CODE RED - Gigi Butler

[00:00:07] Speaker A: So, Gigi Butler, welcome to our studio. Welcome to Code Red. [00:00:12] Speaker B: Thank you. It's great to be here. [00:00:13] Speaker A: So as we talked earlier, you and I never met before. You showed up in church one Sunday. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:00:19] Speaker A: But Gigi's cupcakes had been a big part of our story in our life, our kids childhood. We, you know, birthdays were celebrated with Gigi's cupcakes. And so when we would go on a date night up to Franklin, we would always end up having dessert over at Gigi's Cup. [00:00:37] Speaker B: That's so nice. [00:00:38] Speaker A: So when you showed up, it was like a little bit of a fanboy experience for me because I'm like, in person. She's going to be here. So you made my day. [00:00:48] Speaker B: Well, thank you. [00:00:49] Speaker A: When you showed up on the island and at First Baptist now, how long have you lived here? [00:00:53] Speaker B: Three years. [00:00:54] Speaker A: Okay. [00:00:55] Speaker B: And I showed up just not knowing anyone and didn't really. I had. I bought a house down here and didn't have a job and just needed to get out of the hustle and bustle of Nashville. And 2020 was so hard for so many people, but so much, so many small businesses really suffered from 2020. We all know that. And I just needed a place to regroup so I can recreate and lick my wounds a little bit. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Had you been here before, like on vacations or. [00:01:25] Speaker B: I came here 20 years ago and I knew I would always move to Florida eventually after my daughter graduated. And I'd be, you know, I'd go by the sea, live by the sea, get a jeep and be a mermaid instead of an old maid. But I didn't think it would be here. I thought it would be down in Seaside in Destin area. And I came up here with a friend to just six months prior. And I walked to downtown and I'm like, I'm supposed to be here. And they were, okay, what does that mean? I'm like, I think I need to move here. [00:01:56] Speaker A: This is home. [00:01:57] Speaker B: This is home. And I felt it and I felt led to be here. And people thought I was crazy, but they've thought I was crazy prior. Right. Moving to Nashville, building a cupcake company. It's kind of in my blood. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to move here and have some reprieve, which I needed. [00:02:18] Speaker A: Well, you were born in Oklahoma, raised. [00:02:22] Speaker B: In Tennessee, raised in California in the high desert. My dad was an LA county fireman, so he would have been in all the fires and he fought all the fires for 30 years, and it was never like it has become. And that's a whole other. Whole other podcast. But then I moved to Nashville right out of high school. [00:02:42] Speaker A: So if you're from people who are not from that area, we're from north Alabama. And in Seaside is kind of like right under heaven. [00:02:50] Speaker B: It's right under. [00:02:51] Speaker A: Everybody's going. [00:02:52] Speaker B: Right, right. It's where all the Tennesseans, Alabamians, all the Mississippians, they all go to. They all go there. Right? That's the dream. [00:03:00] Speaker A: And so when. When we. When Julie and I were on our honeymoon, we were in Destin. We stayed in Destin at Henderson Park Inn, and we had a moment on the dunes watching the fireworks on the 4th of July where we had that same. You're supposed to be in a place like this. [00:03:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:03:19] Speaker A: And so almost eight years ago, we kind of went through that same process of going, okay, we're in Florida. We'd never been here. But two churches in Florida were looking. One in South Florida, one here. They both pursued to the end, the last stages. And finally Sue Ellen Rotifer Garner asked us to, you know, is this what you want to do? Do you want to be here or not? If so, we'll take it to the church and move forward. And so we both said we believed that would be a good home for us, you know, that's great. The cool thing about it, though, this now is so similar to where we lived in Alabama as children. [00:04:06] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:07] Speaker A: It's kind of like culturally, it's not a time warp, but in some ways, socially, it's a very conservative area. [00:04:16] Speaker B: I agree. It's very small town feel. It's not a bougie feel at all. Although there's money here, but it's not like Seaside money and Destin like bougie. And I'm not a bougie person. [00:04:28] Speaker A: The people. [00:04:29] Speaker B: I like bougie people that have. [00:04:30] Speaker A: Have. [00:04:31] Speaker B: I also like redneck. [00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Seaside would be the. The type of. The type of Southern that has a last name for a first name. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Correct. [00:04:40] Speaker A: You know. [00:04:41] Speaker B: Correct. Harrison. Yeah, Harrison Reynolds or something, whatever. [00:04:46] Speaker A: And. But, you know, when we came here, and especially over time, as the church has grown and people have just been so, so good to us, our kids growing up here. [00:04:56] Speaker B: I love that. [00:04:57] Speaker A: You know, it's just been. It's like going home to a place we'd never been before. [00:05:02] Speaker B: That's how I felt. That's how. And it. Nashville had gotten so big, and it's just like this Nash Vegas now. I mean, it's Massive. It's like a New York City, which is so cold. But when I first moved there in 94, it was like this. [00:05:18] Speaker A: So in 94, how old were you? [00:05:22] Speaker B: I was a teenager. [00:05:24] Speaker A: Okay. [00:05:25] Speaker B: Sorry to go that way. A year out of high school, I packed up and moved with nothing. No job, didn't know anyone, and had $500 to my name. [00:05:36] Speaker A: So you really did it. [00:05:37] Speaker B: I did. That was my first step of faith. My first big act of faith was that. And there's been many more since then. But I think we're all born with different gifts that God gives us, and mine is faith and tenacity. [00:05:53] Speaker A: So 1994, you were pursuing an entertainment career? Country music. 90s country was the brand new thing. [00:06:01] Speaker B: Huge. And I started singing when I was seven, though. I knew I wanted to move to Nashville at 7, and I announced it over dinner. I'm like, I'm moving to Nashville. My parents are like, what? Well, well, I just heard the new Dolly Parton song, and guys, I'm out of here. And they're like, okay, we don't have any music background. What are you talking about? But go for it, honey. We're proud of you. And they supported me. [00:06:24] Speaker A: Do you remember what song it was? [00:06:26] Speaker B: I think it was here you come again. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [00:06:29] Speaker B: Here you come again. [00:06:30] Speaker A: So I told you earlier that that was my path as well. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Right. [00:06:36] Speaker A: So I graduated high school 1994, and was, you know, had every intention of moving here, of going to Nashville. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Moving to Nashville. Yeah. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Dad really insisted because we had a family history of moving to Nashville and doing. My granddad was on the Grand Ole Opry in, like, the 50s. [00:06:56] Speaker B: Well, you're not far from Nashville. I mean, it's what, an hour and a half? [00:06:59] Speaker A: Right? [00:07:00] Speaker B: So that's where you go to big town and go have fun. [00:07:03] Speaker A: Exactly. And so I was a writer. We had a band. It was doing well. We had our biggest gigs. We would do city. City gigs. Like. Like Fernandina. [00:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:15] Speaker A: And so if you've ever been to, like, fourth of July or the Shrimp Drop, you know, where the band would set up and the whole town come up. [00:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Pirate boat. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that. That's probably. [00:07:24] Speaker B: I like that. [00:07:25] Speaker A: At the height of where things got, we were doing those kind of gigs. [00:07:28] Speaker B: Were you lead and were you. Were you rhythm guitar or bass? [00:07:32] Speaker A: Rhythm. [00:07:32] Speaker B: Okay. [00:07:33] Speaker A: So I did. I would sing. And we. There was a band called the Nashville fat Cats back then that were. They were our backing band. So when I go into a town, they would show up. We had our. Our sounding lights were Hank Junior's crew, which was his smaller one, one truck. But it was really getting traction and going somewhere. And I began. I came to Christ around that time, and I began to just wrestle with, you know, is this what I need to keep doing? And for me, I think it was the early kind of the calling of God, the voice of God. And so one night, somewhere in Tennessee, There was a town party in Tennessee. And one night when I was on the verge of, like, you know, go all in or go a different route, I prayed and I said, lord, make it clear. Make it clear tonight. Because it was turmoil to me. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Because you couldn't decide. Yeah. [00:08:36] Speaker A: And this night, we had the best sound, best lights, staging was perfect, Best band I'd ever worked with, and I could not hit the notes. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Isn't that interesting? [00:08:46] Speaker A: It was so weird. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Like, everything was there, but there was no excuse. There was no excuse. [00:08:51] Speaker A: Right. So I've thought about it. I thought, could it. What is it a monitor issue? But the monitors were perfect. And so when we got in the car that night, and as we were heading back home, my dad, who was basically acting like a manager, I said, dad, don't take any more gigs. We'll finish out what we've got. I don't want to do this anymore. And he just said, okay. About, I don't know, maybe six months later, I called my dad from college and I said, dad, I went forward today at church and told the pastor, God's calling me to the ministry. He's calling me to preach. And dad said, okay, son, here's the phone. Here's mom. Tell her. Handed the phone to mom. Mom gets on the phone. Well, that's real good, son. We're proud of you. All that. Hands it back to dad. And dad says, I thought, dad's disappointed in me. He wanted me to pursue the music thing. And dad gets back on the phone, and he said, when you were like nine months old, I was on a gurney at the children's hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, getting a kidney removed. And at that time, in 76, that was life or death. [00:10:04] Speaker B: That's a big deal. Yeah. [00:10:05] Speaker A: So he said, at that moment, God told me you're. He's going to live and he's going to be a preacher. [00:10:13] Speaker B: Wow. [00:10:14] Speaker A: And he said, I've waited 19 years for this phone call. [00:10:17] Speaker B: What a beautiful thing. [00:10:18] Speaker A: And I'm like, why didn't you tell me? And he said, because I didn't want you to. [00:10:21] Speaker B: I wanted you to do your own thing. [00:10:22] Speaker A: I wanted you to be called. [00:10:25] Speaker B: Wow. [00:10:25] Speaker A: And he had told my mother, but mom said, you know, I remember when you went through. When you went through the surgery, that it went from dad being absolutely devastated to being at perfect peace because God told him. Yeah. And so it's just been. That's. That was such confirmation. But it was also cool that all these other things, God, that my path took me on, dad supported. [00:10:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:10:53] Speaker A: You know, and now, as you see, learning how mics work and studio experience, cameras. [00:11:00] Speaker B: It helps, doesn't it? [00:11:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it all comes full circle. [00:11:02] Speaker B: Well, and also your stage presence. Yeah. The one thing that is critical for a preacher and a comedian is timing so much. [00:11:10] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:11] Speaker B: So you learn timing through all of the bars and the country music. And you were reading the crowd because you know how to do that, because you had timing and you learned that. And so if you don't have timing as a preacher, you're not a good preacher. No, you have to have timing, number one thing. Right. [00:11:29] Speaker A: There's a knack that you have, but there's also just a level of. Of getting the reps in. [00:11:34] Speaker B: Right. You know, looking at people's body language, you know, when people are going to fall asleep, you're like, oh, has it been over 45 minutes now? I better wrap it up. [00:11:42] Speaker A: And, you know, seeing, like, in some. In some venues, the crowd just was not responsive. You got to learn that quick or they're gone. [00:11:51] Speaker B: That's right. [00:11:51] Speaker A: And so, you know, shifting gears, having plenty of ammo and, you know, to work with that all was a training ground that God used for your preaching career. [00:12:03] Speaker B: Isn't that amazing, though, how God does that? [00:12:06] Speaker A: But I wonder if we ever crossed paths back then. [00:12:10] Speaker B: We were there. [00:12:10] Speaker A: When did you go? What did you do early in Nashville? [00:12:13] Speaker B: Well, I worked at Red Lobster, and then I had started a cleaning business at 15, Gigi's cleaning company to support my. In where I lived in my hometown in the high desert. And then I closed that down, and I worked at Red Lobster, right down in Franklin. And I built my cleaning business, and then I cleaned during the day, and then I started singing at night. Got a band together, sang all over the country, different parts of the world. [00:12:42] Speaker A: Did you have a manager? [00:12:44] Speaker B: I did. I did. I had a manager. I had a small business deal. I had a, you know, record deal. I had a writing. It just never. I was never. It never worked. You know, it just. I was almost there. Almost there. And it just got to the point to where I knew that it wasn't going to be. And I had an epiphany, kind of like You. I was singing down at Tootsie's one night and my brother had called a couple nights prior. I had the Friday night gig from 6 to 10 in the front room at Tootsies. And that's a good gig. It's a good gig, but you really don't make a lot of money after you pay all your band. You get pinched in the butt and sexually harassed and you're propping up your stoned or drunk band members and then you're dealing with all of the drunks that are trying to, you know, it's just a very odd situation. Talk about reading the room. [00:13:41] Speaker A: That is something my son is now kind of on our track of. You know, he's an up and comer and he's been shocked that you can go to Broadway and play all night, but you won't make the tips you make here like he makes. [00:13:56] Speaker B: Oh, well, of course you won't because everyone in the world is at Broadway, right? And no one makes money down in Nashville unless you have a deal and you're really hitting the road. So you don't make money because everybody in the world, the best musicians in the world are there and they're all the top of the top. So you don't make money when you. [00:14:16] Speaker A: Got there, at what point did you see this? Doesn't seem like I said at least going to be easy. And it may not be what I need to pursue. [00:14:27] Speaker B: Well, it was never easy, but I kept going because I have a tenacious spirit. And I kept going, kept going. And there's a time of life where you can not sell your soul but start doing things that you know is an on the godly path. And I was always a Christian because I was raised Church of Christ. But as you become in that industry, it's very easy to slowly let go of moral ground that you probably wouldn't and you just become convinced. So all the people that I see now that have gone so far out, I understand that if you're really not balanced, I was even balanced and I still found myself conforming, I guess. [00:15:17] Speaker A: It seeps into your soul. [00:15:19] Speaker B: It seeps into your soul. The things you listen to, who you're hanging around, what you're doing. And I was passing the tip jar around. I got my butt pinched that night and I'm like, oh. And the next day, and my brother had said, you might want to quit. And I'm like, I can't quit. I was 28 at the time and I was cleaning for a new family in town and they had A daughter who was 15. And that family came into town and said, Here's $2 million. You make my daughter a star because she's a savant, right? And I was cleaning her toilet one day, and she came in her bedroom, and she was sitting on her bed and practicing her guitar and practicing a song she wrote. And I looked up from cleaning her toilet. Now she's 15, all the money in the world, and all these huge songwriters are coming in and out of her house every week that I'm there, and I'm almost 30, 28, and I'm cleaning her toilet. And I looked at her and I said, did you write that song? And she's like, yeah, it's gonna be my first album. It was Teardrops on My Guitar. [00:16:18] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [00:16:18] Speaker B: And it was Taylor Swift. And that night, it was like this epiphany. And I packed my cleaning supplies in my truck, and I drove home, and I'm like, I'm done. And it wasn't an easy decision. I felt like a loser for many, many years. But after I just started the. I was, why me, Lord? Why couldn't I make it, Lord? Now that I look back, he's like, cause you wouldn't have made it to heaven. So I'm doing you a favor. I didn't think that at the time. [00:16:50] Speaker A: What a good word. [00:16:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I started listening to podcasts and tapes and CDs, Joyce Meyer reading all these books about, well, I can reinvent myself, I could recreate. And I expanded my cleaning business, and instead of the why me? It started turning into, well, why not me? If I'm just going to be a house cleaner, I could be the best cleaner in Nashville. And I finally. I had a little business. I expanded it. I had people working for me. It was a great little business. And I thought, okay, God, I feel like there's something more for me, but if there isn't, I'm okay. And then it happened. [00:17:34] Speaker A: Okay, let's unpack that. So assume that you're a baker. You loved cooking. [00:17:42] Speaker B: Well, always. But I never thought I'd be doing it as a living, ever. [00:17:45] Speaker A: How was it in your life? Did your mom teach you how to cook? [00:17:47] Speaker B: Well, my great, great grandmother in the turn of the century, she opened her first bakery in Oklahoma called Bill's Bakery. And she was the owner, and her brothers worked for her. And so my entire family baked. [00:18:00] Speaker A: Oh, what a legacy. [00:18:00] Speaker B: Cooked, baked. You know, had catering companies, like, everyone did it. My mom, my grandmother. And so I would be, you know, on a stool at 5. And they're like, here, this is how you do pie crust. And I wasn't thinking, I'm going to do pie crust one day or have a pie shop. I was just thinking, okay, I'll do pie crust. So I had no idea I was going to be a baker. 0 absolute idea that I would ever do that. So I was cleaning one day, and my brother went to New York City, and he stood in line at a cupcake shop for two hours. And while eating a red velvet cupcake, which you've had one of my red velvet cupcakes. He's like, you should open a cupcake shop in Nashville. Your cupcakes are better than these. Now, mind you, I'd never made really cupcakes. I'd made cakes from all my grandparents and my aunt's recipes, but I'd never made it in a cupcake form. I was cleaning a client's bathroom at the time. Of course, all my epiphanies happen near a toilet. Go figure. And I had my pink cleaning gloves on, which is hilarious. [00:19:03] Speaker A: A brother of mine said, spiritual brother. He said, you know, some of my best ideas come from the throne. Not. I thought that was talking about the war. So. No, the throne. [00:19:13] Speaker B: No, the throne. Literally, the throne. And I'm cleaning that toilet. And I was like, wait a minute. And I got up from the toilet and I was cleaning, and I looked in the mirror and I had my pink cleaning gloves on. And I'm like, why not? Why not me? What am I going to do? I've already failed at something. That was my dream if I did this. And so I went to four banks, and I'd been in business since I was 15. I had a success cleaning. I had great credit, little bit of savings. Four banks laughed in my face. They're like, are you kidding me? Cupcakes? I'm like, no, I really have a gut feeling that it's going to be the big thing. And they all laughed at me. And I went home, and I was like, God, I feel led. What am I going to do? Like, show me. [00:20:01] Speaker A: What did you need? What kind of startup money do you need? [00:20:03] Speaker B: Of about $100,000 to do that, and that would cover a store, a lease, and everything. So I took out $100,000 cash advances on my credit cards, and everyone thought I was crazy. And they're like, are you nuts? And I said, yes, but this is the only way I can do it. And I really feel like I'll pay them off. And if I don't, and if I Fail miserably, then I'll just pay off $100,000 for the rest of my life. [00:20:33] Speaker A: There's something about that gift, that entrepreneurial spirit. When we came here, the church was $12 million in debt. [00:20:41] Speaker B: Wow. [00:20:42] Speaker A: But I knew that if we came here, we knew that the money was on the island to cover the debt, and if we could reach the people, which we were confident we could do, that, it would all work out. So in the interview process, one of the ladies said, well, this is the tr. $12 million. Does that not. [00:21:01] Speaker B: Does that scare you at all? [00:21:02] Speaker A: Don't stumbled about that. And I said, no. I said, it's like Willie Nelson told the irs, if you say it fast, it doesn't sound like much. [00:21:10] Speaker B: Right, right, right. [00:21:12] Speaker A: And so here you go. You know, you can hustle and you can work hard, and with the Lord's blessing, it would work out. You have faith in yourself and faith in what God's done in your life. [00:21:24] Speaker B: Right. And you obviously know how to execute. [00:21:27] Speaker A: Right. [00:21:28] Speaker B: And you know how to herd cats, because being a manager of anything is herding cats, and they're all over. And if you have a plan and you have people that can execute your vision, it. You can be successful. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So your first store. Did you start with a store? [00:21:44] Speaker B: I mean, the first store was right down off of Music Row and right downtown Nashville. And I opened. I had $33 left to my name, and I was scared to death. I didn't know. And I still have my cleaning business, too. And I'd taken all that money. I didn't know how I was gonna make my mortgage. And they're like, well, you need a business plan. You need advertising. I'm like, I don't have anything. They're like, what do you mean you don't have anything? I'm like, I don't. I have $33. They're like, you're just gonna open your doors with faith? Yeah, I am. And it worked. [00:22:18] Speaker A: Wow. [00:22:19] Speaker B: Sometimes it doesn't work. [00:22:20] Speaker A: At that point. At that point, put yourself the best you can into that time. And losing sleep, I'm assuming. [00:22:29] Speaker B: Oh. I was curled up in a fetal position, like, behind a potted plant most of the day. I was just scared to death and crying, and I didn't know what I was going to do, but I just knew I had to complete the task. [00:22:43] Speaker A: And at that point, what would success look like to you at that stage? Did you just want to have steady income? [00:22:51] Speaker B: Steady income? One store I had budgeted that I would make 50,000 a year off the store. And I just wanted one store, and that's all. And God provided one store. [00:23:04] Speaker A: When you started putting together, you know, the cupcakes are awesome, but the icing was just, like. It really was different than anything I'd ever had. And when you did all of that, was that family recipes? Was that something you just kind of came up with? [00:23:22] Speaker B: Well, it was family recipes, but I had been in so many successful people's homes cleaning since I was 15, so I. Everyone, what they say in Nashville is you have to have your own shtick, right? So everyone has their own thing. Garth Brooks had his thing. George Strait has his own thing. So I wanted my cupcake business to have its own personality, and I wanted people to subliminally remember the names and the taste and take them back to their grandma. Like, okay, so it was a grandma's recipe, a cupcake. But if I could make it beautiful and name it something like Wedding Cake or Hunk a Chunk of Banana Love or Scarlet's Red Velvet, then they'll go, oh, Scarlet's Red Velvet. The south, the Southern, you know, Gone with the Wind. Oh, I want that. I want five of those and Wedding Cake. Oh, one day I want to get married. And, you know, by the way, that was our bestseller. And so if I can name them. [00:24:15] Speaker A: Things, I remember it. And I remember it because I never like wedding cake, you know, And I. I always. I'm probably been to more weddings than anybody. [00:24:25] Speaker B: I'm sure you have. I'm sure you have, being a preacher. Yeah. [00:24:28] Speaker A: My mother owned a florist. She was a business owner, and so been to a ton of. I never liked the Wedding Gate, but it was really good. Your Wedding Gate. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Well, thank you. It was the best. The third bestseller. We had Wedding Cake, Red Velvet, Cookie Dough, Strawberry, Midnight Magic, White and Dark were the. Those were our big sellers that we had to have every day. [00:24:49] Speaker A: My favorite. [00:24:50] Speaker B: It was pretty good. [00:24:51] Speaker A: I say, was, because we don't have one here. [00:24:52] Speaker B: I know, I know. [00:24:54] Speaker A: You told me. There's one in Gainesville. So I've got. [00:24:55] Speaker B: In Gainesville. [00:24:56] Speaker A: Got to get over there and try those out again. So you open the business. Have you got all your branding worked out? [00:25:06] Speaker B: No, I had written. I had drawn the Gigi's Cupcake on a bar napkin. I'd sit and I'd wrote. I'm like, no, this is how I want it to. So my creativity from writing songs and doing all that, it stopped. But then I just started writing and designing logos and color schemes, and so creativity didn't stop. It Just switched. I just had a different path. And that's what I really want people to know, that if your creativity of something that you thought is dead or died, it doesn't mean you can't recreate and just pivot and do something different. And you have to just keep recreating. That is entrepreneurship in a nutshell. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Were you prior to. Prior to that stepping into business? Well, you had already done it one time with a cleaning company, but were you a constant learner? Is that just. I was who you are. [00:26:04] Speaker B: I was. I hated school. I was never. I have a little bit of ADD and I think completely outside the box. I have tons of energy. So I hated school. I never fit into a box. But I always read. I'm an avid reader and I love to learn about history and people and what other people did to make it. I mean, you could look at someone and say, I wonder how they did it. And you could read their life story and go, well, that's a good model. [00:26:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Success leaves clues. [00:26:33] Speaker B: Success leaves clues. That's great. I love that. [00:26:36] Speaker A: And so that's one of the things in my line of work, it's. I read more than the Bible, of course, study the Bible. But reading broadly and learning broadly, it all comes back together. And sometimes the angles you don't see at first, but you have to put it in your mind. And then in time, kind of the angle of what in the world does a cupcake have to do with Nineveh or whatever it comes. It's an epiphany, but it comes to you eventually. But you've got to front load. You gotta put all that in your mind. [00:27:16] Speaker B: And you really. I really admire when I'm sitting there at church, how learned you are. Is that a word? How well did you know about the Bible? And you're a great study. You can tell. [00:27:30] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate that you have the spirit. I enjoy that more than preaching. So if I found out tomorrow I can't speak anymore. If I could figure out a way, whether it's writing or whatever, the study is really the joy to me, you could tell. Put me alone in a cave and I'm happy. [00:27:49] Speaker B: You can tell. You can tell. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Word crafting, you're a deep study. Well, thank you for that. You were a writer as well. [00:27:57] Speaker B: I was and I blog now too. And I'm writing my second book and. [00:28:02] Speaker A: In that pre Gigi's. You were a songwriter. [00:28:06] Speaker B: Oh, yes. [00:28:07] Speaker A: Okay. So it's interesting to me how that, how that is word crafting. I know the order of words choosing I'll show an example for the sake of the people that are watching. Earlier we were talking about the effect of the city as it would cause you to start to compromise. And I said, it seeps into your soul. [00:28:29] Speaker B: It does. [00:28:30] Speaker A: Now, that was in a song I heard today, Johnny Cash singing a song about coal mining. And he said, the coal seeps into your soul over time. So that's just a nugget. That's how. What on earth would a song that you heard on the way to work have to do with this, with the effect, the moral decline of a person in Nashville? The Lord uses it that way. And the dots connect in the strangest of ways. [00:29:06] Speaker B: That's amazing. [00:29:07] Speaker A: And what I want people to see is that as you're cleaning, you're studying, right? You're looking at the homes, you're noticing things about these successful people. [00:29:18] Speaker B: Very successful. I mean, managers. LeAnn Rimes, of course, Taylor Swift, all these managers, all of these doctors, lawyers. And I remember I was cleaning it for a guy who was a guy that did all of the stocks. Like, he was wildly successful, and he had, like, four screens and every day. And I'd say, hey, do you want me to dust for you, Mr. Ray? And he'd be like, well, come in and dust real quick. And I'd be dusting, and he'd say, okay, look at what this stock's doing today. So this is rising. This is doing this. Don't buy this one. And I'm like, okay, Mr. Ray, you know, I was like, 12 or whatever, you know, 15. He's my first gig. But I'm like, okay, why would Procter and Gamble stock not buy that one? Don't you know? And so I learned osmosis of being in these very successful people's homes, how what rich people like. And I don't mean that like, people like something different, and they like something that's classy. Even if they can't afford it, they want it, right? And I remember this is probably one of the most beautiful things that has ever happened to me. Having a cup. And there's been a lot of beautiful things. But there was a homeless woman that came in, and she was always, you know, dressed. And I'm like, hi, Ms. Marie. And she goes, Ms. Gigi, she said, I've been saving this for two days. And I said, well, you haven't been here in two weeks. Where have you been? And she goes, I haven't been able to afford it. She said, but every. When I get that money, I come in and get my Little gift. And it was the gift box. It was the. So that it was whether it was a homeless person or Taylor Swift later buying thousands of cupcakes from me, which she probably didn't even know she was buying from me. Right. So the top of the top two, everyone wants a little gift, and everyone wants something that's special. [00:31:10] Speaker A: Wow. [00:31:11] Speaker B: And so I remembered that she goes, nope, I buy my little gift. I said, let me give you one. She goes, no, I want to buy it because it's my gift and I want that box. [00:31:21] Speaker A: I hope for our children and their generation, I hope that they. I don't feel like I see it as much as I once did, but maybe it's always been that the entrepreneur was a minority. But I want them to walk through the world with a curiosity and ask the questions, if not verbally, in their mind, try to put together, why did he choose that car over why did they choose to live here? You know, all of those things that have just been what I've always done. I'm just curious. So. [00:32:02] Speaker B: Well, that's been downplayed since 2008. Right. [00:32:05] Speaker A: So no one unpacked that a little bit. What you mean by that? [00:32:07] Speaker B: Well, no one. The society, in my opinion, has not wanted entrepreneurs out there. They want to hamper everyone's dreams and they want everyone to be the same with all of the social things that they want to put us all in a boiling pot and so we can all be level. They don't want entrepreneurship since 2008. [00:32:30] Speaker A: No, I can see that. [00:32:30] Speaker B: And they've downplayed it. They've criminalized it. They, you know, the toxic masculinity and all of this stuff. If you, if you want to drive, you have drive and you want to make something of yourself. It was not really. Oh, you're one of those. Yeah, I'm one of those. I work my butt off. I still want to be one of those because I'm proud of being one of those. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Where do you think that came from? Do you think it's an ideology that's driving it or. [00:32:56] Speaker B: I think it's a Marxist ideology. I really think that colleges since the 19, I'm going to say 2005, 2008, way before then, but it's really, really seeped in since then is they have wanted to program our children to just, oh, it's always good to go to an Ivy League school. And you just do, you know, the Ivy League stuff and the white collar stuff and, ooh, those blue collar people. So they took out all of the Trades. They took out everything. Oh, it's bad to be a plumber. You want to be an Ivy League guy. Well, now what's happening? And while they're brainwashing our children in college and in high school now and middle school, we're getting these nihilist Marxists that come out of Belmont or wherever and hate America. Wonder why little socialists, little. Oh, sorry, I won't be. We're not supposed to talk about that. But it's like no wonder. [00:33:57] Speaker A: No, there's nothing, there's nothing that you can't talk about on this show. [00:34:01] Speaker B: Oh, good. [00:34:01] Speaker A: So we can go any direction we want to. [00:34:05] Speaker B: So it wasn't, it wasn't honored. Entrepreneurship since 2008 has been hampered. And you be an Ivy League and you don't try, don't get out of that boiling pot. You're those crabs and the one crab's trying to get out because it's starting to get hot. And the other crabs are going to just pull them down. To me, that is what all of our colleges have taught our kids and have force fed us since 2000. Well, it started in the 70s, but since really it's come to a boiling point since 2008, I think. [00:34:36] Speaker A: Wow, great insight. I think the idea of a globalist system, a one world scripturally, we know that at the end there's going to be a one world government, there's going to be a one world religion. And I think as children growing up in the church and, and even in my early ministry, in the back of my mind when I would teach about the end times, that was the one thing that I really didn't see, how the dots connected. How do we go from this to a one world government? I can't imagine that. [00:35:15] Speaker B: Well, you couldn't imagine that in probably 2000 2015. Could you imagine that in 2015 things changed quickly, like night and day. [00:35:24] Speaker A: But here's what I've been chewing on recently. For there to be a functional government, one world or local or whatever, there have to be certain things that people have in common. So if you look at like the uk, there was a time when their faith kept them together. So they worshiped the same God. It was in their legal documents, in their history. Their faith is written very well into their national system. [00:35:58] Speaker B: Correct. [00:35:59] Speaker A: And they had common enemies. So common God, common enemies. So we began to talk about it in our family. Just if there's going to be a one world government, if the George Soros of the world are going to pull it off, they're going to have to find a common enemy for everybody. And we began to see things like Covid and the way that it was unpacked and the way that it was discussed, it was the common enemy that we all have. [00:36:31] Speaker B: Well, it was fear, right? They were putting fear on us. And when the flock gets afraid, they run. There's not a lot of people that are going to stand up. Most of the sheep will run and be herded. [00:36:45] Speaker A: And then you look at all of the talk about aliens and all that sort of thing that's happening now. [00:36:51] Speaker B: Now. Well, they're just trying to scare us. There's not alien. Well, if there are, it's demonic. I mean, it's angels. It's God's demonic, or it's the devil's demonic angels. They're the aliens. They've been here since the beginning of time, people. [00:37:08] Speaker A: I don't disagree with that. [00:37:09] Speaker B: Aliens, okay? [00:37:11] Speaker A: But the idea that, you know, the way that it's packed, packaged, and presented is something that everybody can fear at the same time. That combined with just the open border policies and all that sort of thing of just bringing everyone together under a particular leader or system. [00:37:31] Speaker B: But you know what happened? The praying remnant happened. These small people. Because what's happened. You know why this happened? Because us Christians, us lazy, politically correct Christians, were waiting for the Rapture. Ah, I'm just gonna sit here and wait for the Rapture. We haven't been taking footing and been. They've been. They've been playing chess. We're down here playing checkers. We've been way down here, and we've just been waiting for the rapture. Let's be nice. Jesus has never said be nice. Occupy the land. Occupy. We are supposed to occupy and take power. We're not supposed to be these little passive wimps. So that's what's happened, I think, since the 70s. [00:38:26] Speaker A: The main reason that I wrote Parenting in a Culture war is simply because that the world that I grew up in has changed. It's radically different than what we were equipped to talk about and to answer as young people back in the 80s and the 90s. Today, we're faced with things like the LGBTQ movement, the Pride movement, that's seeking to take over our communities and even our churches. And when our young people go into the world, whether it's through public school or college, whatever it may be, if we don't give them answers and a worldview to interpret things around them, they're going to be easy pickings for the enemy. Well, you know, looking at commands where Jesus said that. That we are to pray that the Lord's will be done on earth as. [00:39:28] Speaker B: It is in heaven. [00:39:28] Speaker A: As it is in heaven. And so when I began to wrestle with some of those concepts, I think probably five years ago, coming out of COVID we didn't know at that time the word Christian nationalist wasn't used. And then suddenly that began to be kind of the label put on us. [00:39:46] Speaker B: Correct. [00:39:47] Speaker A: And I'm like, well, what do you mean by that? [00:39:50] Speaker B: Yeah. What is a Christian nationalist? Does that mean that you love your land? And our whole founding fathers, it was built on Christianity? So am I a Christian nationalist? I guess I am. If that means I'm a patriot, which means father, and I think Greek. Right. [00:40:08] Speaker A: Patros. [00:40:09] Speaker B: Patros, which is patriot. That's Greek, father. Okay, if I'm a patriot and I'm a Christian nationalist. All right. You know, bring it. We've just got to be at the point to where Christians have to say, come hell or high water, I'm getting off the politically correct fence, and I'm going to do what God wants me to do. And that's the only reason that there might be a little sliver of hope and we can have this beautiful reckoning and all these souls can come to heaven. [00:40:39] Speaker A: Amen. Well, you. You mentioned earlier about how those two things, the entrepreneurial spirit, the danger, the threat of Marxist ideology in that way of thinking, being a successful entrepreneur is a very patriotic thing. [00:40:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:40:58] Speaker A: And it's a way to keep the power out of the hands of the government. Yeah. [00:41:06] Speaker B: That's what built America. [00:41:07] Speaker A: A government that's friendly toward entrepreneurs is unfriendly toward those Marxist ideologies. [00:41:14] Speaker B: Correct. [00:41:15] Speaker A: And so the way all of it fits together, so many. I've got friends and some in Nashville who are on the other side of the fence politically, and I really want them to understand. The questions I'll get asked will be, hey, you grew up in a farmer's household in Alabama, and years and years, we always voted Democrat. Why are you. Why are you changing now? And those are the kind of things that I want them to understand, how the math works on it. [00:41:49] Speaker B: Well, the Democrat party changed it. Did you did. We didn't change. The Democrat Party changed. It flipped. And I think it started flipping in the 70s. [00:41:58] Speaker A: Well, and you see people, whether it's Elon Musk, that he was a Democrat, very successful, successful businessman, you know, went out on a limb, tried a lot of things. Some of them really, really worked big. And so when you see someone like that as a citizen who does Have a good amount of influence. You know, the world that we live, the nation that we live in, allows for that. It allows for people to step up and serve people by creating a product that they find useful, whether it's a cupcake or house cleaning. Let's talk about from that first store. At what point did you think, maybe I need to go further? At what point did you know, hey, this is actually going to work? [00:42:47] Speaker B: Well, the passionate people that would come in and demand that I had a Scarlet's red velvet, and I didn't have it that day, and they're yelling at me, why aren't you cussing out? Cussing me out. And there's a line around the building. I'm like, maybe I have something here. And I didn't take it as rejection. I took it as like, ding, ding, ding, ding. I'm looking for dollar signs. If people are that passionate, they're yelling at me because I ran out of a cupcake. I've got something here. And then I made a menu on the website, and I really had this. I created consistency, which is very important when you want to grow. And one time, I was just in the back, and these people kept coming in saying, we want this. We want you. And I'm like, what do you mean, you want me? I'm just me. We want a Gigi's. And so someone came in. I had flour all over me one day, and I had. I mean, I was a mess. We were pumping out cupcakes, and this guy from Indianapolis came in with his wife. And they're like, we've been here three times. We want one of these in Indianapolis. And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. It's only me. No, we want what you have. And I'm like, well, stand in line, honey. You know? And he's like, no, I want a store. And I thought, wait a minute, maybe I could recreate and, you know, make this, like, a system. And so. And my landlord was a. He was a franchise. He was in franchising, and he was in properties. And he's like, we should do a franchise company. And I'm like, what's a franchise? So I read about it, and I thought, okay, because to have corporate stores, you have to have a lot of money. I didn't. I had $26 left in my name. And so. Or 33. And so I'm like, okay, we'll franchise. So I took a little bit of savings that I had, you know, saved from the store, and I started Gigi's Franchising. And I didn't stop my cleaning business until I had 13 stores open. [00:44:51] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. [00:44:52] Speaker B: And they were like, you gotta stop. I'm like, no, it's my baby business, you know? And what I've learned most is you have to let go to grow. And that is the hardest thing about life, is letting go. [00:45:04] Speaker A: We say in church, you've gotta give up to go up. [00:45:10] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, give up to go up. [00:45:12] Speaker A: Well, Christ said that he who saves his life will lose it. He who loses it for my sake will find it. [00:45:19] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. [00:45:20] Speaker A: It's a spiritual principle. [00:45:22] Speaker B: It is a very. Yes, it is a spiritual principle. [00:45:24] Speaker A: So did investors step in at that point, or was it just kind of other people who said, I want to replicate? [00:45:30] Speaker B: No, they just came and said, we want a store. And in 2008, you know, everyone was losing everything, the market. But I think what happened and why it was such a phenomenon is that people would get all their money out of the stock market, and they wanted something of their own. So they're like, well, we'll just buy a Gigi's. And then people wouldn't go to Fleming's or Ruth Chris, but they'd go to Applebee's. But they still wanted to treat themselves, so they'd come and get a little $3 cupcake that was in a package and in a box. You know, it was still a treat for them. So I think that's why the cupcake business was the perfect. It was the perfect storm. It just was the perfect timing, and that's why we grew so quickly. [00:46:14] Speaker A: Do you think. Were you ever tempted to expand and do maybe cakes or do pies or do. [00:46:22] Speaker B: We did. We did do cakes, and. We did. We started doing cakes, and a lot of the stores would do wedding cakes, and. And if they had a wedding decorator that could decorate cakes, they did that. So we did. And we had a cheesecake line. And I started the cheesecake line right after I had my child, had Kendall. And so there I was, 76 pounds overweight after I had her, and I'm head of R and D starting a cheesecake line. I'm like, oh, God, help me. I mean, it really. It was a very challenging time. But so we would decide. And then we had a cookie, a Gigi stuffed cookie with. And so I didn't try to go way out of what we could do. We had a coffee, Gigi's coffee that we love. So we had a coffee line, and they'd like coffee and we saw. We had a drink program too but we didn't go too far out. We did pies during the holiday if people wanted to pre order a piece because that's really my first love was pies. [00:47:24] Speaker A: Did you ever do anything with like a membership system so that you know. We did every week. [00:47:29] Speaker B: We had a point. We had a point point system and they'd get points and we had all of the website up and all of the loyalty points and everything and gift cards and it got really big. It was a big, A big beast. [00:47:45] Speaker A: So currently do you know how many there are right now? [00:47:49] Speaker B: Currently I don't. I sold at a hundred and when there was 125 and 24 states. Wow. Yeah. I was time. [00:47:57] Speaker A: What was it? What was it that let you know it was time? [00:48:00] Speaker B: Oh that's a. That's a very. That's a good question. I had a child on my own and she was 5. I had put her. She'd been on the road since she was six weeks old. I'd always wanted to. [00:48:14] Speaker A: It's tough to raise children that way, right? [00:48:16] Speaker B: It is. And I've always wanted to be a stay at home mom. Our home just happened to be a bus or airplane or a hotel room or wherever we were. But she was with me all the time. I wanted her to have some normalcy. I was fighting my franchisees. I felt like I was putting on this armor every day to fight the suits that would work for me because they knew better. Right. Because I'm just a little girl and they would. Oh, you're just. You don't know what you're talking about. Well I grew the company. I started the company. I'm the founder. So it was a fight with my family. It was just a fight. And my creativity was gone. [00:48:57] Speaker A: Was it? [00:48:58] Speaker B: I just had to be just corporate thing. Oh it stopped being fun. It was miserable and it was just this corporate. I was best when I was in the back, you know, operating. I'm an operator. I can pump things out and clean. I see what I'm the best at operations. I'm really not a good CEO. [00:49:17] Speaker A: Well I think that's very important. Just understanding yourself that self knowledge. Because some people find the struggle of franchising fun. They find that they want to step in at that point. [00:49:31] Speaker B: It was fun but it was horribly fun if that's a word. See struggle. [00:49:37] Speaker A: We're going through some of the same things with the campus with multi science I'm sure. So figuring out how is our team gifted and who's gifted for going out and starting something new. Who can come up with a system that we can take in one place and apply it to another. All of that, I told you, my joy is in the cave with a book, reading the word study and writing the sermon. But finding the right people in all those different spots. Because our dream one day would be to put churches all over south Georgia, north Florida. [00:50:12] Speaker B: I love that. [00:50:13] Speaker A: And it takes the right team to. [00:50:16] Speaker B: Accomplish that and you can't. I mean, I'm a control freak. Most entrepreneurs are. And that was the hardest thing because I had to let go to grow right. And letting that go. But finding the people that can have the same passion as you and implementing things and doing things better than you can do. Like, I'm not good at computers. Social media isn't my thing. Find that person, find this person, you know, find someone that keeps books better and getting someone that has it all together. You can't do it all. No, you have to let go to grade. [00:50:51] Speaker A: And often, and I think this is even more difficult, is turning over anything to someone who can do it almost as good as you can, but they can't do it better. I know, but you have to do that sometimes. [00:51:05] Speaker B: You do, you just do. [00:51:07] Speaker A: We tell the staff, especially with a volunteer driven organization, we tell the staff, let's say with Jennifer leading worshiper John, sure, you could do every song. They know this, this is their heart. You could do every song, you could knock it out of the park. But if someone else can do it 70% as good as you can, let's let them do it. [00:51:31] Speaker B: Let's let them, let's open it up a little bit. It's important. Of course they can knock it out of the park. But then that's not being the team. [00:51:38] Speaker A: Player and training because one day, if you give them the reps, they might can do it better than you or any of us can. [00:51:47] Speaker B: They might, they might. And that's the hardest thing to grow. And, and especially I can't imagine in the church setting, you know, where there's absolutely no cussing and you know what I'm saying, like you have to walk in the arms of Jesus every day. Now, being an entrepreneur, I wasn't walking in the arms of Jesus every day. I'll tell you, I tried. I just, I was battling. [00:52:13] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:52:14] Speaker B: Jesus was behind me, going away. Hey, hold on. You're making a mistake right here. Let me get in front of you. Honey. [00:52:20] Speaker A: It is, it is a challenge because you look at it and go. [00:52:23] Speaker B: And you're just like, you have to have a gift of mercy. I don't. Your wife has the gift of mercy. I could never be a preacher's wife. I'd be like, honey, go do 10 things right now on the list. I told you to do it, then come back to me. Yeah, I couldn't have the gift of mercy. [00:52:38] Speaker A: That dynamic of just wanting to kind of go in and take something over and make it happen, and then at the same time going, you're called here, you're called to this particular. The main thing that you bring value in the church is studying, delivering the sermon, you know, and the temptation to go get involved in every department. [00:53:02] Speaker B: I can't imagine. [00:53:03] Speaker A: So you have to step in, you know, occasionally. And I'll say it like this. We'll do with worship planning, we'll meet once a month. We'll step in and kind of work through the calendar. But then we'll say, is there one little thing I want to tweak? And I'll speak to that. And you just have to be patient to say, over years, we'll get it where we want it. But this environment of having the studio set up, the reason I love this is because I can just go put it where I want it. [00:53:36] Speaker B: I know, I know. And you don't have 15 people saying, oh, you can't do that. And you can't walk. You can't. You have to walk on eggshells. You can't make people cry. And I would make people cry. I remember I was always the operator and there was a. I don't know what store I was in, maybe I can't remember. And there was a line and I was in the back and I'm operating, I'm pumping out the cupcakes. That's what I really do best. And they're like, you just need to be the face of the brand now. Go out there and sign the autographs and kiss the babies. And we'll do it in the back. I'm like, but you're not doing it correctly. And so I'd run in the back. And one time, one of my trainers was like, you can't make people cry anymore. It doesn't look good for your perspective. Tears and cupcakes, how do I make people cry? There's no crying in cupcakes. They're like, but you're Gigi. And you telling them what to do, the pressure of you telling that swirl's not good enough. Do it again. Give it to me. Nevermind, I'll do it. And they're like, Crying in the bathroom. And I'm like, but I don't mean it that way. I just. They're like, but you can't be that. You're this person now. And I'm like, I'm really not that person. I'm really this person. [00:54:50] Speaker A: But there's a measure of self awareness, I think that happens. So, like, a pastor friend had remarkable success. I mean, just really off the charts. And one of the guys on his staff, in a hallway conversation, he's going from point A to point B. He kind of dresses him down a little bit and says, look, you're going to have to do this different. I need you to change that. And we expect better. It's over. He goes into the next meeting, never thinks about it. Several years go by, the guy leaves the church. He's obviously upset with the senior pastor. They sit down and he says, look, man, I always liked you. I've always liked you on the team. But I'm reading that something's not right here. Am I right? The guy's like, yep. He said, well, what did I do? Because I'm not aware. If you'll let me know, I'll confess it, we'll make it right. He said, do you remember that day in the hallway where you kind of dressed me down? And he said vaguely, but pastor says, vaguely. He says, I really don't even. But wasn't it about yada, yada, yada? And he said, yeah. He said that hurt you? He said, it tore me apart. He said, I didn't sleep. He said, I've wrestled with that. I've had to get counseling about it. And he said, well, he said, but, you know, that wasn't a big deal. He said, what I said was not a big deal. Here's what the guy told him. He said, it's not what you said, is that you said it. And coming from you, it carried a weight that was different. Yeah, right. So I think there's some truth to that. Now, on the other hand, the young man needs to get a thicker skin and grow up. [00:56:37] Speaker B: Right? He needs to suck it up. Come on. [00:56:39] Speaker A: But at the same time, I think as being self aware, people to know, like at church, sometimes we'll say, I don't need to wear the black hat. If there's something that needs to be corrected, let's let another staff member do that. Because after this is said and done, the person you're talking to, you need to be their pastor. They need to know that you like them, you love them, everything's good and so the staff's been great to help me with that, but it's hard. [00:57:11] Speaker B: It's very hard because you don't mean it in a bad way. So much is given, much is expected, and that's very heavy. That's a heavy mantle that you have to wear. And you learn and you grow. I feel like I have grown. I wasn't what I needed to be back then. I don't know how people stood me. I didn't mean it. I was just a house cleaner that turned into a CEO. It was just weak on me. [00:57:35] Speaker A: Right, right. No, and there's something endearing about that. You know, you don't want to. You don't want to forget where you come from and how many toilets you clean and all those things along the way. In the midst of all of that, do you remember any influences? Were there particular books that you remember? Was there conferences you went to? What would you say put gas in your tank as an entrepreneur? [00:58:06] Speaker B: Well, Anthony Robbins, I love him. Zig Ziggler, I love him. Dennis Waitley. I love so many of the preachers. I. I listen to a guy named Alan Jackson. He's a pastor. He's amazing. I listen to you. I. I mean, I just. I. Dutch Sheets, Hank Kunaman, Lance Wall. Now I listen to all these people. [00:58:30] Speaker A: So back in the. Back in the. Speaking of, like, the Zigglers and Tony Robbins and all that, how did you consume their material? Was it audio cassette? [00:58:39] Speaker B: It was audio and books I read every night. And I really started listening to entrepreneurs. And back then, that's where podcasts kind of started. Right. And so I'd listen to tons of podcasts, and I was on tons of podcasts, and I would listen to these people that I was on prior. You know, I'd listen to the podcast. I'm like, wow, those guys are smart. Who's that guy? And then I'd listen. And then TED Talks helped, and I would listen to TED Talks, and you. [00:59:08] Speaker A: Eventually got to have your own. So when growing up in an entrepreneur's home, my dad was a construction worker. Mother had started a little flower shop, and dad, when they discovered that asbestos was dangerous, they laid off all the insulators. Dad dropped out of high school, did insulation. He came and hung around mom's florist and found out, you know, he could do math in his head. He was very good with numbers. Long story short, he could buy cheaper. You know, he could do all these things to make what she had created really grow. [00:59:42] Speaker B: How neat. [00:59:42] Speaker A: It became the largest florist of its Type in the Southeast. [00:59:47] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. That's wonderful. [00:59:49] Speaker A: It was for where we were. It was remarkably successful. [00:59:52] Speaker B: Wow. [00:59:53] Speaker A: But he would have me in high school at a Zig Ziglar event. [00:59:57] Speaker B: So you know who. Okay. So you've actually seen him in person. [01:00:00] Speaker A: Everything that he ever did. [01:00:02] Speaker B: Oh, ever did. I'm a huge. I mean, I was listening to him when I was 10. [01:00:07] Speaker A: So he taught Sunday school at First Baptist Dallas. So he had a big impact on me. [01:00:12] Speaker B: Wow. [01:00:13] Speaker A: But yeah, everything he's ever done I've read or listened to Tony Robbins. Around that same time, I began some of the neuro linguistic programming. Got familiar with that. [01:00:26] Speaker B: But I love Joyce Meyer. [01:00:28] Speaker A: Yeah, Joyce is a great communicator and she's a smart lady. [01:00:31] Speaker B: She really is very powerful for women. She's not a typical female. And that's, you know, she doesn't fit in the female box. Right. She just doesn't. She's just hard and kind of. [01:00:46] Speaker A: She's one of the most generous people. [01:00:48] Speaker B: Oh, she's amazing. [01:00:49] Speaker A: People that know her purse or that are closer to her. I've never met Joyce and there would be things that she and I would really disagree on theologically, but as a communicator, as a thinker, deep respect for her. And I think more than all that, she is such a generous person in ways that nobody knows about. And so when the cameras aren't on and you see somebody that they mean what they say, that goes a long way. [01:01:24] Speaker B: She took it to the bank of you can't out give God. Yeah, you cannot. And she really stick. She's a stickler on that. You can't. And she knows because she has tried to outgive God. He never can never out give him. [01:01:38] Speaker A: It's a fun game, but you can't do it. When we came here in a church that you know, to live in this area, you're either have been a successful person in your line of work or you're working really hard to afford to live here. [01:01:57] Speaker B: It's very hard to live here. It is expensive. [01:02:00] Speaker A: But it was interesting to see in a community that has a lot of entrepreneurs that early life training from the Zig Ziglar, John Maxwell, Tony Robbins, all the stuff that we were listening to. When I got here, I could speak the language, so it helped me because. [01:02:21] Speaker B: That'S all you've known your whole life, which is great. [01:02:23] Speaker A: And so it's funny how all that kind of dovetails together from here going forward. What's next for Gigi? [01:02:32] Speaker B: Well, I've been writing Two books, and I'm fiction, nonfiction. [01:02:38] Speaker A: What are you? [01:02:38] Speaker B: Well, I wrote my first book called the Secret Recipe for Success in Business and Life. And you can get that on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. And then I'm writing a book called this Takes the what to Do When Faith's Been Shaken and Cake's Been taken. And since 2012, my faith has been shaken and cake's been Taken. So I write about how good God is in spite of everything worldly that could be taken from you. And that's coming along. But then while I was writing that, I'm writing a devotional cookbook. So Rocky Road Pie. [01:03:13] Speaker A: That's a great idea. [01:03:15] Speaker B: And you could talk about the rocky roads. And while I'm teaching someone how to make a rocky road pie, I have a devotional about 31 days. [01:03:23] Speaker A: Oh, that's brilliant. [01:03:24] Speaker B: And then how the scriptures that have helped me through my rocky roads. And so I was writing that for a company and they're like, we don't know where to put it. Like, is it inspirational or is it devotional or is it a cookbook? And I'm like, I don't know, I'm not sure. And I thought, well, why can't I just do a TV show about it? So that is what I'm working on right now. [01:03:48] Speaker A: Okay. [01:03:48] Speaker B: I'm going to do a little bit of a little TV show cooking show. I think it's going to be great. I'm excited about it. [01:03:55] Speaker A: So is it going? Are you going to talk about your faith in the show? [01:03:59] Speaker B: Well, it's definitely going to be non secular. And everyone's like, well, do secular because then you could be just the next Paula Deen or the next Martha Stewart and don't talk about God much. And I prayed about that. And I'm like, no, that's not me. And well, you won't make as much money if you go non secular. And I really thought about it because that was from many people that are very successful that have said that there's. [01:04:25] Speaker A: A lot of truth to it. [01:04:25] Speaker B: Why don't you just do inspirational? And I'm like, well, let me think about that. And I'm like, nope, no, no. I think my whole shtick right now with my timing is not being politically correct and not being on the fence with my biblical worldview and being vocal and inspiring people through Christ. [01:04:50] Speaker A: I love it. [01:04:50] Speaker B: So I'm being as non secular as I possibly can. [01:04:54] Speaker A: I will try to dig this up because I haven't spoken directly to it in a while, but there's a way of looking at Scripture as a series of meals. So it begins with a meal in the garden. It ends with the marriage supper of the lamb. [01:05:12] Speaker B: You spoke about that about a month ago. [01:05:16] Speaker A: I've alluded to it. I've got some work I've done on it. I'll try to dig it up for you. But if you look at how much ministry Jesus did over meals, he fed everyone. Yeah. And then just a dinner in a home, hospitality. So much of what we have from Christ came over meals. It was almost like a sacramental thing. A friend of mine back in Alabama, he said, in our home, we don't eat, we dine. [01:05:44] Speaker B: That's right. [01:05:46] Speaker A: He made an event. [01:05:46] Speaker B: And that's the theory on the book is if. Well, if God fed all of the people, Christ fed all these people, and you had a full belly, then you would have an open heart to learning what Christ was trying to tell you. Because if you meet someone's basic need, which is food, always, and if they're not hungry, then they're more open and you give them hospitality, which is my gift. I want to feed people. And through that, have them know about. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Christ well and beyond. Just meeting the need. I think just like a painting, you can put paint on a canvas and say, that's art. Or you can make it beautiful. And in the same way, when it comes to food, to take these ingredients that are just out there, you can go and you can kill an animal, you can eat it, you can pick some grains of wheat, whatever. But. But to take all of these things that God has given us and form them into something that's a Gigi's cupcake, that's like. It does give you a sense of something beyond the here and now. That, okay, well, there's sugar cane, there's strawberries, there's kernels of wheat. But to take all of those things and turn them into a Gigi's cupcake or a pie or a dinner, it's saying, this is how it should be. And in life, in the world, we see things as they are, but there's a yearning eternity set in the heart of man that we know that this is not the way it's supposed to be. And great art, great food, all of those great music, it gives us a taste of something beyond the here and now. And I think everybody craves that. [01:07:46] Speaker B: Well, God is the ultimate creator, and he has put us on this earth to create. And we talk about the gifts. You know, there's some little. The guy dug in and put his gift There and put his gift there. But someone else went, well, I've got five gifts. I'm going to make 10 gifts. And that's what God wants us to do. Use our gifts, use our talents. He's the ultimate creator. Through him we create. And while we're creating and fulfilling our purpose, we're bringing people into his family. [01:08:16] Speaker A: That's so good. Well, as someone that's able sit out there and listen to me. So as a minister, which I love it got the privilege of speaking into your life. Let me affirm that. Like, I see that as a fantastic idea. [01:08:30] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:08:31] Speaker A: And really do wish you the best. As you. As you. [01:08:34] Speaker B: I'd love to have you on the show. [01:08:35] Speaker A: Well, I cook. I cook a mean steak. [01:08:39] Speaker B: So the theory is I want to take people that have had through tragedies and how God has and successes and things and talk about that and be very vulnerable and very, very authentic with, with people of all different, political people, movie stars, country singers, preachers. And take their favorite meal from their past. Because meals and smells and tastes bring us back to our grandma's house or our great aunt's house and take that recipe. And while we're talking and unpackaging that person's life that they may not show on screen, we're making their favorite meal. [01:09:18] Speaker A: Oh, that's beautiful. [01:09:19] Speaker B: I'm excited. It's all about hospitality. [01:09:21] Speaker A: How can people follow and keep and stay up with the story? So I think we're probably, you know, halfway into the story of Gigi Butler and they want to look at it. [01:09:32] Speaker B: And go, well, let's see what the other half is. I'm not actually sure yet, but it's. It's coming together. They can follow me on Instagram and Facebook on Official Gigi Butler. [01:09:42] Speaker A: Official Gigi butler. [01:09:42] Speaker B: Official gigi butler.com. and then I'm blogging for a company called Heartland Journal and I blog for them every Monday. And it's more politically slanted. Politically slanted a little bit. And it has a recipe at the end of every blog. And so I'm keeping up with the recipes and what's on my heart. And we'll go from there. [01:10:06] Speaker A: Well, a lot of our audience will be other ministers and that sort of thing. If they wanted to bring you in to speak or something, is that they contact you through the website. [01:10:15] Speaker B: Awesome. Through the website or through my Instagram. [01:10:18] Speaker A: Okay, well, we'll put all that in the show or through you as well. [01:10:20] Speaker B: If someone reaches out to you, just give them my number now. [01:10:23] Speaker A: Okay. But, yeah, thank you. Sincerely, for. Thank you for the cupcakes. Thank you for inventing the cupcakes and the recipes. [01:10:32] Speaker B: It's been a. It's been a huge blessing. [01:10:35] Speaker A: Well, we. We appreciated it as a family. And again, I was just thrilled when you walked in the doors. And so I'm really grateful for you coming over today and just sharing your story with us. [01:10:45] Speaker B: Well, it's great to be part of the flock. [01:10:46] Speaker A: Well, amen. [01:10:47] Speaker B: I love it. [01:10:47] Speaker A: Amen. [01:11:09] Speaker C: Sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa, sa? [01:23:15] Speaker A: Coming over today and just sharing your story. [01:23:17] Speaker B: It's great to be part of the flock. [01:23:18] Speaker A: Well, amen. [01:23:19] Speaker B: I love it. Amen.