Jeff Thompson with Americans for Prosperity and Matt Payne with Inner Circle Solutions

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 Pruett.

Brian Pruett: [00:00:45] Good, fabulous Friday morning. It’s another fabulous Friday, even though it’s wet outside. We needed the rain, so I hope everybody’s having a good week so far. The end of the week is here. And if you this is your first time listening to Charitable Georgia. This is all about positive things happening in the community. So first of all, I’m going to welcome our guest in the studio. Rusty, welcome. Stone’s brother. You would never know you guys are related, so.

Stone Payton: [00:01:07] Thank you for saying that.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:09] So normally we have three people on the show, but one of them had an emergency and we’ll talk about that in a minute. But we got two fabulous guests this morning. And our first one is Mister Jeff Thompson from Americans for Prosperity. Jeff, welcome to the show this morning.

Jeff Thompson: [00:01:20] Thanks for having me.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:21] So Jeff and I met at the Carnesville Business Club. We found out we’re fellow Ohioans and so automatically we’re friends that way. So even though it’s Cleveland and Cincinnati, you know, it’s still still friends. Yeah. But Jeff does a lot of good things. We’ll get into Americans for Prosperity here in a second. But you you’re in a youth minister as well. You’re going through leadership. Bartow right now. So that’s pretty cool. So if you don’t mind, just give us a little bit of your background.

Jeff Thompson: [00:01:47] Actually grew up just right down the street, maybe five minutes from here. I went to elementary school for the last part of school right there, Little River Elementary. Let’s see, I’ve been working in politics for just a few years, but I also felt called to ministry. So I’ve been doing that for also maybe two years now. I’ve been a youth pastor before that, I taught fourth grade boys over at Woodstock. I have a I’m a girl dad. I got a 15 year old daughter. I do love the Buckeyes like you. So that was our immediate bond over that.

Brian Pruett: [00:02:26] Yes. So I’m curious, how is the politics and religion working together? How is that kind of what kind of balance is that?

Jeff Thompson: [00:02:34] I tried not to be overbearing with it. And but religion is the reason I got into politics. And that’s the cool thing about Americans for Prosperity. Although we don’t have specific religious tenets or anything, we stand on the truth and what’s right. That means we don’t chase any politician, any political party. We stand on our principles. You always know where we’re going to be at. We’re going to be at the truth. And my religious beliefs, I’m a man of faith is the truth. I stand for the truth. So I get to to do good stuff through my work as well. And I can I can love people. And when you stand on the truth, oftentimes it can be a nonpartisan issue because you can you can present that to somebody and they’re like, Yeah, I believe in that. And then it’s like, okay. And we invite any person or politician to meet us on that. Now, that might mean that sometimes one politician might meet us on the truth and on another issue, he might not meet us, but we’re not going to change. So I love it. I get to do good stuff in the community. I get to to be a light and they can see it because with ministry, it doesn’t always have to be specifically talking about the Bible. They can see it through your love and through your actions.

Brian Pruett: [00:03:55] What I think is really cool, especially with your organization, is I just know just a little bit from I think you and I met I told you, I looked at possibly working with you guys at one point, but it wasn’t it wasn’t a fit for me. So but what I think is really cool is, you know, I’ve networked in metro Atlanta for almost 30 years, and you could always tell when it was election time because that’s when the politicians came out and networked. Right. But obviously not necessarily being a politician yourself, But you just mentioned it being stuff in the community. You do stuff in the community. And it’s it’s very cool for you, for me to see you doing things in the community where it’s even when you’re together, at least the stuff that I’ve been to, you don’t really necessarily bring up the politics. It is all about the community. So can you share about some of the stuff you guys do?

Jeff Thompson: [00:04:38] Oh yeah. At the down, there’s a guy in Albany, his name’s King Randall, and Albany is kind of a rough area for at least the areas he’s from. So he’s got all these boys and they come to his boys school. And I also got to give a big shout out to my friend Joe Happy. He’s with North Point Roofing. I reached out to Joe. I was like, Joe, like there’s a school down here. And he he he did a $5,000 donation to that school. But we, we, we want school choice for people. We feel that parents can make the best decision for their child. So we support being able to pick which school you go to. And we support a King Randall in that we got to support his boys school. It’s all about teaching these boys from these rough areas, life skills, so they can go out and be productive members of society. We fight for freedom with less cost on our health care, something called certificate of need. Right now, the big guys can essentially block out any competition. And you have to pretty you have to ask for permission from your competition. And of course, it’s not necessarily when when it’s a big picture like that, they’re not thinking about what’s best for the everyday person. They’re thinking about their bottom line. And that’s what I love about this organization is we were we were founded where our original founders, Charles Koch, if anybody’s one of the big guys, it’s him. But he gives us the resources and the support to go out and make a difference for the everyday person.

Brian Pruett: [00:06:15] So explain a little bit more. Go into depth of exactly what you guys do for the people. Because I know you just opened an office in Cartersville. So what can somebody, if they needed, you know, to get in touch with you or whatever, what can they expect by working with you or what you can do for somebody?

Jeff Thompson: [00:06:33] I can educate them on our priorities. And my favorite part about it is teaching people to do politics in a way that’s not this icky stuff going on right now, this swampy feeling of you have to pick a side and then do what that side tells you. We stand for a bottom up control, bottom up paradigm. My goal will be to find what makes every person unique and their special abilities and plug them in. Maybe you’re a writer. Maybe you’re a good event planner. Maybe. Maybe you have something that I haven’t seen yet and there’s an area of the community I can pour into. So my goal is to build unique, unique groups and plug them into the fight using their unique abilities. So if you come to me, I will. First of all, I want to know you. What makes you tick, what you find important, and how we can teach you like a new way of doing things. Because people are tired of politics. They’re tired of the. The extremism of it, the polarizing ness of it. But I could show you, hey, you stand on the truth and you don’t move off of it. And then at the end of the day, nobody can can can say anything to you because you’re just doing what’s right and asking, Hey, come, come meet me here. I’m not going to follow you around or do whatever you tell me the party is doing right now. People are fed up with it.

Brian Pruett: [00:07:59] So do you guys do door knocking? Do you go into homes and stuff like that as well? So it’s different, I guess, than somebody, you know, obviously doing solicitation and technically I guess it is. But what does that look like for you guys?

Jeff Thompson: [00:08:13] So right now we’re doing voter ID, which means just finding out who people are voting for in the next primary. First we ask them, hey, just we just have a conversation with them. Ask them what you feel is important. Do you feel the country is going in the right way or the wrong way right now? Do you feel future people, future kids will get to live the American dream? One thing that I guess is a little alarming, a challenge for us to to to get us back on the right track. A lot of people are saying our best times are behind us and that future generations won’t even get to live the American dream. People are people are concerned right now. And and that goes back to what I can do to get like people want to be involved. But like right now, our loudest voices are the people on either side of the polls. And nobody needs to nobody wants to be near them, whether it be left or right. People are tired of that. So I try to give people a way, hey, you can be involved, you can do something. But the I, I have some some good interactions at the door. Sometimes people are really happy to see me there. I’ve I’ve had people we get in a deep my one of my one of my biggest just a little transparency. One of my things that I love is building instant rapport with people, having deep conversations with people that I just met. And we’ll be we’ll crying at the door, talking about life, sharing it. I love it. And. Like, I’ll tell people, some people like, Oh, I could never do that. Door to door canvasing is one of the number one life skills and job skills you can ever have. It teaches you to just be able to interact, think fast on your feet. Be able to talk to anybody in any situation. And I’ll just be a kind, gentle soul that invites people to just open up. But I love it. I love it. It’s how I started in this world was canvasing and.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:12] Also will teach you to learn how to take the know very quickly as well. It’s funny. So I spent years in sales and everybody kept telling me, I don’t know how you do and get the nose. You know, another thing that keeps you learn the nose, right? So in college, I asked every single girl out and they kept telling me no. So I learned to know very quickly. So no, but I think it’s cool because that goes back to your ministry, too. I mean, obviously your ministry heart that a lot of people open up to you with that as well. So, um, all right. So share a little bit about do you guys have like different areas you work in or is there a different representatives in areas? How does that look right now?

Jeff Thompson: [00:10:52] I would say that I like to do the 11th Congressional District, which is our senator. Barry Loudermilk.

Brian Pruett: [00:11:01] Congressman Loudermilk.

Jeff Thompson: [00:11:01] Yeah, Congressman, he and so that’s Woodstock or Cherokee? Bartow Cobb That’s where I am. But but it’s it’s still a statewide thing. And so I get to I can be anywhere, but I’m located in Cartersville. I’m heavy focus on this area.

Brian Pruett: [00:11:22] So you talked about the education piece. If somebody was really, as you say, a lot of people concerned and they wanted to learn about each candidate, can you sit down and talk to them about the candidates?

Jeff Thompson: [00:11:33] If we endorse them, if they’ve if they’ve we have policy champs. Some of them I know. I came in or he was at the then time he was a House representative, Ed Setzler. He’s a policy champ of ours, Huffstetler, another policy champ. So those guys I can tell why they why they meet us. Yeah. And if anybody ever really wants to know, I can always tell them. But. But more on a personal level.

Brian Pruett: [00:12:04] Okay, so you started networking with the Cartersville Business Club a year ago, is that right? About a year ago.

Jeff Thompson: [00:12:10] I kind of because I was doing Woodstock, I used to be in roofing. I guess I did Woodstock and Canton and it was there like similar. It’s almost like a sister organization type thing. So it was just a natural fit. I would see. I don’t even know how I first it might have been. Maybe Jennifer Smith told me about it. But yeah, I started out going to these ones around here because I was doing the more paid close seats. One and a gentleman I met with a gentleman named let’s see, it was Jim Hilber. He introduced me to Rudy Garza, who plugged me all in. Rudy Great dude. And that’s how I got involved. But yeah, Woodstock is where, where I started out.

Brian Pruett: [00:12:57] So but a lot of people I’ve seen in the Cartersville Club has really kind of latched on. You know, it was really more of like a community out there, especially, I feel, and all the networking I’ve done, of all the ones I’ve been involved in, it really is more of a community at Cartersville, so I’m guessing that might be one of the reasons why you picked Cartersville to do your have your office, but can you share a positive story of you and networking, especially now with Americans for Prosperity?

Jeff Thompson: [00:13:23] Well, originally it all started out with networking. I was at Tabernacle Baptist Church at something called a biblical citizenship training. I met and I’m walking around and it’s all the networking. And in these political worlds, there’s the there’s a certain posturing that goes on. And I see this guy, and it’s almost as if you can feel that this guy is acting different. He’s going out of his way to to make me feel welcome. And it was it was Representative Matthew Gamble. And so we hit it off. And a few months later, he introduced me to a woman on the school board, Miss Darla Branton Williams. And and she we hit it off, too. And so that community feel that that loving feel from them is what drew me to Cartersville. It was the people, the the networking aspect. There of just people being good folks. And that’s often a question in politics. I’m often one of the designated guys that they say, how can we get younger and more diverse? And the answer is just being a kind person. It’s like nobody, nobody felt they had to dress like me or look like me or talk like me. It was just love, you know, love. Love is a universal language. And they they I saw that in them and I saw that in the community. And like I tell people, hey, they told me I could pick anywhere in the state to build community and I picked Cartersville. And so, like, there’s really no place I’d rather be than out there.

Brian Pruett: [00:14:59] So other than the reason that you’ve just talked about, we talk a lot about community on this show. And so other than the reasons of educating people on politics and just a ministry giving heart, why is it important for you to be a part of the community?

Jeff Thompson: [00:15:16] Because I, I often well, for one, I want to do my part. I want to be a light. I want to shatter stereotypes, bridge gaps, open up doors and and and maybe be a positive representation for anybody that I represent, whether that be men, black folks, Christians. I want to use, you know, what God has given me because I have been I’ve been low. I’ve been pretty low. Yeah, I had a little bit too much fun out here in Woodstock and it beat me up. And I humbly say I don’t I’ve never met anyone who’s been out as far as I was that came back all glory to God. Nothing, nothing of mine, nothing of my doing. So I want to use whatever he’s gave me, the life lessons, whatever I can do to be a productive member of society and invite people in in the community.

Brian Pruett: [00:16:22] So Jeff keeps telling me he’s great at trivia and unfortunately, he’s got stuff at church. He can’t come to my shows. But one of these days we’ll get you because I want to see how good you are. Okay. Um, so I wanted to ask you if you could give somebody some advice on. I talk to people and you mentioned this earlier that people are scared right now. Things are going on and people are like, I’m just not going to vote. Yeah, give somebody advice of why that should not be the case.

Jeff Thompson: [00:16:49] Because there’s power. There’s power in in one. There’s power in one. You think of like even like a little ant. If every ant said, Hey, I’m not going to do anything, there would never be these big old ant hills or or things getting accomplished. But it’s just a defeated attitude. And it also gives you a little bit of self-worth. You do matter. Your input matters. You can show up. Everybody has their own brand of of. Of intelligence and input. And when you show up and you make your voice heard, you might give somebody some perspective that somebody else has never, never heard. But every every one vote counts. And it has to be that thing where everybody does it because, you know, everybody can’t take that attitude. And even your attitudes are infectious. You might say that, and then your friend hears it, somebody else hears it, or the next generation hears it or sees it. And, you know, there’s people that are always they didn’t always get to vote. So whether you feel whether you feel like it won’t make an impact or not, it will. And, you know, it feels good to vote. Like I say, I’ve been low, so it feels good to vote. It feels good. It feels good to pay taxes sometimes. And and I’m not a big taxes guy, but when you when you’ve been out there, man, it feels good. So think of the people that can’t do it and represent them. Think of people in the past that fought for your rights to vote and and just go do it and asked me. I’ll fill you in. There you go.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:28] It also feels really good when you get a tax refund.

Jeff Thompson: [00:18:30] Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:32] So talk to me a little bit about leadership. Bartow. I know you guys just started, but what’s what’s that look like? What do you do so far?

Jeff Thompson: [00:18:38] We did a little team building activities. It felt good. Mine came back in the 95th percentile of being social and outgoing and in the 95th percentile of being a person. That will change. And that felt good knowing that. You know, like and sometimes you need to change. There’s been times when I’ve, you know, a couple of years ago, like I like to tell people a few years ago, I think it is. I had a lime green flat top. I was wearing pearls and rock shirts, but for any of this stuff was even the thing to do. And I knew everything. I was loud and proud about it. And now I look back on myself and I had not a clue what I was talking about. So it’s it’s good to to to see that I have that flexibility to grow and learn and change and adapt. And that was one of the things that I got to know. I also got to meet some other cool people and just going there and make my voice heard when it’s appropriate. We also had a cool dinner at the the the country club and I met a woman named Danielle Swanson, and we gave each other a big old hug. And she was like she was like, Yo, do you remember me? And so, yeah, I took like I told y’all earlier, I graduated high school in 2020, y’all.

Jeff Thompson: [00:20:07] I’m 38 years old. Like it was a long journey, but along the way, I, I took a GED class with her and I eventually just dropped out of it. I left it and I told her I had gave up. I just gave up and I was out to go do all types of crazy stuff in the streets that I was doing. She was like, Yo, you broke my heart that day. So I’ve noticed a trend of like, you know, because I can’t go anywhere in North Georgia and not see an area where I did something really far out. I’m talking just right down the street over here, like multiple spots around here. But God always brings me back and it’s like, Yo, yeah, it’s humbly like a redemption tour. Like, yo, look at it now. Yeah. And so that felt good to meet her there. And then they made us sing for our food and that was fun as well. Nice. So things are starting off good. I’m looking forward to learning more about the community, meeting some of the people that may Cartersville-bartow County. Such a great.

Brian Pruett: [00:21:14] Place. You got a lot of folks in there that I know personally and that’s a great thing. You got Joshua Kolonitsky and say Veronica Mingo. So quite a few folks in that that are really, really good. So it’s a good class this year. So. Well, you just talked about it, your story of not giving up as well. So again, if somebody’s listening and have that thought of, well, I just either I’m not worth it or whatever, it’s just going to give up. Give some advice.

Jeff Thompson: [00:21:38] Yeah, it can get better oftentimes, especially my area was addiction, all sorts of addiction. And and what I like to tell people is that is an attempt to heal a spiritual hurt with earthly means. So your soul, your spirit, it gets it gets crushed. Mine was feelings of inadequacy and feelings of being a failure of a bad dad, feelings of being unaccomplished. And it put a big old and and broken relationships. I wanted my daughter to have a perfect family and the best life. And it hurt me when it didn’t happen. So it put a big old hole in me and then you got to stuff it and you got to numb it. And of course, those things fall out and so you got to do it again and again and again. And on the outside world, people are like, Why does that person keep doing that destructive activity over and over again? Well, it’s because they’re numbing a hurt. And that’s what was for me. I went off to a program called Waypoint. It’s up in Dahlonega. It’s in the middle of the woods. No TV, no phones. You get away and you get to work on your mind and heal those hurts. So anybody out there, I would suggest, you know, just just just think about what you can be, what can be hurting you.

Jeff Thompson: [00:23:00] The tricky part is, is that your mind will naturally start to to build defense mechanisms around it. And it’s hard to get to it. But hey, if you can reach out to me, I’ll help you with it. But yeah, don’t give up. And to the people who have those folks in their family, sometimes when you’ve and I understand that they can be a lot to deal with. But sometimes the reason they’re hurting is because of broken relationships. So just know you’re good enough, you can turn it around. That’s like, yeah, I am in Bible college and that’s one of the reasons I do it for the testimony. I want people to be like, Yo, this guy, you know, he he graduated high school when he was like 36 or something and he graduated four years of college. So yeah, you can talk to me. You’re worth it. Everybody’s worth it. Even like from the religious point of view, when you talk about everybody in the Bible that was used by the Lord was screwed up. So it could just be the beginning of an awesome Bible story. Hop back on it.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:04] I told Sharon last week, I love this show and you got some great stories that come on this show. So full circle, huh? Outer circle. We’ll get that in a second. But, you know, we did something with Kevin Harris, who is 11 years sober for his all in, all out ministries. A couple weeks ago, Matthew Gamble was there. We raised $10,300 for his ministry. So that was awesome. But it’s just great to have people who such as yourself and Matt here what we’ll talk to you in just a second who are vulnerable to share their stories and willing to be out in the community and share and help. So do you have anything coming up for Americans for Prosperity that events or anything coming up?

Jeff Thompson: [00:24:46] I’ve got a for the Republican primary. I got or I have a debate watch party. We’re going to do that on the fifth of next month, I believe that’s a Tuesday. I also have there’s a former representative, Tim Barr. He’s going to do a class on how to speak across lines, how to, you know, how to how to teach or do all this stuff without starting a fight. That’s that’s that’s one of my passions. And then that’s what I tell you. What, you got to be long suffering in this world. Like, imagine if I came in here and was like, All right, B, let me, let me tell you about doing a radio show. Even though you do this. Let me tell you about what I know because because maybe I saw something on the Internet or because my dad told me about it. I’m not going to listen to you. And then let me let me tell you. And even if you bring up a point that’s valid. No. Well, I don’t know about that. Yeah. So that’s a passion of mine as well. That’s what’s coming up. And we do phone banks. We do door knocking at the end of the month if it’s something that you’re passionate about and I’m also in the works for, I think I’m going to do we’re going to rent out a booth at the Rome Braves, going to start doing much like a lot more cooler stuff and just a little sneak peek. I want to y’all I want to I want to start talking to the our older generations that are we’re losing all that good knowledge. So I want to sit down with them. I want to get that also, y’all. I talk to people all over the place on the streets of all backgrounds and ages, and I want to get like some secret spy glasses. Nice and like teach people how to talk to anybody. So that’s what’s on the horizon for me.

Brian Pruett: [00:26:29] On November 16th, we got something for you, which we’ll talk about in a second. So we’ve got something you need to be at. So cool. Um, so again, so if somebody wants to get a hold of you, talk to you, how can they do that?

Jeff Thompson: [00:26:41] You can go take action on our website, select Georgia. There’s various ways to take action. I it’ll pop up on our website. You can also just call me on my work phone. That’ll be (470) 668-7805. Email me at T Thompson at AFP hq.org.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:03] And while all of the stuff you just talked about event wise or can find on the website or do you have like a Facebook or anything they can go and follow?

Jeff Thompson: [00:27:09] We have we’ve got Facebook, Instagram. There’s also yeah we’ll post those things on there. Right now. The two events I spoke of are getting approved, which will it’ll just happen. It’s just got another layer to go to and then they’ll be live and active. You can always find the events on our website.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:28] Awesome. Well, Jeff, thanks for sharing a little bit of your story. Don’t go anywhere because we’re not done with you. But I’m going to move over now to Matt Payne with the Outer Circle Foundation, C Street for Christ and all kinds of other stuff. So, Matt, thanks for being here.

Matt Payne: [00:27:37] Thanks for having me.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:38] You were supposed to have your, as I say, better half here as well, but unfortunately, she got called into an emergency.

Matt Payne: [00:27:45] So, yes, she was unfortunate last night, got called in.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:48] So, Buffy, we’re sad you’re not here, but I hope everything goes well for you this morning. So we you have an incredible story. I won’t mess it up. But you are a veteran. You’re also a retired police chief. But if you would, just please give us your story.

Matt Payne: [00:28:02] Oh, Lord. So I was born in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Northeast corner. Johnson City-kingsport-bristol up in there. My dad had gone to Vietnam in October, I’m sorry, November of 66. I was born in February. He was killed in April. So, you know, we lived in a trailer behind my grandma’s house with my mom. My mom had my sister and myself and got the news. My dad was killed. And about a year and a half later, she married my step dad, who she actually had known since she was six years, six months old. He lived right around the corner and he went away and became a Navy pilot and then came back and ended up being a captain for TWA. And with his travels, it took us up to New Jersey and he flew out of JFK. I went to high school and didn’t do well, didn’t know what I wanted to do, and ultimately landed on going in. The military, never told a soul I was going, told my mom the night before, Hey, you got to give me a ride to the train station. Where are you going? And I signed up for the military. I leave to morrow morning and she wasn’t happy about that. But I went in and I became a combat controller. A combat control is the special operations arm of the US Air Force. We are certified air traffic controllers, parachute scuba demo weapons, call for fire, a bunch of different things. And I did that in in 1989.

Matt Payne: [00:29:35] I tore my anterior cruciate ligament. I had to get out of the military, went to college, played soccer knee, did well, called the military back and said, hey, can I come back? And they said, Yeah, absolutely. We now have a waiver because I had a screw in my knee. So went back and was medically retired in 1995 after four knee surgeries, had no idea what I wanted to do. It happened like that, like a month and a half, and I was standing outside the gate with my bags and I had no idea what to do. So move back to New Jersey and just trying to figure things out. Landed on law enforcement, became a cop and decided to go back to school, graduated college. And I just kind of wanted a little bit more. And I was in law enforcement for about ten years, and I left and went into the private world. And a buddy of mine called me about six years later and said, hey, New Jersey State Humane Police are looking for cops. I said, Dude, I got a job. I can’t do anything. He goes, No, they’re a we do cases when they come in, so it’s not a full time job. But it is. We had 60 cops. We handled 5200 cases a year. And I went in and ended up as their chief and retired buff. And I lived down here in Dallas. And, you know, we’re doing our thing.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:59] So talk a little bit about what how first of all, you shared a little bit about you and Buffy, how you got together. But you she does security as well. But can you share a little bit since she’s not here, but can you share a little bit about her? Because it’s amazing what you both do.

Matt Payne: [00:31:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we’re both chief security officers by trade, so, you know, run security for for large organizations. She has come in from the intelligence world. I came in from the obviously the law enforcement and military side. And, you know, we have known each other for, I guess, about 13 years now. And way back before it was Bitcoin, a buddy of ours, he and I were writing a paper on cryptocurrency even before it was called Bitcoin. And he goes, Dude, I got to somebody that that I definitely want to bring into this. And she had been working at JP Morgan Chase and then ultimately went over to Equifax and she offered a lot of insight into that white paper. And, you know, in the security world, it’s not competition. It’s, hey, do you have a yeah, let me connect you. Let me hook you up because we want to keep everybody safe. So we stayed in contact. And, you know, she was married and I was married. And, you know, we just had that professional relationship. Long story. But, you know, marriages go south. We ended up getting closer and now we’re married. And there you go doing our thing. There you.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:21] Go. So, all right. So we’ll get to Outer Circle in a second because that’s an awesome organization. But I’d like for you to also talk about C-suite for Christ.

Matt Payne: [00:32:29] Yeah, So we opened our we have a risk resiliency firm called Inner Circle. And when I say we, it’s mine. Obviously Buff is there but when when I opened it, Buff and I are both very religious. We, we have a lot of faith in God and we put God first in everything we do. And I wanted to put God in our website on our stuff. And I went out and started talking to some. More friends and said, Hey, this is what I want to do. They all came back and said, Absolutely not. You can’t do that. You can’t mix religion and business and faith and religion. You’re going to upset somebody. You’re going to lose out on business. You’re going to do whatever. And a microsecond later, I said, too bad, that’s what we’re going to do. So we post a lot on LinkedIn, we post a lot on Facebook and different things. And a guy named Paul Newberger out in Wisconsin connected with us, and he started an organization called C-suite for Christ and C-suite. Think of C-suite as CEO, CSO CFO, Chief Marketing officer, all of those the big people in the organization. And he started liking us our stuff. We started liking his stuff. He came to us and said, Hey, I’m thinking about opening a chapter. Would you guys want it in Atlanta? And we talked about it and we said, Yeah, that’d be really cool. So C-suite for Christ brings business executives and leaders together in an effort to bring Christ back into the workplace.

Matt Payne: [00:33:59] So we meet the second Wednesday of every month at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Buckhead. We always have a speaker that comes in, and this is not networking. It’s not, Hey, Brian, I got a lead for you, or I got this or I got that. This is all about Christ and it’s all about fellowship. Will work happen? Absolutely. You’ll meet people and you’ll say, Hey, you know, whatever. But we always bring in a speaker. The speaker has we try to bring in people that have some form of professional development for our executives, whether it be leadership or brand or whatever it is. We had Mac Powell from Third day. We had Mark Lee from Third Day this month. We had Nancy Major. She wrote a book called The Wretch Like Me, the Modern day Mary Magdalene, kind of like your story. She was went down as low as she could possibly get. And now she’s out and she’s giving her testimony. And her story was, you know, on Wednesday. I cannot believe I put every bit of that in my book. The bad, the the really, really bad. The everything went in that book. And it’s her position that I don’t want others to do it. And I want them to know that they can come back, just like you were saying.

Brian Pruett: [00:35:14] That’s awesome. And I also like the fact that because there’s plenty of networking out there, I like the fact that you guys strictly get together for the Christ aspect. Yes. Because that’s that’s a loss these days. Yeah. All right. So let’s now talk about the Outer Circle Foundation, because you guys have a program that I think is so important that I think there’s other organizations out there that that help the people you’re looking to help and do help but share about the Outer Circle Foundation.

Matt Payne: [00:35:41] So about two and a half years ago, we started Outer Circle and we always wanted to give back. We wanted to do something. And obviously military and law enforcement. And it’s not only law enforcement, it’s first responders. So whether you’re a paramedic, a fireman, a fax worker, whatever it is, when you are in the trenches dealing with the stuff that you deal with, that’s what we consider a first responder and we wanted to give back. So we opened it and we sat on it a little while because we had I had started Inner Circle at that same time. And some friends of mine, when the Afghan government fell, some friends called and said, Hey, we need some help. I said, All right, what do you got going on? We need to help move our Afghan special Forces allies out of Afghanistan to safety. I said, cool. So Outer Circle changed the mission from the US to Afghanistan, and I started working the Afghanistan mission and one family turned into five, turned into 100, turned into a thousand. And, you know, we worked really, really closely with a bunch of nonprofits. Gonzo Lazuli at Tarjuman was probably the closest we work with. And he and I would just share resources and information and everything, and we were able to to move people. And about last summer is when we changed our mission back to the US focusing on PTSD awareness, suicide prevention and transition assistance. And there’s a lot of alternative methods for PTSD. From a treatment perspective, you have a lot of different counselors and different capabilities from the suicide side and transition. It’s really the soft skills. It’s resume interview, network, social media, building your brand, getting business acumen, learning culture, things like that to make that transition from the government into the private world and be very successful at your transition.

Brian Pruett: [00:37:42] And you don’t have to be from Georgia for you to do this. You just you can help all first responders and veterans from all over, right?

Matt Payne: [00:37:47] Anywhere. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:37:48] So you have a big event coming up in just, what, a month and a half?

Matt Payne: [00:37:52] Yeah. October 12th, we have our second annual Outer Circle golf outing. It’s at Bear’s best in Suwanee. It’s a. All day event. We have breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have a bunch of sponsors. Last year, you know, Buff and I went in and we had both done golf tournaments for different things and we had been years and years since we did it. And we went in and said, you know, if we can cover our costs and leave with $10,000 that we can help another nonprofit, we would be over the moon and fast forward. We raised over $100,000. We wrote a $50,000 check to Paws for Life. Pause is a nonprofit here in Atlanta. They give service animals to veterans, first responders and medically fragile. So the the woman who received the the dog from our donation last year will be at the outing this year. And so it’s a great day. We have a lot of fun. We’ll have a bagpiper from the Atlanta pipe and drums from law enforcement. We’ll have an honor guard. We have some horse soldiers coming up that were in Afghanistan a bunch of different things going on. So it’ll be a good event.

Brian Pruett: [00:39:03] Awesome. So that leads us to November 16th. You and I sat down and talked and I know you were one of the nonprofits I wanted to work with. So one of the things I like doing is putting on expos and we’re going to do on November 16th at the Acworth Community Center, the first annual America’s Hometown Heroes Expo. I got it right. Yes. You just found it out last night. So. Yeah, and that’s for veteran owned businesses, first responder owned businesses or businesses that want to hire those folks. We’re going to have an honor color guard there. We’ve got actually a gentleman who is an Army veteran who is a canine trainer, and he just told me yesterday that he is now training canines for PTSD. So you guys get together. Yeah, he’s going to do a canine demonstration while we’re there. And it’s just going to be a great time. So, Jeff, make sure you’re there November 16th.

Jeff Thompson: [00:39:47] So my schedule. All right.

Brian Pruett: [00:39:49] So, um, if businesses want to get involved with the Outer Circle Foundation, first of all, are there opportunities to help you in how what does that look like?

Matt Payne: [00:40:00] Yeah. So, you know, on our web, on our website, we have a strategic partners page and I have to give a huge shout out to James Lynch. He’s a doc. He’s up in Annapolis, Maryland, and he runs the Stellar Institute. And Doc was when I was in the military, I was at the Joint Special Operations Command, and Doc Lynch was one of our doctors. And when, you know, the war on terror happened and the guy started coming back, he started doing a lot of work around PTSD. And there’s a procedure out there called the stellate ganglion block And you have two bundles of nerves in your neck. They connect to your autonomous and your sympathetic nervous system, which makes your fight or flight. And he was able to numb that those two bundles of nerves that reset your fight or flight system. And it’s been proven really, really successful. The VA has adopted it. There’s four different VA’s that will administer this procedure. And I went up and did it in November. And for those that don’t have PTSD, PTSD, your head is just all over the place. It is like ping pong balls scrambling around. Dakota Meyer, who’s a medal of Honor winner, kind of summed it up. Think about being in rush hour traffic in New York City 15 minutes late to the most important meeting that you have ever that you are ever going to be in. And that’s kind of chaos and pandemonium that’s going on in your head, right? You don’t sleep.

Matt Payne: [00:41:26] You’re very short nightmares, a lot of different things Go on. So I lay down on the table. He uses ultrasound. Before the needle was out of my neck, he asked me, How do you feel? And it was totally insane. This is not a memory of mine. I never had this. I said, Doc, I’m a ten year old boy. It’s a summer day. I’m wearing overalls and I’m sitting on a dock looking at a lake that’s crystal clear. My feet are dangling because they can’t reach the water. And I got my fishing pole next to me. And I guess that’s what my mind said was the most relaxing, comforting kind of thought that I could come up with. And, you know, Doc is fantastic at this. There’s a bunch of people out there that do it, but he is he’s the pioneer from my perspective. Right. And that’s just Matt’s perspective alone. But if you if you’re an organization, you want to come in. We have sponsorships at the golf outing. You can come in and donate to us Outer Circle Foundation.org. There’s a donate button on our website. There’s a lot of different things we can do. And I would love to talk to businesses that have either, you know, military networks, they’re looking for veteran owned organizations. They’re looking to hire veterans. They want to get more involved in veterans or first responders. Right. We can we can help with a lot of that.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:47] And you can be part of the expo. Yes. So you were just talking about a little bit. But if somebody is listening and they’re experiencing PTSD or they’ve had the the dark thought of suicide, can you give any kind of advice? Just some hope to somebody who might be listening.

Matt Payne: [00:43:04] Yeah. So the crisis line is nine, eight, eight. You just dial nine, eight, eight and it’ll go right to a crisis counselor. So, you know, that’s kind of what I would say right there. If you have PTSD and there’s no shame in it, right? It’s just it’s a fact of life. Right. And I was I have a great counselor. I have a great network of counselors that can help. And even before the the ganglion block, you have to be in therapy. You have to be diagnosed with PTSD and you have to to do it. You know, there are plenty of people out there. There’s plenty of veterans. There’s plenty of people that will talk. You can connect my my cell phone numbers on the website. My email is on the website. You know, you can reach out and and talk to me. And I’ve been on both sides, right? So I’ve been on the military side and I’ve been on the law enforcement side. So you have the ability to talk about those things. Do not keep it inside. It is not never ending. And we just had a conversation the other day and I, I was watching a video and it was from a paramedic and she had gone to a attempted suicide call and the guy had put a gun into his temple and pulled the trigger and he lived while he was still alive.

Matt Payne: [00:44:20] They were in the back of the ambulance and his words to her, Please do not let me die. And I read a study of suicide, people that had committed suicide but had stayed alive. And there every one of them. Their statement was, The minute I did it, I knew I did the wrong thing and I wish I could take that back. And these are people that jumped off bridges that had shot themselves, that had done a variety of different things. It is not as bad as you think it is. There are avenues to come back and there’s ways to come back very productively and continue on doing whatever it is that you want to do. And then you can be that light going out and helping somebody else on the next round. Because you’ve been there, you’ve dealt with it, you’ve done it, and you know, so so do not give up.

Brian Pruett: [00:45:07] Unfortunately, I’ve had two brothers commit suicide, so it’s definitely a rough thing. So yeah. Um, all right. So other than everything you just talked about, give me a different answer. But why is it so important for you to be part of the community?

Matt Payne: [00:45:21] Ha. I mean, so, you know, we I think every one of us and, you know, it’s in the Bible that we are supposed to be God’s light. And, you know, it’s it’s just like he said, you know, it takes one. If we don’t have the one, you can’t transfer that light to someone else. And, you know, the goal for everything that we do, whether it be, you know, my work through inner circle or our work through Outer Circle or C Suite for Christ is to make the world a better place. It is to shine light where there is no light. It is to bring that light to the deepest, darkest areas that we can find to help people realize there is good and there’s things going on. You know, I get so frustrated with the news because you flip on the news and everything in the news is bad. Every single thing, whether it be climate change, politics, crime, the economy, trade agreements, I don’t care what it is, it’s all negative and it’s all bad. And, you know, if you follow me on LinkedIn or you follow us on Facebook or anything, we shed all of that positive. You know, law enforcement’s got such a bad rap with, you know, everything that’s gone on. There’s bad apples in every profession. Unfortunately, in law enforcement, if you get a bad apple, it could lead to something, you know, devastating. But it does not. You can’t paint the broad brush and make every law enforcement officer or everyone out there protecting us a bad person because they’re not. And, you know, I posted, I think, two stories this week where cops gave their lives saving people and they do it day in and day out. So it’s you have to keep that going or else it’s going to be that the society is just going to be what’s the point? There’s no there’s you know, we’re just doomed for failure. And you can’t do that. We all have to do it.

Brian Pruett: [00:47:18] Hence another reason why Charitable Georgia was born, because too much negative. Let’s put more positive out there. So you talked about the police officers that gave their lives. I’ve also seen videos of police officers playing basketball with young men and the thing and then one not too long ago where this police officer gave a young man a ps5, you know, which is pretty cool. So can you share a little bit more about the inner circle?

Matt Payne: [00:47:40] Yeah, So inner circle, it’s a we’re a risk resiliency firm. So if a organization out there, whether it be a small, medium, large sized company has, you know, is facing any type of risk. So it could be emergency management, it could be crisis management, it could be investigations, it could be, um, you know, something along those lines travel, safety and security. We come in and help identify those risks that you are facing and then mitigate those risks with people, process or technology. So there’s a variety of ways you can mitigate things. And our goal is to mitigate it using the culture of the organization, being fiscally responsible and then giving you a solution that meets your needs without disrupting business. And that’s ultimately what we try to do. Nothing from us is out of the box. There’s not something that we did for you that I’m going to use over here. It’s totally I go in, learn the company, learn the culture, and then figure out what we what we should be doing based upon the ask of the organization and how we can use our expertise, our skill set, our people, our network to make that happen for that organization.

Brian Pruett: [00:48:51] So it could it be something as from everything from cybersecurity to actual personal security stuff.

Matt Payne: [00:48:56] So we I have cybersecurity partners, but I am not a cybersecurity professional. So we are really on the on the physical side, security technology, access control, CCTV cameras, emergency procedures, crisis management, things like that.

Brian Pruett: [00:49:11] Okay. And let’s because we kind of touched on it, but I don’t think we really talked in depth about it. But the go back to C-suite for Christ, if businesses want to get involved with that, again, share what that kind of looks like.

Matt Payne: [00:49:22] And how can they do that. Yeah. So we’re really, really fortunate that, you know, we started in March and it took us almost two months to find a location for us to hold our meetings. And we were getting ready to shell out $2,000 a month, you know, a month to have a two hour meeting. And Peachtree Road United Methodist Church came in and said, Look, this is your home. You have have this space for as long as you want it. Um, Jason and Hayley Bellotti, they own West Paces Ferry, Chick fil A, They are our lunch sponsor. So every single meeting we hold meetings from 1132 to 1. And the reason being with Atlanta traffic and everything that’s going on, we talked about it earlier, it’s just horrendous. And, you know, our executives can go in in the morning. They can come have a a little longer lunch and then go go back. But we do feed. And, you know, and as I sit and I look at you, you have Atlanta and you have 75, 85, and everybody’s sitting because of traffic and you look up and. There’s billboards. Why can’t we have a billboard? The one question we ask at C-suite. I don’t ask. Brian, How are you doing? I don’t ask how your family is. I don’t ask how your week has been. I ask Brian, how was your soul? A much different question than just how are you and why can’t I have a billboard out there that says How is your soul come fellowship with us at C-suite for Christ? So we always look for sponsors that help us because even though we’re C-suite for Christ, Atlanta, we want to bring this out. We want to cover the world in Christ. We want to bring this to all reaches of the world and see how good we can be with that message and spreading it around if.

Brian Pruett: [00:50:57] There are businesses that want to get involved with that, but say, I don’t want to drive to Atlanta because of the traffic and all that. Are there other ways for them to be involved and be a part of it?

Matt Payne: [00:51:05] We stream live every every meeting. I then post that that stream on our YouTube page. So we you know, again, we want everybody to have that opportunity to come in. And we’ve had people from South Africa. I’ve had people from Europe. We’ve had people join from all over the world and we do stream it. We’re we’re not as good as streaming as we should be, but we’re getting better at every one that we do. So we’re learning as we go. So, you know, just know that going in.

Brian Pruett: [00:51:34] Awesome. All right. So real quick, share again the information on all three organizations that you’re involved with so people can follow. You, get a hold of you, whatever the case may be.

Matt Payne: [00:51:44] So inner circle is one inner circle.com and you can get on our website. We have a lot of information there. Outer Circle is Outer circle Foundation.org. A lot of information there. C suite is Atlanta dot C suite for christ.com and information there. My my cell phone my email address Matt at one inner circle Matt at Outer circle foundation M pain at C Suite for Christ. You can get me there and I’m happy to help any way I can.

Brian Pruett: [00:52:15] All right. So before we wrap this up, I always like to ask this question. So this is for both of you. We’ll go back to you first. Jeff, I always like to ask and end the show on giving the listeners something positive, whether what’s a quote, a word, some nugget to live today, the rest of 20, 23 and beyond with. So what you got something?

Jeff Thompson: [00:52:32] I did hear you say.

Speaker6: [00:52:35] I, you.

Jeff Thompson: [00:52:36] Know, think for yourself and look for the love and the good in people. As I was saying, it’s hard to go anywhere in north Georgia without seeing something that reminds me of something from the past. Probably just the neighborhood right next door. I did have a run in with the police. I was at gunpoint. I’ve been at gunpoint with the police three different times. Woodstock, Kennesaw, Dallas, all of them. Great interactions. The cop that I was at gunpoint, he gave me a ride home. So it’s not, you know, a lot of this noise we hear out here is nothing more than tactics to gain power. So look for the love and people look for the good and people go out and diversify. Your friends group don’t just you know, diversity has nothing to do with how people look it It’s a mental thing. Go get you some friends. Okay? Some people are like, Yeah, I’ve got I’ve got black friends. Yeah, but they’re all black conservative friends. Oh, I got white friends. Yep. They all listen to De La Soul and stuff. Diversify your group, Get, get some, get some people that are going to tell you your opinion is not right and go into it able to learn like you. You don’t know everything. Humility, friendship. Look for the good in people. They really do say your attitude determines your attitude. So yeah, look for the good love conquers.

Brian Pruett: [00:54:06] I love that because of the diversity part. Because why can’t we be a Democrat, Republican or independent and still be friends? Why can’t we be black, be white, Asian, still be friends? God made us all and we’re all here for a reason. So let’s live it and be the love. So yeah, that’s awesome. Matt, what you got?

Matt Payne: [00:54:22] So I’m going to I’m going to read just a little bit of Ephesians six and it’s 13 to 18. Therefore put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after battle, you’ll be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth, the body armor of God’s righteousness for shoes put on the peace that comes with the good news so that you’ll be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith and stop the fire arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. So be kind. Listen. Say hi. Smile. Be an ear. Somebody standing behind you, turn around and say, Hey, have a great day. Compliment somebody. Buy somebody a cup of coffee that’s behind you. Have them pay it forward. Do something to make this world a better place because we have to start somewhere. And it starts with you. If you wait for somebody else to do it, they’re waiting for somebody else and they’re waiting for somebody else. It has to start here and then it will transform. And that’s how we spread.

Brian Pruett: [00:55:25] So that’s again. Stone What do you love the show?

Stone Payton: [00:55:29] This is my favorite show, man.

Brian Pruett: [00:55:31] And you say every time you learn something, what did you learn today?

Stone Payton: [00:55:33] I do. I learned. I think Love Conquers is the theme here, man.

Brian Pruett: [00:55:37] Right. So, all right. The other thing that I like to do because again, it’s the lost art. It’s just being kind is the thank you. The thank you is lost. So, Jeff, thank you for what you’re doing for the communities America and Matt, thank you and Buffy for what you’re doing for the businesses, the veterans, the first responders and just everybody in general. So everybody out there, let’s remember, let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.