Lindy Earl is a Certified Chaplain, working with the nonprofit organization, TurnAbout 180. Lindy’s background includes her entrepreneurship as a Speaker, Consultant, and Author. She has written in 4 genres: Business, Christian, Relationship, and IT. Lindy holds an MBA from The College of William and Mary and a BS from Virginia Tech.
Lindy’s passion and strength is her ability to listen to people. As a Chaplain she works one-on-one with people who are dealing with angst or grief, maybe through the death of a loved one or a divorce. Lindy especially enjoys working as a Corporate Chaplain, where companies have her into the workplace on a regular basis to make herself available to employees.
Great relationships develop and the company’s retention soars while absenteeism drops. Companies develop a strong corporate culture, improved employee satisfaction, and decreased attrition.
Lindy has multiple books in publication and continues to write blogs and record videos on a weekly basis. You can learn more at www.TurnAbout180.org or contact Lindy at ChaplainLindy@gmail.com.
Christine McCartney was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada and in 1993 she and her husband moved to Georgia so he could attend Life University. Her husband, Dr. Larry, and I opened our clinic, Lake City Chiropractic in Acworth in 2000.
Unfortunately in 2015 he passed away from cancer, and after a year of running the practice, Christine sold it and took time to grieve. After some time she decided she wanted to help people who may be going through the same grief and went back to school to become a certified Grief Life Coach. She wanted to help individuals find joy once again in their lives.
Someone who has lost a loved one can sometimes get “stuck” and they don’t know how to move forward. Grief comes in different forms, not only loss of loved one. It could be a divorce, loss of a job, an illness, death of a pet, or life as we know it after Covid. Let Christine help guide you to a new life of joy and get “Unstuck”.
Connect with Christine on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can also reach her through Sorry to Strength at Christine@sorrowtostrength.com
Once upon a time Charlie Derrien was working 60 hours/week in unrelenting corporate America management. In late 2012, God and Charlie made a decision together that it was time to leave the corporate world. She thought and prayed long and hard and said, “God, allow me to use all this formal training that I went to school for (she was a business major at Shorter University) to begin my entrepreneurial journey.”
Charlie prayed for an idea, a catalyst. Then the light bulb came on, and she began her grueling research of logistics as a whole, with a special interest in residential moving. Charlie had moved all across the United States throughout her childhood and young adult life, due to her father’s military background as a medic in the United States army, so the concept of this moving business was not foreign to her.
Now, one of Charlie’s passions in life is EXCELLENCE in customer service and it has been since the moment she walked into her very first job at McDonald’s. She was committed to “hot fries” and service with a smile. All these years later, Charlie still lives by the same fundamental creed. While she no longer serve french fries, she still strongly believes that regardless of the business you are in, the differentiator must be the EXCELLENCE in service that you consistently deliver and provide.
That said, what fascinated (and frustrated) her the most about this industry, is how broken it truly is. She couldn’t believe that clients like herself would call on a company for help in assisting them with this very important life change, entrusting this company around their families, children, pets, irreplaceable antiques, expensive furniture and china, only to be met with huge disappointment and heartache.
Christine read review after review from hundreds of moving companies, from small businesses to the big players in the game. She read horror stories about moving companies that didn’t show up for a clients’ scheduled move, theft of a clients’ merchandise, carelessness with the clients’ things, damages beyond repair, holding a clients’ items hostage, physical altercations on the job sites, hours late for their scheduled move start time, and the list kept going.
After months of building a core team, coaching, meetings, trainings, setting expectations and goals…it was time to launch…and BOY, did they LAUNCH! The calls starting pouring in with people just like Christine that weren’t asking for the moon and stars, they simply needed a service handled professionally, competently, at a fair price and with a smile and willingness to serve.
That’s who Charlie’s Angels Movers really is, and who we strive hard to be every single day, on every single job. Excellence in service matters here. Our clients matter here. Christine’s team takes pride in what they do and she’s honored to work with such an extraordinary group of men.
Christine asks her team at every meeting, “How do we feel about competition?” And the unanimous response is “There is none.” Simply because when you know what you bring to the table of an organization and you know you work hard to deliver on the expectation, it doesn’t matter how many other people are doing the same thing around you. When you conduct good, fair business, the clients will come.
To all of our prospective clients that made it a point to stop by here first and read Christine’s story, thank you so much. Your time is valuable and we appreciate that. We’re EXCITED to partner with you on your upcoming move and we look forward to making your move a heavenly experience!
Follow Charlie’s Angels Movers on Facebook.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta. It’s time for Charitable Georgia. Brought to you by B’s Charitable Pursuits and Resources. We put the fun in fund raising. For more information, go to B’s Charitable Pursuits. Dot com. That’s B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. Now here’s your host, Brian Pruitt.
Brian Pruett: [00:00:45] Good, fabulous Friday morning to you out there in the listening world. We got three more fabulous folks. I have to apologize for my voice. First of all, the pollen is early on me this year, so it’s kind of kicking my butt at the moment. But for those of you first time tuning in, this is Charitable Georgia. It’s stories about individuals, businesses, nonprofits doing great things in the community. So welcome to Charitable Georgia. My first guest this morning is Chaplain Lindy Earle from Turnabout 180. Chaplain Earl. Thanks for being here. Good morning.
Lindy Earl: [00:01:13] Thank you for inviting me.
Brian Pruett: [00:01:15] So you and I have talked a little bit. I’ve heard some stuff that you presented on what you do and why you do it. But give us a little background. First of all, tell us about Turnabout 180 and how you got there and why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Lindy Earl: [00:01:27] Okay. Well, why I’m doing what I’m doing is it goes back to my childhood. And when I was a little girl, I was raised in a very religious home. And I wanted to grow up to be a pastor. And I was told, you can’t. And back then you couldn’t. And life went on. And so I got into the business world. I was a college professor. I was vice president of marketing. I was an entrepreneur. And then one day I got a phone call and this guy on the other side side on the other end of the line said, We’d like to hire you as a chaplain. I said, Well, that’s great, but I’m not a chaplain. I have an MBA, not a theology degree. And he said, No, we’ll train you. And I said, What does it cost? He says, We’ll pay for it. And I’m like, This is just too good to be true. And sure enough, they put me through the training and got me certified and I became a chaplain. But I worked for a nonprofit where our focus is helping other people, whether they’re dealing with childhood angst, grief, just not not waking up happy every day like we should. We’re meant to be, you know, live this life as well as we can. Life is very, very short. And so at turnabout 180, the whole goal is to take you from where you are. If you’re not in a very happy path to where you can be. And we do this through seminars, through Bible studies and through one on one. And we work both with individuals, but we love to work with business chaplains, so we love to work with companies.
Lindy Earl: [00:03:03] And so we have clients who invite us in and once or twice a month it can be as often as once a week. We go into companies and we give a Bible study or we give a presentation. Brian You were there for my presentation on communication where we talked about both. I’m sorry. We talked about. The different ways to communicate and how you accidentally communicate very often and what you don’t mean to say. And so we go in and we give these seminars to employees and then we make ourselves available for one on one interaction. People can talk about anything from their childhoods to not liking their bosses to what’s going on in the world today because we’re there for what we meet you where you are. And a lot of people are still dealing with grief. Might might have been their mother died ten years ago. Might have been. They had a break with a family member and they’ve never dealt with it. Or it could be that they need a new job. We have counseled people through I hate my job. I’m not happy here. Okay, well, rather than just quitting, why don’t we work to see work with your employer to see how we can make you happy? One of the benefits of having a chaplain in your office is that retention increases greatly. Attrition therefore drops, absenteeism drops, workplace violence drops, employee conflict drops, employee satisfaction improves, which means customer satisfaction improves. What a great benefit is that you have happier customers because you invested with the benefit of having a chaplain in house.
Brian Pruett: [00:04:51] So when you do that with the businesses is are you there particular times during the day or are you there? Does somebody bring you on for a certain amount of time during the month or how does that work?
Lindy Earl: [00:05:00] Well, normally they choose a couple times a month. They’ll say, okay, we want you here every Tuesday morning from eight to noon or we want you here on Wednesday afternoons from 1 to 5. And you can find the prices for this on turnabout 180.org and you can have us there for the entire day. Most people have us in twice a month. That’s the norm.
Brian Pruett: [00:05:27] So when you and I talked, you have some in common with myself that you were a marketing professor at KSU. I took marketing classes at KSU, but I didn’t have you. So how is this how do you see the difference from the marketing aspect, or has it helping you, having that marketing background doing this?
Lindy Earl: [00:05:43] The marketing background has definitely helped me with the social media side. I understand the importance. I’m very sad how few people understand what marketing really is. They confuse advertising with marketing, sales, with marketing, you know, true marketing is learning what the customer wants, finding a way of providing that at a price affordable to them, but profitable for the company. That’s true marketing. And when companies understand this and stop calling sales, marketing sales is a very important function. But it’s not. It’s not marketing. So that’s one of the joys when I’m talking to C levels and they want to talk about, okay, I can’t decide what to do. I have a business background, so I understand. Well, what are the ramifications and what’s your return on investment and what’s, you know, I get it all. I get the marketing, I get the the accounting, the finance operations. You know, this is going to have an effect on your personnel. What is that going to mean? So from that perspective, my business background has been very beneficial in working with clients because I can definitely understand now if I’m meeting with an engineer and they want to talk about the first derivative of, I don’t know, speed being, whatever it is, I don’t even remember what those were. No, I can’t go there because in the business world, the first derivative of total cost is marginal cost. That’s how I understand it. But it’s great to talk to people without a business background and say, Well, have you considered this? And I’m doing it from a Christian point of view because we’re business chaplains. The chaplaincy is as important as the business.
Brian Pruett: [00:07:26] So you also work with individuals, correct?
Lindy Earl: [00:07:28] Absolutely.
Brian Pruett: [00:07:29] And you’re able to do weddings as well as funerals and counseling and that kind of stuff. So I’m sure there’s a plenty of difference between working with a business and an individual. But can you walk us through that process a little bit?
Lindy Earl: [00:07:41] Yeah, I often meet people who their company does not offer this benefit, but they realize I’m not as happy as I should be or I’m having marital problems or I, like I said, don’t like my job and they just need somebody to talk to them about it. A lot of divorce situations and my goal is always to keep relationships as intact as possible. If they’re thinking, I want to quit my job, I want to leave my spouse, what can we do to, you know, see it from every point of view? So we meet, we can meet by Zoom, we can meet in person, or we can meet by phone. And a lot of people want phone. They like the anonymity and that’s fine with us, whatever works. And we can offer different genders of chaplains. We have male chaplains as well.
Brian Pruett: [00:08:31] Are you guys national or are you just here in Georgia? Whereas whereas the turnabout 180.
Lindy Earl: [00:08:37] We are located locally, but yes, we are national. We’ve had out-of-state clients many times.
Brian Pruett: [00:08:43] So I have to ask every time I see you at a networking event, you’re carrying around baskets of mints. What’s the what’s the story behind that?
Lindy Earl: [00:08:49] Okay. The story behind my candy basket is when I was first introduced as a chaplain at companies. There are 100 employees in this company. And I’m walking up and down the hall saying, Hi, I’m your new chaplain. And they were kind of like, okay. And some people were very receptive. We know you’re coming, this is great. But I just found that if I had a candy basket. I would say hi. Would you like a piece of candy? Now I’m in their office, so obviously I’m safe. And they would say sure. And as they were taking their candy, I would say, by the way, I’m Chaplain Lindy. I’m one of the benefits your company offers. And it was a great introduction to being able to talk to people because very few people want to pass up candy. And even if they do, they’ll at least still talk to you and say thank, you know? And when they go, I don’t need you know, it’s too early in the morning. I’m like, are you going to have coffee breath in half an hour? Yeah, I’ll take one for later. So that’s how it started. And so when I started attending network events, which is where Brian and I met, I just thought, you know what? If it works with the companies, it’ll work in the networking world. And it’s become a joke.
Brian Pruett: [00:09:57] And like Stone, you don’t turn down food, but I’m sure you don’t turn down candy either.
Stone Payton: [00:10:00] Absolutely. And I did learn. My dad taught me. If someone offers you a mint, take it. Yes.
Lindy Earl: [00:10:06] People ask me that all the time and they’ll ask, are you trying to tell me something? And I’m like, No, no, no. I’m just being nice.
Brian Pruett: [00:10:13] Yeah. So if somebody wanted to get a hold of you for your services, for business or individual, how can they do that?
Lindy Earl: [00:10:20] Admin at turnabout 180.org. We’ll get you directly to me. You can also go to Chaplain Lindy at gmail.com.
Brian Pruett: [00:10:28] Awesome. Well, Chaplain Lindy, I appreciate your time this morning. You mind sticking around? Listen to these next two stories. Looking forward to it. Awesome. Now we are going to move over to Ms.Christine McCartney, who has got an incredible story herself. But you’re with sorrow, strength, grief coaching. And tell us why you went. Because there’s all kinds of different coaching. There’s business coaching, there’s marketing coaching, you know, but you’ve decided to kind of take it to the next level with the grief coaching because you’ve had personal experience. But if you don’t mind, can you share your story and why you’re doing it?
Christine McCartney: [00:10:59] Absolutely. Brian. First of all, thank you for inviting me. I appreciate this. So, yeah, my story is kind of an odd story, how it goes back to my life. I was originally from Canada. My husband and I came from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and we came down to Georgia and he went to chiropractic school at Life College. He and I were together for 30 years. We started our own business. We owned Lake City Chiropractic here in town in Acworth. And in 2015, he was diagnosed with stage four esophageal cancer and passed away in five months. So now we had a business. We had two young girls. They were 16 and 12 at the time. And so I knew that whatever, whatever I had to do, I had to do for my kids. And so I ran the business for about a year and then realized this was not my dream, this was his dream. And that I. Decided I was going to sell the business, which I did. Took time off to grieve, and I did not go to one of those grief support groups. Like I never did anything like that. I just kind of convalesced at home and did everything myself and made sure my kids were okay. And as I said, I took time for myself, made sure the kids were okay. But then I decided it was a God thing because for about a month you probably don’t even know this, but for about a month, every night I was getting like a push push. I felt it and I was like, You need to start a widow’s group, a grief group. And and I am not I am not a leader per se, but I knew that God was wanting me to do something.
Christine McCartney: [00:12:50] So I went to my pastor and I said, You know me, this is not me. But I feel like God is telling me I need to start a widow’s group. But I don’t want to just do widows. I want to do widows and widowers. And he goes, Yes, we need that. So this is how sort of strength started at that point. Then I decided I wanted to go to school to become a life coach. And the incident went back to school. And, you know, everyone’s as you said, there’s different coaching. There could be health coaching, physical, you know, all business coaches and stuff. And I knew immediately what I wanted to do and that my niche was going to be grief. And I remember the professors there were saying, You have no idea how much this is needed. And I said, Well, I’m just doing this because if I could help one person go through peacefully, what I’ve gone through that is that would make my heart feel great. And so hence, that’s how I started sort of strength and and now grief. I can help people because grief is not just a loss of a loved one. It could be any kind of loss. It could be a divorce. It could be a loss of a job. As chaplain had said, it could be a pet. It could be any kind of change or any of us who have gone through COVID. Our whole lives have changed during COVID. So I can help people kind of guide them to get find joy back in their life again and how to take those steps.
Brian Pruett: [00:14:28] I like the your the name SAALT strength because it takes a lot of strength to go through what you did and then start this and help others. Because going through something personal like that, obviously being a man of faith, I don’t think there is anything coincidence wise, but God, you know, takes you through things. And it’s for that reason to help other people. As you mentioned, you know, it could be a loss of a spouse. It could be loss of a job. You know, the way you handle grief needs to be talked about because a lot of ways, a lot of people don’t handle grief the right way.
Christine McCartney: [00:14:59] Oh, a lot of people don’t even it’s taboo. It’s like it’s expected that, oh, you know, well, it happened six months ago. You should be over it. And but every individual is different. Everyone has to go through the process. There’s all these different levels of grief and that you could be stuck in one level and not know how to move forward. And that’s where I can kind of come in and let you have the steps. Now, there is a difference between counseling and coaching. So counseling, they help get the person’s mind wrapped around the tragedy and understanding and everything like that. What I do is I acknowledge that and I can tell if they are ready to move forward because you have to be ready to move forward in your life. Otherwise this won’t work. But I kind of help them move forward. Get unstuck is kind of my term that I use.
Brian Pruett: [00:15:55] I like how you talked about people. Six months, get over it. So be 23 years in June that my dad passed away of unexpectedly heart attack at my cousin’s wedding reception. Oh my goodness. And my mother was working. I won’t say where, but she was still working at a place and her boss came to her three weeks afterwards and said, you know, it’s been three weeks, get over it. And the interesting thing was a couple of weeks later we had to have our dog put down. And he was so more in tune of saying, Well, you should go be with the dog. And my mom looked at him and said, you know, Wow. Anyway, um, so do you work just in a particular area or where all can you know.
Christine McCartney: [00:16:37] I do most of my sessions either on phone or Zoom or I can meet somebody. So with that, with Zoom, I mean, I could have a client in Egypt, it doesn’t matter because it’s over the telephone. So I can have anybody that’s dealing with with loss anytime, any.
Brian Pruett: [00:16:58] Anywhere. If somebody’s listening to you right now and they are going through something, can you just give a brief nugget of what somebody might be able to do to, you know, we’ll get to how they can get in touch with you, but gives you a brief nugget of somebody who might be going through something.
Christine McCartney: [00:17:09] Yeah, absolutely. One of the things and this this is something that I tell my clients a lot is because you’re struggling, you’re struggling with. How to go forward. One of the biggest things that I want everyone to kind of do, and you don’t even have to be going through grief to do this is called It’s a joy Journal. A lot of people forget how to be happy. Every day. I want you to think about at the end of the day, what is the one thing that made you smile? Write that down. What this does is every day you do that, you start reading it and you realize that now you are starting to look around to see what makes you smile. And it could be anything silly. It could be a dog walking down the street, pooping on the sidewalk. I mean, whatever makes you smile, jot it down because then that is going to retrain your brain to find joy, happiness, laughter And then soon enough, you’re going to start seeing more things like, Oh, wow, look at those flowers today. Those are beautiful. They’re shining there, you know, Oh, look at this little boy. You know, So there’s there’s lots of things. That’s that’s one thing that I kind of tell all my clients is that’s the first step to start finding joy again.
Brian Pruett: [00:18:30] Awesome. Thanks for that. So you had something exciting happen just before the holidays, right? I did. Yeah, well.
Christine McCartney: [00:18:36] Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’m like, What was that? Yes, I got engaged. So, yeah, my husband, like I said, was gone for seven years. And. And, you know, it’s like the whole dating world was crazy. But I found a wonderful man, and we’re getting married in 2025, so we got some time. There you go.
Brian Pruett: [00:18:57] Well, congratulations on that. Thank you. So if somebody wants to get a hold of you, you learn about more about your services or schedule something. How can they do that?
Christine McCartney: [00:19:04] You can call me at or call or text at 404, 5421229. My email is Christine at zero two strength.com. My website is W WW dot soar to strength.com as well.
Brian Pruett: [00:19:22] Awesome. Well Christine thanks for coming and sharing a little bit about your story and do you mind sticking around? Absolutely. We are now moving over to Miss Charlie Derrien from Charlie’s Angels movers. Charlie, thank you for being here this morning.
Charlie Derrien: [00:19:32] Thank you, Brian. I appreciate the invite.
Brian Pruett: [00:19:35] So you do a lot within the community and we’ll talk about all that. But I have to ask, first of all, you’ve told me a little bit about your story of why you started your business. But I was a fan for many reasons for Charlie’s Angels on TV. Yes.
Charlie Derrien: [00:19:49] I get that a lot. Right.
Brian Pruett: [00:19:51] So share a little bit about your story and Charlie’s Angels movers.
Charlie Derrien: [00:19:55] So it all started ten years ago. I was looking for a moving company because I was planning a personal move out of my house. Suddenly, I couldn’t find one that I would want to do business with. So in reading reviews East Coast to West Coast, I’m like, Man, this is really broken. Like on a different level, broken. So I thought, Hmm, that’s interesting. Simultaneously, what was happening at my full time corporate job in the corporate world was I was being passed up on two promotions, six months apart. So when it happened the first time, I thought, Oh, let me do what Charlie does, which is go back to the drawing board and work harder and do better. Even though there was kind of a hush over the crowd, like everybody was like, you know, but it was her. But she was next in line. And it was just a known thing. It was a given. So when it didn’t happen, I was like, okay, very upset, but let me work harder. Six months later, they promoted her sister instead of me. And so I thought, this is this is real. This is you know, I’m being overlooked and looked over. And I went home and had a nervous breakdown for about a good week. I was very upset that it happened a second time. And I was crying and I was in my living room and I got down on my knees and I said, God, give me anything. Give me anything. Put Sorry. Sorry, I said. God. Give me anything. Put it in my head. Just give me an idea and I’ll take it from there. And I don’t know what else to say other than the whole it all came together with the combination of What about moving? I didn’t know anything about moving, right? I knew business.
Charlie Derrien: [00:21:34] I knew client service. I know customer service. I’ve been doing that for a long time. I didn’t know anything about moving other than military background. My father was a medic in the Army, so we moved a lot, but I wasn’t participating in it at that time, so I just ran with the idea. I printed, literally printed some business cards that were free with Vistaprint. If you guys remember, Vistaprint printed some business cards and they were very generic. I made a very generic website on Wix, if you remember Wix. I don’t know if Wix is still around. And I started showing up at places that might need movers like storage companies and different things. I started sending them pizza every week and just defining my presence and just showing up. I started networking and plugging into networking events. I made a t shirt because that’s what I could afford. I had $200 in the bank when this all started, right? I made a t shirt that said Charlie’s Angels Movers. I scribbled out my logo one night at 2:00 in the morning and I sent it to somebody that was much better at drawing than me, and they made it all come together my box with wings. And I left my corporate job two months later, as it were. My phone was ringing enough. I started at the right time. It was during the moving seasons, the moving industry’s peak season. So my phone was just ringing to the point where I thought if I leave the 60 hours here and devote it to this, I think I’m going to make this go.
Charlie Derrien: [00:22:56] I feel like God gave it to me and I said to God, give it to me and I’m going to take it from here. So I was committed to that. So I left my corporate job, handed them my resignation. They said, Charlie, please don’t go. Please don’t go. Now is what they said. It was a critical time. I said, Oh, I’m already gone. And and that was it. So it started there and I spent the next three years, I was the only person at the helm other than my field team of movers. So I spent the first year working on all my trucks. So if a client hired a four. Man Three Man two man team, I was one of 2 or 1 of 3 or 1 of four. So sometimes I’d show up and be met with, looks like you’re, you’re moving us. So I got that in the beginning. But then when they saw that, yes, I was very serious about it as the guys were, I could lift anything. They could lift. I was up and down three flights of stairs, just like they were on the sofas. I was doing it at the same level, but primarily because I had to learn this. I had to dig in. I felt like I needed to just really dig in and be in it. So I did that for the first year, and then after the first year I didn’t have to work on my trucks anymore.
Brian Pruett: [00:24:00] Well, it’s, you know, don’t don’t apologize for showing up because when God speaks to you and you listen and you do what you what he thinks you do, it’s amazing what he does. I mean, we all have the stories of why we’re doing what we’re doing, and it’s just really cool to learn more about stuff that you because, I mean, just recently you were gone because it was from the Super Bowl and the NBA all star game. You got some gigs for that?
Charlie Derrien: [00:24:23] Yes. Got a.
Brian Pruett: [00:24:24] Contract? Yeah. You know, so that’s that’s amazing. So you’re based in Acworth, right? But do you do all over? We do.
Charlie Derrien: [00:24:29] So we’re local, regional, national moving will facilitate anything out of state. We do like commercial now because any of our clients that we’ve moved residentially, if they have a business, they always call us and say, But Charlie, I know you don’t do commercial, but and so we always say, Of course we would thank you for choosing us again. And yeah, of course we’ll do it.
Brian Pruett: [00:24:47] But you also just opened up an office in Texas, correct? We did.
Charlie Derrien: [00:24:51] So we franchise started franchise in Houston at the top of the year. So I have one of my brilliant CFOs out there to CFOs with my company. One’s my brother that you mentioned, Stone That’s Brad. And then the other one is Corey, and he’s opening up operations out in Houston for us, moved there. His fiance was already over there, runs a very large real estate company, her and her father. So it just seemed like the perfect fit of what we’ve had going on. So we’ve been talking about it for at least the last two years and finally launched, and we’re ready to ready to move on it in a big way and hopefully just sort of explode in the Houston area as the objective marketing standpoint.
Brian Pruett: [00:25:30] Congratulations on that. So I have to ask this, too, because every time I see a picture of you, you got your little dog. Yes. Tell me about your dog.
Charlie Derrien: [00:25:39] Thanks for asking about my dog. That’s biscuit. So Biscuit is actually my child, right? He’s definitely an extension of biscuit. Everywhere I travel, I do a lot of traveling business, and otherwise biscuit goes everywhere that I travel to. He. I got him as a puppy. He’s six years old this year. He’s obviously something of a mascot has become. Right. He comes to the office with me. Everybody loves him. He doesn’t deal with everyone. That’s just but but for the people that he does deal with, he’s you know, he’s just a great little road dog and companion and my little furry love. And he was hit by a car in 2018. I don’t know if it’s such a good story. Well, it’s kind of long to tell it, but the short version is I don’t know if you guys know Toby Carmichael at the Lake City Animal Hospital.
Christine McCartney: [00:26:29] He’s my vet.
Charlie Derrien: [00:26:30] So Toby has so many levels of fantastic. But I met Toby because my dog was hit by a car. I showed up in my raggedy old at the time I had Charlie’s Angels. Charlie’s Angels charity truck, where I was doing things with homeless people. We were doing haircuts and feeding them and doing different things. So I came in my raggedy old 15 foot box charity truck that I didn’t even know was going to start. So I let my door accidentally swing open, and I heard him before I saw him, heard him. And I went out there and he was just broken. Like I could tell his back something was devastatingly wrong, back was broken. His legs were just hanging. He was limp. And I’m looking at him and knew he was dying. So I have this truck that I just pulled from storage, my charity truck, because I’m getting ready to put it back on the road and we’re doing some things and I’m like and I knew it wasn’t going to start because it hadn’t been starting. So I was waiting for the mechanic or whatever. I went out. I was frantic. I was hysterical. I was the only one home. I didn’t know what to do, panic, go outside. And I’m like, I just wasn’t in my right mind. I called two vets, Toby’s office answered and said, Come on, we’re yeah, technically, you know, we’re getting ready to leave, but come. How far away are you? Come on. So I was like, I’ll do it. I call Uber, I go out and I just start. I just turn the truck over.
Charlie Derrien: [00:27:40] I start straight away, which I was like, Thank you. I go to you know, I was thinking God about that, right? So I drive to the vet, he meets me out in the parking lot and he’s like, Are you Charlie? And I said, I am. And, you know, I’m crying. I’m trying to make my way through the tears. I’m holding him. He takes him out of my hands. He’s like, I see your I see your signs, you know, Nice to meet you. And tell me what happened. I explain. Goes back in the room. He’s gone for about 15 minutes and he comes back out and he’s like, you know, I don’t know how because he saw him, too. So I’m looking at him reading him like I know what’s bad. And he comes back out of the room 15 minutes later and he’s like, I don’t know quite how to say this, basically, but he’s fine. Like, there’s no internal and then he just brings him out and he walks over to me and I’m just like, What do you mean? Like Toby? You saw Doctor Carmichael, You saw that he wasn’t fine. Like how? Like, that’s just so many levels of. And in that moment. I needed my dog to live through that in that moment. I was going through some other critical things in my life and just a bad, bad time. So it was it just all worked for good. And I have an amazing relationship with Dr. Carmichael now. I see him everywhere, networking all over the city. And he’s just that’s my buddy.
Brian Pruett: [00:28:50] That’s amazing what God shows up when he does my little biscuit. Yes. What kind is biscuit?
Charlie Derrien: [00:28:55] Biscuit is a maltese Yorkie.
Brian Pruett: [00:28:56] Okay. Yeah. You also have some kids as well. I do.
Charlie Derrien: [00:29:00] I have I have three kids, Caden, Dane and Kennedy, 24, 16 and 13. My oldest son is was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis at three weeks old. So he deals with a lot of things physically, a lot of physical, handicapped and mental handicap. So, you know, we deal with with sort of the special needs side of things and which is why I don’t know, I know that, you know that I do a lot of things from a community standpoint. So and I’m really just following the things that speak to me, specifically the horizon, the gala tonight I’ll be attending the gala. So somebody was good enough to get me tickets after I missed my deadline and I thought I was well ahead of the curve. But but I did get a couple of tickets. I’ll be at the gala just to support and, you know, give back to that. Of course, the Acworth Community Garden is another one of my loves because I’ve learned to plant things in the last couple of years. And miraculously, they’re growing. They never grew before. But I’m just like, God, could you help me out here with this one? And, you know, and, and and everything’s just growing.
Charlie Derrien: [00:29:59] So I guess they like the energy in my place and some of the things that I’m doing. So Acworth Community Garden, I’m learning some things from there. They didn’t know that it was kind of double double edged for me. So yes, I want to come and help and do the things. But also there’s master gardeners in there that are teaching. I’m asking all these questions, so I’m getting educated. And and then I had a lunch yesterday with I don’t know if you guys know Jimmy Durham, but good friend of the mayor’s Tommy Ellegood, if you know Tommy. And it was just an amazing lunch where I learned about Kenya Connect Kenyan connections. I don’t know if you guys know this program. Mars Hill Church is plugged into it, as I understand it. But anyway, really passionate about being able to. The idea of going over and helping orphaned kids over in Africa. And so they’re planning a trip for July. So really excited about hearing more about that and seeing how me and my children can maybe go over and, you know, lend something to that from a working and helping them build.
Brian Pruett: [00:30:50] That’s awesome. We’ll circle back around to what you’re doing in the community, but I wanted to also you have one of your children was on American Idol, right? Yes, he was. We’ll share that experience.
Charlie Derrien: [00:30:58] Yeah, sure. So Dane, my middle 16 year old, he’s a brilliant in his craft. He is a performer and an all around entertainer. So he dances, he acts now and he’s doing some theater and he’s a phenomenal singer. So now I’m getting him to the point where he’s writing and encouraging that and the things that are coming out with just him writing is just brilliant. But he was on American Idol at 14 two years ago. Lionel Richie said, Yes, absolutely, yes. Luke Perry and or Luke Bryan and Katy Perry said, Come back in two years. Your voice sounds young. Come back in two years. So he may be back in two years or he may be a star by by the end of this year.
Brian Pruett: [00:31:35] He just needed that little boost. Who knows?
Charlie Derrien: [00:31:36] Yeah, but. So we’ve had many auditions since then. The next big boy band that you guys will probably all come to learn in the next year or so. So while he didn’t make that audition, it was so much fun that they flew us out to LA and he got to go through the whole experience and Fox Studios were there. Simon Cowell’s people, NBC studios like it was just a big we have we’re just he’s literally just dipping his toe in and dipping his toe has been in just some very big projects. So we’re we’re just excited and all the support that I can give him. And of course, you you presented something to me that one of the events that you have going on and I’m always one to say, hey, if you have a spot for my kid to just do a song, you know, the crowd would be pleased.
Brian Pruett: [00:32:15] Yeah, we’re still working on that too. So, um. All right. So before I get to all the community stuff, you also you’ve started another venture, right? Don’t you have something with used cars?
Charlie Derrien: [00:32:25] I do. So. So actually, a couple. So, Brian, there’s a few things that we’ve only talked, I guess to a certain point, but I do have Charlie’s Angels chariots, used car sales, so which really just stemmed from my field team when I would hire people for the moving company, 1 in 3 people wouldn’t have vehicles. So I’m just like, how do you you know, this was a thing this I’m noticing that this is a thing to the point where can I fix that? So I’m always looking at things from a can I solve this problem or can I lend something to this to make it better? Leave things better than I found it. So I thought, well, how how labor intensive is this to start a car dealership? Let me just start the process. It turns out it’s very labor intensive. It’s starting a whole nother business. Right. Took me about a year back and forth with the city and licensing things. Anyway, we were finally there. Charlie’s Angels Chariots is just a sweet number in my office. So now it turns out everybody wants a car, right? So it went from just my field team and being able to give them an option that wasn’t buy here, pay here where they were getting not a good deal.
Charlie Derrien: [00:33:26] Right. But based on their credit and their circumstance, whatever, this is just what was happening. So now if you work here, it’s an extra incentive to retain. In my people as part of it. So if you work here, I have a car program for you, a car buy program for you. But stay the course. Stay out of trouble. I deal with a lot of young men that didn’t have that just didn’t have structure growing up. You as I learned them, they didn’t have they don’t have mom and dads. They come from broken homes. So there are things not not all of my field team, but a lot of them. And so, yes, I’m the boss. Yes, I’m the CEO. Yes, I’m the owner, but I’m also a momma bear. And I also it’s important to me when they come on board and don’t have their license, driver’s license. I have young 20 year olds, 25 that don’t have their driver’s license. Well, I want to know about that. Why didn’t you ever drive? Do you know how to drive? Yes. You know how to drive. But no one’s ever they didn’t have parents that were teaching them type of thing.
Charlie Derrien: [00:34:23] So they just never it just fell to Now you’re 20, 25 and you don’t have a driver’s license. We can help you with that. I have a course right here in my parking lot. Let’s teach you how to drive. So at least two guys, you know, we’ve moved on to getting their driver’s license, and we always celebrate those kind of wins, too. Just so it’s important with my field team, with all the training that I do, what I the message that I really convey is that you can’t be in my space and not level up. You can’t be around me in my presence and not get better in some capacity. Right. Because because of your energy to me, I’m getting better. You’re giving me something too. So I have a responsibility almost to give that back to you. So. So I’m just doing that in all sorts of ways. So yeah, the car dealership also, I’m building out a venue, Heaven on Earth event venues I’ve incorporated, so that should probably be. In. People will be staying there and wanting to stop by and see what’s happening probably at the end of this year. But it’s on schedule for 2024.
Brian Pruett: [00:35:17] Well, maybe we can do some events there.
Charlie Derrien: [00:35:18] We can absolutely do some events there. We haven’t even gotten to that part yet, but I’m excited to talk to you about it.
Brian Pruett: [00:35:22] Awesome. Yeah. Well, all right. So we’re going to move into because you do a lot for the community. I mean, you’ve shared a lot already, but you and I were introduced by a mutual friend, Melissa Pearson from the Barter Company. Yes. And my favorite redhead. Yes. I love giving her a hard time. She gives it right back. But when I came into your office after you asked me to come speak with you, you were already on a thing for karaoke.
Charlie Derrien: [00:35:43] Yes. I’m the title.
Brian Pruett: [00:35:44] Sponsor. So you’re also my title sponsor for something I’m doing all year long with trivia that’s rotating 12 charities all year long. So again, thank you for that. But absolutely, you just give back so much to the community and it’s awesome to hear. I mean, again, we all have great stories and why you do what you do, but why is it important to not only be a part of the community, but give back?
Charlie Derrien: [00:36:07] You know, some things, definitely. When it comes to helping people, I have a special place in my heart for elderly people and animals. Anybody that doesn’t have a voice necessarily or can’t use their voice or doesn’t know how, like that, those are kind of the things that speak to me. Jeez, you’re pulling on my heartstrings this morning, Brian. Like, what are we doing here? It’s important to me because my childhood was very broken, very broken. And, you know, my brother, who was my CEO, we have a good story just in our childhood that we came from very little and it was a struggle. And now we’re here and we don’t struggle. We still struggle. Everybody struggles, but we struggle different. And so it’s important for me to not forget where I came from. And it just help people like it’s in my heart.
Brian Pruett: [00:37:02] Well, I appreciate that. And I know you’re fine. I mean, this is why the show is around. I mean, I can’t get inspiration from the three of you or people I’ve had in the past. Then there’s something wrong with them. I don’t know. But no, it’s just incredible the amount that you do that all of you do. So I’m going to circle back around to you in a second because I ask everybody this towards the end. But I want to go back. I’m going to kind of go back this way to Christine. You do a lot and I see you a lot in networking. You do a lot of stuff, too. Why is it important for you to be part of the community?
Christine McCartney: [00:37:37] As I said earlier, if I can help one person to find peace and go through what I did, that would make my heart feel good so that that is my goal. It’s not about money. It’s not about people knowing who I am or anything like that. It’s just it’s for my own self in peace.
Brian Pruett: [00:37:57] Chaplain Lindy, why is it important for you to be part of the community?
Lindy Earl: [00:38:00] I think that some people are definitely called to mission fields across the country, across the world. I really believe our mission fields starts as soon as we step outside our front door and we start. And you can affect somebody’s life every single day with a smile, a kind word, a compliment. I love walking past somebody and just saying cute shoes and guys really like it. They’re like, Wow, you noticed my shoes? I love guys socks. Guys wear the greatest socks and it just means something to be noticed. People need to be loved. They need to be appreciated. And we can do that on a daily basis with very little effort on our own part. Mostly we just need to be aware.
Brian Pruett: [00:38:44] Well, thank you. So. All right, Charlie, coming back to you for a second. So I guess if you ask Brad, he can tell you from the first night. I like putting stuff together and having fun. And I know Brad had a pretty good time with. He had a great time. They told me all about it.
Charlie Derrien: [00:38:57] I’m sorry I missed it.
Brian Pruett: [00:38:58] Yeah, well, hopefully you’ll be back two weeks. Yeah, Week and a half. Actually. I’m there for. This one’s for the Pettit Preserve. For those of you wanting to be part of that was going to be for the Pettit preserve this time. All right. So if somebody wants to get a hold of you for your moving for your cars, whatever, how can they do that?
Charlie Derrien: [00:39:15] They can call six, seven, 85235353. Really our primary number I do have a separate number for the car dealership as well. But you call the primary number. Everything’s out of the same office. So you can just kind of tell whoever’s answering the phone what service that you’re looking for. Also, Charlie’s Angels movers.com is our website. Charlie’s Angels movers at Gmail is our email address. And you can Google us and we’re kind of everywhere.
Brian Pruett: [00:39:39] Lots of well on the billboards, too. You can’t miss them. Yeah, the billboards all over the place. You know, I love it. Like, I just love the picture with you and biscuits. It’s awesome. So real quick, before we wrap up with the last question, can you share about karaoke? Can you tell us about that? Yes, thank.
Charlie Derrien: [00:39:52] You. Arioch is a The Fallen Heroes project. So basically anybody that needs resources still or could use some resources, their families from 9/11 and what sort of transpired from nine over 11 proceeds go to support that. So it’s something that let’s see, this is the this will be the third year for me as the title sponsor of karaoke. So we’re building on it. It gets bigger and bigger. My very good dear friend Chuck Berg, it’s his baby and his brainchild. And when he brought it to me for the first time, I said, That’s really fun. That’s a great concept to have a charity event at the airport, airport hangar, and just how we kind of tied it together and all the ideas that he had. But it’s it’s the Fallen Heroes project. The money goes for a very good cause. I like the fact that it stays local. So I like to support charities that are in either our city or in our state so that the money stays local. Doesn’t have to be that way. I do other things too, but but I do like to support that. And it’s going to be at the Strand, the on Marietta Square this year, September the we were playing with the dates but the 30th. I’m pretty sure that’s the date. I’ve been unplugged from the meetings because I’ve had this project that I’ve been working on. But I think the last that we heard that, we did confirm the 30th, but it’s going to be a great event. You guys should buy tickets. My son will sing. There’s a conflict, so he can’t actually because I’m the title sponsor, he can’t participate in the contest where there’s going to be at least a $1,500 prize winner is what it was last year. It might go up this year, but definitely buy tickets early. We’re going to sell out. It was such a fun event last year and you know, we hope to have the support.
Brian Pruett: [00:41:30] And how did you guys move from the airport to the Strand?
Charlie Derrien: [00:41:34] We kind of got kicked out. Oh, because some people sometimes you guys know this, they don’t always follow the rules, right? So if it’s an airport, if the airport says you can’t smoke cigarets outside over there next to the things that will explode and make you go boom. Oh, yeah.
Brian Pruett: [00:41:49] Yeah, I can see.
Charlie Derrien: [00:41:49] That, right? You can’t do that, right? So they don’t they take that very seriously as well they should. And said because you had certain people, those rascals that weren’t following the rules. Yeah, we don’t know if we can do this again here. So we just had to be innovative and find something else. We had to pivot.
Brian Pruett: [00:42:06] There you go. All right. One last question for the three of you before we wrap this up. I always like to end the show this way. We’ll start again. Back with you, Chaplain Lindy. But I like for the three of you to share at least one nugget, one phrase, one word quote or whatever. People can live today and the rest of 20, 23 and beyond with.
Lindy Earl: [00:42:26] I would say intentionally live every day of your life.
Brian Pruett: [00:42:31] Christine.
Christine McCartney: [00:42:34] Fall into your grief. It’s okay to be sad, but you need to find a way to come out of it.
Brian Pruett: [00:42:42] Charlie.
Charlie Derrien: [00:42:44] I’m going to quote one of my brilliant mentors, Zig Ziglar, if you know who that is, if you help. He taught me 12 years ago now. And this was a pivotal moment. It changed the trajectory of my entire life. If you help enough other people get what they want by default, you always get what you want. I, I grabbed that and got my head around it and shifted all my steps. Will let me focus on Brian. And then by default, things will fall into place for me. And I promise you, that’s exactly how things have gone since.
Brian Pruett: [00:43:15] Most people will learn more that we actually use that as a motto for the Castle Business Club. So it’s great. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Well, again, guys, I really appreciate you coming and sharing your stories. Being a part of this show. Everybody out there listening, let’s remember. Let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.
Dr. Phillip Hearn Ed.D. is a results-driven entrepreneur, Senior Executive, Consultant, and Board Member with more than 20 years of success in business acquisition and real estate. His expertise in leveraging extensive experience with expansion, and financing, makes Phillip a valuable asset for companies, particularly in real estate, seeking guidance on growth opportunities and process improvement.
Kelly Lorenzen, CEO of KLM, is an award-winning entrepreneur with over 15 years of business-ownership experience. She is also a certified project management professional.
