Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Give to Live - Sunday Special with Tom Pace

Episode Date: August 2, 2020

In this episode I chat with Bestselling Author, CEO and philanthropist Tom Pace about building a business, the power of running and why we must all give to others in order to live our best lives.

In 1987, I had an idea and I put it into action and I've stayed committed. So if you want to be successful in business, you want to be successful athletically, school, whatever it is, you've got to start with an idea and then you've got to take action and you've got to stay committed. Welcome to Your World Within Daily. I'm Eddie Panero. And on today's Sunday special, I'm incredibly excited to introduce you guys to my friend Tom Pace, one of hands down the most innovative, interesting human beings I've ever met in my life.

Tom Pace is the founder and CEO of Pace Butler, real estate investor, serial entrepreneur. The guy's got his hands in everything. He is who I do my cross-country runs with, or he puts them together when I talk about doing 500 miles in a weekend. And Tom is the one setting that up. So that's kind of where I've got to meet him and know him personally. And then most importantly, which we'll talk about a little bit, his philanthropy, just the way he looks at the world, the way he gives back and makes a point, whether it's hiring people that are in, you know, difficult times in their lives to his company, you know, donating millions of books to jails, going out, speaking, just living to give, which I think we can all learn from. And before I turn it over to the conversation, there's one thing here that I thought would be interesting, that I wish I asked, and I totally forgot until we hung up the call. But the first time I heard from Tom, I was just starting out.

You know, I mentioned a lot that one of the most difficult periods in my life was maybe the year or so between quitting my job and starting to build your world within, creating the business, creating content on YouTube. you go through that inevitable stretch where you're creating content and it's like, oh, is this worth it? Like, is this the right path to go down? And I remember getting a call from him or an email from him and kind of explaining what he did, Eddie, I'm the CEO, Pace Butler. I listened to your videos. How much do you charge for a one hour conversation?

And I was like, what? Charge, right? I was just so naive to everything at that point. It was all green. It was all new to me. And we ended up hopping on the phone. and, you know, what's interesting and, you know, looking back now, particularly,

is that it should have been the other way around, right? I should have been, you know, paying him for his advice. But it's not the way it works. And he was just asking questions about, you know, what inspires me when I wake up, what I do, you know, to plan for my day. There's actually a funny moment in the conversation when he says, how do you accumulate wealth?

And, you know, I was proudly talking about my YouTube income streams in my Spotify and iTunes income streams. He goes, okay, he's like, that's income, not wealth. How do you accumulate wealth? And I'm just sitting there like, why is this guy paying me to, you know what I mean? It was just such an interesting thing, but we ended up being very good friends. And he called a week later and said, I'm running across the country with some guys that are you interested in going.

And I was like, sure, sign me up. And as we'll talk about, ended up being one of the best decisions I've ever made. I learned a lot about myself and the resiliency that we have when we really dig deep. So really an incredible experience. And this is quite the intro. So without further ado, I'll hop right into the conversation with Tom Pace. Tom, it is good to have you, my friend. It's good being here.

It's good to see you. I love modern technology. I know. We're doing the Zoom thing. We got it all figured out. We're rocking and rolling. So let's start with the one of the most incredible things about you is that this all started with $62.53. So right now, you know, a big part of what you do is that the company you've built, you've grown it into somewhat of a juggernaut over there. And it all started with a few bucks. So how did that come to be in what role is that played in the life of Tom Pace? In 1987, I had an idea.

And I put it into action and I've stayed committed. So if you want to be successful in business, you want to be successful athletically, school, whatever it is, you got to start with an idea. And then you got to take action and you got to stay committed. And I've done that. The first four years of my business, I didn't make any money at all. I started in 1987 with an idea and I took massive action like Tony Robbins talks about. and I stayed committed. What I started with was buying used IBM mainframe computers in 1987.

So I didn't have the money to pay for a mainframe computer, obviously. I knew two things. I knew that people had computers, they no longer want it. And these are hospitals and government agencies and so forth, because these are mainframes. These are not just like PCs. Right, right, right. And I knew that there were people that wanted to buy those. So my job was to find people that had them that they wanted to sell.

And I had four different companies that would buy the computer from me. And here's the key. They would send me the money so I could pay for the computer before I sold it to them. So they would prepay. So a lot of people say you've got to have a lot of money in order to go into business. That's not necessarily true. you need to use a lot of creativity. Michael Dell, who started Dell computers,

he started in his dormitory room, supposedly, and he had people pay for the computers before he put them together. It's a bold move. So it was all about cash flow. As a CEO of a company, Pace Butler, I focus on three things. Inventory flow, cash flow, and personal development.

And I've been able to take this business, and we do business internationally. Business was a lot better before the coronavirus, but we have not missed a day of business because we're international. We did have a major reduction in force. We went from 80 employees down to 20. But we're still in business. We're not losing money.

The PPP helped us to get through this. And so, you know, we're dealing with this one day at a time. You've always tended to, you know, keep calm, collected. You know, I've never seen you flustered or anything. And, you know, you mentioned ideas starting everything. I mean this with no disrespect. In fact, I think it's one of the most admirable qualities about you. Some of the weirdest phone calls I've gotten have been spontaneous calls from you with ideas and concepts. And you're just an out-of-the-box guy, an out-of-the-box thinker. In fact, one of the first conversations, we had before I even know you, knew you, you said, hey, I listened to some of your videos.

Let's go run across the country. And I'm like, what are you talking about? You know, and it's, I think everyone can take some of that and put it into their lives. So is that something you've grown into? Have you taught yourself to think outside the box? Is it just Tom Pace out of the womb? Like, what's the idea behind that? I think one of the hardest things we do is to think. Spend time thinking. But one of the easiest things, especially for males, it's just to fantasize. You know, what is it we want to happen in our life, right? So when I was a little kid, I just thought about what I wanted my life to be like.

And today, I think, what do I want my life to be like? You know, a couple of years back, I asked my wife if she wanted to take a vacation. She said yes. And so we bought a motorhome, used, cheap. This is before the coronavirus again. I mean, we bought this $70,000 motorhome for $20,000. We've put a hundred thousand miles on. We've taken month-long vacations in it.

We've traveled across the United States several times. That's, you know, that's thinking outside of the box, especially with a full-time job. You know, if you're a CEO of a business, you work a lot of hours. And I work a lot of hours. Today, Saturday, I'm at my office doing some work. But I've also run nine miles this morning. I've had a really good day. Got a massage.

I always get a massage weekly. usually two massages a week. So I don't know. I mean, I'm creative. I'm not like an artist, but I'm an artist because like business and life is what we do, you know, ideas that we come up with. Yeah. Well, I'm of the, you know, belief that anything that you're pulling into or bringing into reality that's not currently there is art. I mean, I think that's 100% what you are. And I remember the first time, what was the first run? It was from somewhere in Texas. exists, right? Is there where we started? Maybe San Antonio-ish. And we're going all through the night with people that aren't necessarily runners, right? I think you and I were one of the, no,

there were a few others that run consistently. But it was a real deal. Like my thinking the whole time was there's no way, like my gut was that we're going to stop. Like I doubt we'll pull through this, but it wasn't even, you didn't even entertain it. It's like it was uncomfortable and it was, you know, we were sleep deprived for a lot of it. But then you come to learn that that's the point. Like, it's just the abnormal and doing things that are all out there. It's just par for the course. And I'm sure it's the same way with you.

Like, you don't see that with a lot of people. Doing things that are borderline crazy. It's just not a thing, but it's such a big part of your success and why you help so many people, why you're able to do what you do. Well, you know, when we started that run, we were just outside of Del Rio. Texas. Remember we flew in and we went to Del Rio and from Del Rio we started. And one of the things in that part of the country are these wild boars. Oh my God, that was terrifying. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And they got

razor sharp tusks. And they can, they could like, I mean, if you get them in a corner, they could shred you, you know, and we got, remember we got out of the motorhome and within 300 feet, we ran into a three or 400 pound wild boar. Oh, yeah. And we all walked up to it pretty courageous. And we got really close to it within feet. And I wasn't scared. Were you scared?

Yeah, yeah, I was nervous. It was dead. It was dead, Eddie. I know, but it made you think, like, because we were running on the side of the road all night through the night, pitch black, through Texas. And it's like anything could be coming up behind you right now. It made you think you hear,

You heard every sound. And just for context. So what it was is we'd, how many were there? Six, eight of us. But it was almost like we ran in shifts. So you did get to after you run. By yourself. You were running by yourself.

Oh, you were. Yes. In the dark. It made you think about things. It made you reflect. That's for sure. But after your run, you'd go back on the RV. You'd get a little bit of a break

while someone else ran and then, you know, 60 minutes to 90 minutes later, you're putting in your five miles again and that went on for days. We ran over 500 miles in two days. Yeah, yeah. It was a blast. It was. And you actually, you just made it all the way to. And we finished in March. We made it all the way of the cross. So basically we ran from Jacksonville, Florida to San Diego. Yeah. It's quite the hall. It was a lot of fun. I'm getting ready. I'm getting ready to do a boat trip. I'm going to go from Weber's Falls, Oklahoma, to Lake Michigan. I got a 23-foot sea ray. Okay. And as soon as we get close to it, we're going to post on Craigslist and marketplace, 23-foot sea ray for sale and tell them what's going to be. And so we're going to sell

it for cash when we get to wherever we're going, and then we're going to fly home. It's a self-funding trip. So then I'm going to buy another boat when I get back because I'll buy it in the winter in Oklahoma and I'll buy it at a good price because I'll buy used of course. See that's the perfect out of the box example right there. That's not out of the box. That's just what normal people do. That's right. Right. Normal is what you what you decided is, right? I remember one of the things on that run that you said to me, someone was complaining. What was it? Maybe a knee ailment. Then you said, look, unless you're saying it to a doctor, there's never ever a point of talking about what hurts or doesn't hurt. And I thought about that. I'm like, you're right. I was working out with

the buddy the other day. He's like, oh, man, my hips. And I was like, you know, a friend of mine once said, oh, man, quote me by name, right? I don't remember if I did. He knows you. He knows you. Yeah, you met you your world within live. So, oh, my God, that's good stuff. And another big part of what you do, you know, sometimes you use running as sort of a tool to do this, but you help people who have been in, you know, a bad place. They've been, they're coming out of recovery. They're in AA and just really changing, transforming their lives. You know, your book, the mentor, the kid, and the CEO talks a lot about that, the idea of not being stuck in one specific place. You can always transform. And I know you yourself dealt with that and clearly, you know, pulls yourself out of it. But talk a little bit about that, what that means to you, why it's such a big part of your life and how you have completely turned around what was once a not ideal situation. Well, I suffer from depression.

If I don't take a lot of action, I can get depressed really easily. One of the things that I've found that really helps me combat depression is running. And I really want to invent a new word, and it's called J-run. And J-run is because I jog, but it sounds so square to be a jogger instead of a runner. And I'm doing it about 11 minutes per mile. And basically, you're jogging if you're doing, what, nine, ten minutes a mile. But J-run is, you know, kind of jog and run. I get some speed up some of the miles, you know.

So Jane run. But this morning, Saturday morning, since this is a Saturday, I run around Lake Hefner. And that's a lake in Oklahoma City. And I've been doing it since at least 96, probably before then. We had six people plus myself. And some of them showed up along the run. There were two guys that showed up along the run. They were looking for us trying to find us.

We had a bicycle because one guy, he just started. at running. And so he ran a couple of miles with us. And we talked about business. We talked about relationship with God. We talked about family. We talked about a friend of mine gave a motorcycle to his stepdad. And for his birthday, his 50th birthday. And two weeks after he got the motorcycle, he got involved in a serious accident and lost his leg. And my friend is feeling a lot of guilt about this. And I said, you shouldn't feel guilty about this. That, that guilt is and that shame, that's not your deal. You did something that your stepfather wanted to have all this time.

You gave him a motorcycle, and he got to ride it, you know, and it wasn't his fault about the accident. It was one of those things that happened. Right. So we talk about all kinds of things. When you're running, you get that opportunity. You know, you got the adorphins running. You know, you feel good.

You can take on some of the problems in life and find solutions. So I run five days a week, but I don't run. Run fast. As you know, I'm slow. Hey, but you put in the miles. And I think one of the amazing things is it is a tool for so many things. It's a tool to reinvent yourself. It's a tool for recovery, a tool to push yourself.

You know, and there's just the last leg that we did through Phoenix or to Phoenix. That was one of the, I want to say most difficult experience. to my life just because I got so sick running I got you know heat I think heat stroke I don't remember I think you got heat stroke Eddie you I think you were red you were dry you were yeah you were swollen yeah I mean to the point when when we got there I couldn't book a flight I just stay in a hotel room and um but it's just the the how you feel about not stopping it's just the it's it's one of the most I'm so proud of that experience and while you're doing it you you just think I'm never I'm never doing this again.

And then a few months go by and it's like, all right, you know, when's the next one? When's the next one? Because it always gets you to sort of level up and learn something about yourself. I just love doing it. I don't know what my next run is going to be. I'm going to do the Oklahoma City Marathon in October. And I was running the Oklahoma City Marathon several years back. And at about mile 13 or 14, I saw this kid and he was struggling.

He looked like a Disney kid, by the way. He was in his early 20s, but he looked like he was about 16. Yeah. And so I knew, one of the things that I've learned is if you help other people to become successful, you get to the success also. And he was really struggling, and he was walking at the time. And I got up to him and I started walking with him. And we talked to him, he had really, really trained.

This was his first marathon. He'd really trained, but he had over-trained. He'd hurt himself in training. And so he took out too fast because I'd caught him, and I'm slow. right? And so we started talking and we talked from about mile 14 to 17. And then a couple, so we got to become friends, sort of, you know, just in that marathon. And about three or four years later, after he graduated from college with a degree in accounting with all straight A's, I've called the dean of that college and I didn't know that that this kid went to that college.

And he ended up being my assistant and then he became the CFO of our company and now he owns his own business. So I meet people when I'm running all the time. And it's a blast. What a great conversation. If you're sitting at, you know, around at a party or something, say, what do you do? I run. It's one of the things I love to do. I love to run. I love to read. Yeah. Oh, you do quite a bit of both? I mean, do you have a club, like a group of people that runs around that lake with you in the morning or is that a solo, a solo thing? Anybody wants to show up and run can. Because of the book, mentor the kid and the CEO, we get people that drop in from all over the United States and show up at the lake

at the lighthouse and say, I just wanted to know if you really did this and here you are. I say, yeah, I do this every Saturday whenever I'm in town. And I run in the rain too, Eddie. You know, I still let the video running in the rain. I run in the rain. I run in the snow. Today it was like 70 degrees.

It was perfect. Yeah. That's awesome, man. It's awesome. Every once in all get a comment under that video that's like, I love running in the rain. It's like you're missing the point. It's not about when it's hot and there's a nice drizzle. It's like when it sucks and it's uncomfortable, which, you know, running, running anyway, running through it. Yeah, I'm not a fan of running in the rain. I'd rather run it 70 degrees or 65 and no wind and no, yeah, but yeah, it's overcoming the

challenge. For sure, for sure, for sure. And so you mentioned helping people. Can we dive into that a little bit? Because you're very big on second opportunities. And as a matter of fact, you like to take that into your hiring process, take that into account, people that maybe have been battling back, people that had to have addiction problems, you make a point to give them opportunities in your organization, to lift themselves up, a point to invite them to your run. It's like, you know, knowing what I know about you, the business you've created, the wealth you've accumulated, you could pack your stuff and go live on an island. I mean, you could.

It would be a nice island too. Right, but you don't. you're very driven to help the people around you and in the community. And I think, I've told you that a million times. It's just not, it's an uncommon thing and I admire you so much for it. Where does that come from? We got to help other people. Can I tell you a real quick little story?

Yeah, just isn't even have to be quick. Go for it. So you got, I'm worth 25 cents a quarter. Okay. Just follow me for a second. Okay, I see myself low self-worth, low self-image, right? I see myself as not a highly worthy person, okay, 25 cents. So if, say for instance, I'm walking along the street and I reach into my pocket to get my keys out.

And when I do a 25 cent, a quarter comes out of my pocket, rolls down the street and goes down the sewer drain. Right? You got that picture? Yes. Okay. I'm not going to climb down that sewer drain for a quarter. But when I see another human being that's suffering, that's having a tough time, that is lost hope, and I'm thinking, and I see that person, I think that person has value, that person has, so the value that I can see is they're a $100 bill. I'm a quarter, they're a $100 bill.

they're down in a sewer drain. I will now climb down into that sewer drain to get my quarter and pull that $100 bill out at the same time. So helping someone else, I can see the value in you and others, but I can't see the value in myself. And so the more I do this, the more I start to see the value in myself. So when I first started doing this, I was a quarter. Now maybe I'm a $5 bill, but everybody, else is still $100. So when we help other people, and not question whether or not, like in Oklahoma City right now,

there's a lot of people on street corners panhandling. That's tough work. I don't know if you've ever done it, but it's really hard work. You get names called that. You get a Coke thrown on you. People humiliate you, tell you get a job and all that stuff. And I just give them a $2 bill. And a lot of my employees give them $2 bills.

And a lot of the people that are panhandling and say, where are these $2 bills come from? And then we tell them about our company. And then sometimes we hire them. I hired a guy when I was in Houston with my wife a couple of years, a year and a half ago. And he was panhandling in Houston. And he didn't look like a panhandle.

He was like in his mid-40s. And I was asking what was going on. And he explained to me his story. And I said, you want a job? And he said, yeah. And I said, okay, I'll buy you a ticket. You meet us at the airport tomorrow morning in Houston. we'll fly to Oklahoma City, and you can come to work at our company.

He worked there for like seven or eight months, and he got a better opportunity with another company. But I saw him this morning, and he just had a glow about him. He's just so happy. He's got a great job. He's living pretty much on his own. He's got things going for him. That makes me feel good that I was able to play a role in that. The more we give, the more we live.

The more we give, the more we live. So helping other people is like to keep. Love God and love others. That's so amazing. What an amazing philosophy. So by helping others the way you see it is your self-worth increases every time you lend a hand, every time you lift somebody up. It's pretty amazing stuff, man.

It's a lot of fun. Yeah. But it also comes with, you know, there's, and we've talked about this in the past in various situations where, you know, inevitably, you help someone out without knowing them that well, and it bites you in the ass a little bit. And I remember one situation where something bad happened. I forget the details, but I'm like, well, what are you going to do about it? And you said, Eddie, absolutely nothing.

You said, if a snake bites you when you're running, are you going to chase it into the woods to stomp on it or go get help and fix the problem? Something that we can all learn from, take a piece from. Well, you know, if a, so I'm out running. and a poisonous snake bites me. Okay, and I think I got this from Stephen Covey, one of the books that I've read.

You know, I read a lot of books and gives me good information. So I get bit by a poisonous snake. If I run into the bushes to kill it, I'm going to probably die or get really sick. I need to get to the hospital. I don't need to chase that. You know, a friend of mine,

he ripped me off for $450,000. He stole from me over a period of time. And the first thing I thought is, since he's been stealing from me over a period of time, and I've still been able to stay in business, this is great, because if I didn't catch him, he would have continued to steal. Now I'm going to start getting money from him.

And then he went to, you know, we pressed charges. He went to federal prison. And when he got out, he started paying restitution. But he was only paying a couple hundred dollars a month. And our business at that time had a low. It was, we weren't making much money at all. We were profitable. We weren't making much money.

money. I think we only made like $50,000 for the whole year with all these people and all this action, which is not very much money, but at least we weren't losing money. And all of a sudden we got a check in the mail from the U.S. government, and it was for $40,000 plus dollars. And what had happened was this guy that ripped us off for all this money had a house that he sold. And when he sold it, it had equity and the government made him give it to us. And so it almost doubled our profit for the year. So, I mean, he still owes me a ton of money. And he hadn't been paying the last couple of years. And I need to call him up and say, look, you got to start paying. You know, a couple hundred dollars a month at least, you know.

But the more we give, the more we live, and we have opportunities where people rip us off. And we just got to, we got to minimize. You know, I've got an alarm system at the house. I've got camera, you know, all the stuff to, you know, so that I'm safe and my family's safe. just give yeah give oh that's going to be the title just give i love that um what about the um um donating you do with uh books to two to different prisons you go in and you you you know um read to help them via the books that you've read and the messages that you uh you give okay so as you know and your audience doesn't know i didn't know how to read when i was 26 years old i read

at about a third or fourth grade level. Fourth grade. Let's not exaggerate. Fourth grade. I can't, like, almost read a newspaper. I can't today because the words are a lot bigger. But anyway, I mean, I can. But anyway, so at 26, I came across a book,

and the book was called The Greatest Miracle in the World by Aug Mandina. And it did two things for me. One, it took me three days to read it, but I read it. And that proved to me I could read. I had to get some help. I had to say, you know, what does this word? What does it mean? That kind of stuff from others.

But I read that book, and the second thing that book did was it gave me hope. Because in the book, it's about a guy that's a rag picker. And he helps people to have a life. I mean, it's a great book. And it's in story form. I followed it. I really enjoyed the book. And so after I read that book, then I read another book.

And then I read another book. and I learned how to read by reading. And now with Audible, you can get a book from, you can get a regular book, and you can follow along with Audible, and you can learn how to read. So I try to read a book a week. Sometimes it's two books. You know, a lot of people, reading is extremely important. If you want to be successful in life, you got to read.

You know, you can read stuff on the Internet. But so there are a lot of people, about three million people in jails of prisons right now in the United States. That's about the average, okay? Three million people. A lot of those people do not have the knowledge they need to be successful. There is a book that's helped more people to become financially successful than any other book. And it's got an interesting title, Thank and Grow Rich by the author Napoleon Hill. It took 20 years to write the book.

It came out in the 1930s. And that book has helped millions and millions. of people to become financially successful. It's like a step by step what you need to do in order to make it happen. You're not going to think it and just it's going to happen. There are some of those people out there, you know, like the secret, just think about it. But there's a lot of action you have to take. So we give that book away to people in jails and prisons. They get a copy. We right now are donating books to over 1,900 jails and prisons and homeless shelters in the United States. And we do it through my family, my wife and I and the kids, we pay for most of the books.

But we also set up a nonprofit called the World Book Bank. And people can go there and they can request books by the case. We don't send out individuals. But we send out, right now we're sending out four different titles. And Thank and Grow Rich is one of the books. And we get thousands and thousands of letters from people that have gotten the books why they're in one of those institutions, and they tell us how it's changed their life.

That's incredible. On Monday mornings, I get a stack of letters that I can read of people that have been touched by those books. We've given away over 1,500,000 brand new books. That is about worth $15 million, which is incredible. Now, we don't pay $15 million for that, but that would be the retail price plus delivery.

You know, so it's a lot of money and it's touching a lot of lives. Makes me constantly ask, you know, what more can I be doing? What can I do to give back? So, you know, here is, you know, the story of someone as a young adult, literally teaching himself to read. Yes. Ultimately, starts a business, starts investing, creates nonprofits, and just has built a life around health.

helping others. You know, there's a great quote. I think it was it Ben Franklin. The best thing to do to help the poor is not be one of them, right? Because it gives you the resources and the means to take that and just give back. And, you know, that's one of the reasons I was so excited to have you on is because you've worked so hard to just to create this life for yourself. And then you pivot and you just, you know, reciprocate back to the community. And, you know, it's been inspiring for me, and I'm sure other people on here will ask themselves that question too. What can I take with what I made, what I have, and help lift others up? Seven months ago, Eddie, I got a phone call, a kid named Bryson.

And he was from a small town in Oklahoma called Mulgay. And Bryson said that while he was in jail, he read the book, mentor the kid and the CEO, and he really enjoyed it, and he wanted to tell me about it, and we talked for 45 minutes. And then I realized he didn't have much of a financial future in Okmoggi. He didn't have many opportunities to go to work. I said, why don't you come to Oklahoma City? You can stay in my guest house and just kind of mirror me for a week, shadow me for a week. See how I run a business.

See how I, what my exercise program, see what my drug and alcohol recovery program is, and see what you think. That was seven months ago. He's still living in my guest house. He's got a great job now. he was one of the guys that finished the run from Phoenix to San Diego with me. He went on a vacation with our family and about 22 other people. And he was there to help and the boat broke down. He was able to fix one of the boats that broke down.

But if it wasn't for donating books in jails and prison, I wouldn't know Bryson today. And Bryson wouldn't, he might still be in Altmong. and he wouldn't have what's going on now in his life. He's already saved thousands and thousands of dollars in that short period of time because he's not paying rent. And he's pretty well paid, and he's learning how to be successful in business. And he's got a high school education.

He's got some college, but a high school education. And he was one of the guys that ran with him this morning. You know, he ran 9.2 miles with it. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. When did you know when you'll be able to go back to the prisons and start?

I go to a county jail. I go to Oklahoma County Jail every week. Oh, you still do. Yeah, and then we send the books out. You know, we're sending between 17 and 20-something thousand books out every month to the jails and prisons via Federal Express. So we send those out in quantities, you know. I also go to Oklahoma.

I go to the Department of Corrections to the assessment and receiving. I go there about every three months and meet the guys there, spokes out. Okay. And homeless shelters and treatment centers, yeah. Non-stop, my friend, non-stop. So let's do this then. What advice would you give to someone who, whether it's legal trouble, whether it's, you know, maybe an issue with addiction, maybe it's depression, maybe you just feel low. It's like one of those situations where we've all dipped our toe there. We've all been there where you're looking around and you just

can't seem to find the hope in the moment. What would you say to, to those folks? Well, I'd say take some action. I mean, if I'm sitting in my house and I'm depressed, I need to take some action. And one of the simplest things that I can do, and I do this daily, is pick up trash. Get out of the house, get a trash bag, and pick up trash. Go pick up trash. And then while I'm picking up trash, you know, litter, I'm not talking about, you know,

people. I know, I started picking up trash and I started thinking. about solutions, you know. I don't know if you've ever seen like the jail crews out picking up trash. They got in Oklahoma, they'll have on orange outfits, you know, and they're out there picking up. What? That's humiliating, you know? But I'm a multimillionaire. When I go out and pick up trash, I get out of myself. See, that's the key to happiness is not be in self. Think about God and think about others. Love God and love others, not myself. Love God and love others. So when I do that, I start feeling better.

If I got legal problems, you know, I need to find solutions. And once again, the hardest thing to do is to think, well, you get a piece of paper and a pen, you start writing out possible solutions, you know. I got two guys living in our residence right now. This last weekend, his name is Kyle. He just got a DUI. He had a car that he just bought from one of those high-cost note lots, you know, where you buy the car and you make a payment.

every two weeks and all that stuff. And he was afraid, he's got a DUI, he's going to take his license away. He's guilty. And he was one of the people that ran with us this morning also. So we're finding solutions. We took that car back to the dealership yesterday and we gave it back to him.

Turns out, I took a book, a gift. And one of the people that worked there had read the book, mentor, the kid and the CEO. And she said, I love this book. And I told her, you know, she said, did you write it? I said, yeah. And she was like, wow. Also gave him a copy of the purpose-driven life, you know.

And I think they're going to be a little bit, I think they're going to be kinder to him. They're not, maybe they're not going to show it as a repo because it was a voluntary repo. He's going to have to pay some money to make it equal, you know, to make it fair for them and everything. But hopefully they won't ruin his credit. I don't care if they ruin his credit because, you know, I don't borrow money anymore. I did, but I don't anymore. and just to be able to help him, you know. He's got a wife and he's got two kids.

He's an ex-marine. He's 32 years old on August the 4th. He's going to be 33. You know, helping him to get on his feet is going to be incredible when he gets there. So that'll be the advice you'd give him, is whether it's pick up trash or some way to be productive, stimulate your mind, and think about ways to take action and fix the problem. Yeah. Well, we went running this morning with us, you know, and when we got back, the van has a lot of dog hair because I got a German Shepherd.

I said, hey, do you mind cleaning the van out? He did a great job. He took him about an hour and a half, vacuum and getting the windows and everything done. It looks really great. I know he feels better about his self today because he did something productive. I'm happy for him. Onward and upward, right? Yeah. Cool. So what's next for Tom Pace?

Well, I finished another book. It's going to edit. The title of the book is Character Success. It'll take about three hours to read it cover to cover, and it's full of incredible information about character success. Is it a sequel to a mentor the Kid and the CEO, or kind of a different starting point? Lots of stories. Definitely different. I mean, this is a single. all, this is totally nonfiction. Recipes to be successful, to have high self-worth, to be financially successful, to be physically fit, to have great relationships. I mean, it's a really, it's a simple, easy book, written at about a seventh grade level, but it's got a lot of profound knowledge. It took over 900 books, nonfiction books.

I had to read them. I had to have experiences to be able to put this book together. So it'll be really worth it. I'm looking forward to it, man. I'm looking forward to it. So where can people find you to stay in touch with regard to the release of the book and just everything you're doing going forward? I know you're doing some Facebook stuff.

Is that the best avenue? I don't do Facebook. I got it one of those things, but I'm not into Facebook. YouTube's okay. or, you know, Worldbookbank.org, there's contact information. I mean, I take phone calls, okay? I answer the phone. Someone calls me with my phone number.

I take the call. So if they go to the World Book Bank, they can get my phone number, and they can call me, and I will talk, and I will listen. You know? So a lot of times when I call you, I'll say, Eddie, you got four minutes? and you'll say yes or no and if you got four minutes at four minutes I say most of the time

we're done four minutes I'll talk to you soon right because I mean I used to do that with my mom and we talked every day oof that'd be a hard one to do with your mom you know

she was okay your mom might be a little more difficult but no my mom's sweet it's just to be like okay mom bye for you know but no I get it I get it time is a pressure just thing.

Cool. So worldbookbank.org. And you can find Tom's number there and give a shout. Yeah. All right, my friend. Hey, thank you for hanging out and sharing your knowledge. I appreciate you and grateful for your time. All right.

Thank you, Eddie.