Latest / Steve Azar's Resonance: A Podcast for Leaders, Unpacking the Power of Song, Silence and Strategy / Resonance Season 3-Episode 4: Throwback Thursday-Steve's Origin Story

Transcript

Resonance Season 3-Episode 4: Throwback Thursday-Steve's Origin Story · Steve Azar's Resonance: A Podcast for Leaders, Unpacking the Power of Song, Silence and Strategy

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is Resonance, a podcast with leaders that unpacks the power of song, solids, and strategy.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: We believe the great leadership begins with deep listening, not just to others, but to the still small voice within.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just about being a successful leader, it's about being soulfully aligned as well.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: In a world moving fast, resonance invites you to pause and reconnect with purpose, people, and possibilities.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We'll dive into some cool stories, celebrate with friends, and dig deep into the music too.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because song has a way of saying what words cannot alone.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: So whether you're leading a business, a team, or just trying to lead your own life with more meaning, this is Resonance.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Resonance, Resonance.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Hey everybody, welcome back to Resonance.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Mike Farrell, and as you can see, I don't have my compadres, Steve Azar and Randy Harrington, with me today.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you're watching the video, if not, you're only going to hear my voice.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: But I just want to do a quick intro for today's episode.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, today we're going to do uh throwback Thursday because uh all of us are in the midst of all kinds of traveling, and so uh we're gonna bring back a couple of the early episodes.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Thought it might be nice for everyone to kind of reconnect, especially those that have joined the Residents uh podcast family over these last several months, maybe reconnect and hear the origin stories uh of Steve and Randy and I.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so today we're gonna launch that first episode, the very first one that we did, which is Steve's uh intro and origin story and his background and everything that he has done in the music business and as an entrepreneur and philanthropist.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so enjoy today's episode, and we will see you next week back here on Resonance the Podcast.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: Again, you can find us anywhere on your favorite podcast platforms as well as at residenceleader.com.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the first episode of Resonance, a podcast for leaders to gain a unique leadership perspective through the power of song, listening, creativity, and transformation.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Mike Farrell, and I'm joined by Steve Azar and Randy Harrington.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: And today we get to turn the tables on Steve a little bit.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's got a radio show called In a Mississippi Minute, and usually Steve's on the end of asking the questions.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so now today, Randy and I are gonna turn the tables on him, and we're gonna ask the questions.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna talk about Steve's amazing journey through music and his origin story.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, Randy, I'm gonna kick it over to you.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I appreciate that, Mike, and good to see you guys and welcome everybody to Resonance.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a discussion that really gets to some of the deeper elements of what is going to make people successful or unsuccessful in a world that's changing every single day.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the places we like to start is with an origin story.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And why is an origin story important?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's where people come from, and where they come from says something about their values, and their values are gonna inform their choices and their decisions.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why we're gonna have this conversation.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: But this origin story is very important, very interesting, and very different because it speaks to transformation, and that's what we're gonna be going into.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it is, of course, about our good friend Steve Azar.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you have you have been there and done that, my friend, and that's what we're gonna be talking about today.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, I appreciate you guys uh being here.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I want to just back up for a second.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: The uh common denominator is me, uh, which is uh I'm blessed and grateful for.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Both met you guys uh when I was making music, either while playing music in Oregon and Astoria, uh, or with you, Randy, or in South Dakota and Sioux Falls for Mike.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh both have had you on my shows, both became friends before you were on my shows.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the beauty of it is I noticed that y'all are deep-rooted uh in core values that you've been both so successful in the consulting world with businesses, big businesses, and I love seeing the heart in both of you and the compassion in both of you and the empathy.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like, well, you guys are really a lot like me when it comes to that because songwriters and artists and musicians are that.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And but now we're in a whole world that we got to do business, and it's just a different deal.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not on the big major label I used to be.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: I left that years ago, I left that years ago, and and it's been very unique and challenging, but at the same time, ever peaceful and so much better for my career personally, and allows me to mentor other artists along the way.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But during this podcast, I think people are gonna realize three very important things.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: One is if we were on Gilligan's Island, I would be Gilligan.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Randy, you would be the professor, and Mike, you would be the skippers.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, what do we got?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a frighteningly accurate portrayal, I'm afraid.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm totally scared.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, little buddy.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: See that right there?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it is called Gilligan's Island for a reason because it really is about somebody who's trying to just make their way and do the right thing.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things about this particular conversation we're going to have that I think is super important for any leader of the moment is there is a time in life when you are no longer going to be successful by making things better every single day.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm put in mind of what it must have been like to be uh a blacksmith or a miller in the old horse and buggy days.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you've made your horse saddles as best you can.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're making them more efficiently, now you're making them cheaper, but there's still gonna come a time when that's not gonna do you any good anymore.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Getting better at the old way will stop working, and you have to embrace a whole new way.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: You have to fundamentally transform.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's some scary stuff, man.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's when you have to really dig deep and go, who am I?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: What am I all about?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: What am I trying to even do?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you have been there done that, and that's what we're gonna talk about today.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about this transformation, how you could be this successful super nashville country dude, and now you're in Mississippi and you're running your own show.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's hear how that happened.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it was a crazy story for me from the start.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, everything that we've gotten along the way, it came from no past history.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I started as a kid.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm inspired behind my dad's liquor store.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: He had the first legal liquor store in Mississippi.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and it's called the Jigger and Jug.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I got my poetic sense from him.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: But with that said, Eugene Powell, who has graced my walls and my necklaces of him throughout my career.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: He is uh well, he was that moment of inspiration as a 10 and 11-year-old.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember exactly what year.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just know what baseball uniform I was wearing.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, that was the 10 and 11 year old league.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I fell in love with what he was doing behind the liquor store.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: There were postmen at the end of the work days sitting there listening.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Eugene was known as Sonny Boy Nelson, so he was making blues records as far back, they say, as the 30s.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he would let me come back there, and I raced home to write my first songs, and from time to time he would give me words of wisdom, and also people like Little Milton and et cetera, that used to hub in and out of Greenville, Mississippi, where I grew up many generations back.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad grew up, his dad, you know, my dad and grandfather had five movie theaters here in the 40s.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So uh they they grew up into the enter in the entertainment business, but mine was a brand new road and a brand new path.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up trying to shop in New York and Nashville, sorry, New York and LA, and that's where I thought it was gonna be.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of tragedy in my bands before I left here, but in 2000, well, night sorry, about 1991 uh to 2011, I wound up in Nashville.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I got my first publishing deal, management deal, all that in '91, first record deal, really bad record deal in 96.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Overcame it somehow.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was the one thing that I would play my kids as they grew up.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: When things were really bad in their lives, that they thought it was, I'd play them some of that record, and they go, I'm good.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing's as bad as that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, but but that was a scary time because we had two kids, and third child was on the way when I got my major record deal on Mercury at the time, which is now under Universal's umbrella.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when I had my first two big hits.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were gonna go six deep in the album, and the label went up for sale.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Everybody go take a hiatus.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: So they stopped me cold in my tracks while I was watching everybody else, my peers, just keep going and keep moving, and then everybody's going, What happened?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we got stopped.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then also I went through throat issues, had to have throat surgery a few a couple years later.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'd written 80 songs, played 220 dates in one year, and obviously visiting radio at every stop on the tour bus left and right, and I I overdid it.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: So um I would go through a time with Universal that I did not enjoy, and I decided, like Toby Keith, who did it first, to leave and go do my own thing.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And in comes Bob Seeger in the Silver Bullet band, calling for me to tour with him for the first time in uh 10 years he hadn't toured, and that was a good um launching pad for my new label.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then we got off the road, and one of the first songs that I wrote when I was on the road with him, Sunshine, ended up being a top 20 record on my own independent label, a number one music video, and it wound up being the album in Oprah's type things to buy at Christmas.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Taylor Swift said it was her favorite song in People magazine, it's what she was listening to.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Reba was the guest VJ the night, it was number one as a music video, and she had just recorded another song of mine, actually Reba that week.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a it was a great little stretch, and we were rolling, but I gotta tell you, I realized the dragon that I was fighting at some point was gonna be impossible to slay.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there was when you got into the top 20, the music video thing was one thing, you could get to number one.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: But when you got in the top 20, you had to really step it up, and we were already spending at times almost a hundred grand a week to compete.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then you had to you had to go ahead and do the math and go, okay, is 10 more spots on the chart.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: If that costs us another million dollars, am I gonna net that on the road, you know, with this song?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that I'd maxed out because the tour was set and the next year and a half was basically booked, and I uh you weren't gonna book anything past that.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the reality was I had to stop.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: That was a hard thing to stop on a record that was testing number one in the land at the time.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so anyway, there were there were some obstacles also to deal with a couple consultants who had decided that they didn't want to use data, which is all that they did for everybody else, with my song testing number one.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: They had decided for one reason or another that they just didn't want to let me in.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so those are the things I think we were sort of sitting there, and it was 20 years in Nashville already, overlooking the most beautiful view you'd ever see from Franklin, Tennessee, had a uh a handful of acres, and our kids were born and raised there, had all their friends there, and there were seven things that had to happen, guys, and that was you know, I can't remember the seven, but I can tell you airport in Greenville.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: We had Delta Airlines at the time.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I needed to be able to get into from my shows.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: That was one.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then the most important thing were our kids.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: All three kids had to be willing to leave.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're friends and move to Greenville, Mississippi, where Starbucks is not even, they don't even know what the term is.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: We have agriculture, we got the Mississippi River, and we've got the coolest people in the world, very, very unique characters.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: I've been writing songs about this place and these people my whole life.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so it also wanted to get back and write nothing about anything except for home.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that this play, one of the minute I got here, the minute I was re-inspired beyond belief.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we obviously there's a lot of questions between now and then, but I'll stop here.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it seemed like the universe was telling you you need to find a different way.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do this with a different approach.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: You were working too much.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the other thing I like about this story.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: You pushed yourself to the limit.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something I know Mike probably you, your pro golf background, to say nothing of your spiritual background, you've probably been that type A push, push, push, push, push guy as well.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know I have.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's it's almost killed me in my life.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: But that's another whole story we could have about uh just can I interject something real quick?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Please.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Really, the thing in the back of my mind that I think that was the deciding factor, though, was we were hoping our kids would say yes.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Gwen and I, my wife of 35 years now, we really felt like, and I think maybe me more, felt like our kids were really on the cusp of becoming themselves, but they were never gonna become that in Nashville.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to explain.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I really felt like, and also they couldn't be on the bus with me anymore.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they could when they were one year old.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: But by the time my five-year-old, well, by the time my oldest became five, and and then the baby was born, you know, we have five, three and new, newborn, you could see what happens.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: When's got to stay home.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I was gone well over 250 days a year, and uh, that was for a lot of years, that was for double-digit years, and I realized that I got to get to know them before they leave.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to be a part of that.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was the biggest reason, and I and I felt like what happens if this place in the Mississippi Delta that gave me such inspiration, gave me a life, a pen, a blank canvas, canvas, and and tons of inspiration that never is it never ends, it just keeps coming.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: What happens if in their fields of life it happens to them?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like it would.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Our oldest son's first film's coming out.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: He shot it down here.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's in LA, it's coming out, uh, it's got his debut August 7th.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know when our first podcast is gonna air, but maybe we're just past it.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: But August 7th in theaters and in a theater in LA, Glendale area.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then Amazon Prime is called Death Letter Blues.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: He shot it all down here, like I said.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh the uh our son Adrian was a really good basketball player.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was gonna work out D3 wise, some maybe walk-on D2s or preferred walk-ons.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he was but he had a big career, but now he's a doctor.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then our baby girl was cooking with plastic food from the age of two.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: When she came down here, everything changed for her because uh the cooking is a big deal down here, it's very unique.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And she started, she's always had our kitchen as a test kitchen.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's been a wreck.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: So she studied in Spain, she's gotten all these degrees, and she graduated number one in her count, culinary class group, and now she's at a Michelin star restaurant with her first little vegan butter on the rest on the menu in New York.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they're all working hard, they're all doing great things, but even basketball-wise, for our middle son, I mean, he was special, and but I don't know if he'd have been special in Nashville because I don't think that big city may have given him the opportunity to grow in a small town atmosphere.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: So by the time he got really good, the reason he got really good was because he had playing time and he the Nashville and the size of the schools and everything may not have afforded him that opportunity.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I promise you, he got better than all his friends, so or at least as good as the best one.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: So he was pretty special, and but we we knew that that was gonna run out, but his mind was triple special, and he had a very compassionate kid, and we knew that the doctor thing would make the most sense, and he did too, and and that's what he's doing now.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So but the bottom line is it was all about them looking back, and it obviously worked as you know, we have the benefit of hindsight now, and so you look back and you see your your kids thriving, you see your household thriving.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I see them working, you know, yeah, I see them working, and that's something.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: But that means that that's pretty cool.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: It is absolutely working on three things that they are doing, they all love.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what did my dad always say?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: I told you guys this before on my show, that you do what you love and it will always take care of you.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: It may not provide you the riches in the world, and it might, but if you take do what you love, you take care of it.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: You work so hard at it, and it will take care of you.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I I've instilled that in my kids, and I think they believe it.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it's you know, it's interesting, Steve, and we've talked on your show about it before, and of course you guys know that I talk about these monk principles, but you know, this this whole idea of rootedness, of stability, one of the most important principles in monastic communities, this idea of stability, and and whether you knew it or not, you had that rootedness in you all the way back to being 10 years old, starting in the music business, and there was something there that drew you back to Mississippi.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you were able to take that rootedness, that groundedness in home.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And not only was it great for your kids, it was great for your music.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: It was great for the transformation that you did.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think too many times leaders have a tendency to look at this and say, Well, I'm just gonna make the next decision, and I'm not gonna take the time to really think about that stability of planting those roots and sticking with it and really making things work where I'm at, rather than moving on to the next decision or the next job or the next opportunity or whatever it is.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's really important, uh uh a really important piece of your story.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and thank you guys for that.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's still feels like it's such a higher plan than anything that I would be capable of putting together that the things that have happened.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you're you're sitting here trying to obviously Mississippi was an incredible backdrop, music history, right?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up here with the birthplace of America's music.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: What was happening was Mississippi finally was taking it back, become stating we are the birthplace of America's music.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: When you come to the state line, that's the first thing you see.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we not only took it back, we started doing things with it about 20 years before I moved back.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: By the time I came back, the music business was sort of ready for me with everything I learned and all that.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't realize that I can say that now, I could say it probably 10 years ago.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: But 10 years in, I was a little bit not sure, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was in the mix of it all.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: But now looking back and seeing all the things that happened, I've got the official state song of Mississippi, repealing the one from 60 years ago.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: It followed, it was followed the year after becoming law.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the year before we had a new flag, so this was the year after.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: So having the state song with with art, you know, you think about the artists who have come from here, and it it I can't tell you what that means to me.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And also, also seeing kids sing it and every word, and it's six and a half minutes.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's just another whole thing.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then having the children's book, this is that it's just so much to it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: The state song being the most important thing since I've done ever in my life since I've come back, and never ever was a plan for that.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that was of seeing you, I don't know, maybe within weeks, I think, of you returning home from the state legislature.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember you telling me the story that you wrote One Mississippi, more or less driving back, and it just seemed to flow out of you.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: It just was like something triggered, and there I don't remember writing it.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the song just kind of happened.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if if you haven't listened to One Mississippi, my friends, go listen to that song.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful, beautiful song.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then the fact that it's taken on this life of its own uh within the state is amazing.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that it's galvanized this kind of travel tourism, Mississippi as the foundational uh uh soul of American music, all of that has been growing over these last 20 years, and you've been right there in the middle of it.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: We're even gonna get the kids in South Dakota singing it in September.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we are, and we'll be there soon.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, we the children's book has been a big help.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: I got great illustrator, Sarah Francis Hardy, a great publisher.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've gone through five or six pressings already, and it hadn't been two years yet.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a lot of books.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's been one of the it's been, if not the bestseller each year for children's books, no matter what comes at us, or at least in the top two or three, you know, quarterly.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been doing well, and now there's a curriculum that Ole Miss and Mississippi State and William Carey College, they've all the teachers that teach, uh the future teachers, right?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that go out for elementary ed, they've taken our our teacher's guide that we've been using when we've we've been visiting schools, and they uh have turned it into a little bit more.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so the hopes is it will be second grade curriculum during Read Across America week, and we'll see how that goes.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: But with all that said, guys, that's just something in being in schools.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's a power in playing Madison Square Garden and the Rose Garden and the and the Boston Garden.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: I've been there, the spectrum, I've seen it, felt it, people on their feet, the greatest energy.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: You felt like you just, you know, you're taking on the world that you felt like you were Superman.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm telling you, it was crazy.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: But there is a power in his own right about going into schools, and every little kid is singing every word.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the goal, and the one thing that Governor Bryant at the time, who named me the music and culture ambassador, and then he said, I want you to write the official bicentennial song that every kid will want to sing.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when the whole one Mississippi, two, Mississippi, three Mississippi stuff came to my mind.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: I called him the next morning from the kitchen table and I said, You know, are you busy?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, I am the governor.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, I've I've got I've got it.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, You he goes, You've got what?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I've got the song.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, There's no way.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Not only do I have it, I've been living this my whole life.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: It wrote itself, and it's six and a half minutes.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's as long as American Pie and Freebird, and it needs to be.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so anyway, uh, I played it for him.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, he just, you know, but for him to ask me to be the guy to do it, you know, was really it moved me.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and then our foundation, guys, the other thing we can't leave out is it's in our 14th year, it was doing pretty cool in Nashville, but it was little bitty, little bitty.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I had the big CMA Steve Azar Sports Challenge.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was sponsored by Exxon Mobil at the time.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: That was my bus.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and we would bring in celebrity football players from Jim Kelly to Jim McMahon, John Daly, uh Skip Ogre Golf.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you name the the uh the profession Steve Berline, you name the quarterbacks.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: They'd come in and we would compete in these, you know, three-point shooting, hockey stuff, you know, throwing the baseball, throwing the football through tires.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'd go raise money at BB King's for our foundation.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so small, but when we moved home to Greenville, then it became The community of people that I grew up with, the people that were ready to get in.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we have 20 folks from 22 states come in.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, you know, some crazy, we've had 30 Grammys on stage at once.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: One guy had 15 of them, Dan Teminsky from Allison Krauss Union Station, but some of the Blowfish, Brantford Marsalis, I mean, uh, you name it, they've been on our stage and on the golf course with us.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the economic impact has been what we're told on a conservative level in 14 years about$50 million on the community.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's been awesome.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a part that I didn't understand.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: I knew we were giving money to the Arts for Kids, all the many programs around that we don't have programs.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: We, you know, we support them.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: But with all that said, I didn't realize there was another part of putting on this thing.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when he named the music and culture ambassador to the state, and that's when the song idea came.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the things that's been priceless.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: It all grows from the courage that you had to jump.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to pause real quick here because I think this is an important point.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's one thing if you have a burning platform.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the metaphor, right, that we use in uh consulting all the time.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a burning platform as a leader.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: You it's a pretty good thing because you know you've got to make choices and you've got to make them now, and you've got no option.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to go, go, go.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: You did not have a burning platform per se, though.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: You had a platform that was wobbly to Mike's point.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't have that foundation.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And something in your soul was telling you you need to go back home.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: You need to go back to the roots.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just wondering, what was that conversation like with Gwen when you two were talking?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Did she think you were just crazy?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think I gave her a couple glasses of wine, and I think that it worked out.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I gotta tell you something.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: The conversation doesn't make any sense.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't make any sense.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you I never wanted to leave here.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: I knew I had to to get better.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was mentored by some of the greatest songwriters ever.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they were trying to make me them, which was slowed me down.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you come from Mississippi, you're influenced by all these different genres of music and church and all this.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to eventually use what they were giving me, but it had to become me, and I, you know, and it's it just took a while.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: So once you found what kind of music does Azar play?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't answer that question.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I can't answer it, and that's another thing.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm difficult.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm a bit of a mutt.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: I am difficult.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, you say good.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: I say it's good music.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: I love you for that, but it is it is difficult.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: You get pigeonholed in all these Spotify streaming things and all that, but but with that said, it's funny to look at where they put it.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: It makes no sense in a lot of ways.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because of the hits I had with I don't have to be meet on Monday and Waiting on Joe and Sunshine, you put me in that category where it's obvious, but the algorithm should have changed it because I've done songs with Cedric Burnside, with BB's guys, one of Elvis's with Little Milton's, and we've had some success with that, and it still doesn't move that needle, so it cracks me up.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: But but on on another note, we didn't really man, I gotta tell you, I was being I was managed at the time by the the team that managed Fleetwood Mac, Easy Top, me, Slash.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: There wasn't many of us, there's like a handful of us, and and we played golf together.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: I love my manager Tom Storms, and he was awesome.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Carl Stubbner, the head of the thing, started his career with Andrew Dice Clay, and then he branched out.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then I had Darren Murphy, who right now is just got voted one of the top most powerful guys in he's been one in Nashville, and he's been the he's one of the heads of CAA, and we were my golf partners.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: These were my cooking buddies, these are the Thanksgivens and everything.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when I told them I was leaving, they were a security blanket for me.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I you know it's funny you say this, it felt a little wobbly.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's the best way.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think I'd still be wobbling.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, and and guess what?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Be playing songs, even though I'd be playing a mixture of Mississippi songs.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a resident gig down here for Viking Cruise Line that's number one on the Mississippi that we're saving an old performing arts theater that was the original Greenville High.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: It goes right back to the flood of Mississippi, this building.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so it happens to fit exactly 400 people, and that's about how many people show up from all over the country and world.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've done, uh, we're about to be at 90 shows.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've signed a nine-year deal.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're employing about 65, 70 people, paying everybody great.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I get to do the Mississippi song.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, the Mississippi show.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh glued together with a few hits, but really glued together by the state song.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: But these are the stories that I grew up writing about.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And how the heck has that ship come in on that river that had dried up and a lot of people would left here.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Half our population's gone.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big difference, you know, going from 60,000 to 28,000.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where we are now, and we're struggling in a lot of areas, and we got a lot of empty buildings that are just beautiful that need to have businesses, and we need people.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: But the Here Comes Viking, and they're they are the other thing that I really want to inject is being here made me want to work with only the people that felt like, oh my God, this feels like I'm talking to my dad or my or the people I really respect.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: And between the Viking folks, uh been the brand ambassador for Pearl River Resort, they've licensed I don't have to be me till Monday.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's on their keys, it's on their, it's on all their billboards.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: They this one brilliant man, Matt Perkins, who who's the head of marketing, decided to break every line out of the song and use it as its own theme.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: We've had best of show for uh teleawards, for commercials nationwide, and all this stuff is going on down here, and it does it.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta tell you guys something.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm having the most fun I've ever had in the music business in my life.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm having the most success as far as if you mix peace, peace of mind, and monetarily, they add up to be the best years of my life.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm getting to do it on my terms.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so for that reason, not being in Music City and advancing the ball from leaving big managers, big agents, and a big record label, especially the big managers and agents who I admire and still do.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is crazy to me in a way.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so all of the big changes that you've gone through, profound changes, and they've worked out for you.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: But part of resonance is saying, Why did this work?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you just said a second ago, it's crazy.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy that this is working.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Mike Farrell, the monk guy, come to him.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me what the heck is going on here.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: What are the principles that are at work with uh the good Mr.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Gazar?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's interesting as you as you listen to Steve's story.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: He the decision to go from Nashville to Greenville wasn't just a decision.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was a discernment.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: It took a while.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: It took a while to get to that point, but you you really kind of weighed where you were at, what was going on, what was you know, you got input from Gwen, obviously, you got input from your kids, you got all that.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's a discernment process.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's not a decision-making process.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: You took it through that, those steps of discernment before you finally made the decision to say, okay, we're gonna go.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of times we have a tendency, and especially when when we're under pressure, we have a tendency to just make a decision and go without taking that time.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: I know Steve and I, you and I talked on your radio show last week about this idea of pausing.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I can imagine that while you and Gwen were, you know, sitting there having those glasses of wine and discussing this, there was probably when you said, I think we should move back to Mississippi, I imagine there was probably a pause.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: So really understanding that this discernment process happens over a period of time.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes, sometimes it has to happen quickly, sometimes it doesn't, but it's it's very different from just making a snap decision.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you that the animals in the trees, the wind, everything paused when we were starting to talk about it.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Not only us.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, yeah.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: This discernment concept, though, because it seems like you burn more calories discerning than you do deciding.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a fair?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're you're churning, you're churning things a little more.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're bringing in outside perspectives.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're taking some time to let it sit and think a little bit, but then you pull the trigger and you made it.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, when we stop and pause, and and the Benedictines call this stazio.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it's this idea that before they go to prayer or before they go to work or before they go to a meal, they stop and pause and get their head right and get them in a in a mental position and in a spiritual position to be able to move forward and do what they're gonna do.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, this idea of stazio, too many times, and I've worked with a lot of salespeople over the years.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: And how many times have you heard salespeople go, they've got a sales call and they go flying out of their car and they've got they're they're trying to figure out what they're gonna show, what they're gonna do, all of these kinds of things.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: They don't have any clue what's gonna happen when they walk into that sales meeting.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: The idea of stazio is let's stop and pause and get our head right and get focused on what it is we're gonna do and then go on.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think that pause is so important.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great point.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: And we talked about this like uh like you just mentioned on my show.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: I love hearing that, and it's a reminder for me because you know, it's so many of us now, you know, we have the ability to just go and text or tweet, whatever you call it now, and and and Facebook, whatever, TikTok, it Instagram.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Your emotions at the time, most well, a lot of times it's the wrong thing to do.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I guarantee if I did exactly what my emotions told me, exactly when I did without pausing, um, it would be a mistake.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I've learned to take 24 uh from the great Harry Bud Nelson, one of my mentors in the music business, who I worked with for many years.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at him right in front of me.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at him to my left, to my right.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's everywhere.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and he was very, very valuable in my success.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he used to go, Okay, I know you feel that way.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: You sound a little upset.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Let's take 24 and let's see if you feel that way tomorrow.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I we'd talk 24 hours later and I go, I don't feel that way.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, Okay, we're we're good.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel and sometimes I would.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we would address it, but you would address it with a lot level, a lot more level head than than than you would have you know at the moment when you were in the heat of it.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Take 24.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: I like it.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Four.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks to the fact that these thoughts come and go, right?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: These these emotions come and go.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: The values, on the other hand, should be more stable and steady, right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the those are the things you're looking at in your gut and you're saying, This is this is how I think of the world.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is how this is my deal with reality that I'm I'm making.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you were obviously tracking in on those values for sure.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I was raised that way.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was raised with some crazy values, and look, I mean, I'm not I'm half the heart and soul that my mom and dad, and even my wife's mom and dad and my wife.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, I got, I mean, I'm they're gonna may have to pull me through purgatory with a little extra, some extra broke.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the bottom line is they are uh my crazy mind can get wild at times, but seriously, the one thing that just rings true for me is those values that my I was I grew up with around and how important it is to start giving before even before you think you're capable or worth giving.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, with our foundation, I wanted to be as big as Hootie and the Blowfish before I started doing my foundation or or the Murray brothers and Bill and his brothers or Jim McMahon.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept telling my wife when I said, you know, I was doing their charity events, and she was going like, you need to start yours and you need to get to it.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I was going like, I just got to get a little bigger.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to get a little bit bigger.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And she was going like, you can never be small or big enough to start giving you a wrong.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what my parents used to tell me.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I used to go, okay, but that those those things that they're reminders.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: I got people in my life that remind me to never forget that.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now I think I'm at a point where I don't have to be reminded.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm seeing the you know the the benefit for so many.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, I mean, I it it moves me to see people.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country, but it is the highest for giving.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: The charitable donations that come out of Mississippi are higher than any other state.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that that says something about Mississippi to me.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's awesome.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just know that we have a lot of giving folks.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of people seriously giving folks.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have that much to give, right?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: But they're doing it.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Mike, what do you see in here that's going to bring us home?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think the the whole idea here is is as we look at Steve's story, as we look at that.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, uh, one of the things that I'd like to have you talk a little bit about, Steve, because I know that not only have you been successful in the music business, you've got some business uh business chops as well.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, talk to us a little bit about that story and kind of how that trans, you know, you you started the record label, obviously that was business, but how has that kind of transformed into uh you know the Bloody Mary Mix and Pearl River Resort and all those kinds of things?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Man, that's just a lot of that's a whole that's a whole triple podcast.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: You guys are aren't you sick?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Do I even know how to say an answer in a brief, in a short way?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know it's not gonna happen.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have short lines.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: I got I see uh I see uh chapters when y'all ask me questions, not pages.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, things are just they're born from necessity of what's going on.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to spend a lot of time putting the square, what do you call it, the square peg in the round hole?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and by the way, I've done it before.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: I just want you to know it can't happen, but uh it's not pretty.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not pretty.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: But but with that said, I've learned over the years of things that are going like they're sitting there and you see the fruit really hanging low.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: If I can use a cliche.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you're going like, well, I've got to go do that because I used to climb to the very top of the tree where nothing was happening, right?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And there was nothing up there.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I was gonna, I'll be doggone if I wasn't gonna figure out how to if I had to tape fruit on, I was gonna put duct tape and tape it on.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna work.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna work.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as you get older and wiser, you really start to see what's sitting there that's a real opportunity.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, when you write songs and the songs can be broken up like Matt and Pearl River Resorts done, and taken the lines of my songs and turned each one into its own campaign, and then use me as the brand ambassador.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I'm gonna play golf, so I I'm they have Dancing Rabbit, which is the Augusta you can play us, have won a ton of awards and Gop Digest and all that.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: And they got 36 glorious holes, and and so that all that preparation for me, Mike, right, growing up playing golf and and uh it, you know, uh having a swing, I guess.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: It allowed me to do commercials and it made sense.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: So then the songs, I don't have to be meet on Mondays there, and then and then our Viking show, we're selling, you know, you know, I don't know, like 60, 70, 80, we're not selling, we're giving away that much, 70, 80 cases a year of bloody merry mix, and it was another brand.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: And my chef buddy that curates the show said, Why are we giving why don't we make our own?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so we did, and of course we named it I Don't Have to Be Me Till Monday.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh my son Strach, who's the film guy, he did the label, we nailed it, and uh so we got all these people that can in my life that can do all these things, you know.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been great, and you know, the Bloody Mary mix is now in it's uh it's at y'all's country club in Sioux in Sioux Falls, but but it's also in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, at Clark's pumping shop.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's got got it in like 70 stores, who's who, by the way, biggest one of our biggest, they're big donors to our foundation.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Brent Clark and Rick Clark, they said they wanted to put it in there.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they made it easy for us.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then we've got Anheuser Busch distributors through about two-thirds of Mississippi that are in and they're distributing it to stores.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're at Pearl River Resort, where it's been uh in a bunch of their places, and we've taken away 50% of Zing Zhang, knock on woods, business, he says, because it and we're a little more expensive, we're more craft, but we're doing a great job with with that, and they're giving us that opportunity to really see what it is, you know.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're a ton of other places.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're on Amazon now, and so we're learning all that as we go, but you know what?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's no pressure, and it's fun.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we've never been in debt because we already have a built-in show that we're spending the money there rather than spending, you know, so all these relationships has been built.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a believer in the three most important things in life: relationships, relationships, relationships.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you can't have them without values, without compassion, without empathy for each other, without caring about each other.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, whatever the word relationship, you know, the umbrella of that, and everything that has to come underneath that to develop real relationships, that's what I've been able to develop with all of these people that are very valuable to me, not only as friends, but uh but in the business world down here, in the rec in the music world, in the Bloody Mary world, with my show, all these dots have come together.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: We got a tourism guy named Wesley Smith who's become like a brother.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: We've doing so many positive things together.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're in business together in certain things, and uh there's just a lot going on that would have never happened if we wouldn't have gone.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: What if we moved back home, right?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I would have been just like everybody else.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not putting that down, but for me, I know that I wouldn't have been as happy.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: That let you guys know I miss I miss a lot of my friends there.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: I miss I miss them.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: I do.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: I miss the great manager and agent Tom and Darren.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: They were wonderful, wonderful people.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: I loved them.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's an important point.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: When you make a change like that, it doesn't mean you have to denigrate everything that happened before.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you tear down.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit of separate separation of state, though, when you leave a place and it's out of sight, out of mind, no matter what happens, we're not together on the it's very different.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the reality would eventually come.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: But the re the reality was gonna come, Randy, when when we were separate, were separated so much that uh the work would have would have started to become minimal.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And before that happened, we all had a good discussion, and I felt like it was time to just let me take let me pause, right?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: And let me reflect and let me try to figure out where I gotta go now.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to drag anybody with me on that.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: And also, I want to coach basketball and I want to get to know my kids, and I wasn't gonna be on the road 250 days, I was gonna be on the road 120, which was about 70 shows, not 140, you know?
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a that was a that that would have affected them as well, wasn't, you know, wasn't it?
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't heard it already, check out Steve's song Killin' It, Killin' Me.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's his new release.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: And boy, Mike and I heard that the first time we were like, holy smokes, it was written for us.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's reaching out to me, going, Hey, I'm you know, 12 years sober.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: How about you?
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I I I I've not had that.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome to hear that this song is moving you.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: But um I'm uh I was it was just one of those things where I've seen it so much around me, and it's not just about drinking, it's about everything in excess.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: And deciding that you've eliminated the things that matter, the people that matter in your life, to make it at all costs.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you do make it at all costs, but when you turn and look and everybody in your life that ever would matter to be there to celebrate with you or should be are gone.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you're left alone with all that mountain of whatever you built up and acquired.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we're at about the we're at about the stopping point.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: Randy, you want to tie this all together?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, what I'm hearing is that uh this issue of discernment begins the whole piece.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was his quest to figure out what the heck's going on, to figure out what caused the wobble.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: That it was the courage to actually make that choice and make the move.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing I'm hearing again and again is that once you are in alignment with the world you want to be in, all this other really good stuff starts happening that you didn't even know.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, the good stuff just emerges naturally when you're in that alignment.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't seem to happen any other way.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be hearing a lot more from Steve because music is at the heart of what resonance is all about.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: We really want to bring the artistic part of musical creativity into the leader's mind and have that be a resource for the leader.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're gonna be talking about, and we certainly look forward to having you join the monk, Mike Farrell, and Steve Azar, the crazy guy down in Greenville, changing the world every chance, and me, I guess the professor with pretentious words.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Up in Oregon.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Up in Oregon, absolutely.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll be back and we'll look for you the next time.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get off the can I get off the couch now?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, can I get it?
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll we'll send you the bill.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: We'll send you the bill.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: I know I know, send it.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you next time, guys.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Later on.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to Resonance.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: Find us at resonance leader dot com.