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Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:24] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Cherokee Business Radio Stone Payton here with you this morning. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by our local small business initiative, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors Defending capitalism, promoting small business and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Mainstreet warriors.org and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David Inc. Please go check them out at diesel. David.com. You guys are in for a real treat this morning. We have a studio full, we’ve got paparazzi, we’ve got social media managers, we got leaders of different divisions and it’s going to be a lot of fun. First up on Cherokee Business Radio, please join me in welcoming to the broadcast CEO, Grand Puba with Steele Interiors. No stranger to the business radio microphone, Mr. Gary Acedo. How are you, man?

Gary Acedo: [00:01:29] Tired.

Stone Payton: [00:01:32] It has been too long since we’ve had you in the studio, but I am so glad that we do. I got a ton of questions. We may not get to them all, but I think a great place to start would be if you could articulate for for me and our listeners alike, mission purpose. What are your you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Gary Acedo: [00:01:52] Man we we’re we’re trying to create I’ll sound a little corporate real quick dynamic workspaces and work environments. But in a nutshell we’re a full service contract, office furniture dealership and design firm headquartered in Marietta officially. So we work with clients that are signing leases, some of which may be for the first time and outfitting it with gorgeous furniture. That’s practical. We have sold our first cubicles last week in three years. In other words, I said that backwards. We hadn’t sold a cubicle since COVID until last week. Wow. Um. The name of the game is getting employees back to the office, and we’re helping our customers with that. And it’s much more than a ping pong table five years ago, you know, ping pong table and a beer keg was everything. Not today. We’re doing some cool stuff.

Stone Payton: [00:02:49] How did you get in this line of work? What was the path to get into this business for you? I am operating under the impression that it wasn’t a straight line, probably.

Gary Acedo: [00:02:58] No, no, no, no, no. I started my career with Office Depot making copies part time in a store in California in the Bay Area. And I loved it. And I wanted to make it to the mothership, aka Boca, down in South Florida. And after living in eight states over 18 years, I made it to the Taj Mahal down there and became a district manager in Broward County. But specifically in the year 2000, I’ll never forget it because hurricanes were new to me and we had we were devastated by hurricanes in Palm Beach County. And an organization called South County Metro called us and said their building was destroyed by a hurricane and they needed all new furniture. So I went out with a manufacturer’s rep, took measurements and photos, and it was like $250,000 job. And I about fell off my chair like, wow, I’m used to people spending 9999 for a chair. We did the whole building. They were thrilled. And it was apparent to me that that’s where the real money was. You know, I’m a sales guy. I like to make money. And I said that was what I wanted to do. So that’s where it all started. But office furniture is just not office furniture. There’s a term out there called contract office. What’s the difference? Office furniture is you go to Office Depot for your home office. It’s perfectly fine. Don’t get it wet and don’t move it. It’s fine what we sell, it’s going to cost a few more dollars, but we’re going to walk you through a process. You’re going to work with our design team. We’re going to space plan your building free of charge. By the way, we don’t charge. We just ask for the opportunity to to do business with you. We’ll design it, help you pick colors, let you really own your office, pick your furniture, pick your fabric, pick your paint, all that jazz. And we have a lot of fun doing it.

Stone Payton: [00:04:40] So we were talking about this before we came on air, but we have 18 other facilities like this one throughout the Business RadioX network. And I was telling Gary that my wall is the envy of all the other studio partners. So those of you listening who have seen that that black wall with the logos on it, that was Gary that that put that wall up there for us. And I mean all the studio partners, you know, they have like the stand up banners and the step and repeat and it looks cool, but everybody wishes they had my wall.

Gary Acedo: [00:05:12] It’s not $1 million. I consider Business RadioX friends and family. You know, that’s done. We’ve known each other three years now. Yeah, we we should be doing that. For all your studios. We do that. We work with that product on a daily basis because another portion of our business is we love to work with nonprofit. I’m really big on helping schools, nonprofit type of organizations. We’ve did business with most ministries. We’re working with an organization that you introduced us to called Limitless with Disabilities right here in Woodstock. We want to give back. And after spending all those years at Office Depot and it was a wonderful experience, excellent training, it’s not about the money. I mean, we need to make money, but it’s more about having a nice lifestyle and giving the rest away. So and we’ve been doing that since we started. And as a result, we’re nine people strong now. So we went from me and myself to nine people and we want to keep it boutique and stay humble.

Stone Payton: [00:06:15] Well, I am so excited for the momentum and the progress that you that you’ve made. And you brought three of the nine with you. I did.

Gary Acedo: [00:06:22] I did. The Florida teams down at the beach right now at season in South Florida. So you’re not going to get them up here in Woodstock, 29 degree weather. But yeah, if you want me to introduce, I can do that. Absolutely. All right. So I have Ayla Johnson, which is my senior designer at our office here in Marietta. She also works remote. Who doesn’t? And then we have Carlos Martinez, who is my supervisor and estimator and foreman, aka right hand man. Also, there’s another gentleman that wasn’t able to make it. His name is Hunter McCarthy. Him and Carlos kind of do the same thing. They oversee all the installations and make sure that the customer is happy at the end. The funny thing about office furniture is we, Ella and I can design a beautiful office. We can look at blueprints, we can pick paint colors and that’s all great. It can all come crashing down at install. Yeah. And I actually have a sound bite. It sounds like this. Okay. It means their furniture. Oh, my God. It doesn’t fit. Oh, it’s the wrong color. It’s not returnable. So we really take the time to pump the brakes, make sure they know what they’re picking, and we don’t charge for that service. But we’re also very honest with our customers. If you pick polka dot, we’re going to say absolutely not. You’re paying 20,000 in rent and your landlord is not going to let you do that. So we really advise them because we know what we’re doing, but we also give them the ability to do that. So yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there.

Stone Payton: [00:07:45] So Ayla, tell me a little bit about what compelled you to join this firm and what you’re finding the most rewarding about the work?

Ayla Johnson: [00:07:53] Yeah. So I actually met Gary through a mutual friend. She is a barber in Kennesaw, Georgia, so local. He was getting his haircut one day talking about the business and needing someone to come in and kind of help out with the more with the design part and all. And she was like, Well, I think I might know someone who can help you out there. So I got his contact info, contacted him, we met. It was great. We just clicked and and went from there. So everything’s been, been really great since then. Gary’s been a really great boss and friend person to work with and yeah, I mean, it’s been, it’s been a great journey and I’m looking forward to to more.

Stone Payton: [00:08:40] So when you’re first working with someone, do you do some of them know exactly what they want and you’re just helping them execute it and bring it to life and others? Would they be more like me and like, I don’t know, just make it look cool?

Ayla Johnson: [00:08:53] Yes, we we definitely have had a wide variety of clients, some that are more experienced in the design part and selections of different materials and some that are not so knowledgeable. So we kind of that’s where we come in. We take that relationship and that connection seriously, walking them through step by step, making sure we’re all on the same page. They know what they’re getting and how it’s all going to come together in the end.

Stone Payton: [00:09:26] So is this like drawn out on a piece of legal paper or is it all computerized these days?

Ayla Johnson: [00:09:34] Mostly computer. Every now and then we do like a quick little hand sketch that’s mostly just kind of communication between Gary and I on smaller things.

Gary Acedo: [00:09:45] I’m a professional chicken scratch artist. She makes it look pretty.

Ayla Johnson: [00:09:49] I would say that. Yeah. But yeah, we do.

Ayla Johnson: [00:09:53] We’ve used Cap Studio. We’re getting ready to move into using city. I’m familiar with AutoCAD, just like different.

Stone Payton: [00:10:04] You just went completely Greek on me.

Ayla Johnson: [00:10:06] But I was like, maybe I shouldn’t list them all out. But she can.

Gary Acedo: [00:10:10] Help safely land a rocket from NASA.

Ayla Johnson: [00:10:12] Just saying. But yeah.

Ayla Johnson: [00:10:14] Most of the time when we’re communicating plans with clients, we will use an online software. It makes it come out a lot cleaner, easier to. Understand and read.

Stone Payton: [00:10:24] Yeah. And then the communication with the people actually executing, doing the install, that’s got to be key for you.

Ayla Johnson: [00:10:30] Yes, for sure. Yeah. Communication is definitely a huge factor from beginning to end. You know, when we’re getting all of the information from the client picking finishes, materials and then, you know, creating the plan and then relaying that over to the installation team and, you know, and then even placing orders and stuff, you’ve got to be very specific in what you want, where you want it. Yeah, Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:10:57] So let’s talk about business impact, Gary, because my experience has been, you know, when we first started at Business RadioX, it started in classy space, you know, with like with a plastic table. Yeah. And four microphones and a ridiculous mixing board. Like we were a garage band. And it was what it was and it was what we could afford at the time. But then we got in class a space that made a difference. And I felt like prospective clients for us, you know, in our core business at Business RadioX, it’s high ticket B2B sales, right? So these people are making a substantial investment. I’m delighted to say we’re able to give them a very handsome return on that. But I always felt like when we made that move to Class A space, just moving to class, A space, just the even the walk up to get to our office. It was a different environment. And I really do genuinely believe with all my heart that that it did impact their their willingness to make a more substantial investment because of the the environment, the surroundings. Please validate me. There’s some truth to that, right? It wasn’t just because I wanted a cool office. It really does have an impact on things.

Gary Acedo: [00:12:04] It does. I’m you know, I think I’ve lived long enough now to, you know, call out different stories or experiences in my career. I’ll give you a couple of examples. We’re doing a corporate office down in Tampa for a client and the president of this company I used to work with years ago when I used to live in Florida. So that’s six plus years ago. And long story short is I’m on 85 North with my kids shopping for K-Pop with my daughters, and I get a LinkedIn message from Joe Gasperoni. He’s the president of Dean Street. That’s where I remember him. He says, Give me a call. So I call him up. And, you know, business was light in December. Our business tends to downturn in the fourth quarter because everybody’s in holiday mode. They don’t want to talk about office furniture and Thanksgiving and Christmas and the holidays. So he said, give him a call. I was so pumped. I call him up and he’s like, listen, I’m the president of this new company in Tampa. We’re moving our corporate office and you’re still doing furniture, right? I said, Yeah, I go, but now I own it. He goes, even better. When can you get here? Long story short, we fly in the team, we meet with them, we do drawings, we do all that, and we secured the business. And you know, and I know my customers very well and you always have to have a good, better, best solution because people don’t realize what these things cost.

Gary Acedo: [00:13:21] You know, if I asked you how much is a cubicle you have no idea. 100 bucks. First clue. It’s a lot more than 100 bucks. But this is let me tell you why it’s more than $100. So the person that was in charge of making the decision below, Joe, is still very important. But Joe is the president. I send over the estimate and she’s like, is there a used option? And I said, Absolutely there is. And I’m happy to look into that for you. But let me give you the reasons why I don’t advise it. And I just went down the list of reasons. You’re not going to get consistent color. It’s going to show up missing parts. And when you add 25 more employees, it’s not going to match. And it’s got a truck from Atlanta, Georgia, down to Tampa. She said, Let me talk to Joe. I wait one hour. Email comes in. Joe says, Do the deal. Just give me some free artwork. Done. So they are taking class A space. Now we deal with all customers. So I don’t want to make people feel like if they don’t have a class A space, we’re not going to work with them.

Stone Payton: [00:14:20] Well, it’s going to be Class A when Carlos and your team get done with it. Well, you said it.

Gary Acedo: [00:14:24] But yeah, you know, I have a customer that went from 20,000 a month rent to 80,000 a month rent talk about and they spent half a million on furniture with me. So these numbers can get crazy, but we’re doing some cool stuff. I’m not going to mention the name, but this one customer, we’re doing some work in Alpharetta. We’re getting ready to install. They have a game room that we created. Ala created a place where people can go and just veg out and have some fun because their sales training recruiters. And so the game room is going to have like a shuffleboard set. We got some neon lighting. And then on Saturday I was at the Avalon with my daughter picking out some love sack couches with surround sound. They have no clue they’re getting this. That’s why I’m not going to say who it’s for. It’s going to blow their mind. We’re a big giver for that couch with the surround sound. That’s not cheap. That’s zero charge to the customer. That’s who we are.

Stone Payton: [00:15:16] So you are have such a heart for getting to say more about that. Where does that come from? Is that personal experience and you were on the receiving end of that, or you’ve just found that you you just find it rewarding? Why are you so invested in the community and willing to to to give like you do?

Gary Acedo: [00:15:37] I think it’s you know, the older you get, you know, you never stop learning. But you know, I don’t want to get emotional, but there’s a couple people that have passed away. Here I go. There were two young and.

Stone Payton: [00:15:56] Um.

Gary Acedo: [00:15:57] There’s a friend of mine down in, um, in Florida. This guy was making bank Bentley wife. Everything. Died of cancer, like, 58. So it’s not about the money.

Gary Acedo: [00:16:11] We got to make a little bit. I got to support my kids. I got three kids that need to go to college, but, you know, you got to give back.

Stone Payton: [00:16:19] Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:16:20] And you got a lot of help. Tell us about Carlos here.

Gary Acedo: [00:16:25] I think Carlos should talk about himself, but he’s not used to that.

Stone Payton: [00:16:28] The whole opera falls apart without Carlos and his. I got a.

Gary Acedo: [00:16:31] I got a story for everything. I met his father at an install in. Let me get this right. Crawfordville, Georgia. Where the heck is that? Well, I was out there doing a library. Met his father, brought his father on and said, You need to start your own business and work for me. Done. And that’s how I met his son, Carlos. Carlos is a rock star. I want him to tell his story because it’s kind of cool. He didn’t come from office furniture, but I’ve made him a furniture guy.

Stone Payton: [00:16:58] What’s your background, Carlos? Where did you come from?

Carlos Martinez: [00:17:00] I was I was a former correctional officer at Clinton County. And during the time that Gary actually brought me on or we met each other, I was going downhill on my career. But, you know, he gave me the you know, how do I say it? The hope that there’s something else more out there to do and, you know, inspired me to go out there with my dad and start this whole thing.

Stone Payton: [00:17:27] So now you’re doing it. You’ve been doing it for a while. What’s the most fun? What are you enjoying the most about the work?

Carlos Martinez: [00:17:33] Well, really is working with like the whole team, with the installers, making sure everything is good. Like working as a team in general is like crazy stories we’ve had together. Gary’s been there and you know, that’s the most fun part of actually doing the job because you actually get to communicate with your workers and people in a way where you got to make sure everything’s safe, make sure your workers are safe and just installing it. It’s not that hard.

Stone Payton: [00:18:04] Well, the energy with all of you guys as a team, it’s evident when you walk in the room, you can feel I mean, Gary is a fireball anyway, But but but somehow, Gary, you’ve been able to to to pass that on. It’s part of the the whole culture was that by design and you figured out the five step process or did you just pick the right people? Because so many of us who run organizations and begin to scale a little bit, that’s our fear and our desire, right? You know, because Lee and I have always had that passion. But to try to to to inculcate that that’s that’s no small feat, man.

Gary Acedo: [00:18:42] You remember when I started, I rented an office here at the Innovation spot, and I was I started Division ten steel Interiors. I was the president, my BNI group. I had my own radio show here at the studio Good Morning Cherokee at the time. And it was awesome because I’m so pumped. I got like the energy of a 20 year old even though I’m 51 and overweight. It’s kind of weird, but you know, my wife’s like, I don’t know where you get the energy, but I had to curb that back. I had to step away from being president of BNI. I took a step back from the studio and I said, I need to focus on the business. But I had shared with you this morning. I hired a business coach. I have a bi weekly call with Mark. It’s called From the Mind of Mark. I’ll send you a link because I think everybody should meet this guy.

Stone Payton: [00:19:25] Well, no, I appreciate.

Stone Payton: [00:19:26] It because now I can send him an invoice. So thank you.

Gary Acedo: [00:19:28] Please do.

Gary Acedo: [00:19:29] I’ll give you the email address later. But, Mark, you know, he asked me that golden question when he first met. He says, Gary, do you want to be a business owner or a sales guy? You’re good at both, but you’re going to have to pick one. And I said, Business owner. And ever since we did that, my business has just boomed because I don’t need to be in the trenches with Carlos showing him how to put together a cubicle. If he can’t figure it out. I don’t have the right guy on the bus. Releasing control is a big deal for small business because for two and a half years it was bootstrapping, it was all me. Endless nights I did it all. I don’t need to do it as much now so I can focus at a high level so that they all make a lot of money and stay really busy. That’s the goal. I’ve even told my folks in L.A. Can confirm this when she came on board, you know, straight out of chat tech at a design school and she’s going back for her bachelor’s right now, which i encourage education I’m all big on. I don’t, I encourage that. I said i don’t want you with me more than three years And she looked at me like my boss is telling me you don’t want me here. And I said, No, I want you to work at HOK or Gensler and I want you to make 200,000. Have an office in downtown. Just treat me to a cup of coffee. That’s all I ask. She’s young. The world is yours, as they say in Scarface. Go get it.

Stone Payton: [00:20:42] Oh, my goodness. So, Ayla, is all this true or is he just blowing smoke up?

Stone Payton: [00:20:46] Oh, no. Over here.

Ayla Johnson: [00:20:47] Yeah, it’s definitely true. Operates? Yes, for sure. Yeah.

Ayla Johnson: [00:20:53] I mean, I it definitely makes me feel good that Gary has such high. I’m trying to think of the right word here.

Gary Acedo: [00:21:00] Energy?

Ayla Johnson: [00:21:01] Yeah, energy.

Stone Payton: [00:21:02] But he’s so invested in you. Yes.

Ayla Johnson: [00:21:04] Right. Yeah.

Ayla Johnson: [00:21:06] Yeah. And it makes. It makes me feel really good about like where I am and stuff and that he has such high hopes for me, you know, going into the future, like pursuing, you know, other things I guess, later on down the road. But I’m definitely going to enjoy my time working for with steel interiors right now. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:21:24] So wasn’t it hard, though, in the very beginning letting go because you had created so much on your own and you want it done right and it’s going to be faster and I know it’s going to be wasn’t that hard in the beginning.

Gary Acedo: [00:21:34] We recently had a project Let me think about this. We’re doing a restaurant at Lake Oconee, shout out table at the lake, got to visit them. They’re opening in April. That’s through a designer friend of mine in Denver. How the heck I connected with her. That’s a whole nother show. But my folks and I needed to go to a warehouse to inventory what’s arrived before we go to the restaurant to install it so everything goes off without a hitch. Carlos happened to be in my office. It was 6:30 p.m.. He’s not an 8 to 5 or he’s a whenever I need you kind of guy. And Carlos leaned over and I’ll never forget it. And this happened pretty recently. He said something like, You know, he says, Sir, all the time you think you’d be in the military. But he was a police officer and always will be. But I’m like, You don’t need to call me sir. He’s like, Sir, with all due respect, why are you coming? And I said, Way to.

Stone Payton: [00:22:19] Go, Carlos.

Gary Acedo: [00:22:20] I was glad. I want people to tell me no and that kind of stuff. And I go, You know what? You’re right. I don’t need to be there. Save me four hours. I calculate it, drive their time. I need to be doing other things. So that’s it’s it’s it’s tough. But I’m there. I’m like, they got it. So.

Stone Payton: [00:22:36] Carlos, it’s great. When everything goes well, you get what you need from Ala and you have your team working. Surely in your world, stuff’s got to go wrong from time to time. Is there like a yes?

Stone Payton: [00:22:49] It does.

Stone Payton: [00:22:50] So is there like a discipline? You know, a steel interior discipline of okay, if something goes wrong, here’s how we handle it, here’s how we communicate to the customer, here’s how we communicate internally. This is our code. This is our.

Carlos Martinez: [00:23:04] Yeah, Well, I’m going to tell you one story that happened to us last summer. It was very hot that day. It was like 86 degrees August in Georgia, 86 degrees. And this elevator was super small. We were building a product like it’s made at a handmade wood. So it’s very big. It’s a conference table.

Gary Acedo: [00:23:26] Solid wood, like two inch thick top, like massive.

Carlos Martinez: [00:23:29] And and we couldn’t get it through the elevator. So we were like, How are we going to get it up here? It’s three flights of stairs. We told Gary, What do you recommend? And we we talked to the customer. We were like, there’s two options. You can pay more to get this cut or we can get this up and just pay less. So surprisingly, my installers, they did not they did not say no to know anything. And we all got our hands on. Gary was there. We were going up three flights of stairs with this massive table. Well, I.

Gary Acedo: [00:24:06] Wasn’t there technically because I have wireless cameras, so I monitor. But it’s not big brother. Go ahead. It’s a great story. So you’re going up the stairs, sweating shirts off.

Carlos Martinez: [00:24:15] And as soon as we get up there, we just had that big relief that it got up there safely. Nobody got hurt, but we were all hot. It was a hot weather and we were all sweating after that. We all went for beers.

Stone Payton: [00:24:30] I didn’t I didn’t.

Gary Acedo: [00:24:32] See how it started. What I did see is when they got that massive piece of wood in the building and I saw I’m on the camera because I got to watch what’s going on and I see this guy cruising along without a shirt. So I call his dad and I’m like, Who is on my project without a shirt, without a Division ten steel interior shirt? And then he explained, I’m like, Oops, sorry. You know, it’s cool because we were doing it after hours. But you know, we don’t install without shirts. But you know, it was hilarious. But these guys didn’t say no. If it would have been a regular company, it would have sounded like this, Hey, it’s not going to get in the building. The change order is going to be 5000. It’s in the parking lot. What do you want to do? Yeah, that’s really the way it goes down. No offense to other trades, but we work with all trades and that’s the reality. We find a way to say yes, we find solutions. We have met with that company though, and we said, Can you please stop making 14 foot tops without visiting the site first? I mean, what a concept The customer doesn’t know. Oh, I’m on the eighth floor. How are you going to get in the building? But if they would have said no to that, The other option was we rent a boom forklift and we put it right through the window. You know, it’s got to get in the building. Right.

Stone Payton: [00:25:37] Well, and that’s another key. You’ve got to figure out a way to make it happen. Right. All right. What would have happened if they got up there and then they’re sweaty and all that and the table broke or got chipped? How would you what would you have done?

Gary Acedo: [00:25:51] Another great example, you know, nobody’s perfect in the furniture business. There will always be a punch list. I’ve had one project in my career that had zero punch. For those of you out there that doesn’t know what a punch is, Punch is when you’re doing construction and you make a list of things like, you know, a nick on the wall, you got to touch up the paint. It’s called a punch list. We have a very large customer. We’re opening these VIP medical clinics across the country. I mean, it’s really a great account. My installer down in Miami lost an $8,000 piece of artwork. So my customer called me and said, What are you going to do? And I said, Well, it’s real simple. I’m going to fly down to Miami and look with my own eyeballs first. And I did. God is my witness. I went down there, looked in the warehouse, couldn’t find it, and I said, We have a proof of delivery. We got a photograph. Your signature. I hate to tell you, you just bought an 8000 piece of artwork, piece of artwork. And I told the customer, Send me an invoice. And we paid it. Most people would run. Yeah, I made no money on that project. You got to do it all evaporated. But that’s what you have to do. And by the way, I split it with the installer 4000 for him. Lesson learned, 4000 for me. That’s that. Nobody does that. They just said $8,000. So we’re small enough, we’re agile enough to make those decisions because we don’t have 35 board members. And, you know, shareholders like my day at Office Depot where you can’t make a decision. We can make decisions immediately and my folks are trained. What is the problem or obstacle? What is your recommended solution? And usually I go with what they say because they’re the ones that are, you know, in it.

Stone Payton: [00:27:23] Yeah, Yeah. So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for an organization like yours? And has that changed since we’ve talked last?

Gary Acedo: [00:27:33] I didn’t introduce her and I’m so sorry. Claire Carlson, I love you to death. You know that. Her mom’s going to hear this. I’m sure she doesn’t have a pair of headphones on or a mic. But Claire is my goddaughter from California who’s living in Georgia at college, going to school here, lives in Woodstock now. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:27:52] No offense to can grab a.

Stone Payton: [00:27:53] Beer under the.

Stone Payton: [00:27:54] Elm tree. Yeah.

Gary Acedo: [00:27:55] She’s not of age she looks at. She’s not? No. You can have water.

Stone Payton: [00:27:58] What?

Ayla Johnson: [00:27:58] What?

Stone Payton: [00:28:00] We’ll sit in a golf cart, don’t worry.

Stone Payton: [00:28:02] No, but.

Gary Acedo: [00:28:03] You know, I’ve been doing Instagram posts and LinkedIn, but I’m too busy and I’m like, ding dong, call Claire. I see what she puts out on social media. So long story short, go to Instagram, look us up. Steel interiors underscore and she put out a post like Vendor Highlight of the week. It’s the first one we’ve ever did and we did it for a very good partner of ours in Kennesaw called Iron Age Office. You should check them out. I’ve heard of them. Sean Deneen’s, a good friend of ours. We’ve known each other since he started his company and they are booming. Long story short is I get an instant message notification on my phone from a designer in Dubai. And I’m like, What? Now this is all there, nine hours ahead and I don’t sleep. My wife’s like, What are you doing on your phone typing away at like 2 a.m. because it’s 9 a.m. her time that the client And I was like, I’m talking to a designer in Dubai and she works for this mega design firm that we all know who they are. And so we had a meeting with her on Monday and introduced her to the folks at Iron Age. And we’ll see where it goes. But, you know, nobody takes well, I shouldn’t say nobody. I was ready to do a commercial on TV. We’re not doing that. You know, our clientele, our target. Is that the right word? Our target person is female. 25 to 35. And then the other thing is.

Stone Payton: [00:29:23] I would not have thought that, well, the.

Gary Acedo: [00:29:24] Analytics at Instagram tell you all that. And then what’s really cool is spending all those years in South Florida. Most of our. I wish Claire had a headset on. The people that come to our site, I don’t know what they call them, but it was always Florida, Florida, Florida, Florida. And they’re great. And I love my Florida peeps. But now, finally, it’s Atlanta. Metro is 80%. And then we got Texas and California and all that jazz. So the demographics we monitor, we’re going to go to the next stage with with Claire, with social media. But it’s working. But it required Gary to stop posting that selfie straight on. You got to go high up so you don’t show the extra chin, you know, things like that.

Stone Payton: [00:30:02] He is.

Stone Payton: [00:30:03] Coachable. That’s good to know.

Gary Acedo: [00:30:05] If I was perfect, I would walk on water. I don’t walk on water yet.

Stone Payton: [00:30:09] Well, I’m looking forward to the on site broadcast at the in Dubai. I think that’ll be a lot of fun.

Stone Payton: [00:30:15] Yeah, I’d love to do it. It’s coming.

Stone Payton: [00:30:18] Oh, what fun.

Stone Payton: [00:30:20] Well, we may. I wonder, does Claire do other contract social media work?

Gary Acedo: [00:30:25] She’s a freelance 1099 or free to do what she wants. She is not my employee.

Stone Payton: [00:30:32] All right, So if our Listeners want to learn more, get in touch with you, have a conversation with you. What’s the best way for them to connect with you?

Gary Acedo: [00:30:39] The old school Gary would say, Pick up the phone and call me. They don’t do that. That’s the other thing I’ve learned to to really understand. My, my, my partners, you can go to steel interiors and it’s steel interiors.net to our website, which is under development. It’s not perfect, but it hasn’t stopped business. It’s just really a fancy place for pictures and click to have a meeting. We want to get that initial consult and then we highly encourage everybody to go to Instagram and follow us. I know everybody wants followers, but trust me, there’s a lot of good content. It’s not all about selling furniture and that steel interiors underscore. So those would be the two ways. And then we’re all about texting, too. We I put my main number on our post and stuff, but, you know, people text me purchase orders. Great. You know, I’ve learned take the money and run, you know, hey, fine. If they want to order and they know what they want, we do it. But we’re not a transactional dealership. We’re not that dealer. But, you.

Stone Payton: [00:31:35] Know, you’re Clearly not your business. I would have thought before I knew you that it would have been an incredibly transactional kind of business. But you’re the way you approach it is so grounded in relationship.

Stone Payton: [00:31:49] Is we are a key dealer for Wayfair.

Gary Acedo: [00:31:54] West Elm, Crate and Barrel. Ellen knows this. Last week we went shopping with a client, so we’re doing all their furniture for their headquarters. That was done. Then I said, We need to schedule a time to go have lunch and go do some shopping. The customer loved it and dropped a boatload of money, artwork, sculptures. They’re going to buy it somewhere, but we don’t want them to go to HomeGoods, right? You know, not being that guy, but.

Stone Payton: [00:32:17] There goes That sponsorship. Thanks a Lot.

Gary Acedo: [00:32:19] Sorry. Steel interiors are paid double, but you know what I mean. Like, you.

Gary Acedo: [00:32:23] Know, everybody thinks they’re a designer. I think my wife thinks she’s a designer. She’s not. And that’s, you know, for home, it’s fine. But there’s a there’s a whole method to our madness. Like we do some really cool stuff with a company called Artura. And we’re doing a big we have a national account now down in Florida. We’re doing some work with I really want to tell you the name, but I can’t. They haven’t even had me sign a nondisclosure.

Stone Payton: [00:32:47] But anyways, three 300 locations.

Gary Acedo: [00:32:49] We’re doing two corporate offices. Crazy stage, sound stage like this green room. We’re going to have cool couches. We’re going to have a beer machine, we’re going to have a refrigerator. And then we dress it all out with all the accessories. I mean, you got to have like in your studio, you got to have a mic. We would provide that. You got to have, you know, decor. We do all that. So it’s a lot of fun. We make it a fun experience. You know who has fun spending money? I don’t.

Stone Payton: [00:33:15] Well, congratulations.

Stone Payton: [00:33:16] On the momentum, man. It could not happen to a nicer guy. A better group of people. Okay, one more time. Coordinates, website. Yeah.

Gary Acedo: [00:33:24] Steel interiors.net again. E e interiors, dot net. The phone number is (404) 402-9108. And please follow us on Instagram at steel interiors. Underscore.

Stone Payton: [00:33:39] Well, I’ll have Claire hook me up and show me how to follow you on Instagram, but we’ll absolutely make that happen.

Stone Payton: [00:33:44] Over a sip of iced tea. Absolutely.

Stone Payton: [00:33:47] Wink, wink. Claire, Don’t worry. I got you covered, babe. Hey, how about hanging out with us while we visit with our next guest? We’re excited. All right, y’all ready for the headliner, then? Here we go. Please join me in welcoming to the show. Also, not a stranger to the Business RadioX microphone with Carver Consulting, the man himself, Mr. Glenn Carver. Good morning, sir. Good morning. It’s a.

Glenn Carver: [00:34:11] Great morning. Actually, I don’t do good mornings anymore. This is a great morning.

Stone Payton: [00:34:16] So did you learn anything in that last segment? What did you think? That was.

Glenn Carver: [00:34:19] Phenomenal. Thank you so much, Gary. I was. It’s just thumbs up and shaking my head and laughing and love. Love the way you think. Thank you. Yeah. Great to be sitting next to him.

Stone Payton: [00:34:29] So who are we consulting and why? Man tell us about this.

Glenn Carver: [00:34:33] Well, this, you know, both of us have lost some weight since we saw each other last. I did it the hard way.

Stone Payton: [00:34:39] You did? I think my path was a lot easier.

Stone Payton: [00:34:42] Yeah, I don’t.

Glenn Carver: [00:34:42] Recommend my path. So I spent 96 days in the ICU in the fall of 2021. Four months in the hospital in total. Literally a miracle. I’m sitting here in your studio. God spared my life.

Stone Payton: [00:34:57] You got to be the most resilient individual I have ever come across in my 59 plus years. Well, that’s.

Glenn Carver: [00:35:04] Quite a compliment. I’m honored that you would even say something remotely close to that. I’ve got this. One of my one of my docs gave me this bracelet that says, Keep going. Nice. I haven’t taken it off and probably a year and a half. Wow. So, you know, when we first met, I had just released my first book, Stand in the Heat. Yeah. And I think it’s more relative now than it was back then for what I’ve been through because I’ve been through some heat. So just, you know, 30,000ft early Sunday morning, August 21st of 2021, my wife noticed that there was something very wrong with me in the morning and she had the good sense to get me to the emergency room at Northside Cherokee and was quickly diagnosed with COVID double pneumonia and a blood oxygen level of 45, which, if you know, that’s bad. I didn’t know anything about that number, but 90 is low. Wow. 45 is life threatening organ failure. It’s a miracle I survived that day. That was miracle number one. So yeah, they quickly got to work on me. And, you know, end of the day, in my naivety, I asked one of the nurses, you know, how long do you think I’ll be here? And she said, well, you’re you’re probably I’m thinking, I’m going to get a couple of shots. Get some oxygen. I’m home in a couple of days. Back to life is normal, right? And she said, you’re probably going to be here for two weeks. And my jaw hit the ground and I thought, two weeks, I can’t be here two weeks. I got a life to live and a business to run. I can’t be here two weeks. Well, 96 days later, I left the ICU. Wow. Yeah. So two weeks in colon burst, internal bleeding almost went septic, you know, survived that. Came out of that surgery. Three weeks in a coma. And it just I’ve never been sick in my life other than the flu and, you know, flu bug and never been to the hospital. I just I got hit by a freight train.

Stone Payton: [00:37:02] Wow. You must you just got the very worst version of this COVID thing.

Glenn Carver: [00:37:06] Or, you know, maybe we’ll never know. But here’s. Here’s the godsend. So after the colon surgery, I got I got a sexy colostomy bag, and everybody should try that. It’s a blast. It’s called my Little Buddy.

Gary Acedo: [00:37:21] We sell those at steel interiors.

Glenn Carver: [00:37:23] And it’s probably steel in my upcoming book, The Advantage of Adversity, I’ve got a one chapter called My Little Buddy, so I’m pretty forward about that. I’m an open book, but get out of the hospital, go to an outpatient therapy for a month, relearn how to walk, because I was literally a rag doll. That’s where I lost most. I’ve lost 60 pounds since I saw you last. Yeah. Wow. Not the right way. Not the fun way. Right. But relearned How to Walk came home December and in February at a colonoscopy to check everything out to make sure we could do a reversal surgery to get rid of my little buddy. And that’s when they found a tumor in my rectum. So got diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Good lord. So survived the ICU, you know, left uppercut. Then I got the right uppercut, you know, to the chin. And it’s it’s been an unbelievable journey. My faith is just literally off the charts. I am stage four. And when most people hear that, when most people hear the C word, they think, oh, God, he’s going to die. Yeah. Especially stage four. Not me. It’s just the opposite. It’s the polar opposite.

Stone Payton: [00:38:41] Because it seems to me like you could have easily spiraled down, but it had the opposite effect on you.

Glenn Carver: [00:38:48] Well, it’s it did. And it’s really it’s humbling. And it’s it’s an honor that I was I was told I was a celebrity in the ICU because of my attitude, because of my faith in God and my mindset and my and my will to live. Because I’ve got a 13 year old boy and the whole wall like that wall that I’m looking at with all your ads on it, we had it covered. It was my wall of hope. We had it covered and great pictures of family and friends and and Bible verses and motivating conversations. And I just focused every day on getting out. And I was going to leave because the death toll in the ICU during COVID was epic. I mean, it’s literally miraculous that I’m here. And one of my favorite ICU nurses, Lucas Uriah, was a former Army medic and in Afghanistan for nine months. And he said that the body bags coming out of the ICU during COVID was orders of magnitude larger than the battle ground in Afghanistan. Wow. So it’s kind of like the story of the commercial airliner with hundreds of people on it that goes down and three people survive.

Stone Payton: [00:40:03] Mhm. Hallelujah.

Glenn Carver: [00:40:05] I mean, he saw he saw Lucas in two and a half years in the ICU during COVID. He told me I haven’t. I’ve had him tell me the story several times because I just didn’t believe it. And I wanted to catch him, you know, in a fib. And he said three people he saw three people leave the ICU outside of a body bag. Wow. Yeah, It’s a stunning, just absolutely stunning. So writing a new book about all this, it’s 90% done. It’s called The Advantage of Adversity How I use faith, Mindset and Intention to Beat COVID and Cancer. So it’s an inspirational book.

Stone Payton: [00:40:41] You better believe it. What an inspiring story. And you’re a professional speaker. So you’ll speak on these topics, right?

Glenn Carver: [00:40:47] Well, without a doubt. Without a doubt. And it’s funny you say, Speaker, because I am a speaker at my core and all speakers want a big story. I never wanted one this big stone. Yeah, I never wanted a story this big. So be careful what you ask for. But here it is. And it’s amazing what we’ve learned in the past year. You know, one one day you know nothing about cancer. Then the next day, you know, you know everything. And we all know somebody. It’s touched. And so many people have died of cancer, but so many people live. A lot of people live and you just don’t hear about it. You know, cancer is it’s not a death sentence at all. It’s a metabolic and emotional condition that we can heal. I created it. God and myself will heal it and my wife and her incredible nutritional protocol that I’m on.

Gary Acedo: [00:41:33] But are we going for a cheeseburger later?

Glenn Carver: [00:41:36] We are definitely not going for a cheeseburger, although I want one.

Stone Payton: [00:41:41] We’ll use lettuce. We’ll just.

Glenn Carver: [00:41:42] Use. I love meat and beer as much as anybody on earth, but I’m on a whole food plant based diet now. Incredibly clean. So for from the metabolic standpoint, I’m extremely clean. Yeah. But, you know, working on my emotions, every form of cancer has an emotional root. And colorectal is rooted in self anger, which I thought was fascinating because I’m a I’m an you’ve known me for over a decade. Oh, yeah. I mean, I’m a nice guy. I love people tend to be the, you know, the life of the party. But I’ve had a lot of I’ve had to dig deep and and admit that I’ve had a lot of self anger over probably a couple of decades about where I thought I would be and where I’m not. And I think that’s the biggest One of the biggest things I’ve learned is when you go through a massive change in life and typically there’s loss involved, you can’t focus on the loss. You’ve got to focus on the gain. And what I’ve gained is I’m still here. You know, God spared my life whether to share a large, large message with the world and be my son’s daddy. That’s what I’m focused on. Yeah. Do I miss cheeseburgers, Gary? Damn right I miss cheeseburgers and beer and pizza. Yeah, and I’ll get back to that. That’s not a no no forever. But, you know, it’s a it’s a period in time. Yeah. I’ve got to heal and take care of myself, and. And we’ll get through this, you know, one day at a time. We keep moving. You know, my book Stand in the Heat was about the entrepreneurial mindset, the never give up mindset. And it’s interesting. A few years ago, I’m big on affirmations. I believe that affirmations are a way to speak our existence into reality. It’s kind of a little piece of quantum physics we have the power to. There’s more and.

Stone Payton: [00:43:28] More science really backing that up. Oh, there is day, isn’t there? Oh, there.

Glenn Carver: [00:43:32] Is. Well, we could spend an hour talking about Doctor Joe Dispenza and his books and his work, and I went to a couple of his retreats last year and. Yeah, there’s power in what you say, as the saying goes. Our cells are eavesdropping on our thoughts, so be careful what you say inside your head and in the physical world. But several years ago, I wrote down an affirmation, one of my most powerful affirmations. And it is I will be speaking on an international stage at 100 years of age. And that presupposes that, you know, I’ll be alive at 100. There’s some fine print without drooling or wearing a diaper. Yeah, but I’ve been reading that. I’ve been saying that to myself for years, almost in preparation for what I’ve gone through the past year and a half. So one of my big messages is See your future. Visualize it. Know why you’re here. Have an incredible will to live and to serve others. Because that’s what this is. This is way beyond the money. The money. There’s tons of money out there. It comes and goes and it ebbs and flows. And, you know, we’re all entrepreneurs in this room and, you know, you can have great months and you can have months where you make no money.

Glenn Carver: [00:44:45] And that’s just that’s just an afterthought. If you if you if you connect with why you’re here, what’s your purpose? Why are you alive? What are you here to do? Are you going to make the world better? How are you going to leave the world a better place? How are you going to affect your community? So I love about your show. These are the things that are really important to me now. You know, John Maxwell, the great speaker about leadership, says there’s success and then there’s significance. Success is typically material and it’s money. Significance is way beyond that. It’s how you impact others, impact the world. And I do believe I was when so many people died in that ICU where I live for where I lived and survived 96 days. Why me? Why am I here? Why am I in your studio right now on this show? Yeah, you could make a case. I should be dead. And and I’m not so I don’t take that obviously don’t take it lightly and just grateful to to be here and to share and give my testimony about why I believe I’m here. I’m here and see what I can do to help people grow and help organizations grow.

Stone Payton: [00:45:49] Yeah, so let’s talk about the work.

Stone Payton: [00:45:51] Because you have found a way to express this mindset, this experience to to serve others. You’re writing the book, you’re out speaking, or are you plan to be Tell us about the work. Like what kinds of organizations or individuals are you working with and plan to work with?

Glenn Carver: [00:46:08] Yeah, well plan to work with is operative just really launching right now. Okay, So I’m writing a book called and this is the mock up. It’s called The Advantage of Adversity. So I’ve got the advantage of I’ve got advantage of adversity.com. And that’s going to really be my new brand. Okay. This is just a mock up. As you can see, it’s got no pages in it. Although I’ve written 90% of this book. This is just a mock up, right? It looks great. This could be entitled Everything Men Know About Women.

Stone Payton: [00:46:35] That’s you could sell out right now.

Glenn Carver: [00:46:37] That’s a bestseller right there.

Stone Payton: [00:46:39] That’s great.

Glenn Carver: [00:46:41] But, you know, in business, the purpose of a business is to secure a customer. Yeah, that’s the number one rule of a business, to secure a customer and then to make a profit. And nothing no business is going to make money or drive revenues unless somebody sells something to somebody.

Gary Acedo: [00:47:01] I preach that all the time.

Glenn Carver: [00:47:02] You can have the best product or service in the world, but if you can’t get it off the shelf, it’s effectively worthless. And my father told me when I was knee high, son, nothing happens until the cash register rings and I’ve been in sales and biz dev since I was ten years old. I started knocking on doors when I was ten. So ultimately I’m a sales guy, a biz dev guy. I love that space and so I intend to go in on the corporate side. I tend to go in and tend to go into organizations and teach the mindset of overcoming adversity because there’s adversity. As long as human beings are walking the earth, there’s going to be adversity. Yeah, especially in sales, especially in business development, it can be mean, tough and nasty. I’m a huge fan of the late, great Jim Rohn, and he was he was Tony Robbins original mentor. He was phenomenal. But I love this. I’m going to share this with you. After one of his seminars in the 80s, one of his attendees walked up to him and said, Mr. Rohn, in your opinion, what is the business climate going to look like for the next 3 to 5 years? You know, great question. And without hesitation, Mr. Rone said, Well, it’s going to be the same it’s been for the past 10,000 years adversity with the chance of opportunity. That’s just life. That’s life, that’s business. As long as humans are walking the earth, there’s going to be adversity. But there is advantage in adversity. And what is that advantage? I think it’s the opportunity. If you decide. It’s the opportunity to grow. Because there is no growth without without challenge. You know, metal, steel, steel sharpens steel. There’s got to be all of your growth happens outside of your comfort zone, in your personal life, with your kids, with your spouse, with your clients. Anybody have pain in the butt? Clients? Anybody have prospects who ghost them?

Stone Payton: [00:48:55] Oh, yeah. It’s just it’s, you.

Stone Payton: [00:48:56] Know, so it’s.

Gary Acedo: [00:48:57] Not a good idea to send an email to a prospect and put a read receipt. I made that mistake 20 years ago.

Stone Payton: [00:49:03] Don’t do that.

Glenn Carver: [00:49:03] Yeah. Lots of mistakes. And don’t, don’t don’t cuss out your prospects before you click the off button on the phone. Yeah, that’s good. I’ve seen I’ve seen that happen to somebody before. That’s. That’s ugly. Yeah. Anyway, I mean, business can be mean, tough and nasty. It’s adverse, but there’s always. There’s always opportunity in adversity. I think the poster child of adversity these past few years has been zoom. I mean, Zoom has changed the world. Yeah, I heard this a couple of years ago and it blew my business head off. Do you realize that? I don’t know if it’s still the case today, but in the past 24 months, Zoom you know, we all go on zoom for meetings. Zoom had a larger market cap than Ford and General Motors combined.

Stone Payton: [00:49:48] Wow.

Glenn Carver: [00:49:49] Wow. How is that possible? And who bought stock in that early on?

Stone Payton: [00:49:53] Yeah.

Glenn Carver: [00:49:54] So there’s always opportunity in adversity. What company what company do you think built the first? Digital camera.

Stone Payton: [00:50:05] Polaroid.

Glenn Carver: [00:50:08] Nailed it.

Stone Payton: [00:50:09] Really?

Glenn Carver: [00:50:11] Is it Polaroid or Kodak? One of the two old school film manufacturers, Eastman Kodak. They designed the world’s first digital camera in 1976. Did they miss the boat?

Stone Payton: [00:50:24] I think maybe.

Glenn Carver: [00:50:24] Did they have a little lack of vision? They didn’t know what they had. Adversity. So there’s adversity everywhere. I’m passionate about helping people, individuals and teams overcome adversity and realize their greatest, greatest potential.

Stone Payton: [00:50:39] Now, you had already authored a book. So in putting this book together, did it come together pretty easily or did you struggle with parts of it?

Glenn Carver: [00:50:48] Well, there’s always struggle in writing. It’s like running through water waist deep. And I enjoy some writing. But I began writing this book in December of 21 when I got out of the hospital. The original book was going to be about just the ICU stage and me surviving that. Not a witch hunt about our medical industrial complex. That’s a whole nother conversation, but just a book about hope and inspiration. But then I got the curve ball with the cancer diagnosis. So I’ve. Delayed the finish of the book to see how some specific treatments play out. But that book will be finished this year, without a doubt.

Stone Payton: [00:51:28] Yeah. And you’ll go.

Stone Payton: [00:51:30] Out, you’ll speak and you’ll consult with teams and organizations.

Stone Payton: [00:51:33] Absolutely.

Glenn Carver: [00:51:33] Yes, absolutely. And do I’ll do I’ll do faith based talks, but I’ll also do corporate consulting because we do like to make money, right? A sales guys like to make money.

Gary Acedo: [00:51:45] I’m looking at my calendar saying, when are we going to book Glenn? I love this stuff.

Stone Payton: [00:51:50] Yeah, there you go. Have him come talk to your team. Yeah, that’d be fun.

Stone Payton: [00:51:53] Absolutely. You know.

Glenn Carver: [00:51:54] What’s interesting? I turn 56 next week, which is actually surreal to hear come out of my mouth because I was 26 and that’s.

Stone Payton: [00:52:03] 56 in dog years. Glenn Yeah, that’s dog years.

Glenn Carver: [00:52:06] But the one and only Brian Tracy did a phenomenal video testimonial for my first book, Stand in the Heat, which still blows me away, you know, 13 years later. And I’ve recently put together my one sheet, which I emailed over to you right before I came over this morning and I emailed that one sheet. It’s just a it’s a marketing one sheet. Here’s what Glenn’s doing now. This is what he talks about. This is who he is. This is his new brand. And I sent it out to a number of key people over the weekend. And. You know who Brian Tracy is, right? Oh, yeah. We know who. Brian Tracy. The Brian Tracy, one of the great motivational motivational speakers, trainers, consultants of all time. And I sent them an email and just reminded them of who I am. And he responded within 24 hours and he said, Hey, congratulations. This looks great. Just give me a phone call if I can help you in any way.

Stone Payton: [00:52:58] Wow. And it just makes.

Glenn Carver: [00:52:59] You realize how amazing people are. And we tend to put a lot of people up on a pedestal because of our perception. But there are so many awesome, humble, great people out there who really want to give back because they’re in that significance phase of life. So yeah, I’m putting together right before here, I had a meeting with a gentleman about creating my new brand and launching my new brand and all the social media that goes with that. So yeah, just excited about birthing this new, this new message and being of service because I want the balance of my life. The next 45 years are going to be of service.

Stone Payton: [00:53:41] So how does sales and marketing or how do you envision the sales and marketing approach plan for this? Because you’ve got you do have to get the word out. You’ve got to get booked for the talks. You Oh, yeah.

Glenn Carver: [00:53:54] Well, I’m a I mean, I believe in guerrilla marketing old school knocking on doors. I mean, I’m a cold caller from when I was ten years old, so I’m not afraid to pick up a phone, send an email. I’m going to create a YouTube channel. Of course, got the book coming out. And my delusion is not about selling a lot of books. Unless you’re a rock star or a celebrity, you’re not going to sell a ton of books. It’s about platform. A book is a badass business card. It’s about a platform. It’s about credibility. But, you know, I envision a video podcast. There are some phenomenal video podcasts. I’m just telling I can feel it in my bones, my cells. The Advantage of Adversity podcast is going to be big fun, right? Interview other people who have been through tremendous adversity and overcome it and how they’re succeeding and adding value to the world and that that just really resonates with me.

Stone Payton: [00:54:50] Well, I.

Stone Payton: [00:54:50] Can see that it does. And for what my opinion is worth, that kind of format where you’re shining the light on other people and it’s not just you out there being the only one talking about the topic, but finding capturing those stories. First of all, it’s incredibly rewarding and you learn a ton. But we’ve actually learned over the years that that capturing stories can be infinitely more powerful in growing your business and your and your network than just the storytelling. There’s a there’s a place for the storytelling, right, and getting your word out there. But capturing stories is incredibly powerful just on the business front, too.

Glenn Carver: [00:55:26] Yeah, it really is. You know, he’s doing a great job and who I completely admire. Do we all know the name Danica Patrick?

Stone Payton: [00:55:31] Yes. Yes. Who is.

Stone Payton: [00:55:32] She? Racecar driver.

Glenn Carver: [00:55:33] Race car driver. Right. Right. Well, she’s go.

Gary Acedo: [00:55:36] Go, daddy spokesperson.

Stone Payton: [00:55:37] To that.

Glenn Carver: [00:55:38] To that to. Well, she’s got a killer video podcast now called Pretty Intense.

Stone Payton: [00:55:45] Oh, pretty intense. Follow that.

Glenn Carver: [00:55:47] And she’s interviewing some of the great thinkers on the planet. I mean, from Sadhguru all the way down to Dr. Joe Dispenza to I mean, it’s she’s doing a phenomenal.

Stone Payton: [00:56:00] And having a blast. I’ll bet you she’s having a.

Stone Payton: [00:56:02] Great time doing it and learning.

Stone Payton: [00:56:03] A ton.

Stone Payton: [00:56:04] And there’s tons of.

Gary Acedo: [00:56:04] Cool people here in Atlanta Metro like I find people.

Stone Payton: [00:56:09] They live in Atlanta, too. Oh, absolutely.

Glenn Carver: [00:56:11] Yeah. There’s cool people everywhere. Phenomenal stories everywhere. So just excited to see you again.

Stone Payton: [00:56:18] Yeah, this is fun.

Stone Payton: [00:56:19] I’m so excited for you. And I’ve always thought the world of you and your work and and you too are one of those folks. It’s amazing to me that you can be continue to be one of those people after this experience, which I think is phenomenal. But you’ve always been one of those folks. Again, when you walk in the room, there’s a different level of energy. You’ve you’ve cracked the code on that quantum physics science that we were talking about earlier, or at least that’s been my experience of you.

Stone Payton: [00:56:44] Thank you.

Stone Payton: [00:56:44] Thank you so much. I have to ask a question.

Gary Acedo: [00:56:46] I’m sorry.

Stone Payton: [00:56:46] It’s your show. I know it’s not my show.

Stone Payton: [00:56:48] It’s our.

Stone Payton: [00:56:49] Show. This is.

Gary Acedo: [00:56:49] Fascinating. I’m so excited that I’m sitting next to Glenn because I didn’t know this. I thought it was a totally different business. So this I love this stuff. My question is and I sound like an old guy, but the younger folk always talk about I’m going to manifest it. What are your thoughts on that? Do you believe in it? That’s what I kind of heard. But what do you think?

Stone Payton: [00:57:13] Oh, I.

Glenn Carver: [00:57:14] Absolutely believe in it. I believe I mean. A huge part of manifestation is faith. Knowing and believing, speaking something into existence, knowing it so well, having it so internalized that you can you can feel it, you can see it, you can touch it, you can taste it. And that’s when I wrote that, when I wrote down that affirmation that I will be speaking on an international stage at 100 years of age, somebody might hear that and say, That’s ridiculous. I own that. I absolutely own it. I say it every day. It’s on my mirror, it’s in my cells, it’s in my I am manifesting that myself and my belief in God. We’re manifesting that. So, yeah, I’m a big you know, there’s a lot of different ways to say, a lot of different things. I’ve always been very open minded and there’s a lot of forms of genius out there, a lot of ways, lots of different forms of intelligence. You can label things whatever you want, but regardless of what you believe, this will happen 100 times out of 100 times.

Stone Payton: [00:58:21] He just dropped the.

Stone Payton: [00:58:22] Phone on the bus.

Stone Payton: [00:58:23] And I don’t care.

Glenn Carver: [00:58:24] What you call this.

Stone Payton: [00:58:25] It’s got blank pages. It’s safe right now.

Glenn Carver: [00:58:28] I don’t care how what you label it.

Stone Payton: [00:58:30] That’s a fact. Yeah.

Glenn Carver: [00:58:31] Gravity works. It always wins. It always wins. It’s always there. So you can. You can. You can call intelligence faith God. Wayne Dyer used to say, You can call it Louise if you want, but whatever you label it.

Stone Payton: [00:58:48] It works.

Gary Acedo: [00:58:49] I feel comfortable saying this, and it’s so sad that you have to be. You have to filter. You know, we feel today that we need to filter before we say something. So I struggle with that. You know how when you talk to people on the phone and they call you, you call them and they’re like, How are you doing? It’s like the standard line, Oh, the wife and kids are great. The my line now is I woke up above ground. I had the freaking lotto.

Stone Payton: [00:59:12] Yeah, that’s right. You know.

Gary Acedo: [00:59:15] Versus, you know, all the business stuff. But I mean, my dad used to always tell me, and you probably know this, Glenn, that What is it? Health breeds wealth. You’re no good. Sick. Yeah. You overcame that monster. The world is yours.

Stone Payton: [00:59:31] Exactly. Amen. Yeah, it’s incredible.

Glenn Carver: [00:59:34] I love it. And one of my today’s Tuesday, right? Yes, sir. Yesterday, when I’m when I’m on sales calls on Monday, I share my one of my favorite quotes of all time with people. I say happy Monday. And as Sam Walton used to say, Thank God it’s Monday. Wow. Thank God it’s Monday, because most people have the attitude, Thank God it’s Friday, so I can take a couple of days off. That’s a middle class clock punching attitude. Sam Walton, who became a billionaire and all his kids are billionaires, had the mindset of Thank God, it’s Monday. I can get back to work. I can do what I love. And I feel.

Stone Payton: [01:00:11] That nobody.

Gary Acedo: [01:00:12] Wants to be around. Debbie Downer.

Stone Payton: [01:00:15] Come on. What’s that noise you’re sounding? I put him.

Gary Acedo: [01:00:18] Away. He was screaming too much.

Stone Payton: [01:00:19] So I.

Stone Payton: [01:00:20] Got to ask you, and I’m.

Stone Payton: [01:00:21] Going to ask everybody at the table, and I’m always interested to know this. What are you reading right now? Clearly, you’re a life learner. You’re reading. Are there a couple of things that you’re reading that are standing out for you right now? What’s on your nightstand, man?

Glenn Carver: [01:00:34] Well, I’ve got to share with you because everybody’s I mean, almost everybody’s been touched by cancer. So I’m reading a phenomenal I’ve read it, but I’m reading again. Chris Beat cancer by Chris Walk, walk. Chris beat cancer. If anybody in your life or world has been dealt the punch of a diagnosis, have them read Chris Beat cancer immediately. Aside from that, I’m reading Radical Remission, which is about Kathleen Turner. Kelly Turner. She studied thousands of people who had radical remissions from cancer and the nine components that are in common with all cancer survivors. Seven of those nine are emotional.

Stone Payton: [01:01:15] Wow. You know, you touched on that earlier in the conversation about cancer, emotional roots.

Stone Payton: [01:01:19] Yeah, cancer.

Glenn Carver: [01:01:20] Is very emotional. Breast cancer has a very specific emotional route. Most cancers have a very specific, interesting emotional route. And I’m reading two books by Doctor Joe Dispenza because I think he’s the world’s foremost expert on how the mind creates the body and the science of that.

Gary Acedo: [01:01:37] What do you say to the folks? I mean, my mom’s battling cancer. Second round doesn’t look good. Stage four, it’s in the lymph nodes. I need to go hurry up and see her, which I’m going. But to the folks that say cancer is good for business, they could occurred it 20 years ago. What do you say to that?

Glenn Carver: [01:01:55] That’s a whole nother hour.

Stone Payton: [01:01:57] Oh.

Stone Payton: [01:01:58] It sounds like he has some opinions.

Glenn Carver: [01:01:59] A large can of worms.

Gary Acedo: [01:02:00] I’ve heard it. It’s disturbing as a family member, but you know what I mean. People say that.

Glenn Carver: [01:02:07] Yeah, I agree. Our our our medical industrial complex is driven by profits over people and it’s controlled by the pharmaceutical industry. And that’s why I’ve gone all natural. No chemo, no radiation. I’ve got a power port in my chest right here. You could feel it. It’s been here for a year because I was supposed to start chemo last March and I never did. My wife and I got the nudge just in time. We got that Chris beat cancer book just in time. No kidding. There is cancer. I mean, it might be $1 trillion industry globally. There is massive profit in it. Yeah. I can’t even tell you all the stories we’ve heard of people who’ve been on their deathbed hospice death papers signed, who have come back and are here today.

Stone Payton: [01:02:55] I asked my.

Gary Acedo: [01:02:56] Mom a couple of conversations ago. I call my folks in California every Sunday or I try to to check in. And I remember asking my dad three calls ago, I said she did the PET scan. It’s come back. It’s all over the lymph nodes. It’s not good. I mean, we’re realist family. But I said, Mom, are you going to you know, how do you want to handle it? And she goes, I’m going to fight it to the end. I’m like, All right, there you go.

Stone Payton: [01:03:21] That is it.

Glenn Carver: [01:03:22] That’s the bottom line. It’s the will to live mindset. Your mindset will kill you or it will heal you, period. Yeah, period. My personal trifecta for healing is faith, mindset and nutrition. Faith mindset, Nutrition.

Stone Payton: [01:03:37] Well, I’m glad you asked. You know, there’s again.

Gary Acedo: [01:03:40] I’m sorry, Stone.

Stone Payton: [01:03:41] You don’t have to apologize. Okay.

Gary Acedo: [01:03:42] So we dinner at the table at old school. Walton. Still, I’m holding on as long as I can, Right? Not too long ago. Where A public shopper. I like Kroger, but we’re Publix. The grape was the size of like four of my fingers. And I looked at my wife and I go, Can you see Monsanto? That’s not a real grape, but I don’t have time to have a garden in my backyard in Marietta. So what do you do? Whole Foods is a start. I mean, because you said about the health and what you put in your body and what you’re eating.

Glenn Carver: [01:04:11] It’s everything. It’s everything. And I’m all organic. I’m whole food plant based, all organic. If you want to watch a documentary documentary that will blow your mind, watch the game changers on Netflix.

Stone Payton: [01:04:23] That’s all the game changers.

Glenn Carver: [01:04:25] It’s all about the myth of our need for animal protein. And I’m a carnivore. I love it. We do you think about the largest terrestrial animals that are walking this earth. They all eat plants. Just something to think about.

Stone Payton: [01:04:41] This is coming from a guy.

Glenn Carver: [01:04:43] This is coming from a guy who loves meat and mac and cheese and beer and wine and casseroles.

Gary Acedo: [01:04:50] And you know this, Glen. When you travel, you eat out like everybody wants to go to dinner and have drinks. And I’m sure we can share this that you don’t have to even look at a menu anymore. It’s like everybody’s got chicken, but you got to be careful when you’re on the road, what you eat, what I do now because I need to watch this weight. I have three young children is I look for a Whole Foods and I love eating there and I can work. That’s better. But it’s a shift versus it’s just McDonald’s. Oh, I’ve traveled 28 days this month. Mcdonald’s not good. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [01:05:22] So you mentioned Netflix, and I really anticipate it because I’m about to ask the younger folks in the room what they’re reading. And it sure be happy.

Stone Payton: [01:05:28] To answer that. It occurred to me.

Stone Payton: [01:05:31] That they may not be reading books like us, like I and I. My books are on Kindle. It may be Netflix, it may be blogs, it may be Instagram, people that they follow. But Carlos.

Gary Acedo: [01:05:43] What books are you reading?

Carlos Martinez: [01:05:45] Well, let me.

Stone Payton: [01:05:45] Pull it out that up, boy.

Stone Payton: [01:05:47] He’s gonna pull.

Stone Payton: [01:05:48] While he’s pulling that out Ala are you more you tap into different vehicles but you are you also are reading and following things.

Ayla Johnson: [01:05:55] Yes I, I try to read I.

Ayla Johnson: [01:06:02] I started doing with my with my church. I’m in a couple of different small groups and we and one of them we’re doing the the Bible in a year. Yeah I I’m struggling to keep up but I do try to read at least a little bit in that a few times a week. And then I started this other book called Get Out of Your Head to kind of I haven’t gotten super far in that one either, but just that one’s kind of focused more on as it’s titled, Getting Out of Your Head. Like not thinking so much about, you know, different things because I’m I’m an avid overthinker. Like I, I try to process, like, different routes. And if I do this, then what’s going to happen if I do that? What’s going to happen? Like pros and cons of all my decisions. And it’s just it weighs heavily sometimes. So I’m trying to get more in that mindset of just going with my initial gut feeling, because most of the time that tends to be the route I end up going anyway and it works out. But it’s definitely, you know, as we’ve been talking about, that mindset is is really important to focus on.

Stone Payton: [01:07:14] We had a guest in here, it’s been a couple of months now, a guy by the name of Tommy Breedlove, and he’s doing some marvelous work. He’s got a place up in Dahlonega. I used to call it Dahlonega, you know, because I’m a redneck, Talladega Dahlonega, and he’s doing some great work. But he talked about how so often, you know, the first thing we do when we wake up is we grab the phone and we check the social and all that stuff. And he suggested a discipline of, you know, just see if you can just leave it alone for a little while and read something, you know, use that early time if you’re like me. And the older I get, the earlier I wake up. And so now I’ve adopted that discipline. And I started and I quit. But I started I was going to read the Bible all the way through and I just could not make it through all the bigots and bigots. But I’ll tell you, a discipline I did adopt, and that’s proverbs, because I think there’s 31. And so, like whatever day it is, you know, if it’s the 23rd, then I’m going to read 23 and then I just start over every month. And that that I think has served me well. There’s and there are some great stories in the Bible. It’s and it’s got everything. It’s got violence, it’s got sex, it’s got wisdom. It’s got anything you want to do. So I think that’s marvelous. But I’m encouraged to know that you are feeding your mind, right? I think that’s marvelous. And Carlos, when we did that, he dug into his backpack and tell us tell us what you got there, man.

Carlos Martinez: [01:08:35] I have a book called Business made Simple by Donald Miller. I just bought it not too long ago. I try to feed my mind a little bit because I’m actually going into the business world. I have no clue anything about it learning still, but I’ve been a big reader since I was young because my mom always, always made sure I read because as a Hispanic, I have read both languages and it’s kind of hard for me to, you know, my grammar and my pronunciation, my pronunciations be a little harder. Yeah, I’ll bet. But he speaks perfect Spanglish.

Stone Payton: [01:09:11] Yeah.

Carlos Martinez: [01:09:12] That’s what it really is. I speak both languages and.

Stone Payton: [01:09:15] I am.

Gary Acedo: [01:09:15] 100% Mexican, believe it or not, from Fresno, California. And I speak no Spanish.

Stone Payton: [01:09:19] Wow. Horrible.

Carlos Martinez: [01:09:21] But yeah, when I was young, my mom always made sure even if we were like if we were grounded, that’s what was her number one rule. You have to read a book now that you’re grounded. No phone, no social media, no nothing. Way to go, Mom. And yeah, she always made sure I was reading and now I. Can actually read by myself with no problem. Well, one.

Stone Payton: [01:09:42] Of the things that’s fun.

Stone Payton: [01:09:43] For me is my youngest daughter. My oldest daughter is an avid reader, but she enjoys the stories, the fiction, and she’s a very accomplished professional. And I’m sure she reads stuff in her domain. But my youngest is very much on this self-development track. And so we have kind of a daddy daughter book club, and so we’ll recommend books to each other and I’ll buy her stuff and send it to her Kindle and she’ll send them to mine. And one of the more recent is Everything is Figureoutable. I love it and I’m really enjoying that book. But so, Glenn, aren’t you inspired to hear these young folks say that they’re feeding their minds?

Stone Payton: [01:10:20] Oh, I love it.

Glenn Carver: [01:10:20] It’s fantastic. And I commend you both for reading and feeding your mind because, I mean, over your lifetime, you’re going to be a product of the few people you associate with and the books you read. And anything my dad taught me when I was a kid, anything you want to learn is in a book. Yeah. Yeah. And whether it’s on a Kindle or it’s physical copy. Yeah, good for you.

Stone Payton: [01:10:42] And if you keep.

Gary Acedo: [01:10:43] Reading, you can end up on Jeopardy and actually.

Stone Payton: [01:10:45] Win. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [01:10:47] All right, Glenn.

Stone Payton: [01:10:48] What’s the best way for our folks to reach out, connect with you, have a conversation?

Glenn Carver: [01:10:53] Yeah, for the moment. Old school cell numbers. 404 2910291. Or send me an old fashioned email. There you go. Glenn at Glenn carver.com Glenn is spelled with two N’s. The second N is silent.

Stone Payton: [01:11:08] Well, it has been an absolute delight having you in the studio again, Man, I am so excited for you. Thank you. I just.

Stone Payton: [01:11:17] I’m so.

Glenn Carver: [01:11:18] Glad you moved to Cherokee County and stepped it up.

Stone Payton: [01:11:20] Oh, yes, absolutely. Yes, sir. Sorry you’re not.

Gary Acedo: [01:11:24] I’m in love with you, Glenn. I’m a happily married man, but I’m in love with you. I’m just going.

Stone Payton: [01:11:27] To say that.

Glenn Carver: [01:11:28] Man crushes are.

Stone Payton: [01:11:29] Allowed. Okay, cool.

Gary Acedo: [01:11:30] Okay. I get very creative on my sales. I’ll say it that way. So someone’s going to spend a boatload of money. I find a creative way to get him to. Yes, Right. One of the ways I can do that is unorthodox ways like I’m working with a staff or a sales driven company, a bunch of salespeople. If we do the deal, I’m going to give you a $10,000 credit towards Glenn’s services because I believe in it. You can’t say no to free, right? It’s all embedded in my number, but that’s the way I do stuff like that. So that’s why I’m like, you know, everybody’s stepping it back up. They’re spending money. You know, it’s all stars. Someone’s got to sell something. So that’s where it starts.

Stone Payton: [01:12:08] I’m excited.

Stone Payton: [01:12:09] Great meeting you.

Stone Payton: [01:12:10] You’re welcome.

Stone Payton: [01:12:10] Glenn. You are.

Stone Payton: [01:12:12] Welcome. I made that happen. No, I.

Glenn Carver: [01:12:14] Know, Gary. I know who I’m taking out for beers. I’m going to watch you drink some beers, Stone.

Gary Acedo: [01:12:19] I’ll tell you that 100 later. Don’t worry about it.

Stone Payton: [01:12:21] All right.

Stone Payton: [01:12:21] Mate? All right.

Stone Payton: [01:12:23] Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today. And everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.