Real Talk with Benny T

Hang tight until 5/18, my friends. I've got a major announcement to make and I couldn't be more thrilled 🥳

My show is all about the people I meet and connect with throughout my own personal growth and healing journey.

It’s our stories, our beliefs, conversations, inspirations, flaws, flows, pains, gains, growth, lessons learned, vulnerability, and deep, intimate conversations, sometimes with total strangers. But it’s real.

Real people, real stories, REAL 👏🏼 TALK 👏🏼

I really hate to have to do this, but in the best interest of me, I need to take a step back and put my focus into other areas of my life right now. I'm unwell and I need to get right. I will be back soon better and stronger than ever, but right now, I just need a couple weeks to get my shit together. Love me, Benny T.

Tyler Pope (@only1pope_) is an entrepreneur, a father, a football coach, a master barber, and he’s the proud owner of the barbershop, Fadez on 4th 💈

He’s also a dear friend and one of the most genuine people I know 🥰

He recently joined me in the studio to share his story of how he got started in the barber game (39:18), who his mentors were, what it was like opening his business during the COVID-19 pandemic (47:59), as well as sharing some of the most challenging and rewarding moments he’s endured throughout this journey (56:59), plus the keys to what being an effective manager and team leader is all about (1:00:00) 🤝

After sharing why he’s so drawn to mentoring others, be it through coaching or at the shop, we then transition (1:14:20) into some weightier topics as they relate to race, society, culture, and microaggressions.

We touch on privilege, systemic racism, infighting amongst race and class, the Black Lives Matter movement (1:39:04), the Rooney Rule (1:47:18), the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, how damaging and discriminatory dress codes can be to people of color (1:22:02), the importance of having strong allies in your own communities, and why local leadership matters.

This was a heavy discussion but an enlightening and important discussion and I’m thankful for my man not only coming and being his open and honest self, but also for teaching me a few things throughout our discussion, as well as being the role model and positive male influence he is to me and so many others 🙏

If you’re in the Louisville area and you want to support Tyler and his vision, don’t be shy… drop by the shop and say hey or book an appointment using the Booksy app 📲

Graham Honaker (@tghonake) is a storyteller, a leader, a father and a husband, a writer, a culture-builder, and for the last several years, he’s been the Executive Director of Principal Gifts at Butler University, where he oversees their marketing and fundraising efforts.

He’s also a college basketball junkie and co-author of the book, The Cinderella Strategy: The Game Plan Behind Butler University’s Rise to Prominence 🏀

What better way to kickoff March Madness than by welcoming on another storyteller to share one of the greatest Cinderella stories of all time?

Quick history lesson: in 2010, first-time Head Coach Brad Stevens led Butler, a 4,200-student 5-Seed from Indianapolis, all the way to the National Championship, where they pushed No. 1 Duke to a buzzer-beater finale.

In 2011, they ran it right back. This time, as an 8-Seed facing a UCONN team led by Kemba Walker.

Although they suffered defeat both times, the impact of what they accomplished during those back-to-back years and beyond? Legendary.

The Cinderella Story details how Butler started its move toward the Final Fours as far back as 1989, forged a synergy between a big-time athletic program and a serious academic institution in the process, and then leveraged the Cinderella story for all it was worth.

I love a good understood story. I also love that even though we’re talking about these things through the lens of college basketball, at its core, this book is a case study in leadership, management, building teams, cultivating cultures, and effectively using storytelling to achieve goals. That it happens to be in the college basketball world just makes it even better 🤗

As we do a deep dive into the key topics addressed in the book, Graham also shares his own personal story with me, as well as some other all-timers, like taking psychology classes with Tim Duncan at Wake Forest (18:05), or working in the athletics department at Indiana during the infamous last days of Bobby Knight (25:29) 🪑

Later, there’s a story about the early days of Brad Stevens’ career that may be the greatest story that’s ever been told on this show (1:11:21) 💯

We also touch on Chris Mack, Coach K, Jimmy V, Sister Jean, the impact of storytelling and how Graham uses it to achieve the goals him and Butler are striving for, plus, his new book that will be dropping later this year, Unbracketed: How Four College Basketball Programs Burst the Bubble and Made the Big-Time.

Enjoy 🥳

Scott Meier (@scott.meier.87) is on a mission to help others. But that mission started by helping the one person who needed his help the most: himself.

When his brother got married in 2020, Scott was weighing in at 367 pounds. He still doesn’t like looking at the wedding photos from the day. It’s too painful. But that was his “line in the sand” moment 🙅‍♂️

At that weight, with two young kids and a wife at home, and the COVID-19 pandemic in full-effect, it wasn’t just his own life he was risking, he was risking the livelihood of his entire family.

That’s when shit got real.

He found an accountability partner, he found his target heart rate, and he started to find his way around the gym. Pretty soon, he started a food journal. Then a blog. Then he started running.

Fast forward a year, another wedding is approaching. This time, it’s his sister’s. It’s tomorrow. He goes to put on the pants he had bought a few months back. He looks in the mirror. He panics 😰

What was once a comfortable waistline fit has now become parachute pants. My guy said he was looking like MC Hammer over here.

But that’s when it started to dawn on him how far he had come from that line he had drawn a year ago. He likes those wedding photos a little bit more, but even since then, he hasn’t stopped 😤

180 pounds later, weighing in at a lean, mean 187, Scott joined me in the studio to share his weight loss journey, the specific changes he’s made that have helped him along the way (48:27), what it looked like in the beginning (1:03:36), what’s kept him motivated throughout the process (59:41), how he handles stress (1:13:53), and the meaning behind his favorite mantra, let’s have a day (1:20:23) 💪

And as if all of that isn’t deserving enough to stand and give my man a round of applause, at some point during this process, he also made another big change: quitting his cushy salaried job to become a mortgage loan officer working off 100% commissions with one goal in mind: helping people along the way in their personal journey to owning a home 🏡

A self-described “people helper,” Scott shares why he feels so deeply about what he does now and what it means to him to be in the position he’s in, not only serving others and facilitating their lifelong dreams, but also aiming to help others feel motivated, seen, and that their not alone in their own weight-loss journey, by sharing some of his tips and favorite recopies on his blog and social media channels.

Mad love and respect for my guy coming on and sharing his story, trusting me to help share his story, and for sharing what he’s learned along the way so others can be inspired on their journey, too.

I hope you enjoy listening to this episode half as much as we enjoyed playing it for you, because we had a ball. And if you do, please let us know by dropping a quick rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 🙏

Eric Mathews (@ericsjoyride) is a hustler, a visionary, a salesman, a media savant, a mentor to many, and the Assistant Director of Media Relations at the University of Hawaii 🌈

We first crossed paths when he was working for the local EPSN Radio affiliate in Lexington, Kentucky. He was a young broadcaster, I was a young college student trying to land an internship.

From that point on, Eric took me under his wing. Not only did he coach me up and help me develop my own broadcasting skills/style, I got to see firsthand how to create a broadcast package, sell the sponsorships, build a team around it, and execute it.

I cannot stress this enough: anyone who sells $150k+ in local radio advertising is a legend, and in just under two years, that’s exactly what this man did.

We cover how he first got into the business (13:50), his first job after graduation (23:52), the first time he got fired and what he learned throughout that experience (31:04), and how he eventually got linked up with ESPN 1300 (36:48).

As time went on and he started selling ads and making a splash at the station, a few things happened that left him feeling pretty jaded about the business, and then he was faced with an ultimatum: fall in line or hit the road (50:27) ✌️

So, that’s exactly what he did. He left broadcasting altogether, relied on some connections he had made at colleges and universities, he took an internship, and for three months, he lived out of his Chevy Trailblazer while working weekends and getting his start in media relations (1:12:42) 🚀

Pretty soon (1:30:30), thanks to a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work, he eventually became the Director of Media Relations at Kentucky State University, a D-II HBCU in Frankfort, Kentucky.

As he continued to learn and grow in his new role, as fate would have it and as he lays out how it all played out, he eventually landed his dream-job scenario and moved to Hawaii (1:39:27), where he’s been living for the last four years, working with the University 🤙

This episode is one that inspires me, it’s exactly what I needed to hear right now, this is a dude that I’ve always looked up to and leaned on for advice at different points in my career, so to reconnect on this episode and hear his story of how things have worked out in such a brilliant and unique way is extremely encouraging.

Mad respect for my guy Eric right here, we cover a lot in this one, and I hope you enjoy listening to his story and our conversation.

If you do, please drop a quick rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts, and check in with us next week for another banger 🥳

Colby Hall (@colbyjameshall) is a stand-up guy, a statesman, a sales veteran, a hustler, traveler, man of faith, and a dear friend 🥰

He currently serves as the Executive Director of Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR), which is a non-profit organization geared towards economic revitalization in Eastern Kentucky.

After graduating from the University of Kentucky and several years of cutting his teeth in various inside sales roles down in Atlanta, GA – his incubation period as he calls it – he had built up the necessary skills, emotional intelligence, and business acumen to tackle the hills and hollers of Appalachia.

He and his team are relentlessly focused on providing fiber broadband internet to the entire region, closing accessibility gaps, and providing connectivity to rural areas of the state, allowing residents to compete for jobs on a global scale, small businesses to thrive in e-commerce, and students to receive the best education possible via non-traditional instruction.

Together in a partnership with the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), they’ve been able to put 4,000 people to work remotely since 2015, impacting countless Kentuckians and exponentially improving the quality of life for the region.

Over the course of this interview, he drops many quote-worthy insights and takeaways, as well as some of the things he’s learned along the way, why he pivoted away from the medical field in college (40:32), how studying abroad in Chile and later living as an Expat in Ibiza developed his emotional intelligence (41:50), how he used that EQ as the foundation of the cold calls he made as a budding salesman (56:59), how he eventually got involved with SOAR (1:05:48), and the approach he takes to life each day (1:27:17).

This is a special dude and a special episode, so I hope you enjoy this episode half as much as we enjoyed playing it for you, because we had a ball 🥳

If you do, please let us know by dropping a quick rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or on the Facebook page for the show, @realtalkwbennyt.

For more interviews and pieces of writing I think you may like if you’re interested to learn about me and my story, check out the new website for the show www.iridewithbennyt.com, follow along on TikTok or Instagram @bennytomp18, and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode ✅

Credit Statement: Intro music is Outside by Ikson. Outro music is As It Sets by Ikson. Check out his other tracks here ➡️ https://www.iksonmusic.com

Kayla Weber Nord (@kaylaweberart) is a force to be reckoned with. She’s an artist, a mother, an entrepreneur, a live event painter, and oh yeah, she also plans weddings in her spare time when she’s not traveling with her husband or hopping on podcasts like this one 😎

Her mom always knew she was gifted – she still has the binder of Kayla’s earliest creations from when she was just two years old (10:28)

Her academic advisor in college knew it, too – she’s the one who recommended Kayla switch majors to art education (18:50). Plus, it meant getting to study abroad ✈️

4,700 miles away in Florence, Italy, immersed in the birthplace of the Renaissance, with her Italian teacher critiquing every stroke behind her back and her Old Kentucky home weighing heavy on her heart, that’s where her artistry truly began to emerge (27:32).

There was just one question: how the hell was she gonna make money from her art, let alone make a career out of it?

Fast forward a little bit (32:09) – she’d been teaching elementary art for a couple years now and painting commissioned pieces for friends and family on the side – that’s where her style was ultimately defined.

Staring at a scene she had brought to life, one with movement and vivid colors and intensity, that’s the moment she realized painting Kentucky things was ~her~ thing.

THAT’S how she was gonna do it.

And release after release, as her work continued to sell out, she realized it was getting time to quit her day job (48:53) 💸

In 2018, she did.

Ask her how her business is doing today. The answer: BOOMIN 💥💥💥

Throughout this episode, you’ll hear her share her story: how she did it, what she’s learned, and why this journey was uniquely hers.

If you enjoy this episode half as much as we enjoyed playing it for you, please let us know by dropping a quick rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or by sharing it with someone you know would dig this as well.

Credit Statement: Intro music is Outside by Ikson. Outro music is As It Sets by Ikson. Check out his other tracks here ➡️ https://www.iksonmusic.com

Brad Steinfeld left Louisville when he was 16 years old.

He wasn’t getting what he wanted or needed there, and he had been bitten by the rock-climbing bug, so he packed his bags and eventually hitchhiked his way to one of the meccas of rock climbing in North America: El Dorado Canyon (11:52)

By the time he was 23, his life unfolded like an adventure novel: full of stories of traveling around the world, climbing rocks and mountains, and living a minimalist lifestyle in places like Boulder, Alaska, Washington, and Yosemite 🏞

He remembers being on a trailhead 14 miles away when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 (36:39), crossing paths with some of the greatest climbers in the world like Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia (59:04), and then there’s also that time he spent a week living with the Hells Angels (25:58). True story.

When he finally decided it was time to begin his ascent into the business world, his life changed again when he was introduced to a guy that sold medical devices (1:04:11)⚕️

He had picked up his EMT certification somewhere along the way, so he spoke enough of the language and was confident he could learn as he went.

As he began to find success in his new role, so too, did the company – they went public shortly thereafter and their future was bright 🌟

Then his phone rang (1:10:38). It was the FBI.

Unbeknownst to him, the company’s founder had been cooking the books and engaging in fraudulent business practices and was now on the run 🏃‍♂️

It made sense to Brad, who had been wondering for months why his company wasn’t paying him the thousands of dollars’ worth of paychecks he was owed!

But always one to find multiple routes to the top, he continued his climb 🧗

With the leftover inventory he had, he started his own company (1:16:56), and over the course of his career, he not only raised two beautiful children with the love of his life, he eventually did so well that he sold his company and comfortably “retired” before his 50th birthday.

But he wasn’t done.

In 2018, he founded Yellow Submarines Inc. (1:33:56), an initiative aimed at connecting musicians/artists with venues seeking fresh talent, and the parent and production company behind his Backporch Concert Series 🎤

You’ve heard of the heroes journey, but this, my friends, is an entrepreneurs epic, and one of my favorite episodes I’ve ever done.

If you dig this interview, please let us know by dropping a quick rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts, or by sharing it with someone you know would dig this one, as well 🙏

Credit Statement: Intro music is Outside by Ikson. Outro music is As It Sets by Ikson. Check out his other tracks here ➡️ https://www.iksonmusic.com