October 19, 2026 – Your Opera Voice Vicky Brown and Gratitude for America Vince Coyner

00:04 Intro 1: In the AM Radio Network, broadcasting from AM and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration Award-winning School for Startups Radio, while we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now, here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion, Jim Beach.

00:20 Jim Beach: Hello, everyone, welcome to another exciting edition of School for Startups Radio. I hope you’re having a great day, a great life, a great ride on this roller coaster of being an entrepreneur. There’s nothing else like it. Nothing else to challenge the gifts that God gave us and nothing else to propel us to all of the dreams that we have. I think being an entrepreneur is the best vocation, occupation, job that you can have. And I hope all of you are doing some form of it. We are here on the show trying to give you 2 things.

00:55 Jim Beach: The motivation to get off the sofa and get out of the basement and go do something. The motivation to make the difference in your life to take your right hand, put it way up in the air and say, yes, I am going to be different. I’m going to do the hard thing. I’m going to stay up late. I’m going to abandon my weekends. I’m going to quit watching television, and I am going to spend all of my time devoted to building this business. We want to give you that motivation because that’s the only way you will escape the mundane life of having a job. I can’t think of anything worse.

01:33 Jim Beach: And number two, we want to give you the tips, the tricks, and the techniques to be successful when you’re an entrepreneur. We want to give you role models that you can follow, follow, and see how they did it and try to do it the exact same way. We have a huge archive library here of past guests for you to listen to. I don’t believe for a 2nd you need to listen to every single guest that we have. That would be wonderful, but not even my wife will do that. Not even my mother did that. Pick the shows that you need to see how to run your industry, your business better.

02:13 Jim Beach: Pick the shows that are going to give you the motivation to get started. I think we mark them pretty clearly, and we mark the industries that we’re studying. You know, we have even have people who run swimming pool businesses, you know, training classes all the way up to people who have started airlines and everything in between. And so we try to give you role models to follow and use to emulate and go out there and do the same thing. And so hopefully we can wrap all of that up and something that’s entertaining enough for you to listen and not fall asleep.

02:49 Jim Beach: I used to be a university instructor trying to teach 18 year olds. I had 250, 18 year olds in a room for 2.5 hours and had to keep them entertained. And I quickly learned that entertainment is the key to education. And so we do everything we can here to be as entertaining and silly and fun as possible, as light as possible to make it digestible. Got a great show for you today. First up, we have Vicky Brown. She is in the HR space and we’re going to talk about her HR business and transition out of corporate life. She’s building a company called Idomeneo, Edomone. Something like that.

03:32 Jim Beach: It’s a hard one. And so anyway, we have a great conversation about all those posters you have to put up in your office to make yourself legit. And she’s got a great gift at the end of the interview. Listen for that. And then we are going to speak with Vince Coyner about 2 really important issue. Issues. He’s combining 2 things that I think are critical to a successful life and put them into one business in one interview. First, it’s gratitude. If you’re not being or having strong feeling of gratitude, to whatever powers you believe in, for the good things in your life, you’re never going to be happy.

04:14 Jim Beach: I think that gratitude to where you start your prayers at night and where you wake up in the morning, being grateful that you woke up and having gratitude for the great people in your life and the opportunity to go get new people. And then America. He is the gratitude for America, organization, and I think we need more love for America, America is the greatest country on earth, and by far the best place to be an entrepreneur. We don’t say that enough. We don’t recognize that enough, but we need to do that because we are so lucky to be here.

04:49 Jim Beach: You know, a lot of countries in the world, you fail once, you’re done. You may never start another business again. And here in the United States. You fail one, then your chances of starting is successful. Will double the next time. I made that number up. Got a great show. Thanks for being with us. We’re going to get started in just a second. Please go buy my real environmentalist book, award finalist in the IPPYs. It’s a great book about us capitalists saving the environment.

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05:49 Jim Beach: Thank you. We are back, and again, Thank you so very much for being with us today. Very excited to introduce another great guest to our world. Please welcome Vicky Brown to the show. See, she is the CEO of a company called Idomeneo, Idomeneo. How do I how do I do?

06:09 Vicky Brown: That was perfect. You got it. Congratulations.

06:10 Jim Beach: She’s the CEO there, an author of Sing with your Opera Voice, my Journey from Solopreneur to Entrepreneur. She’s had an amazing corporate experience in the SHRM world, you know, the HR space. She was the head of HR or the manager of human resources that’s my fable favorite cable company, and at the end, she’s going to give us all free HBO. So let’s make sure you listen until that because we’re all getting free HBO out of this. So that’s. Okay, fantastic. Vicky holds all the HR certifications and also has her own podcast called More Human, More Resources, which for an HR show is an love, just a great name.

06:49 Jim Beach: I love it. Vicky, welcome to the show. How you doing today?

06:55 Vicky Brown: Oh, thank you so much, Jim. I’m fine. I’m just fine. I’m really excited to be here. Thank you for the impite.

07:04 Jim Beach: You know, when I was a kid, I had something that I was, uh, it was maybe a DVD or like a, maybe a DVD player, one of the very 1st ones, and I took the little a chip out of it, and I put it into my cable box, and I got all of the free stations for free with my own electronic dinkering, which I thought was pretty cool.

07:29 Vicky Brown: Exactly. And thank you for paying my salary in the early days, not.

07:33 Jim Beach: Your salary was just fine, I’m sure. I have no worries about that. I see your wardrobe, so you’re not poor. So anyway, it was still just an amazing idea, an amazing company back then and I still pay. You know what? They got me again. Damn it. I’m re-upping. Guess who I’m re-uping for?

07:54 Vicky Brown: Oh, who?

07:55 Jim Beach: Howard Stern’s going to do a show now. And it’s going to be sort of his, you know, he hasn’t done TV in a decade or 2 or something. And so I think this will be an interesting kind of Swanson song for him. You know, he’s 71 or something now. So you got to think of this.

08:14 Vicky Brown: Is he really? Oh, my goodness.

08:17 Jim Beach: So I’m going to re- give him my 12 bucks a month again to get that.

08:22 Vicky Brown: Well, good for you. Well, they still have me because of The Pitt, so that’s why I’m still a subscriber.

08:31 Jim Beach: That is, I love The Pitt. That’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen It’s pretty good. Do you think he went off and disappeared to drive cross country on his motorcycle or not?

08:42 Vicky Brown: You know what? I don’t think he went. I think I don’t think he went. First of all, we have to continue the show. So 2nd of all, you know, his good friend is here and possibly going through a medical event. So I think he hung it.

08:59 Jim Beach: Yeah, the bike driver or?

09:00 Vicky Brown: Yeah.

09:01 Jim Beach: Yeah, exactly. The other bike driver, the older guy who fixed his bike. Mr. Scruffy. Right.

09:06 Vicky Brown: I don’t think Mr. Scruffy’s going to be as big an issue as Miss Prim Pants, Indian woman.

09:12 Jim Beach: Oh, the young lady who’s having the seizures, who periodically has seizures?

09:17 Vicky Brown: Yes, yeah. Surgeon, you know? That’s not a good look. So that’s not good. Uh-huh.

09:22 Jim Beach: So my father was a pathologist, which is the, you know, the one that looks at the biopsy to decide, you know, negative or positive, whatever. And, you know, his expertise was looking at slides. One time I had a cyst taken off the side of my head, right by my eye, and it took one stitch to fix it, and we were going on vacation and everyone was like, dad, you take it out. You know, the doctor gave him a tiny little kit. And on vacation, he tore my head open and I had to have 8 stitches to fix it.

09:57 Vicky Brown: Well, that just points to you can be really brilliant, but if you’re a specialist. You’re a specialist.

10:05 Jim Beach: Why is Idomeneo so hard to say and why do we want it to be so hard to say?

10:13 Vicky Brown: It is hard to say because it’s a proper noun, first of all, and it’s a Greek proper noun, second of all, and it’s the name of an opera by Mozart. It’s a derivative of the… It has backstory. So, um, and it’s a crazy name for an HR company, their HR isn’t anywhere in the title. And every single time I talk to a marketing person, They say to me. So when are we going to change the name? And I say, well, you know, 1st of all, it’s been 25 years. And 2nd of all, Adidas. So there you go. Oh.

10:47 Jim Beach: That’s interesting that people tell you to change it, but it’s worked, obviously. It won’t be one of the ones I forget. You know, I forget, you know, digital maintenance company or, you know, point finance, Inc, you know?

11:00 Vicky Brown: Right. And that’s my point. It takes a minute to get it, but once you got it, you got it.

11:09 Jim Beach: I think so. I think you’re right on that one.

11:12 Vicky Brown: Yes. I think so.

11:13 Jim Beach: What do you do there? Specialize.

11:16 Vicky Brown: We specialize in human resources, which, you know, can certainly be the eye roll and going to sleep subject for a lot of people. But, um, what I like to say is we kind of take the, 1st of all, we’re your insurance company. So we like to make sure that your business is protected from kind of backend torpedoes from employment laws and things like that. So we do compliance, but some of our favorite work is helping entrepreneurs and business owners step into the person that their business needs them to be. So do a lot of consulting work.

11:50 Vicky Brown: I do a lot of, um, consulting work with our clients, and it’s just that’s the kind of the best part of the job. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am an HR geek and I can, you know, talk labor law with the best of them and get you posters and documents and things like that. I love that stuff. But the thing that really, really sparks my joy is being able to help a leader grow into, A, who they want to be and B, who their company needs them to be.

12:22 Jim Beach: I remember the 1st day we got posters so vividly. I mean, that’s a big step for a company to actually have the posters and junk that you’re supposed to have, you know? Because at that point you are, you know, you’ve got someone taking out benefits and taxes, hopefully at that point. And, you know, it’s a big step when you hire your 1st tax paycheck company. Up until then, we were just putting it in our pocket, you know? How long can you go into do that? And then someone wants to get a loan or something and realizes, we don’t have tax returns. How come we alone, we don’t have tax returns.

13:04 Vicky Brown: Exactly, exactly. Or have a pocket. What’s the problem? Right. Exactly. Or heaven forbid someone, um, you know, needs to apply for unemployment or they get hurt and now they need disability. Those are the kinds of things. It seems so reasonable and, um, you know, like for the average person, it’s like, well, it makes sense. We’ll just do it this way and the person’s still getting paid and that, but all of these other things are kind of floating around out there waiting to come at you.

13:37 Jim Beach: It is amazing. Yes. I started a business back in the 90s and we were seasonal business and in our 1st season we needed 2 employees and then our 2nd season. Think we had nine. And then in our 3rd season, I think we had 650.

13:55 Vicky Brown: Oh my goodness.

13:56 Jim Beach: I reme exactly. That’s exactly what happened. When the guy came to me and said, you know, at the numbers that you’re telling me, yeah, 650 and I was like, I have to hire 650 kids in the next 3 months. My goodness. And so we did. We got all of them out of Stanford and MIT and stuff like that because that was our, that’s where we were located anyway. We got most of them out of there. It wasn’t that hard. But the paperwork and all of that, you know, that was when it kicked in for us. I remember I got my 1st paycheck because the 650 were getting paychecks.

14:35 Jim Beach: So that’s, you know, what I started.

14:39 Vicky Brown: So you became part of the bunch.

14:40 Jim Beach: We were like, well, we better hire someone real fast. Here. You know, and so, uh, that was, it was just one of those growing up moments in every business. Has it eventually. If you are successful enough, you know, that you get to that point where you actually need to start doing all those adult things that a business does. And we were just moving into new offices. Our, 1st off, as we were in, the other half of my duplex. You know, at 1st that was comfortable.

15:14 Jim Beach: And then eventually, my office was the lower half of the stairs, and my brother who worked for us at that point, his office was the upper half of the stairs. And at that point we moved, and then we got posters, and we got posters the same day we got our CO. Um, the same day I let us in for our occupancy. Yep.

15:39 Vicky Brown: CEO certificate of occupancy.

15:40 Jim Beach: Right. We got that from the city. The next poster, the next thing up was all of the HR things, you know, and then like the next day, 83 people sued me. I’m teasing.

15:52 Vicky Brown: Oh thank you. I was like, because that’s not impossible, by the way, but I am so glad you’re teasing. Posters on how to hate your boss.

16:02 Jim Beach: That’s not what we’re on. You’re on the laws that we have to respect.

16:07 Vicky Brown: Exactly, exactly. And, you know, I mean, that is not an unusual story because people, generally speaking, even me, and HR is my bread and butter. That’s that’s my thing. That’s my quote unquote jam. And even for me, when you 1st started business, you’re not necessarily thinking about all of those things. I, you know, I put them in place, because like I said, that’s my thing.

16:29 Vicky Brown: But when you’re starting a business, you’re just trying to make sure that you have people in the business who can help you deliver on the promise you’ve given your clients, that you have clients, that, you know, sales is working, that the product is supposed to be doing, and all of that, and you’re realizing your passion and going towards your vision and all of those kinds of things. And all of that is in place, and that’s what you’re focused on.

16:56 Vicky Brown: And to find out that, you know, oh, you need workers’ comp insurance, and oh, you, you know, there’s a requirement that you have a 1st aid kit in your office, and here are the posters, and every year you have to pay at least the minimum wage. All of those things. That’s not your specialty. That’s not what you’re thinking about. And that’s kind of why we exist to be your insurance policy around that stuff.

17:23 Jim Beach: I love it. I love it. So I can come and just bring you the big box.

17:28 Vicky Brown: Exactly. Exactly.

17:29 Jim Beach: Like I take the big box to my accountant because I don’t know all that stuff and I want it to be right.

17:36 Vicky Brown: Well, that’s fine. That is fine.

17:39 Jim Beach: But, you know, I don’t know accounting. I don’t pretend like I know accounting and I don’t want to necessarily know accounting. No, they just let out lie. You know, they do. The 2 columns do not match each other. They don’t. And they make up a number and say that they match. Any industry that makes up a number and says the things match and that’s our secret sauce. Good grief. What a bunch of, you know, there’s, it’s just like getting a license to do your, you know, interior decorating or something, you know? The license that protects them. Right, you know, so…

18:16 Vicky Brown: Exactly.

18:17 Jim Beach: Here in Georgia, you don’t need a license to be an interior decorator, but you do have to have a license to cut hair.

18:26 Vicky Brown: Well, now that’s pretty interesting. Well, I guess if you’re going to have anything that is, you know, can puncture the skull of your client. You probably need a license.

18:38 Jim Beach: Yes. That’s good point. I mean, unless you’re going to beat them in the head with a couch. An interior designer, probably.

18:46 Vicky Brown: Probably okay.

18:47 Jim Beach: I’ve always liked my interior designers. So I still have some of the stuff. I’m looking at some right now. I’ve seen their chairs.

18:56 Vicky Brown: Well there you go. Yes.

18:57 Jim Beach: All right, so let’s move on. And the insurance piece, right? The standards, the, what are the standards that my business needs? I don’t know. In case I kill somebody, what else?

19:08 Vicky Brown: Yeah, well, that’s certainly one of them, but kind of the big pieces that apply to, and we work with clients nationwide, although we’re physically located in California, so that’s a special kind of joy as well. But, um, we, uh, across the nation of things that, you know, can torpedo business owners, uh, there’s a few that are pretty common. The exempt versus non-exempt thing, classification, argue paying overtime when you’re supposed to be paying overtime, have you properly classified your employees. The 2nd one is also a classification thing. It’s just slightly different and it’s are they employees or independent contractors and that trips everybody up.

19:44 Vicky Brown: Um, because if you want to pay the person as an independent contractor, they want to be paid as an independent contractor, and you even put together paperwork, that you both sign and agree and say, hey, you’re an independent contractor. That does not mean that the Department of Labor, the IRS thinks they’re an independent contractor. So there’s that.

20:08 Jim Beach: How long? If you’re just a 6 month intern. What are you?

20:12 Vicky Brown: Absolutely depends. It’s not your length of time, your length of service. It actually depends, absolutely depends on what you’re doing. So if you are doing something that an employee would be doing, you’re an employee. Now, if you’re doing something just for 6 months or for, you know, 20 hours a week or something like that, then you’re a temporary employee or a part-time employee, but you’re still an employee. And the thing with interns, it used to be, and it’s lightened up a little bit, but it used to be, you know, interns couldn’t do anything that was work related. They couldn’t file pieces of paper.

20:47 Vicky Brown: They couldn’t answer the phone on behalf of the business. They couldn’t do all that stuff that you see in the movies that interns do without winning if they brought a case around.

20:59 Jim Beach: I’m not really an intern. I’m really an employee. So, um, because in terms of that, though, before that, we had the 80s and the 70s when I was an intern, and he just showed up, you know, and I mean, I was an intern of Coca-Cola, and they didn’t even have me go through an HR process.

21:19 Vicky Brown: I’m not surprised at all. You know, my early career was in entertainment. And let me tell you, in entertainment. The intern will pay that company for the privilege of being an intern.

21:31 Jim Beach: You took me in an HBO.

21:32 Vicky Brown: Right.

21:33 Jim Beach: Oh, wait, that was your business plan. I just realized. Oh, you’re not a bad Skinemax though, right?

21:39 Vicky Brown: No. No, although that channel has changed significantly over the years, but I do remember the um, the 3 AM um, Cinemax that was around back in the day.

21:49 Jim Beach: Oh, let’s get a max too.

21:50 Vicky Brown: That actually is the 1st time I’ve heard that term. I’m kind of glad about that I’m kind of glad about that since I was an employee there.

22:00 Jim Beach: Oh, come now. Vicky, we have a truth vader.

22:03 Vicky Brown: It, it, it definitely started off, uh, um, as an, as an intense, uh, entertainment escape route, certainly, but, um, so the, so those are 2 of the big ones, uh, back to the classification things. Those are 22 big ones. And then the other thing is just, you know, kind of dotting your eyes and crossing your Ts. You’ve got to have workers’ comp insurance. You’ve got to have a payroll either process or system or company that’s going to pay those payroll taxes on time and get all that stuff done.

22:33 Vicky Brown: And the reason those are big ticket items is because if you get them wrong, then it prompts the agency, whoever’s taking a look at that, to look at prior history, and also to penalize you significantly, not just for that employee, but they’ll look at all the employees. So, you know, they can, it can be a planet killer, depending on how large your business is. So, um, so getting those things in place early on is is important. And it may not be top of mind when you’re trying to, you know, my thing when I 1st started was, I never sold anything. Sales was not my thing.

23:09 Vicky Brown: And so I was always busy trying to figure out how to sell. And, um, so if you’re focusing on the area that may not be your strong suit so that your business will be successful, then you can get it up and off the ground. It’s important just to, You know, I say, bring in an expert, let them get your your ducks in a row and and don’t worry about that stuff because it’s, it’s, it’s Byzantine. It really is.

23:40 Jim Beach: Great advice. Yes. I’m very afraid of all that stuff. So. As an entrepreneur, Vicky, let’s talk about that for a second. Tell me about getting your 1st client and what you did to make that happen. Not your 1st relative client. Not your ex-boyfriend client, but your 1st paying client.

23:58 Vicky Brown: Right. Right. Well, I was very very fortunate. I had no intention of being an entrepreneur. I had a great job. The company got caught in the 1st tech bubble and because that’s how old I am. And so the company went away. But the president of that company came to me and said, you know, you really should think about starting your own company for HR. And I was like, that’s so flattering. Absolutely not. I’m going to go get a job. Didn’t think of myself as an entrepreneur. Didn’t think of myself as a business owner. I’m great. I’m the CEO whisperer. I sit on the shoulder of the CEO.

24:35 Vicky Brown: I’m their safe place. You know I’m the one that can confide in. And so being number 2 was perfectly okay for me. I was Spock. So that was perfectly okay for me. Um, but he thought it was a great idea and eventually, uh, called me in to do some contracting work for a new company. He was with, and that grew and grew, and I told you I’m an HR nerd, so pretty soon my, you know, my nerd DNA kicked in and I was like, ooh, everybody needs contracts. I need a corporate veil. You need insurance. I’m handling confidential information, blah, blah, blah.

25:12 Vicky Brown: And so I incorporated and did all the things that go along with that. So that’s how I started. So I actually started with a client. And if you have the opportunity to do that, I say go for it. If you don’t. Yeah, I mean, it’s great. And they were clients for what, 10 years, something like that. If you don’t have the great fortune of doing that, there are a bunch of things you can do. First of all, if you’re leaving your company, you know, leaving your 9 to 5 job, leave it on good terms.

25:44 Vicky Brown: Um, and you might let them know that you’re available for, you know, contracting work or uh, whatever it is that your, your, um, your new business is. Also take a look at your network, that’s the 1st place you’re going to go, of course. And um, so revisit those things. Now, be careful. You can’t take clients from your old company. You certainly can’t do that, but it’s the folks that you know, and the folks that they know that will get you out there in the marketplace. I mean, sure you have to do marketing and to do all that other stuff.

26:22 Vicky Brown: But the 1st client almost inevitably comes from some part of the spider web of what you know already, who you know already.

26:30 Jim Beach: You said incorporated. Is that a very precise term in, in other words, you got in, uh, a C corp.

26:36 Vicky Brown: Yeah, we became an S corp.

26:38 Jim Beach: Yes Corp. Okay. I did all the things. I always tell people to be in LLC until your accountant tells you not to.

26:46 Vicky Brown: Well, part of my advisory board and a dear, dear friend of mine is, um, was a vice president at the bank that, uh, that we still bank with actually. And, um, and he told me early on, if you’re ever going to be acquired, which is not in my plan, but he said, if you ever want to be acquired, you should be an S corp. I dont know if that’s true or not. I’m just telling you what he told me. This is not my strong suit.

27:15 Jim Beach: It takes 30 minutes to switch over, doesn’t it?

27:19 Vicky Brown: Exactly.

27:20 Jim Beach: It’s not a big deal. It’s, I think it’s the CCorp thing going from CCorp to, you know, LLC to CCorp or S corp to CCorp. I think that’s a little bit more of a deal, but in any event. And stuff like that.

27:33 Vicky Brown: Exactly, exactly. And the tax process is slightly different. Um, so, uh, so we started as an S corp and uh, and have been that ever since.

27:43 Jim Beach: What about working in California? You know, I can go outdoors now and build whatever the hell I want, you know? And I have a place up in North Carolina. I could build a nuclear power plant and they wouldn’t notice, you know? Um, it’s all where all those stills used to be and still are and stuff, you know? My dad was, I don’t know how old I was. I guess I was 11 or 12. And I asked him why the liquor was still hot and he told me to shut up, Jim.

28:18 Vicky Brown: He was probably just protecting you. That’s all. That’s all.

28:22 Jim Beach: Still warm, daddy.

28:23 Vicky Brown: Well, I don’t I don’t mind California at all. And, uh, you know, maybe a slightly different perspective, but, um, and I’m a native Californian, and they’re all probably only like 3 of those on the planet. So I was born in California and raised here in California. So, um, I’m very much accustomed to, uh, to California and some of the, you know, challenging, um, labor environment that comes along with California, but I do have to say that so many states are at the level or some, in some cases surpassing some of the complexity around employment law, uh, that California has. New York, certainly, Illinois, it’s coming right along. Colorado is…

29:00 Jim Beach: China.

29:02 Vicky Brown: Well, I’m quite happy to say, don’t work in those regions. So don’t know. But, um, Colorado is coming right along and, and so there are lots of things that are happening out there that are, um, that make things not quite as, um, effortless, uh, to be an employer as, as you might hope.

29:22 Jim Beach: Your SHRM, do you know the head of SHRM? What’s his name?

29:25 Vicky Brown: I know of… Yeah, I know of him. I do not know him. Um, and yes, I have been in SHRM uh, in the past. I do have a certification from SHRM. Um, I, uh, SHRM is a, you know, a nationally recognized HR body and, uh, and that’s fantastic. They’ve gone through a couple of challenges recently, I believe. But, uh, but a well-known, well-known HR organization.

29:51 Jim Beach: Yes, I’ve had the head on a couple of times. And I was so excited because I saw him on TV. I was like, why are you on TV? Who are you doing ads trying to attract? And I just never figured it out? Why is he on TV doing a SHRM commercial?

30:08 Vicky Brown: Well, because SHRM is, I mean, you know, it’s not a nonprofit and so.. In the world. You know, everyone who needs to know knows, right? I mean, being a doctor, not knowing who JAMA is. Right. But knowing who they are and deciding to actually sign up for a membership. Those can be do separate things. Yeah. So it’s, you know, it’s convincing you to go ahead and put up the, the doll hairs and pay for the, pay for the membership.

30:37 Jim Beach: I’ll tell you another story in the other direction here. One of our favorite little small business things, like the monthly services that you buy that you never use, you know, those things that they sell in a bucket of like 8 services, you know, a little consulting, a little, you know, call up a number and we’ll talk to you, all that kind of stuff. And they had a famous NFL quarterback who used to be on the TV show.

31:06 Vicky Brown: That’s incredible.

31:07 Jim Beach: You know who I’m talking about and they did an ad for the Super Bowl and spent a $one million on their ad for the Super Bowl. And then in the next week they lost 500,000 accounts because people were like, I’ve been paying for that junk for years. I got to cancel that stuff and the ad reminded people to cancel and they lost a quarter of their accounts.

31:33 Vicky Brown: Yeah, see, sometimes, sometimes things backfire.

31:35 Jim Beach: Vicky, how do we get in touch with you, find out more higher, uh, Idomeneo? And you’re still doing a great job with that name. Congratulations. I love it.

31:45 Vicky Brown: We love it. Um, you can find me. I’m not going to force your listeners to look up, Idomeneo or figure out how to spell it. vickybrownhr.com/podcastgift. And that’s Vicky with a Y, by the way, just because I want to be weird in my spelling and everything. So it’s V-I-C-K-Y Brown, like the color, HR dot com slash podcast gift.

32:08 Jim Beach: Cool. We will tweet that out to get that out. Thank you so much, Vicky. I love it and thank you so much for being on the show. Great stuff.

32:18 Vicky Brown: Thank you so much, Jim. Have a great one.

32:21 Jim Beach: You too. And we will be right back.

32:23 Intro 2: Well, that’s a wonderful question, actually, Gil. Oh, my gosh, I love the opportunity to do this. Thank you, Jim. Wow, that’s a great one. You know, that is a phenomenal question. That’s a great question, and I don’t have a great answer. It has a great question. Oh, that is such a loaded question. That’s actually a really good question. School for Startups Radio.

32:46 Jim Beach: We are back, and again, Thank you so very much for being with us. You know, I try to be as patriotic as the next person. I am a big fan of America. I think America is the greatest country on Earth, and the people don’t that don’t realize that need to visit other places more. I’ve been to a lot of places that convince me that America is by far the greatest place on Earth. I’m excited to welcome a guest who may believe the same thing I do. Please welcome Vince Coyner to the show. He is the founder of Gratitude for America.

33:20 Jim Beach: It’s a nonprofit educational organization focused on helping Americans better understand and appreciate the people ideas and the conditions that make America so damn awesome. Vince, welcome to the show. How you doing?

33:32 Vince Coyner: I’m all right, Jim. How are you?

33:35 Jim Beach: I am great. I love your organization. I love gratitude. I love America. I think that gratitude is the most important emotion. And America is the greatest country. You know what?

33:46 Vince Coyner: Ditto.

34:00 Jim Beach: Okay. Thanks for telling me. Good. Yes. All right.

34:04 Vince Coyner: So, uh, you know, it’s it, it’s interesting you, you, you talk about um, having been in a lot of places. I grew up. I was a military brat. My dad was in the Navy, and so I spent 5 years in Cuba, 5 years in Naples, Italy. I was stationed myself in Germany and I’ve lived in France a lot. And so I’ve seen the U.S. From a lot of different perspectives.

34:32 Jim Beach: Those are nice places.

34:34 Vince Coyner: The reality is.

34:35 Jim Beach: You know, France, that’s not a…

34:36 Vince Coyner: Well, it was… Yes, of course. It was Guantanamo Bay, which is, you know, it’s a little, honestly, it’s probably the most Americana place I’ve ever been in my entire life. Um, it was literally spectacular to grow up as a teenager on that base. Okay. Um, but, um, uh, you know, it is, it’s, it’s, um, I, I agree with you. America is the greatest place on earth, and I make the argument all the time that it’s the, you know, is the greatest nation that’s, that has, that, you know, God has created.

35:08 Vince Coyner: Um, and, you know, the thing about gratitude for America, and the whole, the whole point of it is, is the fact that I think, um, far, far too many Americans take all of what we have, um, the prosperity that we have for, for granted. And, you know, it’s easy to, you know, it’s easy to do sometimes because we get so caught up in, in, you know, everyday life and, you know, paying bills and getting to work or doing, you know, whatever family problems. Um, you know, there’s all these things that are going on around us.

35:43 Vince Coyner: But at the end of the day, um, the reality is the life that most Americans lead is far secured to that, which, uh, almost anybody in history, and frankly, most of the people on the planet, um, have have the good fortune to um, enjoy. And I, you know, I see that, um, so many people, they, they, you know, they sort of just imagine that, that, um, uh, the way things are, well, that’s the way they’re just sort of, they’re going to be, they’re normal. When in reality, that’s that’s anything but true. And we actually are the recipients of some incredible things.

36:19 Vince Coyner: Um, certainly the 1st and foremost is the constitution that gave us the framework for, for, um, America. But on top of that, you’ve got these entrepreneurs who have gone out and basically built the world that we, you know, we exist in today. And it’s, uh, it’s, you know, it’s absolutely incredible because the lives that we live today are, um, for the most part, they’re far, far greater than than even kings could have imagined, you know, a century and a half or a century and a half ago. I mean, it’s just, it’s extraordinary.

36:52 Vince Coyner: And so for me, the idea behind gratitude for America is to, um, sort of give people some perspective and ideally, uh, you know, create some, some, some, um, uh, gratitude for, for what we have and then maybe, you know, spark in them, the idea that, hey, you know what, uh, if all of these other people did things that, you know, maybe changed their community or, or their country or the world. Yeah, you know, maybe I can too. And I think it dovetails with a little bit with what your sort of basic. I think your basic premise is, which is, um, that, uh, anybody can be an entrepreneur.

37:31 Vince Coyner: Um, and, you know, I absolutely believe that that’s, um, that’s true. And, you know, the, the, the possibilities are, are simply extraordinary. They just are. And if my, my, my basic, um, premise is that if, if people don’t, If they don’t recognize how lucky and how fortunate we are and how it took, uh, what it took to get here, they’re not necessarily going to be in a position to preserve those things for their children or grandchildren or give, you know, people in the future, an opportunity to build something even greater. And so, um, that’s, you know, at the most basic level. That’s what GFA is all about.

38:11 Jim Beach: Where do you spread this message? Are you going to schools or organizations or rotary? Also, right?

38:19 Vince Coyner: Well, right now, so I started Gratitude for America. I, um, essentially, uh, created about 18 months ago. And so I, I’ve been writing, um, I, I’ve been writing profiles and doing research and things like that, but my goal is, and, and so what my goal is, I, I have something that’s called uh, 250 for 250, and I wanted to celebrate America’s 250th year by creating profiles of 250 entrepreneurs, American entrepreneurs who created, you know, everything around us. And, um, and so that’s what I have been, I’ve been working on.

38:53 Vince Coyner: My goal is to take each one of those profiles and then turn it actually into a learning module that can be used in schools and youth programs and churches and in different places where people can not only look at the stories of these people who created, you know, so much of what we have, but then at the same time, figure out the lessons that they, um, the lessons that can be taken from that and understand that, uh, you know, you, you had, you, you had a, uh, an interview. I don’t know, maybe a couple of months ago, something like that, where you were talking to this guy about regulation.

39:31 Vince Coyner: And I think you mentioned something about being, um, in Georgia, they’ve got rules about, uh, who can put, um, ice cream in in buckets, you know, which was insane. And, you know, and and so the whole idea is, and one of the things that a lot of people don’t really sort of get is the fact that one of the, one of the big reasons why America has become so incredibly prosperous is because for, for most of our history. Um, Less so now, but most of our history, we had we had limited government. Government was, you know, really pretty small. It didn’t get involved in everything.

40:09 Vince Coyner: And to the degree that it gets involved in all sorts of, you know, things, the more there is involved, the government is involved. The less room there is for entrepreneurs to go out and create. And so, um, That, that’s, you know, that’s one of those things. So those are the kinds of lessons that I want to have in those modules that go from, from just, you know, starts out as a as a regular biography, but then from that biography, you take it and you learn, you know, lessons about what made them successful, and then on top of that, what if someone wanted to become an entrepreneur, what they could do.

40:48 Vince Coyner: And so that, you know, that, that’s what my, uh, uh, that was where my goal is now and and how, uh, you know, how I’m sharing it is, so I’ve, I’ve got some, um, I’ve got some of a few, uh, YouTube videos, but I want to turn all of those into YouTube videos. I’ve got a game called Red, White & Blueopoly that, um, um, trying to launch, uh, which is basically a monopoly game, but it’s got um, entrepreneurs on it instead of uh, Atlantic City streets.

41:18 Vince Coyner: Um, and then, of course, I want to launch my own podcast that showcases these great entrepreneurs, and, you know, some of them are guys like Henry Ford and and, uh, Levi Strauss, that everybody knows, but then there’s also guys like, um, uh, like Clarence Birdseye, who, um, he, he’s actually the, you know, I grew up, um, eating, you know, TV dinners. Well, there’s a reason that, that, you know, frozen food became such a staple of Americana was because of, of, um, uh, Clarence Birdseye.

41:49 Vince Coyner: And, you know, you have other guys like Malcom McLean, who, you know, if you see all those shipping containers, well, the reality is back in the 1950s, that guy, you know, that didn’t exist before that. And Malcom McLean is the one who created this containerization that would go from a manufacturer all the way through to a retailer across the country or across the planet in a shipping container. And it dropped the cost of transportation as the cost of goods. By 97%, which is extraordinary.

42:18 Vince Coyner: And so, you know, it’s a combination of people whose whose names most Americans know, and a whole bunch of names that they don’t know, but who had really big impact on our lives. Cool.

42:32 Jim Beach: I love those examples. That’s really, really cool. And you have to make money somehow and pay these bills. How are you doing that? Is this a raise money nonprofit?

42:43 Vince Coyner: That’s exactly what it is. You know, it all works off of, it all works off of donations. I’m in the process of trying to reach out to some companies to be underwriters, but at this point it’s just, you know, donations from the website. Okay.

43:01 Jim Beach: Well, we will encourage people to do that.

43:04 Vince Coyner: Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

43:06 Jim Beach: I learned a word for the 250th anniversary. It’s the semi-Sesquintennial.

43:10 Vince Coyner: I think that might be a bit of a tongue twister for me.

43:15 Jim Beach: But it’s not that hard when you break it down. Simi, Seth, Quinn, Tennial. Semi-Sesquintennial.

43:22 Vince Coyner: There you go. You got it.

43:24 Jim Beach: That’s how you say 250th anniversary in Latin, I guess, or I don’t know what it is. But formal English. So, I remember the 200th anniversary. Old enough to remember the 200th anniversary, and it was a big deal. There was a train that came around all around the United States and all sorts of stuff. We went to a big party. I remember as a kid. You know, 250th was not that special. They blew it.

43:54 Vince Coyner: Oh listen. Jim, you are preaching to the choir. I, I, um, I write, um, on politics and social and things like that. And I would, I wrote one of, I wrote, I wrote a piece about a month ago about that exact same thing because I remember the 7th, uh, 1976, I was 10 years old, and I lived in, um, right outside of uh, DC, and it was the biggest deal in the world. Every single day there were commercials on TV. People were talking about it. Every, you know, every company was, was selling items that had, you know, bicentennial stuff on it.

44:30 Vince Coyner: You know, my dad loaded us up and we went. We drove down and we we watched the fires from the parking lot of the Pentagon. It was, it was incredible. Everybody was involved in it. And you are exactly right. The 250 is a completely different animal altogether. And, and, and all of the, that is one of the core core reasons why I started gratitude for America. And not because of the 250th necessarily, but the under, you know, I, I, I see around me so many people who, like I said, take for granted this, this extraordinary gift that we have, and they assume that it’s going to be here forever.

45:10 Vince Coyner: And so I’ll give you an example. So, The 3rd century, by the 3rd century, Roman Britain was one of the most sophisticated places in the empire. You could get in Roman Britain, anything that you could get in in Rome, um, anywhere else in the, um, in the empire, they had, um, agriculture, they had, um, food, the variety of foods were just extraordinary. And so if you took somebody from the 3rd century in Rome and said, um, gee, you know, how long is this going to last? They probably would have said, well, you know, it’s going to be, it’s going to be here like this forever. Well, the Romans left.

45:48 Vince Coyner: Um, Britain in 410. And by the beginning of the 5th century, I’m sorry, beginning of the 6th century, basically a 100 years later, Roman Britain had, the civilization of Roman Britain had collapsed. They did not know they, their London dropped from uh, 60,000 people down to less than 20,000 people, 75% of the buildings had been destroyed so that they could take the bricks and use them to build stuff elsewhere because they forgot how they didn’t know or they no longer knew how to bake bricks. Their agriculture collapsed because they literally forgot how to farm their their infrastructure collapsed because they couldn’t support it.

46:28 Vince Coyner: And so I look at that and I look at America in 2026. And you know what? It looks like it’s, it’s this, you know, this robust thing that’s going to, you know, last forever because it’s, it’s, it’s been here and people think and it’s, you know, they think, well, it’s been here for, you know, my whole life, so it’s going to be here forever. You know what? That is not the case. The, the line between, One, you know, civilization and the utter lack of civilization is very, very thin. And fundamentally.

47:01 Vince Coyner: I think that if people don’t recognize that, if they don’t understand that what we have has to be protected, it has to be supported has to have the, the, the, um, all of the things that keep it going. If those things are neglected, then, you know, you can’t be surprised when, you know, things start to collapse.

47:21 Vince Coyner: And honestly, all you got to do is look at places like, you know, LA and Seattle to see how something can go from, you know, a sort of, you know, they talked about a shining city, you know, something that goes from a shining city into a dystopian nightmare in a very short period of time. And so, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of ways to maybe try and get that message across. But for me, The the idea of of looking at entrepreneurs and looking at the impact that they had on us and not just historically. I mean, we’re talking, you know, every single day today.

47:59 Vince Coyner: I always make the argument that that Cyrus McCormick is the most important entrepreneur all of human history because in 1831. Um, farming around the world had not changed in 5000 years. People were basically as productive on a farm as they were when the pyramids were being built. And so in 1831, he invents the mechanical reaper. And at that time, basically 90% of the American population worked on farms. Today, that number is under 5%, which means he freed up 85% of the American population to go out and do all of the things that they’re.

48:34 Vince Coyner: I mean, all of the things that we do today from, you know, a podcast host, to scientists, to doctors. To, you know, um, Instagram influencers to baseball players, all of the things that we do, uh, you know, fast food restaurant people. Those things happen because of Cyrus McCormick. And so these people who, um, through history, took, uh, you know, they, they, um, struck out as as entrepreneurs. And when I sort of struck out, I don’t mean struck out like baseball. I mean, they launched themselves as entrepreneurs. Um, and they didn’t necessarily know what that outcome was going to be, but they did it.

49:15 Vince Coyner: And we’re, we were living, um, the prosperity today that they created for us. And that doesn’t happen overnight and it certainly doesn’t happen everywhere because, you know, I mentioned the countries that I had lived in before. And while all of those countries are wonderful, The reality is not a single one of them can hold a candle to the US, when it comes to entrepreneurship, not even not even close. Um, and there’s a reason for that. And the reason for that is that that American system, that, you know, sadly, too many people are, they’re simply ignorant of. And, you know, they they assume that it’s, you know, it’s going to survive.

49:55 Vince Coyner: And, you know, the reality is if we don’t take care of it, it’s not.

QUICK TEN | VINCE COYNER

50:02 Jim Beach: Vince, I heard you wanted to play our game, the quick 10.

50:05 Vince Coyner: Indeed, indeed. I dont know if I have all the answers, but I’m going to give it a shot.

50:12 Jim Beach: All right. Do you want the standard wager?

50:16 Vince Coyner: Um, you know, I don’t know what that is, but I’ll, I’ll take it.

50:21 Jim Beach: There you go. I love the attitude. Number one, favorite creativity hack.

50:29 Vince Coyner: Favorite creativity hack. Um, Honestly, just close your eyes and throw something, you know, throw it out, throw a dart at the um, at the board.

50:39 Jim Beach: Number two, favorite bootstrapping trick.

50:41 Vince Coyner: You know, I don’t actually, I don’t have an answer for that one.

50:46 Jim Beach: All right. I’m sorry. Number three, top passions.

50:48 Vince Coyner: Top passions. Art, history, politics, entrepreneurship, and women.

50:53 Jim Beach: Number four, the 1st 3 steps in, starting a new business are?

50:59 Vince Coyner: Let’s see. One seeing an opportunity. Two, and maybe the most important, is understanding if someone else is solving it, and if they are, does that leave room three, room for another solution, and can you provide it?

51:15 Jim Beach: Number five, the 1st way to, or the best way to get your 1st real customer is.

51:22 Vince Coyner: Find someone who needs what you have to offer.

51:25 Jim Beach: All right. Number six, your dreamiest technology.

51:29 Vince Coyner: Believe it or not, AI.

51:31 Jim Beach: Number seven, best entrepreneurial advice.

51:32 Vince Coyner: Best entrepreneurial advice. Um How simply, um, uh, do it. You don’t know if it’s going to work or not, but you know what? It’s certainly not going to work if you don’t try it.

51:50 Jim Beach: Number eight, worst entrepreneurial mistake.

51:53 Vince Coyner: Uh, lacking self-confidence.

51:54 Jim Beach: Number nine, favorite entrepreneur and why?

51:59 Vince Coyner: The aforementioned Cyrus McCormick. He treated us up from the from the farm.

52:02 Jim Beach: Number 10, favorite superhero.

52:05 Vince Coyner: Underdog.

52:06 Jim Beach: Excellent. All right, while we calculate the score and find out the winner, Vince, how do we get in touch with you? Find out more about gratitude for America?

52:19 Vince Coyner: So they can just go to gratitudeforamerica.com or dotorg, uh, and I’ve got information on there on, I’ve got about 46 of the entrepreneurs who were there, got a little bit of information on the, on the game. If you’d like it. Um, you know, read some of the stories and if you, if you like and if you learn something, you know, share it with somebody else. If you’d like to support and have us, you know, help create more of those, there’s certainly a place to to make a donation there.

52:55 Vince Coyner: Uh, but the idea is that, you know, there’s this information that hopefully will get people to, to, you know, think about what’s going on, uh, be grateful for what’s going on, and maybe at the same time, um, inspire a little bit of passion to try and do something to get their name added to the, uh, to the next list.

53:15 Jim Beach: Fantastic. Vince. Oh, I just got your score. Oh, I’m so sorry. You got a 94. It’s an excellent score, but you have to have a 95 to win, so you owe us a Tesla. We always play for a Tesla. So I’ll look forward to receiving that. Vince, thank you so much for being on the show. Great information. Great job with gratitude, and we hope you’re incredibly successful and we’ll come back soon.

53:41 Vince Coyner: Well, thanks very much, Jim. I appreciate it. And the Tesla’s in the mail.

53:46 Jim Beach: Excellent. Thank you so much. We are out of time for today, but you know what we do. That’s right. We come back tomorrow. Be safe, take care of it. Go make a one million dollars. Bye now.