Latest / Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories / Where Peace Anchors with Dr. Alphonso Buie | Ship's Log #37

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Where Peace Anchors with Dr. Alphonso Buie | Ship's Log #37 · Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories

• 0:03
  Speaker: I think part of it is being visionary, you know, seeing what's not there.
• 0:07
  Speaker: Another part is being creative.
• 0:09
  Speaker: My mother's a very creative person, so I get a lot of my creativity from her.
• 0:13
  Speaker: And then I really don't have bounds on design.
• 0:17
  Speaker: You know, some oh that's taboo.
• 0:19
  Speaker: Like I'll mix metals, I'll mix colors.
• 0:22
  Speaker: You know, people say, oh, that doesn't match.
• 0:24
  Speaker: Anything matches if you design it right.
• 0:28
  Jeanne: Welcome to Project Candor, Ordinary People, Unexpected Stories.
• 0:32
  Jeanne: I'm your host, Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected.
• 0:36
  Jeanne: Today we're stepping into a conversation about design, not just of spaces, but of life itself.
• 0:43
  Jeanne: Joining me today is Alphonso Buie.
• 0:45
  Jeanne: Dr.
• 0:46
  Jeanne: Buie is an Atlanta-based interior designer, entrepreneur, and former hospitality professor.
• 0:53
  Jeanne: As founder of Place of Peace, Interior Designs, he specializes in transforming spaces with refined aesthetics while leading community initiatives, mentoring students, and advancing projects that blend design, culture, and business innovation.
• 1:09
  Jeanne: This is going to be a really good conversation.
• 1:12
  Jeanne: I'm so excited you're here.
• 1:14
  Alphonso Buie: I'm glad to be here.
• 1:16
  Jeanne: So I'd like to start asking you some questions first.
• 1:19
  Jeanne: Is there anything you'd like to tell the audience?
• 1:22
  Alphonso Buie: Well, I'm based out of Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1:24
  Alphonso Buie: And so this was so interesting in how this all came about because being an interior designer wasn't on my bingo card.
• 1:33
  Alphonso Buie: So the first thing I can say is it's never too late to find your calling.
• 1:37
  Alphonso Buie: I didn't think I would be on this road in my 40s, but I love it.
• 1:42
  Alphonso Buie: I really do.
• 1:44
  Alphonso Buie: I think a lot of times we shy away from entrepreneurship because it's scary, right?
• 1:48
  Alphonso Buie: Because you're used to insurance and certain things being taken care of.
• 1:53
  Alphonso Buie: But I say take a chance and venture out on your own and see what happens.
• 1:57
  Alphonso Buie: You know, you only have one life to live.
• 1:59
  Alphonso Buie: So I'll say that the name of my company's Place of Peace.
• 2:02
  Alphonso Buie: And I got that from my granny.
• 2:04
  Alphonso Buie: And so she always said your home should be a place of peace.
• 2:08
  Alphonso Buie: And if it's not, you need to figure it out.
• 2:10
  Alphonso Buie: And so when you're young, you really don't know what anyone's really talking about.
• 2:15
  Alphonso Buie: I mean, think about all the songs you listened to over the years.
• 2:17
  Alphonso Buie: You didn't really understand until your first heartbreak, your favorite heartbreak song.
• 2:22
  Jeanne: Right.
• 2:22
  Jeanne: Exactly.
• 2:24
  Alphonso Buie: It wasn't until my home was in a place of peace that I realized, okay, I understand what she means.
• 2:31
  Alphonso Buie: And so when it came time to name my company, it was a no-brainer.
• 2:34
  Alphonso Buie: It was place of peace.
• 2:35
  Alphonso Buie: So what I do is I strive to help individuals gain that, whether it's at work, whether it's at home, whether it's just in a commercial space where you're hanging out, you know, I really want you to just be at peace.
• 2:50
  Jeanne: Oh, great.
• 2:50
  Jeanne: That's wonderful.
• 2:51
  Jeanne: So that follows along with me.
• 2:53
  Jeanne: When I in a new house, you know, the first thing I try to decorate is my bedroom because they call it my sanctuary.
• 3:00
  Jeanne: Oh, yeah, that's really anytime anybody bothers me or if I'm just stressed, I want to go in my sanctuary.
• 3:07
  Jeanne: So I want a relaxing chair there, a comfortable bed, everything perfect.
• 3:12
  Jeanne: So I get what you're saying.
• 3:14
  Alphonso Buie: You just spend most of your time in your bedroom.
• 3:16
  Alphonso Buie: Really?
• 3:16
  Alphonso Buie: You know, people have these massive homes.
• 3:18
  Alphonso Buie: You sleep at anywhere from five to eight hours, you know.
• 3:21
  Alphonso Buie: And think about it, you're gone most of the day.
• 3:24
  Alphonso Buie: So by the time you get home, you do some things around the house if you work your a regular eight, you know, eight to five job, but then you're in your bedroom for the rest of the day.
• 3:33
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's very true.
• 3:35
  Alphonso Buie: So, you know, I always encourage people to just go like whatever you want in your bedroom, put it in your bedroom.
• 3:40
  Alphonso Buie: It's your restorative space, like health-wise, you sleep.
• 3:44
  Alphonso Buie: It should be your mental safe space.
• 3:46
  Alphonso Buie: I always encourage people not to put other things in their bedroom.
• 3:49
  Alphonso Buie: So I learned that in China when I lived over there, that spaces are kind of small, right?
• 3:55
  Jeanne: Right.
• 3:56
  Alphonso Buie: And so you kind of have to figure out, you know, how to maximize on space there.
• 4:02
  Alphonso Buie: And I had a one-bedroom studio, and all of a sudden I couldn't go to sleep.
• 4:06
  Alphonso Buie: And then so I found out when I went to the doctor, is because I was doing work in my bedroom, so my mind couldn't differentiate when it was time for me to work and when it was time for me to shut down and go to bed.
• 4:17
  Jeanne: Oh.
• 4:17
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, so a lot of people who can't go to sleep in in their bedrooms is because they have a little mini office in the corner.
• 4:24
  Alphonso Buie: So...
• 4:24
  Jeanne: Oh, okay.
• 4:25
  Jeanne: Well, I have a TV.
• 4:26
  Jeanne: I know that's a no-no.
• 4:30
  Alphonso Buie: Look, I have a TV as well.
• 4:32
  Alphonso Buie: So, but I don't think I watch morning news and I turn it on as I'm getting ready, and then I turn it off.
• 4:37
  Alphonso Buie: I'm not a watch till I go to bed guy.
• 4:40
  Jeanne: Yeah, me either.
• 4:41
  Jeanne: I just sometimes I want to go in there.
• 4:43
  Jeanne: That's why I call sanctuary.
• 4:45
  Jeanne: When things go wrong or something, I might sit in there and watch a series or something that you know just calms me down.
• 4:51
  Jeanne: But anyway, that's really nice to know.
• 4:55
  Jeanne: So uh, how do we know each other?
• 4:57
  Jeanne: Wanna go there?
• 4:58
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, so Freda introduced me to you.
• 5:01
  Alphonso Buie: So she, you know, Freda's uh a client of mine, and and she is just phenomenal.
• 5:06
  Alphonso Buie: And I call her the great connector because she always knows someone, right?
• 5:12
  Alphonso Buie: And so, and she has these amazing stories, and you you just wouldn't believe it just by who how she carries herself.
• 5:18
  Alphonso Buie: She's very humble and quiet and simplistic, but uh in the same breath, she loves people, she lives this great life and just this beautiful spirit.
• 5:27
  Alphonso Buie: And so she said, Hey, I have a friend who has a podcast.
• 5:31
  Alphonso Buie: Would you be interested?
• 5:32
  Alphonso Buie: And I was like, sure.
• 5:33
  Alphonso Buie: She said, Okay, I'll send her an email, and then here we are today.
• 5:36
  Jeanne: Yeah, I think that's so cool.
• 5:37
  Jeanne: Yeah, she's a wonderful person, and she's also been on the podcast, too.
• 5:41
  Jeanne: Um, so everybody needs to check out the episode with Dr.
• 5:44
  Jeanne: Freda Brazle.
• 5:45
  Alphonso Buie: I need to check out that episode to see what her podcast looked like.
• 5:49
  Jeanne: Yeah, wow.
• 5:50
  Jeanne: I want to see it because you said that she's gonna have her home featured in uh where?
• 5:55
  Jeanne: Did you say that?
• 5:56
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, the Atlanta Style and Design Magazine.
• 5:58
  Alphonso Buie: So we just did the photographer last month.
• 6:00
  Alphonso Buie: Excuse me, it's policies here in Atlanta.
• 6:03
  Alphonso Buie: So if you've ever lived in Atlanta, it's just it's like a layer of yellow over everything.
• 6:08
  Jeanne: And so I didn't live in Atlanta proper, but I lived in Roswell.
• 6:13
  Alphonso Buie: So you understand.
• 6:14
  Alphonso Buie: Yes.
• 6:14
  Alphonso Buie: Basically.
• 6:17
  Jeanne: It didn't snow last night, it pollen.
• 6:21
  Alphonso Buie: Right.
• 6:22
  Alphonso Buie: We have pollen season, summer, and a little bit of chill in the fall.
• 6:27
  Alphonso Buie: So those are our three seasons.
• 6:29
  Alphonso Buie: But um, back to Freda, her home is going to be featured in an Atlanta styling design, and I think what you can expect as part article, part design.
• 6:40
  Alphonso Buie: And what you can expect with that is to see a lot of earth tones, minimalistic, so not overcrowding spaces, but still having those special moments of color. So...
• 6:53
  Jeanne: Oh nice.
• 6:54
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, and I let the artwork kind of tell the story.
• 6:57
  Alphonso Buie: We definitely went with a museum-style home with all the artwork that we are going to feature.
• 7:03
  Alphonso Buie: It's just a beautiful scape.
• 7:05
  Alphonso Buie: You know, it's one of my favorite projects.
• 7:07
  Alphonso Buie: All my projects have I love, but this is definitely one of my favorites.
• 7:12
  Jeanne: Well, I know she showed me a video you did.
• 7:14
  Jeanne: I was talking about that to you earlier that you had sped up the design process and had, you know, put up this beautiful mantle place and just pictures aren't everywhere.
• 7:26
  Jeanne: It was just so refined and so nice.
• 7:28
  Jeanne: That's just a wonderful video.
• 7:31
  Alphonso Buie: It's interesting when I meet clients because they have all these ideas.
• 7:35
  Alphonso Buie: And so she has all this artwork, and it's just gorgeous artwork she's collected over the years, and she's she downsized her home.
• 7:44
  Alphonso Buie: And so she thought she had to let go of a lot of it, and I was like, no, we're gonna use all of it.
• 7:49
  Alphonso Buie: She said, What?
• 7:51
  Alphonso Buie: And so I was like, trust me on this.
• 7:54
  Alphonso Buie: So instead of investing in a lot of decor, I went with a museum style, and so basically what that is, is I use the wall space to feature different art pieces she may have, masks, sculptures, we use uh podiums and arrange them in various collages or interesting ways.
• 8:14
  Alphonso Buie: And so the piece you're particularly talking about, the mass, what I did is I created kind of this floating bar, and then I mounted it on the wood floating bar is it's hand stained.
• 8:25
  Alphonso Buie: And a lot of the work I actually do myself, which is, I believe, different for interior designers.
• 8:30
  Alphonso Buie: You know, I mean, don't get me wrong, I do hire people for certain things.
• 8:35
  Alphonso Buie: You know, I won't do your plumbing, I'll do my own plumbing, but you know, like I know how to do electrical, but the reality is if I want to be sustainable in business, I have to bring people on who can do these things, you know, and so but if it's a small project, I'll do it really quickly.
• 8:51
  Alphonso Buie: And I love those special projects where I get to be hands-on, and so that was one of them.
• 8:55
  Alphonso Buie: And so mounting and framing those masks and creating some backlighting to it.
• 8:59
  Alphonso Buie: If you go to my Instagram, you can see it.
• 9:01
  Alphonso Buie: So for those who are listening to the podcast, go to my Instagram.
• 9:05
  Alphonso Buie: It's uh place underscore of underscore peace underscore LLC, and you can see I think it's my highest viewed Instagram post, that one right there.
• 9:17
  Jeanne: I can vouch for that.
• 9:18
  Jeanne: It's so nice to look at when you're doing that and how it comes together and how beautiful it is when you're finished.
• 9:24
  Jeanne: It's just a wonderful, yeah.
• 9:25
  Jeanne: Go out there and watch it, people.
• 9:27
  Alphonso Buie: Thank you so much for that.
• 9:29
  Alphonso Buie: But I think Place of Peace is a duality.
• 9:32
  Alphonso Buie: It's not only serving my clients, but it serves me.
• 9:36
  Alphonso Buie: I found, you know, it was my calming space when things may be going kind of chaotic in the world or in my personal life.
• 9:44
  Alphonso Buie: So as I start designing it, I calm down and I'm just in a place of just zen and I love it.
• 9:50
  Jeanne: Do you come to St.
• 9:50
  Jeanne: Augustine?
• 9:52
  Alphonso Buie: I can.
• 9:53
  Jeanne: I have a personal friend that vouches for you.
• 9:59
  Alphonso Buie: I can come to St.
• 10:00
  Alphonso Buie: Augustine.
• 10:01
  Jeanne: Oh my gosh.
• 10:02
  Jeanne: My house is a mess.
• 10:03
  Jeanne: We like downsized three times in like five years, and so moving from Florida to Wyoming, then back to Roswell, and then now back to Florida.
• 10:16
  Jeanne: And so nothing matches.
• 10:17
  Jeanne: Oh, it's just sad.
• 10:19
  Jeanne: But anyway, this is uh interviewing you, not my house issues.
• 10:25
  Alphonso Buie: Oh, it's okay.
• 10:25
  Alphonso Buie: Look, this happens all the time.
• 10:27
  Alphonso Buie: I'm okay, you know, and it is it's part of the process, right?
• 10:31
  Alphonso Buie: Because I can tell you what we can do with your home as well.
• 10:33
  Alphonso Buie: Because people move from place to place when you think about it.
• 10:36
  Alphonso Buie: And so when I come into spaces such as yours, my goal is to make it cohesive.
• 10:42
  Alphonso Buie: And so what I do is I find that common thread or theme and I weave it all together.
• 10:47
  Alphonso Buie: The other thing is, what are you willing to let go of?
• 10:51
  Alphonso Buie: And most people say nothing, you know.
• 10:53
  Alphonso Buie: And I tell people I'm a therapist as well.
• 10:55
  Alphonso Buie: And people don't believe me until I enter their home.
• 10:58
  Alphonso Buie: They're like, You really are a therapist.
• 11:00
  Alphonso Buie: So I have one client, and she just I was redesigning her office space, and you know, she's a school teacher as well, or she works in education and she's a therapist at the same time.
• 11:11
  Alphonso Buie: And so she has clients that come over and so on and so forth, and she has a uh like a two-bedroom condo.
• 11:18
  Alphonso Buie: And so she just has all this paperwork, and I was like, Well, what is all this paperwork?
• 11:23
  Alphonso Buie: You know, we gotta get you some file cabinets, but I'm gonna challenge you.
• 11:27
  Alphonso Buie: What can you let go?
• 11:29
  Alphonso Buie: And so she was going through one box one day, probably two weeks later, and she was like, Oh wow.
• 11:35
  Alphonso Buie: She said, I didn't realize this was in here.
• 11:37
  Alphonso Buie: I was like, What are we talking about here?
• 11:39
  Alphonso Buie: And it was her child support papers, and so her kids, her youngest child is 27.
• 11:45
  Alphonso Buie: And so she was like, What do I do with this?
• 11:50
  Alphonso Buie: I was like, I think you let it go.
• 11:51
  Alphonso Buie: Do you need it?
• 11:52
  Alphonso Buie: And she was like, No.
• 11:54
  Alphonso Buie: She said, Yeah, you're really right.
• 11:56
  Alphonso Buie: I'm holding on to some of these negative experiences, and I need to let it go.
• 12:01
  Alphonso Buie: I was like, Yeah, because what is that paper serve, you know, at this point?
• 12:05
  Jeanne: Right, right, absolutely.
• 12:06
  Alphonso Buie: Children are grown, and you know, she threw it away and she was kind of tearing up and she was like, Wow, I'm really done with that.
• 12:12
  Alphonso Buie: You know, that was a hard situation to be in.
• 12:14
  Alphonso Buie: I was like, Well, you know, I'm glad I'm here to help, you know.
• 12:17
  Alphonso Buie: And you you'll have people going through photos and they find a photo of a parent or grandparent that had passed away, or something from their children, because I I have another client who's holding on to a crib so they can pass it down to their kids.
• 12:31
  Alphonso Buie: And I had to explain to them in this day and age, by the time your kids are old enough to have kids, there'll probably be a crib that can change the diapers for the kids if they want first.
• 12:42
  Jeanne: Yeah, give them a bath and everything.
• 12:44
  Alphonso Buie: Right.
• 12:47
  Jeanne: Plus, those things like that, those and they're antiques to the point of people, you know, they have recalls, and sometimes these beds from before they take them off the market saying unsafe for your child, they can put their heads through the rails.
• 13:00
  Jeanne: Yeah, that sounds like good advice to them.
• 13:03
  Jeanne: But let's roll back a little bit because we didn't start with, you know, talking about your credentials as a psychiatrist because you're a doctor of psychiatry.
• 13:14
  Jeanne: Is that correct?
• 13:15
  Alphonso Buie: No, I I'm actually I have my doctorate in business.
• 13:17
  Jeanne: In business.
• 13:18
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 13:19
  Alphonso Buie: Yes.
• 13:19
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, I have my doctorate in business.
• 13:21
  Alphonso Buie: So my journey, I grew up in Chicago, Illinois, born and raised there.
• 13:25
  Alphonso Buie: And that's where I kind of got my foundations for working with my hands.
• 13:31
  Alphonso Buie: So I took work working, I took electrical plumbing.
• 13:35
  Alphonso Buie: I went to Chicago Park District.
• 13:37
  Alphonso Buie: During the summer, you had to take different crafts.
• 13:40
  Alphonso Buie: So I learned how to do art.
• 13:42
  Alphonso Buie: I learned how to sew, but I didn't realize this would all lead to me being an interior designer, right?
• 13:48
  Alphonso Buie: So I went to uh the Chicago High School for Agriculture Sciences, found my love for plants.
• 13:55
  Alphonso Buie: So like I was in charge of the greenhouse, had my own landscaping business.
• 13:59
  Alphonso Buie: And so I believe that's how I'm able to have an eye for color and what goes together and what doesn't.
• 14:04
  Alphonso Buie: Then I from there I went to Lincoln University of Missouri, got my bachelor's and masters, uh, got my bachelor's in agriculture, got my master's in business administration, found my love for business.
• 14:16
  Alphonso Buie: Went back to uh Chicago after I graduated.
• 14:21
  Alphonso Buie: I worked for pretty much every area of hospitality.
• 14:24
  Alphonso Buie: So I worked for a conventional visitors bureau.
• 14:26
  Alphonso Buie: Actually, that's I did that while I was doing my master's, worked in restaurants for quite some time, worked for an airline, and I was an overnight concierge once I moved to Philly because I started doing my doctorate, and so I stepped back from management to you know finish that up.
• 14:42
  Alphonso Buie: And so from there, I started adjuncting in Philadelphia, found a job in outside in like Radner, PA.
• 14:52
  Jeanne: I know where that is, strangely enough.
• 14:55
  Alphonso Buie: You know where Radner is.
• 14:56
  Jeanne: Yes, I'm I'm trying to think, isn't that it was where an air conditioned company I worked for in my IBM years.
• 15:08
  Alphonso Buie: Yep.
• 15:09
  Alphonso Buie: York.
• 15:09
  Alphonso Buie: Just a little ways down from um Vanderbilt.
• 15:12
  Jeanne: Yeah.
• 15:13
  Alphonso Buie: And so adjunct, started applying for jobs in China.
• 15:18
  Alphonso Buie: I started abroad, then I narrowed it down to China because I started getting interviews.
• 15:22
  Alphonso Buie: And so landed a job, taught business courses as a lead professor in China, in Beijing, China, for about five years, came to Atlanta, Georgia as a program chair, and I started interior designing as a hobby.
• 15:39
  Alphonso Buie: Like it was never anything on my bingo card.
• 15:42
  Alphonso Buie: And I started with my place because when you move all these places and you go overseas, I can't take my furniture with me, so I got rid of everything.
• 15:51
  Alphonso Buie: And so when I moved here, I had six bags, and so I got to start over from scratch.
• 15:56
  Alphonso Buie: And when I say start over from scratch, I mean like I'm buying a broom, you know.
• 16:01
  Alphonso Buie: Think about the last time you really had to start over, you know, and you had to buy a broom.
• 16:06
  Alphonso Buie: And so I, you know, I got to pick the furniture I wanted, and you know, I was posting my process on Instagram and my friends saw it.
• 16:14
  Alphonso Buie: So one of my buddies was like, hey, come do my place, and then it happened again.
• 16:18
  Alphonso Buie: Then it happened again.
• 16:19
  Alphonso Buie: The next thing you know, I have a business.
• 16:21
  Alphonso Buie: It was never intentional.
• 16:23
  Alphonso Buie: And so two interesting things happened at the same time.
• 16:27
  Alphonso Buie: My job at the time investigating me, uh, started an investigation of me because I attended a Beyonce concert.
• 16:35
  Jeanne: Oh, wait, wait, yes, your stories.
• 16:37
  Jeanne: Let's don't go there.
• 16:38
  Jeanne: We gotta get to your two truths and a lie.
• 16:41
  Jeanne: I don't want to tell everybody before you get there.
• 16:44
  Alphonso Buie: You don't know if I'm telling the truth or not, though.
• 16:47
  Jeanne: I know could we tell a twisted truth?
• 16:49
  Jeanne: You know, that job didn't work out, right?
• 16:56
  Alphonso Buie: And so I won the lottery at the same time.
• 16:59
  Alphonso Buie: So it gave me a little money to really propel my business.
• 17:02
  Jeanne: So you didn't put that in the two truths and a lie.
• 17:05
  Alphonso Buie: That's what I'm saying.
• 17:06
  Alphonso Buie: You don't know which one is which.
• 17:07
  Alphonso Buie: So they keep you on the cliffhanger.
• 17:10
  Alphonso Buie: So I think that, you know, this was a very liberating experience for me.
• 17:16
  Alphonso Buie: Being able to work for myself and build a business, it's been a very encouraging because people really believe in you, you know, and it's been so interesting.
• 17:26
  Alphonso Buie: All of my part-time employees are people who wanted to work with me.
• 17:30
  Alphonso Buie: Like, hey, I saw your work.
• 17:32
  Alphonso Buie: Can I work for you?
• 17:33
  Alphonso Buie: And you know, I'm like, you don't necessarily take people seriously, and but then I had a buddy of mine say, Hey, listen to them, like bring them on, see if they really want to work.
• 17:43
  Alphonso Buie: And every last one of them have.
• 17:45
  Alphonso Buie: And so I'm very thankful.
• 17:47
  Alphonso Buie: You know, I didn't know this would be a journey.
• 17:50
  Alphonso Buie: I have some great mentors in the business who didn't want anything, they just wanted to help me.
• 17:55
  Alphonso Buie: And so, and they're all successful designers too.
• 17:57
  Alphonso Buie: They say, Oh, this is this more than enough room for us to eat.
• 18:00
  Alphonso Buie: There's more than enough space for designers.
• 18:02
  Jeanne: Oh, I like it.
• 18:02
  Jeanne: I like the way that you said that.
• 18:04
  Jeanne: That say that one more time.
• 18:06
  Alphonso Buie: There's more than enough for us to eat.
• 18:07
  Alphonso Buie: You know, there's more than enough room for there to be designers.
• 18:11
  Jeanne: Nice, because they say that a lot in businesses.
• 18:13
  Jeanne: Oh, don't go there.
• 18:14
  Jeanne: There's too many.
• 18:15
  Jeanne: Like podcasting.
• 18:16
  Jeanne: There's too many podcasters, you know.
• 18:18
  Alphonso Buie: There are not enough designers.
• 18:20
  Alphonso Buie: Because there are endless amounts of homes.
• 18:23
  Alphonso Buie: You know, even I have my capacity of how many homes I can juggle at a time.
• 18:28
  Alphonso Buie: I've had clients who have 26-room homes.
• 18:32
  Alphonso Buie: And mind you, this has only been a little over three years.
• 18:35
  Jeanne: Do they play for Atlanta Falcons or something?
• 18:38
  Alphonso Buie: Well, they're from overseas and they have a few large homes.
• 18:43
  Alphonso Buie: And so they found me through uh social media.
• 18:47
  Alphonso Buie: I do have uh contacts in magazines as well as like Angela's and Thumbtack.
• 18:52
  Alphonso Buie: And so clients find me through various sources.
• 18:54
  Alphonso Buie: A lot are word through mouth, which is very important.
• 18:58
  Jeanne: But 26 room homes.
• 18:59
  Jeanne: Wow, that's a lot.
• 19:01
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, they literally have a tree that goes from the basement of their home up to the second floor through the middle of the home.
• 19:09
  Alphonso Buie: Like, it's so awestrucking when you walk in, you can't even believe it.
• 19:13
  Alphonso Buie: I was just like, wow, okay.
• 19:15
  Jeanne: Well, I have not even heard in a residential home or somewhere you're living to have the tree in the middle.
• 19:20
  Jeanne: But Atlanta is the city of trees.
• 19:23
  Jeanne: I will say that.
• 19:24
  Jeanne: There are so many trees everywhere.
• 19:26
  Jeanne: I could not believe it.
• 19:28
  Jeanne: You can't see the highways.
• 19:29
  Alphonso Buie: I know, as right now with the pollen.
• 19:33
  Jeanne: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:34
  Jeanne: Well, it's so interesting how you got there.
• 19:38
  Jeanne: Like, but why what makes you see things, you know, spaces differently than you think other people do?
• 19:43
  Jeanne: Like, if I was to look at something and say, I don't know what to do there, you would come up with five other ideas.
• 19:49
  Alphonso Buie: I think part of it is being visionary, you know, seeing what's not there.
• 19:54
  Alphonso Buie: Another part is being creative.
• 19:56
  Alphonso Buie: My my mother's a very creative person, so I get a lot of my creativity from her.
• 20:00
  Alphonso Buie: And then I really don't have bounds on design.
• 20:05
  Alphonso Buie: You know, some, oh, that's taboo.
• 20:07
  Alphonso Buie: Like I'll mix metals, I'll mix colors, you know, people say, oh, that doesn't match.
• 20:11
  Alphonso Buie: Anything matches if you if you design it right.
• 20:14
  Alphonso Buie: I think my traveling all over the world, you know, I've I've lived abroad, I've traveled abroad, even in the United States, you know, the West Coast is totally different than the East Coast, you know, North, you know, like growing up in Chicago is totally different than going down to Mississippi and seeing just design and decor in New Orleans.
• 20:36
  Alphonso Buie: So I believe having these different elements influence my lives.
• 20:41
  Alphonso Buie: And then my client.
• 20:42
  Alphonso Buie: So I I've really listened to my clients and see and try to see their vision and then take it to that next level.
• 20:49
  Alphonso Buie: And then if it doesn't exist, I can create it.
• 20:52
  Alphonso Buie: So I can tell you how many times I'm like, that doesn't exist, I'm just gonna make it.
• 20:56
  Alphonso Buie: And they're like, what?
• 20:57
  Alphonso Buie: And then I make it, and they're like, oh.
• 20:59
  Jeanne: Oh my goodness.
• 21:00
  Jeanne: Well, tell me you said you learned how to sew, too.
• 21:04
  Jeanne: What what do you sew?
• 21:06
  Jeanne: Do you sew in curtains or know how to get somebody to do it?
• 21:11
  Alphonso Buie: Both.
• 21:11
  Alphonso Buie: So if you're looking for a straight hem, I'm not your guy.
• 21:16
  Alphonso Buie: But if you if I need to put a button on, I'm your guy.
• 21:19
  Alphonso Buie: If I if I gotta, you know, because sometimes we may receive furniture and there may be a little like break in the seam, I can take my a needle and and fix it up real quick to where a client won't even notice.
• 21:31
  Alphonso Buie: You know, okay.
• 21:32
  Alphonso Buie: It's those little things.
• 21:34
  Alphonso Buie: And I think being able to do those things helps me, you know, meet my deadlines and just kind of add that extra value, you know, because there's a certain level of craftsmanship that comes with my business.
• 21:47
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's very nice.
• 21:48
  Jeanne: I know um they don't teach those kind of things in school anymore, but my husband was born in Sweden and raised in Sweden, and they used to have to go to classes where they learn to sew iron.
• 21:59
  Jeanne: Buttons on.
• 22:00
  Jeanne: I don't think they do that in the schools here.
• 22:03
  Alphonso Buie: I'll tell you what, one of my part-timers, I taught him how to do wallpaper to the point where I could leave a room and not even look over his shoulder anymore.
• 22:12
  Alphonso Buie: And you know, and I'm all about growth and expansion.
• 22:15
  Alphonso Buie: I'm never gonna hold you back.
• 22:16
  Alphonso Buie: But I was like, look, hey, if you want to start a side wallpaper business or, you know, any other business, go ahead.
• 22:25
  Alphonso Buie: And you know, I can help you with your profit margins and help you come up with your your platforms.
• 22:30
  Alphonso Buie: You know, I encourage him to get his LLC because he wants to be a general contractor one day.
• 22:34
  Alphonso Buie: He's in school for that.
• 22:36
  Alphonso Buie: And so I always push people to always have a craft in their back pocket because you never know what may happen.
• 22:43
  Alphonso Buie: You know, and putting a wallpaper, you know, right in the middle is usually $300 per row unless it's the ceiling, and then you you double it.
• 22:51
  Alphonso Buie: And so it's not something that a lot of people know how to do.
• 22:55
  Alphonso Buie: Curtains, drapery, my goodness, finding someone who can do drapery is tough.
• 23:03
  Jeanne: Yes, it is.
• 23:04
  Alphonso Buie: You know, and to your point, these are lost crafts.
• 23:07
  Alphonso Buie: There are people who don't know how to operate a hammer.
• 23:11
  Alphonso Buie: I'm not joking.
• 23:12
  Alphonso Buie: Like a drill or hang a picture, change a light.
• 23:17
  Alphonso Buie: Like they'll call me to do the simple task, and I'm like, you could have done this yourself, you know.
• 23:24
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's so very sad that people don't know how to have, you know, they don't have any crafts.
• 23:29
  Jeanne: I call it, like you said, law skills.
• 23:31
  Jeanne: I always wanted to do an more than school is what I was gonna call it, kind of business where people could come in and learn some of these things.
• 23:41
  Jeanne: But the problem is there's no interest.
• 23:44
  Alphonso Buie: I don't know if it's no interest or no time.
• 23:46
  Alphonso Buie: You know, life is so it's really busy these days.
• 23:50
  Alphonso Buie: And I trust me, I know because running my own business, people like, oh, you could do that at night when you get it, you know, get at home.
• 23:57
  Alphonso Buie: I want to sit.
• 23:59
  Jeanne: Yeah, you need to relax.
• 24:00
  Jeanne: Yeah, you need to relax.
• 24:03
  Alphonso Buie: So doing that one thing, I'm like, I'm going to bed.
• 24:06
  Jeanne: But see, I like to sew too, so I gotta tell you, even when I try to relax, I can't relax.
• 24:10
  Jeanne: So here, I'll give you a case in point.
• 24:12
  Jeanne: Maybe this will resonate with you.
• 24:14
  Jeanne: I go to relax, I want to watch something, and I like to watch British TV.
• 24:19
  Jeanne: Everybody, I keep saying that on my podcast, but there's a show, and I don't know, it's on a British broadcast, but I think it's Irish or something.
• 24:27
  Jeanne: It's Shetland, maybe it's Scotland.
• 24:29
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 24:30
  Jeanne: It's somewhere.
• 24:30
  Jeanne: Anyway, Shetland.
• 24:31
  Jeanne: And I find myself looking at how the set designers have tied the water in Shetland, which is phenomenally beautiful, and the landscape is so beautiful.
• 24:43
  Jeanne: And all of the people's outfits.
• 24:45
  Jeanne: I'm like, oh my gosh, he's wearing the most beautiful blue I've ever seen.
• 24:49
  Jeanne: Oh, this guy's got blue and a green with it and a uh rust color.
• 24:54
  Jeanne: Oh, wow.
• 24:55
  Jeanne: And I sit there and I can't relax because I'm just like involved in the clothing and the tie-ins.
• 25:04
  Alphonso Buie: I think noticing those, you know, and I love set designers.
• 25:07
  Alphonso Buie: I watch certain shows and I watch a lot of anime.
• 25:10
  Alphonso Buie: And so I do look at how they play with color or textures, or oh, that would be something really good to implement.
• 25:18
  Alphonso Buie: Like recently I watched Bridgeson, and so they do a lot of wallpaper Wayne's cotton boxes on a wall.
• 25:26
  Alphonso Buie: So whether they'll paint around it, put the trim, and they'll put the wallpaper in the trim and then put artwork on it.
• 25:31
  Alphonso Buie: And so I I do modern versions of that.
• 25:33
  Alphonso Buie: I will take colors that don't necessarily you think will go together and and and find just that right hue of it.
• 25:42
  Alphonso Buie: Oh or that right shade, and then it works, you know.
• 25:46
  Alphonso Buie: So because people say, Oh, I want rust.
• 25:48
  Alphonso Buie: Okay, do you want deep rust or do you want a bright rust?
• 25:51
  Alphonso Buie: And they look at me like, huh?
• 25:52
  Alphonso Buie: You know.
• 25:53
  Jeanne: Yeah, I just want your canned from Sherwin Williams Rust, oh.
• 25:57
  Jeanne: It's not that simple.
• 25:59
  Jeanne: Even there, it's not that simple.
• 26:01
  Alphonso Buie: Even white, my favorite white last year, and it's I think it's gonna be this year as well, is Ivory Lace, because it has a cream undertone to it, but it's very subtle.
• 26:11
  Alphonso Buie: And so any client tones, I put that white in, it worked.
• 26:15
  Alphonso Buie: You know, it's like, oh, I love it.
• 26:17
  Alphonso Buie: It's not gray, it's very warm, you know.
• 26:20
  Alphonso Buie: And because I have a Sherman Williams color palette, and I'll spread it out.
• 26:24
  Alphonso Buie: I'm trying to see if it's around here.
• 26:26
  Alphonso Buie: Oh, here it is.
• 26:27
  Alphonso Buie: Here it is.
• 26:28
  Alphonso Buie: And so by the time I spread this out, let's say for white, I'm just go to some of the whites.
• 26:34
  Alphonso Buie: Look how they're all so different.
• 26:36
  Alphonso Buie: These are whites.
• 26:37
  Jeanne: Oh, right.
• 26:38
  Jeanne: Yeah.
• 26:39
  Alphonso Buie: These are whites, and then some will have a purple undertone or a green, you know.
• 26:45
  Alphonso Buie: So I say, hey.
• 26:46
  Jeanne: Find a color.
• 26:47
  Jeanne: I don't know if you can find it fast, but my favorite color and what we did our house in was we decided to do where the TV is in our den.
• 26:56
  Jeanne: We decided to paint that wall dark, and the rest of it's lighter around it.
• 27:01
  Alphonso Buie: I love a great accent wall.
• 27:02
  Jeanne: It's really good, but we picked, and I sat in these rooms, and I would say, What do I want there?
• 27:08
  Jeanne: What I picked this color peppercorn.
• 27:11
  Jeanne: Peppercorn?
• 27:12
  Jeanne: Yes.
• 27:12
  Jeanne: Is it Sherner Williams?
• 27:14
  Jeanne: Yes.
• 27:14
  Jeanne: It is so phenomenal.
• 27:16
  Jeanne: It is like brown, not brown, purple, not purple, black, not black.
• 27:23
  Alphonso Buie: I have a client who just used the peppercorn in their powder ring for the ceiling.
• 27:28
  Alphonso Buie: We do this really nice chocolate wallpaper, and it's it's called chocolate plume.
• 27:33
  Alphonso Buie: It's made by Arison.
• 27:34
  Alphonso Buie: And it has a metallic, and it's just like simple and wavy.
• 27:38
  Alphonso Buie: Because I'm all about your powder room, can you can go crazy in your powder room because you can close the door if you get tired of it.
• 27:43
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah.
• 27:44
  Alphonso Buie: But I think the powder room is where you can get creative and play with colors and designs.
• 27:49
  Jeanne: It's small and you can redo it a million times, too.
• 27:52
  Alphonso Buie: You can.
• 27:52
  Alphonso Buie: Oh my goodness.
• 27:54
  Alphonso Buie: You know, I was I tell people all to yeah, peppercorn, uh 10, 236.
• 27:59
  Alphonso Buie: Yep.
• 28:00
  Alphonso Buie: Here it is, right here.
• 28:01
  Jeanne: Yeah, I don't know what, but we put it on there and then we painted where we have this big giant kitchen island.
• 28:08
  Jeanne: Yep, there you go.
• 28:09
  Jeanne: And we have this big giant kitchen island.
• 28:11
  Jeanne: So we painted the bottom of that peppercorn and then the one wall.
• 28:15
  Jeanne: So, because it's not in the same kind of room.
• 28:17
  Jeanne: And the funny part is that when you sit to watch TV, the black peppercorn looks like you're in a theater.
• 28:23
  Jeanne: And so it does this multi-purpose thing.
• 28:26
  Jeanne: And I guess that's the kind of stuff you you can evoke when you're doing yours.
• 28:30
  Jeanne: I'm not really into design very much, but when I wanted to do it for myself, I was this really picky about trying to find it, find the right colors.
• 28:38
  Alphonso Buie: Well, I love dimension in the space, you know, and I think that's what you have to figure out.
• 28:43
  Alphonso Buie: And so I'll play with color blocking in combination with wallpaper.
• 28:49
  Alphonso Buie: I love wallpaper because wallpaper isn't like my granny's wallpaper, where it's just apples on the wall, you know, it's really like intrinsic and that it can add texture.
• 29:00
  Alphonso Buie: You know, so let's say you you want a texture on your wall, but you may not want it permanently, use a wallpaper.
• 29:05
  Alphonso Buie: They do have like stucco style wallpaper or metallic wallpapers, and I can tell you how many times I've transformed a space with wallpaper.
• 29:14
  Jeanne: Bamboo, I think.
• 29:16
  Jeanne: Yeah.
• 29:16
  Alphonso Buie: Bamboo wallpaper.
• 29:17
  Alphonso Buie: You know, you can have grass cloth wallpaper, cotton wallpaper, like it's endless.
• 29:24
  Alphonso Buie: So I'm all about wallpapers.
• 29:27
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's good.
• 29:28
  Jeanne: You know, the thing that's really cool in this day and age, too, is that if you can't find, and I don't even know where you look for wallpaper anymore, do they still have books of them at like your so I have uh a store I go to, it's called Wallpaper Your World.
• 29:41
  Alphonso Buie: And so they had endless books.
• 29:43
  Alphonso Buie: So they'll have York, they'll have Sandcar is another company, Advantage is another company.
• 29:50
  Alphonso Buie: There's so many companies that wall coverings, wow wall coverings is another one.
• 29:55
  Alphonso Buie: I love them as well.
• 29:57
  Alphonso Buie: So uh, but needless to say, they're there Cuba is another one.
• 30:02
  Jeanne: They still have them out there.
• 30:04
  Alphonso Buie: There's an endless like array of wallpapers.
• 30:07
  Alphonso Buie: And so they have a store here in Atlanta and they have one in Florida.
• 30:10
  Alphonso Buie: I don't know where their store is in Florida, but they do have one in Florida.
• 30:13
  Alphonso Buie: And Corey and Jack, they're they're their owners of the store, and they're actually my my mentors as well, because they're interior designers.
• 30:21
  Alphonso Buie: And I found them looking for wallpaper for my house, you know.
• 30:25
  Alphonso Buie: And so that's how it all meant, you know, and so I would go pick their brains about interior design, and they was like, you have a knack for this.
• 30:33
  Alphonso Buie: You ever thought about just stepping out and doing it?
• 30:36
  Alphonso Buie: Like, go for it.
• 30:37
  Jeanne: Yeah, there's a I was trying to think of the name of it.
• 30:39
  Jeanne: Atlanta has so much, it's almost like you just need to go, just go there.
• 30:45
  Jeanne: People don't understand all the stuff that's there, but they have Gale K.
• 30:50
  Jeanne: I found it.
• 30:51
  Jeanne: I was looking on my computer down here because I was like, have you been to Gale K fabrics?
• 30:56
  Jeanne: No, no, oh my gosh.
• 30:58
  Jeanne: There's like three, I think, in Atlanta in different parts.
• 31:01
  Jeanne: Oh, you have to go there.
• 31:02
  Jeanne: Gail K.
• 31:04
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 31:05
  Jeanne: These people are um from I don't know if they're Korean, I don't know, but anyway, they've owned this store for years.
• 31:12
  Jeanne: And so when I want to go up and look for fabric, I want to go there.
• 31:16
  Jeanne: And it's just like you say wall-to-wall wallpaper.
• 31:20
  Jeanne: This is wall-to-wall fabrics of all styles, all kinds.
• 31:23
  Jeanne: Some of them are like people, the designer dumps.
• 31:27
  Jeanne: Like I think I bought something because I wanted to make a nice shirt, and I got some dump from like um Ann Klein or something from New York.
• 31:36
  Jeanne: It was the fabric she had used the season before or something.
• 31:39
  Jeanne: They go, Oh, you got good taste.
• 31:41
  Jeanne: I'm like, Well, I just stumbled upon that and I like the color because I was watching Shetland for gosh sakes and it was blue.
• 31:48
  Jeanne: So it's crazy.
• 31:52
  Alphonso Buie: I've learned a lot through people, and I've learned just exponentially just by doing, right?
• 31:57
  Alphonso Buie: Right, exactly.
• 31:58
  Alphonso Buie: Wholesale, you know, and once I learned that, that was like the cheat code, you know.
• 32:06
  Alphonso Buie: I was like, oh, this is the markup on furniture.
• 32:12
  Alphonso Buie: Man, this is crazy.
• 32:14
  Alphonso Buie: You know, just how much things cost, or just being able to go up to High Point, North Carolina.
• 32:23
  Alphonso Buie: It's not far from here, but anything dealing with homes goes through High Point, North Carolina.
• 32:30
  Alphonso Buie: I had no idea.
• 32:31
  Alphonso Buie: A whole city dedicated to furniture, wallpaper, Thomasville.
• 32:35
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, just like pick it, whatever goes in your home.
• 32:38
  Jeanne: So that's my part.
• 32:39
  Jeanne: I was born in North Carolina, that's my part of the state.
• 32:42
  Jeanne: We came there.
• 32:43
  Jeanne: I would we were in Winston-Salem and came down to Florida, and uh North Carolina is the furniture capital of the world, they say.
• 32:51
  Alphonso Buie: So it is.
• 32:52
  Alphonso Buie: You know, people travel from all over the world, and I'm going again in April for um uh market because you know they like the hey, this is what's new.
• 33:02
  Alphonso Buie: And whatever company you can think of, it's there.
• 33:06
  Alphonso Buie: If they sell furniture or if they've bought furniture to resell, it's happening there, you know.
• 33:13
  Jeanne: I've actually got them to ship some down to me um here in Florida.
• 33:17
  Jeanne: And I got some Alexander bed, I forgot the name of them.
• 33:21
  Jeanne: It was nice, but anyway, it was in their um their outlet, and I was like, she was walking through with her phone and showing me the furniture, and I'm like, I want that.
• 33:30
  Jeanne: And so I I was almost cheering when the truck came to my house.
• 33:35
  Jeanne: I'm like, yeah, this is my people.
• 33:38
  Jeanne: Anyway, yeah, I I go crazy and go into the furniture market, but I just don't have the cash.
• 33:43
  Jeanne: I mean, I'm not I'm not really got all that money to do all that.
• 33:46
  Jeanne: But anyway, so hey, it's getting time.
• 33:49
  Jeanne: I I think this has been fun because you are so good.
• 33:51
  Jeanne: I can't wait.
• 33:52
  Jeanne: I want you to write me if you go to Gale K.
• 33:54
  Jeanne: Because that Gale K.
• 33:55
  Jeanne: Oh.
• 33:56
  Alphonso Buie: Oh, yeah, you got to send send me in an email, you know, and I'm gonna go.
• 34:00
  Alphonso Buie: Because trust you, me, I'm always looking for fabric.
• 34:03
  Alphonso Buie: Because I make my own valence boxes sometimes.
• 34:05
  Alphonso Buie: So I was, and you know, that's I think it's something we've gotten away from.
• 34:08
  Jeanne: Oh, you make valances?
• 34:10
  Jeanne: Oh my gosh.
• 34:11
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:12
  Alphonso Buie: So I make a balance box.
• 34:14
  Alphonso Buie: Sometimes the curtain rod don't go with the design, so I was like, ah, this isn't, you know, elevated.
• 34:18
  Alphonso Buie: And so I was like, oh, I'm gonna create a balance box.
• 34:20
  Jeanne: Wow.
• 34:21
  Alphonso Buie: You know, and I'm pretty handy to where I can figure it out.
• 34:23
  Jeanne: Yeah, you're a cool guy to know.
• 34:25
  Jeanne: I'll have to have you down here.
• 34:28
  Jeanne: Can't fix my house.
• 34:29
  Jeanne: It's a mess.
• 34:30
  Jeanne: But um, anyway, and we want to play our two truths and a lie.
• 34:34
  Jeanne: So uh for everybody listening, our guest has provided us with two truths and a lie, or a twisted truth, or just an exaggeration.
• 34:43
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 34:44
  Jeanne: And so we're gonna go around, I'm gonna read the headlines and I'm gonna guess and which ones I think is the lie, and then he's gonna walk us through each story, and then at the end of that, he's gonna reveal what it is.
• 34:55
  Jeanne: This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts.
• 35:03
  Jeanne: Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, life can be different.
• 35:13
  Jeanne: Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story.
• 35:26
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• 36:02
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• 36:04
  Jeanne: So, Alfonso, here's your headlines.
• 36:10
  Jeanne: You lived in Beijing, China.
• 36:12
  Jeanne: Somewhere I heard something about that, so I might guess that one.
• 36:15
  Jeanne: Uh Alfonso was terminated based on a rumor that he attended the Renaissance Beyoncé concert.
• 36:22
  Jeanne: We might already know that one.
• 36:23
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 36:24
  Jeanne: And then you won one million off of penny slots.
• 36:27
  Jeanne: Oh man, I'm gonna guess that you did not get terminated because of Beyonce concert.
• 36:35
  Jeanne: I can't even believe that.
• 36:36
  Jeanne: I had somebody on the show, you will not believe this, that said they got a calling from God while at the Beyoncé concert.
• 36:44
  Jeanne: And I'm like, okay, I know he's everywhere, but what was he telling you?
• 36:52
  Alphonso Buie: I love Beyonce, she's a hard worker.
• 36:54
  Alphonso Buie: You know, if you go to one of her concerts, like, first of all, she's there, it's a three-hour party.
• 36:59
  Alphonso Buie: We're like, we're in this together, you know, and she'll go and she'll change and she'll change sets.
• 37:05
  Alphonso Buie: And I'm like, oh, not only that, when she has her concert, she's already building the sets for the other two concerts while she's at the current concert.
• 37:15
  Alphonso Buie: So she's making sure all that's getting done.
• 37:18
  Alphonso Buie: She has her outfits there already again.
• 37:21
  Alphonso Buie: And I was like, this woman works hard.
• 37:23
  Alphonso Buie: So I'm I'm a fan of her.
• 37:24
  Alphonso Buie: You know, I I really am a fan of her.
• 37:26
  Alphonso Buie: Like she has a business savvy to herself, and she puts she puts on a good show, you know.
• 37:31
  Jeanne: Well, for you as a designer, I know that's just really like it's eye candy to see her gowns.
• 37:36
  Jeanne: I mean, there are certain movies I'll watch over and over again because I just want to see what they're wearing, what the sets look like, and exactly.
• 37:44
  Alphonso Buie: You know, I'm just taking it all in.
• 37:46
  Alphonso Buie: I'm taking it all in.
• 37:47
  Jeanne: Yeah, that sounds good.
• 37:48
  Jeanne: So why were you terminated?
• 37:50
  Jeanne: Well, we skipped one.
• 37:51
  Jeanne: So you lived in Beijing, China.
• 37:53
  Jeanne: That was when you were doing what?
• 37:55
  Alphonso Buie: I was teaching business courses in Beijing.
• 37:58
  Alphonso Buie: So I was teaching at China Agricultural University.
• 38:01
  Jeanne: Did you know how to speak Chinese or Mandarin?
• 38:04
  Alphonso Buie: No, I don't know how to speak Mandarin at all.
• 38:06
  Alphonso Buie: Not at all.
• 38:07
  Alphonso Buie: So they they had to speak English in order to take my forces.
• 38:10
  Jeanne: Oh, and they probably did.
• 38:12
  Jeanne: We're the lazy ones over here.
• 38:14
  Jeanne: We don't know any languages as much as other people.
• 38:16
  Jeanne: Oh, wow.
• 38:19
  Jeanne: Okay, so that was fun.
• 38:20
  Jeanne: How did what was your favorite food over in Beijing?
• 38:23
  Alphonso Buie: Uh, so there was I fell in love with pork belly, believe it or not.
• 38:27
  Jeanne: What?
• 38:28
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's a southern thing, anyways.
• 38:31
  Alphonso Buie: It is, but they love, you know, a lot of the food was synonymous, believe it or not.
• 38:36
  Alphonso Buie: And so pork belly turned out to be one of my favorites.
• 38:39
  Alphonso Buie: They had this one cuisine called Hot Pot, my absolute favorite.
• 38:44
  Jeanne: Oh, they have hot pot restaurants here.
• 38:45
  Jeanne: I love them.
• 38:47
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, I love hot pot.
• 38:48
  Alphonso Buie: You like they have different broths and they you pick your meats and veggies and you put it in and you just eat and you I love hot pot.
• 38:55
  Jeanne: Don't you have one in Atlanta?
• 38:56
  Jeanne: You gotta have one up there.
• 38:57
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, we got a few here.
• 38:58
  Alphonso Buie: We got a few here.
• 39:00
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's good.
• 39:00
  Jeanne: I like those too.
• 39:02
  Jeanne: Um, I like it.
• 39:03
  Jeanne: That ours has this um conveyor belt.
• 39:05
  Jeanne: One of them has a conveyor belt that comes around, so your vegetables come by you.
• 39:10
  Jeanne: And so you're like, oh, here's some weird weed-looking thing.
• 39:15
  Alphonso Buie: It's probably lotus or dandelions.
• 39:18
  Jeanne: Yes, it is lotus.
• 39:18
  Jeanne: It is lotus leaf.
• 39:20
  Jeanne: That is exactly what it is, and I love that.
• 39:22
  Jeanne: I'm I'm crazy because it makes your soup even more peppery or whatever.
• 39:27
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 39:27
  Jeanne: It's it's crazy.
• 39:29
  Jeanne: All right.
• 39:29
  Jeanne: Well, so much for my food taste, but that we have a lot in common.
• 39:34
  Jeanne: So you'll do good.
• 39:35
  Jeanne: I'm there's one that's right down the road.
• 39:36
  Jeanne: So when you come to decorate my house, we'll just go.
• 39:39
  Alphonso Buie: Oh, look, we're speaking into existence.
• 39:41
  Alphonso Buie: I'm there.
• 39:41
  Jeanne: Yeah, exactly.
• 39:42
  Jeanne: Then I'm just gonna come visit you and go to Gale K.
• 39:44
  Jeanne: Uh, I need more money.
• 39:46
  Jeanne: All right, so why were you terminated because of Beyonce?
• 39:51
  Jeanne: I can't believe that.
• 39:52
  Alphonso Buie: Well, I was I'm terminated because of Beyonce.
• 39:54
  Jeanne: Yeah.
• 39:55
  Alphonso Buie: There was a coworker, she was just too invested in my life.
• 40:02
  Alphonso Buie: And so some people just can't mind their their business, for lack of better terms.
• 40:09
  Alphonso Buie: And some people, I think it was rooted in as long as you're around, I'm not successful.
• 40:16
  Alphonso Buie: And so some people are crabs in a barrel that way.
• 40:20
  Alphonso Buie: Whereas once again, I live in a realm of everybody can eat, you know, so I'm never going to hold you back.
• 40:28
  Alphonso Buie: If one of my part-time employees came to me and said, Hey, I want to start looking for another job, let me know.
• 40:33
  Alphonso Buie: I'll give you a letter of recommendation and let me know what I can help you with.
• 40:36
  Alphonso Buie: You know, I was I was that way when I was a restaurant manager.
• 40:39
  Alphonso Buie: I would find out what my my employees wanted to do, and I would invest in them, and in turn, they would invest in the company.
• 40:49
  Alphonso Buie: And so I had some of the better shifts because they knew I cared about them.
• 40:53
  Alphonso Buie: And so I think sometimes people fear that their light will be diminished if someone else's light exists, and that's just not true.
• 41:03
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's sad.
• 41:04
  Jeanne: But what what was wrong with you going to a concert?
• 41:07
  Jeanne: Was it during the day when you're supposed to be at work or something?
• 41:09
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 41:10
  Alphonso Buie: No, it was just it was made up.
• 41:12
  Alphonso Buie: So I went through a period in life where I was overwhelmed, and so for you know, in full transparency, I started having panic attacks and I had to take FMLA.
• 41:23
  Alphonso Buie: And so came up with this wild story that I wasn't, you know, that it was all a lie.
• 41:29
  Alphonso Buie: I was attending concerts and having fun and you know, all this other stuff.
• 41:34
  Jeanne: Oh, okay.
• 41:35
  Jeanne: That's what her stuff was rooted in something.
• 41:38
  Alphonso Buie: Her info was, yeah.
• 41:40
  Jeanne: Yeah, but I hey you have like some issues that you want to just take a break, and then what does the concert have to do with uh that's just crazy.
• 41:48
  Alphonso Buie: Exactly.
• 41:49
  Jeanne: You should be able to have fun too.
• 41:51
  Alphonso Buie: And then the the crazy part, I took FMLA in September.
• 41:53
  Alphonso Buie: The concert was in August.
• 41:55
  Alphonso Buie: Oh, you pulled them all here.
• 41:57
  Jeanne: Yeah, but still, a concert.
• 41:59
  Jeanne: Come on, it's music, it can it's relaxing.
• 42:01
  Jeanne: You need the like when you're having trauma, you need that outlet.
• 42:05
  Alphonso Buie: So Right, you know, I think people have this misconception of what healing and therapy looks like.
• 42:12
  Alphonso Buie: It's different for every person.
• 42:13
  Alphonso Buie: Right, yeah, you know, and so it can be a duality.
• 42:17
  Alphonso Buie: It's part relaxing, it's part just getting out and just being you.
• 42:22
  Alphonso Buie: And I think if well, the way in which I see it, the more a person can really just be themselves, the more grounded people can be.
• 42:32
  Alphonso Buie: And with all the chaos going on in the world, we need to be as much grounded as possible.
• 42:37
  Jeanne: Well, something like this has got like emotions and makes you happy and could be a de-stressor, right?
• 42:42
  Jeanne: That's a totally different than if you say, Oh, I need FMLA because I hurt my leg and I can't walk.
• 42:49
  Jeanne: I'm almost crippled, I'm gonna be in a wheelchair.
• 42:52
  Jeanne: And then they're bungee jumping down or they're skydiving down at that thing over by Top Golf down here in Jacksonville.
• 42:59
  Jeanne: I forgot the name of it.
• 43:01
  Jeanne: But anyway, you know, that's a little bit different, but okay.
• 43:04
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah.
• 43:05
  Alphonso Buie: Well, I was totally vindicated from that, you know, to that situation.
• 43:09
  Alphonso Buie: I'll say everything was supposed to happen the way it happened, because I I'm in a great space right now.
• 43:14
  Jeanne: Oh, that's good.
• 43:15
  Jeanne: That's really good.
• 43:16
  Jeanne: Well, so did you win a million off of penny slots?
• 43:19
  Jeanne: Uh, tell us about that.
• 43:22
  Alphonso Buie: So the the funny thing is there are pennies just everywhere.
• 43:26
  Alphonso Buie: So I just I started collecting them.
• 43:27
  Alphonso Buie: Because you know, there was, oh, there's a penny shortage.
• 43:30
  Alphonso Buie: And so anytime I saw a penny, I just pick it up and I put it in a jar.
• 43:32
  Alphonso Buie: I said, I wonder how many pennies I could collect.
• 43:34
  Alphonso Buie: And and so once I had this huge jar of pennies, I was like, okay, I gotta get rid of them.
• 43:39
  Alphonso Buie: And so my buddy was going to Atlantic City, and I was like, Oh, I haven't been there in a while.
• 43:44
  Alphonso Buie: I got all these pennies, I'll just join you and play the penny slots.
• 43:47
  Alphonso Buie: So we took a road trip up to Atlantic City and played the penny slots, and so and he was so angry because he plays the lottery and penny slots and stuff all the time, and so the one time I played.
• 43:59
  Alphonso Buie: It because I never do.
• 44:01
  Alphonso Buie: I win a million dollars.
• 44:02
  Alphonso Buie: And he's like, I can't believe this happened.
• 44:04
  Alphonso Buie: I said, Me either.
• 44:06
  Alphonso Buie: So here we are now.
• 44:10
  Jeanne: Oh, that's amazing.
• 44:11
  Jeanne: Well, that's a good start to your business.
• 44:14
  Alphonso Buie: Okay.
• 44:14
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, right, right, right.
• 44:15
  Alphonso Buie: Absolutely.
• 44:16
  Jeanne: Well, I guess two.
• 44:18
  Jeanne: So which is the lie?
• 44:19
  Alphonso Buie: The lie is three.
• 44:21
  Jeanne: Oh.
• 44:21
  Jeanne: Well, your friend wasn't too mad at you then.
• 44:24
  Jeanne: Now, did he win it?
• 44:30
  Alphonso Buie: No, no, no, no, not at all.
• 44:33
  Alphonso Buie: But it was a it was a fun trip, needless to say.
• 44:35
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's a problem with me, is like, uh, oh, that'd be so fun to put a quarter in and then win a bunch of money.
• 44:40
  Jeanne: But I don't gamble.
• 44:42
  Alphonso Buie: So me neither, you know.
• 44:44
  Jeanne: I I wouldn't be seeing that happening to me.
• 44:47
  Alphonso Buie: So I'm like, all right, I spent $100, I'm done.
• 44:49
  Jeanne: Yeah, I yeah, I think I had like $20 limit in Vegas, but I was just like, I can't just do that.
• 44:55
  Alphonso Buie: I'm just not no fun.
• 44:56
  Alphonso Buie: I'm gonna do everything but gamble when I go.
• 44:59
  Jeanne: Yeah, I'm not that much gamble uh gambler.
• 45:02
  Jeanne: Well, hey, Alfonso, this has been so fantastic to have you on the show.
• 45:07
  Jeanne: And I know people are gonna want to get in touch with you in this airs.
• 45:11
  Jeanne: And so I provided down here the ways they can.
• 45:14
  Jeanne: And one thing that you did tell me was I asked you for a quote and you told me do it right or don't do it at all.
• 45:20
  Jeanne: So you want to say anything about that?
• 45:22
  Alphonso Buie: Well, that's just what I I believe in, you know, especially when I'm when I'm working on someone's home, you know, I take it really seriously because you live there, you know, and you don't want anything to necessarily be out of place because it can mess with your psyche, you know, just that one off thing.
• 45:38
  Alphonso Buie: And so I always encourage, especially other designers, you know, people are a bit OCD about their homes because that's their space, that's where you have total control.
• 45:48
  Alphonso Buie: And then so here I come in as a designer taking your daily routine out of order, so you know, because sometimes you have kids and kids are on a regimen, right?
• 45:59
  Alphonso Buie: And so if I do something incorrectly, it just ruins everything else.
• 46:03
  Alphonso Buie: And so I don't want to come in someone's home and mess with their their Zen to where they they just don't feel at home.
• 46:12
  Alphonso Buie: And so if I can't do it, I'll find somebody who can do it.
• 46:16
  Alphonso Buie: Oh, because once again, do it right and don't do it at all.
• 46:19
  Jeanne: Yeah, I like that.
• 46:20
  Jeanne: I wish my builder had said that.
• 46:22
  Jeanne: We're still putting down molding down the bottom, shoe penny molding, or what is that, shoe molding?
• 46:30
  Alphonso Buie: Oh boy.
• 46:31
  Jeanne: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:32
  Jeanne: You can't catch those on a walkthrough.
• 46:34
  Jeanne: It's like, I didn't see that.
• 46:36
  Alphonso Buie: You know what?
• 46:36
  Alphonso Buie: My friends love bringing me on a walkthrough because I I've Oh yeah.
• 46:42
  Alphonso Buie: I was like, well, what about this?
• 46:44
  Alphonso Buie: And this this is in sealed and and this isn't tight, you know.
• 46:48
  Alphonso Buie: Yeah, wow.
• 46:49
  Alphonso Buie: Really take the time, you know.
• 46:51
  Alphonso Buie: I think when you're having a walkthrough, you're so excited.
• 46:54
  Alphonso Buie: You really have to calm down and just really change your mindset.
• 46:59
  Alphonso Buie: And I always say, bring somebody with you.
• 47:01
  Alphonso Buie: There, they never wanted you to bring anyone with you.
• 47:03
  Alphonso Buie: Bring somebody with you.
• 47:04
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's true.
• 47:05
  Jeanne: Good advice.
• 47:06
  Jeanne: Well, here's uh ways you can contact Alfonso, and then I'll have these links, and his call to action is let's figure out how we can get you into a place of peace.
• 47:17
  Jeanne: So that sounds good.
• 47:18
  Jeanne: You need to reach out to him.
• 47:20
  Jeanne: All this information will be in the transcripts and in the show notes, and it'll get posted.
• 47:26
  Jeanne: But at the same time, I just want to thank you so much for being on the show and you know, sharing with us, you know, what you've come through and what you do.
• 47:36
  Jeanne: And I wish you all the best.
• 47:38
  Alphonso Buie: Thank you so much.
• 47:39
  Alphonso Buie: I really appreciate it.
• 47:41
  Jeanne: Thank you.
• 47:41
  Jeanne: And for those listening, as always, I hope you tune in next week for another uh astounding guest.
• 47:47
  Jeanne: And until then, from your Admiral of the Unexpected, I wish you all smooth sailing.
• 47:53
  Jeanne: Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real.
• 48:01
  Jeanne: If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew.
• 48:06
  Jeanne: Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck.
• 48:09
  Jeanne: I'm Jeannee Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected.
• 48:13
  Jeanne: See you on the next voyage.