July 11, 2023 • 54 mins
Cheri used to be gripped by meth and alcohol. Even during her own struggles with addiction, she helped formerly incarcerated Americans get jobs. Today, Cheri’s been sober for 4.5 years and her second chance staffing agency Cornbread Hustle hired more than 1,000 returning citizens last year.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey guys, it's Bill Courtney again with an army of
normal folks. Let's continue with part three of our conversation
with Sherry Garcia of corn Bread Hustle. Right after these
brief messages from our generous sponsors, we now returned to
(00:29):
Sherry on our volunteer work that led to corn Bread Hustle.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So I became Oprah and I was going from transitional
health to transition house. You get a job, you get
a job, you get a job.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So you just were going to transition houses making people
get jobs. Yeah, but you're not being paid for this?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
No, because it was so fun.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
But what are you getting paid to do at this time?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
At that time, I was just doing pr and barely
making it.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So you're basically starving and spending all your time, Yeah,
helping all these And.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
At this point I was a true alcoholic at this.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Point, this time, you're drinking all day.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Every day, but giving people jobs. I was very function
I was still like, do.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You think these guys smelled alcoholic?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Oh, they knew I was drinking. They didn't care I
was helping them.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Uh, I guess not.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They thought I was a funny girl, you know, so
they didn't care.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Plus I was sick of the sushi, like anybody would be.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, I will tell you, well, you know what both
of them, both guys that I'm thinking of right now,
that we had sushi, they still to this day do
love sushi. Manjie and Bennie. I'm talking to you. But anyway,
they grew to like it. But yeah, at first it.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Was Benny, you can tell her the truth. Now Benny
hates sushi, trust me. So you start going to Halfway
House just helping people.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I was like, so, what's your dream? What's your dream?
What's your dream? Google? And so one morning I woke
up and I was just laying in my bed hungover,
which was every morning, and I was just like, oh,
I don't have money. I'm broke. And I was like,
I need a job. And I was like, why don't
I give myself. I could give myself a job if
(02:21):
I can give all these other people their dream jobs.
And so, since I was so fulfilled by it and
so passionate, I was like this, I need to figure
out a way to monetize this. Now A lot of
people ask why didn't you make it a nonprofit? I
would not know how to run a nonprofit. I can sell,
it's just it's not I can sell ketchup to a
lady wearing.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
But what's wrong with having a profitable entity that also
helps people? Nothing?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Nothing, nothing at all.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I would be completely unapologetic about that. That's just how
you roll.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So fine. I couldn't, like, I don't know how to
ask somebody for money and not say here's something in return.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Well, I mean you did. You made the tako and
that made no money, so true, maybe you learn from that.
So you're laying in bed, you're broke, You've been helping
all these people, and you say, I guess where your
head is? A staff come?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
So I said, what how do I monetize this? And
I went to Google, just like I suggested to all
these other guys and girls, and I typed in how
to start a staffing agency? And I literally read the
steps that wiki how said that's it, And I started there.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And you start a staffing company from what the top
Google search told you to do?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Wiki how week how?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Of course?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, literatting me right, No I'm not. And everybody that
comes to me and says, hey, can I pick your brain?
Or how do I do this? And I tell them
the wiki how, and I'm sure that they're like, that's rude. No,
I did it, you can do it. Read the wiki?
How is that how you even say it?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
We can? When? What now? I? You need? This is
six six years ago?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And every step on the wiki how. By the way,
I had to google again, like it said step one,
you're gonna need a factoring company. You can't afford this,
And I was like, Google, what's a factoring company? And
then I was reading blogs on what factory and even means?
I'm like, oh, so they front you money, you know,
like I had to think, like in drug dealing terms,
like you're just getting fronted what you need until you
(04:26):
get paid and can pay it back. Okay, so how
this is six years That was six years ago?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Okay, so six years ago? You start a staffing company
for I guess specifically to help people that have been.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Incarcerating second chance staffing AGENTSY a.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Second chance staffing agency that you wiki howed to get started?
And you first year, how many people do you place?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So I don't remember how many people I placed my
first year. I know I made several placements, but it
was kind of like the luminous envy thing I was
trying to like I was the first person to come
out and be like, Hey, you want to hire somebody
with a felony conviction and pay me money? People were like,
how about I just do you a favor and hire
(05:21):
somebody with a felony conviction. Isn't that enough? So I
was doing it for free for the first year and
trying to prove the model work. Yeah, prove it out
and try to like and you remember, I'm a pr person,
so I had to get some people working to use
those success stories to get on the news.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Okay, that's seed money. I don't know what you call
it in meth world, but you're I get it.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
But basically, my first few years of growing corn bread hustle,
I didn't make a dime because I was spending it
on alcohol. Even if I did make the money, and
I wasn't running the business the way I wasn't. And
I don't know if you've ever struggled with anything that
(06:05):
had you in its grips, I know you're a business
owner if you've ever dealt with something that's really, really,
really difficult in your life and you're just like I
just you're just not at I was operating at like
twenty percent, Sherry, I get it.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I'm what were some staffing agencies provide workers at a
forty percent markup? Yes, I do that, okay, and some
provide people for a fee to hire.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I do both of those.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So and I show you're both a headhunter and a
staffing agency. Yes, right, yes, So at first were you
headhunting or staffing or both both? And you were proving
the model but not really worried about profits because you
were you had to get you had to have story to.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Tell, and it was so hard because workmen's think about
the insurance on business.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Kidding, That's why I was asking head hunting, you don't
have to have workers com exactly you're doing.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Here's another big I wish we could have like a
Dan tip for entrepreneurs. My mistakes here. It is my ego,
I go big or go home. I wanted to do
it all big. I wanted to have the workman's comp
I wanted to have the insurance. I wanted to be
the big staffing agency. So I tell anybody wanting to
(07:29):
get into this business, be a headhunter, have no overhead,
get some money in the bank, have anest.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Can then do the staffing.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Come on, but no, my ego every single time. So
I was in debt to my Workmen's comp insurance just
about every month. Imagine going and.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
What kind of markup were you putting on the staffing?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
At first it's forty.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
You were doing forty forty makes sense. Why weren't you
able to make money? You didn't have an volume.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I didn't have enough volume. You gotta have enough volume
to all the cost. Yeah, and now looking so I
did it my very first go at it, my first
couple of hires, now that you're reminding me, I bet
the guys that said yes and signed the contractor, but
they were like, what a steal? I was just charging
a couple of dollars more, Yeah, an hour, and then.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
It really covered your expenses on workers car.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Well, I didn't even have workmen's comp yet. So I
ended up learning that I could end up losing everything
if I don't get workmen's comp. So I was like, crap,
Well I got to get Workmen's Comp.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
And then after literally rolling the dice.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I was I didn't know, I know, I get it.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah, it happened to wiki whatever it's called. They didn't
tell you about.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That part they probably did, and I probably said, well,
it's not Uh, it wasn't against the law in Texas
not to have workmen's comp So I was like, live
on the edge. I'm a wild child right now, I
will pay act. My biggest expense is insurance. My biggest
expense in my company is insurance, just so I can
(09:05):
sleep at night.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So I get the first year, yep, tell me about
the growth.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So I end up in twenty seventeen getting that DWI
as the founder and CEO of Cornbread Hustle.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
That is second year in business.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Third that would be the second year in business.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And that's not good for your business plan.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You know. I was in the backseat of the cop
car and I was like, bad PR, this isn't good.
Like I don't know how to spend.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
This night what I would have been thinking about. But
I get that now having been with you for an hour,
bad PR. Yeah, what about the fact that you are
going to jail.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Oh I've been so many times. I knew the process well.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And you might be able to recruit while you're there.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, And honestly I would. I felt invincible. I felt
like because I had a DWI before and I was
under twenty one, I blew over and I took it
to trial and I won. So I just had it
in my mind.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
It was probably a bad thing. Frankly, it emboldened you.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I know, but the judge was trying to do a
good thing. He didn't want to He knew I wanted
to be a news reporter and he didn't want it
to hold me back. I wasn't even twenty one yet,
and he was like, all right, so.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
This one then your second year of cornbrad hustle. You're
in the back of a cop car. Would you blow there?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Oh? I don't remember what exactly I blew, but it
was enough to make it a misdemeanor A instead of
a misdemeanor B meaning bad bad.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah. So did you spend time in jail?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Oh? I was out pretty quick. Just I got bailed
out really fast.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
But what was you to the penalty?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I did get convicted, even though I was just sure
that I wouldn't. Until I saw the video. I was
like my even my attorney was like, yeah, we're not
going to take this to trial. I was like, yeah,
is that bad? Yeah, you're wasted. Yeah. So I was like, okay,
let's take a plea, So I ended up taking a
plea that brought it down to a misdemeanor bee which
(11:17):
made the punishment less which were able to drive anymore? Breathalyzer?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
The thing I had to blow into my car?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Just don't act like everybody listening to us has any
idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
How does the whole world not know what a breathalyzer is?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Because the whole world is not an alcoholic and been
a methadict since they were a junior in high school.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Sure, okay, a breathalyzer is a device, a deep lung device.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Oh, when you hear breath liser, most people think that's
what cops make you blow in if you get pulled over.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Oh, well, they make you have one to start your car.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Right, So this thing they hook up to your car
and you got to blow in it, and if you
blow high enough, you can't even start your car, and
you go to jail because they know, yeah, it records.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, and now they've added cameras because they knew people
would just have someone else blow for them.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
So this thing's in your car. So now if you're
going to get around and even try to run your business.
You can't drink.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Is that what made you quit?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
It was so hard? Well, I did not quit for
a whole year, So the breathalyzer did. I am a
huge I'm a huge fan of breathalyzers, as inconvenient as
they are, especially in the heat of the summer, where
you got to sit there and huff and puff and try,
and it's not easy to get that thing to go off.
You're sweating in your car trying to trying to blow
(12:42):
into that deep lung device, or in the cold every
second counts, whenever it's one hundred and ten degrees in Texas.
But I am a big fan of it because what
it made me I I wasn't willing to quit drinking.
I still didn't think I had a problem. I didn't
tell anyone I the arrest, it didn't get out, nobody knew.
(13:03):
I felt like, I don't know. I wasn't ever going
to tell anybody, and I was like, well, everyone drinks
and drives. I just got caught, and it's unfortunate that
I'm CEO corn Broad Hustle. That's not good. But let's
just do yeah, let's just sweep this under the rug
and hope you know, I live happily ever after. But
having that breathalyzer in my car and trying to make
(13:25):
alcohol work for me and time, I was timing my
drinks like I mean, man, I was using science to
try to figure out how many drinks I could have
and how long I had to sleep until I could
get up and blow into the breathalyzer. And there were
times that I'd drink a little too much the night
before and have to get an UBER even though my
(13:45):
card declined and I couldn't even get an uber to
get to a meeting. So I was really starting to
realize how alcohol.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Was dominating every piece of your life, every.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Piece in my life. I was trying to find a
way to make it work, and so there were I
have a in my journal. There's many times that I
attempted to quit drinking publicly, not even like forever though,
I you know me, I'm a pr person. So I
tried to coin the hashtag sobriety ninety and I was
(14:18):
trying to say, like, okay, ninety days of sobriety, and
that was me not acknowledging or admitting I'm an alcoholic yet,
but truly on the inside wanting to quit, and so
same thing with meth. I'd go a little while without
alcohol and then drink and then it was horrible or
(14:39):
I'd have some consequence, whether it.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Be a I do have a friend that was an
alcoholic and he would quit, but then when he would
start back up, it was one drink and that turned
into a hundred. Yeah. Is that how it was?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah? Yeah, one is too many and one thousand isn't enough.
It is basically how it is for an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
That's got to be a torment it is.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Thanks for the reminder.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Sorry, it's okay, but I'm hearing your story, and I mean,
I'm starting to empathize with how hard that must have
been for you.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Think about how hard it is for like like happy
hours and working in a company, especially for people who
remain anonymous and who suffer in silence. I shared my
story out loud to be free of it. But there's
a lot of people suffering in silence like I was.
I was successful. I'm using air quotes because you know,
(15:37):
you knew my float didn't make any money. But I
was on the Steve Harvey Show, I invented a product,
I was in the newsroom, I was vice president of
a PR firm.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, you're figuring it out. You were successful.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, I lived in a high rise. I had a
CTSB Cadillac like room room around the city I was.
I was a socialite.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
A Cadillac had this quo breath liser in it special
at on.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
That sucked. Yeah, but yes, you know what really sucked
where I really knew that I had a problem my
car with the breathalyzer every single month was about to
get repod And if my car got repolled, then I'm
going to jail because there went my breathalyzer. Wow. Yeah,
So I just I had really not come to a
(16:25):
point where I could admit my life was unmanageable.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
What happened is I just I was on probation, trying
to pay probation fees, had no money, trying to run
this company. I remember once going to a recovery meeting
air Quotes to support someone else who was trying to
be sober, because I was holier than that. So looking back,
like me starting this company was just me trying to
(17:13):
fix other people to avoid fixing myself and to feel
better about my own situation. It was easy for me
to help people who were lower than me. Coming out
of prison, I was like, oh, I help you, I'm awesome.
But and it was to avoid my own problems. And
so having that breathalyzer and being on probation and trying
(17:35):
to get sober made me realize that I had done
this all wrong, and the only way to really do
this is to change on the inside out, not from
the outside in, not to seek validation. I was like
a piggy bank with a little bit of money. I
made a lot of noise. I really had nothing. All
I was doing was making noise. So Christmas comes along,
(18:00):
and my family they drink during Christmas. We always have,
and so they were like, Cherry, you've had a hard year.
Like I blamed everything on entrepreneurship. I was at that
recovery meeting and I was sharing with everyone like I
have nothing because I've tried to help all these people
and build this company. All my money's gone to this company.
I have nothing. And they're like, and I was like,
(18:21):
I gave up everything for my company as an entrepreneur,
you guys know how it is. And one person was like,
you gave up everything, huh. And they're like, what about alcohol,
and that was like one of those little seeds. Like
even though I was like whatever, that stuck with me.
I even remember getting in my car and driving home
and looking in the passenger seat. I'm homeless at this point,
(18:44):
by the way, And when I say homeless, like I
never had to deal with real homelessness. I always had
friends that let me stay on their couches, so I
was CouchSurfing, but I did not have a place on
my own, and all my items were in my car,
and I look in my passenger seat and I see
a little four pack of the little wines and I
was like, I really have given up everything but alcohol
(19:06):
and so but I didn't stop there. I was like,
oh well, and kept going on with my life. But
on Christmas, my family was like, you've had a hard year.
Just park your car. Because I had the breathalyser still,
They're like, park your car down the street, just enjoy yourself.
Kick back. I remember something was different that day. I
knew I was trying to control my alcohol, like desperately
(19:28):
wanted to drink like a normal person. So I got
a twelve pack of Topo Chico and I got to
handle the Tito's and I was like, I'm gonna drink
Topo Chico in between my Tito's and so I did that,
and at the end of the night, everyone in the
family was pretty drunk, and I felt sober, and I
drank all twelve bottles of the Topo Chico. I felt
(19:50):
so in control. I was on cloud nine. And I
remember I got this. You know those Chinese gift exchanges
that people play, So I got this jellyfish thing. It's
like a lava lamp, but there's jellyfish in it instead.
And I was by myself. It was like three in
the morning. I was the last one to go to sleep.
I looked at them and I named them Kirby and Oscar.
(20:12):
I said, Kirby Oscar, if I wake up tomorrow and
I remember your names and I'm not hungover, I beat it.
I don't have a problem. So I went to bed.
I woke up, and the second I opened my eyes,
I had anxiety. And I was like, what the heck.
So of course, I'm like, well, maybe alcohol is just
(20:34):
not good. Maybe I have a chemical imbalance. It's just
not good for me. Like I just didn't understand why
it was giving me anxiety, And so I was just
tired of it. I was tired of making it fit
for my life. I was tired of trying to get
around the breathalyzer. I was tired of it running my life.
And now it's given me anxiety, like it stopped doing
what it's supposed to be doing. It was supposed to
make me relax. Now it gives me anxiety. And that's
(20:57):
usually what happens with any drug or substances. Works until
it doesn't. And so I was the first one awake,
and I shuffled out into the kitchen and I sat
down and I looked at that jellyfish thing, and I said,
Kirby Oscar, I think I'm done drinking. And you know,
I told the family that morning that I thought, and
(21:17):
they've seen my sobriety ninety and all that. They were like, cool,
good for you, Yeah, you want a mimosa. And I
really didn't know that morning that I wouldn't drink again,
because if I would have, I would have got drunk
on I would have at least went in. I would
have like took shots and not went to bed sober.
(21:39):
If I knew it was going to be my last time.
But about a week goes by and New Year's Eve
comes around. I'm the girl, you know, non traditional, So
of all my alcoholism, I never drink on New Year's
Eve because I was like amateurs, you know, like it
was the one day that I was going to set
my year with intention. But because I hadn't drank since
(22:03):
Christmas Day, hard day for me, and because I felt
like I couldn't but wanted it, so I decided to
go to church. I had no interest in church whatsoever.
I just needed to not be in the house. I
had a really hard time when I first got sober,
those hours from five pm and nine pm. What am
I gonna do? So I was like church, they won't
(22:25):
serve alcohol, They're boring. So I'll go to church. They'll
have music, maybe they'll have food. It's New Year's Eve.
I was just going for free entertainment and free food.
And so I go into the church and I didn't
understand worship. I felt like, man, these people. First of all,
(22:46):
I drove into the parking lot and the parking lot
was full. It was absolutely full, And I was like,
why does this many people want to come to church
on New Year's Eve? Like I'm here because I have
a problem. How do people want to be here?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And so I did share news flash everybody has problems.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Oh that's another news flash for today. Yeah. So I
go and I stand there and everyone has their hands
in the air they're worshiping, and I was like, man,
these people must really need something to believe in bad
because I didn't understand worship, just didn't get it. I
(23:24):
knew that there was probably a god. Really, there was
a God for me if it was convenient for me.
If I was hanging out with an atheist, I'd be like, yeah,
probably not. If I'm hanging out with a believer, I'm
like yeah probably. That's how I was about the God thing,
indifferent unless I was desperate. So a song comes on though,
and it was come Alive, Dry Bones, and it was
(23:45):
talking about dry bones. And I always hear I always
heard people talk about the Holy Spirit, but I experienced it.
Tears just came down my face and I felt this
feeling inside like I'm dead inside, I'm I have dry bones,
like I didn't even realize it. And just something happened
(24:06):
that night and the pastor gets up and he was like, hey, everyone,
this is really random, and my wife is gonna kill me,
and my staff is going to kill me. But the
Holy Spirit just led me to say something crazy, Let's
have church every day for the next seven days to
really set the year off right. And so I was like,
(24:29):
that is crazy, that's a bit much. But I said
to myself, but that's seven more days sober. And so
I went to church every day for seven days, and
somebody gifted me a Bible, and I guess there was
another holy spirit moment where I was up doing my
hair getting ready for work, and something told me to
(24:52):
go look in my Bible. And it was like a
serious tug to go look in the Bible. And I
was like, I literally I was about to start like googling,
like hearing things after alcoholism. It was very powerful. And
I walked into my bedroom and saw that my Bible
wasn't there, and then I walked back into the bathroom
(25:13):
because I was like, I'm not going downstairs. But the
voice got louder and it was more aggressive, and so
I was like fine. I walked downstairs, literally in my towel,
my hair half wet, and I said, God, if you're there,
because I felt like I felt like a crazy person.
I said, if I I did the whole New Christian thing.
(25:33):
If I open up this Bible and whatever I point to,
if you're talking to me, I'm gonna know it. And
let's just settle this once and for all. Show me
that you're real. And so I opened up the Bible
and I closed my eyes and I pointed my finger,
and I looked down and it was Proverbs twenty and
it said wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler,
(25:55):
and whoever is led by it is astray. And I
was so angry. I threw my Bible at the wall
and I started crying and almost like help me, then,
help me, just help me then, because I was crying
in gas station parking lots, trying not to go in
(26:15):
and drink. And of course it was hard, it was
hard to stay sober. But God carried me since then,
and I never missed a Sunday of church unless I'm sick,
of course or whatever. But I never missed a Sunday
of church since then. I've been in the Word every
morning since then. And God, just like it says in
(26:36):
Romans twelve, completely transformed my mind and my heart. Like
in my sleep every single night would go in and
like do surgery in my heart and my brain, and
I'd wake up a different person every single day, and
it's unexplainable. And I started leading people the way I
(26:57):
needed to be led what I needed, and I kept
I was telling people sorry, and I've I've set the
path the wrong way. Like, it's not about success, it's
not about money. It's about the inside. It's about who
you are on the inside. It's about finding that peace.
It's about healing these wounds. It's about recognizing your triggers
(27:19):
and toxic relationships and so cornbread hustle. I was about
a year sober, a hard year, Like just because you
get sober doesn't mean the consequences go away. One day
I walked out in the church parking lot and I
was so I started crying so hard because I was like,
how is my car gonna get repolled from church?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Like I was so upset and I get repaid from church?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Dude. I got on the phone, I'm crying to my friend.
I'm like, my car from church? How do I get?
I get? This is how God thanks me. My car
gets repolled. And then I walked around the corner. I
just forgot where I part.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
So I was like hard, but yeah, I still had
to face the consequences of not having money and getting
my life together while trying to get sober, while navigating
all these feelings.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
While trying to get this SPECIs going.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
While trying to keep the business alive and get it going. Yes,
horrible again, Like would I change anything? No? Would I
go live it again? Kill me? I don't want to
live it again.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
So I was one year sober, and it was let's
see twenty nineteen, because I got sober Christmas Day. I
got sober Christmas Day of twenty eighteen, so it was
twenty twenty. I was one year sober. Remember what happened
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Covid uh huh? So where everybody's sitting around in their
house drinking because I got nothing else to do.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yeah, I bet that was fun for you, so much fun.
But it actually I got to use my thriving chaos
resilience skills and traits that I have because when I
kept hearing on the news that everyone's going to lose
(29:44):
their jobs and I just finally made it to break even.
I probably had twenty employees. I just made it to
break even. I was like, there's no way. The disease
of alcoholism and addiction almost took me out. I'm not
letting a virus take me out. Uh uh not? After
I got one year sober, So I went to Google,
you know, my friend Google, and I looked up every
(30:08):
single thing that I possibly could about killing the coronavirus
and what type of disinfectant. I know everything about disinfectant.
It's wild, like which like if you you should get
lysol instead of chlorox And I got electro what was
it electrostatic?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, electrostatic machines.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I bought those like I was in a hurry to
get everything that I needed. I bought hazmat suits and
I put out an email blast to all twenty of
my employees and I was like, fear not, we are
gonna work. Are y'all in? And they're like yeah. I
was like, we have to. We gotta figure it out.
(30:48):
And I wasn't gonna turn.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Around if y'all don't work. My car is getting repoked
from church. We gotta work.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
We're gonna work.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
And so work or I'm can you all sushi?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
So well, yeah, we won't be able to. So I
created CBH disinfecting dot com and just use the people
that I was placing for the staffing agency to be available.
I trained them like everything. We had Osha come in.
We did everything to like really so.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Use your staffing agency. Did then go do disinfectant on companies?
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yes, And because because everybody was so afraid of coronavirus,
like deathly afraid of it, Like it's in the air
and if it touches you, you might like evaporate. Like
remember how scared people were of it. Yeah, we weren't.
We're like, oh, well, we're gonna die if we don't
have jobs. Like I had been through so much like whatever,
(31:48):
Like I'll wear the hazmat suit. I was literally cleaning
toilets in a hazmat suit to get corn bread hustle
to where it's at today.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
The joys of ownership and if you are eighty five
percent of startups in the United States are bankrupt within
the first thirty six months. The success rate of businesses
is in the fifteen to twenty percent sustained businesses. And
(32:22):
in my book, I talk about the value of hard
work and the difficulty of starting a business. But what
you just said, I've done the same thing here in
my business. I have done whatever I had to do legally, morally, ethically,
but beyond that, whatever I had to do. And we're
(32:46):
going to find out in a second, how many people
you have on the payroll this year, but only two
years ago you were cleaning toilets and a hazmat suit
and somebody else's office just to keep your business afloat
two years ago. And how many people did you place
this year?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We're at about a thousand people a year now. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Do you know how phenomenal that story is? Do you
really get it? I know you're living it.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I am.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
You had twenty people and hasmat suit washing toilets two
years ago, and these thousand people are one hundred percent
x fos.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Most of them. We don't discriminate. We don't tell you
go rob a bank and come back and see.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It, okay, but the vast majority of them are. And
your entire start came.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
From everything what I just told you, I laid it
all out.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, came from helping Benny.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Uh huh. Yeah. So guess what happened during the month
of like, during that first month of us doing disinfecting,
what we made one hundred thousand dollars because essential businesses
were so afraid to not be in production that they
were going to do whatever it took, and we were
in high demand, and nobody else was crazy enough to
(34:06):
risk their life like my family. They were like, Sherry,
you don't need to risk your damn life over money,
and I was like, it's not for money, it's for
my business. It's for the people that I gave hope
to and gave jobs to. I have to do this.
If I die, I die, I die doing what I love.
I'm gonna die regardless. Because if I knew that, if
(34:28):
COVID took me out after that hard first year of
getting sober, I don't know if I would have stayed sober,
I would have been like, you know what, this is
for the birds. So I just knew I had to
do what I had to do. So we made a
hundred k in how many months? In that one month?
Speaker 1 (34:44):
One month?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, yeah, we generated one hundred k. So it was
an oil filled paid us a lot of money to
go all the way out to Midland to keep the
oil filled.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Going because they were quote essential yeah yeah, and all
Field can afford to pay whatever to some people. And
ask my suits to clean the toilet. Yeah, and we
did it because everybody knows that COVID was living in
the toilets.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Well, the toilets were one of the areas we had
to clean. I got to clean desks too, but toilets
was the more traumatizing.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Imagine.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
But that one hundred thousand dollars that did was allow
me to stop doing side pr gigs. I was straddling,
like I was trying to you.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
You were able to walk away and put your whole
time and all my time.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
And then corn Bread Hustle And then this is the
part that I wish I could take credit for and
that I wish that it was strategic on my part,
but I was just as surprised as anybody else in
my company. But our phone started ringing off the hook.
This is where I almost start to cry again, because
it's all God, our phones were ringing off the hook.
And corn Bread Hustle became the staffing agency that every
(35:55):
company needed to come to because everybody was on unemployment.
And guess who is not eligible for unemployment People coming
out of prison because they have no work history. Yeah,
so my company did a million dollars that year.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, and now You're off to the races.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
And then five million the next year.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, that is a phenomenal story.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
I'm not as profitable as I'd like to be, but
the profit margins are better than the taco.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Sherry it is. I mean, I am. I'm honestly. Every
single time I sit down across the table from someone
and we start talking about an army of normal folks
and we dive into people's lives and what they've done,
the stories are always phenomenal, but yours as crazy. You
(36:58):
were a I mean, it seems like a B movie
that was done for less than a million dollars, But
like the meth cheerleader chick movie. I mean, you kicked meth,
you kicked alcohol. You overcame your demons about not going
(37:19):
to college and being successful in all of that, And
in the middle of all of it, you decided you
were going to volunteer to help some felons. And a
guy named Benny who you don't know from Adam. You
google it up. He now owns his own sign company
and is making six figures. And in the middle of
all of it, you found faith. You kicked a meth habit,
(37:43):
you kicked an alcohol habbit. And now you employ a
thousand people in a business doing five million dollars.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
This year, I only did three. We had a bad year,
but just for transparency reasons.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
It doesn't matter. It's still a phenomenal, amazing store. Worry
and how old are you?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Thirty six? So I just turned thirty six.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
We'll be right back. We can do next year. Please
don't say more tacos, because that's not no more tacos.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
But I did develop a twelve week starting over program
where it's me talking directly across from a camera for
literally seven hours and I'm talking. It's like I am
sitting right there with you, sharing my pain and my vulnerability,
so you can work through your stuff at the same
time and right now sorright for.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
A guy getting out of a lady or man getting
out of jail. This is a twelve step program to
get yourself employable.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah, twelve week program.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Sorry, twelve week not only.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
To get yourself employable. That's the last week. That's like, oh,
by the way, you might need a job. Because I
wanted to undo everything that I had started with, which
was here's a job. You'll find some worth in having
a job, and everything will follow that doesn't work. It
didn't work for me, So I do the whole first
(39:21):
nine weeks at least of learning how to love yourself
and recognize toxicity and recognize your own triggers and how
you can find your higher power. So that's kind of
how I I guess in my own way. It helped
me process a lot. And it's literally it's me saying, hey,
(39:43):
it's week two. I know it was really hard, Like
I tell them, I'm doing this with them. So it
is currently in nine different prisons right now on tablets,
and it's a pilot program and the results have been
so good that I'm flying out to Phoenix next week
to meet all the inmates who have completed it. So
(40:04):
that's I'm not selling it yet. I wanted to collect
all the data because I want to believe in what
I'm selling and set the price. And an inmate will
never pay for it, by the way, just like okay,
So there's there's plenty of organizations that can definitely afford
to put this program in prisons because I can't just
sit around and make sure job.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
As the government does quote rehabbing, maybe they can come
up with some funds for something like that. That's a
great story.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Thank you. So that yeah, it's in there. And just
last Monday, I did a three hour workshop for two
hundred men in a prison gym. So there's not like
that's where the future is taking me. A lot more
in prison stuff, a lot more twelve weeks starting Over program,
and it's really so. I have a client in Arizona
(40:56):
that hires from US direct hire, and our twelve week
Starting Over program is in the Arizona prisons as a pilot.
Right now, we keep having people call us to get
a job that aren't in prison because of the word
of the word and mouth of everyone in prison calling
their friends outside of prison saying corn Bread Hustle has jobs.
(41:20):
So it's been like it's also a lead magnet for
us to bring us qualified applicants. So a lot of
staffing agencies have to use Indeed we don't because we're
literally inside all of the prisons helping them develop some
soft skills and love themselves and have hope before they
(41:42):
get out. They know who to call. Call corner. You
can call your drug dealer, you can call your dope
dealer and get back in the game, or you can
call corn Bread Hustle it's up to you, but you
will know about corn bread hustle before you get out
of prison. And if we don't have a job for you,
we can help you, just like I helped Binny. We
know how to help you find a job. We can
help you. It's hard to scale. That's been my biggest challenge,
(42:05):
and you know that growing the big company that you've grown.
I don't know what your biggest challenges have been, but
for me, I would starting up was the hardest thing ever.
I don't want to go back to that, but I would.
Starting it's so hard. It's so hard, but scaling second hardest.
Like I didn't realize, Like when I was starting up,
(42:26):
I dream of the day that I was doing a
million a year, Like I couldn't even fathom it. But
you know, it's more money, more problems, and I don't
have a problem getting business in the door. I have
to make sure I'm leading my internal team right and
that I'm scaling this right in operations and filing taxes
and you know all that stuff that a cheerleader meth
(42:48):
dealer probably doesn't have a lot of experience in, right.
So yeah, that's the I'm gonna do more of consulting
and just being inside the prisons. And God keeps changing
me every single day. One thing that really really God literally,
(43:10):
I know God didn't break my heart. My heart broke
and God made it softer. So my dad I did
get to. He was sober the last year of his
life because he had an open heart surgery and I
was taking care of him a lot, and I'd go
(43:31):
to my dad's house every single night and just talk
with him and sit with My dad was funny. He
was a funny guy and I loved him so much.
And his mom lived with him because she has some
special needs and she has dementia, and so I'd go
there and eat with them every evening. They did live
(43:52):
in a house hoarding pretty much, but I didn't care.
That's It's like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. All
she wanted to do was like hang out with her
crazy inventive dad. That was me. I want to read
books and hang out with my inventive dad. And just
one morning he died and I had to go and
(44:17):
do the whole deal. Like I showed up and the
cops were there to tell me that he's gone, and
I guess he had had a heart attack and wow,
like that was crazy because I had just I literally
because I didn't know how to face all that. I
(44:38):
worked harder that day than I ever worked. I was
doing a zoom call while my dad's body was willing
behind me, closing a deal. It was. I even went
and did a speech that night to people who had
just got out of prison, looking back, like come on why,
Like I could have canceled that speech, but I needed
(45:02):
to do something I didn't know how to. I mean,
my dad was my and I still cry all the
time over my dad's death. I always told people if
I ever relapse, it will be because my dad dies.
And then my dad died, and then I didn't relapse,
and it did make me stronger because I lost like
(45:22):
the love of my life, and so I know now
that I can do anything. But I became instantly a caregiver,
and I had this house now to make livable, and
so for a whole year I was a caregiver while
(45:42):
growing this business with my grandma. We have a whole
bunch of funny videos we made together, and I made
the best of it the best that I could. But
here's this hardened heart workaholic that doesn't know vulnerability put
in a caregiver, so that that was difficult, but it
(46:04):
really just it just changed my life even more. And
I know that God has a plan, and I started
I did start living, you know. I went to my
dad's house every single day after work like I wasn't.
I wasn't living my life because I was just wanted
(46:25):
to spend time with my dad and my dad wasn't
healthy mentally or physically. So I was holding on to
somebody that wasn't there anymore because he just it was,
he just changed. He just wasn't there anymore. But I
was hanging on And I always had this dream that
(46:46):
he'd hold a sign that said one year sober and
mine said like three years sober. But he just didn't
make it. But everything really worked out.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Are you Are you more proud of your company or.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Your sobriety my sobriety because it was harder, it is harder.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Is it still hard?
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Mm hmm?
Speaker 1 (47:13):
What do you say to people that are listening to
us today that are struggling with the grip?
Speaker 2 (47:24):
So I know a lot of people who are struggling
because they reach out to me for the past several
years and keep trying and trying and trying. I would say,
the common denominator of all of these people is not
willing to let strangers pour into their like the surrender
part like and I never like. I'm just now learning
(47:47):
to fully surrender and I still don't do it perfect.
But me so, I was six months sober with so
much pride. It took me to be in six months sober,
and I became suicidal. I almost killed my because too much.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
It's up. You told me earlier. You were hearing voices.
I mean clearly the withdraws were killing you.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
It was because I was unwilling to go into a
recovery group. Yeah, I thought that I was different, I
was unique. My situation is different. Every day is like
a recovery group. The job I work, I work with
addicts every day. Why do I need these people to
help me stay sober? So pride, I would say, is
(48:29):
the common denominator of people that I'm working with right
now that keep having a hard time getting it, not
just just And that's what I had to do was
get humble and sit down and listen to people and
take suggestions and the other thing that was very hard
(48:53):
when I first got sober, I couldn't hang out with
anybody I was hanging out with anymore.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Because you got to change your group.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
I had zero interest in church people or people who
didn't drink or do drugs because they seem so boring.
So I was lonely for a long time. So it took.
Now I don't have a single person I hang around
that drinks, and if they do, it's shocking. I'm like,
oh wow, oh alcohol, that's weird. So my whole life
(49:22):
has changed, and it does get better. My life is
the best it's ever been. Ever like, my life today
is the best it's ever been. I hear from other
people who have ten years sober that it keeps getting better.
So I hope it keeps getting better. But I have
peace that surpasses all understanding. I talk with God every
single mor I don't just talk with God. I listen
(49:44):
to God. That's how I've run my business. God gave
me the idea for the disinfecting thing. God gives me that.
God gave me every the twelve week Starting Over program,
I completely ad libbed every eight hours of it in
front of the camera. I didn't use a script, and
I didn't re edit anything. Is just straight from my heart,
straight from heaven, and so I run my business through
(50:07):
the Bible period and without Bible thumbing, you know what
I mean. Like, I don't go to work every day
telling people's scripture. You know. I just let people.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
See you telling anybody anything, you just let them see it,
isn't you.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yeah, in the.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Way you operate.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
So yeah, that's it. That's my story. And I've never
shared all of that, So I'm not gonna do well,
we got it on tape a single other podcast, because
I'm just gonna tell anybody that wants to do a podcast,
just just go to this podcast, pull the audio, put
your voice in the front of it, and at the
end of it.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
That's illegal. We won't let them do that. My contact
information Alex the producer's contact information, and every guest we
have have given our listeners contact information, because there may
be somebody out there that says, I would love to
be hired by Cornbread Hustle, or I would love to
work for Cornbread Hustle, or I would like to talk
(51:08):
about doing something in my community, or even tell me
about this prison entrepreneurship program, something that they've heard might
and sent them to get involved in their own unique way,
and if they want to understand more of that, what's
the best way to reach out to you and your
organization so you'll see it.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
So obviously simple cornbread Hustle dot com. But I'm happy
to give my email It's Sherry C. H Ri I
at Cornbread Hustle dot com. Or if you want to
continue to see content or connect with me. LinkedIn is
where I share a lot a lot of videos weekly
and what is just your name? Yeah, just Sherry Garcia.
(51:53):
That we didn't get into that, but that whenever I
finally came out about my sobriety, I got on LinkedIn
and I shared with LinkedIn to professional people that I
had a breathalyiser in my car.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
This from a PR person, whatever, it's not surprising at
all you did that. That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Yeah, so there it is. If you want to contact
her or her organization, that's how you get in touch
with share Garcia. Share Garcia from a metho addicted high
school cheerleader to a business owner, a born again Christian
(52:33):
and somebody who's found a way to make a living
while helping others. That is an amazing story and there's
no way that you cannot be included in the army
of normal folks. Just a normal girl with all kinds
of struggles who's overcome them to make an amazing life
(52:56):
for herself and those in our orbit. And I am
very impressed by you and I can't thank you enough
for sharing your story with us.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Thank you. I have one request, and what is it?
When y'all put all these ads out, can you not
make it so myth cheerleader?
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Yeah, we're not. We're not. We don't do this is
not dateline. We're not going to do the sensationalized your
So okay. We didn't name this Meth Cheerleader episode out
(53:37):
of respect for SHARE's request. But I had a blast
with her. She was a lot of fun and most importantly,
she is one incredible inspirational human being. And I hope
she's inspired you. And if she or another guest has
inspired you to take action, please let us know. I
(53:58):
want to hear about it. You can write me anytime
at Bill at normalfolks dot us. And if you enjoy
this episode, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it,
share of friends, and on social all the things that
will help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm
Bill Courtney. Look forward to seeing you next week.
Hey guys, it's Bill Courtney again with an army of
normal folks. Let's continue with part three of our conversation
with Sherry Garcia of corn Bread Hustle. Right after these
brief messages from our generous sponsors, we now returned to
(00:29):
Sherry on our volunteer work that led to corn Bread Hustle.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
So I became Oprah and I was going from transitional
health to transition house. You get a job, you get
a job, you get a job.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So you just were going to transition houses making people
get jobs. Yeah, but you're not being paid for this?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
No, because it was so fun.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
But what are you getting paid to do at this time?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
At that time, I was just doing pr and barely
making it.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
So you're basically starving and spending all your time, Yeah,
helping all these And.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
At this point I was a true alcoholic at this.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Point, this time, you're drinking all day.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Every day, but giving people jobs. I was very function
I was still like, do.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You think these guys smelled alcoholic?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Oh, they knew I was drinking. They didn't care I
was helping them.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Uh, I guess not.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They thought I was a funny girl, you know, so
they didn't care.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Plus I was sick of the sushi, like anybody would be.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, I will tell you, well, you know what both
of them, both guys that I'm thinking of right now,
that we had sushi, they still to this day do
love sushi. Manjie and Bennie. I'm talking to you. But anyway,
they grew to like it. But yeah, at first it.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Was Benny, you can tell her the truth. Now Benny
hates sushi, trust me. So you start going to Halfway
House just helping people.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I was like, so, what's your dream? What's your dream?
What's your dream? Google? And so one morning I woke
up and I was just laying in my bed hungover,
which was every morning, and I was just like, oh,
I don't have money. I'm broke. And I was like,
I need a job. And I was like, why don't
I give myself. I could give myself a job if
(02:21):
I can give all these other people their dream jobs.
And so, since I was so fulfilled by it and
so passionate, I was like this, I need to figure
out a way to monetize this. Now A lot of
people ask why didn't you make it a nonprofit? I
would not know how to run a nonprofit. I can sell,
it's just it's not I can sell ketchup to a
lady wearing.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
But what's wrong with having a profitable entity that also
helps people? Nothing?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Nothing, nothing at all.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I would be completely unapologetic about that. That's just how
you roll.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So fine. I couldn't, like, I don't know how to
ask somebody for money and not say here's something in return.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Well, I mean you did. You made the tako and
that made no money, so true, maybe you learn from that.
So you're laying in bed, you're broke, You've been helping
all these people, and you say, I guess where your
head is? A staff come?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
So I said, what how do I monetize this? And
I went to Google, just like I suggested to all
these other guys and girls, and I typed in how
to start a staffing agency? And I literally read the
steps that wiki how said that's it, And I started there.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And you start a staffing company from what the top
Google search told you to do?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Wiki how week how?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Of course?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah, literatting me right, No I'm not. And everybody that
comes to me and says, hey, can I pick your brain?
Or how do I do this? And I tell them
the wiki how, and I'm sure that they're like, that's rude. No,
I did it, you can do it. Read the wiki?
How is that how you even say it?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
We can? When? What now? I? You need? This is
six six years ago?
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And every step on the wiki how. By the way,
I had to google again, like it said step one,
you're gonna need a factoring company. You can't afford this,
And I was like, Google, what's a factoring company? And
then I was reading blogs on what factory and even means?
I'm like, oh, so they front you money, you know,
like I had to think, like in drug dealing terms,
like you're just getting fronted what you need until you
(04:26):
get paid and can pay it back. Okay, so how
this is six years That was six years ago?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Okay, so six years ago? You start a staffing company
for I guess specifically to help people that have been.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Incarcerating second chance staffing AGENTSY a.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Second chance staffing agency that you wiki howed to get started?
And you first year, how many people do you place?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So I don't remember how many people I placed my
first year. I know I made several placements, but it
was kind of like the luminous envy thing I was
trying to like I was the first person to come
out and be like, Hey, you want to hire somebody
with a felony conviction and pay me money? People were like,
how about I just do you a favor and hire
(05:21):
somebody with a felony conviction. Isn't that enough? So I
was doing it for free for the first year and
trying to prove the model work. Yeah, prove it out
and try to like and you remember, I'm a pr person,
so I had to get some people working to use
those success stories to get on the news.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Okay, that's seed money. I don't know what you call
it in meth world, but you're I get it.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
But basically, my first few years of growing corn bread hustle,
I didn't make a dime because I was spending it
on alcohol. Even if I did make the money, and
I wasn't running the business the way I wasn't. And
I don't know if you've ever struggled with anything that
(06:05):
had you in its grips, I know you're a business
owner if you've ever dealt with something that's really, really,
really difficult in your life and you're just like I
just you're just not at I was operating at like
twenty percent, Sherry, I get it.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I'm what were some staffing agencies provide workers at a
forty percent markup? Yes, I do that, okay, and some
provide people for a fee to hire.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I do both of those.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So and I show you're both a headhunter and a
staffing agency. Yes, right, yes, So at first were you
headhunting or staffing or both both? And you were proving
the model but not really worried about profits because you
were you had to get you had to have story to.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Tell, and it was so hard because workmen's think about
the insurance on business.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Kidding, That's why I was asking head hunting, you don't
have to have workers com exactly you're doing.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Here's another big I wish we could have like a
Dan tip for entrepreneurs. My mistakes here. It is my ego,
I go big or go home. I wanted to do
it all big. I wanted to have the workman's comp
I wanted to have the insurance. I wanted to be
the big staffing agency. So I tell anybody wanting to
(07:29):
get into this business, be a headhunter, have no overhead,
get some money in the bank, have anest.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Can then do the staffing.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Come on, but no, my ego every single time. So
I was in debt to my Workmen's comp insurance just
about every month. Imagine going and.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
What kind of markup were you putting on the staffing?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
At first it's forty.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
You were doing forty forty makes sense. Why weren't you
able to make money? You didn't have an volume.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I didn't have enough volume. You gotta have enough volume
to all the cost. Yeah, and now looking so I
did it my very first go at it, my first
couple of hires, now that you're reminding me, I bet
the guys that said yes and signed the contractor, but
they were like, what a steal? I was just charging
a couple of dollars more, Yeah, an hour, and then.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
It really covered your expenses on workers car.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Well, I didn't even have workmen's comp yet. So I
ended up learning that I could end up losing everything
if I don't get workmen's comp. So I was like, crap,
Well I got to get Workmen's Comp.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
And then after literally rolling the dice.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I was I didn't know, I know, I get it.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah, it happened to wiki whatever it's called. They didn't
tell you about.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
That part they probably did, and I probably said, well,
it's not Uh, it wasn't against the law in Texas
not to have workmen's comp So I was like, live
on the edge. I'm a wild child right now, I
will pay act. My biggest expense is insurance. My biggest
expense in my company is insurance, just so I can
(09:05):
sleep at night.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So I get the first year, yep, tell me about
the growth.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So I end up in twenty seventeen getting that DWI
as the founder and CEO of Cornbread Hustle.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
That is second year in business.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Third that would be the second year in business.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And that's not good for your business plan.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You know. I was in the backseat of the cop
car and I was like, bad PR, this isn't good.
Like I don't know how to spend.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
This night what I would have been thinking about. But
I get that now having been with you for an hour,
bad PR. Yeah, what about the fact that you are
going to jail.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Oh I've been so many times. I knew the process well.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
And you might be able to recruit while you're there.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, And honestly I would. I felt invincible. I felt
like because I had a DWI before and I was
under twenty one, I blew over and I took it
to trial and I won. So I just had it
in my mind.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
It was probably a bad thing. Frankly, it emboldened you.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
I know, but the judge was trying to do a
good thing. He didn't want to He knew I wanted
to be a news reporter and he didn't want it
to hold me back. I wasn't even twenty one yet,
and he was like, all right, so.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
This one then your second year of cornbrad hustle. You're
in the back of a cop car. Would you blow there?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Oh? I don't remember what exactly I blew, but it
was enough to make it a misdemeanor A instead of
a misdemeanor B meaning bad bad.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah. So did you spend time in jail?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Oh? I was out pretty quick. Just I got bailed
out really fast.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
But what was you to the penalty?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I did get convicted, even though I was just sure
that I wouldn't. Until I saw the video. I was
like my even my attorney was like, yeah, we're not
going to take this to trial. I was like, yeah,
is that bad? Yeah, you're wasted. Yeah. So I was like, okay,
let's take a plea, So I ended up taking a
plea that brought it down to a misdemeanor bee which
(11:17):
made the punishment less which were able to drive anymore? Breathalyzer?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
The thing I had to blow into my car?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Just don't act like everybody listening to us has any
idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
How does the whole world not know what a breathalyzer is?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Because the whole world is not an alcoholic and been
a methadict since they were a junior in high school.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Sure, okay, a breathalyzer is a device, a deep lung device.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Oh, when you hear breath liser, most people think that's
what cops make you blow in if you get pulled over.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Oh, well, they make you have one to start your car.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Right, So this thing they hook up to your car
and you got to blow in it, and if you
blow high enough, you can't even start your car, and
you go to jail because they know, yeah, it records.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, and now they've added cameras because they knew people
would just have someone else blow for them.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
So this thing's in your car. So now if you're
going to get around and even try to run your business.
You can't drink.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Is that what made you quit?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
It was so hard? Well, I did not quit for
a whole year, So the breathalyzer did. I am a
huge I'm a huge fan of breathalyzers, as inconvenient as
they are, especially in the heat of the summer, where
you got to sit there and huff and puff and try,
and it's not easy to get that thing to go off.
You're sweating in your car trying to trying to blow
(12:42):
into that deep lung device, or in the cold every
second counts, whenever it's one hundred and ten degrees in Texas.
But I am a big fan of it because what
it made me I I wasn't willing to quit drinking.
I still didn't think I had a problem. I didn't
tell anyone I the arrest, it didn't get out, nobody knew.
(13:03):
I felt like, I don't know. I wasn't ever going
to tell anybody, and I was like, well, everyone drinks
and drives. I just got caught, and it's unfortunate that
I'm CEO corn Broad Hustle. That's not good. But let's
just do yeah, let's just sweep this under the rug
and hope you know, I live happily ever after. But
having that breathalyzer in my car and trying to make
(13:25):
alcohol work for me and time, I was timing my
drinks like I mean, man, I was using science to
try to figure out how many drinks I could have
and how long I had to sleep until I could
get up and blow into the breathalyzer. And there were
times that I'd drink a little too much the night
before and have to get an UBER even though my
(13:45):
card declined and I couldn't even get an uber to
get to a meeting. So I was really starting to
realize how alcohol.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Was dominating every piece of your life, every.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Piece in my life. I was trying to find a
way to make it work, and so there were I
have a in my journal. There's many times that I
attempted to quit drinking publicly, not even like forever though,
I you know me, I'm a pr person. So I
tried to coin the hashtag sobriety ninety and I was
(14:18):
trying to say, like, okay, ninety days of sobriety, and
that was me not acknowledging or admitting I'm an alcoholic yet,
but truly on the inside wanting to quit, and so
same thing with meth. I'd go a little while without
alcohol and then drink and then it was horrible or
(14:39):
I'd have some consequence, whether it.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Be a I do have a friend that was an
alcoholic and he would quit, but then when he would
start back up, it was one drink and that turned
into a hundred. Yeah. Is that how it was?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah? Yeah, one is too many and one thousand isn't enough.
It is basically how it is for an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
That's got to be a torment it is.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Thanks for the reminder.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Sorry, it's okay, but I'm hearing your story, and I mean,
I'm starting to empathize with how hard that must have
been for you.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Think about how hard it is for like like happy
hours and working in a company, especially for people who
remain anonymous and who suffer in silence. I shared my
story out loud to be free of it. But there's
a lot of people suffering in silence like I was.
I was successful. I'm using air quotes because you know,
(15:37):
you knew my float didn't make any money. But I
was on the Steve Harvey Show, I invented a product,
I was in the newsroom, I was vice president of
a PR firm.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, you're figuring it out. You were successful.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, I lived in a high rise. I had a
CTSB Cadillac like room room around the city I was.
I was a socialite.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
A Cadillac had this quo breath liser in it special
at on.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
That sucked. Yeah, but yes, you know what really sucked
where I really knew that I had a problem my
car with the breathalyzer every single month was about to
get repod And if my car got repolled, then I'm
going to jail because there went my breathalyzer. Wow. Yeah,
So I just I had really not come to a
(16:25):
point where I could admit my life was unmanageable.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
What happened is I just I was on probation, trying
to pay probation fees, had no money, trying to run
this company. I remember once going to a recovery meeting
air Quotes to support someone else who was trying to
be sober, because I was holier than that. So looking back,
like me starting this company was just me trying to
(17:13):
fix other people to avoid fixing myself and to feel
better about my own situation. It was easy for me
to help people who were lower than me. Coming out
of prison, I was like, oh, I help you, I'm awesome.
But and it was to avoid my own problems. And
so having that breathalyzer and being on probation and trying
(17:35):
to get sober made me realize that I had done
this all wrong, and the only way to really do
this is to change on the inside out, not from
the outside in, not to seek validation. I was like
a piggy bank with a little bit of money. I
made a lot of noise. I really had nothing. All
I was doing was making noise. So Christmas comes along,
(18:00):
and my family they drink during Christmas. We always have,
and so they were like, Cherry, you've had a hard year.
Like I blamed everything on entrepreneurship. I was at that
recovery meeting and I was sharing with everyone like I
have nothing because I've tried to help all these people
and build this company. All my money's gone to this company.
I have nothing. And they're like, and I was like,
(18:21):
I gave up everything for my company as an entrepreneur,
you guys know how it is. And one person was like,
you gave up everything, huh. And they're like, what about alcohol,
and that was like one of those little seeds. Like
even though I was like whatever, that stuck with me.
I even remember getting in my car and driving home
and looking in the passenger seat. I'm homeless at this point,
(18:44):
by the way, And when I say homeless, like I
never had to deal with real homelessness. I always had
friends that let me stay on their couches, so I
was CouchSurfing, but I did not have a place on
my own, and all my items were in my car,
and I look in my passenger seat and I see
a little four pack of the little wines and I
was like, I really have given up everything but alcohol
(19:06):
and so but I didn't stop there. I was like,
oh well, and kept going on with my life. But
on Christmas, my family was like, you've had a hard year.
Just park your car. Because I had the breathalyser still,
They're like, park your car down the street, just enjoy yourself.
Kick back. I remember something was different that day. I
knew I was trying to control my alcohol, like desperately
(19:28):
wanted to drink like a normal person. So I got
a twelve pack of Topo Chico and I got to
handle the Tito's and I was like, I'm gonna drink
Topo Chico in between my Tito's and so I did that,
and at the end of the night, everyone in the
family was pretty drunk, and I felt sober, and I
drank all twelve bottles of the Topo Chico. I felt
(19:50):
so in control. I was on cloud nine. And I
remember I got this. You know those Chinese gift exchanges
that people play, So I got this jellyfish thing. It's
like a lava lamp, but there's jellyfish in it instead.
And I was by myself. It was like three in
the morning. I was the last one to go to sleep.
I looked at them and I named them Kirby and Oscar.
(20:12):
I said, Kirby Oscar, if I wake up tomorrow and
I remember your names and I'm not hungover, I beat it.
I don't have a problem. So I went to bed.
I woke up, and the second I opened my eyes,
I had anxiety. And I was like, what the heck.
So of course, I'm like, well, maybe alcohol is just
(20:34):
not good. Maybe I have a chemical imbalance. It's just
not good for me. Like I just didn't understand why
it was giving me anxiety, And so I was just
tired of it. I was tired of making it fit
for my life. I was tired of trying to get
around the breathalyzer. I was tired of it running my life.
And now it's given me anxiety, like it stopped doing
what it's supposed to be doing. It was supposed to
make me relax. Now it gives me anxiety. And that's
(20:57):
usually what happens with any drug or substances. Works until
it doesn't. And so I was the first one awake,
and I shuffled out into the kitchen and I sat
down and I looked at that jellyfish thing, and I said,
Kirby Oscar, I think I'm done drinking. And you know,
I told the family that morning that I thought, and
(21:17):
they've seen my sobriety ninety and all that. They were like, cool,
good for you, Yeah, you want a mimosa. And I
really didn't know that morning that I wouldn't drink again,
because if I would have, I would have got drunk
on I would have at least went in. I would
have like took shots and not went to bed sober.
(21:39):
If I knew it was going to be my last time.
But about a week goes by and New Year's Eve
comes around. I'm the girl, you know, non traditional, So
of all my alcoholism, I never drink on New Year's
Eve because I was like amateurs, you know, like it
was the one day that I was going to set
my year with intention. But because I hadn't drank since
(22:03):
Christmas Day, hard day for me, and because I felt
like I couldn't but wanted it, so I decided to
go to church. I had no interest in church whatsoever.
I just needed to not be in the house. I
had a really hard time when I first got sober,
those hours from five pm and nine pm. What am
I gonna do? So I was like church, they won't
(22:25):
serve alcohol, They're boring. So I'll go to church. They'll
have music, maybe they'll have food. It's New Year's Eve.
I was just going for free entertainment and free food.
And so I go into the church and I didn't
understand worship. I felt like, man, these people. First of all,
(22:46):
I drove into the parking lot and the parking lot
was full. It was absolutely full, And I was like,
why does this many people want to come to church
on New Year's Eve? Like I'm here because I have
a problem. How do people want to be here?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And so I did share news flash everybody has problems.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Oh that's another news flash for today. Yeah. So I
go and I stand there and everyone has their hands
in the air they're worshiping, and I was like, man,
these people must really need something to believe in bad
because I didn't understand worship, just didn't get it. I
(23:24):
knew that there was probably a god. Really, there was
a God for me if it was convenient for me.
If I was hanging out with an atheist, I'd be like, yeah,
probably not. If I'm hanging out with a believer, I'm
like yeah probably. That's how I was about the God thing,
indifferent unless I was desperate. So a song comes on though,
and it was come Alive, Dry Bones, and it was
(23:45):
talking about dry bones. And I always hear I always
heard people talk about the Holy Spirit, but I experienced it.
Tears just came down my face and I felt this
feeling inside like I'm dead inside, I'm I have dry bones,
like I didn't even realize it. And just something happened
(24:06):
that night and the pastor gets up and he was like, hey, everyone,
this is really random, and my wife is gonna kill me,
and my staff is going to kill me. But the
Holy Spirit just led me to say something crazy, Let's
have church every day for the next seven days to
really set the year off right. And so I was like,
(24:29):
that is crazy, that's a bit much. But I said
to myself, but that's seven more days sober. And so
I went to church every day for seven days, and
somebody gifted me a Bible, and I guess there was
another holy spirit moment where I was up doing my
hair getting ready for work, and something told me to
(24:52):
go look in my Bible. And it was like a
serious tug to go look in the Bible. And I
was like, I literally I was about to start like googling,
like hearing things after alcoholism. It was very powerful. And
I walked into my bedroom and saw that my Bible
wasn't there, and then I walked back into the bathroom
(25:13):
because I was like, I'm not going downstairs. But the
voice got louder and it was more aggressive, and so
I was like fine. I walked downstairs, literally in my towel,
my hair half wet, and I said, God, if you're there,
because I felt like I felt like a crazy person.
I said, if I I did the whole New Christian thing.
(25:33):
If I open up this Bible and whatever I point to,
if you're talking to me, I'm gonna know it. And
let's just settle this once and for all. Show me
that you're real. And so I opened up the Bible
and I closed my eyes and I pointed my finger,
and I looked down and it was Proverbs twenty and
it said wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler,
(25:55):
and whoever is led by it is astray. And I
was so angry. I threw my Bible at the wall
and I started crying and almost like help me, then,
help me, just help me then, because I was crying
in gas station parking lots, trying not to go in
(26:15):
and drink. And of course it was hard, it was
hard to stay sober. But God carried me since then,
and I never missed a Sunday of church unless I'm sick,
of course or whatever. But I never missed a Sunday
of church since then. I've been in the Word every
morning since then. And God, just like it says in
(26:36):
Romans twelve, completely transformed my mind and my heart. Like
in my sleep every single night would go in and
like do surgery in my heart and my brain, and
I'd wake up a different person every single day, and
it's unexplainable. And I started leading people the way I
(26:57):
needed to be led what I needed, and I kept
I was telling people sorry, and I've I've set the
path the wrong way. Like, it's not about success, it's
not about money. It's about the inside. It's about who
you are on the inside. It's about finding that peace.
It's about healing these wounds. It's about recognizing your triggers
(27:19):
and toxic relationships and so cornbread hustle. I was about
a year sober, a hard year, Like just because you
get sober doesn't mean the consequences go away. One day
I walked out in the church parking lot and I
was so I started crying so hard because I was like,
how is my car gonna get repolled from church?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Like I was so upset and I get repaid from church?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Dude. I got on the phone, I'm crying to my friend.
I'm like, my car from church? How do I get?
I get? This is how God thanks me. My car
gets repolled. And then I walked around the corner. I
just forgot where I part.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
So I was like hard, but yeah, I still had
to face the consequences of not having money and getting
my life together while trying to get sober, while navigating
all these feelings.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
While trying to get this SPECIs going.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
While trying to keep the business alive and get it going. Yes,
horrible again, Like would I change anything? No? Would I
go live it again? Kill me? I don't want to
live it again.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
So I was one year sober, and it was let's
see twenty nineteen, because I got sober Christmas Day. I
got sober Christmas Day of twenty eighteen, so it was
twenty twenty. I was one year sober. Remember what happened
in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Covid uh huh? So where everybody's sitting around in their
house drinking because I got nothing else to do.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Yeah, I bet that was fun for you, so much fun.
But it actually I got to use my thriving chaos
resilience skills and traits that I have because when I
kept hearing on the news that everyone's going to lose
(29:44):
their jobs and I just finally made it to break even.
I probably had twenty employees. I just made it to
break even. I was like, there's no way. The disease
of alcoholism and addiction almost took me out. I'm not
letting a virus take me out. Uh uh not? After
I got one year sober, So I went to Google,
you know, my friend Google, and I looked up every
(30:08):
single thing that I possibly could about killing the coronavirus
and what type of disinfectant. I know everything about disinfectant.
It's wild, like which like if you you should get
lysol instead of chlorox And I got electro what was
it electrostatic?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, electrostatic machines.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I bought those like I was in a hurry to
get everything that I needed. I bought hazmat suits and
I put out an email blast to all twenty of
my employees and I was like, fear not, we are
gonna work. Are y'all in? And they're like yeah. I
was like, we have to. We gotta figure it out.
(30:48):
And I wasn't gonna turn.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Around if y'all don't work. My car is getting repoked
from church. We gotta work.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
We're gonna work.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
And so work or I'm can you all sushi?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
So well, yeah, we won't be able to. So I
created CBH disinfecting dot com and just use the people
that I was placing for the staffing agency to be available.
I trained them like everything. We had Osha come in.
We did everything to like really so.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Use your staffing agency. Did then go do disinfectant on companies?
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yes, And because because everybody was so afraid of coronavirus,
like deathly afraid of it, Like it's in the air
and if it touches you, you might like evaporate. Like
remember how scared people were of it. Yeah, we weren't.
We're like, oh, well, we're gonna die if we don't
have jobs. Like I had been through so much like whatever,
(31:48):
Like I'll wear the hazmat suit. I was literally cleaning
toilets in a hazmat suit to get corn bread hustle
to where it's at today.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
The joys of ownership and if you are eighty five
percent of startups in the United States are bankrupt within
the first thirty six months. The success rate of businesses
is in the fifteen to twenty percent sustained businesses. And
(32:22):
in my book, I talk about the value of hard
work and the difficulty of starting a business. But what
you just said, I've done the same thing here in
my business. I have done whatever I had to do legally, morally, ethically,
but beyond that, whatever I had to do. And we're
(32:46):
going to find out in a second, how many people
you have on the payroll this year, but only two
years ago you were cleaning toilets and a hazmat suit
and somebody else's office just to keep your business afloat
two years ago. And how many people did you place
this year?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We're at about a thousand people a year now. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Do you know how phenomenal that story is? Do you
really get it? I know you're living it.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I am.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
You had twenty people and hasmat suit washing toilets two
years ago, and these thousand people are one hundred percent
x fos.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Most of them. We don't discriminate. We don't tell you
go rob a bank and come back and see.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It, okay, but the vast majority of them are. And
your entire start came.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
From everything what I just told you, I laid it
all out.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, came from helping Benny.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Uh huh. Yeah. So guess what happened during the month
of like, during that first month of us doing disinfecting,
what we made one hundred thousand dollars because essential businesses
were so afraid to not be in production that they
were going to do whatever it took, and we were
in high demand, and nobody else was crazy enough to
(34:06):
risk their life like my family. They were like, Sherry,
you don't need to risk your damn life over money,
and I was like, it's not for money, it's for
my business. It's for the people that I gave hope
to and gave jobs to. I have to do this.
If I die, I die, I die doing what I love.
I'm gonna die regardless. Because if I knew that, if
(34:28):
COVID took me out after that hard first year of
getting sober, I don't know if I would have stayed sober,
I would have been like, you know what, this is
for the birds. So I just knew I had to
do what I had to do. So we made a
hundred k in how many months? In that one month?
Speaker 1 (34:44):
One month?
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, yeah, we generated one hundred k. So it was
an oil filled paid us a lot of money to
go all the way out to Midland to keep the
oil filled.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Going because they were quote essential yeah yeah, and all
Field can afford to pay whatever to some people. And
ask my suits to clean the toilet. Yeah, and we
did it because everybody knows that COVID was living in
the toilets.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Well, the toilets were one of the areas we had
to clean. I got to clean desks too, but toilets
was the more traumatizing.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Imagine.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
But that one hundred thousand dollars that did was allow
me to stop doing side pr gigs. I was straddling,
like I was trying to you.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
You were able to walk away and put your whole
time and all my time.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
And then corn Bread Hustle And then this is the
part that I wish I could take credit for and
that I wish that it was strategic on my part,
but I was just as surprised as anybody else in
my company. But our phone started ringing off the hook.
This is where I almost start to cry again, because
it's all God, our phones were ringing off the hook.
And corn Bread Hustle became the staffing agency that every
(35:55):
company needed to come to because everybody was on unemployment.
And guess who is not eligible for unemployment People coming
out of prison because they have no work history. Yeah,
so my company did a million dollars that year.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, and now You're off to the races.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
And then five million the next year.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, that is a phenomenal story.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
I'm not as profitable as I'd like to be, but
the profit margins are better than the taco.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Sherry it is. I mean, I am. I'm honestly. Every
single time I sit down across the table from someone
and we start talking about an army of normal folks
and we dive into people's lives and what they've done,
the stories are always phenomenal, but yours as crazy. You
(36:58):
were a I mean, it seems like a B movie
that was done for less than a million dollars, But
like the meth cheerleader chick movie. I mean, you kicked meth,
you kicked alcohol. You overcame your demons about not going
(37:19):
to college and being successful in all of that, And
in the middle of all of it, you decided you
were going to volunteer to help some felons. And a
guy named Benny who you don't know from Adam. You
google it up. He now owns his own sign company
and is making six figures. And in the middle of
all of it, you found faith. You kicked a meth habit,
(37:43):
you kicked an alcohol habbit. And now you employ a
thousand people in a business doing five million dollars.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
This year, I only did three. We had a bad year,
but just for transparency reasons.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
It doesn't matter. It's still a phenomenal, amazing store. Worry
and how old are you?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Thirty six? So I just turned thirty six.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
We'll be right back. We can do next year. Please
don't say more tacos, because that's not no more tacos.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
But I did develop a twelve week starting over program
where it's me talking directly across from a camera for
literally seven hours and I'm talking. It's like I am
sitting right there with you, sharing my pain and my vulnerability,
so you can work through your stuff at the same
time and right now sorright for.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
A guy getting out of a lady or man getting
out of jail. This is a twelve step program to
get yourself employable.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah, twelve week program.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Sorry, twelve week not only.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
To get yourself employable. That's the last week. That's like, oh,
by the way, you might need a job. Because I
wanted to undo everything that I had started with, which
was here's a job. You'll find some worth in having
a job, and everything will follow that doesn't work. It
didn't work for me, So I do the whole first
(39:21):
nine weeks at least of learning how to love yourself
and recognize toxicity and recognize your own triggers and how
you can find your higher power. So that's kind of
how I I guess in my own way. It helped
me process a lot. And it's literally it's me saying, hey,
(39:43):
it's week two. I know it was really hard, Like
I tell them, I'm doing this with them. So it
is currently in nine different prisons right now on tablets,
and it's a pilot program and the results have been
so good that I'm flying out to Phoenix next week
to meet all the inmates who have completed it. So
(40:04):
that's I'm not selling it yet. I wanted to collect
all the data because I want to believe in what
I'm selling and set the price. And an inmate will
never pay for it, by the way, just like okay,
So there's there's plenty of organizations that can definitely afford
to put this program in prisons because I can't just
sit around and make sure job.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
As the government does quote rehabbing, maybe they can come
up with some funds for something like that. That's a
great story.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Thank you. So that yeah, it's in there. And just
last Monday, I did a three hour workshop for two
hundred men in a prison gym. So there's not like
that's where the future is taking me. A lot more
in prison stuff, a lot more twelve weeks starting Over program,
and it's really so. I have a client in Arizona
(40:56):
that hires from US direct hire, and our twelve week
Starting Over program is in the Arizona prisons as a pilot.
Right now, we keep having people call us to get
a job that aren't in prison because of the word
of the word and mouth of everyone in prison calling
their friends outside of prison saying corn Bread Hustle has jobs.
(41:20):
So it's been like it's also a lead magnet for
us to bring us qualified applicants. So a lot of
staffing agencies have to use Indeed we don't because we're
literally inside all of the prisons helping them develop some
soft skills and love themselves and have hope before they
(41:42):
get out. They know who to call. Call corner. You
can call your drug dealer, you can call your dope
dealer and get back in the game, or you can
call corn Bread Hustle it's up to you, but you
will know about corn bread hustle before you get out
of prison. And if we don't have a job for you,
we can help you, just like I helped Binny. We
know how to help you find a job. We can
help you. It's hard to scale. That's been my biggest challenge,
(42:05):
and you know that growing the big company that you've grown.
I don't know what your biggest challenges have been, but
for me, I would starting up was the hardest thing ever.
I don't want to go back to that, but I would.
Starting it's so hard. It's so hard, but scaling second hardest.
Like I didn't realize, Like when I was starting up,
(42:26):
I dream of the day that I was doing a
million a year, Like I couldn't even fathom it. But
you know, it's more money, more problems, and I don't
have a problem getting business in the door. I have
to make sure I'm leading my internal team right and
that I'm scaling this right in operations and filing taxes
and you know all that stuff that a cheerleader meth
(42:48):
dealer probably doesn't have a lot of experience in, right.
So yeah, that's the I'm gonna do more of consulting
and just being inside the prisons. And God keeps changing
me every single day. One thing that really really God literally,
(43:10):
I know God didn't break my heart. My heart broke
and God made it softer. So my dad I did
get to. He was sober the last year of his
life because he had an open heart surgery and I
was taking care of him a lot, and I'd go
(43:31):
to my dad's house every single night and just talk
with him and sit with My dad was funny. He
was a funny guy and I loved him so much.
And his mom lived with him because she has some
special needs and she has dementia, and so I'd go
there and eat with them every evening. They did live
(43:52):
in a house hoarding pretty much, but I didn't care.
That's It's like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. All
she wanted to do was like hang out with her
crazy inventive dad. That was me. I want to read
books and hang out with my inventive dad. And just
one morning he died and I had to go and
(44:17):
do the whole deal. Like I showed up and the
cops were there to tell me that he's gone, and
I guess he had had a heart attack and wow,
like that was crazy because I had just I literally
because I didn't know how to face all that. I
(44:38):
worked harder that day than I ever worked. I was
doing a zoom call while my dad's body was willing
behind me, closing a deal. It was. I even went
and did a speech that night to people who had
just got out of prison, looking back, like come on why,
Like I could have canceled that speech, but I needed
(45:02):
to do something I didn't know how to. I mean,
my dad was my and I still cry all the
time over my dad's death. I always told people if
I ever relapse, it will be because my dad dies.
And then my dad died, and then I didn't relapse,
and it did make me stronger because I lost like
(45:22):
the love of my life, and so I know now
that I can do anything. But I became instantly a caregiver,
and I had this house now to make livable, and
so for a whole year I was a caregiver while
(45:42):
growing this business with my grandma. We have a whole
bunch of funny videos we made together, and I made
the best of it the best that I could. But
here's this hardened heart workaholic that doesn't know vulnerability put
in a caregiver, so that that was difficult, but it
(46:04):
really just it just changed my life even more. And
I know that God has a plan, and I started
I did start living, you know. I went to my
dad's house every single day after work like I wasn't.
I wasn't living my life because I was just wanted
(46:25):
to spend time with my dad and my dad wasn't
healthy mentally or physically. So I was holding on to
somebody that wasn't there anymore because he just it was,
he just changed. He just wasn't there anymore. But I
was hanging on And I always had this dream that
(46:46):
he'd hold a sign that said one year sober and
mine said like three years sober. But he just didn't
make it. But everything really worked out.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Are you Are you more proud of your company or.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Your sobriety my sobriety because it was harder, it is harder.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Is it still hard?
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Mm hmm?
Speaker 1 (47:13):
What do you say to people that are listening to
us today that are struggling with the grip?
Speaker 2 (47:24):
So I know a lot of people who are struggling
because they reach out to me for the past several
years and keep trying and trying and trying. I would say,
the common denominator of all of these people is not
willing to let strangers pour into their like the surrender
part like and I never like. I'm just now learning
(47:47):
to fully surrender and I still don't do it perfect.
But me so, I was six months sober with so
much pride. It took me to be in six months sober,
and I became suicidal. I almost killed my because too much.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
It's up. You told me earlier. You were hearing voices.
I mean clearly the withdraws were killing you.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
It was because I was unwilling to go into a
recovery group. Yeah, I thought that I was different, I
was unique. My situation is different. Every day is like
a recovery group. The job I work, I work with
addicts every day. Why do I need these people to
help me stay sober? So pride, I would say, is
(48:29):
the common denominator of people that I'm working with right
now that keep having a hard time getting it, not
just just And that's what I had to do was
get humble and sit down and listen to people and
take suggestions and the other thing that was very hard
(48:53):
when I first got sober, I couldn't hang out with
anybody I was hanging out with anymore.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
Because you got to change your group.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
I had zero interest in church people or people who
didn't drink or do drugs because they seem so boring.
So I was lonely for a long time. So it took.
Now I don't have a single person I hang around
that drinks, and if they do, it's shocking. I'm like,
oh wow, oh alcohol, that's weird. So my whole life
(49:22):
has changed, and it does get better. My life is
the best it's ever been. Ever like, my life today
is the best it's ever been. I hear from other
people who have ten years sober that it keeps getting better.
So I hope it keeps getting better. But I have
peace that surpasses all understanding. I talk with God every
single mor I don't just talk with God. I listen
(49:44):
to God. That's how I've run my business. God gave
me the idea for the disinfecting thing. God gives me that.
God gave me every the twelve week Starting Over program,
I completely ad libbed every eight hours of it in
front of the camera. I didn't use a script, and
I didn't re edit anything. Is just straight from my heart,
straight from heaven, and so I run my business through
(50:07):
the Bible period and without Bible thumbing, you know what
I mean. Like, I don't go to work every day
telling people's scripture. You know. I just let people.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
See you telling anybody anything, you just let them see it,
isn't you.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yeah, in the.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Way you operate.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
So yeah, that's it. That's my story. And I've never
shared all of that, So I'm not gonna do well,
we got it on tape a single other podcast, because
I'm just gonna tell anybody that wants to do a podcast,
just just go to this podcast, pull the audio, put
your voice in the front of it, and at the
end of it.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
That's illegal. We won't let them do that. My contact
information Alex the producer's contact information, and every guest we
have have given our listeners contact information, because there may
be somebody out there that says, I would love to
be hired by Cornbread Hustle, or I would love to
work for Cornbread Hustle, or I would like to talk
(51:08):
about doing something in my community, or even tell me
about this prison entrepreneurship program, something that they've heard might
and sent them to get involved in their own unique way,
and if they want to understand more of that, what's
the best way to reach out to you and your
organization so you'll see it.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
So obviously simple cornbread Hustle dot com. But I'm happy
to give my email It's Sherry C. H Ri I
at Cornbread Hustle dot com. Or if you want to
continue to see content or connect with me. LinkedIn is
where I share a lot a lot of videos weekly
and what is just your name? Yeah, just Sherry Garcia.
(51:53):
That we didn't get into that, but that whenever I
finally came out about my sobriety, I got on LinkedIn
and I shared with LinkedIn to professional people that I
had a breathalyiser in my car.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
This from a PR person, whatever, it's not surprising at
all you did that. That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Yeah, so there it is. If you want to contact
her or her organization, that's how you get in touch
with share Garcia. Share Garcia from a metho addicted high
school cheerleader to a business owner, a born again Christian
(52:33):
and somebody who's found a way to make a living
while helping others. That is an amazing story and there's
no way that you cannot be included in the army
of normal folks. Just a normal girl with all kinds
of struggles who's overcome them to make an amazing life
(52:56):
for herself and those in our orbit. And I am
very impressed by you and I can't thank you enough
for sharing your story with us.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Thank you. I have one request, and what is it?
When y'all put all these ads out, can you not
make it so myth cheerleader?
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Yeah, we're not. We're not. We don't do this is
not dateline. We're not going to do the sensationalized your
So okay. We didn't name this Meth Cheerleader episode out
(53:37):
of respect for SHARE's request. But I had a blast
with her. She was a lot of fun and most importantly,
she is one incredible inspirational human being. And I hope
she's inspired you. And if she or another guest has
inspired you to take action, please let us know. I
(53:58):
want to hear about it. You can write me anytime
at Bill at normalfolks dot us. And if you enjoy
this episode, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it,
share of friends, and on social all the things that
will help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm
Bill Courtney. Look forward to seeing you next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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