Just for Laughs - The Best of Elevate Polk

Just for laughs, because who doesn't love a highlight reel? Hi everyone, this is Rob Arturi, producer and co-host of the Elevate Polk Podcast. We have a special episode for you this week. It's a look back at some of our favorite lighthearted moments from the past few months.

You are speaking— or no, we are speaking to Joe Cruz, who is the Lakelandist.

My favorite one that I ever wrote was the very first one that I wrote, which was— do you have the list there? Is it on?

That's not on the list. Not on.

Okay. I have to sort of summarize it, but it was "I Love Lakeland," declares woman who's never been north of Memorial Boulevard. And that one, I particularly like a lot just because knowing Mayor Wiggs so well and he is Mr. I Love Lakeland and I love him to death. But you know, whenever anyone says love Lakeland, they're always talking about downtown and South Lakeland, stopping at Mulberry. That is like the extent that they're willing to love.

Right. And it, and it's a true challenge from a demographic standpoint. And there is a divide, if you will. It's not like a polarizing divide, but it is like a, well, I haven't been to North Lakeland in so long because I'm on this side of town and vice versa. So it's something that comes up a lot in conversation. And you just, like you said, you found it, you pulled it out and told the story about it and Now we're all talking about, yeah, I haven't been in a white place in a long time. It is a real thing.

It's not like we're the Hatfields and the McCoys.

Right.

We're gonna start, you know, going after the Northsiders with pitchforks. But it, there is a tangible barrier.

I would love to see us roll out like, when you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way. Some sort of really cool—

South Side Story?

Is that what it's—

Well, buoyed by Ron DeSantis, Grady Judd, Florida rises to the most press conferences per capita.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's— go ahead.

So I was going to say the origin for that one is actually, uh, is actually kind of funny because that one was one of the very last ones that I did. And it was actually because by the time, uh, The Lakeness rolled around, a lot of the people from The Ledger, a lot of journalists and stuff had really liked it and had been sharing it. And so I've gotten to know a couple of them, not, not very well, just through social media and stuff. So I thought I'm going to write one that's going to be funny for them. Because like following their social media, like every week was like, all right, going to Ron DeSantis press conference in the Villages or going to Grady J press conference in Eastern Polk County. And I was like, is this all they do? Like all day long is just put on these press conferences.

Yep.

'Cause it's like, and also you see like all of the graphics that get produced for them. I'm like, this must be just like some—

A lot of work. That's a full-time job.

Yeah. Somebody's gotta be a full-time job just printing out graphics for these, for these press conferences. It is.

He's a good friend of mine.

But, well, and you know that the joke, I mean, you can't talk about this and come so close to it and not tell the joke, which is the most dangerous place in Polk County is the space between Grady Judd and the video camera. So let me do one more because it actually has some significant meaning in my world. So this is gonna shout out for my hubby, Craig. The Mulberry Man can't decide between gray and black cargo shorts for his wedding day. Craig and I got married in April And full-on Craig style was his shorts. And it's funny because we were going somewhere recently and it was semi-formal, but it wasn't really something. And one of our friends called, was like, hey, you know, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, whatever. Is Craig wearing shorts? And I was like, no, he's actually wearing slacks. This is going to be a little bit more formal than our wedding. I love the Hosking style.

He always looks like he could— You could just take him anywhere, drop him into a nice tiki bar.

Yep.

He's ready.

He'd blend in.

He'd be happy with that.

It's marvelous. I mean, he could be like the James Bond of the Caribbean.

Talk about not putting on airs. That man is just— he is who he is, who he is. And that's what I love about him.

Absolutely.

So love you, babe. Nice.

And he has a nice tan.

I actually have a funny story. I have a really funny story about that article. So that one was because I used to live near Mulberry and would go to like the the holiday parade and see people wearing— everybody wearing cargo shorts. But so in the article, I always try to come up with a fake name.

Yes.

To have a character. And there was— I just picked a random fake name, like from a generator.

Fake name generator.

Yeah. Just put it in. And like literally the second comment on the article was somebody with that name from Mulberry.

No way.

Being like, someone sent it to them and he was like, yeah, so what? Like, I just remember like laughing hysterically that I'd managed somehow to pick someone from Mulberry with that name who wore cargo shorts all the time.

Wow.

Now, given the total population of Mulberry, did you play the lottery that day?

Yeah, right.

You know, or did you buy a scratch-off, or as I like to call them, the Polk County IRA?

By golly, I have to say, sometimes I wonder. I do feel like there's some momentum, but I don't think we're as close to improvement that I would like to see. But I do see some of the fruits of the labor starting to show up in the community, but I would like to see more. So I'm, I'm still working well.

And I think some of that you'll never know because you can't always know what impact you had on, on this person who then impacted that person who then took a step to that, that change.

Right. But the point, the point is I didn't decide to just say, well, Polk County stinks. I'm taking my marbles and moving out of town, or I don't want to be here anymore, or I'm just going to sit here on the sidelines and stir the pot.

And marbles? What is this, 1950s?

I played marbles. You didn't play marbles when you were a kid?

I played.

Oh, my brother and I, man, I would steal his marbles. I don't know if he ever knew that, but he had like some of the prettiest colors in his marbles.

And I think you've lost your marbles.

I had this really cool little velvet bag that I had I had a velvet bag.

It said Crown Royal on the outside.

No, but similar, but this is— Yeah. Maybe you think we have it a little bit skewed. Maybe there's not something that you see exactly the way you see it. I, like I said—

Maybe you wanna play marbles with Chrissanne Long.

Maybe you have a marble collection. We can compare. By golly, I'm gonna let Joe tell us why we named the episode, I Am Zacchaeus.

Well, Chrissanne, thank you so much for inviting me. This is a pleasure to be with you guys. My first podcast, so looking forward to seeing how this turns out. So as the tax collector, I always like to associate myself with Zacchaeus, because in the Bible it tells a story about how when Jesus was coming into Jericho, there was the tax collector in the Bible named Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus wanted to kind of get a glimpse at Jesus and who is this guy and try to get a little feel for what he's all about. And so he was a short guy, a wee little man, and so he had to climb a sycamore tree to be able to see over the crowds to see Jesus. So when I ran for tax collector and being a guy that's close to 5'5", I always said, "You know, I'm like Zacchaeus, a wee little man." As I've told people, I probably couldn't climb the sycamore tree as well as Zacchaeus did, especially not these days. But I am short, so I always like to associate myself with Zacchaeus.

And I think we're trying to figure out what Zacchaeus was actually truly trying to do.

Yeah, so Bible scholars out there, my assertion is that maybe Zacchaeus was trying to climb the tree not just to see Jesus, but to see how many people were there to appropriately assess taxes. I don't know what the they taxed back in those days if you had a big event or something.

But I think they taxed whatever they wanted to tax.

Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.

People who were wearing sandals and people who weren't, the ones that are wearing sandals got taxed.

Yes.

Yeah.

So we have you as our guest, Joe Tedder, our tax collector in Polk County since 1996. And so I was curious to know what the record is as to the longest elected official to stay in office. And you have a story to tell us about someone who has a tenure longer than yours?

Oh, much longer. In fact, I'm not even the longest-serving tax collector in Polk County. That's a gentleman by the name of Hobson Strain, who was a tax collector just before me, but I'm getting close to Hobson's number, but not there yet. But the tax collector in Orange County, a gentleman by the name of Earl K. Wood, served from the early '60s up until about 2012, 2014, something like that.

How many years is that?

I have no idea. A bunch. I'm not good with numbers, but—

but not good with numbers.

Wait a minute.

Airbnb was making a presence in the community and I said, let me put my house on Airbnb. So I got some pictures taken and I created my listing and I did all the things and I posted it into the Lakeland Business Leaders group. And I said, hey, if you've ever traveled you know, with Airbnb and booked a house, you know, take a look at my listing and tell me what you think. So I post this and people are like, oh yeah, do this, do this, do this. And then in comes the tax collector who says, make sure you're paying your taxes on the short-term rental for the home.

From his perch on the sycamore tree.

And I literally smiled because it gave me this sense of my friend is looking out for me. It wasn't the taxman is coming in to make sure he's going to get his right. And so that That started a series of conversations in which I went through the process, and it was kind of sticky. And we're going to talk a little bit about that. But the process of most of the time before Airbnb and this disruptive marketplace that is now the sharing economy came along, most of the people using the website to claim, to file the taxes and to pay the taxes were property managers. This was their job. This was what they did every month. They had to do these things. Here was just this random citizen who now has to go through this process and has never done it before. So I reached back out to Joe a couple of weeks later and I said, I just, I want to talk to you about this process. It's kind of wonky and I'm not a dumb-dumb when it comes to technology. And so I don't know, maybe a month after that, we were sitting down having lunch and I was talking to him and a couple of his staff members about the process. And that's how committed he was to just at least understanding where my challenges were. Not that I was really being able to shed any huge light on it. And then shortly thereafter, Airbnb And he's going to tell this from his version. I'm telling this from like, you know, he rubbed some sticks together and fire because pretty soon I didn't have to go through that process anymore because Airbnb and Polk County came to an agreement on how those taxes were going to be filed. So now I'm going to let you tell your version of the story, because I think what it did for me was it showed me personally how efficiently you operate our tax collection agency.

Well, thank you. Well, first off, you're right. I personally am very committed to be accessible to everybody, to be able to interact with people. And nowadays with technology, there's just a variety of platforms where you can interact with people. I get LinkedIn messages, "Joe, I'm trying to renew my driver's license. What do I need?" And I try to respond to that. Facebook posts, instant messages on Facebook, texts, email, phone calls, my business cards, all my business cards have my cell number on the back of it, my home number on the back of it. I consider myself, that's my job to be accessible. Absolutely. And so that's important. And in regards to the other thing you mentioned is, and you shouldn't feel in any way bad, I know you don't, the fact that most citizens have so many things in their life that complicates life. I mean, we were talking about my dog and the past 24 hours with my dog and the vet and And you don't have time to deal sometimes with the bureaucracy of government. And I know our family has a rental, not in Polk County, and I was responsible for filing the tourist development returns and the sales tax returns with the Department of Revenue. And talk about you understanding that. I mean, this is what I do. It was a pain for me and I couldn't figure out, you know, what do I do? When I'd call DOR, they said, oh, you haven't rented for 6 months. Don't worry about filling out a return. And then I get a notice from the Department of Revenue saying, why didn't you fill out a return? And so I understand the hassle just to get through life, much less these other things.

By golly, my first interview with our esteemed Sheriff Grady Judd.

Well, it's hard to get people to agree on anything in this county, but I think there's a clear consensus. There's no one better suited to be our sheriff than Grady. Hence the "He's our Huckleberry," correct man for the job.

Yeah.

So with that, Sheriff, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Welcome to the show.

Well, gosh, I could only mess it up from there.

There's nothing to mess up.

I appreciate the introduction.

So we're going to talk to you about a lot of things. But before Rob gets into some of the stuff he wants to talk about, I want to go I want to hear the story of the Grady Judd who graduated from Lakeland High School before he was the sheriff. And the person that you have become isn't always necessarily, I hope, I mean, my fingers are crossed. I hope there's a story in there that you can share that maybe there were some questions about. You say you always wanted to be the sheriff or a sheriff, but were there ever some questions along the way? Did you ever slip and fall, have an accident, do something that you shouldn't have done that may have cause you to doubt whether you would ever become a sheriff?

You know, that's an interesting question that if I had a slip and fall, I'll never admit it. The reality is, from the time I was a little bitty fella, I wanted to be the sheriff. There was never a doubt in my mind. I always thought it was God's mission for me because I never wavered off of that path, even though a lot of other folks, you know, take some time to develop what they want. Some people just happen into their job. I always knew I wanted to be the sheriff, but I was a member of— I call it the Lakeland High School— 1972, which seems like forever ago. Go Dreadnoughts! Football team, by the way, is a lot better now than it was then.

Were you on it?

No, I wasn't. The coach looked at me in my sophomore year. I played football a little bit in junior high school back in the day, and he looked at me and I said, Coach, my dad's offered me a motorcycle. Or I can play football and ride the bus. Coach looked at me and said, son, you better go get that motorcycle. I was slow and uncoordinated.

Joe Tedder was on before you and he ran a little bit over and he asked us to ask about Corky, but we didn't have time to get it in.

I told him I'd heard that story and I'm not— I wouldn't call the sheriff.

I wasn't— I wasn't going to tell bad things about him, but, you know, we'll edit this part out too, you know. Do you know, it's terrible when your grandmother gives you that nickname when you're a little bitty guy. When I got in first grade, they asked me, do you want to be known as Corky or Grady? I knew in first grade you couldn't get elected sheriff with the name Corky.

Well, I have to leave that in.

I think that we're going to leave that in because you're right. I don't think we could walk around Polk County with pride saying Sheriff Corky Judd.

Oh my God, that would be terrible.

By golly.

I was at Tiger Town for the first time. I've been living here for 18 years. Never been to Tiger Town. Right.

I think that's almost like something you don't want to admit.

Well, I lived in Winter Haven for half of that, so. But just forgive me. Forgive me, Lakeland people.

By golly, you need to be over there more often. I'm going to say it's really important that you start getting more familiar.

It's, it's, it's to me, that's north side.

Oh, we talked about this.

Yeah.

So I'm, I'm a creature of the south side.

We don't need to fuel that fire of divide the north north and south.

I understand, but there is a— it's a thing.

I'm going to invoke a new law.

Okay.

We can no longer say that's on the north side on this show or anything referencing it.

No, just come up with a different euphemism.

Nope.

Nope.

That's up there.

No euphemisms. Nothing about up there, over there, down there. None of that.

So we don't have any directionality now. We're just all on free-floating.

The compass is gone. We are just—

three-dimensional black hole of Geography here. All right, but thanks for the scolding. But here's my piece about it. What a beautiful place.

Yeah.

What a gorgeous facility. And my wife's a big baseball fan. I'm more of a football fan, but she was telling me about it being voted number one and I get it because we took the kids there last weekend. Beautiful day, beautiful place. I mean, just top notch. I can't wait to go again.

Well, and I know that there are a lot of teams that come to look, like you said, And I think there's almost a little bit of stadium envy in there. They see all of that, all that we were able to do with our renovation, and they're coming to like, how did you do this? And right. You know, all of that great stuff. So it's just a really nice piece of our landscape and the culture of the community that I love. And we're going on 80 years with the contract with the Tigers.

84 now.

Okay. 84.

And you know what's kind of cool too, is you're talking about how years later you network and you meet people and they come back. Well, Al Avila, who's our general manager and vice president of the Detroit Tigers, who runs the baseball operation. We grew up in Hialeah together.

Oh, wow.

We went to high school together.

That is amazing.

So when we do things together, it's not just the city and the Tigers, it's Bob and Al getting together and, hey, let's do this and let's do that.

Yeah.

And we trade invoices back and forth and we never have a bad meeting. And it's 2 months of old high school buddies get to hang out together.

That's fantastic.

Cool.

So those things don't happen very often, which is kind of cool. Yeah.

That's neat.

I say, but I'm on the parks guy. I'm that guy. I'm your hero guy right here. He looks kind of like me too, by the way.

I know the mustache.

Yeah, mustache. I think we're going to get a picture of Bob and Ron Swanson together.

Yes.

I told my wife this morning I got to get up and go get a haircut because I was looking like Geraldo.

So that's great. So, by golly, we have a very special guest, Steve Scruggs, the president of the Lakeland Economic Development Council. I'm very excited to have you here, Steve.

It's wonderful to be with both of you today.

Well, thank you. I think maybe you can give a little bit of a history of your time with the LEDC. And also, I would like— I always like to get our guests to talk about how they got to Lakeland or how long they've been in Lakeland and kind of their Lakeland story or their Polk County story.

I'd love to do that. I was born in St. Petersburg. I was adopted by my parents who lived in Winter Haven. After a month, they brought me to Winter Haven and I lived there for 2 years. Then I lived in New Jersey for 2 years and I lived in Connecticut for 2 years and I lived in Illinois for 2 years and then New Jersey for 2 years and then Florida 2 years and then India for 2 years and then Florida for 2 years and then Brazil for 2 years and then Florida for 3 years. Graduated from Winter Haven High School, Blue Devil.

Wow.

And then I went to Troy State University in Alabama for 4 years. Then I went to Mississippi for 2 years to get my master's degree in economic development. I moved back to Winter Haven for 1 year and worked as the economic development person there. A guy named Rick Thrasher was running the EDC in Lakeland. He offered me a position. It paid about $10,000 more than what I was making in Winter Haven, and there was a lot more economic development going on in Lakeland than Winter Haven at the time.

What year was that?

That was 1987, June 1st. So I'll be celebrating my 33rd year at the LADC on June 1st.

Congratulations.

And 9 months after I took the job, the gentleman that was running it was fired. And so Mark Hollis, the president of Public Supermarkets at the time, brought me into his office and he said, Steve, we're going to make you the interim director. I was like 23 years old at the time. And he said, we're going to do a national search and we're going to find somebody to, you know, be your boss. And but we're going to keep you. We think we like you. And then about 3 months later, he called me back in the office and said, we think you're our guy.

Wow.

And so I've been here ever since that.

So way, way going back to the beginning of when you started, I had no idea of that story. So it's interesting how many times we've had conversations and we've just never really have the time to talk about the personal stuff. So we're always focused on the business stuff. So cool to learn your story, how many different visits back to Florida and different places. Now, the furthest away you lived was where? India?

Yes, I lived, uh, 8,000 feet up in the mountains, went to an International Baccalaureate school called Kodi Kanal, and, um, it was about a 2-day drive from where my parents lived, and I was in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade.

Wow, what a cool, like, story that you have. I, I want to explore that someday. I really want to talk a little bit more about another podcast. Yeah, maybe we have another show.

One question, were they— was it military, missionaries, or circus?

I can't Yeah, all that traveling.

Rob, it doesn't have to be any of those. But actually, my dad was an engineer and built fertilizer plants around the world. So he's a project manager. And that's what got us here. He worked for IMC, International Metal and Chemicals.

So always choose none of the above in those multiple choice questions.

Well, yeah, we can get back to the circus later, though.

Yeah. Well, so sometimes I always go by the principle when you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras. But every now and then it's a zebra or a fertilizer engineer, not a circus performer.

There you go. There you go.

But yeah, thank you.

By golly. Tom Phillips, the director of the Citrus Connection. And we're so happy to have you, Tom.

Oh, I'm happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

I happen to know that the decision to move to Lakeland or to Polk County was a little bit of a surprise to Michele.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yes. So the selection process was that they got down to the last couple of candidates and they wanted to do the typical kind of meet and greet and come down with your family and make sure this is a good fit and let us meet you. And my wife said, no, the kids are in school. I'm not going to go. So, so why don't you go down? And if they're serious about it, we'll, we'll, we'll all make a trip down as a family. So I came down, rented the cheapest rental car I could find, stayed in the Quality Inn, and, you know, came to the interview and loved it and fell in love with Lakeland. And the board had done this really neat thing where they had arranged to have a Polk County who's who take you around and kind of sell you on the community. I drew Ann Furr, former Lakeland City Commissioner.

Yep.

Oh my God, did she sell me on Lakeland and Polk County, right? So she's in the, we're in the car, we're driving around, I'm taking pictures of Common Grounds, Tigertown, Lake Mirror, just, you know, sending all these great pictures to my wife, selling only the best parts of Lakeland and Polk County. And they offered me the job on the flight back. So she moved here blind.

She had not been here.

She had not been here ever. So came down and we lived in the Ramada at I-4 and 98 for 3 weeks until our rental home— no, go ahead and laugh, Rob, it's okay, right? Site of the former Hooters Hotel.

Right.

It's gonna get even better. They're constructing the Waffle House that's there now in the morning and the crew is living there. So we're rushing down in the morning to get the kids their free breakfast, right? Before—

Did you check like TripAdvisor or something? Something before you—

Oh no, no, this is great, right? It just gets worse. I've got a 140-pound Weimaraner that I'm sneaking in every night, right? I'm the new executive director of an agency that was in flames, bringing my dog to work with me, and all of our crap is still strapped to both of our cars because our house isn't going to be ready for 3 weeks. So that was my introduction to my team and the community. Um, but we look back on it now and, and We really laugh.

And what I love is I know you've shared that Michelle is just as much in love with Lakeland and Polk County as you are now. But at the beginning it was a little rocky.

Yeah.

So there's #LoveLakeland, right? So for our first couple of years here, it was #LoveLakeland Monday through Friday because every weekend we were at Disney or doing other things. But the community really grew on us and her finding that community of Florida Southern has been great.

Yeah.

And so we've really come to love and embrace Polk County. And one of the things that we love the most is just how much it's changed. When we moved here, Polytech was just opening up and all I heard as somebody new to the community was, oh, this used to be orange groves or this used to— when I bought my house in South Lakeland, it was all orange groves.

Right.

And so I took my wife and kids out there because I said, we need to take pictures of this because one day it's not just going to be this weird white structure. And when we got out there, literally there were cows still in like 2 feet of the IST building. I mean, it was still pastureland. And so just to see the growth that's occurred out there is just to me, absolutely amazing. So it's an exciting time to be here.

Well, I'm just going to say whoever was on the search committee and interviewing and recruiting Tom from Chicago— Chicago, right?

Chicago. And it was Don Selvage. Don Selvage was at— was the board liaison to hire me. He's a Titan, love the man.

Yeah.

And so he, the board was great, but he was really the one responsible for bringing me here.

You moved to your site, or your wife's site unseen from Chicago.

Yes. I may have also lied and told her that there was a Whole Foods and there wasn't, but it was kind of at the time, like there may have been a few white lies about moving here. Like, but that's the one that, you know, 8 years later still sticks.

Yeah.

But now we have GreenWise.

Oh yeah.

So, so she's great. Okay, good. We're good.

Perfect. We're good.

So thank you.

Well, my hat off to you, Don, if you're listening, for doing such a great job of recruiting Tom, because I think we couldn't have brought a better person down. And the family is awesome as well. So kudos to Don Selvage.

I'd like to thank the general manager of the Ramada for looking the other way for 3 weeks as I snuck my 140-pound winewinder up to the third floor.

There's a statute of limitations on those things. I think you're good.

If you're in Ramada, do not stay in room 318. It still smells like dog.

All right. So do your thing with the editing.

I just got a visual that— oh, I'm not editing any of that. I got a visual of that National Lampoon's Vacation when they go into Wally World with all the stuff on the car and the family truckster.

It was great. And at the time, the kids were at Lakeland Christian School, right? And which is a phenomenal institution. We just transitioned to the public charter school system for a variety of reasons. But imagine my wife in the carpool line at Lakeland Christian School with all of this stuff strapped to the car.

I mean, it was just— Wait, do you have any pictures? We need them in the show notes.

Lakeland Christian School probably has pictures.

Who are these people?

This is what you don't let in.

Right. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, let's start talking a little bit more about why we invited you to come on the show. Sure. You shared some things with me before the show, and I just kind of want to read what you wrote and then we can start start there and, and weave down the path we want to take. So one of the main things that I keep hearing over and over and over again lately is, is the amount of unprecedented growth that Polk County is, is looking into. So Polk County is experiencing unprecedented growth. Currently at 686,000 residents, Polk is expected to hit 1 million residents by 2044. East Polk County is expecting to see 114,000 new citizens, roughly the population of Lakeland. In the next 5 years. As our community transitions from largely small urban and rural to urban, how do we plan to meet the opportunities and challenges of this growth in a constructive way? So I want you to just kind of tell me what your responses to the question you actually posed should be as far as from the community, from the Citrus Connections side of things.

Sure. So that really goes back to 2014, right? And we'll start with with the My Ride My Roads ballot initiative. And these are what I call BHAGs, right? Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

Right.

And so—

Isn't that a Jim Collins? I think it's a Jim Collins. I've read that somewhere. Yeah.

It's definitely not a Tom Phillips.

I've known a few BHAGs in my day.

By golly, it's really fun to have JJ from his own podcast, which I can't even remember the name of.

It's really—

The JJ Podcast. Yes. Got it. The JJ Show. It's the JJ Show.

How dare you, lady?

I love it. I love it.

It's hard to remember.

It is.

Especially with him sitting right here.

Well, I do want to say before we get started, because you might know Jay Che as the person whose name is spelled as if you would say it in English, Cho.

Oh yeah.

So there are a lot of people not maybe not connecting who Jay Che is first.

Because of the last name.

Yeah.

It's a litmus test.

It is. Do you really know me or do you not know me?

Exactly. That's exactly what that is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because if you can't spell my last name, Or say it correct. And pronounce the last name, then you really don't know who I am. I mean, you know me, but you don't know me.

Do you really know me?

Yeah, exactly.

That's pretty awesome.

It's a litmus test. I keep it that way.

Some of that, I get some of that because people down here, they think it's Arturo, or I get Altery with an L.

What the?

There's an R. I always wanna say R2-D2.

But it is Artury though.

Yeah.

Right. I always thought it was Arturi.

You did.

Arturi, right?

Arturi.

Yeah.

Like an Italian thing.

Yeah.

It's Italian for Arthur. It's pretty plain, but yeah, you would think South—

Ooh, that's a good movie. Arthur. Have you seen that?

I have. It's like 30 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. Just checking. All right. So we've randomly just walked around talking about names for a minute or two.

So tell me about bro yoga.

Oh, bro yoga.

Kinda skipped that one. I was, I was gonna, okay.

What?

No, no, no.

It's good.

So bro yoga is, For many months I've had a yoga class at my studio, and again, doing it selfishly because I want to do it, right? So I hired some yoga instructors, and they're friends, and it was like, it was, man, people weren't showing up. I mean, people did show. I mean, you know, it wasn't like big droves of people, right? Because there's other yoga places in town that have been doing it for a long time and doing it really well. So it's like like, you know, I'm not trying to take away their business either or anything like that, but it was like, at one point I was like, you know what, I just gotta call this something else. And so I just kinda called up, I called up a bunch of, I didn't even call anybody, I texted a bunch of buddies in town, you know, predominantly guys. I said, hey, show up for yoga next week. See you at 9 o'clock. At my place. That was it. Wow. That was it.

That's a, that's a pretty good command in your, in your friendship.

No, no.

It's like, it was just do this. It's like, hey, you know, here they are.

You know, it's good for you. You know, you want to do it. You don't have a regular 9 to 5 job. You're an entrepreneur like myself. And that's predominantly the base of people that come at 9 o'clock on Tuesday morning at my, at my joint.

You're not working for Publix and coming to yoga at 9 AM on a Tuesday.

And so people showed up and I was like, I gotta give it a name. Oh, bro yoga.

Yeah.

Bro yoga. Bro yoga.

It's brilliant.

Yeah.

Because it's not, it's not now, I know Chrissanne's like, it's not just men. It's not like a men's only thing.

No, it's not.

Okay.

It's not.

I don't like that exclusive stuff.

It's not the boys club.

So I'm, and I'm gonna announce it on this. This is a first.

Oh, all right.

So I'm rebranding bro yoga and now I'm gonna call it boss yoga.

Boss. I like that.

Boss yoga.

All right.

I'll allow it. I got, it got me. Right?

Did you go to bro yoga?

No, not yet. Not yet.

I'll see you next week.

But I'm, I thought like I heard the name. That stuff works. I wouldn't go to bro yoga and be like, what is this woman doing here? I'm not going to do that. No, no. But it's like, men, women show.

I mean, there's men and women in the bro yoga class, quote unquote bro yoga class.

Right, right. But it's a, it's a, you know, it's just a funny thing, but I, it's just the name. Yeah, it is.

But it works.

It's cool. I like it.

So, and so, you know, a lot of my friends are like, well, you know, I've always wanted to do I wanted to do yoga, but I didn't want to be, you know, like Brandon, Edie. He's like, you know, he's one to not, he doesn't like not knowing how to do things, you know, around people and stuff. You know, he has to constantly have to know. And I'm like, you don't have to have any of that. You could be completely terrible. You can be completely inept. It's fine. Just come show up.

Do something good for yourself.

I am more than comfortable doing something and looking like a complete ass in the process.

So, so yeah, Bro Yoga is going to turn into Boss Yoga. Uh, and, and that's for, and I title it as such for entrepreneurs in town, uh, men and women that don't have a regular 9 to 5 that know that you should be doing an activity like yoga because number one, it brings you focus and relaxation at the same time and gives you a bit of a workout and puts you in the right headspace. When you leave to tackle the rest of your week.

That's important.

It is.

It is.

I've been thinking about it from a flexibility standpoint. I don't ever believe I'll reach peak yoga flexibility, but I would like a little bit more greater range of motion.

But you don't want the peace and the mindfulness and the good headspace?

Oh yeah, no, that too. That too. But there's all kinds of gimmicks with yoga too, right? So my wife wants to do this goat yoga.

Oh, that's a thing.

It is a thing. I don't understand. Yeah, goats are evil.

Those eyeballs, man. The pupils, they're like rectangular.

Straight up, Satan spawn.

So Craig's kids, I see this post on Facebook that the kids, Craig's kids, Alex and Amber, are at this thing called goat yoga. And I'm like, I just pick up the phone and I look at it and I'm like, Craig, you need to see what your kids are doing. He's like, what is that? And his son Alex has a goat on his back. And I guess there's the thing called goat yoga.

That's a hell of a shtick.

It really is.

You gonna bring goats to your dojo?

Hell no. I have a friend that has like a little farm and they have goats and I've seen them in their little pen and they're fun. I get it. And then you see them poop, right? Look, I have 3 kids. I've spent enough time dealing with poop in my life. So I don't know how it works with goat yoga. So goat yoga people don't hate me here. I just can't imagine being on the ground, having a goat on my back, right? That part is fine. I don't get it. But then what happens if the thing decides to, you know, nature calls?

I mean, like, no.

Seriously, that might ruin, I mean, you talk all about focus and clarity and all this stuff.

It's hard to focus when you got a droplet next to you.

Yeah, well, when you got little brown marbles rolling down your back, I mean, to me that ruins the thing.

I don't know.

Maybe that doesn't happen.

There's too much fro going on in this conversation.

That goat beard brushing against your arm.

Female goats do it too.

You got a horn rubbing up against your leg.

So, uh, all right, changing the subject, by golly, why don't you introduce our guest? Because you have history.

History? That's a— yeah, that's an interesting way to put it. Uh, yes, we are, we are friends. Um, our guest today is Brad Sungren. Did I pronounce that right? Sungren?

That's— yeah, the D is silent. That's correct.

We're so good friends, we don't know how to—

we go way back, way back.

Yeah, it's not like I call him by his full name. Hello, Brad Sundgren. Good to see you, Brad Sundgren.

I would correct you if it was wrong, so you're good.

That I imagine you would. So I don't know how to explain it, but it seems like everybody I've ever met knows Brad.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel. I was thinking about it earlier before the show, and I was saying it's kind of like the new Volkswagen model. Like once you see it, you see it everywhere, but until you've seen it, you don't even know it exists. Lists. That's how I feel. I met Brad and then now he's everywhere and he knows everyone I know. What the heck is up with that? Right.

Yeah, I get around, I guess, as they may say.

Well, welcome, Brad.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Well, you've been a big supporter of the podcast from the beginning.

So you've even designed t-shirts.

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, I try to, I try to do what I can get in the mix and have some fun. And be an encouragement.

So quite honestly, you're the reason I always say, "By golly." So thank you for that. I'm sure the listeners appreciate it.

Oh yeah, a lot of requests for that pouring in. It's funny how when you kind of put yourself out there, you get to meet some, some great people who have great stories like, like the cat door.

Oh my gosh.

You think I don't know what the cat door is all about, but that was quite fun.

So So I'll tell the story because I said that we have to tell this story because it's so ridiculous. Why not put on a podcast for people everywhere to potentially hear? But a couple months ago—

Let me set it up for the audience just because I was an outsider. I had no idea what I was looking at, but we're setting up, scheduling this podcast recording and talking about what we're going to talk about. And I get this photo, which I didn't read Rob's request for the photo. So I just saw this photo. Of one cat upside down, or no, one cat close to the ground cut out of a piece of wood, and then another one on a tall— it's a tall piece of wood, and then at the top is the upside-down cat. Um, and I, I don't know what I was looking at, but all I could think of, because then I went back up to read what Rob had said, it said something about a cat door, and I'm thinking, okay, so one cat has to fly through the top level of the board and one has to walk through. So we have like the, the acrobatic cat and the lazy cat. All right, now Rob, explain to me what exactly we were looking at.

Well, okay, so Brad can tell it— there's the whole story, but that's not the funny part because it actually is a very pragmatic, reasonable, measured thing that he did, doing something nice for somebody else.

Thank you, Rob.

His only mistake was hanging on to it. So, uh, me and another friend, we were at Brad's house a few months ago, and he's showing us all the stuff that he's done. He's this gorgeous back patio and all these upgrades they've done in the house. And out of all of that, the one thing that caught our eye more than anything else, hanging above our heads in the garage, was this old door with two silhouettes, one on each end, of a cat cut out of it. And you look at that thing and you go, what on earth is that thing, number one? And then why is it here? So again, we felt compelled to ask. So Brad, you can fill them in on the story. And the—

yeah, sure. So a friend of mine, uh, Craig Morby, who was actually playing at the Art en Mass, I think the night that we were there, right? Yes, yes. And the band Bully for You.

Everything's connected.

Yes, everything's connected. Uh, so it— at his, at his house in the laundry room, there's a stairwell that goes next to it, and so there's a little room under the stairwell it's like a half door, and that's where the cat litter is gonna be. And so they can't— they want a door on there. They don't want it totally open all the time because there's cat litter in there or whatever. And so, so Vicki, his fiancée, said, hey, can you— I found these things where people have cut out silhouettes of cats indoors as the, as the cat door. And so I say, absolutely, I'd be happy to do it, no problem. So I go and get the door, But there's a lot of pressure, right? Because if I screw up on this door, I'm going to have to go find a new door for them and paint it. And I don't want to mess it up.

And it was a specialty door, right? It's not something you can just grab.

Yeah, it's like a half-size door, you know? I don't— yeah, absolutely. You can't go to Lowe's and just go get this thing. So I had in my garage a door from my house that had been removed. It was in the garage when we bought the house 5 years ago, and I'm like, I'm like, that's awesome, I can run some tests. So I did two patterns, one at one end and then one at the other, to try to see how I could do this, you know, freehand drawing the cat and all that stuff. So, so that's what I did. And, and the mistake I made apparently is that I held on to it, which I did, and it's—

look how far that story has traveled.

No, it's great. Yes, thanks. So that's, that's the cat door story. And, uh, and then I did— I sent you pictures of the, the finished product in the, in the laundry room.

Looks excellent, by the way.

Yeah, we'll have to put that in the show notes, by the way. Great, great.

And if you're listening to this, uh, Brad will gladly make one for you as well, in any shape.

Thanks for listening, and make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And there is something—

there's a typo.

There is a typo. I'll start over. Thanks for listening, and make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to leave us a review. You can find all of our episodes at elevatepolk.com. And if there's something you want to hear specifically about on an upcoming episode, reach out to us on Facebook at Elevate Polk.