Charge Forward Podcast
The Charge Forward Podcast: Dedicated to those who choose to Charge Forward into the Storm when hit with challenges. This is what makes them different and has lead to their success. When in doubt.... Charge Forward!
Charge Forward Podcast
Wisdom, War Stories & Wins: The Best of Season 2
🔥 Season 2 was a masterclass in what it takes to Charge Forward — through every win, setback, and pivot. In this special episode, we revisit our favorite conversations and the unfiltered moments that left us inspired, wiser, and ready to level up.
👉 From raw ‘war stories’ of sacrifice and big bets… to timeless wisdom about family, faith, business, and legacy… these are the lessons that stay with you.
If you’re building something that matters — this recap will remind you why you started, and why you can’t stop now.
In this powerful Season 2 Look Back, the Charge Forward Podcast revisits the moments that stuck with us most. You’ll hear from veterans who are helping other veterans win their VA benefits, advocates fighting to reform broken private prison systems, and everyday heroes who turned $5/hour jobs into lasting wealth for their families.
💥 Key Takeaways:
- How one veteran has mastered the VA system when others fell short — and the three must-haves to prove any successful claim
- The fight to end private prisons and break generational cycles of trauma
- Why regenerative medicine is giving new hope to avoid unnecessary surgeries
- The simple yet powerful wealth-building mindset that turned modest beginnings into million-dollar moves
- What it really means to create a legacy worth passing on
From navigating bureaucracy to protecting your health and your family’s future, these stories prove that it’s possible to overcome, rebuild, and thrive — when you have the courage to Charge Forward.
🎧 Subscribe now, catch up on what you missed, and get ready for what’s next.
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There's. The reality of it is. There's not many people on this earth that know more about the VA system and how it works. What, what can be done, what can't be done, what's difficult, what's easy, the ins and outs of all the programs more than you.
Speaker 2:That would be debatable, I guess, but I've spent my time. I actually went to Tennessee State service officers training 20 years. But the crux of the matter is, when you go to service officers training and this is service officers it's like picking one paragraph out of the Bible and spend two days studying one paragraph. Spend two days studying one paragraph and you leave there knowing a lot about that one paragraph, what you've been told about that one paragraph. But what about the rest? Of the bible you know, you big picture it's got to get into your blood.
Speaker 2:You've got to be dedicated and you've got to learn it on your own. And, to tell the truth, for many years I kept a 38 cfr by my crapper. Every time I took a crap I got a little smarter. Um, I think I would go up anybody against anybody in the state. Uh, in a debate on veterans' issues and benefits and knowledge, yeah, not to brag, but I've come a long way. It's been a lot of work. It took a lifetime, sure, and you're never too old to learn and you should be open-minded to that. If you're not dedicated, it's not going to happen because the service officer is required to know so much. If you can't get the training which is supposed to be provided from the state, then you've got to do it on your own. If you don't have the wherewithal to do it on your own or the drive, then bail out. Find you something you can do.
Speaker 1:I can advise you on the pitfalls, I can advise you on what to do next. I can do all those things but much like Nick Saban is not going to go out on the field and throw the ball or catch the ball. I don't do that for you. You tee up, you. Or catch the ball, I don't do that for you. Like you tee up, you, you ask all the questions, you, you, you really prescribe, much like a doctor. You prescribe a solution, but you can't sign their name. You can't make them do it. You, you give them what you believe is the right thing for them and their future, their family. It's up to them to sign their name, to check the box, to make it happen.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean the action. That old adage you can lead a horse to water. I mean, we can show them the biggest lake in the world, but it's up to them to take a drink. And we can back it up with empirical data and research and all these visuals and things of how money really works and how this decision is going to affect the future. But at the end of the day, I mean and you do have clients like that occasionally, I'm sure you've had business clients that you're coaching, I've had clients that I'm coaching at the end of the day they go. I just don't see the point of this and I'm like you know, I'm not here to browbeat you into submission and maybe we're not a good fit for each other.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 5:And when I learned that lesson, that was a major turning point of oh, I don't have to do business with everybody I meet with because they just may not be a good fit for me, that was that is so such a freeing thing as an advisor that you know it frees me up to work with the people and gives me more time. I've got a friend who does a lot of coaching with people in the business that I'm in that you know. He says you know you have two jobs, you know number one is being in front of your ideal client and number two is figuring out how to get in front of your ideal client. And if you're spending time with people that your values don't match theirs and they're not coachable if you will, why do I want to take time away from somebody that does want what I'm bringing to the table? And it just changes the whole dynamic of your business to a abundance mindset.
Speaker 1:Really, If a veteran's not willing to help themselves, if they're not willing to do the hard work of substantiating the claim, then he's not going to waste his time. So the fact that you're here with him says something about you too. So make make make sure you acknowledge that, because, uh, he's not going to waste his time on people that don't want to help themselves.
Speaker 4:Well, I believe that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, if it's good with y'all, we're going to spend just a couple of minutes, uh, dispelling some myths, uh, in the VA. So one of those, obviously, is that a hundred percent is a step. It is not the end, right, um? But somebody right now, um thinks that they got to do a lot of work before they even get the thing started. Um, how does one go about starting a claim?
Speaker 2:Well, the first thing, like you said earlier, would be file the intent to file. That gives you one year to actually file the claim and gather your evidence. Should you win that claim, then your back pay started on the date that you actually file the intent. You can file that intent with any service officer or you can simply pick up the phone, dial 1-800-827-1000 and tell them you want to file an intent to file. You don't even have to tell them what you want to file on.
Speaker 2:My policy and what I put out there is every veteran should always have an intent to file, keeping in mind that when you do file a claim, it consumes that intent and you have to file another one.
Speaker 2:So you file your intent, you get to gather your evidence to support that claim. You've got to have three things. Essentially, you've got to have an event in service that could be an exposure or an accident that might have caused your issue. Then you have to have a present-day diagnosis that something is actually wrong with you. And then you have to have what's called an exit letter and that's a doctor stating that your present-day diagnosis was probably that event or that disease or injury was probably caused in your not probably, but at least as likely as not caused by your military service, and it needs to be expressed in a likelihood not likely, at least as likely as not More than likely, highly likely or it actually was caused. The next thing you would do would be present that to a service officer, or you don't really need a service officer. You can go on VAgov and file your own claims.
Speaker 1:Okay, and again, this is not to say that there are not great correctional officers, that there's not great prison wardens, there's not great people that are doing great work there. But you've also got to be very realistic and you've got to call the problems. You got to actually shed light on them and expose them for what they are, and somebody has got to do the hard work to correct them.
Speaker 6:That's it and that's that's the the work of the TDOC and it's, honestly the work of the commissioner.
Speaker 6:But the commissioner serves at the pleasure of the governor, and so we're going to need to have a governor come in to take notice that we have a broken prison system, and I'm hoping that our next governor that comes in can have that conversation about prison privatization, because it hasn't happened with any governor up to this point. From the day that it was installed around you know 1985, stalled around you know 1985, 1984, 85, 86. You know, and we went from a Republican governor to a Democratic governor, and so it's not a Democrat or Republican thing. What I have found is there's the appetite to rid our state of core civic and privatization, but nobody's quite found the way to do that yet, and so I'm hoping that our nonprofit, highlands Light, can shed light on some of those things, give possible solutions and hopefully our legislators can continue the hard work and build on the momentum that we've built in this legislation for this death accountability legislation. Hopefully I can build on that momentum and we can incrementally begin to see CoreCivic lose hold on the state of Tennessee.
Speaker 1:I love that. What are some things? If I said, tim, I need a top five list of things that absolutely need to change, what would you say those are?
Speaker 6:I would start by saying private prison has outstayed its welcome in the state of Tennessee. Private prisons, their day has come and gone. They have been nothing but problems for our state. They've been nothing but preventable deaths and destruction. They have damaged families generationally in some cases. That has to stop. Our state has to pull back from private prisons and we have to do the hard thing and hire force correctional officers and wardens that are in state-run prisons.
Speaker 6:Guess what, if you change the culture and you make it a desirable place to go work when you're trying to lean in and help these people that are in our prison system, that changes the mindset of a prison guard. When he shows up, he has a purpose. Now it's not just to make sure somebody doesn't get out of a dog kennel, it's to make sure that they have a future and a hope, and so I hope that's. The first thing that changes is privatization. The second thing that we need to change is we need to have a rehabilitative plan for our inmates and offenders, and that rehabilitative plan can be different based on the criteria for why they are there. If they came in with substance abuse, trauma, fill in the blank, let's. Let's customize a program for them for the time that they are going to be there. The third thing that I feel like needs to be changed and improved is our reintegration planning processes. Our reintegration to our communities is critical, and so we need to make sure that we have opportunities for housing and, if nothing else, we're supporting nonprofits that can also lean in to help with the state. So if we could empower some of them and possibly in some cases financially, because they can do a lot with a little versus state funding. You know, sometimes it becomes a real big issue to try to create that in a state agency.
Speaker 6:The fourth thing I feel like we need to do is we need to have more alternatives to prison. Rather than throwing them into dog kennels with people who can sexually abuse them, extort them, potentially visit harm and violence on them. If we could have an opportunity like a I have an idea for a prison filtration camp for lack of better words, and where we take people on diversion opportunities where they haven't gotten a lot of trouble and it has to be a non-sexual and non-violent offense and anything 10 years or lower. We give them a two-year um sentence to this very low security facility where they go in. They're in kind of dorm housing, if you will, and there's eight people to a place, but they they have their own bathrooms, they have their own you know shower facilities where they don't have to share it with. You know 2000 men and they are tasked with with their own chores inside that area. They probably are going to have jobs. You know cutting the grass that. You know weed eating, keeping the lawn up, you know working on maintenance on some of the HVACs, those things.
Speaker 6:If we had a program like that and then we gave them the tools to deal and manage with their traumas, have a robust intake system to where you say, okay, why are we here? And then address those things systematically in that two-year program. If after that two-year program it is tracked and managed and you have done everything that you need to do and we see there's no need for you to go to prison, then we could write that up for the judge and send that with our offenders back in front of the judge and so they might turn a 10-year sentence into a two-year sentence with time served and learn a trade. Learn a trade, learn something and be a valuable member, become a better father during that process, because those are the classes we're talking about having, and so that's the fourth thing have a prison filtration or prison alternative.
Speaker 6:And I would say the fifth thing that we need to do is we need to keep a sense of connectedness from our offenders with our offenders to their families, that sense of connection. If you don't lose that sense of connection because you don't have the money to make calls home and so you just you drift slowly, slowly, slowly you drift away from what you know. Give them the opportunity to have calls, give them the opportunity to have tablets. Not every prison has tablets, some do, but no private prisons that I know of do. Give them the opportunity to have that sense of connection with their families, because that fosters and creates and fosters hope that there can be something different in the future. And they can see their children at night. And if they're going to the ball game, guess what you can? You can, you know, chime in and call in and and watch them having it bad, you know, or you, whatever, the whatever the thing is.
Speaker 1:Inspiration that they need in order to get out.
Speaker 6:To continue that change. And so just to recap those real quick we have to get out of incarceration, get out of privatization. Private prisons have long outlived their usefulness. We have to create rehabilitative opportunities. We have to create reintegration and robust reintegration planning. Reintegration and robust reintegration planning. We need prison alternatives for our young offenders and we need to create that sense of connectedness to our families and cultivate that so that we don't lose that and prison is not so cold and it's not so destitute. It doesn't have to be that if we're going to be a department of corrections, then we should do things to correct versus just warehousing these people away from us to make us feel safe.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, like I mentioned earlier and kind of a segue, you were talking about special operators earlier. So my favorite doctor is regenerative doctor, dr mike mehan, and he's in miami but he's, uh, he's coming up this this weekend to do a four-part series and so, uh, he's got a couple special operators. One of the things that they do the clinic that he works at is, um, they have a great foundation where they help support our special operators, green Beret, special forces, all those guys, because a lot of those, when they get out of the military, they're just broken like their bodies are just run into the ground Right, and so they use a lot of regenerative medicine techniques and cutting edge stuff to help those guys get back to where they can enjoy life and, you know, the retirement that they have earned, be able to, you know, not have nearly as much pain. So Dr Mike's coming in and a couple of special operators are flying up with him and there's just so much that can be done. And two years ago he put me in contact with the Garm Clinic in Roatan, honduras, and you know the it's not a secret, but the my past was I was over 300 pounds for most of my life and when I finally lost the weight when I about the year that I turned 40, my knees were toast and you just you know it's that much damage. And they said you know you're going to need double knee replacement in the next 24 months.
Speaker 1:And I was looking for how do I not do that, how do I, how do I keep what I got? How do I fix it? And so had stem cell therapy there in Honduras and it's the best decision I've ever made by far. And if you'd asked me 60 days out, I would have said I wasted my money. But by day 75, I started having days with no pain and, uh, I was frustrated because I did a.
Speaker 1:I did an interview with a men's health magazine just a few months ago and they left out the fact that it worked. So they asked where I went and what I did and all these things, but they did not include that by March I had it done in August and by March I had over 100 days of no pain. And these days I go to CrossFit five days a week, hammer on them and no pain. So there's all kinds of things that you can do and it's not. It's not like we were too raised knowing that food dyes were bad for us, or what clean eating look like, or, or you know that we needed to work out, especially strength training. Uh, but now that we know it, we can't go back. We've got to make sure that we put it into, put it in place and keep doing it.
Speaker 7:That's interesting. I got hung outside an airplane. I was a toe jumper and it tore my bicep and my shoulder. That was the original injury and I ended up having MRIs done on both and they ended up doing the other shoulder because he said there was something there to fix. But there was nothing left to fix on this one, just the army just PT'd me through it. Sure, and it's like you have substitution muscles, the other muscles kind of take over and get you through it until you and it's like you have substitution muscles, the other muscles kind of take over and get you through it until you beat those up on a bowling alley one day. And then it just doesn't. So I just I've kind of settled into I won't hang ceiling fans or paint shutters for a living type of thing. But that's interesting. There's maybe something else out there.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I mean it'd be worth looking into. There's a lot of things they can do these days. In fact, I don't know if either one of you follow Gary Brekka, but you know, gary's whole thing is that if you're alive today, that within the next five years of the medical advances that they're going to be experiencing with AI, that you shouldn't die or have. You know where your lifespan and your health span don't line up anymore, that if you want to fix it, you can.
Speaker 7:So I need to really get my act together for the next five years.
Speaker 1:Well, you know you want to be around Melissa's, melissa's making sure she's going to be able to drive the cars you know she still looks like she's 30.
Speaker 7:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:I got to keep my game up, that's right.
Speaker 7:That's right, I got to keep my game up.
Speaker 1:That's right, uh, but you want to be able to enjoy those cars, you want to be able to enjoy your grandkids, or maybe even your great grandkids, um, and that's, that's the spice of life. Uh, one of the things that we, uh, we've touched, the things that I think is, um, far too common, is people are so ingrained in westernized medicine that they think it's a solution. You're going to give me a pill and it's going to fix me, and it it really is a systemic optimization in that you've got to look at all things correct. Um, even when you go to, uh, your your yearly physical, I think people are, um, willfully uninformed. They, they want to put their blinders on and go well, uh, the doctor would have told me if there was anything wrong. And then, at the same time, they want to also be the same person that, when things start failing, they just go. Well, it's just part of getting old. And the reality is you don't have to accept those things. You do have to accept responsibility if you're going to fix them Right, um, but optimization really is from sleep hormones.
Speaker 1:Um, the stresses are stressors in your life, uh, the air you're breathing, the water you're drinking, the food you're putting in your life, the air you're breathing, the water you're drinking, the food you're putting in your body, the relationships you have or don't have. I mean, it is so multifaceted. If we were looking at it as a you know, a lot of times in business or whatnot, they'll have a spoke wheel and it's like the seven spokes of and this is more like a bicycle wheel in that there's, you know, a thousand spokes or there's 50 spokes, and obviously some of them are more impactful than others, but it really is your environment and what you engage in regularly.
Speaker 8:For sure, and you know it can be daunting at times to kind of look at all those pieces and get ideas and thoughts. And you know there's there's a multitude of tests that can be looked at. And you know there's there's a multitude of tests that can be looked at. And you know kind of the magic of it is trying to figure out from, you know, your insights and listening to the client or patient, as far as history, physical, you know what testing they've had in the past, what are their goals moving forward, what do they want to do or be? I mean, it can be kind of all over the map. So, um, and and just because you start in one direction doesn't necessarily mean that that's the direction you're going to stay in for the rest of your life. Um, you know things will change, insults will happen, life will happen, um, so it's to some degree kind of like a big old game of whack-a-mole. It is, but the same token. You know the goal is to try to get as much under control and or enhanced as we can and then understand that you know things are going to happen, unfortunately. So, um, which isn't always a bad thing, I mean stressors are actually can be positives, um, if they are appropriate and in the right amount and dose, and that sort of thing too, because it, you know, it helps us to get things accomplished, it helps us to move forward. Um, even what are thought to be setbacks sometimes can be helpful as challenges that kind of move you in a good direction. Um, I mean some of the best relationships businesses there can be which can work as a positive too. So, um, you know, I think all of those pieces are important, but, yeah, I mean I think there's a multitude of things we can look at and do and there's every modality that you can think of could be a potential option.
Speaker 8:Um, you know, if you listen to, you know some of the people on social medias, you know they talk about these things. It's like, well, how do they get anything else accomplished? Cause they're doing all these. You know tools and trinkets all the time. Um, but you know, I think they can have a role, but it's just a matter of kind of putting them in place in a comprehensive way that is feasible, understandable, and kind of giving folks the reason that these are moving forward. So, and again, that may morph and shift. I mean there are some people initially that will come in and say, hey, I want to lose whatever 20 pounds. There may be times that they may come in and go. You know, I want to add some muscle mass and some growth and that's a totally different interaction, intervention and treatment regimen moving forward and it just depends. I mean, I treat people that do high level professional activities and sports of some people that just want to play with their grandkids and that's their goal.
Speaker 1:That just want to play with their grandkids and that's their goal. Yeah, and none of the um. How has CrossFit changed your perspective on health or how you structure your life?
Speaker 9:Um, it's a good question. Um, I think consistency, um, just holding myself accountable to make sure I'm there every day, I mean consistent, it's I just feel like that's so important. Um, and now it's just a habit, like I, I feel almost lost if I'm not there, and maybe that's not healthy either, but like either, but like I need that, that time, that time, and um, and I like feeling feeling healthy, feeling stronger, especially, you know, with my job. It's a very physical job and you know, you're lifting up dogs on a table if they can't, you know, or helping them up, or getting them in a bathtub if they don't want to go up the ramp, um, or a dog just wants to sit the whole time? Well, I have to use my left arm to hold it up so I can scissor its back end, you know, or its tail.
Speaker 9:So CrossFit has helped in um, in gaining that muscle that I need to sustain my, my job, um, so I, I think, and I dabbled in CrossFit too, back in like 2012, you know, I I kind of got into it and then out of it, I went back to running, went back to the gym and go back to that, um, and this has been the longest time I've stayed at one CrossFit gym, and I think it's honestly like Sylvia and Miles do a fantastic job.
Speaker 1:Uh they're fantastic.
Speaker 9:I mean, and it just I want to be there. I want to be there, I want to keep learning from them and and I want to get stronger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Selfishly, selfishly, you want to be there and then, selfishly or unselfishly, you want to cheer the next person on.
Speaker 9:Absolutely, and, and I want my kids to see, this is, this is a lifestyle, and this is how we grow and we take care of our body. Take care of our body, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's huge.
Speaker 9:It's also changed with diet, because you're putting you're putting all of this energy and hard work into this. So, yeah, I'm going to be way more conscious about what I'm putting into my body.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, absolutely. Um a you know, you guys come to Nashville after the lengthy two week engagement and you start out with jobs that are paying $5 an hour. Somebody out there is thinking I can never have this type of life, I can never have these cars. They had to have had a leg up. Uh what? What do you tell somebody that says something like that?
Speaker 10:You just have to work for it. I mean we did not get any help from our parents. I mean my dad gave us the sofa. You know His parents when he was in Desert Storm. I mean there were no cell phones or Zoom meetings. Or you know when he was in Iraq and traveling overseas. That was the hardest thing we we went through, and a phone call from there to here could be outrageously expensive.
Speaker 4:Sure.
Speaker 10:And his mother had an AT&T card for long distance calls. Back when you had long distance calls and had to pay for it and financially that was the one time they helped us. She gave him the card and said when you get a minute, call your wife and she will call me because you need to talk to your wife.
Speaker 1:What a huge blessing that was.
Speaker 10:I'm sure she has always been.
Speaker 7:Just to clarify I had to wake up at one o'clock in the morning and walk three miles across the desert to wait in line for an hour to get to make a 15 minute call and if you didn't make the connection you walked back inside. We kind of timed it. Me and a couple other guys would walk. There was a phone tent but it was three miles away and we would walk across the desert to the phone tent and they're just running companies through there 24 hours a day and if you, if you didn't get a connection and you walk back and I'd get home, I'd get back to the tent just in time to hit morning formation. Yeah, so I didn't call. Didn't call that much because I was losing, I was no, but they were expensive phone calls.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 10:And that was a blessing that we had that, because every house we've we bought over the years. We bought as much as we could afford to buy and still live.
Speaker 10:And of course you couldn't live on five dollars an hour today. Right, it's not 1988 anymore, but I mean five dollars an hour. You've got two car payments, you're paying your insurance and you buy a house that costs $70,000, that you're paying 8% interest on. Um, you know interest rates today. I don't know what mortgage rates are 7%, 6%, whatever they are but the 3% and 2% were were not the normal. You know um that we've had over the last few years. So you just there were no coffee shops with $9 cups of coffee. You know what I mean.
Speaker 10:Um, we went out to eat once a week maybe to the Mexican restaurant because that we could afford that, you know, and we cooked at home and we we entertained ourselves and had neighbors that were our friends and we ate at each other's houses, and you did cookouts and those kinds of things, cause that's what you could afford to do.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we didn't know we were broke though Again at once. I'll say it again we didn't know we were poor, Nobody said it.
Speaker 7:We were having fun. Yeah, we had a great time together. Uh, we, I mean we still have a great time together, but it wasn't a. There wasn't like all that other stuff, right, it's kind of this like the world of cashflow now, where everything is a monthly payment. They've broken everything down and if you start adding them up, it gets to be ridiculous. But we do get those comments.
Speaker 7:You would post the video and it'll be with the car, and the car will be in front of the house, and then there's the. You know you're a narcissist or whatever, or you're a must be nice to live in a castle or something like no, it's just a regular house here in Nashville, but uh, no, it's, you know it. I would like to have something like that. That's what you get. And I said, well, and I have done this, I've pulled some people out of the comment section in YouTube that were. I said, look, I'm, I'm agreeing to hire you right now. If you can get yourself to Nashville, then, uh, I'm going to drug test you, dmv and background check. If you pass the three of those, uh, I'll put you to work for I don't remember what it was at $15 an hour, right, and uh, and if you stick with it for a couple of years as a on, as an on-call service technician with a company truck and everything, you could make a six figure that you know. Six figure income, uh, but if you don't, if then I'm going to fire. But so put your money where your mouth is right now.
Speaker 7:Yes, because we're always looking for great people, but it's a lot easier to keyboard warrior that, and I think there's a general sentiment now. Maybe it is harder, maybe it does. I mean, I think, especially here don't buy a house in Nashville. We moved here to start a new life. Sometimes it takes doing. What A bold move, yes, I mean. What what our forefathers did? And packed up their stuff and got on a ship and came to the United States. Yeah, uh, this is just another state or something. Or you can drive, go to chapel Hill. Yeah, property's cheaper there, absolutely, you know, uh, but I'm, I'm it's not that I'm not sympathetic, though, but it's it literally is just about uh, it's, it's, it's people that want people that do, you know, and it's just a matter of of just you got to start somewhere, so so do it, you know. Post your first video, you know, grab that first job and just stick to it. Find something you like to do and then just drill in. Get educated, go, get go to school at night, whatever well, they want your result.
Speaker 1:They don't want what you had to do in order to get the result yeah, I mean, our first house was in mount juliet yeah you know, I mean we.
Speaker 10:I wanted to live in franklin, or, you know, nashville, so that we didn't drive. I mean, our drive to work from mount juliet at the time was at least half an hour each way, and then add rush hour traffic to it. Our second house was in Thompson Station and that was back in 1998. And we looked at the same house in Franklin, a new construction home. We said, well, we can't afford that. So we went out to Thompson station. We bought out there because it was a, it was a lot less expensive. Um, yes, you have gas for your car, but that's I mean you do what you got to do today. That's right you know to, to get in the door, get the real estate, let it appreciate.
Speaker 7:Um, yeah, that's really what it was. We bought a house, paid on it for 10 years, paid most of it off, bought the bigger house, lived in it for 10 years, paid most of it off, bought the next one, lived in it for 10 years, paid most of it off, and so this is the fourth house in 35 years or so. So that's all you have to do, that's live. So how?
Speaker 1:do?
Speaker 7:I do this 35 years of buying and selling houses and gutting it out. You know, and, and, uh, and you it all. It could be yours. You know, that's that's really the American, it is the American story, and it could still be done. So we have a. You know, I I don't know, our kids did it in art. She didn't even come home from college, she immediately moved in with a guy, got married and now they're on there. What are they? She's 30, turning 30. She'll be 30 in june and they're on their third house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, same thing yeah, what is the most award-winning flavor you have?
Speaker 13:Probably our vanilla, believe it or not.
Speaker 11:Really yeah.
Speaker 13:It's probably won more ribbons than anything else. So our strawberry is probably right close behind. So vanilla, strawberry and even chocolate those three have won the most ribbons. Yeah, I love it. And if you can make those three flavors, those are your like quintessential, like the base that you can build in for everything else off of you. Get those right, I think you. You do pretty good with everything else.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, and I think sometimes too, especially when somebody's visiting your location for the first time, they try to play it safe. They're like you can't screw up x, but it's for. It's not about screwing it up or not screwing it up, it's about giving them a flavor profile that they don't get anywhere else. Oh yeah.
Speaker 13:I mean, and it starts from the most basic flavor One of our number one core values is excellence, and so that goes. That's the filter that when we say, okay, we're going to make a flavor here, it's not okay, that it's just okay. Yeah, it's got it. To me it doesn't go out unless it it it's excellent. So, um, so we, we apply that to even things like vanilla ice cream or chocolate, you know, and, and a lot of people just be happy with just having chocolate ice cream, but I want it to be the best chocolate ice cream.
Speaker 13:And and so. So, yeah, so that that goes, that goes for all of our flavors. But in particular, you start even on those base levels, like that, and I, uh, our, what do you think? Our number one flavor is as far as best-selling flavor.
Speaker 1:So, just because of my wife, and my wife, every time she has a family member that comes in and we go to golly geez, right, she's like you got to get the tennessee fudge. So I'm gonna say tennessee fudge.
Speaker 13:Yeah, uh, good, good guess, but no, it's uh, chocolate ice cream, believe it or not, just a basic, just a basic chocolate ice cream. We sell, um, we sell that, that flavor, more than substantially, more than almost any other flavor. So, yeah, we're making, we make 60 boxes of that a week, which is, you know, two and a half gallons at a time. So, yeah, we make a lot of that of chocolate ice cream.
Speaker 13:That's a lot of chocolate going out, it is right, yeah, so yeah, chocolate and then followed up by probably vanilla and strawberry and cookies and cream cookie dough those are probably your top five. Maybe cold brew crunch Tennessee cream cookie dough those are probably your top five. Maybe cold brew crunch tennessee fudge comes in and out of the of the top 10 from times, but um, it's definitely just so you know. The audience knows what tennessee fudge is. It's a vanilla based ice cream with these big chunks of uh swirled, uh of the fudge throughout it so yeah yeah it's really good.
Speaker 1:Um, my favorite is um on the ice cream side. It's going to be your mint, your mint chocolate chip chip, yeah, um which? You make it a little bit different with is it cookie that's in it instead of a chip?
Speaker 13:no, we have. Well, we, we make it different ways. Depends on you know, like you know, but our standard mint chip is is a mint ice cream with chocolate flakes in it. So we don't use chips because they get hard, yeah, you know. So we use a flake, a thin chocolate flake, um, semi-sweet flake, um, but we, we, we also make them with girl scout cookies. So, like thin mints, we make that recipe with thin mints, or Oreos sometimes, yep. So so we, we kind of mix it up from time to time with the mint stuff, but for the most part, 80% of the time, it's mint chip. That's in the case, okay.
Speaker 3:Is that the next step? Johnny wants it to be the next step. I want it to be as well. He convinced me last week that that's what we're working on. I think one of the biggest things we're trying to do is secure some funding. We're in a space where I think that's important to create some more funding so that we can grow as a brand. As far as the foundation is already laid. We have a nice bottle, we have a great product that we can stand behind. The feedback has been great, so I think the next step is how do we get funding so we can grow and multiply what we're doing right now? They just opened up the Chattanooga market for us, so we're going to actually start selling in Chattanooga. Am I saying it right, chattanooga? Yes, you are Chattown.
Speaker 11:Yeah so.
Speaker 3:I'm in Chattown. Look out, we'll be there real soon, a few months or so, probably less than that.
Speaker 14:Yeah, when you think about our roadmap that, you know, took a while to create, I sat down with Clarence and I was like, listen, this is where we need to be over the next 12 to 18 months. We need to have more SKUs on the shelf, right, whether that's larger or smaller size bottles of the product is what our customers are asking for. Like when you start having, you know, repeat business. We want to make sure that we're bringing the product to them in the way that they value and want the product. Definitely looking at more of an RTD, whatever that looks like. Right, again, we have at least three different products in development right now that we're talking through A couple of partnerships that we are working on that will drastically change the landscape of what we're doing.
Speaker 14:We met some really good people out in Denver when we went to WSWA, and so when you think about where we are now and how we can transition this over the next 18 months, again, I know, like funding for sure, right, if we just had, you know, unlimited funds, we could easily blow up the market.
Speaker 14:Right, but as we continue to bring what we currently have in scale, that to being a household name here in what just Nashville, right, cause, it's just, it's such a robust market so many people come here. Right, that's our number one roadmap is how do we, you know, change the landscape and say, hey, will you go get vodka? And you walk into the store, you're grabbing for Fiori and not the other guys, right, and then more and more and more distribution. Right, we have a roadmap of exactly where we want to go next, the next five states that we want to go to. We can support those markets, we have plans for those, and then again, keep bringing more to the shelves. So how do we do that? We keep doing them and it's just, you know, feet to the ground, keep bootstrapping it and we'll definitely get there. But the roadmap is happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the interior work that you guys are doing is just amazing and correct me if I'm wrong here, but on y'all's back wall you've got a printed metallic or printed metal wallpaper.
Speaker 15:Did I say that right? It is a metallic wallpaper. Yeah, it's printed on. We print it and then it's put on like wallpaper, but it completely transforms the space.
Speaker 1:Oh, it absolutely does, and the one that you guys have there in the office, which we want to talk about your new location as well, but the one there in the office is an iconic Nashville scene. So, if you will, for those that don't know, please kind of tell them a little bit about that.
Speaker 15:Yeah, so we decided to go with Printer's Alley. Nashville is, you know, a huge printing industry place, and so Printer's Alley is just the iconic scene for that. So we decided to make that our. When you walk in, that's what you see, and then we've got everything from business cards to wrapped cars in there.
Speaker 15:Until people see things, cards to wrapped cars in there and really showing yeah, cause it, it does. You know, until people see things, it it's. I feel like we're a very visual company, like we're not just. You know, you go online, you see a design, you choose it. Like everything that we have is different and custom and um, and it's important that we, you know, offer that to our customers as well.
Speaker 1:I think one important piece is you know why are we sitting in this room, why are we having these conversations? And it's because we've figured out that we can help more people collectively than we could separately. Um, and I know anybody with a uh, uh, an Instagram feed knows quite a bit about Nick Heider. Um, but, Clayton, please introduce yourself to the, to the world, because, uh, we're, we're both a lot easier to find you hide.
Speaker 12:Well, I mean, I spent some time hiding. Uh, I don't, you know, there's not much to say. You know, my background was in marketing and advertising, specifically call centers. Um, I owned a couple um. One we sold in 2009 and the other I sold in 2015. Yeah, from there, you know, I ran a software company for about five or six years and then you and I went into business together and it's been great, yeah it's been fun.
Speaker 1:And you know, one of the hallmarks that I think is just I truly believe in, and that is it's not the next dollar, it's not the next customer, it's you're looking for the people that help success and just the way you feel about doing work be either great or terrible. Right.
Speaker 1:And you guys, working with the two of you in all of our many different disciplines just makes it easy. And so, nick, the two of you in all of our many different disciplines, just makes it easy. And so, nick, a lot of this has come together because you had some opportunities, you had some people that were looking for help in certain areas, and then, as we started talking, I could see your eyes open up and you're like, oh, you guys do that Well.
Speaker 16:First of all, I'm here today because every time I get on a call with you two guys, I learn new things right. So I get to learn for free. Today because we're wearing microphones or using microphones, so I'm really excited about that. No man, Jim, I have nothing but respect for you and your ability to grow and scale businesses, specifically culture, and one of the pain points in my world has been lead creation and lead nurturing and speaking to it. Enough times, you poured so much wisdom. You guys have both poured so much wisdom into me with that.
Speaker 16:But, like, the problems you solved for me were literally like life changing, because not only did it collapse so much time that I was able to put back into my business and go home, but it but it made me have. It made me made my ability to connect with the people, with the people in my network and my customers. It, it, it made it where it was almost a seamless transition and it's honestly, I'm still taking it all in it. Just it's blown my mind what you guys have done for what we were already doing. I thought really, really well, it turns out it wasn't that great, and now it's, and now it's on the uphill climb and I mean we're changing everything. I'm so excited, Um, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure you learned a lot of these along your path, because correct me if I'm wrong on the healthcare side of things, you guys started with three to six locations and grew it to over 60. Is that right?
Speaker 15:Six to 64, actually.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 15:Yeah, in 12 states.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic.
Speaker 15:It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:It was a lot of fun, and that was over the course of how many years?
Speaker 15:Five years of fun. It was a lot of fun that was over the course of how many years?
Speaker 1:uh, five years.
Speaker 15:Okay, so which most of that happened in three years so basically two locations a month during those three years almost it was a lot and it was a very strong team and it was it made all the difference yeah, and I know you said that the the patient, uh stories was a big piece of that.
Speaker 1:How did that come to play, like, like when was that something somebody else thought up? Was that something you brought to life? What? How did that come to be?
Speaker 15:So my, my two main mentors in life are my mom, um, and, and Deb Miller, and. And Deb was, um, a chief experience officer, so her title was CXO Chief Experience Officer so her title was CXO. She did a lot in healthcare, she's done a lot around, but she taught me so much about how important the patient experience is. And so when we started from walking in and telling that front desk person like hey, your smile makes all the difference in the world, it sets the tone and then following that through with the patient's journey and how was it? When you started, were you comfortable? Did you feel like there was hope? And then filming all the way through to where they can walk again, a guy that retired couldn't move and he's building boat docks again. It's the little things that so many people take for granted and you don't. You don't realize it until you see somebody that's like I can tie my shoes, I can plant a flower.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the thing that we take for granted.
Speaker 15:Exactly.
Speaker 16:They are. The average Joe doesn't know much about AI. They don't know how the premium versus not premium, right, right, well, how are they going to find that out? Well, they're going to use that AI for their data. So I would say, like, if you're, if you're on the verge of, or on the, you know, trying to make a decision, we know, I feel like I should get to know AI a little bit, learn more about it or whatever. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I think ties directly into that is this misconception there's a lot of people out there that are afraid of AI or think it's the big bad wolf or whatever that is, and so they're intentionally not learning it because they think it's the big bad wolf or whatever that is, and so they're intentionally not learning it because they think it's going to go away. Well, I'm here to tell you it's not going away and your competitors are going to be using it. And do you want to start off at where everybody was two years ago trying to figure it out? Or, nick, to your point, do you want to circumvent those hard knocks or those things you didn't even know it could do, and kind of get to the point of it helping your businesses, helping your customers, helping your team members, helping their families, et cetera? Now, I forget who said it, but somebody likened it to the tractor and how.
Speaker 1:When a tractor first came out, there were a lot of farmers that said no, no, no, it's going to take, it's going to take my farm hands, uh, their job away, so we're not using a tractor. Well, what ended up happening? The guy that said this is a tool I'm going to use it. Now he's farming thousands of acres of land, and those other farms are gone away. The same thing is going to happen in businesses businesses that leverage data and AI and those that don't, and you will no longer remember the ones that didn't Now along the way, besides Miss Deb, who's been a great mentor to you.
Speaker 15:My mother yeah, yeah she's. We're a lot alike in the same way and in a lot of ways. I mean, this is exactly like Charge Forward describes her.
Speaker 4:I love that she's a very strong woman.
Speaker 15:So is my grandmother, which she's 103.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 15:She's still going strong. She's still going strong.
Speaker 1:She's a force to be reckoned with 103. So y'all got is that? Five generations, four generations.
Speaker 15:Four.
Speaker 1:Four Mm-hmm. That's awesome.
Speaker 15:Yeah, but she just being there and then I didn't see it. When you're younger, it's like what are you doing? I don't like this, and you look back and you're like that. I really learned some valuable lessons from that and, um, I still carry it on today, and that's you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're getting you ready yes, they were.
Speaker 15:yeah, and my, my dad, um, you know, he had the larger companies in nashville, um and sold those and then, uh, my mom decided to just do her own thing in Hendersonville and that's when, you know, we started um that. So he's not involved in in this part of the business, but I think that's been the best thing for everybody. He did his thing, we did ours, and that's cool.
Speaker 1:It's been fun. Yeah, I mean, everybody's wired differently and uh, so it's cool to see how it took shape.
Speaker 15:And they're excited. Yeah, you know they're excited. I want, I want to make sure that my parents they've worked so hard their whole life, you know I want to make sure that the there's a strong company moving forward and that they can retire and enjoy the rest of, you know, their years traveling and, you know, enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Well, who's been a mentor for you guys? You know, it's not like somebody's, you know, helped y'all out, you know, gave you a bunch of money or anything, but, uh, along the way you had to have great mentors in order to kind of show you that it could be done. Who's been, who's been, one of those for y'all?
Speaker 7:Um, I will be the first to tell you that I am not the smartest person in any room. Do I say that a lot? I literally am not, um, but I I think my gift is surrounding myself with smart people. And, uh, there's a. There's Herman Wallace, the, the uh, the prior owner of the company American Eating and Gouling when I bought it. He's been the consummate business coach for 30-something years. He's just a genius. As a matter of fact, we had dinner with him the other night again and he's just been excellent on the business side. My dad, I think, is one of the smartest people I've ever met. He just I don't know. We just had very good of people like Kurt Curtis and some of these other Alan Deavers, I don't know. I'll have to get him to listen to this now and maybe he'll start listening. But he's another jag guy, mind. That is just.
Speaker 7:I have this list of people that I can just call Josh Rieger, one of my buddies that's on Blacktop Rally. That's probably one of the smartest people I ever met. He's a builder. We did your garage right. Yes, yeah, yeah, but I could literally there's, I could name 50 there. It's not just like two or three individuals that that shape me. I'm still being shaped by dozens of individuals every day. Uh, and it just uh. But we try to surround ourselves with, with you know, fantastic, professional, yes, successful, good people. Uh, that I I don't know if we surround ourselves with it, but we are surrounded by them. Ross Robinson with Annie Rose you know what a great guy you know. Uh, there's, there's just a, there's just a list.
Speaker 10:Well, and and on the personal side, um, our parents I mean my you talk about, you only want to get married one time. My parents were married for 38 years before my dad passed and my mother didn't remarry after that.
Speaker 10:um, his parents over 50 years over 50 years before his dad passed. Yeah, um, and then my grandparents, you know, um, and, of course, the further back you go, people didn't. You know, divorce wasn't as easy as it is today, but, um, I think that makes a huge difference. When you grow up in a family, like he said, religious family, you know where you stick together and you see that that these parents are. You know, was it an easy marriage for my mom and dad? No, my mom got married when she was 16 years old.
Speaker 7:So no quitters here, that's right.
Speaker 10:No, she just, you know, back in the in the day. You know you got married that early um, but she, you know, anybody who's been married for a long time knows you can't, you don't just give up that's right, you know it's work, yeah, you know. So you love each other. So so you and your team that's it. So I think we both grew up seeing that separately and I think that was a big, a big help.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Tell me a little more about him. So, what, what does, what are, what does his routine look like? What, what? What is he doing in order to be sharp and fit and powering through a stroke at 80 years old? Sharp and fit and powering through a stroke at 80 years old?
Speaker 11:He doesn't slow down. So he, my great grandparents opened English is sewing back and then he owned it. And then now it's like transitioning to my, my mom's brother, um Joel English and his wife Cassie, so three generations. And he gets up, he does his affirmations every morning. He looks in the mirror and I can't remember all of it but he hasn't memorized. He looks in the mirror, he's like I'm keeping this, I I'm kind, I'm generous, I love God, I do this, that and the other. And he just reminds himself in the morning. And then he I mean he's a little more tired now after his stroke, but the man doesn't slow down. He fixes the sewing machines. He goes to my aunt and uncle have like a kind of a farm situation. He goes, fixes stuff in their barn, fixes the light bulbs, does this, that and the other. I mean he, the man doesn't slow down, he hasn't slowed down. So I think he's just strong, will just keeps him, keeps him going.
Speaker 1:So I love that. Actually the my last guest that was sitting in that same seat um Larry Schmidto, and you may not know who Larry is, so Larry used to own the Sounds and he's actually the reason the Nashville Sounds came here. It was him and Conway Twitty and Jerry Reed are really the three that put it all together to bring the Sounds here, because Larry was the baseball coach for Vanderbilt.
Speaker 11:Oh cool.
Speaker 1:And so Larry's 84 years old, still goes to work six days a week. He did admit it may only be five or six hours a day, but I've had so many friends that retired and then passed away because they didn't have anything to do or they didn't have purpose, and so I think having purpose and just continuing is how people live a long and, in a lot of ways, a long and happy life.
Speaker 11:Definitely.
Speaker 1:All right. So last question is have you put any thought into how you want to be remembered?
Speaker 15:I have.
Speaker 11:Yeah.
Speaker 15:I have. Yeah, I have. You know, there are some people that I think about often and they all have done good for somebody or something. I want to be remembered as somebody that did everything that I could to elevate everyone around me, to smile, to bring that you know light to somebody, even even through my own hard times, um, to still be that that light. You never know what people are going through, and I just you know that's important to through and I just you know that's important to me, and so I want to be remembered as that person that um that gave it their best shot Helped you feel hope?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 15:In some way or another, yeah, or made you smile.
Speaker 1:There you go. Have you given any thought to how you want to be remembered?
Speaker 4:Um.
Speaker 9:I mean I want to be remembered as a kind person, compassionate, empathetic person, a good listener and a good groomer. I'm a good mentor, like just you know I'm. I like to be everyone's cheerleader, like I want everyone to succeed, I want, I want the best for everyone. So yeah, I would say yeah, I want to be remembered in a positive way, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everybody out there right now is either at the end of the rope about filing a claim, or a veteran service officer that won't return their call, won't get their paperwork together, or has been maliciously messed over, like you. What bit of advice do you leave them with from your experience, what you're about to go through and this podcast?
Speaker 4:Well, if it hadn't been for James, I wouldn't be where I'm at. But there's a lot of people out there that don't have a james. I recommend going to another service office next county or whatever see if you could find you an honest service officer that cares about the veteran and then, if that don't work, find another one Right, never give up. I'm a lucky person that I met this man right here Very lucky. But there's not a whole lot of Jameses out there.
Speaker 1:Not a lot of Elmers either. Not a lot of.
Speaker 2:Elmer's either. I would like to say that the work that I do, I never charge. There is no charge it's. I don't do this for money. I do this because I owe my brothers in arms. I do this because I've been through the process, I've learned, I know the ropes and I don't mind sharing them.
Speaker 1:That's right, the team is Jim Cripps here with the Charge Forward Podcast. I just want to tell you I love you, I appreciate you listening, I appreciate you for subscribing and sharing the Charge Forward Podcast with people you know and you love, because that's what we're here for. We are here to share the amazing stories, the things that people have been through, the ways that they were able to improve their life, so that you can take little nuggets from theirs and help improve your story and be better tomorrow than you were today. Story and be better tomorrow than you are today. I hope that this is the tool you needed at the right time and that you find value in the amazing guests that we bring each and every week. Thanks so much and don't forget new episodes drop every Thursday.