Meena Lahku with 52 Beginnings and Holly Payton with IBM

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

Brian Pruett: [00:00:45] Good, fabulous Friday morning. It’s another fabulous Friday, and we’ve got two fabulous guests here this morning. We’re supposed to have three, but our other guest is sick with a stomach bug, so we’ll get her back on here. But again, we’ve got two fabulous guests. And if this is your first time listening to Charitable Georgia, this is all about positive things happening in the community. So we are going to get started with Meena Lahku. I say it right. That’s right. Awesome. I get brownie points for doing it right. So you’re with 52 Compassionate Hearts as well as Best Version Media. So we’ll get into all that in just a second. But you’ve got a pretty cool backstory and it leads into your passion of what you’re doing. So if you don’t mind, just share your story with us.

Meena Lahku: [00:01:23] Okay, well, that’s. How much time do we have?

Brian Pruett: [00:01:27] I’ve got till 5:00. I don’t know about Holly, but.

Meena Lahku: [00:01:30] Okay, well, where should I start? I mean, you’ve heard the story, so it could. It could? Well, just.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:38] Our listeners don’t know anything about you, so just give a little bit about your background, and then while you’re doing well, we’ll talk about 52 Compassionate Arts in the magazine. But there’s a reason why you’ve started both of those. But so share just a little bit of share as much as you want to. Because like I tell people all the time, you don’t know who’s listening, who might need to hear your story.

Meena Lahku: [00:01:54] Right? Okay. Well, so there’s definitely a significance behind the name 52 beginnings. And just to kind of back up a little bit, you know, I guess the story started of the main part of it started. I’ll say like in 2019 and basically decided to start a business of my own with somebody that I was engaged to at the time. And, you know, things didn’t go as we had planned, so that relationship didn’t work out. It wasn’t a very positive relationship, to say the least. And, you know, I kind of came to a point where I had to make some decisions and decided to to to leave that opportunity. Although I loved the environment, the place that I was in, the type of work which was more in hospitality, it was a bed and breakfast, a a historic home that was transported up to the North Georgia mountains. There was an event venue seated 200 people. It was just a gorgeous, gorgeous property and I loved it up there. But it was also a toxic personal environment. Somewhat, I hate to say it, but somewhat of an abusive relationship that I had, I had to get out of. So I made that decision in 2020 to just leave and cut my losses. And whatever happens, happens. And chips kind of fall where they may. And so that happened in March of 2020, and we all know what happened that month as well. So, you know, just as things would have it, that particular week that I left, Covid was not as big of a deal.

Meena Lahku: [00:04:09] People were talking about it, but it wasn’t like there wasn’t a lockdown or anything like that. We had just had some guests from China and directly flew in from China. There was a international boarding school located next to us, so they just had flown in. My daughter wasn’t feeling well and so I did not go visit my dad and. You know, for obvious reasons. And so I left that week, and later on that week my dad passed away. And that same within a like the day before that. That was a Saturday. So like on Friday the world decided to shut down. And so timing like everything was just awful, awful, awful. Like when it rains it pours type of thing. You know, we had to have the funeral at home. It was just nobody knew what anybody else was doing. It was just a bad time. So basically from there, just, you know, we were all at home. I went to real estate school online because what else can I do? And my heart wasn’t really in it. I really that’s not what I wanted to pursue, but I knew what I didn’t want was to go back to work for somebody else on somebody else’s time and money and work every weekend, work at nights, and miss the summers and miss the holidays and all of that.

Meena Lahku: [00:05:38] So, um, and I and if I didn’t mention this, I’m a single mom. I have three kids, so that in itself is a challenge. Anyhow, long story short, I was blessed enough to have the opportunity within that next couple of years after that to be able to take my mom, to go visit family and able to take care of her while she had knee replacement surgery. Things of that nature. Um. When it came to a point where, okay, I need to, you know, figure out what I’m going to do next. Uh, you know, I took odd jobs in between. And one of them was to basically, you know, help a person that I considered a good friend of mine at the time, we had known each other for ten years, somebody I trusted, somebody who I laughed and cried with, like, everything. And basically that ended up into another bad situation where basically I just did not get paid for about nine months worth of work and it just wasn’t good. And just to kind of make things right, I won’t get into big, big long story, but to make things right, I. I pretty much demanded that. I guess things be put in a manner that that they should have been in, in terms of payments. So I started an LLC and I was 51 at that time, and I was on the verge of turning 52. And I’ve always been the same person I am today, which I’ve always had a positive outlook in life, and everything happens for a reason.

Meena Lahku: [00:07:32] I don’t know why all of this has happened, but something good is going to come out of it. I don’t know what it is, but something good is going to happen. I was about to turn 52 and I just went with 52 beginnings, knowing that there was a bigger, brighter future ahead. So that’s where 52 beginnings comes from. And, you know, moving forward from that is when I connected with Best Version media and it just aligned with every single. Way my brain thinks and feels about the community, about being compassionate, about being having a fun, loving spirit. A professional will and a compassionate heart. Those are the three pillars that they stand by. Almost so good that I kind of didn’t believe it. You know, I was like, oh, this is way too good to be true, right? So anyways, that’s that’s where that comes from. And I, you know, moving on with that, I basically turned it into 52. 52. 52 beginnings local media, which has with the print and digital publication in the town lake area, there’s about 42 publications now in the Georgia area. Most of those are in the Atlanta area. So, you know, with that, it goes into another big long story. I don’t know how much you want to hear, Brian. You like opened up a. That’s right.

Brian Pruett: [00:09:17] The people tell me I do that all the time. So well a couple of questions. So first of all, we had one of your cohorts on here, Caitlin Thomas, who’s doing the Cartersville Living from Virgin Media over there. So and she’s got the same kind of heart. So my first question is going through what you did, especially with somebody you thought was a friend and, and then dealing the stuff with your dad and all that. A lot of people might have shut down at the time and said, you know what? Community is not there. It’s just it’s terrible. It sucks. Whatever the case may be, you decided to turn that around and keep going and push through and you have a heart for community. So why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Meena Lahku: [00:09:56] I just have faith in people. So, you know, there were so many times that people told me, you’re just too nice. You’re too nice, and that’s why this happens to you. I’m like, I just. Yeah, that’s great and everything, but I’m not going to change the way I am. I mean, I like who I am, I like being nice, I like being compassionate, I like helping people, and I believe that there’s other people that feel the same way. So why why become something that is so unnatural and something that I don’t want to be, you know, just to get further in life monetarily. You know, that’s I don’t I just don’t personally believe. That’s right. So I believe that there is a community out there of people which I have seen in the Cherokee County area that do have a compassionate heart, that that that do look out for each other.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:53] Which, you know, there’s a there’s a lot of pockets out there of these types of community from Cherokee and Bartow. You know, Cobb, you know, and I sit down and talk to people every day and learn their stories. And that’s what birthed Charitable Georgia, because there’s a lot of great stories out there, and that’s what needs to be heard. Not all this negativity and scare tactics that the mainstream media puts out. So it’s just great to I mean, you do so much for the community. I mean, you you’ve even turned your backyard into an event facility, which you just had an event. So you kind of focus right now on working with people with the brain, brain injuries, brain tumors, all the above. We share about that.

Meena Lahku: [00:11:30] Sure. So. When it came to my first publication, I had one full page that was generously donated by a corporate sponsor who didn’t need the space he just donated. You know, the the cost of it. And so I needed to put something on that page, and I wanted to give it back to a cause. And so upon doing some research, I found out that this was in the month of July. And so I found out that July 19th is Glioblastoma Awareness Day. It was the fifth year that it’s been nationally recognized. I was dumbfounded and like that. I didn’t even know that that existed because my brother passed away of a glioblastoma. And so the moment I saw that, I knew that that was it. I knew that I had to do something to bring awareness to that day and to to all the different types of brain cancers that are out there, because there is such little research that has been done in such little progression in decades with treatments and things. So, you know, basically what ended up happening was I had a friend of mine, do, you know, kind of get the information together. He’s a retired physician. I figured he’d be the best person to, you know, get all this together for me. And things didn’t quite pan out. And I stayed up the night before my deadline thinking, oh my gosh, what am I going to put on this page? I don’t know what I can do, what I can’t do.

Meena Lahku: [00:13:17] I’ve never done this before and ended up connecting with someone at the National Brain Tumor Society almost, almost by accident. We both almost thought it was the wrong number and hung up, but ended up spending probably an hour and a half or so on the phone with her. She. The night before, while I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with this page, I my wheels just started turning and I like had all these ideas of, oh, I could do this, I could do this. And so when I was sharing that with her, she was like, we could totally do that and we will support you in that. And within a couple of hours, I was, you know, connected with their marketing department and we got that page together. We didn’t know exactly what we were going to do at that time, but we knew we were going to do something. So that’s how 52 Compassionate Hearts began. And it’s basically a year long fundraising effort that started on July 19th of this year. That will go on through July 19th of 2024. My goal is to to work with 52 compassionate hearted people or businesses and create these teams where we’re all supporting each other. We’re all supporting the communities, whether it’s the families or the businesses, that doesn’t matter. There’s a way that everybody can make it work and it doesn’t cost anybody any money, which is amazing. And and my goal is to raise $52,000 by that date.

Brian Pruett: [00:14:50] So you just said it doesn’t cost any money. Can you share more about what that looks like?

Meena Lahku: [00:14:54] Sure. So the way I’ve got it set up with the National Brain Tumor Society on the site is you can either donate money and just just do that and be done with it and no big deal. Or you can become a fund raiser where you can either join an existing team or you can create your own team. So if you either want is fine, if you create your own team and neither one of those options cost any money, it’s just a way of you to be able to participate. But with that, if you create your own team, you get your own web page where you can customize and, you know, put in your if you’re a business, put in your business logo. If you’re an individual, you could, you know, if you want to do it as a family incentive for the kids or, you know, use it personally, just, you know, you can customize it however you want and do a fundraising campaign on your own or not. Just do it like if you want to lose weight, if you set up a goal to every time I lose a pound, I’m going to donate a dollar, you know, set it up however you want. It doesn’t matter. It just matters that everybody participates in one way or another. And at the end of the year, if we all do it, then I don’t think getting $52,000, I know it won’t be a problem.

Brian Pruett: [00:16:14] So share right now, if somebody is listening and says, I want to be a part of that, how can they do that? How can they get a hold of you or go build their team, or what they need to do.

Meena Lahku: [00:16:21] So they can connect with me on? Well, there’s a couple of ways. I think the easiest way would be, well, there’s Facebook, you can look me up on Facebook or you can go to 52 beginnings.com. And you know, that’s my website. And you can you can find it on there as well. There is a link but it’s kind of long. So yeah I’m not going to say that right now, but.

Brian Pruett: [00:16:49] Just reach out to her the way she said. And you can get more information on that as well. So. Right. All right. So let’s talk a little bit more about the magazine. So what’s the name of the magazine that you currently have.

Meena Lahku: [00:16:57] Neighbors of Town Lake. All right.

Brian Pruett: [00:16:58] So it goes actually just to the town Lake area. Yeah. And is that directly mailed to the homes?

Meena Lahku: [00:17:04] It’s mailed directly to the homes. And it goes to the communities in that area they do not subscribe to. That they don’t, you know, they don’t pay for it. It just gets delivered right to their homes. It’s a private publication, so it’s not online or anywhere.

Brian Pruett: [00:17:20] And so how do you go about finding your stories for the magazine?

Meena Lahku: [00:17:24] Well, we ask for the community to submit them. So, you know, the magazine is the reason why the concept works so well. It’s a branding concept, and it works so well because the information in it is derived from the community. I’m not going around interviewing people or writing stories myself or my, you know, my content coordinator who’s fabulous. She does write the stories, but she writes them for the businesses that are sponsoring the publication. So everything is very local. All the pictures and all the content come directly from the community. Therefore, they’re going to flip through every page because they want to know, you know, if if their content got put into that particular edition or not.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:13] I think it’s funny, a lot of people talk these days that print is dead, but it’s kind of cool to see different, a lot of different community type magazines coming out at the time, because people do love still holding something in their hand, flipping the pages, reading it, looking at it. And when it comes to the community, especially a buddy of mine and I had a magazine a few years ago called Northwest Georgia Rising Stars, and it was all positive feature stories on the kids in the high schools in Bartow and Gordon counties, whether they played sports or not. And it was such a well received thing that I think people love, again, positive stories about the community. So if a businesses I’m assuming businesses, you talk about business sponsoring the magazine and it’s more or less them advertising. Correct.

Meena Lahku: [00:18:56] It’s advertising, but it also gives it also allows for the community to be able to submit that content. Right. So if a business is sponsoring, say, the pet page or the recipe page, then yes, half of it is like an ad of their own, which we also encourage them to make it more educational. Give people the reason why they should choose them. When there’s like a sea full of other businesses that do the exact same thing, why should they go to them? Right? So be a little bit more informative that way. But then the rest of the page is where the community can, you know, can submit their content and it gives them space as well.

Brian Pruett: [00:19:37] How often does the magazine is it mailed out? Is it once a month or.

Meena Lahku: [00:19:42] It’s every single month?

Brian Pruett: [00:19:43] Every single month. Yeah.

Meena Lahku: [00:19:44] And then the what we also do, which is really great, which no other company does, is we’ll take the the ads, I’ll just call them ads that are in the publication and reformat those according to the specs on Google, Facebook and Instagram and run those campaigns on those platforms as well. So they’re getting that many more impressions.

Brian Pruett: [00:20:07] So if a business is listening and wants to do that with your magazine and be a sponsor, how can they get a hold of you for that?

Meena Lahku: [00:20:13] Well, probably the same way. It would just be either through Facebook. You can find me there, you can find me through there’s a business web page. Business Facebook page that’s neighbors of Town Lake. They can that would probably be the easiest way to to look me up. Or they can look me up personally. Message me that way or go to the website.

Brian Pruett: [00:20:36] Another thing we talk about a lot on the show is networking. And I’ve seen pictures of you at networking events, so I know you network as well. So do you have a positive story you can share about networking and how it’s helped you?

Meena Lahku: [00:20:48] Um. Absolutely I think. Just just getting around like minded people that, you know, have the same goals and want to, you know, in all networking groups are different. You know, I kind of tend to, to, to go to the ones where I can make more of a personal connection and get to know people. So, yeah, it’s definitely something that I feel is very powerful and that can help everybody in every business and definitely support that. I think what I was trying to do with the event this past Friday was incorporate the 52 beginnings Compassionate Heart like, combine those efforts and create a networking opportunity that was more in the evening, as opposed to 730 in the morning, right when a lot of people can’t make it. So give them another opportunity. Give those business leaders another opportunity. And I think.

Brian Pruett: [00:21:56] It’s important to you that you mentioned about going and establishing the personal relationship side, because too many people make the mistake of going right into networking and trying to sell, and you can’t do that.

Meena Lahku: [00:22:07] Oh, yeah. Well, I kind of found that out the hard way because I had no idea how the whole networking thing worked. And yeah, I did do that. I thought that’s what we were supposed to do. And so I was actually kind of relieved to find out, no, that’s not what you do, because I wasn’t comfortable doing that in the first place. I’m more of a people person. I like to get to know people. I build relationships. If things happen, they happen great. If they don’t, no big deal either. We’re just trying to create an environment that helps everybody, you know, and it may not be for everybody. And that’s okay too, right?

Brian Pruett: [00:22:47] Which it’s kind of funny because nowadays I get more uncomfortable talking about myself than listening to about somebody. I’d rather sit down and learn about you than to talk about me all day long. So it’s definitely go in with the open mind and heart about learning and how you can help somebody else than yourself, and it’ll come back to you whether it’s immediate or not. It’ll come back to you. Absolutely. So a couple other questions for you. So first of all, the first question is other than networking, how do you get the word out about 52 beginnings 52 Compassionate Hearts. And then how do you get the word out about the magazine?

Meena Lahku: [00:23:20] Um. Well, social media is really big. That’s very helpful. So I’m not the best at that. I will admit it’s hasn’t been my thing, but that is definitely, you know, something that I’m working on is is putting more out there to. To get more awareness and for more people to participate and going to more events myself.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:55] So you’ve been on both sides of this too. So if somebody is listening first of all and is thinking about starting their own business, give them some advice on what to do. The other aspect is if somebody is listening wants to start a nonprofit, what advice for them?

Meena Lahku: [00:24:09] Well, starting with your own business, I would say definitely have a business plan and think it through thoroughly. You know what I see a lot of is people that are so passionate about doing whatever it is that they’re doing, whether they’re making something or it really doesn’t matter, but they’re really passionate about their business, but they haven’t thought about the whole business process. And that’s where I believe that businesses fail, because you can love baking cookies or whatever it is you know, or, you know, art or whatever, whatever your business is. But if you don’t have the business plan to support it and the budget to support it, then it’s going to be a rough road. And you know that that directly, I guess, relates to me when we’re talking about marketing, because a lot of people don’t have a marketing budget, and therefore they try to do a lot of it themselves, and then they end up doing so much of it themselves that they don’t have time to do the actual thing that they love to do in the first place. So. Well, and.

Brian Pruett: [00:25:22] That’s the first thing people cut to is the marketing budget. They do have it, which is the last thing. So you have to always to my, in my opinion, have a marketing budget because you can people say, well, I have too many clients, I have enough clients. You can never have enough or too many, right? What happens if that? Well dries up? You need to be constantly doing that. So share some advice on starting a nonprofit.

Meena Lahku: [00:25:44] Well, technically I’m not a nonprofit, you know, yet. It is something I am considering. And. You know, I would just say like, get really educate yourself, talk to other people who have been there, done that, not other people who are thinking about it. Right. And, you know, just educate yourself and make sure that that’s the avenue you want to go down. You know, there’s a lot of logistics behind it, a lot of there’s a lot to it. So it’s not that simple.

Brian Pruett: [00:26:23] And I’ve had several other people and non-profits on here that too, that also say that look at other people, other non-profits in the area who might be doing what you want to do and align yourself with them first and then, you know, go from there because you can always partner. Right, right. And be a part of something that’s already there. Don’t reinvent the wheel.

Meena Lahku: [00:26:40] Exactly, exactly. There’s no need to do that. Right?

Brian Pruett: [00:26:44] Right. You shared about your your year long fundraiser that you’re doing, but do you have any other events that are coming up or anything else you want to share that might be coming up you can let people know about?

Meena Lahku: [00:26:53] We have an educational event coming up in January, so we’re still working on the logistics of that, but that’s going to be our next one.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:01] And what kind of educational.

Meena Lahku: [00:27:03] It’s going to be more towards brain health and brain training. And we’re talking to some of the senior communities, local senior communities, about doing things that will help Alzheimer’s patients and dementia patients and things of that nature. So it’s going to be surrounded. You know, in that way. Okay.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:33] All right. So share one more time, either the website or the Facebook so people can follow up on that. And then again how they can connect with you.

Meena Lahku: [00:27:41] Sure. So they a website is 52 beginnings.com. And you can follow me or follow me on Facebook as well or Instagram. And it’s Meenaa. Meena Lahku. And the business page is neighbors of town.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:03] Like awesome. Meena, thanks for coming on and sharing a little bit of your story. Don’t go anywhere. We’re not technically not done with you, but thanks for coming on and sharing. We’re moving over now to miss Holly Payton, and I’m sure people have probably go, hey, I know that name. Well, her husband Stone is the one that owns the and runs the studio here. And when you hear her voice, you’ll say, I definitely know that voice because she does the intros and outros. But, Holly, thanks for being here this morning.

Holly Payton: [00:28:25] Thank you so much. I’m glad to be here.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:27] So you did something pretty incredible. Just what, a month and a half, two months ago you donated part of your body. So it’s kind of cool that when Stone shared it with me, it wasn’t somebody to directly. It was more of like a almost like a ring type thing. Can you share that? Sure.

Holly Payton: [00:28:45] Um, my best friend, Mary Guyer, we grew up in the Philadelphia area, and in February of 2021, she called to share with me that she had kidney disease. And at the end of the call, she asked, would it be okay if I sent you some information on on kidney donorship? I said, sure, and then she said, would you consider being a kidney donor? And I said yes. And so when Mary hung up the phone and she talked to her daughter Sarah. Sarah said, mom, you know, Holly’s going to have to talk to her family and a lot of people. So let’s not get too excited. And that was absolutely not the case. You introduced this by saying I did this incredible thing. People have reacted that way, and I feel like everybody in their life has somebody that they would do this for. Mary’s my son. Buddy. You know, I didn’t have to ask anybody else what they thought. Mary was my son, buddy. And the other thing I would say. If anyone is considering this. My friend Mary was challenged a little bit. She was disappointed that some of the people in her circle of friends and circle of influence didn’t jump at the chance, you know? And they said, oh, what if one of my children needs a kidney? I don’t think I can do this now.

Holly Payton: [00:30:33] And. I was raised that you pitch to the batter that’s at the plate. You don’t live your life. What if this. What if that? Mary was right in front of me. I had someone right in front of me that needed something. And it was something I could do something about. So. I contacted Emory University. Emory is the Emory University hospital. They are the hospital in the Atlanta area that has a kidney transplant program. And I was not a match for Mary. So what the. We went into the National Kidney Donor Registry and we were paired. So what that means is I’m not a match for her, but I’m donating on her behalf. And you. Let’s say you need a kidney. You, your person who wants to donate on your behalf isn’t a match. So my kidney goes to you and your person’s kidney goes to Mary. So they create a chain. And that chain can be a few people. It can be 25 and 30 people. So in a year and a half, nothing happened. By that I mean no chain was created. I was matched, but the chain. But Mary wasn’t. The chain never formed, or Mary was matched, but I wasn’t matched, and the chain never formed.

Holly Payton: [00:32:04] So we were both educated, Mary and I, from her coordinator in the Philadelphia area. Mine down here, that it would go faster for Mary if I would donate. If we would decouple, we wouldn’t be paired anymore in the National Kidney Donor Registry. And I would donate and go into the voucher program. And what? So on September the 5th, I went into have kidney donor surgery at Emory Hospital, and the next day my voucher went to Mary that someone has donated on her behalf. So she was active now in the National Kidney Donor Registry, and she’s just waiting for a match. So it you never know when that will happen, but her odds are much better now because we don’t have to pair two people, just her. And I feel in my heart of hearts that this will happen for her this fall sometime. She’s not on dialysis yet, but getting closer in the best of all possible worlds. She would get a kidney transplant before she goes on dialysis, but if that’s not the case, that’s not a problem. You can be on dialysis and stay healthy while you wait for your your kidney transplant.

Brian Pruett: [00:33:37] So with that is you mentioned the voucher part and stuff. So I guess is that part of still being I guess you’re on the list. The waiting list, like Mary is on a waiting list of certain, you know, when somebody gets one and then she moves up. Is that the way it works? Yes.

Holly Payton: [00:33:52] So in the National Kidney Donor Registry, the way it works is someone gives a kidney and you get you don’t just get. There has to be someone who is giving on your behalf. And either I give directly to you or I give it in a chain, or I give it and you get the voucher and and you will get. So I went was active in the voucher program probably in July. And in mid-August I got the call that I was a match, and it was a chain of about six people. And so I can’t know who my kidney went to or where it went. I have a feeling it got on a plane, because my surgery was at 6 a.m. and the recipient’s surgery was that evening. So I think it went on a plane. But the next day I learned that it was very successful and that the kidney was fully functioning in someone else on the operating table. So which was very cool.

Brian Pruett: [00:35:10] That’s awesome. So but you mentioned that you you can’t know is that obviously in Hollywood they can do what they want to, but you see things where people they meet their donors and stuff like that. Yes.

Holly Payton: [00:35:20] I could have requested that the recipient had my contact information. And that way they. You could have. I could have known. I could have met that person, or they could have met me. Uh, this sounds terrible. I chose not to do that because. It’s very humbling at times to receive all that wonderful good wishes. And and people are so amazed and they it’s hard for me to take sometimes. And so I thought, you know, if this person reached out, they would be so thankful. And so and you know. That would be a little awkward for me, so I didn’t. I chose not to do that. I’m just happy that I’m thrilled to death, that I heard that the kidney was functioning and the surgery went great for that person.

Brian Pruett: [00:36:28] Well, yeah, that’s that’s I mean, you got to be off the moon or the moon just to hear that. Anyway. So what kind of did you have to do any kind of like preparation or testing to, to go through before you did this?

Speaker1: [00:36:42] Sure.

Holly Payton: [00:36:42] So people should know a little bit about kidney donor ship. I learned a whole lot by doing this. Yes. So I contacted Emory and in in February and I was not in their program until June. So there is a lot of testing. There is a lot of blood work. I had to go to Emory for many hours one day. And you had a stress test, an echocardiogram, to an ultrasound of your heart before and after the stress test. You had a chest x ray. You had your blood pressure taken, you had a CT scan of your kidney. You had all all kinds of tests. Then it was during Covid. So this was a zoom call where now people would have face to face. But you met with a social worker to kind of assess your emotional and mental attitude about this. You met with the nephrologist who was a kidney, specializes in kidneys. You met with the surgeon. You met with the financial advisor from Emory. The amazing thing about kidney donor ship. Is the donor has no medical bills. The recipient pays all of your medical bills. Wow. And so when you talked financially, he was saying, you know, you’d be out of work for a time. And so, you know, were you prepared for that? I work for IBM, I’m a consultant for IBM. And IBM was unbelievably, unbelievably supportive of me. I went on short term disability so that I was paid while I was out. I didn’t have any medical bills. So that was an amazing part of this experience.

Brian Pruett: [00:38:45] That’s pretty wild because, you know, in one aspect you would think that it might be the other way around where the recipient shouldn’t have any medical bills either. Right. But I mean, that’s just really cool. So all right, you’ve already talked about you work for IBM. So you’re in the corporate world I am. And so obviously you have a giving heart, but you gave away a kidney. Um, but I know just from being with Stone, he talks about you all the time to believe good or good or bad, mostly good. But you you you too have a heart for the community. And so why is it important to be part of the community?

Holly Payton: [00:39:23] Oh my gosh. When we were trying to, we had a house in Marietta where we raised our kids and we knew we wanted to downsize and we wanted to move to a smaller community. And so we visited a lot of smaller communities around, and we came to Woodstock, and we kept coming back and kept coming back. And Stone loved that. There was music everywhere. You know, Madlife has music outside, and sometimes in the summer century House has music and reformation has, you know, there was music everywhere, and families and children and old people and young people and everybody’s downtown. And we fell in love with the community. And when we moved here over two years ago. We moved here right as the Reeves house was having their opening, and we went and I had the chance to talk to some of the people who have leadership positions in Woodstock Arts. And I was amazed. How in the world did a small town like this get the movers and shakers of Woodstock to buy in to having such a thriving art community? I just I couldn’t wrap my head around it. And so I was very anxious when we moved here to get involved. And so I. I love Woodstock Arts. I think that the people in the leadership positions do such a magnificent job. And so I have participated in art on the spot where artists create something and then whatever you create gets raffled off.

Holly Payton: [00:41:08] I teach watercolor classes at the Reeves house. I’ve taken clay classes at the Kish House, and in February of this past year, I got the chance to act in murder on the Orient Express. That was done in February at the theater. So I this is kind of funny. I have an acting degree from the University of Florida. So yes, you can work at IBM and have an acting degree college degree. I did go back and get a master’s in instructional design, and that’s what brought me to IBM. But I started taking oil painting classes when I was young, and I, I went to to college as an art major, but I couldn’t do it every day. I was taking an avocation, trying to turn it into a vocation that didn’t work. So I had painting skills, and I and I had artistic skills. When I was in the play in February, I had not acted in 45 years, but it was such a magnificent experience. So Stone, I don’t know everybody in town. Stone knows everybody in town. So he loves, loves that aspect of the community. And I have really gotten to appreciate the artistic side of the Woodstock community. They are fabulous. The opportunities abound. There’s all kinds of volunteer opportunities within Woodstock Arts. People can get involved in so many ways.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:47] Well, that’s a good point. Well, first of all, I do know that Stone loves being here because there’s beer right around the corner and he can go have his beer anytime he wants to. That’s right. And he can drive his golf cart now. So. Right. But you’re talking about the volunteering aspect of it. And I think that’s really cool and important to talk about, even if you’re in the corporate world, because, you know, there’s these small business owners who are all out doing the networking aspect of it, you don’t get to do that as much being in the corporate world. And so giving back and volunteering, I think is important to talk about because, you know, there’s these people that come, I might have worked ten hours a day. I’m so tired or whatever this weekend. I just want to do for myself. And I think when you find out of the volunteer opportunities and you do that and you give back, you get more.

Holly Payton: [00:43:29] Absolutely, absolutely. Woodstock arts.org is their website. They host Lantern series on the green. They host art exhibits on the green. They have the art a gallery at the Reeves House. They teach art classes at the Reeves House. The Kish House is where they have all their clay classes. They have the theater. You can volunteer to help put up art gallery shows. Man, you learn a lot about what happens behind the scenes and an art gallery. It’s very educational, and you can volunteer at the theater to take tickets or to hand out brochures or to work the concession stands. There’s all kinds of volunteerism at the when they have the Lantern series shows to seat people, to take tickets to, you know, serve wine and etcetera. So there’s just so it doesn’t matter what you what skills you have or don’t have, there is an opportunity for you to be a part of that world in, in your volunteering.

Brian Pruett: [00:44:49] And I think that, again, just being part of the community in whatever you do, because I know I have family members who’ve turned into hermits, they just want to stay at home.

Speaker5: [00:44:59] And.

Brian Pruett: [00:44:59] You know, and Covid did so much wrong for people in that way. But you’re right. Just giving back whatever you can do and it makes you feel good, you.

Holly Payton: [00:45:09] Know, and you meet so many wonderful, fabulous, talented, energetic people that it just everything you give to them, they give back to you.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:18] Right. So being how long have you been at IBM?

Holly Payton: [00:45:23] 22 years.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:25] Have you again been in the corporate? You don’t get to do networking I’m assuming, but have you ever been in an opportunity to do networking events and if so, do you have a positive story for networking?

Speaker6: [00:45:37] Oh.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:40] You can actually talk about the like you just talked about what the art and stuff. That’s technically everything you do is networking.

Holly Payton: [00:45:45] Everything you do is networking. I have been able I’ve been blessed to be able to go to events where IBM has a booth, conferences where IBM has a booth, and I’ve been a presenter at at conferences on behalf of IBM. And your comment earlier to Meena about networking is not about selling. It doesn’t matter whether it’s volunteering or small business or corporate business. People do business with people they like and people they trust. And I, I am often uncomfortable because I don’t sell, but I’m happy to listen to challenges your corporation might have. My expertise for IBM is in implementing major change. So major disruptive transformation or or systems and so on. And so I’m happy to listen to the challenges that you might be having and share with you my experience. If I have anything that could help you tweak what you’re doing to be a little bit more successful or share with you, I don’t know if this would work for you, but this is what I’ve found to be successful in working with organizations going through it. So it’s not about selling, it’s simply me giving to you, you sharing with me, and you build those relationships and it goes from there.

Brian Pruett: [00:47:20] And it’s kind of funny you said you’re not into selling, but technically you are, because everybody sells themselves.

Speaker5: [00:47:23] Everybody.

Brian Pruett: [00:47:24] That’s true. Yeah. So. Well let me I’ve got a couple other questions. I want to go to the. Being a corporate and a small business, I run into a lot of people. I used to be in the corporate world. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. So I started this small business. And I know you haven’t had the opportunity to start a business. Stone’s been in this situation, but do you have any advice for anybody who might be thinking about either one, staying in a corporate world or starting a business? You got any any advice for some folks?

Holly Payton: [00:47:56] So I am not an entrepreneur. I married an entrepreneur, but I am not an entrepreneur. I would say from the outside looking in. One of the biggest things that that Stone and I differ on is he is a risk taker. I am not. I take risks all the time. But I am blessed to work in a community where failure is fine because you fail fast, you learn fast, you recover fast, and you move forward. But as an entrepreneur, it’s a little bit bigger risk, you know? And so I would say if you want to start a business, you need to look at and really be self examining as to how big of a risk taker are you? I echo Echo Mina’s suggestion. You have to not only have a passion for the business you’re going to start. But you also and lots of people don’t have both of these. You have to have a business sense and a business plan. You have to understand. Where your what’s your supply chain is? All the things that I work in in IBM, you know, you have to understand your supply chain. You have to understand the finances of it, the tax ramifications. There’s a whole lot to starting a business. And you really have to have expertise or grow your expertise, educate yourself, you know, really learn about it in a lot of different things. It’s not just the passion for what the business is, but it’s all of those business aspects. So to start your own business is is, you know, there’s a lot to, to be good at for those people who, who do it. Well.

Brian Pruett: [00:50:01] The other thing you just talked about, which I think is cool and something I didn’t think about until you just mentioned it, but a lot of the folks that I know that Stone brings in here and people that I’ve had on my show are the entrepreneurs. And you said you’re married to an entrepreneur. My wife’s married to an entrepreneur. What advice would you give somebody who’s married to an entrepreneur because you got I know one of them. You got to be patient for sure.

Holly Payton: [00:50:23] You have to be patient. You have to love them very, very, very much because it’s in the beginning. It’s very up and down and it’s very uncertain. And and I like the certainty of working at IBM and, and so we made a great pair.

Brian Pruett: [00:50:42] That’s awesome. All right I want to go back to the the donation. You talked about having my somebody. Right. And the same thing goes with a business too. You have to know your why and anything. You got to know your why. So it goes by my somebody know your why. I’ve known people that say yeah, it’s marked on my driver’s license. I’m a kidney donor, but I just want or my own organ donor because I wanted a discount and that was the only reason they did it. But just share with somebody who has been thinking about that and just haven’t done it. Maybe they’re scared or whatever. You know what? What can they obviously the joy of knowing that you’re helping to save somebody, but share with somebody who might be thinking about that.

Holly Payton: [00:51:26] Sure. The. The first thing I would say is it’s a personal decision. It’s your body. Don’t be swayed by by anybody else. I didn’t wasn’t swayed because I didn’t ask anybody else what they thought of it. But it’s a personal decision. When I went in the day before the surgery and I met with the surgeon, he said to me. There’s a lot of things we only have one of, but we don’t live our lives in fear of that. We have one heart. We have one brain. We have one stomach. You don’t make decisions about how you live your life because you’re scared that you only have one of them. And he said, this should not change your lifestyle, your longevity, anything about how you live your life because you have one kidney. There’s lots of things and you do just fine. Some people are born with just one kidney and they do just fine that I had never thought of. And that was very meaningful to me. So the only I will say, the only thing that it changes for you is they don’t want you to take drugs like Advil or Aleve. That’s it.

Speaker5: [00:52:54] I can eat.

Holly Payton: [00:52:56] I know that those two drugs are harder on your kidneys. And it’s not that you could never, ever in your lifetime take an Advil again. But Tylenol is is not hard on your kidneys. So that’s why they say that. And so you could, you know, if you have a terrible headache and you can’t get you could take an Advil, but just don’t take one for another month, you know? So that’s really the only thing that it impacts I would say as far as. The actual surgery. The surgery is done. Laparoscopically. So I have three small incisions in my torso, and then I have about a 4 or 5 inch vertical incision going down from my navel. And that’s where they actually take the kidney out. So you do have this incision. But. It. You heal up very. I’ve healed up very well. You’re limited for about seven weeks that you can’t lift anything 10 pounds or heavier. But that’s okay. I live with someone who’s willing to lift the heavy stuff and do the dishes. So that was not a problem. The only challenge I have now, physically, I feel great. I can do just about anything. I’m, you know, like I said, it’s been over eight weeks now. I’m 65 years old, and. If I don’t do core muscle exercises or yoga or things like that, my back starts talking to me, you know? And I think that’s probably at any age, if you don’t have a strong core, you your back suffers. And so right now I’m, I am cleared. I am able to start slowly getting back into yoga and start doing some core exercises. And so any back issues I might have right now will get better over the coming weeks.

Brian Pruett: [00:55:09] Have you started back to work?

Holly Payton: [00:55:10] I have, I started back to work after seven, seven weeks and and I got to say for seven weeks I didn’t sit in a chair for hours. You know, I’m sitting in a chair at my computer, I’m on WebEx calls, I’m working. And that’s been a little painful on the back because you’re not used to that. But but those muscles are building up. So.

Speaker5: [00:55:34] Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:55:34] So I just got to know, did you make stone pamper you?

Holly Payton: [00:55:37] I did.

Speaker5: [00:55:39] I did.

Holly Payton: [00:55:40] And and over the years his pampering skills have definitely improved.

Speaker5: [00:55:45] So got practice.

Holly Payton: [00:55:46] Yeah he got practice and he did a great job.

Brian Pruett: [00:55:49] There you go. That’s awesome. Well Holly, thanks for coming on and sharing that. What I’d like to do as I wrap this up is I always like for my guests to share a quote, a word, a positive nugget for somebody to take in today, the rest of 2023, which we’re not far from being over to 2024 and beyond with. So, Mina, what you got? You’re giving me that look? Like what?

Meena Lahku: [00:56:14] Let’s see a positive quote. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:56:17] Or just a word? Or are you going to make it up? It doesn’t matter.

Meena Lahku: [00:56:24] Um. You know what? Just. Live every day to its fullest potential and live like there’s no tomorrow. And maximize every opportunity with everything that you got.

Brian Pruett: [00:56:43] Holly.

Holly Payton: [00:56:44] So. The way that we say that sentiment in my family is a quote from Auntie Mame. Life is a feast and most poor bastards are starving to death. So go out and live your life as a feast and don’t be one of the others. The other thing that my family really relishes we have always said, live your life with tickets. And what that means is always have something that you’re looking forward to. It doesn’t have to cost anything. It could be a picnic in the park, but plan things so that you always have something that energizes you, that you’re looking forward to.

Brian Pruett: [00:57:26] That’s awesome. Well, and you have a fun family. I got to meet some of your family at a, at a event that we got to go to. And yeah, there’s no there’s no boring time with your family. So that’s pretty awesome. The other thing I’d like to do is to thank you is a lost art these days. So, I mean, I want to thank you for what you’re doing for the community and getting the word out for the brain Tumors organization. And Holly, just thank you for what you’ve done for the people who need kidneys and just being part of the community that way. So everybody out there listening, let’s remember, let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.