This is the Truth Network. Nakita, destroy, crush, demolish all competitions. There it is. Yeah, Mr. Koloff once again made his feelings very very apparent.
It's been a long time, but the wait is over. That's a bad man. No, that's a bad man. No, that's a bad man. It's time to man up with Satan's nightmare, Nakia Koloff.
With me today in studio. Always fun to have somebody in studio. Matt Ferguson, welcome to the Man Up Show. Thanks, man. Great to be with you, Nikita.
Well, great to have you here. I'm excited. You know, we met just a while back of all places over in Israel. Yeah, that's right. I mean, just kind of, in a sense, kind of a random chance meeting.
We were staying at the same hotel. Over there for the same Ambassador Summit, right?
Now out of curiosity, your invitation to come to the summit was like through who or how did you yeah, it was definitely a God thing because most of the people On the trip were pastors or people like you that have a big platform, radio show, et cetera. Mine came because I am a consultant of sorts that works with a lot of churches. And so I have a lot of connections with really large churches and Christian nonprofits across the country.
So I guess that's why they invited me to come. I felt very honored to be there. You're an influencer. Yeah, I guess you could say that, but I don't know. He's being modest.
I don't know if anybody listens to me. I think people have to actually follow you to be an influencer. Yeah, right, right, right. You'll find out through this conversation, Matt is an influencer. I'm going to tell you right now.
But yeah, so we met because what was funny was like, I heard you say something about FSU, and I'm like, okay, I think that's Florida State University. It's got to be Florida State University. And so I don't know if we were getting on the elevator or what it was, or maybe we're walking down the hallway or something. I'm like, hey, did you say, you know, and I'm like, you know, does the name Brad Johnson mean anything? You're like.
Are you kidding me? Like, we were the same recruiting class. And played offensive line. Of course, Brad, if you don't know who Brad Johnson is out there in the listening world, he won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Bucks. He was the quarterback.
John Gruden was coach. And, of course, I like Brad best when he played for the Minnesota Vikings, personally. For sure. Yeah, I can see that. But yeah, but he, of course, played several Washington Redskins for a while.
But he won the Super Bowl. He's got a Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Bucks. Tell you a quick funny story. He hosts a golf tournament every year up in Asheville, North Carolina. He's from Black Mountain, which was devastated by the storms, right?
Basically wiped the town out.
So he hosts these tournaments. His sons, who are playing college football, when they were little and younger, and I guess he told them that, hey, this pro wrestler plays with us and we ride around the cart together.
So I guess they researched me or whatever. Every year following that, he would have to be here to tell the story the best, but he'd go. My son's all dad is that pro wrestler gonna play again? He's like Yeah, but why he goes, Dad, he was a pro wrestling. He goes, Hello, like Super Bowl ring.
Like, what am I, chopped liver? Like, he goes, they didn't give two hoots about my Super Bowl rig. All they want to know is was the pro wrestler played in my tournament again. Yeah, I mean, as you probably know, impressing your kids is harder than people who aren't your own, right? Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, Brad was a great teammate. I remember, I mean, he was an absolute beast. Yeah, tell me what you remember about Brad.
So he was an absolute beast of an athlete. I don't know if you know this, but he also played basketball for the Seminoles. I could see that. He was a starting guard for the Seminoles. And, you know, that's how good of an athlete Brad was.
Wow, in college. In college. And then a lot of Brad's success was based on his incredible work ethic. I remember being in the gym one time. You know, I'm in there for like an hour, hour and a half.
Now, you're offensive lineman, guard, right? Yes.
Okay, offensive guard. Yeah. And so I'm in the gym. I'm lifting. And then I you know, I keep looking over and there's Brad, like, just jump roping.
And then I go on to my next exercise, and there's Brad still jump roping. And like an hour later, Brad has been jump roping for like a solid hour. Like that's that's the kind of shape he was in as an athlete in college.
So, yeah, he was a terrific teammate and great to be around.
So, so, because you hear about, you know, high school kids playing, you know, yeah, three sport, four sport athletes, or whatever, but college, not as much. I mean, there's still some, you know, Bo Jackson or what, you know, but to hear that about him, I'll tell you what, I think he could have been on the PGA tour as well. Yeah, he's a good golfer. Oh, my gosh, good as an understatement, man. He is, I want to, I dare say, a scratch golfer.
I actually teamed up, so is him.
So he wins a world. Super Bowl, world champion, right? Football. We had Darren Holmes, who played with us, who won a world championship, a pitcher with the New York Yankees. And then Nikita Koloff, world champion wrestler.
All three of us were on the same team. I forget who the fourth guy was that they kind of threw in the mix, but we won Brad's tournament that year. That's awesome. But all I can say is I contributed on the putting green. Like, there was no way both Darren and Brad, I mean, they drive 300 yards they drive that thing.
It was crazy how far they drive it.
Well, it helps to be 6'5 or 6'6 or whatever he is. That's true, too. But I've been around some other pro football players or other pro athletes. That guy couldn't swing a well, you're looking at one because to me, it takes some fine motor skills that I didn't necessarily have as an offensive lineman, right? Like Brad and all the quarterbacks, that's why you were a lineman, right?
Exactly, exactly. Brad and Brad and all the quarterbacks would be out there playing golf. And I knew they were good even back then, but yeah, I don't set foot on a golf course.
Well, I play, well, and for the record, I'm not the best golfer.
Now, I can put Brad always jokes about my ability to sink it in the hole, which is where I contribute. But. You know, playing tight end in college, I was called a glorified lineman.
Well, but at least you had some hands to be a tight end, right? You catch the ball a little bit. I did. They threatened to put me on the offensive line. I said, You can't do that, coach.
I love to catch the ball. You can't put me on the offensive line.
Well, speaking of two-sport athletes, they are very rare in college. And I happened to be at Florida State in kind of a perfect storm.
So, not only did we have Brad playing varsity football and basketball, but we had Charlie Ward, who also, you know, Heisman winning quarterback right after Brad. And he played basketball as well. It was a starting guard and all ACC, and ended up, instead of going to the NFL, had a dozen-year career in the NBA with the Knicks. Wow. And then Deion Sanders was a three-sport athlete.
He played not only football, but basically. You were there at the same time as well? Yes.
Deion was a couple years older. Charlie was a couple years younger, and Brad was the same age. You were right in the mix. Yeah, yeah.
So it was a great time for a multi-sport athlete. In fact, Dion had one day where. He went from our spring practice or maybe a spring game over to the baseball field, hit a home run, and then he went over to the track and ran the anchor leg and the relay and like the conference championships in one day. Wow. So, you know, that's things like that.
Like, some people just would not know that, but you got to experience that. That's amazing. Wow. And so.
So so fast forward from From your college days, your football days there at FSU, you know, we kind of bring it to, if you wanna say full circle, you're in Charlotte, North Carolina, living in Charlotte. Yeah. Right. And I just met your lovely bride, Lori. And I know you've I know you've got tell us a little bit, you got five children, all all grown, but just tell us, moving how how'd you let me just ask, how'd you meet Laurie?
Did you meet her in college? No, actually Laurie and I went to high school together. Oh, wow. Which is where? Where was I?
Eustis High School, which is kind of in the Orlando area.
Okay. That's where we both grew up. But we didn't really know each other in high school. We kind of ran in different circles and just you know hardly remember even having one conversation with her in in high school, even though she was a cheerleader and I was a football player. But whatever, we didn't meet.
She was a little shy and you know, probably a little out of my league, I would say. But anyway, we didn't get together until about 10 years later. Wow. And that was a real redemption story because Lori had actually gotten married fairly young and had her first child by the time she was 23. And anyway, her husband ended up leaving and it was a tough situation.
And so she's a single mom of mother.
So she's a single mom. She's a single mom of three girls, by the way. Whoa. And so she had continued to live. She had traveled for work early in her career and everything, but moved back to Eustis, where we grew up.
And after all this situation, her husband leaving, she just needed a fresh start. And so she moved to Orlando. And at the time, I was working for Disney and living in Orlando. And one day I go to my single Sunday school class at church, and here's Lori from high school. And we're just like, hey, you know.
Now, did you recognize her, though? I did, because we had just seen each other at our high school reunion like a few months ago before kind of caught up a little bit. But God. But God. But God.
Actually, Lori has a tattoo on her wrist that says, but God. Come on. Because how many situations in the Bible where this negative thing happens and then God comes through? God did the same thing. Intervenes, right?
Yeah. So, yeah, that was our little redemption story.
So that was. 20 almost 27 years ago, we that we got married. You know, we dated for like a year and a half. And I became instant daddy of a three, five, and seven-year-old at that point. And then we added two more kids, and now they're all grown up.
All grown up.
So, so we, so something similar there. Uh, my two oldest girls were four and seven when I met their mom. And uh, and then we had two other girls.
So, four girls that I raised. Yeah, it was pretty neat. And, you know, I did my best to raise all four of them as if they were my own. Yeah. And it sounds like you did the very same thing.
Same deal, yeah. Yeah, embracing those three girls. And then pretty awesome being a girl dad, right? It is, yeah. I know.
It's funny over the years. People would say, I bet you wish you had a boy. I'm like, you know, I'm pretty content with the girls. And my heart always was, you know, I just want them to be healthy. You know, I just want that baby to be healthy, right?
So now the other two, girls, boys, what?
So, The other two were another girl, and we had a boy last. Yeah, and he's awesome too. He's the baby of the family. Yeah, he's the baby.
Okay. But he's not a baby. He's a man, and he's a great man of God. I'm really proud of my boy's actor. That's awesome.
Nikita Koloff here, and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?
Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita Koloff Fans, and like it. and follow today. If you would like to support Koloff for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success.
And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.koloff.net and donate today.
Now you live in Charlotte. Do do all of do they all live kind of around you? Are they all spread out? Or where do they live? We got one kid that came back to Charlotte after going off to school and And then traveling the world a bit and then came back and she my our daughter Kaylee and her husband Jacob live in Charlotte.
And then we we've got one in the Dallas area, one in Nashville, one up in New York City, and then my son just graduated from NC State and he's uh on staff with Chick-fil-A there in management with the regional office there. And but he'd like to return to Charlotte.
So I think we'll end up with at least two of them anyway.
Okay. And so any grandkids yet? Yeah, we just got our first grandkid about a year ago. Congratulations. Yeah.
Aren't they fun? Little girl, man. Oh, she is so much fun.
So isn't that funny?
So I have four girls, and the first grandchild was a girl. And I'm like, Lord. Lord. I would like to experience a boy in my life. How about some testosterone in here somewhere besides son-in-laws?
How about some?
So currently, officially, it's seven and seven now. I have seven grand little boy grandbabies. Seven little girl grandbabies. But my youngest Colby, they're adopting their third this year. Oh, man.
That's a boy.
So it's going to come.
Okay, okay.
So it's going to be eight and seven. Tip the scales. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tipping the scales a bit there. But so.
Okay, so you you mentioned okay, so you and Laurie get married, you're in the Orlando area, and you you mentioned Disney. Like, yeah.
Okay, t tell us a little bit about that. Like, how'd that come about? Like, what Let's get a job at Disney. And what did you do at Disney? I was on the branding and marketing team there, and I got the job because prior to that I had worked for an advertising marketing branding agency that worked with travel and tourism brands, actually here in North Carolina.
And so I worked on the Asheville tourism account, bringing people to Asheville as a tourism destination, Builtmore. And so the campaigns that we had worked on for those two organizations kind of got national attention and then that helped me get to Disney. And Disney was launching a new product, which is a sports complex at Walt Disney World, ESPN-wide World Sports. And so they liked my college football background and marketing background. And they hired me to help launch that.
And so I got to work on the launch campaign for that complex. And then after we launched it, I moved on to the Walt Disney World brand, marketing Walt Disney World as a vacation destination. That's pretty amazing.
So, how many years did you end up spending with Disney then? Four years. Four years. And that gave you a foundation. I remember when we were talking in Israel, where that you were sharing a little bit of that with me and that Kind of gave you a foundation for really what you're doing now, right?
Which is something similar now, but not necessarily. Yeah, so how. Tell us about that. How did that transition happen? You leave Disney, you launch into your own business, or what happened?
No, actually, I was first recruited to come back to the agency that I had been with before Disney.
Okay. And that was a chance to be a part of the leadership of that company. And so I was at this advertising and marketing firm for. many years, became a partner in that organization. And uh and then about five years ago, uh I joined up with a group called Storyland Studios.
And these were some guys that I'd met a few years prior to that.
Some brothers, Peter and Mel McGowan, who started the company back in 2001. And Mel was a former Disney guy. He was on the imagineering side, which is designing experiences, actually designing the parks. He's a master planner. And so Storyland designs experiences for.
We still do work for Disney and Universal Studios, but then we also have a lot of other clients that are designing experiences. And so it was sort of related to what I do, but a little bit different. And so it's been a fun journey kind of jumping into the experience design side of things. Earlier, about a few months ago, I actually launched my own branding and marketing firm called Ever After Group. I love that.
So, yeah.
So, you tell me that in Israel, like, I love it. Yeah. Storyland. And then I'm sorry, Ever Ever Ever Everlasting Group. Ever After.
Ever After. Like, happily Ever After. But. I'm still with Storyland and You know, the other cool thing about Storyland and Ever After is Storyland Studios has a brand called Plain Joe Studios because Pete and Mel are strong believers, and we just love being able to work with kingdom organizations.
So, we actually use some of the storytelling principles that we've learned at Disney to help churches and nonprofits with their places and spaces.
So, we're designing church campuses and children's areas and youth spaces and headquarters for nonprofits and all that kind of stuff. And then, Forever After, my team is all remote, so we've got pretty low overhead.
So, in addition to getting to work with some big brands like Disney and others, we're also working with churches and nonprofits as well because we can kind of offer them rates that a nonprofit can afford.
So, I get to sort of straddle the fence between kingdom work that's eternal, that are impacting people for Jesus, and then on the other end of the spectrum, still. working with some of the biggest brands in the world and staying on the forefront of what's happening in spatial design, branding, marketing, all of those things.
So it's just such a blessing to be able to kind of balance both and do both. What was on the Storyland studio side, a two-part question, and then on the Ever After group side, maybe a fun project or a fun story that pops in your head started would start with Storyland, like maybe one of the fun pro like boom, like all that project was in what what what would that have been? Yeah, well our our team is doing a lot of work for the expansion, many expansions that are happening at Well, Disney World right now, most recently a lot of our team members worked on Epic Universe, the new park at Universal Studios, and worked on a lot of the early concept design, the master planning of that. We contributed to Universal's first, really the world's first ever augmented reality ride. There's a Mario Kart ride there that our guys contributed to.
I didn't work on that one specifically. One that I've worked on and contributed to over the last few years is Trilith Studios, which is now the The largest movie studio in North America passed up Warner Brothers. It's down in Atlanta. But it also has a town connected to it where people can live and work and play. And so we were brought in back in 2021 to help them kind of refine their story as they were beginning to grow.
And so I got to work on that part. And then our kind of master planning team is helping design the next phases of the town of Trillith. Mainly the town.
So you don't do the I'm hearing the actual build out. You kind of do the design and then there's the okay. Yeah, so my role in the in any sort of spatial design that we do is the story narrative. And if you look at how Disney has done things, the reason that they've been able to create these biggest human magnets in the world is that they start with story, that narrative first before they start drawing up anything. Because, you know, we as humans are designed to be moved by story.
Jesus. Exactly. Tell stories. Exactly. He knew.
So I like to joke that Disney has just figured out God's playbook, that he's wired us for story. They're just not giving him credit. And that's why they're so successful.
So when we're able to help a church with that, even if they're on whatever their church budget is, we can say, all right, guys, whatever the budget is, great. But let's start with your story. Like, what is your place in the kingdom? What's unique about you? And so once we have that story straight, then we can.
Yeah. You know, we can it actually helps make those budgeting decisions because you can say, well, does this advance the story? Then no, we can cut cut that out of the budget, but we should really hang on to this, right?
So it's just a really cool way to design. Anything, whether it's spatial or the marketing and branding stuff that I do on the ever after side. What are the fun what's one of the fun projects on the church related one pop in your head come to mind? Yeah, well I mean I got to uh actually help redesign, reconcept the children's spaces at my own church, Elevation Church. A lot of people know Elevation Worship, our church band, and I've been a part of that church since it Well, I knew a couple of my buddies helped start it about 20 years ago.
Wow. It's been around 20 years. I didn't realize it's been around 20 years. Yes.
Yeah, we're celebrating our, we're getting ready to celebrate our 20th anniversary in a couple of weeks.
So, okay.
So, so 2026, or 2006, it launched. Yes.
Okay. Yeah, because I guess I didn't realize that. Our church 20. 2004.
Okay. So, right around the same time. But, okay, so you were able to work on some of their projects or something. Yeah, we were able to kind of come up with a concept for our children's spaces.
Okay. And we're now rolling that out across all of our campuses.
So that was a lot of fun. And then actually got to help the Billy Graham Library recently. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's an incredible thing. Yeah, they did a remodel. Yeah, so we were part of that.
We helped with the kind of technology side of things there.
So that was cool to contribute to.
So it's not just architecture type stuff.
So you also work. The technology part. Because a lot of experiences today are sort of a blend of architecture, spatial design, graphics and theming, and technology. There's a lot of interaction with screens. I talked about the augmented reality ride.
So really, whatever. Actually, we did a project for Saddleback Church. Pastor Rick Warren founded that one. And their kids' space, we designed it about 10%. 10 years ago, and we recently did an update.
And in that update, one section of it has an undersea theme. And for years, they maintained these huge saltwater tanks, and they're beautiful, but they were very hard to maintain. And they're like, we want to get rid of that maintenance responsibility. Yeah, responsibility, anyway. And so we converted all of those into screens.
And so they look like aquariums. But the cool thing is, we created a check-in experience where the A new kid can go up to the iPad, they can create a fish character, give it a name, and you know, and then the fish character will follow them to their class to that, kind of, you know, releasing them from that separation anxiety, you know. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, well, that's pretty amazing.
And I hadn't been to the Billy Graham. I've been several times, but not since the re, I just lost the word. Yeah, the update. The update or, yeah, or the rebranding in a way, I guess. That's not the word I'm looking for.
Remodel or? Remodel. That was the word I had earlier. Remodel. But I am looking forward to going back and seeing it.
I mean, I was just, I'm amazed by this story.
So when I walk through the remodel, and if you listen, if you put it on your list, if you've never been to the Billy Graham Library, it's not the kind of library you're thinking of. You're not going to go check out books, although you can purchase books there. They have a bookstore. But no, this is the life story of Reverend Billy Graham. I'm going to tell you, you'll be fascinated.
Fascinated by it. If you've never been, I want to encourage you to put on your list to go. And so, when I go, Matt, and I walk through the remodel, I go, Hey, my buddy Matt did all this technology, him and his group. Yeah, we got it. Got it up and running and working.
That's pretty amazing.
All right, so if there's.
So I mean you cover a gambit from business to churches to nonprofits.
So somebody's out there listening right now, pastor's out there listening or a business leader or a CEO or and they want to learn more about Storyland Studios or Ever After Group. Where do they where do they find you, man? Yeah, for uh for Pastors, you know, you'll want to go through the gate of our plain Joe brand, and that's plainjoe studios.com for you know, business, yeah. And that's about, you know, we're not here to tell your story, we're here to, or our story, we're here to tell your story to the plain Janes and average Joes of the world. And then Storyland Studios is for you know secular companies.
So I want to encourage all you out there in listening land, you're going to want to go over to QA with Koloff to find out, as Paul Harvey used to say, the arrest of the story. Of the story. And so, Matt Ferguson, man, great. I'm so glad the Lord crossed our path over there in Israel. Yeah, me too, brother.
and uh meeting your lovely bride Lori and look forward to to see what what God has next for you. Until next time, until next time, I have my channel for you today as well. Have a God-filled will of God bless you.
