Genesis
What will your life look like when someone stops and takes a look? Truth be told, not many ever stop long enough to take a brutally honest look at themselves. Do you know who you really are?
At 36 years of age, might there be enough there to expend one’s valuable time examining the fine details? One might ask, “Will this be helpful or hurtful?” Who knows for sure? The real question is, “Will this be honest?”
The average American lives to be 74.1 years of age. If you break that down a bit it equates to about 27,047 days. A third of those days will be spent sleeping, which leaves you 18,031 days of waking moments to do your thing.
Eliot Garza has been awake approximately 8,517 days and he has been busy.
A stutterer until the 7th grade, Garza, the youngest of six, remembers going to speech therapy and reading classes and being teased about his name because it was the title character’s name in the hit movie, “E.T. - The ExtraTerrestrial.” Kids at that age can be too honest. In a life filled with challenges, Garza retains these early memories; though they have without question helped build upon his character, they do not cause him to feel any bitterness, because when asked about the kids who did the teasing, Garza says, “Oh, those guys are still some of my best friends.”
Dig a little deeper into Garza’s psyche, which incidentally is not very easy to do, and you will find that despite his positive outlook on the obstacles and challenges he has faced, there is a definite compartment under which those instances are filed: “Motivation”. Up until very recently, Garza has used every bit of emotion - even if it happened to be negative, angry or spiteful to fight his way through life. If you ask his mom, Aurora, if he has always been the sort of kid who pushed himself and strived to go above and beyond, she would say yes. Garza always felt he had something to prove. Machine Gun Garza was one of the many names kids used to tease him - not for his prowess on the baseball field or with any actual firearm, but for his incessant stuttering. He had a mind that ran at a much faster pace than anyone else. It took his tongue a good while before it was able to catch up with what his mind was thinking and wanting to say.
Garza’s extraordinary ability to pay close attention to details was a real asset to him and it still is. He learned how to introduce himself and shake hands as a way of beginning a relationship with another person. Whether it was to start up a business relationship or to simply share a nice conversation, Garza paid close attention to his father, Elmo B. Garza. Elmo made his living as an insurance salesman in a day and age when shaking hands, looking your customer in the eye, and building a relationship was the way to do it. He drove around, with Garza in tow sometimes, and collected his own premiums. Elmo worked hard to provide for his family and, to Garza, was always a model husband and father. Garza had heard stories of Elmo’s younger days, when he was wild in spirit. Elmo would frequent the cantinas. He was a great dancer and quite a playboy. In fact, there is a running joke in the Garza family that pokes fun at Elmo and Aurora’s three marriages to each other. Elmo took things a little too far sometimes it fractured the marriage, but Aurora, always a woman of tremendous faith, was able to see deep into Elmo’s heart and hope for the best.
The parallel taking place right now is divine. At the age of 36, one year older than Garza is now, Elmo decided to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Garza was not born yet. If you ever wondered whether the decision of one repentant man and the prayers of one faithful woman can change the life of another person, or maybe an entire community, look back at this moment in the small South Texas town of Alice all those years ago. Sometimes the universe will shift with favor because of one bold and courageous resolution; and unless you are paying close attention, you might miss the real blessing. As Elmo sat down with people pitching his insurance he would, of course, hope the customer would buy the policy he was selling. That transaction put food on his table. He never felt disappointed with a no, because he always left them with an insurance policy that would in fact save their lives one day, if they bought it. He shared the gospel with them. Ever vigilant, Garza was paying attention.
In the years after graduating high school and leaving the safety net of Alice, Garza would need to remember the example of his mother and father, the way the road would rise up to meet you when you walked the narrow path and to look deep inside of himself to find that tiny ember of faith and hope when he drifted away from it.
“These Donuts Are Stale”
By the time Garza was 16, he was looking for a way out of Alice. He had become somewhat rebellious. Being the baby of the family he thought he could get away with just a little bit more than his older siblings. He moved to El Paso to live with his older brother, played some baseball, (one his favorite sports), and sowed some wild oats. He moved back to Alice after that brief stint in El Paso and quickly looked for the next way out. He hooked up with a few upperclassmen friends from his high school days who had made San Antonio home. Aurora sent her son off to San Antonio with a message: “You can run away from me, but you can’t run away from the Lord.” Garza admits he did not quite know what that message meant, but Aurora would have a chance to prove her wisdom yet again.
The guys shared an apartment and did what struggling young men do at that age. Garza found steady work at a car wash. It was at the car wash that he first noticed his penchant for successful looking people driving nice cars. He wondered to himself, “What are these guys doing?” He noticed that he really liked interacting with the customers, but he admitted he was terribly naïve when he arrived, something he blames on his somewhat sequestered upbringing in Alice. One story he tells was the time he was asked to go buy bagels for the crew. When he got back he decided to be the first to grab one. Not having ever been introduced to bagels, he took a big bite and without skipping a beat spit out his chunk and cried, “These donuts are stale!” He also recalls doing things to make ends meet that were not altogether legal. He showed a glimpse of his leadership skills when he coordinated a system of having his buddies vacuum all of the change out of the ashtrays of the cars and then volunteering to do a job no one wanted to do: clean the vacuums at the end of the day. They would gather their small bonus of loose change and turn it into extra spending cash. He laughs about those kinds of memories and the others that arose from having to be creative with their recreation because they were so broke, but he hints at being a little remorseful for its dishonesty. Aurora’s words echo somewhere in the distance.
Over the next few years, Garza worked his way through odd jobs. He was a shuttle driver at Tom Benson Chevrolet, a fry cook at Alamo Café and a mail clerk at a bank in Corpus Christi.
At the age of 22, a friend of his from Alice, Rey Lerma, gave Garza a shot at coming from behind the scenes and breaking away from a somewhat wayward lifestyle. He put Garza in front of the customer as a sales rep. Garza sold memberships at a popular San Antonio gym under Lerma’s supervision. Not wanting to disappoint his friend, Garza excelled right away and became one of Lerma’s top performers. “I like this selling stuff”, he remembers saying. He met a ton of people and shook a lot of hands.
With a newly honed talent and a desire to move up the socio-economic ladder, Garza began to surround himself with successful people. Though not ever darkening the threshold of a college classroom, for some reason he thought it was important enough to hang with people who had. As always, he paid close attention to the world around him.
He began to see hope in the distance after a rock bottom moment that he will never forget. After leaving the gym, he had been driving a route for Frito Lay, delivering chips to convenience stores. It was a job he absolutely hated - not because it was beneath him, but because not long after he started, he knew it was a dead end for him. His job was driving the routes of the guys on vacation, so every week he had a new and totally unfamiliar route. Every day, his customers were mad at him because he was late. It was terribly frustrating. One morning at 4 a.m. in the seclusion of his truck, he cried. He felt he had nowhere else to go or anyone to call. “You can run away from me, but you can’t run away from the Lord,” Aurora’s prayers sung through the darkness. Out of sheer desperation he asked God to get him out of this ugly spot. Right there in the truck he heard a radio ad for a telemarketing job. What he did next still bothers him a little to this day. He abandoned that truck, the company who employed him and the full load of chips for that day. He left Frito Lay without any notice.
He got the telemarketing job, and once again was able to quickly make use of his talent for sales. He soon became a manager and was being sought out by sales recruiters in the corporate environment.
Garza still had one obstacle. College had not been in his plan. It seemed that every job that he was qualified for in terms of sales experience required a college degree. That would not stop Garza. He sold his way through a very tough interview with a large copier company - out interviewing 20 or so recent college graduates to get the position. He readily admits that his arrogance and motivation to prove the naysayers wrong is what made him successful in the beginning.
His reputation as a top notch salesman began to precede him. He was tapped for the job of launching the internet marketing craze in San Antonio back in the ‘90’s. His first stint in that arena was at citysearch.com. Of course he excelled. He moved on and shared his ever-expanding knowledge and understanding of Internet ad sales with in-house stretches at 99.5 KISS FM and the local CBS affiliate, KENS 5.
Garza wanted more. He tossed several irons in the fire and got swept up in the risky whirlwind proving ground of entrepreneurship. He bought, sold and rented houses as an investment strategy. He dabbled in the restaurant business with a partner who proved to be less than trustworthy. He was taking risks, but seemed to be doing very well for himself, at least on the surface. He had nice cars. He had a nice home. He had lots of business acquaintances. Elmo, seeing his son on the fast track, begged him to slow down. “If you don’t slow down, God will slow you down and you won’t like how he does it,” Elmo implored. Garza listened, but kept his nose to the grindstone.
He Restores My Soul
Like many entrepreneurs before him, Garza had juggled lawsuits from soured business partnerships, mortgages and even joblessness, yet still needed a witness to his life. There is another facet to Garza’s personality that brings a smile to his face. He enjoys the company of a beautiful woman. Throughout his life, he has always had a girlfriend. He also admits that he aims high. “I have always dated way out of my league,” he chuckles. He had loved others, like the orchestra musician he was with in his early 20’s, who taught him about culture and walking within upper echelon circles. He looks back on that relationship with fondness, yet remembers her parents telling him that he was not good enough for their daughter. Although that wounded him, he readily admits that he would not want any daughter of his own someday getting involved with the kind of person he was then - “not that guy.” About eight years after that relationship, he was involved with ayoung lady with whom he was very much in love, “the one.” She approached him one day and told him his fast lifestyle, the list of stressful circumstances that weighed him down, and perhaps her own simple change of heart, were the signals to end their relationship. It broke his heart. Elmo’s words echoed somewhere in the distance.
Something wonderful happened in that moment of brokenness. Although Garza would confidently be able to tell you now, back then he was not sure if waiting on the Lord was the best plan. He had his own plan, yet here he was at a crossroads and with a broken heart. He contemplated allowing all of the irons he had in the fire to melt away and moving back to the safety net of Alice, his childhood refuge. Every year prior to that year, he had a tradition of throwing himself a huge birthday bash filled with all of the ingredients of a lifestyle well outside the narrow path: drinking, girls and recklessness. Having lost everything, he decided he was ready for something very different. He wanted to cleanse himself. He traveled home on Sunday, April 10, 2005 - his birthday. He called his mom before heading down and told her that he made arrangements to have himself baptized on that day. It took the Lord approximately 7,543 waking moments to prepare Garza for this season of his life.
Around that time, he received a call from a friend in Austin asking him to take a look at a magazine he was thinking of publishing. He asked Eliot if he would be interested in promoting the magazine in San Antonio. With the stench of the previous failed partnerships and various other ventures lingering in the background, his entrepreneurial synapses began firing and he once again took a leap of faith, addicted to excitement of the risk. He had one stipulation. They would incorporate a different company named NSIDE SA, and he would hold 80 percent of the shares in the San Antonio project. His new partner agreed.
It is a common misconception that once you have a spiritual epiphany or, as in Eliot’s case, get baptized and hand your life over to God, that it will be smooth sailing. A mature person of faith will tell you this is very far from the truth. Trials will come, snares will be set, attacks will be launched and mockery will ensue. The difference lies within the changed heart and mind of the individual. Eliot was determined to shed his old skin and begin to live like the man he witnessed growing up - someone who could become a good husband, father and faithful servant.
When the trial came, he was dismayed, but not overwrought with disappointment. Instead, he tucked in his chin and set his face like flint, believing he was promised something better if he worked hard. Not long after that partnership was formed, and as quickly as the ad sales began to roll in, money began disappearing from the joint account. Garza, under the advice of his attorney, filed suit and ultimately wound up with sole control of NSIDE SA. In the meantime, he stayed true to his word and was unwavering in his commitment to his advertisers, wanting to provide a business outlet that would not only educate, but could also promote local businesses in a unique way. One problem remained - proceeds had been misspent by his former partner - and he had no way of putting out that first issue. He reached out to his good friend Lerma, who loaned him a very large sum to print that first issue. Once again, not wanting to disappoint his trusted friend, Garza worked feverishly to sell out the ad space and paid Lerma back in 30 days.Promises Delivered
NSIDE took flight. Though not always openly heeding to the guiding Biblical principles instilled early on, Garza would soon realize that they must have taken root. Whether intentionally or through divine inspiration he had scattered a lot of good seed on fertile ground and the relationships he cultivated along the way were ready to be harvested.
When it came to attention-grabbing material for his cover stories and profiles- a must for his fledgling publication - there was no shortage. Just a phone call away were folks like Ernesto Ancira, the first Hispanic dealer/owner of a major automobile dealership in the U.S:, Dick Tips, chairman and CEO of Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries; Nico LaHood, a prominent attorney and 2010 candidate for district attorney in Bexar County; Russell Reyes, president of Pericos Mexican Restaurant; and Dr. Raul Martinez, a prominent San Antonio physician. These individuals were not only more than happy to support his new project, but they remain mentors of his for whom he holds the utmost respect.
Rather than detailing every step of NSIDE’s history and success, which everyone has watched closely, applauded, envied and emulated, it might be more interesting to get a glimpse of what happened behind the scenes a bit. Listening to Garza tell the story of NSIDE’s meteoric rise, one cannot help but be filled with amazement. After all, he is as amazed by it all as anyone else. He often muses about the fact that he is just a “dude from Alice, Texas, with a high school education,” and yet he has been asked to speak at graduate programs and other trade organizations to provide insight into his tremendous business acumen.
“If I were what people perceived, I would be a millionaire,” Garza said. He knows he has the eyes and ears of a large segment of the community. People have told him that he is doing very well. He is not sure what that means. What he does know is that he leaped head-first into the publication business because he needed a job. He was hungry enough not to let himself go hungry and stay afloat.
Some are attracted to the story of NSIDE and Garza because they are more interested in riding his coat tails, which in itself, as a business strategy, is probably a wise move. However, what they will find, if they stick around long enough to truly learn the secret of his success, is probably more potent and inspiring than any magic dust he might be able to sprinkle on them.
His feet, like all of ours, were originally made of clay and he struggles, like all of us, to stay on the narrow path. He invokes simple truths like the love of his family and trust in God, as his foremost business policies. For instance, when he decided to launch NSIDE Coastal Bend in Corpus Christi, Texas, many applauded this shrewd business tactic. “Man, this guy’s a genius… nobody’s down there yet,” he remembers people murmuring. In actuality, he did something that few very busy and powerful businessmen would ever think of doing. He took a risk for the love of his brother who had lost his job in Corpus and needed something to fall back on. NSIDE Coastal Bend was born, and his brother, Adrian, was placed at the helm. Genius? In some ways, yes. Because Corpus Christi was a smaller demographic than San Antonio, and doing two magazines was cost prohibitive, Garza decided to do an NSIDE Business/MD flip cover for the Coastal Bend to streamline and ensure Adrian’s success. It was a surprise hit, and soon the San Antonio advertisers were asking for the same thing. “Another genius move… kinda GQ,” they all buzzed. In truth, Garza and the publication were, like the rest of the country, feeling the crunch of the recession. He had to lay people off at one point and find a way to keep the magazine going. He was making decisions based on sheer necessity and trusting that it would all work out. It exploded.
Hard work, faith, the ability to seek out and align himself with people who surpass his own abilities, God’s perfect will and his belief that he is part of a generation that will accomplish some amazing things are concepts that resonate deep in Garza’s spirit.
Garza also believes very strongly in the word of God. The Parable of the Talents in Matthew is a story that talks about how God expects us to use our gifts and our time wisely during our lifetime. It cautions us not act with fear, burying our treasures and ultimately canceling our blessings. Those who take their God-given gifts and get busy putting them to work show that they can be trusted with what they have been given and will see blessings added. Garza is very busy. He understands that with God, the added blessings also come with added responsibility. He and NSIDE magazine finished off 2009 with tremendous momentum heading into a new decade. His publication donated over $100,000 to various non-profits over the past year. Garza also traveled with a medical mission to Africa, sponsored by a local physician, Dr. David Marks. He was clearly impacted by the hardships children faced in these Third World locations. The tremendous need he witnessed, not only medically, but spiritually, was heart-wrenching.
In some ways, Garza appears to have a firm grasp of the responsibility that has come with his elevated position in the community. In fact, he has gone to great lengths to keep a promise he made to God. It is a promise that stems from his respect for Jesus’ own words in the Gospel. Mark 8:36-38 (NIV) says, “What good is it for man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me or my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
On Nov. 12, 2009, nearly 8,500 days into a very busy life, Garza stood in front of a capacity crowd at his magazine’s third annual gala. The room of over 900 attendees was filled with people from all walks of life: former NBA basketball stars, pillars of the community, business associates, strangers, old friends, new friends, ex-employees and associates, the wildly curious, and even those who completely begrudged his success. Garza very graciously thanked everyone for their continued support, made a clarion call for his generation to continue being the inspiration and the success stories of which the magazine is only reflection, reminded them that everything they had was all on loan and can disappear tomorrow and very publicly was unashamed to acknowledge Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and the author and finisher of his life story. It was an amazing night for Garza and his publication. Once again one could wonder whether the decision of one repentant man and the prayers of one faithful woman can change the life of another person, or maybe an entire community. Elmo and Aurora Garza sat in the audience proudly looking up at their son and witnessed God deliver on his promises.
Taking Inventory and Living the Vision
When we sat down to discuss this article back on a leisurely Sunday morning in October 2009, we spoke for four hours straight. Garza mentioned that it had been the longest he had ever stopped to step back and take an honest assessment of himself and what he has accomplished. He was genuinely fascinated by the sheer improbability of it all. Yet, as quickly as he let himself drift into the reverie, the laser-hot glow of his focus and drive returned, and he was excited about where he was headed.
After replaying our conversation and poring over my notes hundreds of times preparing for this article, what struck me most about the four hours we spent together was Garza’s brutal honesty, determination and faith. He held nothing back. He made mistakes, big ones. He is human. There were things that could have been included in this piece that might have given the reader a different and even sullied perspective on the man. Not necessary. Take my word for it. He acknowledges everything he ever did to arrive at this point in his life’s journey, good or bad, with the absolute humility and gratitude of someone who fully understands repentance, forgiveness and grace.
What will your life look like when someone stops and takes a look? Truth be told, not many ever stop long enough to take a brutally honest look at themselves. Do you know who you really are?
Take an inventory of your own waking moments. How many have you had? How many do you have left? Garza has been awake approximately 8,517 days, and he has been busy. Garza is not finished. He tells me he is very excited about 2010. NSIDE Austin, his third publication launched in early April, near his 36th birthday. In addition to the growth of NSIDE, Garza has been busy promoting his new upscale gym and fitness studio called Flex Studio on the far northwest side of San Antonio that he opened with business partner Alex Sayavedra. He is back to the simple formula of selling memberships. Perhaps God Himself is still in the business of restoration, whispering through Garza’s spirit, letting him know He is still at work and can bring things full circle to a fresh and familiar genesis. Like the Parable of the Talents, he explained that during the recession of 2009, he did not operate in fear, again guided by the promises that when we humble ourselves before God, His strength will sustain and even drive us when we are at our weakest. He did not bury his considerable success in the ground hoping to dig up a mere equal return someday. Rather, Garza has been tirelessly tilling the ground and scattering seed believing, like Jabez, that he will be blessed indeed and his coast will be enlarged. All indications are that Garza better be ready for the added responsibility, because it looks like it is coming, and so are the blessings.
Garza, like his magazine, is a simply a reflection of ourselves. If we choose to manifest things like hard work, honesty, determination and faith, we can begin to experience our own miraculous life. Your life may not look exactly like Garza’s or anyone else’s, and it shouldn’t.
Still, Garza’s life story so far reveals a particularly helpful hint. You better get busy living or you just might miss it all.
