welcome to the good news with angie austin now with the good news here’s angie
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey there, Angie Austin and Jim Stovall with the good news. Hey, Jim.
SPEAKER 03 :
It is great to be with you as always.
SPEAKER 02 :
You as well. We’re talking about your winner’s wisdom column and this week it’s the price of tuition. But I thought we’d start with, you know, Michael Pelka and I’ve done radio for like a decade, I think now and not quite maybe, but we did a show together for years and we’d never met in person and we just met in person today, as you know. So we had to send you a picture right away because Mike met you through me and we both talk to you every week now.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and, you know, it’s amazing because in person I’ve never met either one of you, although as a blind guy myself, it’s not a lot different, you know, but it’s kind of out of sight, out of mind. But, yeah, I think it’s so cool you guys got together. sent me the photo, and it’s actual evidence that there is really a Michael Pelka.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
So that’s good to know.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, and you know, it’s funny because he was exactly like I thought. I mean, he’s exactly like I thought he’d be, and speaking with him, we did a four-hour show every weekday, and I’ve seen a lot of his posts on social media and he’s always golfing and I knew exactly what he’d look like, but he thought he’d have a very short period of time. Cause he said that Denver airport’s too big and that he had to like, he’s like, I’m getting all my steps in. I’m taking trip now, planes, trains, and automobiles. He’s like, I’m barely going to have time to talk to you. So he walked by the table and he said, nice to meet you. And then kept walking out. Like he had to leave that quickly. And I’m like, it’s classic Mike.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that’s Mike. And it is. And, uh, And he actually emailed me after the meeting with you and told me he got to meet you. But unfortunately, he was delayed. So his show is backing up from Tuesday to Wednesday this week. So, yeah, it’s not as easy getting around as it needs to be. And that airport is – It would have been nice if they’d have built it in Denver.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, it takes a long time to get out there. I mean, the first time I drove there, I was like, wow. It feels like it’s almost in another state, but it’s way out on the plains. It feels like you’re driving into the eastern plains. But, you know, they’ve started bringing Denver out to the airport. They’ve continued to build out towards it. So they’re actually starting to build neighborhoods not that far from the airport, even though it used to be in the middle of nowhere. Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and I will always be grateful for that. I owe one of my movies to that. I was staying at the Brown Palace there in Denver, and there was a movie producer there we’d met, and we just had not been able to come to terms on the deal. And he said, well, I’ve got to go to the airport. And I said, well, we have a car. We’re going to fly out a little later. We’ll take you. Well, because it’s an hour, by the time we got through the city traffic and got out there, we were able to put together the whole movie deal, all the points, everything, and everything. If the traffic had been any worse, we could have written the script right there in the car. Oh, that’s hilarious. So I will never complain about that airport.
SPEAKER 02 :
uh, you know, with, um, you know, driving out there for Mike, I was, I don’t know how it worked out, but I was over two hours early. So I’m like, do I go home? And I’m like, no, it’s too far because it’s so far out there. But, um, he told me that he’d read your, um, the book that you made into your first movie, the ultimate gift. Cause he’s trying to read 50 books this year. And I’m like, oh, Jim reads a book a day. And of course he knew that already. And, uh, I said, well, how, how was the ultimate gift? He goes, well, he made a movie out of it. I’m like, yes. I’m aware. And he says, it’s great. It’s great. They made a, it was his first like big movie. I’m like, yep, yep, yep. Remember I introduced you to Jim. So I know all this. So anyway, uh, he really enjoyed your book. He’s trying to read, I think one of your books a month.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, and that, that’s great. I just, uh, Mike is the, the two of you together was, was just absolutely fascinating. The yin and yang of, uh, of human existence. It was quite an experience talking to both of you. And, uh, and it’s, it’s ironic because, uh, You know, I talk to you about my column and then I talk to him about my column. And it’s a completely different conversation. It is absolutely different. And for me, it’s like, you know, as a blind person, if I go somewhere, I experience much of it through them. And there are some people, you know, you want to take to the party, the fair, the parade, the circus. That’s you. There are some people you want to take to the lecture, you know, the museum, whatever. That’s Mike.
SPEAKER 02 :
He’s so sharp.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, he is. But for you, everything’s a day at the beach. Everything’s great. And Mike, if he finds the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, he’s analyzing, why didn’t we get two of these?
SPEAKER 02 :
Right, right. He’s going to question the pot of gold and make sure it’s legit.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. And find out whether or not it’s a Republican. Oh, he had, you’ll have to ask him too. When you get your private time with him, he has three ideas of who he believes Donald Trump will choose as his VP candidates. So ask him about that next time you talk to him. It’s pretty interesting. All right. And we’ll see if he’s right. Right. All right. Well, I’ve got two kids that are looking at colleges right now. So let’s talk about your column, the price of tuition.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, as you know, through the Stovall center for entrepreneurship at the university, uh, I interact with a lot of kids, and we have students from over 100 nations right now on campus, and it’s really rather amazing. Tuition is unbelievably expensive, particularly from some of these people that come from third-world countries. I mean, going to college in America is quite a thing. But I always tell them, please remember, the price of tuition is the same whether you learn the lesson or you don’t. And, you know, we all know about tuition and going to school and learning things in school. But in life, it’s the same way. You know, life is always teaching us lessons. And failure is the tuition we pay for not learning. And you keep learning until you get it. So you keep failing until you get the lesson in it. The great philosopher Billy Joel once said, I am the entertainer. I had to pay my price. The things I did not learn at first, I learned by doing twice. And if you don’t want to learn from Billy Joel, I get it. Churchill said that those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. You either learn from history or you get to do it over again. So I always tell people, you know, every time there’s a problem, a challenge or whatever, that’s a lesson learned. and you can learn it and not repeat it yourself, and you can help other people not repeat that. And then the converse is true. You can learn from other people’s mistakes, and you don’t have to burn your head on the stove if you just watch somebody else do it. You can say, you know, I believe I’ll just bypass that lesson and check that one off and move on.
SPEAKER 02 :
I love that. And, you know, to see every failure, every trip, every stumble as a lesson, learning experiences, I think something that’s becoming more trendy. It seems like for many years, many of us thought that failures were, you know, possibly a reason to quit. And now it just seems like part of the journey.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I mean, failure is fertilizer for the future. And every time something happens bad, you know, the whole world’s praying for that great idea. Angie, the only thing you got to do to have a great idea is go through your daily routine, wait for something bad to happen. Ask yourself, how could I have avoided that? And the answer is a great idea. And the only thing you got to do to turn that great idea into a great business is ask, how can I help other people avoid that? And the world will give you fame and fortune and everything you ever wanted. If you’ll just help them solve their problems. And as in most things, uh, It ain’t about you, and it ain’t about me. It’s about them. And solve their problems, and they’ll give you anything you want. And my late great mentor, Zig Ziglar, always said, you can have everything you want out of life if you’ll help enough other people get what they want out of life.
SPEAKER 02 :
I like that. You use a lot of quotes. In fact, you’ve got a book, another book coming out about famous quotes and speeches. And you talk about Winston Churchill and talking about learning from history. Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. And I feel like many of us do that. We just keep doing things the same old way. And expect a different outcome. And we just get stuck in a rut like our brains wired a certain way. And we just thought, well, we’ll try it again this way. We’ll try it again this way. And so you talk about in the article when you’re raising your kids or teaching students or whatever, that you shouldn’t allow a mistake to be made without a change. You shouldn’t allow a mistake to be made without a corresponding change. So stop doing it the same way, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I don’t quote him often, but Clinton said that never let a good crisis go to waste. And that’s what he meant. I mean, hey, all this garbage, there’s got to be a lesson in here somewhere. And because if we keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing, we’re going to keep getting the same thing we always got. So when you or your kids or your students or anybody makes a mistake, the first thing, what did you learn? And what are you going to do different next time? Otherwise, we’re going to be sitting right here at the scene of another accident having this same conversation.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, when you talk about the Stovall Center for Entrepreneurship, I know you made a big donation and that was a, you know, a goal of yours from, you know, a young age that you wanted to make a big donation. Your name, you know, is a part of the, you know, building, et cetera. Now, what’s your responsibility in terms of teaching these kids? Are you teaching them? Are you mentoring them? Like, how does that work? And is it just volunteer? Is it because your names, you know, associated with the program? How does that all work?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I’m very glad to say we have professors and teachers and wonderful people there who work with the university. I do have an office there, and I lecture some of the classes, and I teach and mentor the kids. But, I mean, you have to have academic standards to be an accredited university, so thankfully we have people that are really, really good at that, and I try to stay out of their way. But I am excited to get to work with these young people who – you know, it’s amazing. They haven’t yet figured out what’s impossible. And so they end up doing some things I would not have even thought feasible. And I watched them do that. And they just didn’t know you can’t do that. And that’s an amazing thing to observe. And, you know, the energy they have and the excitement. And they’re growing up in a different world. You You know, I’m working with people that, you know, were born after 9-11. I mean, it’s a completely different environment. And, you know, they never have known a world without cell phones and digital media and total connectivity around the world. And, you know, that’s been a big part of their lives.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I love that, you know, you defer to the, you know, professors, but I’m sure that the kids also really want to pick your brain about, you know, what you’ve learned. And I know you have a big contest every year, too, with the students, not you per se, but just in general. Can you tell us about that?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, it’s called the Launch Competition. We do it every year. We just finished our fifth one. And, you know, think Shark Tank. But it lasts a whole year, and kids actually start real businesses. And then we bring in venture capitalists. We bring in investors and different people. And then we have a panel of expert judges that we bring in. And the kids put on a real business pitch for this new venture they’ve started. And it’s not like playing Monopoly. These are real companies these kids have started. Truly amazing. And, you know, to see what they can do and, you know, really, really begin to change the world. And I always remind them, you know, education, particularly at this level, this is not something, you know, we’re going to learn today and maybe someday in the by and by we’re going to do some. Three of the five largest businesses on planet Earth started in somebody’s dorm room. Three of the five. Wow.
SPEAKER 05 :
That is crazy.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let’s don’t wait around. I mean, you know, look at where, you know, Bill Gates came from and look at where Steve Jobs came from and look at what these people were doing. These aren’t people that waited until, you know, all the lights were green before they left the house. These are people that left the cave, went out and killed something and brought it home. And it’s time for you to go do something.
SPEAKER 02 :
I love it. One of our friend Mike was saying, why don’t you get your kid to go on Shark Tank? Wouldn’t that be cool? And I thought, wow, that would be cool since he has had his business since he was, you know, a kid. All right. Jim Stovall dot com. Jim Stovall dot com. We’ll talk to you next week, friend. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
I look forward to it. Thanks, Angie.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
Hello there, friend. Angie Austin with the good news. Cal Phaibus is joining us. He is an author, but he has quite an interesting background. We’re going to talk about his new book, and we are also going to talk about how he got there. And he is actually a Colorado guy and, you know, lives kind of in my neck of the woods, actually. So many of you listening may already be familiar with some of his desserts, interestingly enough. Welcome to the program, Cal Phaibus. Well, thank you. Thank you, Angie, for having me. All right. So you it’s just funny because as we were talking in the break, we were talking about I want to move to Laguna and I live in Colorado and you have a house in Laguna Beach in California and also one here. And I had just had these advisories pop up on my phone about Laguna real estate. So I was like, oh, you’re already living my life, Cal.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, it’s actually Laguna Niguel, which is just just a little. inland from Laguna. So it’s about a five-mile drive to get to the beach from here.
SPEAKER 02 :
Down that little canyon.
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s a nice little condo. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, the weather is so beautiful there.
SPEAKER 06 :
It is. It’s like perfect almost every day. A little chilly at night in the winter.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, yes. I used to live in Marina del Rey, and I agree with you. The beaches, I mean, people would be surprised to hear that, but it is a little chilly in the winter.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, so we walk the beach a lot, and you’ve got to take a coat and Make sure you have a hoodie or something because the wind blows.
SPEAKER 02 :
So tell us about your book. And then I want to get into a little bit into, you know, you and your background. So many people want to become authors and have other careers like you did and, you know, are afraid to take that jump, you know, to write a book.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. And I’ve always had stories in my head, you know, but I never really thought too much about it. writing them down because I was busy with my career and, you know, raising a family. But I started to write a book and I found out I could do it.
SPEAKER 02 :
And fiction, is that your thing, fiction, that you wanted to write a novel?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, I only write fiction. So the book that we’re going to talk about today, The Angel and the Amazing Life of Maggie Love, is my second book that I’ve published. And it’s centered around a character, a woman that has killed 20 people in her life. And the first line in my book is, Maggie Love is finally dead. An angel who kind of narrates the story is in charge of Maggie, and his job is to simply save her soul. Now, how is he going to save a woman’s soul that’s killed 20 people? Well, he’s determined. And he’s going to find out how. And he does that by taking her back into her life and making her relive the crimes again. And she kind of has a lot of deja vu. She remembers, I’ve done this before. I get to do it again. She’s actually excited about it. And the angel’s job is to just try to get her to repent. And she won’t do it. She feels she’s totally justified with every murder she’s committed. So it is a mystery story, but the mystery isn’t really who did it. The mystery is whether or not her soul is going to be saved.
SPEAKER 02 :
Ah, okay. And then is this for you? Are you doing a series of books? Have you written more already? How are you going about this?
SPEAKER 06 :
I haven’t written more. I’m working on another book, but it’s not related to this one. I do have an idea for a sequel for this one, so there may be a series.
SPEAKER 02 :
And then your background, I was talking about that. You’re a retired chef, and you’ve invented thousands of desserts for high-end restaurants, and you did not go to culinary school, which is unusual, I guess, for, you know, like I have a pastry chef in the family, and I know a lot of people specifically go to school, but you learned cooking. In a bakery, a small bakery in California. And then just to add a little bit more, and you can go into more depth, that you work for this big dessert company, Stephen Charles, which I wasn’t familiar with. And there’s one right down the road from me where I guess they do their major shipments. I can’t just go in there and buy desserts. I think like big trucks go in there and they send them to like high-end restaurants. So talk a little bit about that, how you got started at the small bakery in California and then how you became so well-versed in creating these desserts.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I didn’t go to culinary school. That’s true. I learned by just doing it, by getting up at 2 in the morning, going to work, baking every day in a small bakery, just learning the trade, learning how ovens work. Nobody ever taught me anything, learning how to read recipes. learning how to create recipes, which is even more important. And I have an older brother who was a natural entrepreneur, and he’s just able to start companies and build them up to be very, very large. I went to work with him, first as a production guy, and then eventually, you know, we kind of figured out that I had a little bit of talent at creating desserts and creating recipes.
SPEAKER 02 :
So cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
So I did that and we started to get into some major chains. The first big chain that we got into was the Red Lobsters. Since then, we’ve been into Olive Garden, Chili’s. When we finally sold the company, our biggest customer by far was Starbucks. Oh, my goodness. And we have one very successful dessert in Starbucks. Well, there’s actually different flavors of the same thing. And it is the cake pop.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, I knew you were going to say that. My daughter, she’s 15. Faith, she’s addicted to those. We get those all the time. They’re so good.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, they’re not very expensive. They’re small. But, you know, people seem to love them. And we were making millions, you know, towards the end of my career. We figured out how to automate it. And, you know, nobody had ever done anything like that before. So we had to, you know, basically design the machines and
SPEAKER 02 :
know in the early years it was all done by hand wow but now now it’s all it’s all automated and same product that is so wild okay so um it the um i just actually ate a dessert last night from um olive garden it was like a oh gosh it was my daughter’s but i’m probably gonna get in trouble for finishing it and it was um you know many layers you know chocolate chips and then dark chocolate and then a white layer and then a another chocolate layer and then like a cookie bottom so I’m just curious, because I think that’d be so fun, and I’m sure there’s stress involved, and I know that especially doing the production for millions of cake pops isn’t always fun, but how does the process work for you to come up with a recipe?
SPEAKER 06 :
The creative process is hard to describe. You have to see it in your head, and you have to taste it in your head, and You know, you put something in the oven and you think you got it and then you taste it and it’s just not right. And then you do it again and you do it again and you do it again until you got the product that you want.
SPEAKER 02 :
That is so cool. I never thought about it, that you’d picture it and taste it in your head. You’d picture what it’s going to look like, that cake pop, and then you know what it’s going to taste like, but then it’s too dry, then it’s not vanilla enough, then the coating’s too hard or whatever, and so you just keep retrying it. Oh, that’s cool to know, because one of my kids is always looking at Instagram and finding recipes. Okay, that’s another interesting thing you do. Besides being a retired chef, selling that company, working in a small bakery in California… Then you also, you know, become an author. But what’s this about being a cartoonist?
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, yeah. I love to make these cartoons. They’re on my Instagram. And I’ve developed a little bit of a following. Now, some cartoonists or, you know, maybe diehard cartoonists are kind of mad at me because I don’t really draw. I’m an expert at manipulating a photo. So I can put a character into pretty much any scene I want. I can change his voice. I mean, I can change his facial features. I can change what he’s doing. But I don’t actually draw anything.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, that’s funny. I’m on your, I found your page. And for people, it’s Carl Fabus, but he goes by C.R. C.R. Fabus. And so you can see some of his, yeah, you’ve got a good little following. Okay. And so that’s just kind of a little hobby of yours?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, they’re fun to make. And I enjoyed, you know, reading the comments that come back from some of the viewers. It’s very satisfying.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, I bet it is. That’s really cool. Okay, so you’re living between Colorado and California. You’re writing novels. You’re working on another book. You’re, I’m assuming, traveling because, you know, a lot of authors travel around. And then you’ve got four kids and four cats and one dog. Oh, my gosh. I have five pets, too.
SPEAKER 06 :
You do?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I’ve got three teenagers.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately we lost our dog a few months ago, but that happens, but, but, um, we still have the four cats and the four kids. And well, my, my kids are all grown up now. So two of them actually still live with me. Um, and, uh, my grandkids are actually, I have three of those and they’re actually, one is going to turn the youngest one is going to turn 21 in June. Oh, cool.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s a fun age.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, a Vegas party for my grandkids when they turn 21.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, my goodness. That’s so exciting. All right. Well, I always loved it because, you know, I’ve been doing news for over 30 years now and I’ve worked in L.A. for many years and San Diego, Santa Barbara, Denver on TV. And then I changed over to radio about 10 years ago. So I love asking people, you know, how they got the passion for what they do. And so you can go through your career if you want and go through, you know, talk about your writing or how you got the passion for the baking, et cetera. Where did all this come from? Tell me a little about your story.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I, you know, as a young man, I was struggling. I worked in airline catering for a while. I wasn’t happy with that. My brother already had a bakery and another brother bought a bakery in Ontario, California. And I went in half with him. And that’s the earlier story that I said, that’s how I learned how to bake. And eventually went to work for my older brother as a production guy and turned into a chef over the years. And at one time when our company was, really in a growth mode, I had 14 people working for me. 14 people creating desserts, some were clean up and all that, but I had about six other chefs under me. And we were creating a lot of desserts, putting a lot of things out. The customer that we deal with, the customers that we deal with are very picky. Most of them have been to culinary school and, you know, sometimes they’re not easy to deal with.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
But if you just keep pushing it and keep making a dessert that’s really good, they’re going to recognize that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 06 :
And then you get a big sale and it’s very satisfying. Now, in terms… Go ahead. And as far as the writing goes, when my kids were growing up, I was telling them bedtime stories. And I made up these two bears. They’re called Charlie and Harry. And I would tell them a story. And then, of course, the next night they wanted another one. I was under a lot of pressure. I had to come up with a new story like every night. And I finally decided to write them down. in the 90s, and I haven’t published that book yet.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, that would be so cool. Go ahead, it’s really funny, what?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, it’s really funny, and it’s not really a kid’s book. It’s kind of like a book that anybody could enjoy, because it’s funny.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, we’re out of time, unfortunately, but I want to make sure people can find you and your books and find out more about you. So what’s the best place for us to find you and your latest book about Maggie Love?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, my website is crfavis, that’s F-A-B-I-S books.com, crfavisbooks.com. And that’ll take you to my website. And from there, you can find Maggie. You can also find my first book, which is called Rome Never Fell. And there’s some biographical stuff about me and what I’ve been doing and a few of the interviews I’ve done.
SPEAKER 02 :
Excellent. Well, Cal, thank you so much. It was a real pleasure having you on The Good News. Well, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER 06 :
It was so much fun.
SPEAKER 02 :
You bet. Thank you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
