This is Oklahoma

This is Scott Lewis Jr

Scott Lewis Jr, a self made successful entrepreneur shares his story on today's podcast. Scott grew up in Edmond is the eldest of three kids. His younger brother who he would eventually go into business with and his younger sister. Scott was raised in an entrepreneurial family, his father a loving pastor had many side jobs, which turned into larger national businesses. He always taught his sons to be entrepreneurial, to sell anything they could to make money for the things they wanted to do. 

Scott shares his stories from those days walking door to door on the streets of Edmond. How these practices at a young age molded him into the salesman and entrepreneur he is today. Scott has seen his fair share of adversities over his time and talks about how he's overcome those adversities, how he plans to use what he's learned to change lives today and how motivation has been a great way for him to give back to over 600,000 people on his social media platform @millionaire_motivator

Follow Scott here @scottlewisjr 

Thanks for listening, as always please rate and leave a review on the podcast. #thisisoklahoma

Cheers 

Mike

@thisisoklahoma 

This is Major Ed Pulido - Warrior for Freedom

On this episode I sit down with Major Ed Pulido. Major Ed Pulido, U.S. Army (Ret.) is the Sr. VP of the Folds of Honor Foundation a Veteran’s charity which provides the spouses and children of the fallen and wounded educational scholarships. Additionally, he is a Founding member of Warriors for Freedom Foundation a leadership institute focused on the mental, physical and wellness support of our wounded Veterans and their families. He is the spokesperson for AROGA Health. Finally, Major Ed is the Founder of Warrior Nation, a movement focused on the rights of liberty, freedom and patriotism with an autobiography entitled Warrior for Freedom: Challenge, Triumph and Change, the Major Ed Pulido Story.

On the 17th of August, 2004, Major Pulido hit an Improvised Explosive Device (I.E.D) or roadside bomb while serving with the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team under the command of General David Petraeus. Due to the extensive injuries to his left knee, doctors had to amputate his left leg on October 1, 2004. For his heroism and valor on that August day, the President of the United States along with General David Petraeus awarded him the Bronze Star with Valor, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal, and Joint Service Commendation and Achievement Medals.

Today Major Ed spends is time traveling the country talking to businesses, charities etc spreading the word of his experience and how he has overcome adversity. 

You can follow him here @majoredpulido on his website here at

www.majored.org 

www.warriorsforfreedom.org

www.foldsofhonor.org

Us here @thisisoklahoma 

Thanks for listening and as always rate and review this podcast. 

Mike

This is Jonathon Stranger ( w/ co-host Logan Holden from Edible Excellence )

On this episode myself and local food blogger Logan from @edibleexcellenceokc sat down with Jonathon Stranger to talk about his concepts and newest concept Bar Cicchetti. 

Jonathon Stranger's family of restaurants are among the most popular in Oklahoma City. Today we talked about his career in the hospitality industry, the acquisition of Prairie Wolf Distillery, the partnership with acclaimed restauranteur Fabio Viviani and some exciting future projects. 

It was an absolute pleasure to sit down with Logan and Jonathon for this episode, really excited to hear all your reviews on his new concept.

Thanks for listening,

Follow us here: @thisisoklahoma @edibleexcellenceokc @jonathan.stranger

#thisisoklahoma

This is Soccer Allies - Michael Thomas & Coady Andrews

On this episode I sat down with the first ever signing for Energy FC Michael Thomas and fellow team mate Coady Andrews. Both players grew up in Kansas and shared many stories about their childhood. 

The Energy FC are in a pivotal time with MAPS 4 coming to light and the hope of a new downtown soccer stadium in the plans. This would be huge for the city and the Energy FC community. Soccer is a huge sport and has grown every year since coming to OKC in 2014. 

Both Michael and Coady share many stories from their time at the Energy as well as what they do for a living now which is Soccer Allies. 

Soccer Allies found here online soccerallies.com is a facility where they provide the best option for recreational and academy youth soccer players outside of team practices to develop a better understanding of when, why, and how to use deceptive touches or skills. Using a challenging but enjoyable program, players are given opportunities to fall in love with the game at a young age. 

Listen in as both Energy vets tell us all about youth soccer and how your kids can benefit from their amazing program here in OKC. 

Thanks for listening and as always please rate and review the podcast. #thisisoklahoma

Mike

This is Stars & Stripes Co with Noah Elias

On todays podcast episode I sat down with Noah Elias founder of Stars & Stripes Company. Noah works his ass off to provide for his wife and young daughter. He's worked hard from a young age. One day working for his uncle he decided to make an American flag out of wood to hang above the barn doors. 

Noah took great pride in his work and produced a flag that he was proud of. Many orders came in from his uncles friends and the business was born. 

Working two sometimes three jobs at a time, bodybuilding and working in medical sales. Noah kept his flag business going, hand carving flags for friends, family and others. The orders kept coming in. 

At this point in time Noah has put his flags in the hands of many famous people. As you'll hear in the interview, thats not what keeps him going. What keeps him going is the American man who's paid for this flag with his hard earned cash. The man who works hard, supports his country and will do anything to provide for his family. The men overseas protecting this nation we all live in. The American man and woman that is untied under these stars and stripes. 

Its an exciting time for Noah and his business and it was an absolute pleasure to sit and share his story. Follow him here @starsandstripesco and www.starsandstripesco.com #thisisoklahoma

Thanks for listening and as always follow our guest and leave a review. #thisisoklahoma 

This is Timmy Riggs

Not Just A College Pastor — Timmy Riggs

College friend Timmy Riggs had no idea what he wanted to do in college. He changed his major 5 times, didn’t value school, his grades and loved Netflix. Move on 8 years and he’s a college pastor at one of the biggest churches in the Nazarene denomination and multiple business owner. 

I met Timmy at SNU and i’ll be honest he was kind of a pain in the ass. What non Americans call a “typical American” loud, cocky and walking on clouds in a world of his own. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Over the past year i’ve gotten to know Timmy more and more. He’s developed the ability to command an audience on stage, has more passion for his job and others that rivals Danny Thomason and is truly a great human. 

We finally sat down to record a podcast to share some of his story and how he’s ended up at BFC is quite remarkable. Timmy came to SNU, walked on the football team as a QB. Quickly realizing QB1 wasn’t going to be happen, he did what he said he’d been doing since highschool and that was just enough to be on the team. If you know Timmy, its definfiley his humor that kept him around. To be fair to him, he’s pretty funny. 

After ending his first semester with 0.6 GPA he knew something had to change. But what, he didn't know. Teaching, ministry, business he tried them all. Growing up as a pastors kid, the ministry scene was normal. Seeing his Dad up there every Wednesday / Sunday fully living the life he preached about. A great role model. At the end of 5 years Timmy was offfered a positon in Arizona as a youth pastor. After a year there BFC called and this is where he had to put some trust in them and believe that this was a good move. BFC didn't really have a full time position available, but he knew he would grow more of he made the move. So he packed up the car and drove back to OKC. 

This was the first time I’d seen Timmy since college, the real Timmy not the loud cocky American i’d always thought he was. I remember the first time I heard him speak to the college group. Even though he’ll tell you he works extremely hard at looking like a natural up there. He just had this ability to capture you, take you away from your phone and make you want to listen to what he had to say. ( NOT EASY IN TODAYS WORLD )

Timmy moved into the full time role of being BFC’s college pastor last year and blew it out of the water. Every Wednesday college kids come to hangout, hear him preach, connect with friends, eat great food and get away from college stress for a few hours. 

In November of that first semester, Timmy started a window cleaning business https://www.facebook.com/streakerswindow/ with buddy Bryton. Timmy’s Dad told him from a young age, you dont get into ministry to make money so start a side business to supplement your income. The side business was born, but its November who wants clean windows in November? How do they get the word out. Bryton came up with the idea of Christmas Lights. They made a video and within a few days they had 31 houses on the schedule. From that money they bought all the equioment they needed for Streakers to become a thing. Jan 1 they were off. After almost a year they have 4 employees multiple business accounts, get up at 4.30am to clean windows before school and work. Nothing will stop them making this a successful business. 

Another business Timmy has wanted to be involved in is real estate. Every business book he’s read points to real estate more specifically owning it. Timmy calls me one day and says, "we want to buy a duplex” baring in mind Emma and Timmy live in an apartment right now and don’t have their own home. (Not your normal first property purchase, but one that makes total sense)

We searched high and low for the perfect duplex and came across this history property near downtown OKC. Perfect. They have remodeled it and currently in the process of moving tenants in. 

One of my favortie quotes from our interview together, Timmy was explaining how Emma is level all the time. Compared to him where he’s 100mph then 10mph then back to 100. He’s got more ideas than he knows what to do with so he says. “i’m going to do them all until Ican’t do them anymore” 

It hit me after hearing it again while editing the podcast. Most people just punch in punch out, go home watch tv and repeat. They don’t realize that this is the life we have and its only once we get to live it. ( as far as we know ) 

Timmy lives life to the full, doesn’t waste any seconds of the day and absolutly loves doing it. Whatever it is that you enjoy doing, do that. Don’t put it off until you have time. You have time you just choose not to use it the way you should. 

Anyway enough bragging about my mate Timmy Riggs. Come to Wednesday nights at BFC from 9pm til 10.30 and you’ll see what I'm talking about. 

And go follow STREAKERS WINDOW CLEANING! 

Thanks for listening, as always leave a review and any recommendations to who I can interview next!

Cheers

Mike

@thisisoklahoma 

This is The OKC TEE SHOP with Kerry Egeler - From Fired to Successful Online Business in 3 Months

From Fired to Successful Online Business 3 in Months 

Kerry Egeler from Broken Arrow Oklahoma, founder and owner of The OKC TEE SHOP. Kerry’s background. 

Kerry was fired from his job just a few years ago and finally his brother in law ( an online marketing, business building coach ) said, “ now will you trust me and let me help you build your online business?”

Kerry took the jump with a young child and one on the way he dove into building his online t-shirt business. Within a few months of OKC Thunder basketball his busienss was profitable. Kerry built his business with the help of his brother in-law with zero start up money. All online, all drop shipped product, no inventory. Just a website, social media accounts and his creativity designing Thunder themed t-shirts. 

Kerry’s biggest advantage over his competition is speed. If something happens at a Thunder game, someone tweets a quote, gets in the media whatever it is. Kerry can turn that into a t-shirt design and its live on the website within hours. For example the recent Baker Mayfield chugging a beer at that baseball game was on a t-shirt and online within hours. 

With the help of social media marketing, these t-shirts are on the market. Unlike his competition who have to print these designs, and have inventory at their store and online which takes weeks. Speed is the key. Today we thrive on speed, instant gratification is our drug. From Amazon Prime delivery in hours, ordering food, buying concert tickets. Speed is our favorite drug, we HATE waiting for more than we need to, when wifi is slow its the worst thing in the world! Right?

After a few years Kerry as his online business down to a tee. (pun totally intended) He’s working on building online courses to show others how this can be done, how you can start your online business with zero start up money and have sales within hours. 

Great news for This is Oklahoma fans, our t-shirts will be up on the website www.okcteeshop.com available for purchase. 

If you want to learn more about Kerry’s business send him a message on Instagram @okcteeshop.  

Thanks for listening and as always, please leave a review 5* preferred. #thisisoklahoma

Mike

This is The Integris Foundation

Not Just A Hospital — Healthcare Philanthropy — The Integris Foundation 

A very emotional podcast with Jon and Anne at the Integris Foundation. For this interview I sat down with Jonathon McCoy and Anne Clouse to talk about healthcare philanthropy.

A lot of people see the Integris centers across the metro and think it’s just a hospital. Personally I hate hospitals, the smell and the color of the décor. For me hospitals are a bad place, or I thought they were. To clarify, this is from my experience back in the UK. Jon and Anne came on the podcast to share their personal stories about how Integris has played a huge part of their lives and how they through their work at the foundation help those who need it.

There are many inspirational stories from this podcast but I’ll just touch on a couple of them. Integris is the largest Oklahoma governed health institution and it’s a non-profit. All the money is reinvested in the business and caring for those in need through the foundations.

Jon has two sets of twins. How awesome is that! Both his twins had care at Integris and seeing that his gift back to fertility helped pay for the equipment that they used to care for his wife and then his twins once they were born.

I asked Jon and Anne what they think of when they hear their mission statement

“ Your passion changes lives” Both shared the story of Sarah Brumley who was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer with a 6% chance of living more than 5 years. Sarah worked with the Integris cancer institute and the integrated medicine program, which is a holistic way to help patients through their diagnosis. This is not covered by insurance. So Sarah and the Integris Foundation challenged everyone at the Integris Gala to raise money for her project to help others without the ability to pay for this program.

At the Gala Sarah’s goal was to raise $5000. At the end of the night 700 guests raised $189,000. Sarah’s passion for helping others from her diagnosis is now a fully funded program in the Integris Foundation. Sarah survived 4 years and sadly passed but she’s left this legacy behind and cared for hundreds of others.

If you’ve ever given anything to charity and had a personal connection to that person or the lives you have impacted the high is hard to explain. Anne mentions that high is almost a selfish feeling to helping people because the high she gets from changing someone’s life is so good, she wants to keep doing it.

I asked Jon and Anne how working here at the Foundation and in healthcare philanthropy impacted how you see the world. How it impacts your day-to-day life. They both mentioned perspective, how raising 35Million for their Arcadia Trails project seems like too big of a task. But after hard work they received multiple seven figure donations. Seeing who is giving and the way they are giving is comforting regardless of how much it is, they want to give is.

Events coming up, the foundation has a golf tournament on October 22ndat Jimmie Austin GC in Norman. This is going to be one of the best events you have ever played in. If you would like to donate reach out to integrisgolf.org If you are a food vendor and want to donate or be a part of the event also reach out to the website above.

Thanks for reading I hope this gives you a better incite into The Integris Foundation. Follow them on social media Integris Foundation. Integrisgiving.org and sign up to their monthly newsletter to see the difference that’s being made.

Mike @thisisoklahoma

This is Stitch Cafe with Chad Grubbs

This was such a greta interview, Chad shared a lot of his personal views and deep connection to building a business around connectivity. In the words of Stitch themselves -

"Stitch is a hospitality concept created by husband and wife team, Chad Grubbs + Jen Semmler Grubbs, with inspiration from key team members, close friends and mentors.  Chad, former owner of Okay Yeah Co. and previously BENT on Creativity, and Jen, owner of Plant Shoppe, are best known for their resourceful approach in creating unique experiences and offerings to the Oklahoma City scene.  Born and raised in Oklahoma, the couple strives to make positive, inspiring impacts in the community through various craft ventures.

The intention of Stitch is to offer a simple, yet holistic approach to the cafe experience while creating an environment that allows individuals the opportunity to experience connection by encountering authenticity, honesty, creativity, intentionality, and passion through food and beverage service.

With its casual minimalistic style, Stitch Cafe will  aim to become a gathering space for conversation and sharing through food, beverage and hospitality.  Those that visit will be encouraged to slow down and understand that they are a part of the story. We believe that each person matters, no matter who they are, where they’ve come from and where they are in their own personal journey.  All are welcome to come in, converse, and share in this common everyday experience we have around the table. In doing so, we hope that guests are left with the experience of feeling connected (or rather “stitched”); a part of something much larger than themselves."

Thanks for listening and as always please leave a review. 5* preferred. #thisisoklahoma

 

This is Edible Excellence

OKC is mostly known for the OKC Thunder and recently Westbrook leaving us. However, OKC has a badass food scene that's been popping off for a few years now. Not your first choice in the midwest but its becoming one of the best.  

I interviewed Logan about his food blog called @edibleexcellence on Instagram. He’s turned his passion and hobby into a thriving blog and budding business. Hosting monthly events connecting with restaurants, other local bloggers and serving on many non profit boards such as the Girls Scouts of Western Oklahoma. 

I met Logan at one of his influencer brunch events at En Croute. Logan organizes a monthly event for local food blogegrs to get together, have brunch and network. The event was really cool, i got to meet a lot of faces behind the instagram accounts which is always nice. 

A few years ago Logan challenged himself to eat at a different resturant every week for one year. This took him on quite a journey, eating goat was one of the things he mentioned. As well as finding the best hole in the wall places that he would never have found if he stayed in his normal routine. 

Half way through this challenge a friend asked if he was sharing his challenge with anyone and that this would be perfect for Instagram. After that, it was off to the races and Edible Excellence was born. Logan’s passion isnt just food. He’s a hige fan of cocktails. Mentioning his favorite places like R&J, 602 Bistro in Guthrie and PonyBoy in Uptown. 

OKC is thriving with new restaurants and most recently a food court concept, The Collective has recently opened and The Parlor is coming soon to Broadway this fall. 

All these concepts are great for OKC’s tourism, it puts our city on the map and keeps our brains busy with choice. What better place to live than a place that has so much variety for any meal of the day. 

If you want follow search @edibleexcellence on instagram to follow Logan’s recommendations. 

Thanks for listening, as always leave us a review 5* preferred.

 If you’d like to recommend anyone for the podcast send me an email thisisoklahomamedia@gmail.com and follow us @thisisoklahoma on instagram. 

Thanks