Intro: 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 Pruett.

Brian Pruett: Good, fabulous Friday morning. It’s another fabulous Friday. And we’ve got three more fabulous guests. If this is your first time listening to Charitable Georgia, it’s all about positive things happening in the community. And man, it’s a great morning out there. It’s not as humid as it has been. So it’s a nice, cool, crisp get into fall. So like I said, we’ve got three fabulous guests this morning. And the first one we’re starting with this morning is Darnell Jackson Junior from Jackson Park. So, Darnell, thanks for being here this morning.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Thank you. I appreciate it. And he said, Junior. Yeah, I tell everybody, you got to say, Junior, because my dad has a record.

Brian Pruett: Well, you do, too, only it’s not that kind.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah, Different type of record. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: So, Jackson, we’ll get into Jackson Park. But, you know, probably the best question for Darnell is what he doesn’t do. But one of the cool things I think that you used to do was you’re a former Christian rapper, but share your backstory a little bit for us and let’s we’ll talk about why you’re doing what you’re doing because it leads into your passion.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah. So I’ve been rapping since I was probably about. 16, 15, 16. So grew up in Buffalo, New York, in the snow. And I hated it. And my mom came down here to visit Georgia with her boyfriend for a family reunion. And they were in Rome, Georgia. And it was the first time ever really getting out of the city of Buffalo. And she just called back home and was like, y’all moving in with your Aunt Kim? And I’m staying down here. And, you know, after y’all finished school, we’re moving down here to Georgia. And she never came back until the end of the school year. So she came back at the end of the school year with a new boyfriend. And and she she she. We packed everything we could on the back of his pickup truck, and she literally everything else, we couldn’t fit on a pickup truck. She opened up the house and told the neighbors on the block to just come and get everything out the house. And we drove. It was like that movie scene from like Boyz in the Hood where the boys in the back of the car and he’s driving and all his friends are waving to him on the street. It was literally like that. And we came to Georgia. I thought we were moving to Atlanta. We moved to Summerville, Georgia, in the summer of 94. It was my first time ever seeing a trailer for the first time ever seeing cows. You know, I’m thinking we’re about to move down here and I’m about to see, like, you know, Outkast, Jermaine Dupree, Kris Kross, TLC, all of that type stuff. No, we moved to Summerville, Georgia, and the only other kid that was close by, he lived like a mile and a half away up a mountain. And his name was Ash. And he had a basketball court in his backyard on grass and it was nailed to a tree.

Brian Pruett: And there you go.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah. So about three weeks later, she got a job in Cartersville. We moved to Cartersville, and I hated it. You know, like it’s like moving a thousand miles across the country. It’s a totally different culture. I spoke different. I dressed different. You know, just the culture was completely different. And, man, I absolutely hated it because, like, this is not Atlanta, you know, this is not the city that I thought it was going to be. But I met my wife. I was in 11th grade. She was in ninth grade. We got married right out of high school this year. Be 24 years. And we decided to raise our family here. And we’ve just been in Cartersville ever since. And I really like out of that hatred of coming down here in Cartersville and 94. Like that’s when I started kind of like writing poetry. And the poetry led to like, you know, getting into music and writing rap. So I was the first person to have like a rap concert at Cass High School and like, you know, 95, 96 for Field Day, I got to rap in front of the whole entire school. And everybody thought I had this really big afro. So I knew I can’t tell right now, but I had like, I had like a huge afro that hung over my shoulders and stuff. And, you know, that just really, you know, was enticing to a lot of people. So I just got into rapping like that and just kept on going ever since then.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: And eventually I converted and started doing like Christian rap and like 2010 went through some like, troubling times with my family. A few of my cousins got murdered in 2009 and they were like, You know, growing up, your cousins are more like your siblings almost, especially if you live in the same house. And we grew up in the same house, you know, sleeping in the same bed sometimes. And, you know, and they got murdered, you know, like, man, I just rededicated my life to Christ and just changed my direction of what I wanted to do because I was like, I wasn’t a gangster rapper. I was more like a battle rapper. Like the ones that walk around with the backpacks full of rhymes and stuff. And but it was like, Man, I need to start leading people to light instead of like just being so harsh with my lyrics and converted and start doing Christian rap and taught myself how to do graphic design because I needed somebody to design my CD covers and artwork. And that led to other people was like, Hey, well, who did this for you? And then businesses started reaching out and asking me to design stuff for them. And that’s how I really got into graphic design. And, you know, it’s just all part of just being a creative. So, you know, whether it’s woodworking, graphic design, writing music, you know, anything creative, I can just jump right into it.

Brian Pruett: So, you know, growing up of the rap, you were talking about the, you know, the gangster rap. And that’s what I always thought about rap. And then the first time I ever heard a Christian rapper, I’m like, Christian rap. What? How are they going to do it? But it’s kind of cool that there’s music for everybody, right? Because we used to go to Jfest and celebrate freedom. And I don’t know if you guys ever heard of the band Red, but they one of those bands that just all they do is scream. Yeah, but they’re Christian screamers, I guess you would call them. So I don’t know how you. But anyway, I just think that’s wild. So, I mean, I’m curious, how did you come up with the name Jack Rip for your, for your name?

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Well, speaking of like, the Christian Screamers, so like my friend who I went to school with, and I graduated with Adam Jernigan. He was a youth pastor and he used to go out and evangelize at skate parks. And he actually kind of like made jump started my Christian rap career because he was like, Man, I know you don’t do Christian rap, but you he said A lot of your songs have really good content and really good messages behind it. And he’s like, I’m doing a I’m doing a skate event at the skate park to evangelize to these skaters and, you know, bring Christ to them. And he’s like, I would love for you to come and, you know, just clean up a couple of words and just come out there and perform for me. And so I started. I was like, Well, if I’m going to go out there and do that, I was like, I need to maybe I need to come up with some new songs. And in the process, that’s how I came up with my very first Christian rap album testimony. And, you know, like I completely. Just cut everything off, like from my old crew and everything and just went that direction. And so the first concert that I did with Adam was at a at a skate park. It was I met this rock group behind the scenes and they introduced they were super nice and real calm and everything. And I was like, yeah, you know, we’re going to we’re going to be opening up for you. And I was like, oh, for real? And so, you know, they got up there and I’m standing in front of the stage because I, you know, I’m a fan, so I want to see exactly what they’re about to do.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: And the guy gets up there, he’s like the lead singer with the guitar. And they had like, this black guy with, like, long locks and stuff. And he was the drummer and he was like, Yeah, I really want to dedicate this next song to Christ because he’s my Lord and savior. And, you know, without him, you know, he did the whole spiel and then the music starts playing and I’m like, What’s that? And then next thing you know, he’s like, rah rah. And I mean, like, I jumped back and I was like, What is that? You know? And then, I mean, but it was it was pretty freaky. But so Jack Rip, The way I came up with the name Jack Rip, I ended up signing an artist development deal in 2001 with Arista Records. And when I signed that deal, my original name was Young Pharaoh because I used to love, you know, anything about Egypt. And so I called myself Young Pharaoh. I even had a tattoo on my shoulder that said, you know, Pharaoh with the King Tut and everything. And when I signed an artist development deal, they were like, We already signed a producer. And the producer’s name is Pharaoh and Young Pharaoh and Pharaoh is too similar. So you have to come up with a new name. And my grandfather’s nickname was Jack, and my mom always called me Jack or Jackie growing up. So I was like, I’ll just come up with, you know, I’ll just use Jack Rip, you know? And at first it was Jack Ripper. And then I just, I shortened it to Jack Rip and and that’s how I came up with the name Jack Rip.

Brian Pruett: So when I first met Darnell, he was actually at a car show at Saint Angelo’s, and that’s when I promoted. And he was promoting your album and you had a pretty cool. What kind of car was it? A station wagon?

Darnell Jackson Jr.: The Dodge.

Brian Pruett: Magnum. Yeah, that was that was it was an awesome looking car. So, um. All right, so let’s, let’s talk a little bit now about because you are very creative, you know, obviously your graphic arts and stuff, but you’ve gotten into woodworking, you’ve taught yourself how to do woodworking, you do laser university. There you go. But a lot of people I don’t know, I maybe need to do YouTube University, but you’ve taught yourself laser engraving and you do, you know, tints and all that kind of stuff. So but Jackson Park itself is on your property. But there’s you have your own studio, you’ve got a little lounge area and things that people can rent for photography and podcasts and all that. So tell us a little bit about Jackson Park.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah, so like the way that it is today is not I didn’t envision it whatsoever. So when we first moved into our house nine years ago, we had like, I think our property is like 0.62 or 0.64 acres. But when you come out there, you would think it’s more because I utilize every square foot of my my footprint that I have on that that that little corner lot. So we had this big backyard, but we couldn’t use it because it was just all like stick pine trees and underbrush. And all we had was the little concrete patio. When you walk out the back door. And I was like, I need to do something. I was like, I want a basketball court. And my wife looked at me with the side eye because I’d already tore my Achilles tendon playing basketball at Excel Christian Academy like a few years prior. And she was like, I don’t want to hear you ever mention basketball again. So I went ahead and moved forward and I, you know, hired a guy to come out and grade the backyard. And I built this really big retaining wall and we built the basketball court. And and then from the basketball court, we just kept spreading out. And then I was like, well, I need to finish leveling out the backyard even more. And then I was like, Oh, it’d be nice if I had a second driveway coming from the other road. And then I can easily just pull stuff into the backyard.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: So every year we just built, built, built and then in the like when the pandemic hit in 2020, you know, like I was upset because I couldn’t host any more events because everything was shut down. And so I came home from work and my family had the streamers and the balloons hanging up in the hallway, coming upstairs from the garage to the kitchen. And the kitchen was completely decorated. And they were hosting our own little birthday party for me just with my wife and two kids. And they bought me a saw. So they bought me this miter saw from like Harbor Freight. And I was like, What can I build with this saw? So I started getting on YouTube and I was like, I’m going to build a stage in my backyard and I can have my own concerts in my backyard. So I lied to my wife and she was like, What’s all that for? And, you know, I had the trailer full of wood and everything, and I was like, I’m building a gazebo. And and so once I started building it, you know, she was like, That’s not a gazebo. She was like, You think I’m stupid? And she’s like, You’re building a stage in our backyard. And I was like, I mean, but we could still use it as a gazebo, you know? So I built the stage and then we then I was like, It’d be cool if I built a fire pit. So I built the stone fire pit next to the stage.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: So that’s like the VIP area off to the side of the stage. And then I needed some seating, so I came up with these. I’ve watched the. Youtube and came up with these modern farmhouse benches. And when I built those modern farmhouse benches, I posted the picture on Facebook and people started hitting me up. I was like, Man, do you sell those to people? And I was like, You know, I can make you a set if you want. And I tried to come up with a price. And of course, when you first start something, you’re way under charged and you know, and, you know, shooting yourself in the foot. So I was under charging initially and then in the summer of 2020, that’s when all of like the the George Floyd stuff was going on. And, you know, America was ripped in half and people were rioting in different cities and everything. And, you know, a lot of a lot of the black population was like, hey, we’re just going to buy black, black, black owned business stuff. And somebody had shared one of my posts to one of these blackout pages where it was like a whole bunch of small businesses and I didn’t have a business at the time for it. So it just started going viral on Facebook and people from all over the country were hitting me up. He was like, Hey, I want to order a set of benches and stuff to What else do you make? And I was like, I need to make a business page real quick.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: So I went on Etsy because my friend’s my friend’s wife said, Go on Etsy and they’ll come up with a name for you. So I was like, Jackson Park because that’s what I called my backyard, you know, with the basketball court. And it had like a list of five things because Jackson Park by itself wasn’t available. So my wife was like, Just do the top one. And it was Jackson Park creation. So that’s how we came up with Jackson Park Creations. And then that summer, man, the business just was taking off. I had to fly my dad down here from Buffalo to come and help me catch up on orders. I paid a lot of debt off and I was like, I’m quitting Georgia Power, you know, like, you know, I hated working at Georgia Power anyway, you know what I’m saying? I needed it because it was there for me and my family and the season to get me over a hump and everything. But I was just really depressed being there because I’m a creative and just to be trapped inside a power plant for 12 hours a day, you know, and in the middle of a pandemic where they threaten to make us live there for like 30 to 60 days because we’re critical infrastructure. My wife wasn’t going for it, so I quit Georgia Power. After I refinanced my house, I did a cash out refi, put $30,000 out, helped pay off a lot more debt, and then I was like, I’m going to build a shop on the corner.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: And I went through the whole process with the variance and I built the shop and my wife was like, Well, if you’re going to build the shop, you got to get your studio stuff out of the house and you need to move your studio out there. And I was like, Well, if I build a second floor, I can have a private lounge. And it’d be like Ray’s boom boom room, you know? And so I did all of that stuff and I was like, Man, I can have everything right here and I don’t ever have to leave the house. Everybody can just come to me and I can do everything. It could be like the one stop shop and it just keeps and I have so many more ideas, but I don’t want to drive my wife crazy like, but I got a lot more ideas that I want to do. But in the process of doing that, we’ve rented out, we’ve rented out our building for a movie scene. We rented it out for a couple of music videos, even the other wooded lots. I have two other one acre wooded lots in my on my in my neighborhood. We’ve rented those out for movie scenes and stuff as well too. So anything I could do to like utilize everything that I own and make a buck on it, you know?

Brian Pruett: So I think it’s kind of cool. I mean, well, first of all, what your stage is, you have two guard dogs and a guard that area. So tell us about your dogs. They’re pretty cool.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Oh, man. My wife’s surprised me with a lot of people call him Cane Corsos, but it’s called a cane Corso because it’s Italian. And she surprised me with one for my birthday last year, and he’s absolutely crazy and drives me nuts. I probably he, like, he test my gangster every single day. Um, yeah. So he’s huge. And he actually put me in a hospital two months ago. I was walking down the driveway to the mailbox and he still, he still has the puppy brain, but he’s 130 pounds full of muscle and he doesn’t realize how big and strong he is. So he gets the zoomies while I’m walking down the driveway to go check the mail and he takes my legs out from under me. I flip backwards and hit my head on the concrete and I had a concussion. So luckily I’m still here. But. But yeah, he drives. He drives me nuts. But he’s a beautiful dog. You know, you love your dogs, but he didn’t really know any better. He’s still a puppy. He just doesn’t realize how big he is. He’s like and he doubled in size like every three weeks. So he’s like Clifford the big Red Dog. Um, but he’s a mad man now. Copper is our French mastiff and she’s more laid back and we didn’t realize that Creed got her pregnant last month. She lost all the puppies, but because we took her to the vet and we didn’t realize she was pregnant and they gave her all her vaccines and that killed the fetuses. But, you know, but now, ever since then, she, like, hates him. So like, every time we’ve been having to keep them kind of separated most of the time because if not, she tries to go go at him right now, I guess, you know, like a woman scorned or something. But yeah, there’s some there’s some great dogs. They’re very intimidating to people when they walk up on the property and everything. But, you know, they’re they’re good family pets.

Brian Pruett: So. Stone, I got something for the for you that he made for me that I bought. Well, he made it just for me, but I bought one. He has squirrel tables. Oh, baby. There are picnic tables. A little tiny picnic tables just for squirrels. It’s pretty cool. You sit him out there and man, the squirrels just come out there and they love sitting. Not my thing.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah, you know. Did you put the nail through it with the corn on the cob?

Brian Pruett: We have a little stump that’s just left there, so we put it on top of the stump and then just come sit up on the stump.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: So, yeah, so we put like, that was one of the things I built for my wife and daughter during the middle of the pandemic, because we have like this tree right outside the dining room, dining room. And so they could look out the window and the trees right there. And I nailed the squirrel table to the tree and you put a screw through the middle of it and put a piece of corn on the cob on it. And the squirrels would come and sit there on each side and, you know, eat the corn. And that kept my daughter and my wife entertained during the middle of the pandemic. I love it. You know, my wife was on one side of the dining room working from home. My daughter was on the other side, finishing up her senior year. And she went out there and fed the squirrels every day. And we actually have a picture where the squirrel is laying flat on the table on its stomach with all of his legs spanned out. And it’s just like gorged itself with all of the corn. And it just looks like a big fat slob laying on the table and everything. But we had a family of hawks move in this year, so we hadn’t seen a lot of squirrels in the last month or so. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: And you come up with some hawk tables?

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah, I might have to come up. I don’t know. You know, at least they won’t mess with Creed because he’s too big, you know? Right. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: So you also kind of overcame some things. You kind of dealt with a little bit with some of the, the, I guess, local government on your property. Yeah. Um, can you share about that? I mean, that’s a good story about overcoming because it’s can you share about that at all.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah. So with the lounge that we have upstairs in the building that we built, you know, we hosted a couple of private events and stuff, whether it be a private birthday party, you know, one of my friends, he wanted to have his baby shower there with his wife and somebody the government just tells me it was a concern. Citizens tip that I was selling alcohol out of my lounge. So they raided us in April with ATF, fire Marshal Health Department. The I mean, it was so many different agencies that came there. It was really intimidating. They had me and my wife surrounded and they had they even went down to my other wooded lots and checked all of those wooded lots, too. And they came up in the building. They were taking pictures of everything. They made me sign a cease and desist letter. They were trying to shut down my woodworking business. They were trying to shut down my studio and they had a file on on me with all of my Facebook posts printed out showing where I was having when I when I had parties and stuff like that. And they were talking about I had to rezone. They said I was operating commercially out of a residential neighborhood. And then everything that I was trying to do that they told me I needed to do to get everything rectified. They kept moving the goal posts back.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Every time I would complete a step, it was like, Oh, well, now you got to do this or now you got to do this. So luckily I was able to sit down with the commissioner, tell them everything that was going on, and within that week we got everything rectified. And, you know, it was it was cool that he you know, he, you know, he got everything cleared away so quick and everything because, like, I’ve never had more than a traffic violation in my life. But it was just definitely it was troubling. We were on the verge of just trying to sell the property and just move away. And because I was like, you know, like I built all of this up and they were trying to shut down the way that I fed my family. And we’re just giving me a lot of heartache. And they were being rude to me on the phone. And I was like everybody I tried to call to get help with it. They were like, Who did you piss off? And I was like, I was like, I didn’t do anything. So, you know, it definitely shut down like the momentum of Jackson Park for a few months. So we’re still trying to get get things back going and stuff again Now since that, you know, it definitely had me like anxious, you know, And I mean, I was talking to him, I had dry mouth.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: I didn’t know what to think. These guys got guns on their hips and, you know, all of this stuff, it’s like something out of a movie. They were taking pictures of all of my stuff and everything, walking through, all looking through all of my property. And then the bad thing about it is they didn’t even have warrants, you know, So they did all of this stuff without warrants or anything. They just came up in there and, you know, I guess when I sat down with the commissioner, you know, he was like, you know, you know, we got to get this taken care of right now. You know, I was ready to go national with it, you know? Right. Right. I was about to call you. You. I would call everybody. Hey, I need y’all to help me out. Get the word out. You know that. You know. You know, messing with me. But luckily, we got it all squared away, so we’re good. So now I’m like, Well, now I’m on a mission to make, like Jackson Park, a household name in northwest Georgia. And I want everybody to know about Jackson Park. I’m going to be partnering with every business. Everybody’s going to have a Jackson Park t shirt or a hat or some type of merchandise. And I’m going to put it as big and loud in their face as possible.

Brian Pruett: Well, Stone collects hats right there, so bring him some, you know. Yeah. Bring him to wears one. Put one up there. Okay.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah, I definitely will.

Brian Pruett: So but I also think is cool is you have a passion for helping others as well and you started something just for men. You know, we when we go, we all do networking and we’ll talk about that in a second. But I always hear some of the ladies talking about this is only for women, right, guys and your wives, this kind of everything. And you have the mindset of starting something for men, which I think is very. Horton as well as share about the group you started.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah. So I mean, like a lot of times us as guys, you know, we keep things bottled up and we think different. We’re not as emotional sometimes or as in touch with our emotions as some women is. So like a lot of guys will will say, you know, we’re okay ourselves, you know, and we’ll say, I’m okay to death. You know what I’m saying? Because next thing you know, someone so committed suicide and you would have never knew they were going through that. And I know a few guys that I knew that were close to me that committed suicide. And you would have like the last time, like one of my friends, Jonathan, he committed suicide. And I probably seen him a couple of weeks prior at a party I was deejaying and he was speaking life into me and, you know, pouring to me and telling me how great I was doing and how inspirational I was. And he was proud of me. And next thing I know, you know, he’s gone, you know? And I started seeing all of the posts on Facebook. I’m thinking, man, he got in an accident or something. And when I found out the details that he took his own life, you know, it it definitely hit me different. So, I mean, just this past year and a half, I’ve been going through a lot of stuff myself. And people look at, you know, people only post like the great things they’re going through on social media and everybody thinks everything is all great. But like, a lot of people don’t know that I’ve been dealing with like identity theft, where people have stolen my identity and opened up businesses and been buying luxury cars in my name.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: And so I’ve been dealing with that. I’ve been dealing with the raid, you know what I’m saying? Stuff like that. And just just, you know, just regular hardships of being an entrepreneur and everything. And so, like, this year I was just feeling really down in the dumps and stuff all this year. And so I was like, Man, I want to talk to somebody, you know what I’m saying? So I was like, You know, I have this lounge. I’m not using it for a whole bunch of other things. Why not invite some other guys? Because I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling like this. So whether guys just want to come out and talk about things they need to get off their chest or if, you know, maybe they got a promotion or they just had a big, you know, lockdown, a big contract, and they just want some people to share, share good news with, you know, you know, they can come out there and do that. And so we just call it it’s not nothing to do with any type of church. It’s just guys just coming to shoot the breeze and hang out, you know, you know, drink some sodas or water juice, whatever you want or some snacks, and let’s just sit up there and just kick it with each other. Because as we get older, a lot of our friends who we grew up with and we came close with, you know, they start going their separate ways because they have families careers.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: They might move out of town and by the time you hit your 30s and 40s and stuff like that, it’s like, man, your circle is so much more smaller and you can’t really share things and it’s different, you know? I mean, all of us have wives probably, you know, we can share things with our wife, but it’s different when you can share it with another guy, you know, because they know they know what you’re going through. So I wanted to start doing that and I did like two really good ones before the county came and shut me down. And so I just hadn’t had the energy to pick it back up. But I definitely want to try to start picking it back up and see if I can get some more guys to just want to come out there and, you know, kick it, you know, hang out. You know what I’m saying? When you in high school, you probably got ten, ten friends and stuff that you hang out with and do things all the time and stuff. But as you get older, you know, they just dwindles down. So it’s like, man, we need to find our own little, you know, G 14 group that we could just whatever says it was said here stays here, you know, and we don’t share it with nobody else. And we’re just here to lean on each other and lift each other up.

Brian Pruett: Right? We talk about community all the time on this show. And so you and I did something yesterday. We doing some different things, but we took part in the the thank you lunch for the public servants for Bartow County. So why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Darnell Jackson Jr.: I don’t know. I mean, like it’s just something that’s always been inherently in me since I got out of high school. Even with me pursuing music, I was always trying to find different avenues to just give back. And nobody ever really taught me that or anything. It was just something I just always felt led to do, whether it was, you know, going just feed somebody that was on the side of the road that said they needed food. I just go and pick up a meal and hand it to them or, you know, I was going like when I was doing a Christian rap, it was a lot of it wasn’t a lot of opportunities for Christian rappers, you know, because a lot of churches are still kind of against Christian rap. They’re starting to open up a little bit more to it now. But like especially the black church. So like black churches, you’re not getting no play as a Christian rapper in a black church, you know what I’m saying? Because they they they honor and put the praise and worship leader and stuff on a pedestal, you know, that’s like the church rock star in a black church. And then and, you know, I was getting some some more predominantly white churches that were booking me and having me come out. But other than that, the opportunities are still limited that that way too. So it’s like I had to make my own lane. So, you know, I started going out and volunteering at the foster shelters, at the orphanages and doing full out concerts and doing, you know, give backs to give to those kids or just going out doing street ministry.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: If you look at the world, I have a lot of friends that still do Christian hip hop. Most of them are the ones that’s really out there in the streets going to the prisons, going the streets and doing, you know, corner evangelism and everything like that, because we don’t have any other outlets. We don’t get played on radio. You know, like most of the Christian stations, you never really hear them playing Christian rap music. The. Stations don’t play Christian rap music, you know, So it’s like we don’t have an outlet. So our only outlet is really going out and just really evangelizing like the Bible says. And so that’s what I was doing. And I just took my kids and my family out there. And then other people wanted to volunteer to come out there. And it just led us to us doing, you know, I was able to, you know, go across the country because people see my passion for just giving back to community and people. And it was a blessing because, you know, like, you know, and I could be proud that I could take my kids out there with me. And I wasn’t giving them, you know, pouring garbage into their head, you know what I’m saying? With with that type of music. And then, you know, it pours into them. It builds their their character up because they grew up, you know, giving back to others.

Brian Pruett: Right. Well, so you talk about the passion and stuff and that I think that leads into your to the Jackson Park creations because share a little bit about everything that you do. So because you don’t just do woodworking, you you do promo items and all kinds of stuff and printing and things like that. So share about services that you offer.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah. So just I used to work at a shoe store and I was like an assistant manager at the shoe store. So I was over like setting up the different displays and everything. So, you know, I worked out a deal with the owner of the shoe store to give me my own section for my clothing line when I had, you know, my my own clothing line back then. And so I was like really big into the marketing and displays because people are very visual. So I want it when people walk into the store. I was like, Oh, I want to come and see what this section is about. It was like loud, colorful and had all of my stuff and I got to pick out the Jordans and the Air Force ones that we sold. So I always knew that I needed to get shirts that was going to match those, you know, those hot sneakers and stuff. So, I mean, when I started doing like my my independent tours, I knew I needed something that was going to make me stand out. So I was really big on marketing and my branding and everything. So like when I went out and did my tours and I did my my pop up displays for like my t shirts and CDs, it looked like a pop up store. Like, like I was, you know, I was like, I was signed to a big label even though I was doing it all myself. And so, like, a lot of people started asking me, Well, who does this for you? And I was like, Oh, I designed all of that stuff.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: And I was like, I can make a business out of this because there’s a lot of people who are working with stuff that’s kind of like subpar. And so, like, I like, you know, like even more recently, you know, getting connected with the Cartersville Business Club, you know, once people started locking in and seeing the quality of stuff that I do, you know, like there’s so many people that’s still doing like the corporate, bland, you know, black and white, you know, like it just doesn’t pop. And it’s like, man, I want to add that flavor to really make it pop and make it visual and enticing for people. And so now I do like the tents, the retractable banners, billboard designs, postcard fliers, anything that you can that you can name pretty much. You know, I just recently started doing like the flags for people to put in front of their buildings or to attach to the front of the tents. So. So, you know, it can just really pop out. And I mean, I’ll just always really, you know, it’s kind of flashy, but at the same time, you need flash because we’re visual creatures and that’s what’s going to entice people to come over. And once you can entice people to come over and you can talk to them, you can lock in and let them know exactly who you are and what you do. And that’s how you’re going to get people to, you know, to to shop with you.

Brian Pruett: Right. So in your studio, too, you mentioned this earlier, but you have where you can rent out for photography for photographers, right, As well as podcast. Sure about those.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah. So with the studio, I wanted like when I was thinking about building this space, it wasn’t like selfish thinking, you know, I was thinking about other people who utilize, who could utilize the space as well too, because I mean, like not everybody is, is as you know, blessed or as capable to do the things that I’ve been able to accomplish so far. So I wanted to make a space that if you’re a musician, you can just come out whether you want to rent the studio out with with my engineer, I have a I have a fully educated engineer, audio engineer that works out of the studio. So you can come and work with that engineer or if you just want to rent the studio and just do your own pre-production with the photography studio. If you want to use our in-house facility or our in-house services to do a photo shoot or if you want to bring your own photographer and you just rent the time hourly to come and use the space. We have props, we have all different types of backgrounds and backdrops and stuff and even with the wood.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: So like I’ve noticed that it’s a lot of people, especially since the pandemic, that is getting into, you know, woodworking and everything like that. And I have a really big, you know, nice space. So I’m also looking at possibly it’s a website that’s out kind of like, um, like if you’re a woodworker but you don’t have the space, you can go on the website and see who has like woodworking spaces next to you that you can go out there and you can rent it to use their tools and their facility for so long to get a project done too. So I’m going to try to register my shop on that too. That way I can help other people who might not have the space and the tools to do things that they want to do. So it’s just always thinking about helping other people and, you know, just helping them get a leg up because, you know, like, what’s the Zig Ziglar quote that we do every every week at the thing?

Joshua Kornistksy : You can have everything you want in life if you just help others get what they want.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: That’s exactly you know, I mean and, you know, that’s just that was always just inherently in me. Always just wanted to help other people. And it’s like I tell people all the time, like you, you know, like Brian, if you were a baker and you made this phenomenal red velvet cake or something like that, and I’m like, Man, Brian, I want to learn how to make that red velvet cake. You can keep the recipe secret to yourself, you know? Or you could bless me and give me the recipe, but it doesn’t mean that I have the same anointing on me to make make the red velvet cake the same way you can, so you can give me the same recipe that all the ingredients and everything. And I could try it, but it’s just not it just don’t have that that. Brian touch to it, you know what I’m saying? So it’s not going to bless you any less for you to share that information and stuff with me. Because you know, what God has for you is for you. Nobody can take that away. So I’ve never been scared to share information with people, you know, because I know, you know, the blessing that that’s going to be over. My life is going to be there no matter what. The only thing that can stop the blessing is me, not anybody else.

Brian Pruett: One of the props he has, Stone is a big throne for a king. He’s one of them. The studio. That could be where you sit.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah.

Brian Pruett: So you talked about earlier the Kargil business Club and everybody in this room that is on are part of this part of that club. And it’s an amazing more of a community than a club. But can you share a positive experience about networking, especially with since you’ve been back out and started with with your Jackson Park?

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Well, I mean, really, it’s just been the community and I’ll say this like I’m sure she won’t mind, but like Jennifer at Southern Mugs, like she reached out to me one day and I don’t know, she just knew that I was going through like a dark period earlier this year. So she reached out and asked me to come and have a one on one with her. And the whole one on one was just her. She said she seen that, you know, she could see that the confidence wasn’t in me, that she she knew when she first met me. And that whole one on one was her just pouring life into me and pouring positivity in me. And I mean, just having people who are in the community that that know you and that support you and stuff like that, to be able to just do that. It wasn’t we didn’t really talk about business whatsoever as much as we talked about life and, you know, different situations. And she just loved on me and poured into me and that was like super important to me. And like, if I wasn’t going to the Cartersville Business Club, I probably would have never met her and built that relationship that I have with her. And then like the whole time I was going through the situation with with, you know, the county officials and stuff, man, I had so many other people in the Cartersville Business Club that was there supporting me and that was fighting behind the scenes and stuff and trying to reach out to people to see what they can do to help get everything rectified. And it’s just awesome to have a community of people that backs you and supports you like that.

Brian Pruett: Yeah, it’s definitely awesome to other services we didn’t talk about, but you do offer is the the photo thing that you bring out to events and stuff like that and DJ services. Can you share about those?

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah, so I have the event group and the event group we can do lighting, photo booth services and DJ services and you know, I specialize mostly in weddings and corporate events, but we can do private private gatherings and stuff as well too. You know, I just, you know, it kind of coincided with just being a rapper, you know, like it was real easy to just, you know, blend over into being a DJ. And I love being on the microphone. So it was, you know, I love making people have a good time and vibe. So one good story I did the Edible Scholarship Foundation’s purse auction and they said it was the first time that their purse auction turned into an all out nightclub party. So it was pretty cool. I mean, I mean, you get a whole bunch of ladies who buying purses and drinking wine all night. It’s not that hard. You know, I had ladies throwing dollar bills at me behind the DJ booth. And, you know, it was pretty fun. My dad, my dad was down here visiting from out of town, and I brought him with me. And man, he had a ball. He got so many videos. Nice.

Brian Pruett: Yeah, nice. All right, so share information. If people are listening and want to get Ahold of you for any of your services, how can they do that?

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Man, They could really just go to jackson-park.com and that will give them a portal where they can click on each one of the links, whether it’s Jackson Park Creations, the lounge at Jackson Park or Rip Studios at Jackson Park. So Jackson park.com.

Brian Pruett: Awesome. Well Darnell, thanks for sharing a little bit of your story. Don’t go anywhere because we’re not done with you yet. But we’re going to move over to Mr. Joshua Kornistksy from the EOS Systems, right?

Joshua Kornistksy : EOS Worldwide.

Brian Pruett: EOS Worldwide. Well, I was partially right.

Joshua Kornistksy : So you got the letter part.

Brian Pruett: There you go. There you go. So, Joshua, I know you’re no stranger to the studio. You’ve been on the Stone show before, but thanks for being here this morning.

Joshua Kornistksy : It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Brian Pruett: So you have a little bit of an interesting background from you got into this, but you came from the car sales background.

Joshua Kornistksy : Broadly, yes. I was actually born into the car business. My parents and my grandparents owned dealerships in the Northeast. And unfortunately, like many things, they didn’t last. We ended up moving to Florida where we bought an ice cream store and that too, melted away in the end. I learned from my family how much having a great idea and having a even a great location ice cream store in Florida isn’t always enough for things to work out. You have to have a plan. And it turns out that following a plan helps a lot of people get what they really want out of life, both personally and professionally. And that’s sort of what has always drawn my attention. I’m a technical person. That’s always been where my head’s been at. So I was around for really the explosion in business networking when it was early on, and it was a passion for me. So while I was born in the car business and I did spend probably the first 20 years of my professional life in it and I’m grateful for it. It gave me incredibly thick skin and the ability to talk to anybody, anywhere, any time. At the end of the day, my my technical passion took me to a completely different direction and ultimately brought me to where I am today, which is really a teacher and a helper and a facilitator for others to help them get more of what they’re looking for out of their business.

Brian Pruett: So we’ll talk about is worldwide here in just a second. But you do have that passion for for helping others and and being able to teach people how to get to the next level and and that kind of stuff. One of the things that I really appreciate about you is that, you know, I do a monthly trivia show and Joshua, he’s not on Facebook, but he told me he’s like every month, send me the link to the tickets. He said, maybe I’ll be able to come. But he buys tickets every month to support it and he’s always the first one to buy it. So I appreciate your support in that way.

Joshua Kornistksy : My pleasure.

Brian Pruett: Well, one of these days we’ll get you there and see how smart you are.

Stone Payton: I’ve got to tell you this, too, just a quick, shameless plug. He’s also a founding sponsor of our community partner program, the Main Street Warriors program. The minute he heard about it, he said, Yeah, what do I got to do? I sent him a link. Nice.

Brian Pruett: Nice. Well, so that leads into the worldwide and what you do. So explain what that is, what you do, and how do you work with some folks?

Joshua Kornistksy : Sure. Well, if I can, I’ll just give a little bit of background of how I arrived here. Yes. So from that technical background, when when the automotive industry went through a consolidation where all of the mom and pop dealerships got acquired by larger public companies, not all of them, but a but a great deal of them. And I was I was within the universe when that happened. And I ended up being part of the public company that owned Jim Tidwell, Ford and Kennesaw and Perimeter Ford down in Sandy Springs. And I was actually working at at the South Florida division. And I came up here on a six month assignment, which has turned into going on 22 years now. But that’s largely a function of having met my wife on the service drive of Jim Tidwell. Ford But through that, I ended up spending ten years in technical sales in Sandy Springs for a boutique networking firm where I spent a lot of time with small businesses and getting to understand what their needs were. And I’ve always been a problem solver. That’s the way that I just view the entire universe, which led me into my next life of of a software designer. And I ended up becoming a part of a leadership team for a company in Alpharetta that had grown a successful business to a certain point and then just couldn’t seem to get any further with it.

Joshua Kornistksy : So the CEO of that company had gone out and found this system called EOS. Eos stands for the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And it’s not that business controls my life, but as I tell this story, you’ll understand that this isn’t what I do for a living. This is really who I am. So EOS was the system that we brought in. It is not software. It’s really more of a business methodology. It’s a simple set of tools and resources that the leadership team of an organization comes to understand with the help of an implementer. And then ultimately they take ownership of it and they. Bring it cascading through their entire organization. Over time, it transforms the organization into one where everybody is willing to row in the same direction, get on the same page, and more importantly, help everyone achieve success. It’s not magic. It’s really simple tools and resources. It’s certainly not easy, but it is simple. Anyway, part of that leadership team, we grew the company by 20% within a year of embracing us and taking ownership of it. And it allowed me to go out and co-found a software company. And that software company was based on simulated training and software to help individuals learn how to role play and interact. So I spent four years really learning about learning and understanding the universe of instructional design.

Joshua Kornistksy : I’m not an instructional designer, but had I known it existed, it probably would have been a path I would have gone down. But I’ve spent a lot of time with a lot of instructional designers. I learned how we learn, I learned how we teach, and more importantly, I learned how to listen because it turns out that’s the hardest skill for me to master. I used to spend all of my time waiting for you to finish talking so that I could then have my turn. But it turned out if I listened to the words that came out of your mouth, you were telling me the things I needed to know about you. I just had to learn to stop and open my ears. The software company also ran on this methodology. And ultimately for for reasons related to the passing of my dad and my mother in law inside of a short six month period unrelated to Covid but timed with Covid, I decided to take an exit from that. And I looked around and I realized that the thing that had helped me the most in my life professionally was this EOS system. So EOS Worldwide offers franchise opportunities. I became a franchisee of us worldwide, and since really June of of 2022, that’s been the driving force in in my life.

Joshua Kornistksy : And it’s led me into a deeper sense of community. It’s led me into a deeper sense of understanding the needs of of business people around me because business and people, while it’s two words, it’s really just people. It’s our community. It’s who we are at our heart. And it’s what drew me to you. It’s what drew me to stone and allowed me to meet both Darnell and Daniel. Right. Is. The whole idea behind what iOS does is just deliver a simple system that anybody can benefit and learn from. There’s no proprietary aspect to it that you must pay to license. All I do is facilitate the learning with it. So for me, it allows me to to to teach useful skills to business owners. It allows the business owners who are willing and open and ready to embrace it. It allows them to see progress relatively quickly and begin to move the needle in their own business. And that leads them to success. That leads to an enormous sense of accomplishment for me. But most importantly, it leads to a better community that’s got stronger local business. And at the end of the day, that’s all all of us are really hoping for is that our communities remain strong and leads to a stronger country and a stronger world.

Brian Pruett: So another thing that kind of impressed me about Joshua was you gave me the book to read on the iOS as well, but you also gave me a book called The Go Giver. And just this morning I finished The Go-Giver Influencer. Okay, so I get the other two books, but those are some amazing books. And I don’t know, I think we all kind of share the kind of personality of what that book is talking about. But give somebody who’s listening, who might be a business owner that’s listening to the show right now, some just a nugget about possibly even just looking at starting a business maybe, or if they’re brand new. Can you give them just a little bit of advice?

Joshua Kornistksy : Well, always. I always have something to say. Whether or not its value is up to the listener. At the end of the day, it becomes impossible to read about push ups to make your arms bigger. It becomes impossible to watch a show about being on a diet. To lose weight. You actually have to just start. And as silly as that sounds, small businesses, large businesses, they become paralyzed because they the expression that sums it up best is, is that perfection is the enemy of progress. You’re not going to get it perfect the first time out. I don’t care who you are. So if you’re beginning a business, if you’ve been in business and you’re trying to advance things forward, you have to take the chance and you’ve got to actually step in and start. So if you’re thinking about starting a business, you’ll stay in that mode forever unless you put your foot out the door. So that would be it. My my advice to anybody that’s considering it is you’ve got to go get in the water.

Brian Pruett: So we’ll get to how people can get a hold of you here in a little bit. But also, I want to ask you, what’s it look like on so you go in and talk with a business and they become a client. Right. For for you. Can you walk us through what it looks like for you working with a client?

Joshua Kornistksy : Sure. One of the things that drew me to becoming an implementer is that we are 100% upfront and transparent. We don’t use any type of contract. We engage based on a proven process where we start with a 90 minute meeting that has no cost to it. And we explain at a high level what iOS is and how it functions and what it requires. There’s no commitment from that point forward other than the mental understanding that you have committed and your leadership team has committed to move forward from there. We start with what we call a focus day, where we really drill down and try to understand what it means to to to be a leader, what it means to understand your own business. And we break it down into individual segments. That’s a full day with my clients. At the end of that day, I asked to be paid a session fee if they didn’t receive value from the day I asked not to be paid. So it’s literally a money back guarantee where if my clients don’t receive value, they don’t pay me. 30 days later, we begin to really dig into the heart of iOS, which breaks down, if I may, quickly, into what we call the eight questions, which fill out a document called the Veto the Vision Traction Organizer. And it’s really and truly what are your core values? What is your core focus? What is your ten year target, your giant goal out there in the future? What’s your marketing plan? What’s your three year picture? What’s your one year plan? What are your rocks, your 90 day goals, and what are the issues that remain out there for you? And over the course of two full day sessions, separated by about 30 days with some homework and some additional learning, we work with the leadership team.

Joshua Kornistksy : They have the answers. I am the facilitator. The biggest, greatest expert on on anybody’s business is the business owners, not an outside third party. So I help steer the conversation. I help keep things on track. I make sure that everybody understands the concepts, but ultimately the product is coming out of the mouths of the people who run the business. At the end of that second vision building day, we really go straight into an execution mode where once a quarter I come in to facilitate a quarterly meeting and then we do a two day annual planning meeting. So the only time my clients incur a cost from me is on those session days or the quarterly or the two day annual. Otherwise, I’m free to engage. I don’t believe in nickel and diming my clients. On average, an US engagements about a two year engagement. But as I said, there’s no contract. So if if 90 days in, it doesn’t seem to be working and we can’t talk through how to make it work, they’re able to say, thanks very much and step away. Ideally, that’s not what happens. And I can tell you that a year and a half in, I’ve not had that happen yet, but I know for a fact that it does happen because that’s life and sometimes things change.

Brian Pruett: Are you do you work just specifically in certain parts of Atlanta or are you all over or.

Joshua Kornistksy : I’ve decided to really narrow my focus to Planet Earth. I actually have some folks in India that have talked about bringing me over because I had a long working relationship with them. But no, I’m really willing to travel anywhere. And there’s there’s about 685 US implementers around the world. So if they like me in particular and they’d like me to come, I’m always happy to. But I also have a broad network of people that have been trained the same way I have that I can refer within as well. Awesome.

Brian Pruett: Do you guys also do you yourself maybe offer like a one day where they can come in and sit down like a lunch and learn or anything like that?

Joshua Kornistksy : So the hardest thing in the world that you can do is get me to stop talking. I am always happy to to give that 90 minute overview to anybody, regardless of the size of their organization, just so that they have an understanding on it. I am. I have drill downs within different components, which I’m happy to talk about, but don’t want to turn this into any seminar, whether it’s got to do with issues related to people identifying, discussing and solving the issues of the organization, talking about a scorecard for the organization, understanding how to deal with process documentation, all very exciting topics that can put people to sleep. But if there is an identified need of your business, they are something you need to solve. I can do drill downs on any of those and I’m happy to. For anybody that wants to learn more about them.

Brian Pruett: Awesome. All right. So you talked about already about community. So why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Joshua Kornistksy : The only way I can answer that is we are literally all one race. We are all the human race, and we are all here to help one another. And every man in this room is my brother. And every woman out in the world is my sister. And I’ve got two daughters and three sisters and a brother and a mom and I would hope that people would be as kind to them as I try to be to the people I meet in the world. And that’s that’s it. It’s a utopian view, but I truly believe you get what you give. And if you put goodness into the world, goodness comes back.

Brian Pruett: You can tell, too. We talked on before the air. He’s a proud dad. He loves his daughter. So it’s awesome to see. All right. We talked about the Cardinal Business Club. You’ve started becoming you’ve taken over kind of the education piece of leading out in the education for that, but share some positive when you talk about networking all the time, too, on the show, but share a positive story about networking for you.

Joshua Kornistksy : So actually, I have one that came up yesterday, but I got to leave the names out of it for a couple of reasons. I have a good friend of mine who is who came into my life as the exterminator in my home, and we’ve become very good friends. He he’s the kind of guy that when he’s coming over for his professional life, we don’t need to be home. He can let himself in when he comes over with his wife and his child in in personal life. They’re family. We’re just very close. Cartersville Business Club, one of our members recently identified that they were looking for a sales manager. And I’m being intentionally vague out of respect for the parties involved that they were looking for a sales manager. And in that field I was able to connect him with them. They spent an hour on the phone last night and hopefully things will continue to move forward. One of the things that I actually learned from you, Brian, is to collect people and I mean that in a very positive way that that the more people that I meet, the more people I can help. And meeting you has changed my life. And I don’t say that because this is your show. I say that because I joke with people when I introduce them to you that I think you get notified every time a baby is born in Georgia because you add them to your Rolodex. In in 18 years, I feel certain you follow up with them.

Brian Pruett: You know, that might be a little difficult, but I appreciate that. Well, the other thing that’s kind of left for the networking is now I kind of encourage you to to join the Bartow Chamber, which I think has been good for you, but you’re also now going through leadership.

Joshua Kornistksy : Bartow I’m going through leadership.

Brian Pruett: Bartow Can you share about that?

Joshua Kornistksy : Well, so far we’ve only had the initial sessions. The next session is next week on the 13th. But I have through going through leadership Bartow, I have now met a number of the the alumni or alumni of of leadership. Bartow My mother won’t forgive me for getting that wrong. And the reality is it the program itself has touched a ton of lives. I’m thrilled just to be a part of it, to be able to engage with different people throughout the county. Because as wonderful as I find Cartersville Business Club for other people, the time doesn’t work or the day doesn’t work. So I’m getting to meet all sorts of other business people that I’ve not yet had the chance to meet. And, you know, probably the most impactful thing that’s happened is all of us shared during the evening of the opening session, shared what was considered to be an item of importance, but in reality it was representative of the item of importance. And I learned a great many things personally about this group of people that I had already spent the entire day with. And, you know, kind of like sitting down here. You just don’t know people until you sit down and spend time with them.

Brian Pruett: Right. Which I think is so important to do the one to ones. And when you’re out with networking, we talk about this, too, is because I was I was one of these guys when you first networked and what can I sell you? Here’s my card. Here’s my card. But it’s got to be about the other person and don’t sell you. You only sell yourself by listening to them. So. All right. So if somebody listening wants to get a hold of you and talk about your services, how can they do that?

Joshua Kornistksy : Well, the easiest way to get Ahold of me is actually with my cell phone number. It’s just six, seven, 84147696. I’m happy to share my email address, all my other information that you can post on your website. My last name is a little complicated. It’s gornitzky, so it’s J dot Gornitzky or night sky at EOS worldwide.com. And if you can get that without rewinding and playing that back, I’d be amazed. So call my cell phone. (678) 414-7696. If you go to 6784147696.com. Just because I tried to be creative it’ll take you to an event that I have going with some associates up in Chattanooga in October.

Brian Pruett: Well share about that.

Joshua Kornistksy : So EOS Worldwide is is working right now promoting what they call the strong six event. And that six that they’re referring to are the six key components of your business vision, getting everybody on the same page in the same direction, people getting the right people into the right seats. Um, data using real hard data rather than emotionally influenced data issues, understanding how to stand up your issues and knock them down process simply getting it documented and followed by everybody. And then ultimately traction, which is the discipline and accountability to execute on the other five. So this strong in six event, we are focusing each week on a different one of those key components. What we’re doing in October at the Naked River Brewing Company is we’re having a sort of late afternoon discussion where we’re going to go through all six of those key components and then give beer and food out. So it’s a good reason to go.

Brian Pruett: So if people wants to know more about that, can you share again the site that they can go and find out more about that? Sure.

Joshua Kornistksy : It’s just my cell phone number.com 6784147696.com. And while it’s important to note EOS really we know our target market which is businesses between 10 and 250 employees. We by no means limit ourselves to working with businesses only in that range. There are many companies that are smaller, many companies that are larger, but that’s the predominant area that we work in, because typically businesses below ten are so busy running their business, they don’t have the opportunity to actually work on their business. Doesn’t mean we can’t help them. Businesses that are over 250 usually have multiple divisions and EOS can be rolled out across them. The biggest right now that I’m aware of is a $1.4 billion company with 5000 employees in the US is going strong. Wow.

Brian Pruett: Awesome. Well, Joshua, thanks for sharing a little bit of your story and what you do. And don’t go anywhere. We’re not done. We’re moving on now to Mr. Daniel Cox from Goosehead Insurance. Daniel, thanks for being here this morning.

Daniel Cox: Yes, sir. Good to be here.

Brian Pruett: So I got to tell you that I like the only thing I like when I was growing up, I could give everybody’s phone number, right, and memorized it. But the cell phones don’t do that anymore. But I do like the fact that you can specialize ringtones. So when he calls me, it’s a goose honking because I know they’re calling, then he’s calling me. So that’s great. But share, please. Pleasure a little bit of your story and we’ll get into Goosehead here in just a little bit.

Daniel Cox: All right. Perfect. I’m going to try and make my voice sound as good as possible. I don’t have the energy of Darnell or the sultry, perfect pitch of Joshua over here. But yeah, so my background is, you know, I’m one of I’m actually just like Joshua. I’m one of one of five kids. I have three older sisters, a little brother. My dad was has always been a high school football coach. And so just from the time I was born, he was already a head coach. He was already doing his thing. And that has just been just a huge driving force for our family. You know, just growing up, always watching football. My dad was the biggest Bowden fan of all time and the only time we could stay up past our bedtime is if Florida State had the night game. So we were always hoping Florida State had the prime time game and we could watch Florida State play Miami or whatever. And so, you know, that was just a huge driving force for us. We all us kids were homeschooled, and I think that was actually a huge, huge piece of my development that when you look back and have some just perspective on that, it was just a huge, huge opportunity for me to to grow in unique ways. And so, yeah, that was a big part of our background.

Daniel Cox: My dad moved from there to do some ministry work and things like that. And so, you know, we helped with that for a bit as well in Dallas, Texas. And you know, sports was just always a huge part of what we were doing. And family obviously being homeschooled was basically everything, you know. And so, you know, that’s really just something that is so tightly knit in our whole family. And that kind of led into, I think, just a lot of just confidence in yourself. You know, when you grow up in a tight circle like that, you have obviously all the love and respect for your family as well. But you learn that it’s, you know, a lot of it is you’re going to figure out your own stuff, right? You have a tight circle and you just build that confidence in your self confidence in what you do and the confidence that you can do it may be a better. And so it’s funny. So out of the the five of us kids, you know, obviously my dad wasn’t a complete entrepreneur, but he was kind of his own boss in a way, right? He’s the head coach. He’s got his his staff and he’s he’s calling the shots, right, for the most part.

Daniel Cox: And so I think that really bled into us kids. Out of the five of us kids, three of us are entrepreneurs fully owning our own business, whether that’s to our detriment or not. We’ll see. But we definitely have the confidence that we can do it, or at least that we would like to be our own boss, right? Whether that that is what it is or not. And so I feel like a lot of that bled into that background and that kind of drove us to want to do things in a in a way that was better for us and better for other people. And so a lot of that kind of played together with us just being a tight, tight group family and kind of having that entrepreneurial spirit. Never really been able to figure out exactly how to put our finger on that, why that that is the case for three of us. Because again, my dad wasn’t truly an entrepreneur, but just kind of trickled down. Right. So that that all played into. Our background of wanting to serve people, wanting to help people. And we’re all kind of in, in a way in that kind of service mindset of like helping people. How can we help people in a way that is that is fruitful to them?

Brian Pruett: Well, so you take that to another level. I think in the insurance world, I mean, you and I first met, we had I had another company, we had a booth at an event. And you came up and started talking to us. And and, you know, a lot of the insurance folks, they’re always like, man, you know, I can save you money. Let me let me give you. And I never wanted to. I had a guy. Right. I was happy with him. But Daniel said, just let me at least quote you. Right. So I did. And he came back cheaper. And so I said, okay, you got it. But to Daniel’s, there’s a lot of great things about Daniel. But, you know, one one thing that I’ll share that’s kind of a testimony, too, is that I got notified that my insurance was going up and be well, actually, I think I did call him and he’s like, I was just getting ready to call you. So he had he had the phone getting ready to call me because my insurance was going up to see how else he could save me money. So I just appreciate you being proactive. Yeah. So so explain, first of all, why did you decide insurance?

Daniel Cox: Yeah, you know, it’s funny. So let me back up a little bit and I’ll figure out somehow how this happened. And it’s it’s divine intervention is what it is at the core of it. But it’s always funny. But, you know, when when I went to school at Georgia State, I went to Georgia State University. I was going in for just a business administration degree. I actually knew in my mind I want to own a business at some point. Had no idea what business that would be in any regard, not even a any sort of direction. But I just knew, okay, I want to get a business administration. I want to, you know, eventually own my own business. That was the goal. And so at the same time, while I was there, someone a couple of years ahead of me said, hey, if you put all of your extra classes, you have to take different business classes in different categories of the business school. They said if you put them all into marketing or all into accounting, finance, whatever, you can do another full degree for for extra classes. So it’ll take you one more semester. I said, Well, that sounds pretty good. I’m going to do that.

Daniel Cox: And so I jumped in. I did marketing because I just figured that if I own my own business, I need to know how to market it right? So maybe I should have done finance. It’d be a little bit better on the money side, who knows? No, but I jumped in, I did marketing. I was doing all of that, and no one told me until I was probably in my senior year. There was one professor that said, Hey, I’m going to give you guys a reality check real quick. Marketing is about 90% sales. 90% of you will get into sales whether you want to or not. And I said, Oh, I’m going to be the 10%. I’m not doing sales. It’s not it’s not for me. I’m not the it’s not my personality type. And so that’s I still was like, I’m not going to do that. And so I get out of school. First job, I get hired. It just sounds amazing. Of course, it’s like, oh, all these sports minded people, great working environment, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s a marketing full marketing. You’re just going to be marketing. It was door to door sales.

Brian Pruett: Yeah. That before?

Daniel Cox: Yep, yep, yep. So totally hook, line and sinker. Got me on that one. So I did that for maybe two months. Literally. I remember one day it was snowing as we walked around to these homes and we still were doing it. And I just. Couldn’t do it anymore. I remember this is a terrible story. I shouldn’t even. There was this one day we had to work one Saturday every month. This was like my last week, so I was fully checked out. I had to walk this neighborhood. So if since it was a small neighborhood, there was four of us in the van with our team lead and and he said, okay, Daniel, this is a pretty small neighborhood. I’m just going to drop you in this neighborhood. Just walk around the whole thing. And when you get back to the front, call me and I’ll come pick you up. And so I was like, okay. So I was like, All right, no one’s watching me. I found a big bush in the front of the neighborhood and went down there, set a timer on my phone for 45 minutes, and I took a nap. I was like, I’m just going, I’m not doing this. I’m done. I’m done. And so it’s terrible, awful. But but I did that and I was just like, sales is not for me. So I jumped out of sales, went and did something else. I actually bartended for three years while I was a JV soccer coach at Altoona. I was just like, I’m just going to go in a different direction. I love soccer.

Daniel Cox: I wanted to coach. I kind of that same, you know, go towards what my dad was doing perspective. And he was doing that for a while. And then I met this girl and she was amazing. And I was like, I’m definitely going to marry this girl. And her mom’s got a strong personality. And she said, okay, let’s sit down. So we sat down. She said, You can marry my daughter. I like you. You’re awesome. You know, we want you to be a part of the family, but you’re not going to marry my daughter while you work at a bar. So she said, go do this interview with this guy. She said, You may not think the job sounds good. Whatever. He’s an awesome guy. You should just sit down with him and see what he has to say. I said, All right, fine. I’ll sit down with him. And it was at State Farm and it was sales at State Farm. And actually in college I had had a small internship at State Farm where it wasn’t actually sales. It was kind of inside work, like office work, which wasn’t that bad because I wasn’t actually doing sales. And I just sat there and I was like, you know, I just really don’t want to do sales. But I was like, I really want to marry this girl. And so let’s give it a shot and we’ll see how it goes. And two, three months in, I was like, I’m going to quit. I’m definitely going to quit. I hated it again, just like sales was not my thing.

Daniel Cox: But then I finally one day it just clicked. There was this great I won’t go into the whole story, but I just had this great interaction with this lady where she really needed some help. And insurance can definitely be that situation where you can really get somebody out of some some crap. And so, you know, it just went amazing. I was able to really help her. We got her into a great situation and she was crying on the phone and it was just like one of those things, okay, this isn’t sales. This is helping people in a way that can be really, really impactful. And you can do it way better than other people can do it. And I said, okay, all right, I’m on board. I’m on board with this. And, you know, like I said, it took some divine intervention there to get me to that point. But I think it’s cool to listen to Darnell’s story and Joshua’s story first, because none of us are reinventing the wheel, but we’re finding a way to do something better than somebody else does it, whether that be through advancements, whether it be through just Darnell’s just does everything to just a degree that is so professional and so crisp and clean and really, really nice. You know, it’s different ways that we all do it, but we, we all just found a way that we could do a process that’s been around for forever better than other people are doing it. And so I think that’s really cool that it resonates with all three of us that way.

Brian Pruett: So everybody’s actually in sales, whether they say they’re sales or not, because you’re selling yourself anyway on anything you do. So so my story, I spent six months doing the door to door and first I started off doing the the business to business, door to door, which wasn’t as bad as the the residential and the office was in Buckhead. And they actually literally taught you that if you got to the point where you’re a trainer, right, and you bring the people that come in for an interview that your interview was you actually going into the field and then they taught you that if you see or the person tells you, Man, this isn’t for me, you don’t take him back, you leave them where they are and they got to get a cab and come back home. I’m not doing.

Speaker7: That.

Brian Pruett: So the guy who owned that particular office was originally from Canada and Thanksgiving that year he went home to go for Thanksgiving and then couldn’t get back into the country because his green card had expired. So they decided to close that office and put us all into the residential with this other young man. And now imagine this, right? So we’re all dressed in suits, right? Going door to door. And he gives us this white jacket to go over our suit jacket with a yellow smiley face right on your left side of your chest. And I said to him, I said, if I open the door and I’m dressed like that, I’m going to ask you what court I’m from. Anyway, that was just. But yes. And that that can give you a lot of that can teach you a lot of things. So but you are very strongly passionate about helping others. Not just insurance, though, because you you’ve been in groups, you start groups, and you’ve also said in those groups, you know, if you need some prayer, you know, you’ll be glad to pray for somebody you’ve supported and come to trivia nights. You’ve even started doing a little sometimes like Joshua does and buying a ticket if you can’t come. Darnell’s done that a couple of times as well. So I appreciate that. And. So so just tell us to why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Daniel Cox: It’s in our it’s in our DNA. I mean, it’s just like so clearly set by God that we are just supposed to be communicating with people, with those people. It goes it boils down to family. Very similar to what Joshua said. You know, it’s more than just your direct blood family. Everyone is your brother or sister, right? And so you should have them in mind in everything that you do. When I started this business, I wanted to just be able to help people in a unique way that was going to be more than just insurance, right? You know, if somebody has a fire at their house, I want to go to their house and help pull things out if I need to. Right. I want to be there. I want to help them. And I think that’s the way that Christ has orchestrated our lives. You know, he made us that way. Our bodies kind of crave that. You know, Darnell was talking about that, too. You need that community for for guys and girls or whoever just to be able to understand that there’s those people there for you. And it it does something to you just to be with them. You know, I could I woke up with definitely more negative energy than some of the time that I’ve just spent in this room with you guys, you know, getting that positive energy. And so for me, community is just clear. It’s it’s what God wants us to do.

Daniel Cox: It’s how he wants us to thrive as a as a human race. And so it’s important that we build into each other. And all of you have already talked about it, but Cartersville Business Club is perfectly that. That was why I wanted to get into the community. Cartersville Business Club was directly and I have you to thank for being a part of that group after meeting you at Bucking Goat. But, uh, Cartersville Business Club is perfectly that example where no one in there is just there. And if they are, they don’t stay long for their own gain. Everyone is in that room to help one another. Everyone is there to encourage one another. And I that’s what I want to do too. I don’t I don’t care if I ever help you with insurance. If I do, that’s great. I would love to. I think I do do that better than a lot of other people. It’s an industry that’s been around a really long time and it could use a little shakeup. And I think what Goosehead does is awesome in doing that. But back to what you said. Yes, I want to encourage if all I ever do for you is pray for you, I think that’s powerful and should be too. So I want someone to be able to do that for me too, you know? And so I think that’s that’s the big thing in the community for me, just building up.

Brian Pruett: That again, You mentioned about the Cartersville Business Club and getting all of us are there there. But you and I, we obviously met at a networking group before that. So you’ve networked before, but share a positive story about networking, if you don’t mind.

Daniel Cox: I don’t have like a direct one, I think. What is so great about networking is, like I said, when you’re going through those tough times and you really just don’t even want to do it, it is that powerful force in your in your soul. You know, you need that. It encourages you to build you up. It gets you back towards it, even directly directs you straight back to God, you know, in that, you know, you see other people doing what you want to do. Darnell’s talking about evangelizing at jail, at a jail or prison or whatever, or on the street. And I’m like, Man, I need to be doing that too, right? So it’s those perfect reminders that you need of the community, of of it’s all positive. It’s all positive. There’s so many good things and there’s so many stories that people bring up. And I wish I had one right now. But there’s these scenarios where you don’t know that you helped somebody, but you know, but you did. They will go tell a story about you. And and that could be an impactful story for the rest of their life. Or it could just be something that they needed for that one day, but you’ll never know it. But that is such a big return that you can give. And sometimes God reminds me of that.

Brian Pruett: I’ll share one for you then. Sure. So our buddy Ben Hanks, that kind of helps run the Cartersville Business Club shared with me that he was looking for some insurance for a friend, and they were actually down in Florida. And while you weren’t. Down there. Licensed down there or the case may be you actually took the time. You found you had a goosehead insurance person down there and you took the time to connect them and got and got it all taken care of. So that’s just another testament to you. So yeah, that.

Daniel Cox: Was a tricky one actually. They had kind of a weird roof situation and we had to that took about two weeks, but I was happy to help him. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: You know, so. Well, you like actually all of us sitting at this table. The three of you particularly are proud of Papa have a daughter, right? Seven months old, you said? Yep. You want to share about her?

Daniel Cox: Oh, man, She’s incredible. Eloise is her name. Yeah. Seven months old. Kind of a great blessing. She was in the NICU for five days when she was born. That’s obviously a bit of a shake up, especially with your first child. But that was, you know, God was with us through all of that, and it was great. And my wife is a rock star, absolute rock star. She does most all the hard lifting on that. And she allows me to, you know, keep this business rolling with me being the CFO and CEO and everything else on top. And so, yeah, I mean, she is awesome. She’s so funny. She I’m hoping she will be the next Alex Morgan of the soccer world when she becomes about 20 years old. So that’s the goal right now. We’re trying to get her get her on her feet and get her running around as soon as possible. So, yeah, she’s she’s awesome, man.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Father fatherhood, $1 billion deal with Saudi Arabia.

Speaker7: Exactly.

Daniel Cox: Exactly. Yeah. Go play over there. I’ll have to go with her. But yeah, no, but back towards just our relationship with God. I think when you become a father, it just becomes so clear, you know, how much that’s what we were meant to do. And you have that love for your daughter. You realize God has that much love, way more love than that for you even, which seems impossible. But it’s just it really strengthens everything in your life when you when you become a father. It’s just I think it’s what we’re supposed to do and it is the most rewarding job in the world.

Brian Pruett: Awesome. So we’re going back to Goosehead just for a second. So it’s a brokerage, right? Yep. Insurance brokerage. Can you explain what that means?

Daniel Cox: Yeah. So, um, any, any, any insurance company that allows you to sell for multiple companies? There is what’s called a captive insurance agency where you can only sell for one company any of those that are not that and allow you to be an independent agent for them. I try to sell for them in all of Georgia and Alabama. I also have partners, like you said, in every state in the United States. And so I can help you get a spot wherever you’re at. I actually, by the time whoever is listening listens to this, I’ll probably be in South Carolina as well, just trying to help other people in different areas. But yeah, so I have 60 home auto and life insurance companies. And so like in your example, we had you with one company. The next year they went up a couple hundred bucks. I switched you to another company that just had a better rate than they had a year ago. And so that’s one of the things I love when I was working at State Farm, if prices went up, I just kind of had to say, Sorry, I hope you still like me. You know, it was just kind of I didn’t feel like I could help them. And that’s that’s nothing against State Farm. I like them as a company. I just I like being able to help people as much as possible. So if prices go up and I’m hearing somebody say on the phone, man, this isn’t in my budget anymore, I’m.

Speaker8: On a fixed income, you.

Know, all the different scenarios, I want to be able to help them in every way possible. So I’m actually working through another one. Like like Ben said, right now I don’t have a company that’ll take on this client, but I’ve I’ve called every captive agency, state farm, American family, farmers, whoever else to try to get this lady a good policy. And I always like to like I said, I just want to help people in every way possible. So, yeah, that’s what Goosehead does. They always take on new partners. If there’s a new company in Georgia, they try to get get us a partnership with them so we can sell for all those companies and, and just give everybody the most options, right? That goes back to what we talked about at Castle Business Club. And I think Bob Brooks kind of initially started the whole collaboration over competition. And, you know, I’ve heard multiple stories of you sharing with other insurance agents in the room because one can do something that another can’t. So yeah. Do you mind? Is there some maybe especially right now, there’s a lot of turbulence going on in the insurance world. Can you maybe share a little bit of advice for some just a piece of a nugget of insurance for somebody? Oh, there’s a lot.

Daniel Cox: More important than ever. It is vital that you don’t have any gap, even if it’s for one day. It used to be that you could easily, if you were between car insurance companies and you were like, I’m not going to stay with this one. I’m going to switch to this one in a couple of days. You know, you could leave it for a day and it wouldn’t be a big deal. Currently in the market, almost impossible. If it’s not, it’s not impossible. Never mind. I’ll take that back. But it is very difficult and it’s very much surcharged after that. So it seems simple, but never, ever let there be even a single day gap. A couple hours gap. Whatever there is because of the guidelines are so, so tight on that. I would say it’s annoying, but try to get like text notifications or something for your insurance company so that it’s very clear that you don’t miss any communication. More than ever, they are reaching out midterm every other month. They like to update things pretty quickly. They like to double check things. It’s it’s pretty annoying. Not gonna lie, but that’s my job. I’m the broker. I’m supposed to tell you what these insurance companies want and so these are the things that they’re wanting right now is make sure that you’re getting all communication from them, wherever that comes from, mail, email, text, make sure you’re reading those, and then just never do not let there be a gap of insurance because you’ll pay for it.

Brian Pruett: Can you share how you can how that works as far as the gap is concerned? So how can somebody I’m assuming so when you talk about a gap so like you just mentioned with a car, if I sold a car, went to another car, and you want you don’t need to have a day like you said or even a couple of hours. But how can that work if you do, are buying a car and or sold a car. How easy is it to to get somebody on the phone, talk to them and get the where there’s not a gap.

Daniel Cox: Uh.

Brian Pruett: How can somebody how can somebody like make sure there’s not a gap? Yeah.

Daniel Cox: So I just had a scenario like that. They were selling a car. They weren’t getting another car for five days. They were like, Hey, I’m just going to cancel it now because I’m going to have a gap for five days. If they had done that, the insurance companies don’t actually care that they’re like, Oh, you don’t have a car right now. You still need to show continuous insurance because there’s huge discounts for it, basically. And so I told them, Hey, I know you don’t have this car anymore, but it’s going to be worth it for you to keep it for five more days. Just keep the insurance active. I know you don’t have the car. Keep the insurance for five more days. As soon as you get the other car, we’ll just replace this car with that car on your policy. Because that’s the other thing, too. Like continuous insurance discounts are huge. Very huge. So if you have continuous insurance with no gap of any kind for 4 or 5, six years, those are big discounts. So does that answer your question?

Speaker7: It does, yeah.

Daniel Cox: Thank you. You’ve just got to make sure like just keep keep an active policy. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: All right. So being an entrepreneur yourself, share a little bit advice of somebody who wants to start a business. What do they need to do?

Daniel Cox: Don’t do it.

Speaker7: No, I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.

Daniel Cox: I think all of us would probably somewhat resonate with that. No, it’s it’s it’s tough. I would say bet on yourself. Bet on yourself. Joshua and I were talking about this before the show started, but a lot of people are going to give you advice, but their advice works for them and it may not work for you. Humans have pretty different personalities, if you haven’t noticed. And so whatever is a good structure for you is you have to trust yourself and know that it’s a good structure for you. At the same time, though, take advice. Don’t take it all as just criticism and brush it off. There is definitely smarter people than you out there. I try to, you know, grab as much knowledge from everyone as possible, but just bet on yourself when you go into it. Make sure you know that you can do what you’re going to do and just push through. There’s going to be tough, tough, tough days. I mean, it’s going to be days where you just do not want to do it, maybe even weeks or months. But yeah, just always bet on yourself. Confidence in yourself is key. And you can always you can always have help. You can always have help wherever that comes from. Like I said, bet on yourself. Don’t always take everybody’s advice because that may just be advice that works for them. But like you said, back to the community piece, people are there to help you. They want to help you and so be able to to accept that too. There’s a weird balance between having an ego and having too much of an ego or having too little of an ego. You got to kind of really find that balance of I’m betting on myself, but also I’m going to allow myself to get help.

Brian Pruett: Well, like you mentioned this morning, it was one of those mornings where I was it was very just a weird morning for me. And until we got in here and started the positive vibe and everything. And because, first of all, I love doing the show on Fridays. But you’re right, there are times where you’re going to be ups and downs. And I was one of those downs mornings this morning too. So I’m going to move back over for Darnell because I have two more questions. Um, like we mentioned, you’re a proud papa. You mentioned about your daughter, but she’s become an entrepreneur now, too, right?

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Yeah. So, I mean, the whole time I was doing, like, the Christian rap and was me and my wife both were in leadership with churches and stuff like that. You know, my kids were always just, like, really nonchalant. Like they go to a Jack Rip concert, you know, they see me on stage and they’re just, you know, that’s just dad up there, you know, no big deal, you know? So when I told them that I was quitting, rapping and retiring from rapping, they were super upset, more upset than I would imagine they were. But the good thing is, like, it seems like after that, that’s when my daughter started getting on fire for God and everything. So now she wants to be a evangelist and she wants to be like a professional speaker for Christ. And everything. So she started her own podcast, The Way of the Light with Carla monte. She’s been volunteering and going to speak out at an FCA at different schools, and she actually just got booked to do her her first paid conference where they’re paying her, which is really dope at 20 years old. And yeah, but she started her own social media marketing management company. So she, she actually negotiated her own deal with her orthodontist and got her braces in exchange for her doing social media management. That’s awesome. So yeah, so I’m super excited and amped up about her. And then, you know, my son, he’s 23. He, you know, he’s, he’s trying to do everything that I didn’t do. But at the same time he actually just went and he just got a job as a project manager at a real estate development firm. So he’s learning how like hands on how to, you know, do construction with houses and, you know, all that type of renovation stuff. So I’m proud of both of them for, you know, doing what they I wish they would it would have snapped a little bit earlier. But, you know, everybody has their own walk in their own time. Yeah, but you know, at least they’re both moving in the path they need to.

Brian Pruett: Awesome. Well, so I would like for you to share some advice about being an entrepreneur because you left a job at Georgia Power, like you mentioned. I’m sure you had great benefits and all that stuff as well. So maybe give some advice. Being an entrepreneur, man.

Darnell Jackson Jr.: Just like what Daniel said, just believing in yourself and just, you know, having that confidence. Because I’ll tell people like, you know, I have very, you know, you have stressful days being an entrepreneur, but I’d rather be stressed out with me being in control instead of being stressed out at a job that I absolutely did not enjoy being at. You know, having to deal with challenging personalities. You know, I turned down, you know, even though I might need the money some weeks and stuff, I’ll refund somebody in a minute if I feel like it’s going to be too too much of a burden on my spirit or too trying of a project and everything, I’ll refund the money. But man, find a business mentor. I tell people all the time, like finding a mentor is like a cheat code to life and everything. And I have many mentors. I have some that’s younger than me. I. Have something that’s older. And I just you know, I just recently connected with somebody at CBC who’s kind of like taken me up under his wing and he’s where I want to be, you know what I’m saying? As far as like, you know, success. And I’ve been just listening to all of the tips that he’s been giving me and the advice he’s given me. And, you know, yesterday he was the one who made me come out to the servants lunch and, you know, the public servants lunch and everything. And I was tired. I wasn’t really trying to get out there, but I’m glad that I did go out there. I met a lot of people, you know, just giving back to the community. And I passed out a lot of business cards and stuff. People was really interested in what I had going on. So, you know, he was right again, So. Right. Yeah. So be willing be be willing to be teachable.

Brian Pruett: Awesome. All right. Stone, You say you something to learn every something every Friday. What’d you learn this morning?

Stone Payton: This morning, I’ve learned that Joshua is everything I thought he was. And now I’ve met two other gentlemen that are just incredible. I love Friday mornings. You talk about lifting Spirit, and I don’t have any responsibility. I don’t have to have questions that I’m going to ask, but I get to ask them. One thing I didn’t mention about Joshua, I want you to know I’ve almost finished smart brevity he gave me. He’s always I never see Joshua without him giving me something, you know? Yeah, but no, these are just good. I loved it, man. Thanks for letting me be a part of it.

Brian Pruett: Well, thanks for. Thanks for giving for the platform. All right, so as we wrap this up, I always like to do this. I always like to finish the show off with each of you sharing one quote, one word, one positive nugget for people listening today, the rest of 20, 23 and beyond. Well, so, Darnell, what you got?

Darnell Jackson Jr.: If you’re not being a great example, you’re being a horrible one. Oh.

Brian Pruett: Joshua. Wow.

Joshua Kornistksy : So this is something I learned from someone much smarter than than I am. They simply said that time is our our only inventory, right? So before you’re going to exhaust your inventory, make sure it’s a good use of it.

Brian Pruett: Nice, Daniel.

Daniel Cox: I always go back to this verse from Proverbs. Be slow to speak, slow to get angry, quick to listen.

Brian Pruett: Awesome. Well, the other thing that’s a lost art these days, too, as the. Thank you. So, Darnell, thanks for what you’re doing for the community and Jackson Park. Joshua, thanks for what you’re doing for the business owners and trying to get them to where they need to be. And Daniel, thanks for all that you do for people and whether with insurance or not. So just thanks for being part of the community. So everybody listening out there, let’s remember, let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.