community meetings, learning what the what the. Organizations that are in your area are coming together to focus on and strengthen people. It’s just humanitarian work at its best. And so I think it’s it’s so important for anyone just to get to know your community and see where you can fit, bring your unique skills to help strengthen your neighbor.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:49] And that’s so important because not everybody, everybody’s different. God made everybody individual, and we’re all here together. So let’s be part of the community together. So we also talk on here a lot about the power of networking. Are you able to go out and do a networking for the American Cross in your area?

Carla Maton: [00:11:02] Oh yeah. That’s that’s my favorite part of my job.

Brian Pruett: [00:11:05] So do you have a positive story you can share about networking that you that you’ve encountered yourself?

Carla Maton: [00:11:10] So we are one of our big partners are the United Ways that are across Georgia in general. But in northwest Georgia, United Way supports multiple nonprofit agencies within within their specific communities. So very often we will go out with our our fellow agencies supported by United Way along with them to present to corporations or others, just to let them know what our services are and how United Way supports us. And we went to shawl and there was a neighboring partner with me, and we were talking to the shawl group, and they were part of a men’s homeless shelter in Bartow County, and they brought one of their shelter residents with them just to share his story. And before we left, the gentleman was talking about volunteering with the Red cross, how he had a passion for the disaster work. But then the HR manager was in the room with us and literally took him out of the room and gave him a job. So that was that was pretty incredible to watch. All those puzzle pieces come together, but it’s just how networking works. Just getting out there and again, knowing your neighbor and what your what your challenge is. And I’ve got something to help you with that.

Brian Pruett: [00:12:26] So. Well we talked well it was on air, but mentioning how small the world is because you walked in the front door of the the building here, and you knew the young lady at the front. Right, which is kind of wild. So it’s just kind of cool how small the world really is. All right. So you talked about the different opportunities that you guys have to go out and serve. Are there ways for the community to come and help you guys serve and businesses helping you? And if so, how can what are those opportunities? Okay.

Carla Maton: [00:12:52] We have obviously, as I mentioned, nine out of ten of our folks with Red cross are volunteers. So Redcross.org is where you’re going to find all of the opportunities to get involved, not just in volunteering, which is what you can do, but also in where local blood drives are. If you would like to work at a blood drive as an ambassador, welcoming folks to the to the drive or as a blood donor yourself, you can find where all of our blood drives are and sign up for an appointment at redcross.org. And then you can also go online, of course, Redcross.org to make a donation of any size to support our programs. We are fully funded by donations, so any any dollar amount counts when it comes to that.

Brian Pruett: [00:13:38] All right. Awesome. Well you shared the website, but if somebody is listening, maybe that’s end up in your ear and wants to get a hold of you and talk to you about any opportunities, how can they do that?

Carla Maton: [00:13:46] And again, our headquarters office is in Rome, Georgia. So just contacting our Rome office is fine. Again, 800 Red cross is our general phone number. So if you call that, you can get in touch with your local Red cross. Excuse me. And and you’ll be able to reach us there in Rome.

Brian Pruett: [00:14:06] Awesome. All right, one more question for you, because I talked to a lot of different nonprofits on here, and obviously you’re one of the larger nonprofits around. But if somebody is thinking about getting involved and wanting to make their life work a nonprofit and maybe not starting a nonprofit, but going to work for one, what kind of advice can you share for somebody who wants to do that?

Carla Maton: [00:14:28] I would share to find that that nonprofit that’s mission really touches your heart. It’s really working for a nonprofit agency is a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It’s not a 40 hour day. I’m 40 hour week ever. You do your work because you’re passionate about it. And that’s what makes the volunteers so special, because they are so passionate about our mission. And as you explore different nonprofits, missions and values, you’ll you’ll start to be gravitated toward that one that matches or aligns with your personal values. So I would just say to really focus time on your what your mission is. If you’re going to start a nonprofit, what is it you’re most passionate about? Develop that mission and vision and then and then stand behind that or let it lead your way.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:15] Awesome. Yeah, we’ve had two other folks talk about here, too, about if there’s somebody already doing something that you want to do, go partner with them. You know, that way, because sometimes it can feel like it might be diluted and, you know, and competiting competing, but that’s really not the case. So Carla, thanks for coming. On and sharing a little bit of your story and about American Red cross and what you guys do. Don’t go. Don’t go anywhere. We’re not done with you yet, but we’re going to move over to Scottlin Smith. I just like the name because it feels like it is like the country, but not spelled the same way. But you’re with Love Travels Beyond Inc, which is a nonprofit out of Bartow County. Cartersville, correct.

Scottlin Smith: [00:15:47] Good morning. Yes, correct.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:48] So you and I actually knew each other in over the years, the first time we met in person, but we knew each other for years ago because we actually had a magazine. And we did a story on your organization. But we’ll get into your organization in just a minute. But tell us about your background and why you do what you do.

Scottlin Smith: [00:16:03] So I am from a service background. I would say my dad, Donald Strickland, he has a homeless shelter in Cartersville, Georgia. So I’ve always known serving the homeless. I’ve always known like helping other people. So that was kind of instilled in me at a young age. I’m the youngest of six first generation college graduate. So there were minor things that, you know, I struggled with growing up, and I always wanted to fill that gap for other people and for younger girls in our community and beyond. So I would just say starting out again as a young girl, I didn’t have a choice then, but it was just instilled in me and I ran with it. And I love serving my community. I love being a servant leader. I started my own free prom dress giveaway my junior year in high school, so I would just swap out dresses amongst friends if their families were struggling. I gave away all of my like, prom dresses. And my parents. You know, of course, being from a service background, they didn’t have an issue with it and they encouraged it. So I hosted the first one at the Goodwill in Cartersville and we had about 20 girls come out.

Scottlin Smith: [00:17:13] But now we host one of the largest free prom dress giveaways in Georgia. And then with my nonprofit, I actually made it a nonprofit when I was in college at the University of West Georgia. I just felt like there was gaps that needed to be met. I saw some students struggling, and I really wanted to create an organization that was simply love filled, and we were just helping each other, and we just wanted to give back. If one student was hungry, if one student needed gas, money, or whatever the case may be, we would have a basket of love at the front of our meetings and just pouring into each other and just sitting in a room, making vision boards and seeing where we want it to be in life. And everybody didn’t always have that support system, so we were that for each other. But now that’s a successful 500 and 1C3 nonprofit. So we have the West Georgia chapter and then we have the Bartow County chapter.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:05] Awesome. So tell me about the name. How did you come up with the name?

Scottlin Smith: [00:18:08] So originally it was Love Travels. And then we added beyond when I made it a 500 and 1C3 nonprofit. But I just feel like love travels beyond our differences. I feel like love travels beyond our political differences, our race, our backgrounds. Love will always win, and love is so much more important than hate. And all of the negative things that so easily take over the world.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:34] Well, and that’s important because again, I’ve talked about this before on the show, but why can’t you be a Democrat and Republican and be friends? Why can’t you be black and be white and be friends? Why can’t you be whatever and be friends? Just because you have differences doesn’t mean you can’t be friends. So that’s awesome. So, um, you talked a little bit about serving in the community and stuff, so why is it important for you personally to be part of the community?

Scottlin Smith: [00:18:55] It’s important for me to be a part of the community, because I feel like there was so many people that helped me along the way and that filled that gap, those gaps for my parents. There were people like Coach Hill and monumental people in our community that simply rode around giving out food, that rode around, giving out hugs, that took us to, you know, our different practices. Summer Hill in Cartersville, Georgia is a community like no other. Like the gaps are filled. Whatever a child is in need of or whatever the case may be, even as adults, they still fill the gap. And I just always wanted to pay it forward. Because if it wasn’t for those people, you know, lifting me up and helping me get to the next level, then I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Brian Pruett: [00:19:41] That’s awesome. I haven’t shared my story on the show since I’ve been doing this show. One day I might, but that’s exactly why I do what I do, because the community was there for me on some instances that that happened. So, um, all right, so let’s go and talk about you mentioned some things that you do. You got the prom dress giveaway. You talked about the food, but what all other things do you guys do as an organization.

Scottlin Smith: [00:20:01] So we have our program, our service summer camp. We bring the youth together during the summer one to keep them out of trouble, but also to teach them the importance of giving back. We take them to the police station because there is a gap. Sometimes we want the police to know who they are and we want them to know who the police are. There were some kids that were like terrified to go in because of their own experiences, but we were able to bridge that gap. We took them to the nursing home. To show them you treat everybody the same. We play bingo. The elderly loved it. They loved it. We did road cleanups to tell them the importance of keeping our community clean and positively impacting our community. And we also just do fun things like take them swimming, have cookouts and everything like that. We do our blankets of love drive during the winter to where we collect blankets, and then we go into the homeless communities, the tent communities in the woods and hand out blankets and self-care kits and things of that nature. But we also collaborate and simply serve other nonprofits. You know, we believe in community. We believe in giving back, and we don’t believe in just supporting our own programs, but also being there for other nonprofits.

Brian Pruett: [00:21:17] And there’s that word I like collaborate because you don’t collaborate over competition is a buddy of mine. Bob Brooks talks about all the time. So that’s a that’s a great word. So I know when we did an article on you several years ago, you guys were doing a three on three basketball tournament, right? Do you guys still do that?

Scottlin Smith: [00:21:31] Yes, we have our charity basketball tournament and we bring the community out. We bring them together for a great time. We pack out the gym on Summer Hill and we of course bring them there for a positive experience. And who’s the best basketball player or whatever the case may be. But in that we are collecting funds to be able to help their neighbor, you know, be able to afford Christmas and toys and Thanksgiving, whatever the case may be and whatever they are in need of. But we really pride ourselves in bringing the community together and being able to support each other and not just us. So even if it’s $5 or even if it’s a gift at the door, we love bringing our community together to support one another.

Brian Pruett: [00:22:17] And I like how you just mentioned it, because I know people. It’s like, well, I can only give a dollar. Well, a dollar goes a long way, so that’s awesome. Well, you talked a little bit about what you guys do. How can people in the community get involved and help you guys?

Scottlin Smith: [00:22:30] They can visit Love Travels inc.org, and they can also reach us at (678) 719-2212. But we love having people help us out, whether it’s a big or small way we have. Last year we had 500 girls sign up for our free prom dress giveaway, so we need as many hands as possible and our events are love filled and they’re great and anybody can come help. I know sometimes people feel like I’m not in a position to help. I’m not this, I’m not that. But we we need everybody’s help.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:04] Well, even if you’re not a financially positioned to help, you can go volunteer.

Scottlin Smith: [00:23:07] Absolutely.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:08] You know, how about businesses are there are ways for businesses to get behind you and do sponsorships and stuff like that.

Scottlin Smith: [00:23:13] We definitely need businesses to sponsor us. But even if they can’t financially sponsor us, we need drop off locations for our toys, we need drop off locations for our prom dresses and everything like that. So that’s where that’s where the businesses come in. Because sometimes I was driving from Tennessee to Woodstock to Rome to pick up dresses. So if we have those central locations where people can just come and drop off those donations and we do, you know, a once a month pickup or something like that, then that’s super helpful for our board to be able to, you know, put our efforts in other places.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:52] So how about the networking aspect? Are you able to get out and do any networking?

Scottlin Smith: [00:23:55] Absolutely. We love going to networking event. We host pop up shops for different nonprofits and community events. We help out with the Black History Parade in town. We host a June. We help with the Juneteenth celebration, bring in business owners, owners together. And you know, we we thrive off of the networking because we all need each other. Everybody knows somebody that can help with one program that can help in a bigger, small way. Even with this radio show now, like just meeting through the chamber, you know, we’re able to get our word and our mission out even more. So we love networking. Invite us out. We would love to come spread love at your event, and we would love to help out in any way that we can as well.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:42] Do you have a specific story of networking you can share that might have been a positive thing for you?

Scottlin Smith: [00:24:46] I would say our Belles of the ball event. Some girls say it’s better than prom for them, honestly, and we have vendors that come out to that event and they just leave. So blessed. They cry the whole time. We because the girls have to walk the red carpet. And some of these girls have never had that moment. Some of these girls have attempted suicide, have been raped, have just they’ve been through so much in life. So for them to have that moment for all eyes and ears to be on them and for the whole entire room to celebrate them, and these vendors pour back into them, even if it’s just giving hygiene kits, even if it’s giving nail kits or earrings or shoes or whatever. To make their prom day even better. So me being able to see the vendors just be able to contribute to this mission and be so happy about it and want to start their own prom dress giveaway in a different area and stuff like that really is heartwarming.

Brian Pruett: [00:25:47] What I liked about when you when you answered my question about the networking events, you talked about all different kinds of events and not just a business club, because people don’t think about networking at an event. And it is true networking at other events. So I’m going to share with you, you may not know about this, but if you do, you need to come. And Carl and Glenn, you guys are welcome to come too. But every Wednesday morning from 8 to 930 is the Carnival Business Club. We meet at Unity Worship Center, 60 to 50 to 60 people there every Wednesday morning. I guarantee you, you come, you’re going to get some support for you. So you should come check that out. We’re there every Wednesday morning. So awesome. Um. All right, so you started your nonprofit, you said back in college. Give some give somebody advice on who might be listening. Carla mentioned some stuff, but if somebody is thinking about a nonprofit, what would advice would you give them?

Scottlin Smith: [00:26:35] I would say just go for it. I feel like sometimes people feel like they have to be in certain positions again to help people. But I unofficially started my nonprofit by giving away dresses in high school. Before I knew what a 500 and 1C3 nonprofit was, I started my nonprofit by starting the student organization. Before I knew what a 500 and 1C3 nonprofit was. So I would just say start. Start with a small give back event, see what needs that need to be met in the community, and kind of do that research to see again if other organizations are already fulfilling that mission, but, you know, follow your heart and your purpose. We all have a purpose here on Earth and find something that’s connected to your purpose, because you will never get tired of doing it.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:20] Um, so you mentioned some of the events that you do you have anything coming up that you want to share?

Scottlin Smith: [00:27:25] We have our charity basketball tournament December 10th at Summerhill, and you can find out more again at Love Travels inc.org.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:33] Awesome. Carla, I didn’t ask you, but do you guys have any events coming up you wanted to share?

Carla Maton: [00:27:37] And we have one of our. We pick a day where we will go into a particular community and just do a blitz of smoke alarms. And so we’re going to be in Dawsonville on December the 10th, and we’ll bring community volunteers together. If you want to come take a beautiful drive over to Dawsonville or you live in that area, come join us, because we will we will show you what to do. We will get into teams, and we will literally go knock on doors and put up smoke alarms for the community that day. So you can find more information about that particular event on our website again, and on our Facebook and social media pages. Georgia Red cross.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:14] All right, Scottlin, you got a Facebook page as well. Yes.

Scottlin Smith: [00:28:17] Our Facebook is Love Travels one on one.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:19] Okay. So if you guys want something to do on December 10th, you got two opportunities there to go do something and either have fun, have fun, volunteer whatever you want to do. So Scotland, thanks for coming and sharing a little bit about you and your organization. Don’t go anywhere because we’re not done either with you, but we’re going to move over to Mister Glenn Carver. Author speaker. Uh, I know you’re no stranger to the area here. You just had a big event where you talked about adversity. You have your own podcast, and I just heard a little bit of your story, so I’m going to try to talk about it. I want you to share your story because you’re still dealing with adversity, but you’re talking about how you’re dealing with it. Sure.

Glenn Carver: [00:28:54] Yeah. And, you know, I’m a huge fan of the late, great Jim Roan. And Jim Roan was Tony Robbins original mentor. And Jim Roan said in one of his, he gave one of his great public seminars back in the 80s. And after the seminar, somebody walked up to him, one of his fans and students, and said, Mister Roan, in your opinion, what is the business climate going to look like for the next 3 to 5 years? Which is a wonderful question. And he said in his classic tonality, said, well, he said it’s going to be the same. It’s been for the past 10,000 years. Adversity with a chance of opportunity. So I love that that that paradigm. We’re all going to deal with adversity. I don’t care who you are, you’re going to have adversity either in your personal life, your professional life, maybe both. We only have one life, so let’s just throw it all in together. There is adversity on the way and how you frame the adversity that that descends upon you will literally dictate the quality of your life. So I’m all about for the rest of my life, you know, praise God, I’m still here for the rest of my life. I’m all about helping people move through adversity and finding the opportunity and maybe even the advantage in the adversity, because that’s where all opportunity lies is hidden within the adversity. You know, all of our growth happens outside of our comfort zone, not with in our comfort zone.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:23] Right. Do you mind sharing your story of what the you know. I mean, I was told about what was going on, but do you mind sharing? Yeah.

Glenn Carver: [00:30:31] Of course. So early Sunday morning, August 15th, 2021, my life changed forever. My wife had recovered from Covid the week before. She was sleeping upstairs in our bedroom. I was sleeping downstairs on the couch. I wasn’t in the doghouse. We were just trying to be responsible. And early Sunday morning, she heard some strange noises coming from me downstairs. So she walked out of the bedroom and she looked over the railing at me on the couch, and she thought I was having a bad dream. I had my arms out in front of me, kind of playing this virtual piano, if you will, and I was making these really loud exhaling noises woof woof, woof like that. And she thought I was just having a nightmare. And she started yelling, Glenn! Glenn, are you okay? Glenn? Wake up. And I didn’t respond, so she came downstairs and started shaking me, and I didn’t respond. And that’s when she became kind of concerned. Eventually she got me out of my state of mind and got my dead weight literally off of the couch and got me to the car, and she took me up to North Side Cherokee Hospital, which was 12 minutes from where we live, and dropped me off at the emergency room and went to park the car.

Glenn Carver: [00:31:49] When she came back, I was already back being seen and evaluated and was quickly diagnosed with Covid double pneumonia. Just ones not good enough. Single pneumonia is easy. Got to go for double. That means in both lungs, right. And a blood oxygen level of 45. Now, if you don’t know what I didn’t know what 45 meant. You know, I’ve since learned that 90 is low, 45 is is death. 45 is organ failure. It’s potential cognitive damage. And one of the technicians shortly told my wife that that was the lowest blood oxygen level they had ever seen. And she said, you mean during Covid? And he said, no in the history of this hospital. So, wow. You know, miracle number one is that my wife didn’t sleep in and I could have died in my sleep that day. So fast forward ended up spending 96 days in the ICU. I survived the full Covid protocol from remdesivir, which I will not get on my soapbox about that drug right now. I was fully ventilated and if you got ventilated during Covid, that was a death sentence. I went code blue. October 16th of 21. My ventilator came off of my tracheostomy, stopped breathing, heart stopped beating.

Glenn Carver: [00:33:13] I was effectively dead. Thank God. My favorite ICU nurse, Lucas Uriah, who will be on my podcast this month, former Army medic. He was right down the hall. Knock on wood, he was right down the hall. He came in and hit the code blue alarm. Code blue means all hands on deck. Somebody is about to die. And he came in and started three rounds of compression on me. And literally some of us know the great song by Motley Crue, Kickstart My Heart. Well, Lukas kick started my heart and. Brought me back to life. And, you know, by the grace of God survived. I mean, everybody. Brian in that ICU died. Wow, everybody. As a matter of fact, Lucas said in the two and a half years that he spent as an ICU nurse in the hospital, he saw three people. Three go through the entire Covid protocol protocol from remdesivir through the ventilator, and three left the ICU outside of a body bag. Wow. So that story to me is kind of like you hear the story of the commercial airliner that crashes, and 2 or 300 people die and 2 or 3 people walk away. Think? I think I feel obligated to share something powerful the rest of my life.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:32] Right?

Glenn Carver: [00:34:32] Yeah. And so that’s that’s half the story.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:36] Well, keep going because there’s more to it. I would love for you to keep going. Yeah.

Glenn Carver: [00:34:40] So I started writing a book called The Advantage of Adversity. That’s the name of my podcast. It’s a video podcast you can see on YouTube. Started writing the book in December of 21 when I got home, and then February of 22 went in for a routine colonoscopy. Oh, by the way, I had emergency colon surgery two weeks into the ICU. Upper colon burst. Internal bleeding was very close to sepsis. And sepsis can lead to a condition called death. So I had emergency colon surgery removed, 18in of my colon left me bagged. It’s supposed to be for 90 days. Temporary. Then they do a reversal surgery. Went into the hospital February 2nd, 2022 for a routine colonoscopy. They found a mass in my rectum two days later, diagnosed with rectal cancer. So the ICU was the uppercut, the cancer diagnosis. Right hook. But I’m still here. Clearly, I’m here and I’m alive, right? I’m still. I’m sitting right in front of you. Yeah, I do have the label of stage four, and that means it has spread. So it started in my rectum. It’s I’ve got these nodules in my liver. And here’s what I’m all about, Brian. That does not that does not scare me at all. I have zero fear, zero anxiety around that label of stage four. Part of my message is cancer is not a death sentence. It’s a big warning light on the dashboard to say you need to make some changes. One of my coaches has taught me that actually, cancer shows up to save your life, not to kill you, to make the changes necessary to get on a different track. And I’ve done that. But yeah, it’s been so I’m healing.

Glenn Carver: [00:36:31] I’m not out of the woods, but I’m healing naturally. I’ve still got a port in my chest because I was supposed to start chemo in March of 22, and I. God bless my wife. She she got the nudge and she dug in, and she found the truth. The truth about cancer. And she really dug in and started learning really, really fast. And the saying is, you know, one day you know nothing about cancer, the next day you know everything. We have learned a lot. So we decided, given the physical state I was in after 96 days in the ICU, if I had in fact started chemo in March of last year, it would have killed me. There’s no question in my mind I would be dead, because a lot of times chemo kills people before cancer. Chemo is poison. It is a derivative derivative of mustard gas from World War two. Now it does kill cancer cells, but it can kill everything else too. It can crush and destroy your immune system. So this is not medical advice. I’m just saying there are other ways to heal from a chronic disease other than standard of care from our medical industrial complex. So I’m going the alternative route. My my trifecta of healing is faith. Mindset and nutrition. Not chemo, radiation and surgery that works for some people. When you get the diagnosis, it’s a very personal decision and you’ve got to make a very personal plan and decision as to what you feel is best in your heart and in your mind and in your soul. And what I believe, Brian, is that, you know, I know that God spared my life in that ICU.

Glenn Carver: [00:38:12] I know it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I’m getting goosebumps right now. So if God did spare my life, not ICU, why would he have me die of cancer a year or two later? That makes no spiritual sense to me. I’ve got a message. I mean, as a speaker at my core, I’m a speaker. You always want a big story. I didn’t want one this big, but I got it. So be careful what you ask for. So now I’ve got this. I think I’ve got this incredible platform, this message. My testimony is huge, but I can I can speak about the power of moving through adversity because we’re all going to face it. Not a matter of if, but when. And seeing that adversity is an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to find the advantage in the adversity. And that’s what I love about that’s what I love about entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs find advantage in adversity. They solve problems. And I love what you’re doing and bringing our community together. It’s you know, one of the main reasons I’m sitting here alive today is prayer from a massive community. And I’ll tell you, the community that we have here in Cherokee County is awesome. I mean, the community that has supported my family emotionally and financially over the past two years has been awe inspiring, totally humbling. And I just I can’t say enough about there’s so much going on in the world that’s beyond our control. All we can focus on is our thoughts, what we think, our attitude about the world and our community, our circle of influence. And it’s pretty tight. So.

Brian Pruett: [00:39:51] Well, I like that because personally, I needed to hear your story this morning because in my business, I’m currently going through an adversity and trying to figure out if the doors are going to stay open. You know, you’re.

Glenn Carver: [00:40:00] Not alone, brother.

Brian Pruett: [00:40:01] Right? But I just I love the fact that you’re out there spreading that word. First of all, there’s no coincidences, right? And like you said, God had a purpose for you. And so you were were you an author and a speaker before all this started?

Glenn Carver: [00:40:19] Yes. I got into speaking business in 2004 and 2012. I wrote my first book called stand in the Heat Lessons from Legendary Entrepreneurs, on Staying Cool Under Pressure that I could sum up that book in three words don’t freak out. Because we all have a chance to freak out pretty much every day, and freaking out does no good. No. With our kids or spouses or colleagues, our clients are picky or picky prospects. Vendors freaking out never does any good. But we tend our lizard brain. We tend to freak out very quickly. I’m still guilty.

Brian Pruett: [00:40:59] Right. So I like for you to share maybe a different answer because obviously the community was there for you through your, your, your incident, your, your procedures and all that. So is there a different answer you can give of why you’re a part of the community, or is that pretty much the reason?

Glenn Carver: [00:41:15] Well, I mean, I love community, I’ve always been I mean, I’m a I’m a I’m a, I’m a rainmaker and a maniacal hunter. You know, in the professional world, I’ve been in sales and business development my whole life. So I always loved to network. And I’ve got a philosophy, you know, our parents taught us when we were kids. Don’t talk to strangers for the right reasons, okay? As adults in the business community, just the opposite. Talk to strangers. Talk to everybody. And if you followed me around for a day, you would see how I live it. I talk to everybody, and I believe that when you when you meet somebody new. That’s why I love being here. I’ve met three new friends today because you never know. It’s like pulling a lever on a slot machine in Vegas. When you meet somebody new, you never know what you’re going to get. You never know who they know. You may know somebody. Scotland. That could change my life. Or I could change their life. Or, you know, you just told me about Michelle Cleveland. Mind boggling story. Yeah. So talk to strangers, get into your community, be real, be authentic. And you know, you know, my book, Stand the Heat, is all about helping entrepreneurs move through it. And because we’re all just life and business can be mean, tough and nasty, right?

Brian Pruett: [00:42:29] So it’s kind of cool. I when I was in high school and growing up, I was the shy introvert. And then I decided to go into communications as a major. And everybody’s like, you got to get them talk to people. Yeah, but my dream was to be a sports announcer, right? But then I got into sales and I’ve been doing sales and marketing for about 30 plus, a little about 30 years. And that led into the fundraising part. But everybody’s like, I can’t believe you’re doing sales. And how do you take the no. And this is true, but it’s funny, I got used to the no. Because in college, every single girl I asked out said no. So you just got to go with it. You’re prepared. Yeah, exactly. So, um, I like for you to maybe give some advice on a couple of things. One, anybody who’s thinking about starting a business, what would you give them advice on? And then to anybody who wants to maybe write a book, what would you advice would you give?

Glenn Carver: [00:43:22] Okay. Starting a business. Read a couple of books. First, the E-myth by Michael Gerber. The E-myth stands for the Entrepreneurial Myth, and it’s the myth that just because you’re the best plumber in town means you can run a business. And those are two opposite worlds. Read the E-myth and maybe read traction EOS Entrepreneurial Operating Systems. Make sure you know what you’re getting into, because we tend to go into things with our with our heart on her sleeve. You’ve got I believe you’ve got to be passionate about what you do, Scotland, or else you’re not going to last. Right? Make sure you know, we jump into things. I’m guilty. I’m I’m a very emotional creature. I’ll jump in. I have never suffered paralysis of analysis. I’ll just jump in and get beaten up. But do some homework, know what you’re getting into, have a plan, have some money lined up because everything is going to take 2 or 3 times as long as you’re planning on, and at least twice the money. Be realistic. You know people with the entrepreneurial spirit. See pie in the sky? Guilty. Everything’s possible. That’s me. My wife is the opposite of me. She grounds me. So sometimes people who are thinking about starting a business need to have somebody come in and offset them, offset all their aspirations with some reality, get some counsel, get some coaching, get a good coach up front. And then writing a book. Incredible experience, one of the best of my life. I’ve read hundreds of books I didn’t think I could ever write one.

Glenn Carver: [00:44:58] And in spite of that, I just. I willed it to happen. But I use a great company in Alpharetta called Book Logix. Ahmad and Angela, and they really held my hand and walked me through the process because it was daunting, but I used. Here’s an answer for both of your questions, Brian. Use emotional leverage on yourself. When I first started writing stand in the heat, I had a mock copy mock copy made up of the book had the cover. It was 150 pages. Every page was empty. It was a mock up book. And I would put that book on, you know, on my mirror, or I’d walk around with it. I’d envision it being complete. I even one day took it into Barnes and Noble and put it up on the bestseller shelf. Oh, nice. And backed away. I can feel it right now. Backed away. It was crowded and it was not an empty store. And I backed away and I just stood there and kind of looked at it, and I felt awkward and weird. My armpit started sweating and then I took a picture of it. I took a picture of my own book on the bestseller shelf, and then I put that on Facebook. So I put it so far out there that I couldn’t retreat. So if I if I put it that far out there and then a retreat, I’m a liar. I’m an empty suit. So emotional leverage can be really powerful when you’re trying to accomplish any kind of goal.

Brian Pruett: [00:46:23] That’s awesome advice. Thank you. So you talked about the networking aspect aspect too. So but I first ask you talked about the iOS system. Do you know Joshua Kaminsky I do not. So Joshua is an iOS implementer. Oh great. And he actually networks with the Carnival Business Club. So I can make that connection for you. He’s a great guy. Great. Yes. Um, you talked about networking. What positive story can you share about your networking experience?

Glenn Carver: [00:46:44] Oh my God there’s. There’s many. I mean, I haven’t done as much networking. Certainly the past two years. I mean, the first year of the hospital, I was just I was at home surviving, you know, before Covid, I was a maniacal networker. I mean, end of the year, I would I would look at all the business cards I had each December. I’d assess all the business cards I’d collected over the year. And it was, you know, it was 4 or 5in high. Now it’s dwindled down to to that size. But I believe that every time you go to an event, you’re going to if you meet one person, you could go to an event with 3000 people, or you could go to an event with four people. And if you meet one person and make one connection and follow through and start to develop a relationship and add value to their life or their business, it’s worthwhile. So I’m just I’m a massive advocate of networking, meeting new people, telling your story. We’ve all got one. And just being there out in the world. Somebody once said to me, if you’re going to be a they said to this in the context of real estate, but it applies anything. If you want to be a great agent at anything in life, you can’t be a silent agent. Got to get out there and generate exposure for yourself, right?

Brian Pruett: [00:48:01] I know you just had an event last week where you were speaking. I know Woodstock Business Club and Business Club came together and you get you did some. But do you have anything else coming up you want to share that you’ve got going on.

Glenn Carver: [00:48:11] As we wrap up the year? I do not at the moment. So nothing to plug or promote, but there will be plenty of things coming up in 2024.

Brian Pruett: [00:48:22] Awesome. Well plug how they can find your book and also your podcast.

Glenn Carver: [00:48:25] Yeah, my podcast is called Advantage of Adversity. It’s on YouTube and video format. We launched with video. It’s on all the other platforms in audio form like Spotify and Apple whatnot. But if you go to YouTube and plug in advantage of adversity, I think I’ve got 13 or 14 episodes out there. We just launched a few months ago. My book is called stand in the heat. My first book, my second book is not finished yet. That’ll be a 2024 initiative. And yeah, you can reach me at Glen at Glen carver.com Glen with two ends. The second end is silent.

Brian Pruett: [00:48:59] So if somebody wants to have you come speak, that’s the best way to get a hold of you. And I’m sure you’re open for come speaking for some folks.

Glenn Carver: [00:49:05] Absolutely. Cell numbers 404 2910291I do free speaking engagements. I love paid speaking engagements. Paid pays the bills better than free. Yes, but that’s another. You know, even when I do free speaking engagements, something great always happens. It’s just once again, it’s exposure. You got to get out there and expose yourself and tell your story.

Brian Pruett: [00:49:30] Right. So just a little bit I’ve got something coming up next week that I want to share. So monthly I do a trivia show at Saint Angelo’s over in Emerson, and I’m rotating the charities currently in Bartow County. It’s how Carlin Scotland reached out to me because I put an email blast on looking for sponsors for next year that I do that. And while it’s interesting that trivia for the non profits is already signed up, filled up, we’ll get you guys and we’ll do something with you guys too. But this coming Wednesday is actually a nonprofit based in canton called the Experiences Foundation, and they are a mini Make-A-Wish meets Big Brother Big sister type organization. They’ve got an incredible story. So if you want to come, it’s 6:00 is when the buffet opens. So for $25 you come in 6:00, have a buffet of all you can eat pizza, wings, pasta salad, garlic knots and nonalcoholic drinks. And then we do trivia. And just. Put your thinking caps on because people say, my trivia is hard, but it’s fun. Um, and then we obviously have the money portion of the proceeds go to them. But we’re also this month doing a dessert raffle, and I’ve got several desserts come. So if you need dessert for Thanksgiving, it’s just a week away. After that, come get your dessert at the raffle and come have a good time. So all right, as we wrap this up, this is what I like to do. I like to have each of you share a positive quote, word or nugget for somebody listening to take the rest of 2023 and beyond with. So Carla will start with you. What have you got?

Carla Maton: [00:50:56] Um. All right, so what’s on my mind is get to. Yes. So I just finished a leadership course through an internal course through the Red cross, and it was a year long program. It was phenomenal. We we were able to work and hear from our national leaders with the Red cross, you can imagine leading a national organization such as this. It’s the the skills and the experience of the folks that are leading this organization is just unreal. And to get to learn from them. The last year has been incredible, but they challenged us to find our own personal leadership motto. And that one landed with me and it was on. I saw it plastered on the walls of a disaster headquarters I went to in Louisiana probably eight years ago, and the volunteers had started this motto of, we’re in this community. Folks are devastated by flooding. We’ve got to find the yes, even if we don’t do that. That’s why networking is important. And you think Red cross is huge? We cannot do what we do alone. We depend on community and organizations and people to do our work. And so I’ve adopted that and it’s my new leadership motto is just find the will, find the way and get to yes, awesome Scotland.

Scottlin Smith: [00:52:12] I would just encourage people to spread love. The holiday seasons are great for some, but there are people that are out here struggling. I shared that my neighbor committed suicide this time last year, so you just never know what people are going through. People may look nice on the outside. Hair, shoes, outfits, everything may seem great, but everybody is going through something. Everybody’s struggling in some way. So if you can be that difference, if you can be that change maker in somebody’s day, in somebody’s life, I encourage you to do so.

Brian Pruett: [00:52:44] Well, that’s important to talk about. Mention too, because you do not know what everybody’s going through and you not talking about. They may smile or whatever. When Michelle was on last week, I talked a little bit about, I mean, the two people I can think of, I never would have thought committed suicide. Robin Williams and Twitch from the Ellen Show. Right? You just never know. So all right, Glenn, I know you spread a lot already, but what you got?

Glenn Carver: [00:53:05] Well, you never know. You, one of my dearest friends of 20 years, took his life last September. And to two of the sharpest guys I’ve known in my life taken their lives, you know, and it’s just you never know what’s going on in somebody’s heart, their mind and their soul. But what’s resonating with me right now is one of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther King. In the spirit of this conversation today. And what you do, Brian, is everybody can be great or anybody can be great because anyone can serve awesome.

Brian Pruett: [00:53:33] Well, the other thing that’s lost art these days is the thank you. So, Carla, thank you for what you’re doing with the American Red cross and the community Scotland. Thank you for what you’re doing for Love Travels Beyond in the community in Bartow and the West Georgia area. And Glenn, just thank you for sharing your story and being the hope that people have through adversity. If you’re a veteran too and you’re out there, thank you for your service. Thank you for your if you’re currently serving and everybody listening, let’s remember, let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.