Ask the Expert: Mayo Sowell with LIIV Atlanta

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Excel Radio’s Ask the Expert. Brought to you by shot photography and video. It’s your story. Make it awesome. For more information, go to buckshot.com. Now here’s your host.

Randell Beck: [00:00:30] We are in the studio today with Stone and Robert again. Hi, Stone. How have you been?

Stone Payton: [00:00:35] I am doing well. I’ve played all summer. It’s great to get back in the saddle again.

Randell Beck: [00:00:40] The last time we did this, you made me run that devil machine over there. And I’m going to let you do that today.

Stone Payton: [00:00:47] All right? I got you, baby. Earn your keep town.

Randell Beck: [00:00:50] And. And Robert Mason’s here. The real estate master. Yes, sir. How are you?

Robert Mason: [00:00:54] I’m good Man. Can’t complain. Nobody’s going to listen anyways.

Randell Beck: [00:00:57] You got that right. But they’re listening to the show.

Robert Mason: [00:00:59] They’re listening to the show.

Randell Beck: [00:01:00] So we’ve got a great show today with a very special guest that Robert invited. Robert, introduce your guest.

Robert Mason: [00:01:05] Our guest today. Well, we’ve got two gentlemen here. Mayo Sowell is my neighbor. And I mean, he literally lives right next to me. And he’s the senior pastor of LIIV Atlanta. And he played football at Auburn War Eagle. War Eagle. We won’t say go War Eagle again here on the show today. Promise. Go dawgs. And we’ve got Will Aldridge, his sidekick who we’re real happy to have on air today as well So welcome in, gentlemen.

Will Aldridge: [00:01:31] Thank you guys.

Mayo Sowell: [00:01:31] Thank you.

Will Aldridge: [00:01:32] Before we start, I just have to say one thing because I had to apologize the other day. I got an Alabama fan and one of my groups and I had to tell him, but this will be good. My nephew just got accepted to the School of Architecture at Auburn.

Mayo Sowell: [00:01:47] Praise. Congratulations.

Randell Beck: [00:01:48] And because he’s like valedictorian and all this, he’s starting almost a year ahead of his colleagues. So he’ll go straight into the labs and the practical stuff while the others are taking their their leveling courses and that sort of thing. Yeah, So that’s a pretty good school to get in, but especially on that basis, I think it’s going to be a good experience.

Mayo Sowell: [00:02:05] You’re going to love it. Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:02:07] One of my best friends, Shan Morris, he played football at Auburn back in the 80s and we grew up together. So I see him a lot and he’s always he’s always playing those Auburn Tigers.

Mayo Sowell: [00:02:19] We need to be we need prayer.

Randell Beck: [00:02:21] Isn’t Clemson the Tigers also? Yeah they are yeah. So there’s a good rivalry there right?

Robert Mason: [00:02:25] I think Auburn just stole one of our recruits, a linebacker, if I’m not mistaken, from Georgia.

Mayo Sowell: [00:02:29] Yeah, it was a five star. We flipped him.

Robert Mason: [00:02:32] Flipped our linebacker.

Mayo Sowell: [00:02:33] Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:02:34] Wow. They need help, though. Auburn doesn’t.

Mayo Sowell: [00:02:36] Oh, my goodness. Low blow. No, we do. I’m actually living here in Atlanta now. I’m kind of a tech Bulldog Falcon fan, so, I mean, I’m moving over. You know, I do have an allegiance to Auburn. But, you know, I’m you know, I’m here. I’m proximity now. So did you did.

Randell Beck: [00:02:55] You grow up in Alabama?

Mayo Sowell: [00:02:56] I was born in LA and I grew up in Louisiana. So I was an LSU guy. Uh huh, yeah, a little bit of UCLA guy. So I’m a little bit of everything.

Randell Beck: [00:03:05] So I guess, you know, when it comes to saying hook em horns, this is the wrong crowd. Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:03:09] Don’t, don’t, don’t do that. We won’t talk Bijan Robinson today.

Randell Beck: [00:03:12] Yeah, yeah, right.

Mayo Sowell: [00:03:14] Today.

Robert Mason: [00:03:14] So we’ve got a fantastic story to tell here. Mayo’s got a fantastic story to tell here. And really, Mayo’s incredible journey in life is a three part series. It should be a frickin mini series as far as I’m concerned. So, Mayo, let’s break it down. Kind of like what you and I talked about years zero through 25, 25 through, you know, where you’re at now.

Mayo Sowell: [00:03:38] Yeah. It’s, you know, like, you know, Roberts is it’s been a journey and you know, I think the journey is still going. But you know, for for time’s sakes, you know, we will start at that young age where I was born, like I said, in LA and my parents, they lived and they did the California lifestyle in the 80s. So I was born in the 80s. And and, you know, we just we just had, you know, we had rough times in the big city. And my dad was struggling. He was trying to find his career. And my mom, you know, she was being a young lady in L.A. And they decided to move to Louisiana. And at that time, you know, the marriage wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t as healthy as it should be, I would say. And I just grew up, you know, seeing my mom and dad argue and fuss and fight and stuff. And probably around the age of 13, 14, I started playing sports. And at that time, when I really, you know, fell in love with basketball, that was my kind of my first sport. You know, I played basketball. My mom and dad got divorced and my mom decided to just run away from my dad one morning when he went to work and she was like, she just came and gave me some, you know, a trash bag. And she was like, Hey, fill this trash bag up with your clothes. And I was like, Oh, okay. And I felt I filled it up and we left. And we went all the way to Birmingham, Alabama, and that’s where we stayed.

Mayo Sowell: [00:04:56] And my dad wasn’t in my life at that time, and my mom was working somewhere and she she met this guy that was a Christian and he was a believer in his name. Was his name was they called him Dick Gardner, but his name was Robert Gardner. And he was like, Hey, Mel, I really love for you to play at my son’s. So I started playing with his son and his son, you know, mentor me a little bit. And that’s when I really fell in love with basketball. And I started to take it serious. And then they was like, Hey, man, why don’t you try football? I was like, I don’t play football. I just play basketball. And I excelled at football my first year, and that’s when I started getting recruited and stuff. And Auburn ended up recruiting me, Alabama, LSU, all the schools in the SEC. And I chose to go to Auburn University. And at that time, you know, when I went to Auburn, I was like, you know, I was I was pretty good in football, but I just couldn’t stay. I couldn’t stay focused. You know, I was going out partying and drinking, just doing the just doing the college thing. And I just had those bad habits. And, you know, ultimately, I got an opportunity to go to the NFL, went to the NFL, and that was my first time experience in Atlanta. You know, a black guy with money in Atlanta with no no values or no morals or anything, but just.

Mayo Sowell: [00:06:13] That’s an accident waiting to happen because we moved to Atlanta. My guys, we we said, hey, like we like we made the we made the we told each other. We was like, hey. So a friend of mine went number two pick to the Miami Dolphins. Another guy went number five to Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Carl Williams. Another guy went number seven to the Washington Redskins. Then another one went 17 to the Washington Redskins. So all these guys just millions of dollars. So I’m a friend. What’s my responsibility? Help them spend their money. So so we all decided like, hey, let’s just be friends, just help each other, spend our money. So we decided we was like, Hey, where are we going to live at? Like, let’s just like after the off season, let’s live in the same space so we can hang together. And we was like, Well, Atlanta, I mean, we heard the ratio is 16 to 1. Yeah, we was like, we was like, that makes sense. We got money, we got women 16 to 1. I can I can deal with those odds. So we moved to Atlanta and man, I mean, we just went on this journey, the 16 to 1. It was just fast living. And I just I mean, it just overtook me and I ended up getting at that time I got cut from the Buffalo Bills because I couldn’t keep up. I’m living this type of life off the field and I just couldn’t keep up. Then I tore my ACL. So I’m back in Atlanta and at that time.

Robert Mason: [00:07:26] Is that your rookie year?

Mayo Sowell: [00:07:27] Yes. And at that time, Robert, I was like, Man, I was like, What am I going to do? What am I going to do? You know, I graduated from college. I did get a degree, but I’m like, Am I going to start all the way over? So I tried real estate. That didn’t work.

Robert Mason: [00:07:39] That’s what your father was in real estate.

Mayo Sowell: [00:07:41] He my dad was in real estate. So I tried what I knew my dad was in. So I tried real estate that didn’t I didn’t have the patience. And I just had this bright idea one day. Well. In the in the nightlife, three people are glorified. The athlete. The rapper. In the drug dealer like, you know, in culture, in the nightlife at that time, it was three people that was glorified. I was like, okay, I can’t play and be the athlete anymore because my ACL is gone. I can’t rap because I can barely hold a beat. You know, I’m not going to grow cornrows out and be a rapper. I can’t do that. So I was like, Hey, what about this third option? Sell drugs? So, you know, you met my dad. Robert You know, we’re very entrepreneurial. My whole family is just very entrepreneurial. We see some do some get some recruit, some do some make something. That’s just us. And I gave it a shot, You know, I started, you know, went on my venture and I started selling drugs. I started with marijuana and then just continued to grow. And I did that for six years. And I was doing a deal down in Arizona. And I obtained I obtained everything that I wanted. I had all the cars my friends had.

Mayo Sowell: [00:08:53] I had all the money they had. I had everything. And I was doing a deal down in Arizona and. Little did I know I was doing a deal with the federal government. Oops. Oops. I remember like it was yesterday, buddy. You know, a car came across the parking lot going 40mph. And I was like, Man, this car is about to hit us. We was in the parking lot, you know, kind of broke in the deal. And and I seen the I seen on the shirt of the person driving it said DEA. Then the lady next door with the baby in the basket, she came out with a firearm. Dea. Then the guy walking on the corner in the trench coat looking homeless. Dea. It was a sting. The guy that we was doing. The guy that we was doing work with, he was a federal informant. And at that time, they took we was in Arizona and took they took us away. It was two of two of my friends and I seen a piece of paper come up under it. It came under the door and it said Mayo Sowell versus the United States of America. Now, this is not Mayo Sowell versus like Atlanta, you know, Fulton County, you know, this is the, I would say year to date the strongest,

Mayo Sowell: [00:10:09] Well established nation ever versus Mayo Sowell. So. Well. I didn’t know what to do and I was facing a minimum of 15 years of life. My other friend was facing a minimum of 30 to life and my other one was facing a minimum of 47 to life. And I was like, What am I going to do? And man, it was I mean, I can go on and on. Like,

Robert Mason: [00:10:33] Did you call your dad?

Mayo Sowell: [00:10:35] I was scared to call my dad. I called my mom. I called home the next day and I called my mom and it said it said, you have a collect call from federal prison. And I was thinking I was in Florence and Florence, Arizona to accept press six. To decline, press nine. She accept. She pressed six. At the other end of the phone, it was. Hey, mom. This Mayo. She hung up. Unbelief. I had to wait to call 30 minutes because you can’t you got to call in 30 minute intervals. So I called back. Screaming. No, no, no, no. My baby. I’m like, Yeah. Hey, man, it was just, you know, it was. Yeah. I mean, you know, life. Life hit me right there in the face, and I kind of woke up.

Stone Payton: [00:11:34] How old were you at?

Mayo Sowell: [00:11:36] That’s a great question. I don’t keep up with age anymore. I think I was 27. 28. 527. Right. I think I want to say 26. You know. Yeah, it hit me, you know, so I could either. Yeah, I just it hit me like I could. I had a decision. I could have went down in a shell. But if you go down in the shell in prison, right, then you can be taken advantage of you because now you become vulnerable or you had to numb up. Puff up. To not become vulnerable. So I had to numb quick. I had to real quick and and it was chaos because I was in Arizona at that time and Arizona, this gang like down south, you know, like we might do a little gangs out west. Oh, no, it’s gangs. You got the natives, You got you got the they call them the chiefs. You got you got the espanoles. You got the Serranos, you got the Nortenos, you got the Mexican mafia, you got the whites, you got the like, dirty white boys, they call them. Now you have Aryan brotherhood like this. It’s territorial. So it’s not. Let me think about my time. No, let me think about my life right now. At least five minutes, because they can take it. So it was it was chaotic. But yeah, it was. It was, Yeah. Hey, listeners, I’m sorry about this story, right? Right. Hey, somebody follow in your car? Like what? What is happening right now? Robert, are you sure this is your neighbor? How often do you stare out your window at your neighbor? You know me. I’m his neighbor. I promise. We’re neighbors and we’re good neighbors. We’re happy neighbors.

Robert Mason: [00:13:16] We are. We love each other.

Randell Beck: [00:13:18] There was a time, of course, the disclosure, right? All the people portrayed in this show are real. These are real characters.

Mayo Sowell: [00:13:24] Real people, real grass, like real hay, real traffic on the on the cul de sac.

Robert Mason: [00:13:29] It happens, man. There was a Sunday where we had an incident in my house where a guy came to my door who was arrested the day before, who broke into somebody’s house in the neighborhood and and ran off all of a sudden. So we’ve got this strange incident going on with a neighbor or we didn’t even know. And so this guy on a Sunday comes to my door and we’ve got ring doorbell and I, we saw him coming up the driveway and we knew exactly we were like, oh, no, it’s that guy. It’s the guy that’s going to break in. And so my wife and I, we have code words and we have we have action plans in place when things might happen. So hers is call the police, get her her Glock 27 and mine is to grab a shotgun rifle, whatever is appropriate.

Mayo Sowell: [00:14:20] Glock 27.

Robert Mason: [00:14:21] Well, yeah, a shotgun is appropriate for one coming up the driveway, in my opinion, because I you know, I’m a 1911. Don’t hurt the neighbors. Right. Don’t hurt overpenetrate and hit any of the neighbors if anything goes down. So this guy comes up and we I run him off. I’m like, dude, you need to leave my house right now. Wife’s calling 911. And they came and and the guy escaped. And so I think it was the next night I’m.

Mayo Sowell: [00:14:43] Out of town, by the way. My wife is blowing my phone up. I am nervous, but praise God, she’s in a group text with him.

Randell Beck: [00:14:51] Yeah, Robert’s next door.

Mayo Sowell: [00:14:52] So now I’m in this group texting. I see his preparation. I’m like, I don’t never need to come back. You okay? Trust me. Whatever I’m going to do, I promise you, he’s going to do it a thousand times better.

Robert Mason: [00:15:03] We’re going to get there. And so your wife hit me up and she goes, There’s somebody banging on the door.

Mayo Sowell: [00:15:08] This is the next day. The next night? Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:15:10] And it’s dark. And so I grab a handgun and I go bolting out and it’s you.

Mayo Sowell: [00:15:17] Me, It’s me. He don’t know. It’s me. I’m beating on the door because. Okay, wives, they lock every door. Yeah. Like, why do they lock doors? No, we live here to not lock doors. Yeah, she locks every door, so I’m beating on the door. And I said, Hey, I hear. Hey, who are you? Yeah, I’m like, Rob this Mayo, bro. This Mayo. Like, Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:15:37] So I had to apologize real quick. It was.

Randell Beck: [00:15:39] Amazing. Well, I find it’s good to announce myself when I’m showing up at his house, too. Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:15:44] Yeah, Probably.

Mayo Sowell: [00:15:44] Good announcement.

Robert Mason: [00:15:45] Yeah. We heard you coming way earlier yesterday.

Randell Beck: [00:15:48] Walk me through this. How does someone get to the point where they want to become a drug dealer? I mean, I understand if you get kind of. You live in Compton, let’s say, right? It’s just the only path you can take and just kind of happens to you by circumstance. All of a sudden you’re surrounded by it. How do you walk down a path where you say, This is what I want to do?

Mayo Sowell: [00:16:05] I would say it’s the same. It’s going to be a horrible illustration. I would say it’s the same thing as Robert walking down the path and wanting to do real estate. You know, he knew it. He seen an opportunity, he seen a void, and he’s seen that he can learn it. However, it was a resource that was close to him. So there’s a lot of guys in the inner city now. My journey was different because I wasn’t in the inner city because I had to go in. But there’s a lot of guys in the inner city and they see that resource next to them. They see a void, they see a need, and they were like, Hey, this is a quick way. Let me learn it and do it. So for me, everyone around Atlanta, you know, just they would smoke this high level marijuana. I seen a need. Let me fill a void. Let me learn how to do it. That’s how I walked into it. Now it grew as as of course, you know, we probably know real estate guys that get in, you know, I would say residential. And then all of a sudden it grows to commercial and, you know, but the same thing, it grew on me. And the bottom line was it the bottom line? It was just pride, ego to get this lifestyle with someone with glorify Mayo at the end of the day. And it was by this word right here that we say sometime these words by any means necessary, I will get back to it. And that was it. It was the quickest route.

Robert Mason: [00:17:29] So are you saying that’s a cultural issue? Because.

Mayo Sowell: [00:17:32] No, I’m not saying it’s a cultural issue as much as I’m saying it’s the easier issue culturally. It’s easier to get to it to to go get like it’s I would say it’s it’s five people away. Like maybe in Decatur, in the inner city of Decatur, you can go to five people and you can get a bag of weed. Whereas right here in Marietta, I can go to five people and get a piece of real estate. It’s kind of, you know, it’s almost like who you know, it’s the circle. You know, they say, you know, you show me your friends, I can show you your future.

Robert Mason: [00:18:10] Five people you hang around with the most.

Mayo Sowell: [00:18:11] Yeah. You know, and it’s just, you know, so that’s why that’s why I believe in diversity so much. Because now my network has changed. Because my friends have changed. You know? So now just where I can go left and go five people away and probably get a bag of marijuana, now I can go right and go five people away and get a piece of real estate. So that’s why I think diversity is so huge. And I think it’s a lot of things that try to keep us divided so that we can’t use the resources from each other. And I think that’s this huge problem.

Randell Beck: [00:18:40] You mentioned the rule of five people. I hear that a lot lately. That’s been coming up a lot. It’s becoming a theme out there. Basically, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. That’s right. You believe that? Is that a valid philosophy to you?

Mayo Sowell: [00:18:53] Do I believe it’s. This is gamble. What? I gamble on it. I would gamble and say, I don’t know what it’s proven, but I would take that back. That’s a good bet that if I spend time with five people, I would become the sum total of them. I take that back.

Randell Beck: [00:19:09] I think deceived bad company corrupts good morals.

Mayo Sowell: [00:19:12] That is that is a great piece of literature in the Bible.

Randell Beck: [00:19:16] I hear that one’s been translated a few times.

Mayo Sowell: [00:19:18] Oh yeah, probably. Yeah. A thousand times.

Randell Beck: [00:19:22] Yeah. So what made the difference for you? Here you are sitting in this prison, you get hard, you’re looking around, you know, I mean, at any on any given day, your life is a question you’ve got to answer. Right? So now what? What happens next?

Mayo Sowell: [00:19:34] So I end up I end up coming back to Atlanta because I bond out from Arizona. I came back to Atlanta and I’m still waiting on how much time they’re going to give me, what’s my sentence going to be. So I stayed out for a year and a half and I got worse. You know, I say I took more risk because I knew I was either going to go on the run or I was going to go to prison. So I took bigger risk, you know, So and a friend of mine, I was going to go on the run. I wasn’t going to go to court. I wasn’t going to go back to Arizona to go to court. I was just going to go on the run, take a chance. And I called a friend of mine and it’s crazy how, you know, like in the Bible, it has this story of God speaking through a donkey. And I don’t know anyone’s faith. I’m not into, you know, this is not a faith talk or whatever, but it’s just in my faith, in this Bible, it shows God speaking through a donkey and what the point of is the story. God can speak to anyone or anything. So I called a guy and he’s I mean, he’s not a man of faith. He doesn’t like I wasn’t even a man of faith. And I say, Man, I think I’m not going. You know what he said to me? He said, bro, just go. For some reason, I think you’re going to get your life back and it’s going to be better.

Mayo Sowell: [00:20:55] I’m like, hold on. You know, you’re the guy that’s going to encourage me and tell me how to go. Like, what do you mean, go? I think you’re going to get your life back and it’s going to be better. First of all, you don’t even say better out of your mouth like that’s not even in your vocabulary. So it threw me off. I’m like, Am I talking to the police? Like, are you the feds? Like, what’s going on? And I went, Sure enough, I went and I the judge, when I went before the judge, they gave my co-defendants one of them. They gave 16 years. The other one, they gave 37 years. And now I’m about to get sentenced. They sentence all three of us 3716. And now he gets to me, the oldest judge on the United States circuit Judge Carol. He says. And that’s a whole nother story right there. Because side note, I lawyers was from New Jersey and they wanted our lawyers for racketeering and conspiracies and everything, so they throwing heavy time at us. So I’m like, I’m about to give me ten years. He said, Mayo. For some reason. I think you’re going to get it right. I’ma give you under the mandatory minimum. I’ma give you 50 months. So 50 months is right. About four and a half years. So I ended up giving me 50 months. So I go to prison for 50 months. For 40 of those months, all I did was connect with people and think about how to do what I did better.

Mayo Sowell: [00:22:28] So. So prison is a school. It’s a school. So you can sit under different philosophies on how to do things. It’s a it’s a diverse school. So now you have Spanish people in there, you know, now you have a closer pipeline to where you come from. You got you got Colombian. Like it’s just like I mean, it’s a school and that’s all I did. Network Think about how I’m gonna do it better. Until ten months ago. Here’s my diversity. A white guy. Came across the racial lines. And said, Could I pray for you? Now, at that time, I’m like, why would I? I don’t need like, I’m there’s nothing you can do for me. He laid his hands on me and he prayed for me. Everything cold turkey. Everything. Now, you know, it’s PG 13. You know what we’re doing right here in prison? Like, I mean, like, it’s no females, so it’s like, I didn’t even have that desire anymore. And I went back to my unit and I’m like, Where is that desire go? So now I’m like, I’m checking all my desires. I’m like, do I want to go back to Atlanta and sell drugs again? Because I had two restaurants in Atlanta. I had I was doing music, I was doing a lot of things. I didn’t want to go. So I went back to him. I said, Hey, what happened with my desires? Where did they go? And he said, That’s God.

Mayo Sowell: [00:23:48] I can’t even tell you where they went. So it intrigued me to meet the God that took my desires and he gave me the Bible. So he said, You’ll find that God in this in this book right here. So I’m studying this book, looking for this guy named God that took my desires that I want back. I’m in prison. I can’t do nothing. Let me have them. I couldn’t get him back. Took me on this journey. And I fell in love with Jesus. Everything changed from that point on. For the remainder of the time. It took me it took me maybe a month and a half to figure out this is something supernatural. For that rest of the time. I said I would like to learn how to help other people come free of what I was in. Bondage to fear, insecurity, money, pride, power, position, everything. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to help people break free. And that’s when I sold my life. I called my I call my guys in Atlanta. I said, Yo, I’m not coming back. And they were like, no, you got to come back. You have all the connections. Well. I only got one connection I know about right here in his name. Is Jesus. It’s like, Yo, you got to come back. You got to come back. I’m not coming back. Call my dad. I say, Dad, can I come home and move with you? He’s like, Sure. Went home, moved in with him.

Robert Mason: [00:25:18] And he was in, what, Birmingham?

Mayo Sowell: [00:25:20] Birmingham? Yeah. He’s in Birmingham, Alabama. So I’m like, Man, I got to learn how to give people this hope and in a in a pliable way. So I’m like, I’m called to be a pastor, I think. But I don’t know how to pastor people, you know. So I got to learn. So I get out of prison. Robbie Here you go. You go again. I’m like, Hey, I’m out of prison now, okay? I gotta get trained. What do I do? I got to find a pastor, black guy. Let me find a black pastor. That’s what I’m thinking. Like, that’s. Come on, guys. I know you’re listening and you’re riding in your car, and that’s like you’re thinking the same thing. Black guy, black pastor. Okay. That’s what I think. But I had an ankle monitor on and I could only go to church within a five mile radius. In a tree just fell through my parents house on one side of town, and they just moved before I got out of prison on another side of town. Guess what? It’s only one church in a five mile radius. It wasn’t a black church, a white church. I’m like, oh, I’m like, okay, God, I’m here. You know? So this is not enough, right? Like, what’s going on? And I meet the pastor.

Mayo Sowell: [00:26:26] The pastor said, Hey, I want to shake some hands. I’m going to be out in the lobby. That’s 2400 people in this room. I’m like, I’m not going to be able to shake his hand. Like, everybody’s going to be in line. He got to hug every baby and kiss every grandma. Nobody was in line. And I said, Well, God, if I can ask him. And he said, Yes, that’s how I know it’s you. And I asked him and he said, You’re a pastor. I said, No, I’m something else with another P word, but not a pastor. And he said, No, you’re a pastor. I said, Well, actually, I’m a federal prisoner and I’m on probation and here’s my ankle monitor. And I showed it to him. And he said, your pastor, he ended up scholar shipping me to Highlands College, sending me to military school, hiring me on staff. Bought my first vehicle, made sure I had clothes. I didn’t have anything. I left every dime that I had in Atlanta. And he helped. He helped. He helped me get on my feet, you know. And I said, this is the guy that I served the rest of my life.

Robert Mason: [00:27:24] So God was speaking through him as he spoke through the gentleman in your prison. Yeah. And the.

Randell Beck: [00:27:31] Circumstances.

Robert Mason: [00:27:32] And the circumstances. And your mom and your dad. And now, Will, will you hear this? You know this story. Tell us how Mayo is doing.

Speaker6: [00:27:44] I’m thankful for his leadership, much like the pastor he mentioned did for him. In many ways, he did for me. I grew up in faith but never really made it mine until college. And when I went through some family things and I was actually in ministry school at the time and I actually had to complete a certain amount of work hours, internship hours with ministries in order to graduate. And so I had known the church that he came from church, the Highlands. They had a campus in Auburn, and that’s where I was at. And through a connection there, they were like, Hey, Pastor Mayo is going to Atlanta to launch a church and he’s going to need interns to get this thing off the ground. And I was like, Well, I got to get a degree, so I’ll do it. And so I came. In. It’s just the intentionality and the availability of like a pastor to be there. He uses the word proximity a lot, and I was just around him, and there’s just something so attractive about the way he lives his life that I was like, I got to like, I’m not going back to the school, that I’m literally two classes away from graduating. I’m staying in Atlanta because, like, I’ll do whatever he wants me to do because he’s poured so much into me. He sees where I want to be. He’s trying to grow me to disciple me to get to where God’s ultimately called me to be, but he just put his hand all over it. He’s like, Well, I see where you want to go. I hope you get there. Yeah. And so much like the pastor did for him, he’s been doing for countless people here, me included. So he’s doing amazing.

Robert Mason: [00:29:14] It’s it’s a funny thing about mentoring young people or mentoring people in particular. I’ve been blessed, starting with a great grandfather. His name is Mike Bloomberg. And back in the 40s and 50s Meyer lived in Memphis, Tennessee, and Jews couldn’t hold public office in Memphis, Tennessee, back in the 50s. And so Meyer was such a strong person back in those days that he couldn’t run for mayor. So there was a mayor in charge, but Meyer was the mayor and back of the mayor. And when the mayor retired after eight years in Memphis, his his leaving office speech was about Meyer, Bloomberg, my great grandfather. And it was amazing. I heard that story a couple of years before my father died. And my father pulls out this speech and here I’m 54 years old or 50, whatever. I’d never heard this about my grandfather or my great grandfather and Mayo. You are that kind of person. From the very first time I saw you when you moved in. You’re waving. I’m waving at your kids. We’re just. I’m like, Who’s this guy? I mean, yeah, he’s all right. This looks good, you know, because the neighborhood that you and I live in is like the UN. There’s everybody. Everybody, every single type of person there. And I love it that way. I mean, like, Diwali will come and we’ll be shooting off fireworks like we did last year and the cul de sac. And then this other family from Afghanistan will walk. It’s just I love it. And you talk about diversity and you really live that. Yeah.

Mayo Sowell: [00:30:48] It’s it’s important. It’s important because I’ve been I’ve been impacted by more than one. So it’s only right to give to more than one. So in some in some sorts, I think we’ve all been impacted by more than one, you know. So yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:31:05] I have a philosophy and these guys haven’t even heard it because we don’t get to talk about it in the This.

Mayo Sowell: [00:31:09] Is big when someone comes in. I have a philosophy. This is getting.

Robert Mason: [00:31:14] Ready to launch.

Randell Beck: [00:31:15] And I’m going to get you guys to discuss it. I want to hear I want to hear your feedback. But in these groups we run in, we don’t get to talk about this much. So we all go through stuff, right? And and we have crises and crisis produces opportunity, and opportunity gives you some learning and you can develop good things out of it. Right. But nowhere in there does anybody ever talk about purpose. What’s the purpose of going through all that? I think it’s kind of like the pay it forward idea. I think what you do in life enables you, empowers you, gives you what you need to bless other people going through similar things. Correct? Discuss.

Robert Mason: [00:31:51] Well, when you leave this life. Right? People are at your funeral. You can’t take anything with you. Right? So there’s that. The people that are sitting there are the testimony to your life. Those around you, whether it be your children, whether it be your friends, whether it be the wills, the stones, they are going to be the testament. Did you do it right or did you do it wrong?

Mayo Sowell: [00:32:11] Yeah, no, I, I totally I agree with Robert and and piggyback. I agree with you totally. I think that’s I think that’s biblical. You know, if you think about crises, you think about pain, you think about purpose. If you just go to the epitome of Jesus Christ. He went through a crisis. He went through pain. To leave a story so we won’t have to go through it. And I think that’s everyone’s I think that’s everyone’s calling life is the pain that you take on. Let’s make sure that you go through it and your purpose is no one behind you will go through the same thing, Right?

Robert Mason: [00:32:48] There’s some reasoning behind it. Yeah, it’s a reason.

Mayo Sowell: [00:32:50] But sometimes people they what happen in the middle of their pain, they start to get selfish and they only see them being out of their pain instead of seeing what they’re in their pain for, they end up paying for the people behind them.

Robert Mason: [00:33:04] So we’re talking about greed eventually turns into greed. Yeah, yeah. Power breeds greed.

Randell Beck: [00:33:11] Or validation or whatever it is they’re seeking for.

Mayo Sowell: [00:33:14] So it goes back to your statement. Pay it forward. Yeah. Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:33:18] All right. So clearly, you went through this experience. Yes, sir. You got that calling, that that motivation to bless other people. Your church and being a pastor is the way you do that. Tell us about Live Atlanta.

Mayo Sowell: [00:33:30] What’s that like? Live? Atlanta is is living now. We’re nine months old. You know, I moved I moved over to Atlanta maybe a year and a half ago. And I was Robert’s neighbor. And still, you know, we still are neighbors. And I mean, he seen me in the infancy stages of it when we was just having like launch parties in the basement. And we launched last year, September the 18th. And we I mean, we worked hard, we prayed hard, we prepared hard, we prepped hard. And that first day we seen over a thousand people show up to the first service. Wow. And right now, we’re right now we’re just right in the six hundreds, you know, nine months in. And we just pushing I mean, we’re you know, the live is live alive and it’s a story behind that also, you know, but in short, it stands for love because our church, we are going to love every human that walks in the door despite their deficits. We’re going to love him despite that’s our job is to love him. We’re going to operate with a high level of integrity because people deserve to trust us. Myself included. That’s why I’m big on proximity, I believe. I believe it’s hard to go wrong when somebody is in your mess. Like when you’re this close to me. Like, I can’t go with Susie. I’m sorry. I’m with Robert. And Robert sees Susie and he sees me flirt at Susie. No, you can’t do that. So proximity is huge. So we believe in integrity. That’s the that’s the second. I mean, the first I and the second I is influence because I didn’t use my influence properly the first time. This time I want to use it right first, I mean, the second time. So we use our influence to help others up and push them forward and then victory. We all want to experience the victory of Jesus Christ. And that is live Atlanta. And we believe every human deserves love, integrity, influence and victory.

Robert Mason: [00:35:23] We had another friend of mine, Jim McCray, just.

Randell Beck: [00:35:26] Listening to him. Yeah, the live needs to have the E on the end and the E would be for excellence, for excellence.

Mayo Sowell: [00:35:32] It’s huge.

Randell Beck: [00:35:33] I can feel it.

Mayo Sowell: [00:35:34] Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:35:35] We had another pastor friend of mine, Jim McCray, who was head of that church in Canton that I told you about. Yes, sir. That situation. Stone Remember that his wife ran same kind of vibe of how he lives his life now, purpose and his purpose is to speak, is to speak. The gospel is to educate those around us. And he’s doing a great job. And Mayo, you are doing an exceptional job. This is year one and you had 1000 show up day one and now you’ve got a congregation of 600. It’s going to build my friend and it’s because of you and people like Will that are sitting right next to you, man. They they love you. We love you and people are going to support you.

Mayo Sowell: [00:36:14] I think, you know, and I don’t take that lightly, you know, because, you know, as a leader and hopefully you guys are listening, you know, still love me a little bit. But as a leader, my biggest thing is insecurity. You know, I get insecure because you know of what I see and I’m like, Can I do it? But that’s why that statement means so much to me because just like the guy. That God spoke to him and said, Hey, you going to get your life back? My pastor, God spoke through him. Hey, your pastor. I take those words that you just said the same way. And I and I’m so grateful for it. Seriously, I’m so grateful for it because it speaks to the thing that I think about the most. Am I good enough in Mayo?

Robert Mason: [00:37:01] All of us go through those those moments of, you know, am I going to am I going to be able to honor the person that’s next to me? Like, I think that with my wife, I live a purposeful life to honor my wife and my children as well. And so, like social media, for instance, I’m constantly she’s got a nickname, Holy Bear. And she’s, you know, I put funny pictures of us and, you know, I don’t take it too seriously or try to influence in a way that’s not me real. And, you know, Randy has a unique situation being in the Navy and being side by side some of the nation’s toughest warriors.

Mayo Sowell: [00:37:39] And thank you guys for your services.

Robert Mason: [00:37:41] Well, that’s Randall and I have done a lot of shooting and a lot of stuff with some guys, Green Berets, SEALs. And to every one of those guys, they will say, yeah, I was I was not sure of myself for a large part of my terms in the service. He’s like, But it was a guy next to me. I had I had to I had to knuckle up. I had to put that extra weight on. I had to do what I had to do for the guy that was sitting next to me. I could not let that guy down. And that’s what leadership is all about. We call them.

Randell Beck: [00:38:11] Swim buddies and they have an enormous influence on you, right? It’s like the five people theory, right? But in the Navy, it’s all about your swim buddy. That’s the guy you don’t let down. That’s the guy you take care of. That’s the one with the big influence. Yeah. I really.

Mayo Sowell: [00:38:23] Swim next to each other.

Randell Beck: [00:38:25] In training and stuff. Yeah, like, it’s like a cohort thing. You’re paired together and. Yeah.

Mayo Sowell: [00:38:30] Who was your swim buddy?

Randell Beck: [00:38:32] He’s gone now. Yeah. Yeah. So the point I wanted to make of that was that. Influence from the people around you is one thing, but you’re talking about insecurity. Nearly every one of those guys had a. They felt like they had something to prove to the world. But which might you might call that insecurity. You might not, I don’t know. But the idea was I think I can do more. I want to do more. I need to prove to the world that I can.

Robert Mason: [00:39:09] That’s important.

Speaker7: [00:39:10] Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:39:11] And sometimes you can’t. And in war, sometimes it takes a buddy to pull it out of you. You know.

Robert Mason: [00:39:15] You don’t have a choice. Yeah. You sink or you swim.

Mayo Sowell: [00:39:19] Sink or swim.

Robert Mason: [00:39:20] Yeah. And that’s what we all do in life, whether it’s being real estate, whether it’s being a pastor, whether it’s being a businessman. We sink and swim by the decisions that we make every single day. And we better hold ourselves accountable because, okay, there may be nobody watching. But you know what? There is somebody watching.

Mayo Sowell: [00:39:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:39:37] Yeah. And he’s much larger than anything we’ve ever thought of.

Speaker7: [00:39:40] Yeah.

Mayo Sowell: [00:39:42] Agree.

Randell Beck: [00:39:43] So the guy was gone. His name was Phil, And Phil was always watching.

Speaker7: [00:39:47] Always.

Randell Beck: [00:39:47] But I was always watching, too. And, you know, everybody has that experience and ideas fade and the group can be something you like and also something you don’t like. But that, buddy, you’re not going to let down. That’s right.

Speaker7: [00:40:01] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:40:03] Which I guess in the Christian world nowadays, they talk a lot about accountability partners, but that’s not really the same thing. It can be close to it. Yeah.

Mayo Sowell: [00:40:11] Sometimes because accountability, your only good, your accountability is only good is what you let them know.

Speaker7: [00:40:18] Yeah.

Mayo Sowell: [00:40:19] Yeah, right. This swim, buddy, that’s different. He knows everything. He’s a buddy. He’s there.

Randell Beck: [00:40:23] You’re in the same state room. You’re on the same training. You’re in the same mission. You have no.

Mayo Sowell: [00:40:29] You have no option not to let him in.

Randell Beck: [00:40:30] If you. If you fart in your sleep, they know it.

Mayo Sowell: [00:40:32] Hey, bro, you got gas. You had gas last night and I stayed up. Yeah, You had gas, bro. Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:40:40] So where do you go from here? Mayo? Tell me. You know, I know you’ve got your church up and running, and so tell me how this all evolves.

Mayo Sowell: [00:40:47] So where we go from here, of course, we are in Riverwood High School right now, so we’re a portable church. That means we.

Robert Mason: [00:40:54] That’s where I went to high school.

Mayo Sowell: [00:40:55] Really? Yeah. That’s cool. So we’re in River Ridge, Riverwood High School, and we’re a portable church, so that means we go in every Sunday and we set up we get there 430, 5:00 and we set up and we make it a church and we take it down after the service, after the 1130 service. So of course we would be praying. And, you know, I would say just waiting for God to just, you know, bless us financially to get our permanent location and we want to move into a permanent location. We do have a vision, you know, not to only be in one location, but we want several other locations around us, the city of Atlanta and hopefully Georgia. So like will, you know, my job, I think, you know, Will is called to be a pastor. So Will would like to pastor a location. So whether or not Will’s location is in Atlanta, Will has Chattanooga on his heart. He and I was driving. He was like, yeah, I think I’m called to go to Chattanooga one day. Pastor helped me get there. I’m like, okay, I’ll help you get there. So it would be a lift. Chattanooga one day, hopefully. So that’s that’s the vision, you know, for God to just continue to send great people because I think great organizations, you can’t be great without great people. And, you know, he sent us some great people thus far. And we’re just praying for great people. We pray for two things. Two peas. The presence of God because Mayo can’t change anyone. God can. The presence of God. It’s my job to love him and then great people, because great people begets great people. So that’s the two things that we pray for. And hopefully we become a permanent location here in the middle of next year sometime.

Robert Mason: [00:42:23] So permanent location, what does that look like? What type of space? Where? What county? What city?

Mayo Sowell: [00:42:29] That’s a great question. So permanent location would look like right now for what? We have to accommodate us. We would need 35,000ft² or higher. So if you get down into the 20 twos it now it becomes, you know, it’s not convenient for young families to bring their kids and check their kids in. It’s crowded parking lots more. So you need probably 31,000ft² or higher. So I would like to stay I would like to stay somewhere close to the 285 loop, not going past, I would say Peachtree Corners. So Buckhead, Vinings, Sandy Springs, not Camp Creek. Maybe stop at Smyrna right there for the first permanent live location. So I would say Alpharetta is too far. Canton is too far. Where we are right now is, you know, where we are right now is Woodstock. Woodstock. I think that’s too far north. I would like to start urban. Okay. I would like to start urban because they say they say 98%. They say 90 to 98% of the people within the perimeter is unchurched.

Robert Mason: [00:43:35] Well, there’s a there’s a real problem in commercial real estate these days. And so there are a lot of opportunities. And if I’m you, I’m looking at some shopping center space that people are pulling in and out of. I mean, you look at Lenox and Phillips and Phipps. I mean, no one’s going over there anymore. Nobody’s going into these malls. And these malls might be a good place for you to start. Yeah, I.

Mayo Sowell: [00:44:00] Think I think it’s I think it’s a great.

Randell Beck: [00:44:01] Space available to tons of.

Mayo Sowell: [00:44:03] Space.

Randell Beck: [00:44:04] Some of the office buildings.

Mayo Sowell: [00:44:06] You’re doing remote work now because of Covid, you know, the leftovers of. So it’s a lot going on. So I don’t know.

Randell Beck: [00:44:11] What would be wrong with being in an office building for that matter.

Mayo Sowell: [00:44:13] I mean, nothing would be wrong. Just have.

Robert Mason: [00:44:15] The open space.

Randell Beck: [00:44:16] Take the right configuration that you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mayo Sowell: [00:44:18] So that’s what we’re looking for. I mean, you know, we’re not picky, you know, we just want to have something with great people in the presence of God. I think it’d be great.

Randell Beck: [00:44:26] I love the story. I love the spirit. You brought it in with this. And you know, what’s going to happen here is people that are going to find this recording are going to be at a decision point. Right. That’s why it’s going to be brought to them to their attention. Right. So. What do you have to say to that person.

Mayo Sowell: [00:44:44] At the decision?

Randell Beck: [00:44:44] He finds this. He’s looking he’s in a crisis. He or she she’s they’re in a crisis. They’re trying to make a decision. They’re trying to figure out what their life’s about. Yeah. Before we go, what do you have to say to that person?

Mayo Sowell: [00:44:54] So I’m doing this collection of talks on try this. Meaning I’m doing a sermon series three weeks and I’m the whole idea is try this, try this, try this. Now you might ask that person might say, okay, may I hear you? They’re listening right now. Okay. What do you mean? Try, Try what? They’ve tried everything. They tried to escape in a bottle. They tried to escape in the pill. They tried to escape in porn, whatever it may be. They tried that. So try this. Try prayer. And to make it simple, I’m giving them the shortest prayer to pray. Three words. Lord, help me.

Speaker8: [00:45:36] Three words.

Mayo Sowell: [00:45:38] Try this. I’m not telling him to go to a church. I’m not telling him to get accountability. I’m not telling him to give. I’m not telling them to get baptized. I’m telling them to try this. Lord, help me. I believe I can look them in the eye and I can look God in eye and say I led them right. I never see him again. I will never meet him. Lord, help me. Try this.

Robert Mason: [00:46:10] That’s pretty powerful.

Randell Beck: [00:46:11] I don’t think I have anything to add to that.

Robert Mason: [00:46:13] What do you what do you say after that? Yeah.

Randell Beck: [00:46:16] I say thank you for coming in.

Mayo Sowell: [00:46:18] Yeah, no, thank you guys for having me.

Randell Beck: [00:46:19] I really enjoyed talking to you. Seriously?

Speaker7: [00:46:20] Yeah.

Robert Mason: [00:46:21] I’m so glad that this happened. Mayo, you’re a special person. And Will, man, your journey is just beginning.

Speaker6: [00:46:28] It is all this guy.

Randell Beck: [00:46:29] Sounds like it’s going to get fun.

Speaker7: [00:46:31] Yeah, it is. Someday.

Stone Payton: [00:46:33] Lord, help.

Speaker7: [00:46:33] Will No.

Mayo Sowell: [00:46:37] No. I pray that. No, I. I take the me out and I say, Will the Lord help? Will And did God say, is this why Mayo does will need help. Because he did with me. Yeah. Ain’t that the truth Cuz he deals with me and then I would change it. Lord help my wife. Why Mayo? Because she deal with me.

Speaker7: [00:46:59] Yeah, that’s the truth.

Mayo Sowell: [00:47:00] That’s a song.

Randell Beck: [00:47:01] Well, there you have it. Everybody excel with mayo.

Speaker7: [00:47:05] Yeah. Thank you. And we’re.

Robert Mason: [00:47:06] Going to have you back and we’re going to follow up and we’re going to we’re going to see how this this is.

Speaker7: [00:47:10] Going really interested.

Mayo Sowell: [00:47:11] Here. How you say no to my neighbor.

Speaker6: [00:47:13] No, thank y’all.

Robert Mason: [00:47:14] Because I found you in the front yard.

Randell Beck: [00:47:16] I really want to hear the the growth of the church. I’m very interested to see how this goes.

Speaker7: [00:47:20] Yes, sir. Thank you.