Inside Cornerstone X: How this 'She-E-O' Built an 8-Figure AI Global Brand | Chantal Bacon

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We are back and let me tell you, you are going to want to stay tuned to this episode.

We have a mighty mite in the house and she has probably the biggest allegiance with giants I've ever seen in my life.

She's been in business for a year and a half.

She doesn't have a business degree, didn't go to school for business, and she is crushing it on her entrepreneur journey.

Chantel Bacon is here.

Hi.

It's good to be here.

And greetings from West Palm Beach, Florida.

Yes.

It's going to be fun.

So listen, I think everyone needs to know your story.

I think it's important to say where you are today and what you're currently working on.

But very quickly, I need them to also understand the background of what got you here.

Okay.

Because everyone here is either an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur.

They need to know why you're on this podcast, why you're so incredible.

So let's just talk about Cornerstone X and what that is and who you're working with and what's going to be going on in the future.

Because guess what, guys?

It's AI.

So just so you know, AI is a big theme here.

But then we want to get into your background.

What got you to the place?

So what is Cornerstone X and what are you guys focusing on?

Okay.

So past, present, future.

You want to start off with where we are currently currently today with present.

Present.

Okay.

And then we're going to go past and then we're going to go future.

Okay.

Sounds good to me.

So I am a serial entrepreneur.

My background was in theology, actually, no business degree.

And right when COVID hit, I decided to learn about AI.

I knew that the market was going into these areas.

So while everybody was worried about the pandemic, I kind of went underground to teach myself and understand where this industry is going to potentially grow in the future.

Fast forward to where we are today, and we can unpack the past further.

It was an element of us creating Cornerstone X two years ago, but really over the past 18 months, our company went from slideware to now software that's getting sold globally, internationally.

Went out to fundraise as somebody who's never taken a business course in my life and understood how you have to create a pitch deck or even speak about different topics.

Set forth with an idea to raise a million dollars in funding and then within four months closed at 1.5 million and saw that here's the growth but it's really somebody who's able to articulate a vision very well and be very clear and concise in that so that's now led us to creating cornerstone x a global company with about 22 people

working and creating AI meta humans in the area of customer experience.

And it's there to help and support and service.

So during this podcast, we can talk about the different opportunities that's now coming to Cornerstone X, but very blessed to be here and excited to see where AI is going to continue to expand and grow and leverage business opportunities.

AI is obviously the trigger word in the world right now, right?

Everyone's talking about it.

So, Cornerstone X

has meta-humans.

Some people, when I think of meta-human, I think of like if I was on a FaceTime and there is not a human on the other end,

but it is a meta-human talking to me, just like I'm talking to you this very second.

This is what we're talking about.

And you, and/or slash this this AI human

bought, what would we call it?

An AI?

Think of it as an AI avatar.

Avatar, okay.

Yeah.

And they will help me, my company, with all things service component.

Exactly right.

So you think about real estate, for example.

If there are several different listings,

what if you had a virtual assistant that is an AI meta-human?

an avatar that is now embedded with business logic and intelligence to reason in real time and take action that you don't even need to be there, Justin.

You have your own meta-human replica answering just the preliminary screen calls or helping somebody.

Let's say you've got several tenants and you're trying to manage different properties that's there.

All of that can be done and automated through a very efficient meta-human.

Wouldn't every business want this?

Exactly why I went into this industry, because the use cases are very versatile.

Right.

And it can be applied globally as well too.

So your pain points, say, in real estate and entrepreneurship is very similar to those who are looking at education and AI, which is now heavily getting funded with the US government, but also pain points and situations that are happening in Germany in the automotive industry.

I'm looking at large catalogs, say for Mercedes-Benz or Porsche or other companies out there, where they have vast amounts of data, but they don't have enough people who have that intelligent business logic and reason to be able to take action in the real time without having to get multiple people involved.

So let's talk about reason because I think my own perspective of AI, and I'm not a, I know nothing about AI, let's face it.

Okay.

The only caveat I think is I go to a place where I go, does everyone become mindless because they start to rely on AI?

Right.

And I want you to either prove me wrong or agree or whatever, I don't care.

But because I've seen so many of my friends, literally business owners, friends everything becomes chat gpt

like everything

and i go so no one's gonna think critically for themselves anymore so that's one of my questions towards this whole point but the other thought is um reason is what i believe ai doesn't have the critical the ability to critically reason like a human would

you are saying what you guys have created and have would have actual human-like reasoning correct

and And one of the areas,

one of the ways that you're able, we are able to do that is because of the keyword empathy.

And when you're able to design algorithms or think about empathy coming into the equation, it gives different outputs that come forth.

So going back to the first part of your statement, yes, everyone is using chat GPT.

I am someone that is very pro-AI.

As somebody who did not know, exactly, but had no context in AI originally.

became very pro-AI because I saw how efficient my life became.

But the real answer to your question is it actually boils down to the person and if they know their value and their worth.

So, for example, somebody being a founder and a CEO of a young AI company that's now worth $30 million.

By the way, you started a year and a half ago.

Exactly right.

You should be very proud of yourself.

I have a stellar team.

I'm proud of my team.

And that's another topic we can discuss as well, too.

The essence of having the right people in the right seats makes a heck of a difference.

Absolutely.

But going back to the AI piece and the foundation that's there, if a person does not know their own limitations, their own capabilities, and cannot reasonably look at, let's say, what is the amount of asks that I'm pumping into ChatGPT that takes away my business logic or critical assessment that I should be making first and foremost before I need AI to supplement a topic, it boils down to that person.

So I would throw the answer back or the question back to you and even to your listeners.

When you're assessing, is this AI technology going to make us stupid in the future?

Are we going to all become dumb?

Are we all going to be dependent on AI?

It really boils down to the person's level of engagement with AI.

Number two, how do they value their own mental well-being and health?

Because you cannot rely on that in the long term.

There is a sense of level and it really depends if people are very proactive.

They want to get into business, entrepreneurship, high level, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Right.

You start to get that self-actualization and you've learned for yourself and you're progressing.

I don't really rely on Chat GPT, but I may use it if I have to write some emails, but I'm never allowing it to come in there and look at the business logic and reason for me on my behalf.

I may first do my assessments, but then I'll go there to see and validate, okay, does this make sense?

Is this lining up with a good framework that I could use or take a point from ChatGPT and and embed it in mine but that's how i still keep my brain sharp yeah

so now moving into what you guys have built at cornerstone x

you have the ability to create empathy within these avatars

the meta humans yeah and that is

so you guys have some pretty awesome clients and i don't know if you mentioned them or not but if you can let's talk about them and you have some pretty awesome things on horizon that I've heard about that seem pretty awesome but those clients and or your clients, they need to teach the avatar of the empathy.

Is it built in?

How does that work?

On our platform, there's a section inside there where you can literally click and choose your meta-human.

I'm going to encourage you to use that term meta-human there.

There you go.

But to use the meta-human skins, you can pick the hair, the size, the color, et cetera.

You can choose that.

But number two, in the layer of this cake that we're building, you're a super meta-human, for example.

The second layer is a persona that you give to the meta-human.

And that's where you hear about prompt engineering, for example.

You hear about different ways that, okay, so you stay in this framework.

What if it goes off the guardrails?

How is it not going to hallucinate, et cetera?

Right.

When you give it some really good persona frameworks, that's there.

That's the key.

If you get software engineers and people really designing and thinking in those persona frameworks that's given behind AI meta-humans, you unleash gold dust that's there because it can be applied in so so many different areas of a business so this can be applied to someone that has a $500,000 business or a $500 million I mean literally this will be utilized any company that needs support we can utilize Cornerstone X exactly right this is gonna be I mean you literally are on the precipice of changing the world I mean the clients are you able to talk about your current clientele absolutely who are you guys currently working with there used to be very little visibility and control in treasury.

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Many, and it's so some of our clients are as small as a digital app.

Our first customer that really believed in us was a company called valornet and the co-founders one is actually in orlando and this gentleman saw where we were going in the market about 10 12 months ago invested in our company but also said i want to use it for my digital app valornet is an app that's used for first responders military veterans in the united states that are transitioning out of the workforce that they were a part of but now in case they have any mental well-being or health issues that start to arise and come forth

they can have access to Valornet.

And Cornerstone X is the AI power for Valornet.

They are literally speaking to our technology, our metahuman, which is called HOPE,

helping other people efficiently.

And the beauty of that is by creating a product that's named HOPE, you're now able to distribute HOPE and give it to multiple people around the world.

So some of our clients are digital apps.

One of our large clients is the United States government, the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection.

And this is where I want to give a big shout out to CBP, Customs and Border Protection, the headquarters in Ashburn, for many of the, I would say, officers there on the ground, but also the executive leadership that really championed us on.

They believed in the vision about 18 months ago and allowed us to go to different airports and interview different officers to really find out what are those pain points that the officers have as they are the first line responders to anybody coming to the United States.

After a lot of research and development with them, we had a whole list of about 35 pages where we saw translation is a big issue.

We saw that understanding and comprehension, long wait times, having the officers be in front of a person that may not understand English, but then it's a whole different subject that they need to be able to convey to a person that's never come to the United States.

that helped us think about how we intelligently design a meta-human, which is why the story for Cornerstone is really about a year, but the first year was R ⁇ D and just being boots on the ground, looking at pain points that's there.

Not only are we in the United States, but we also have alliance with giants in Germany and in the UK now starting to expand and grow opportunities for us.

So we've signed 10-year partnership deals, one with Hanselman and Company that's all in the automotive industry and industrial goods industry.

And another one is with Commercial Limited out in the UK.

So very, very proud of our team.

And we head to the UAE for more meetings and expansion and growth ideas and opportunities there.

I'm sitting here, and I've done a lot of interviews.

I'm sitting here just thinking like, oh my God.

like what you've done and let's just call it two years

really it's been what a year year and a half yeah

I mean, you've beyond, like, you are the new coming.

Like, this is insane of what you've been able to accomplish.

Cause,

and, and I want people to understand your background, but it's not like you were, like,

around people that were like, oh, let me, you know, your parents aren't the parents that, like, have the connection to the prime minister type of thing, right?

Like,

this is self-built from the beginning.

So, go into a little bit of your background.

Like, yeah, let's talk about like the concept of where this started, but even just like who you are and what made you have this type of drive to get to where you're at.

Because if anything that someone who's a lifelong entrepreneur knows, like it is a very hard road, none of it is easy.

Even when it's great in winning, it isn't easy to win.

Right.

And so let's go into a little bit of your background for a second so people understand, like,

I mean, really, that fucking anything's possible.

Absolutely.

So, Justin, for me, I grew up not ever knowing a limit.

My parents raised me in a way to never see a limit in front of me.

Other than my height, I am petite, but other than my height.

You're a mighty might, as we were just discussing, right?

Exactly right.

When you grow up in that framework of never knowing a limit, anything can be possible and achieved.

So first and foremost, who am I?

I'm a child of God.

I'm a strong believer in Jesus Christ, and I carry my faith with me no matter where I go.

because I lived a season of my life without it.

And I know what unshakable faith looks like now, which is where this beautiful blessing and anointing that comes to me to impact people and to care about the person first started to become a part of my DNA.

So when you think of an entrepreneur's DNA in my shoes, it looked like this.

My parents were two

newcomers to Canada.

So I'm from Toronto, born in Toronto, but my parents came from Sri Lanka,

flooding a civil war.

Fleeing a civil war.

Thank you.

And when they came, they had to start life with one suitcase in winter time and leaving a tiny island, not knowing what the outcomes would be.

So they always raised us up to work hard, think about education, think about achieving, because that will end you or take you out of a cycle of poverty that could be there.

So my parents never had kids until nine years into their marriage because they had to be smart with their money, start life and start to grow.

Fast forward to part of my DNA formed, I never took a business background or never thought about going into business because as a South Asian female, many people want us to go into, say, medicine,

go become an attorney, think about

conventional careers that's there.

So with my attitude and mindset, I thought, let me try that.

But my faith element started to come strong in front of me.

And I thought I would be a youth pastor or go into ministry or go along those lines because I cared about people.

I deeply do.

That's That's a part of our ethos and our company and everything that we do globally.

And with that framework in mind, it helped me to build the foundation of who I am today because I never want any of your listeners to ever be discouraged and to think that they don't have a purpose or they don't know what's next or they don't know what their calling is.

And once I started to wake up to these dreams right at the beginning of COVID, I call it these prophetic insights or divine encounters where I'm waking up to dreams and I'm thinking, what are these black boxes?

What is a black box?

And what does this even look like?

One by one by one, I started to realize back at those times and dates, we were talking about AI.

And it takes a lot of guts and courage for someone to take their dreams and literally try to build it out.

No doubt.

So I would love to see more entrepreneurs that's also in this field taking those big risks, those leap of fates, but also building their alliance with giants, with people truly have a vested interest in them.

And also for the vision that they have.

Yeah.

I mean, it's so important for people to understand, like, it's not always a bigger,

more thought out plan.

Sometimes you just go.

Yeah.

Yeah, you have to start.

Like you just, you have a good idea and you're like, I think this is a good idea.

I'm going to go.

And you went.

And if there's something people can take from this, and I need everyone to start following this human, she is unbelievable on so many different levels.

We're just talking about business and some of your background, but like what you are creating, what you've created, and what is happening in the world, you're going to be a leader at the forefront of this for a long, long time.

So, make sure we are following Chantel.

Um, and do you have a handle like Instagram, or where would you like them to kind of go follow you?

And would be perfect, LinkedIn.

Yep, where would you like to follow?

So, Chantal Bacon on LinkedIn, yeah, C-H-A-N-T-A-L

Bacon, like the food.

Thank you.

Um,

so getting back back to kind of like that journey of like you went to school for theology

and here we are running technology straight technology and probably one of the bigger in the space for the reasonable future yeah how do you bridge that gap like i was an english major and i went into business i feel like you could at least say like

i don't know i need to know how to talk well and write well like there's some components you could probably make an argument yeah theology to huge tech company, that's not a total, there's not much of a bridge that you can point to.

How did you do that?

For me, I saw the bridge.

Okay.

And the common denominator between both of those bridges or pieces of land, that common denominator is people.

Sometimes many people underestimate philosophy or theology or liberal arts degrees.

It's there.

But that taught me how to think and that taught me how to look at a person to figure out what is their meaning, their morality their destiny and their virtues and when you see a person from that perspective then it's very easy for you to build that relationship and care about a person first before the business dealing that is supposed to come out of it there's many elements in business that's replicated in theology but it starts with people and i think this is where a lot of people tend to forget those elements when they're trying to scale and grow companies when they're trying to network i i don't really network.

I don't need to network because I always believe in organic connections coming.

And if it's meant to be, it's meant to be.

And there's so many lessons learned.

There's lessons that are earned.

And when people have that self-reflection of themselves, but they look to see in those lessons that were earned, probably 90% or 95% of those lessons had to revolve around a person.

And sometimes it's realizing, okay, what could have been done differently?

How could I have changed?

Or if it was not the good fit, don't force that fit to happen.

And those are elements that you also learn in theology when it's around a person's destiny in their life.

Where are they going when they die?

And those types of world views help me connect with people all over the world.

The German culture, European culture, South Asian culture, many areas, which is why I could walk into rooms and let's say there's a sheikh in front of me.

I knew exactly how to to greet them, I knew exactly what worldview they had because I studied theology.

It doesn't matter if there's an atheist in the room or not, it's just being able to respect them.

But you have a commonality between you and that person that's naturally or organically built, and that's how I built my business.

So, there's two concepts, and by the way, I don't even know how long.

Do we have a clock?

Flaws more running time.

What is the running time?

25.

Oh, yeah, okay.

So when we get to 40, like just give me a signal.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Just give me a signal when you get to 40.

Because I've seen like 40 to 45 is like my sweet spot.

Okay.

So we talked a lot about humans.

The dichotomy.

is you went into a tech business that from my outside perspective, you're almost replacing humans with the technology.

How do you

like, where's the bridge on that?

Good question.

For me, I don't see it as replacing humans.

I see it as augmenting the way that a human can work using an AI tool.

Right.

That's there.

I'm not asking anybody to be dependent on a human, a meta-human for as long as they have to live.

It has to be on 24-7, and that's the only thing you're talking to.

It actually becomes a business tool that could be used to help enhance a person's day and take off a lot of the low-level tasks that's there and help a person like you focus on the high-level tasks where your time should be putting, going into and creating impact.

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As I ask and you answer, one of the thoughts I was even thinking is you're going to allow a lot of people who do aspire to be an entrepreneur the ability to be an entrepreneur.

Because that service of being a service agent in my world world is probably the hardest thing to hire, train, retain, financially compensate, keep them excited to be doing their job, like the service space of like the complaints or the challenges or the refunds or all these different things,

trying to keep someone excited to be like the person on the phone dealing with those things of service is very challenging.

So as I asked that question, it wasn't posed to necessarily challenge the

business.

It was more posed like, I actually think you're going to open open up the human ability to go for more with just some help.

Right.

And that amount of help is going to be huge.

I do want to get to,

you didn't really have a business.

Like, so I guess let me take it this way.

I grew up in a place where I didn't know it.

I came and see it now.

I was always an entrepreneur.

So when I was a kid, I would like open up baseball card boxes in the store and sell back the better ones to the store owner.

It's in your DNA.

Right.

Like during recycling day, I would go and take my bicycle and I'd go get the bottles and cans and I would take it to the recycling place because they would give me a penny or five cents.

Yes.

Like I just, now I understand what I was doing.

Yeah.

Did you have any of that going through school, growing up?

Like,

because the, what I see is like almost this line that you just like went to school and you went to Oxford.

You went to incredible school.

You went for theology.

And then all of a sudden, this massively successful business person technology.

Is there a bridge in that?

Because where I want the listener or audience at least to see is sometimes it's just the idea that you're so passionate about that you just start going.

And if that is the answer, great.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm a big advocate of people becoming entrepreneurs because most people are dying inside with the job.

Yeah.

And just the ability to feel

autonomy to do what you want, when you want, how you want, with who you want, I think would help a lot of people's happiness, frankly.

Yes.

So talk about your journey a little bit on that.

So it's in my DNA as well.

And I didn't realize that until I hit my early 30s.

I'm 33 right now.

Okay.

But I was 30 when I realized, shoot, I've got to stop trying to apply for jobs or going into this, into academia, other areas when I need to do what I'm naturally good at.

Yeah.

And a great saying that came to me when I was getting married from my husband, actually, he'd said, sometimes in life, you either become an entrepreneur or you end up working for one.

And that's when it hit me because I was running away from this calling.

I did not want to become an entrepreneur because it's not a traditional job that you're going to see young females in their 20s taking that risk to dive into.

So I had to stop running and realize I have natural born instincts, such as the same that you have as well.

Sometimes when you see things where, okay, I can flip this or I can get more revenue out of this, or if I actually invest in these areas, I can yield a better dividend in the future.

It was all inside of me, but I never had the courage to capitalize on that and to move.

And the main reason for me that made that shift is because My husband was in the area of private equity.

And I got a scholarship to come to the U.S.

to do my doctorate in AI and technology because all I had studied was theology.

And I thought, you know what?

Let me go try to study AI and go into this area.

So when I was in school, he was working for a big software company in Manhattan.

The private equity division closed down.

So he was given X amount of weeks' notice for that.

But then we both looked at each other and he had seen those entrepreneurial traits within me and gave me the courage to actually say, you've got to dive into this.

Because every time, no matter where we're going, you're either stepping up in leadership, you're thinking about opportunities, you're trying to fix problems.

If you're a natural problem solver, and I had no light in my eyes during that time, there was no spark.

That is definitely different now.

Correct.

And that's because I found myself and I know my calling.

And too many people walk on the streets, New York City, LA, Miami, South Florida, where we're from, and don't have a reason why they're there or they're just doing it for their paycheck, which for me, those are the things that makes me upset.

So part of the things that I want to change about that is actually creating this meta-human platform where we're going to be launching a partnership that comes out for 2026, allowing small businesses to actually utilize our technology and platform, but you can co-create with it.

And you get the autonomy to actually apply it in your businesses and use it and nonprofit situations and circumstances as well.

Because I think that there are there's a lot of room for more entrepreneurs to play in.

And remember that saying, it's either you become one or you end up working for one.

So everybody that is still in their nine to five job, they're working for entrepreneurs.

It all started somewhere.

So you just talked about what's coming in 2026.

What is whatever you can mention?

Like what's on the horizon?

What are you currently working on?

You're here in Miami right now recording this.

You have meetings tonight.

What are the meetings about?

What's moving forward here

to finish this year?

So I have, and I want to do a shout out to our incredible team at Cornerstone X.

I am 33.

Most of the executives in my team are maybe double the age that I'm in or close, but I love working with them.

Incredible, intelligent human beings.

So, this evening, some of them are flying to Miami.

We're all getting together in Centennial just to talk about the growth plan and strategy that's coming for 2026 onwards.

And then tomorrow, we're going to Fort Lauderdale, meeting with our chief technology officer who's there, and going into a boardroom, whiteboarding, what's the roadmap for the product?

What are the new features we want to embed into the technology?

And then starting to get ready to launch and travel to probably three or four countries that's coming up in a few weeks.

So that was another thing.

How are you getting your clients?

I mean, your clients are, you know, like, it's not like you have like a little, you know, cupcake

store.

Like you have some major, like the government, right?

Like, how does that even come about?

One gentleman, oh, it came through mentors.

I found good mentors and I found good, for me, I care about faith like 100%

because I've seen the difference between working with people who have no faith background or upbringing and those who have that.

And I found for me, I would credit a lot of this to a mentor called named Dave Wood, David Wood,

who is in the Virginia area, but he caught hold of my vision years before and tried to make opportunities or just try to give me a lead, get to know a person.

And he ended up sowing seeds in my life.

Many of these connections that now come forth are because of good mentors that saw growth in my life.

I was never perfect.

Nobody's ever perfect, but I was able to grow from opportunities and I treated people with kindness and respect.

And some people forget the follow-up.

I did.

I did for a number of years.

Some people forget to acknowledge emails.

One of my pet peeves are when people don't take the time to respond to an email because a human being has reached out to you, at least acknowledge it.

It took us a while to even get your email into the pipeline and then to book this meeting, but here we are today.

And I'm learning to practice what I preach better.

But also a lot of these leads and connections came from people that saw the proven track record of me delivering on what I said I would do.

They bought into that vision and then made the introductions.

There's

a saying, but

something about like

You make more money through people than you do through your traditional methods.

Like the more hands you shake, the more money you make, right?

That's the classic saying.

I've always believed it.

It's why I've built the community I've built is because when you do good by people, you offer value and create a win-win scenario,

the doors open up for all opportunities, right?

And so you're just another example of leaning into your resource, which was at this guy, Dave Wood, right?

And he leaned into him and he kept trying to offer assistance.

And you said, hey, I'm here to make those connections.

And one connection led to another and another.

You've done no, I mean, maybe it's different now, but for that first year, to year and a half, did you do any typical classic style marketing?

No.

Is it all face-to-face,

shaking hands, kissing babies?

Exactly.

I don't have a PR team.

I don't have a marketing division.

And you're about to travel the world to essentially the very same thing.

Hey, let's book a meeting with so-and-so company.

Let's go sit down in their boardroom.

Yes.

Show them the vision.

You said something earlier that I meant to hit on, but you talk about

stories.

You talk about stories.

And I think I know, as someone who sells, I know stories sell.

And when you go into a meeting and you're able to show a story in a vision,

I mean, there's probably no one better, right?

I mean, if you put you against Elon Musk right now, I'm going to say you're going to win the sales debate.

You're going to win the client, right?

Talk us through like what this kind of journey, where is the bigger vision of what you are creating?

Because I would love for people to understand like the leaders in technology, the leaders in AI, yourself.

What's it all, where are we all going with it?

Where's your vision at least?

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Yeah, great, great questions.

That's right there.

It's

where am I going with this ideas and the technology?

I'm taking it so it has a global impact, number one.

Number two, I want this technology to be used by every single culture that's there in this world.

Otherwise, I haven't succeeded.

And I have an ambitious and audacious goal for that to happen.

But that's why alliance with certain giants and different billion-dollar companies are now wanting to partner together.

Have you ever heard of Steve Jobs's

reality distortion field?

No.

Tell me more.

I think you have it.

Okay.

So he is known, if you watch his biography movie or read his book.

So I study like the greats, the people like really won in a big way business-wise.

Okay.

So So he was known as having a reality distortion field.

Like

the classic story is the glass at the Apple stores was glass that like was only coming out of China and was like a bajillion dollars per square foot or something.

And he just told his team, no, we're going to make that happen, but we're not going to pay those prices.

Go do it.

And he leaves the room.

And story after story after story of saying, no, that's not accurate.

We can do it better and cheaper and whatever.

And you got this.

You're perfect.

go get it done and they somehow

over and over and over again his team would find ways to get his reality to happen the way he wanted it and you're talking in a very

reality distortion feel way like i want it to be global i want it to impact every human on the planet i want you know and all these things and i just believe that that is capable if you can really

believe it's doable right?

Because it's been proven over and over again.

And so you have that special characteristic.

Elon has a very similar thing.

All the greats kind of have this distortion of what reality is.

Like, no, that's not possible.

You can't get this global and you can't get this into the government.

Who are you?

You're a theology major.

You know what I mean?

And you just say, no,

we're going to go do it.

So what sacrifices are you going to have to make?

What are you willing to make to go get this to where you believe it needs to be?

I sac, oh, that's such a great question.

I sacrifice a lot of time and I sacrifice a lot of money in the sense of I've actually not taken a paycheck in over two and a half years because I use my paycheck to fund

many people to join the team and to come in.

And when you recruit top-tier talent, those are

exactly right.

So there's sacrifices where as a founder, I have to be, it's up to me.

It's a choice that I have to make.

But in order for this utopia or this distortion of, say, truth or the reality that's there in front of me funny that you actually mention it because I actually live that and I didn't even realize that I do that until you made this known to me because that's it goes back to what I said earlier not knowing that you live in a limit and I grew up in that mindset that nothing is really impossible there's no such thing as a limit many people put artificial limitations on themselves and I've now come to the point where I don't sacrifice my time, my health and well-being.

I'm trying not to sacrifice my family.

So my husband joins me on the road when we've got different speaking engagements or we're engaging with your husband, by the way.

He is, he is.

The Ben Bacon.

Yes, that's right.

Irish background and from Minnesota.

And he is my COO for the company, really being with me since I started, even could potentially be the co-founder alongside, but he gave up.

a lot and he sacrificed many things and time and jobs where he could have brought home the bacon, but instead decided to join me in this endeavor.

And it's really amazing to have a husband who has that humility where he's willing to lay down the career, the ambition, and the drives that he have to say, you know what?

I'm going to come alongside my wife and support her and take this vision forward.

And with both of us together, it's just increased the opportunities that's come forth.

We're very blessed and grateful.

You've done an incredible, I mean, you two should be incredibly proud of what you guys have done.

I mean, I've been around a lot of very successful individuals and to have this type of meteoric ride, like a year and a half, two years most

and to be working with the government and Oracle and these names that everyone's aware of.

Yeah.

NVIDIA is another one, too.

We were at the NVIDIA conference earlier this year in San Jose and then going to Washington, D.C.

to meet with NVIDIA very soon for other opportunities.

Incredible.

I mean, you're in the right rooms.

You've done the right thing.

What gets, like, what do you have to do internally?

What gets you fired up to say, I got to go do this?

Because it's not easy to be able to say like it's almost like i'll say it my ways like fuck this i'm getting it done like you almost get so fired up like you want to run through a wall yeah because that's what it's going to take to get to where you want to go what do you have to do mentally spiritually do you have to go get fired up and hit the gym and cold plunge and do all this stuff or do you have to go to a calm place and meditate and breathe where do you go to kind of get this gumption to go

i'm going

Truth is, I actually go to the Bible.

Okay.

And I go to the Bible because that's where this discernment and wisdom has actually really come from.

Sometimes when I really need that inspiration, I'm not listening to Tony Robbins or other people that are out there in the industry, but I go back to like the ancient texts, such as King Solomon, for example.

Has anybody ever studied King Solomon's business plan?

That's my challenge and my gauntlet I'm going to throw to you.

Go back and study King Solomon's business plan and see how he conquered empires, dynasties, kingdoms.

He was the most wealthiest man in the world.

And just going back to read and see the lessons that they've all learned,

that teaches me something every single day.

And I need to be in a quiet place.

I do go to my backyard and just stop, unplug for a little while, get better at journaling and writing from the notes that I see in the Bible.

But

all of my business gold nuggets are from the Bible, 100%.

Offline, we can talk about this if you'd like, but

so, uh, and we'll leave it here, but I think I get asked, what is my morning routine more than any question?

So I will give it to you.

What is your morning routine to wake up energized every single day?

6.30, alarm rings.

I snuggle with my husband and have to force myself to get out of bed because I know by 6.45, if I'm up, I'm out brushing teeth, dressed, ready within 15 minutes.

And 7 a.m., my sister calls me.

I spend 15 minutes with her.

So she is Charlene Sappy in New York City, works at Columbia University in the medical ethics department there.

And she calls me every day for 15 minutes so she can give me a quick update and I share an update and we pray together.

And this bond between two sisters praying together also helps me to bring compassion into the workfield and the workforce that's there.

7.15 onwards, meetings, back to back to back.

Sometimes I don't stop on Zoom until 4 p.m.

And then at the 4 p.m.

mark, it's literally back to back to back where I have to sneak a bite in if I can.

4 p.m.

onwards, done.

And then stop to meditate, to reflect, to check in with my husband, go for a bike ride, a little bit of a workout or swimming at that timeframe.

And then the evening shift begins.

Our team is in India.

Our team's in England, in the UK, and now growing growing in Germany.

So I've got to be available in different time zones at Sarah.

That's a whole different level of complexity.

Oh, my goodness.

And comes forth.

Yeah.

I have something that is really important to me, and I call it the five laws of success.

Curious what you think about them.

First, you have to decide what you want, and then who you need to be to get what you want.

Because you have to be in alignment with what you want.

Two, you got to commit to it.

Three, you got to take massive action, blind action, wrong action, correct action, action, action, action.

Four, being incredibly uncomfortable because every time you hit a new level of something, it's brand new.

So you've never been there before.

So that's incredibly uncomfortable.

And number five, don't put a time expectation on the results you're trying to achieve.

So you just say, you want this to be global.

You want this to impact every human on the planet.

If you would have said any level of time limitation, the podcast episode would have changed because then I would have started challenging you.

Yeah.

Because I believe just by sitting with you for the last hour, you're going to achieve this.

I believe with everything in me.

Thank you.

But if you would have said, I'm going to go do it in a year or two years or five years or 10, anything,

then we would have had a challenging conversation because I would have challenged your belief that it was going to happen in a timeframe.

Why can't it just happen as fast as you can possibly make it happen?

Correct.

And that's where in entrepreneurship, if we've got a couple minutes, something I do want to say to your listeners is in entrepreneurships, many times we're thinking about the exit.

Many times we're thinking about, okay, we want to get an MA, we want to sell this, we want to

the next, next, next thing that's there.

But my CFO named Ali Pierboy,

he taught me

an exit comes, but it's a byproduct of doing the right thing.

And all you need to do is focus every single day on doing the right thing, making the right ethical decision, choosing not to partner with people because you know their motives or where the money is actually coming from.

You have to do the right thing every day.

The next thing comes as a byproduct of it, which is why I never time bound myself.

Never time bound myself.

And that's a simple mistake that many entrepreneurs do.

Chantelle Bacon, this has been great.

It is.

This was very fun.

LinkedIn, is that the best place to find you?

Or you want to have them go to the website or anything else that you want to?

LinkedIn is perfect.

Reach out.

They're always looking for partnerships, looking for new opportunities.

starting to expand in other countries, use cases that's there.

If people want pilots, even willing to talk about what a free pilot looks like if needed be, but to have those conversations and start to make organic connections.

And I'm also very passionate about South Florida as I've moved here.

So always looking to grab a cup of coffee and speak to very interesting people along the way.

Everybody, make sure you give her a follow on LinkedIn.

Contact her.

She's incredible.

Her husband, Ben, is incredible.

You are going to achieve this for sure, knowing you for all of an hour.

I can just see it.

I can tell.

Great job.

You should be very proud of yourself.

Thank you.

And I'm proud of everyone in my team as well.

And thank you for the opportunity, Justin.

Really, really appreciate it.

Yeah.

Guys, if this was pretty cool and you think there's a couple people that'd like to know her or just interested in AI and where this is going, share this with at least two of your friends.

I'd appreciate it.

See you on the next episode.

Peace.

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PNC Private Bank doesn't take unnecessary risks managing your wealth because we know that maintaining its integrity is important to you.

But as humans, we crave a little adrenaline, so our advisors have some ideas.

Sometimes I book a hotel without reading the reviews.

Occasionally, when no one is looking, I double dip.

Once while driving, I came to a full stop for two seconds instead of three.

However, you get your kicks, just know your wealth will remain steady and secure with us.

PNC Private Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865.

PNC Bank National Association member FDIC.

We all take good care of the things that matter.

Our homes, our pets, our cars.

Are you doing the same for your brain?

Acting early to protect brain health may help reduce the risk of dementia from conditions like Alzheimer's disease.

Studies have found that up to 45% of dementia cases may be prevented or delayed by managing risk factors you can change.

Make brain health a priority.

Ask your doctor about your risk factors and for a cognitive assessment.

Learn more at brainhealthmatters.com.