Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Business Guru and "Fixer" Marcus Lemonis Joins Preston

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Business Guru and "Fixer" Marcus Lemonis Joins Preston · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back the Morning Show with Preston Scott. I happen
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: to be Preston over there in Studio one A is
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: ose can you see and joining me on the phone line.
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  Speaker 1: He is the featured speaker at the Power Forward Speaker Series,
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  Speaker 1: the twelfth annual Power Forward Speaker Series presented by First
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  Speaker 1: Commerce Credit Union in the FSU Division of Research. It
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  Speaker 1: is coming up Tuesday, January twenty seventh to three point
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  Speaker 1: thirty in the afternoon at Ruby Diamond. You can get
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  Speaker 1: your tickets at tickets dot FSU dot EEDU. Marcus Lamonis
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  Speaker 1: is a powerhouse. He's on Fox's The Fixer. He fixes
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  Speaker 1: businesses around the country. He is a renowned entrepreneur, he
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  Speaker 1: is an investor, and he is our guest this morning. Marcus,
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  Speaker 1: how are you, sir?
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  Speaker 2: I'm great. Thank you for having me, and I have
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  Speaker 2: to tell you this is I have a lot of
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  Speaker 2: events on my schedule. This is one that I'm really
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  Speaker 2: excited for. As a resident of North Florida. I've been
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  Speaker 2: familiar with this organization for a long time, so I'm
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  Speaker 2: really excited.
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  Speaker 1: What excites you the most about getting a chance to
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  Speaker 1: talk to people that are kind of in the trenches
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  Speaker 1: they're business owners, business managers, and fledgling entrepreneurs or wannabes.
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  Speaker 2: I think for me, the democratization of knowledge and experience
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  Speaker 2: and information and our ability to share with each other
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  Speaker 2: things that have worked that haven't worked. You know, owning
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  Speaker 2: a business or wanting to start a business in this
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  Speaker 2: country to me is the greatest privilege. And for me,
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  Speaker 2: it's provided a path to not only sanity for myself,
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  Speaker 2: but it's provided a path for me to build something
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  Speaker 2: for my family and something for my community. And when
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  Speaker 2: you can get in a room and share those ideas,
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  Speaker 2: and I think what people are going to find with
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  Speaker 2: me for the couple hours will be together. It's not
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  Speaker 2: about just hearing from me. It's about hearing from fellow
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  Speaker 2: entrepreneurs and their pluses and minuses. And you know, when
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  Speaker 2: you can do that, it changes the game when you
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  Speaker 2: walk out of that room, because you know you have
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  Speaker 2: something to build off of.
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  Speaker 1: When you look at your arc of experiences in business,
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  Speaker 1: and then you look at today's environment, whether it's as
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  Speaker 1: a business owner or as an entrepreneur wanting to become one,
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  Speaker 1: how would you describe the environment as it exists right now?
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  Speaker 2: Well, first I would tell you that I hope and
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  Speaker 2: I pray to God that I'm just at the beginning
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  Speaker 2: of my art. And every entrepreneur should never believe that
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  Speaker 2: they're on some path where they've reached the top. They're
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  Speaker 2: probably somewhere where they're just getting started, no matter how
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  Speaker 2: many years they do that. I wake up at that
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  Speaker 2: mindset every single day. But I really want people to
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  Speaker 2: understand what's at stake. And I don't mean that from
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  Speaker 2: a risk standpoint. I mean that from an opportunity standpoint.
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  Speaker 2: And when you look at today's environment, there are lots
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  Speaker 2: of things firing at us, you know, questions and conflict
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  Speaker 2: and problems and opportunities, lots of things coming at us
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  Speaker 2: on a daily basis. And the hardest thing to do today,
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  Speaker 2: particularly when you think about social media and AI and
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  Speaker 2: all these variables, is to really take a step back
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  Speaker 2: and to understand what your goals are and what both
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  Speaker 2: financially and professionally and personally. And I want to make
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  Speaker 2: that last one personally maybe the most important, and to
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  Speaker 2: cut through all the noise and to be able to
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  Speaker 2: decipher what is it that you want to achieve and
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  Speaker 2: what is it that you need more of, and what
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  Speaker 2: is it that you need less of. But it may
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  Speaker 2: be the most exciting and the most frightening time to
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  Speaker 2: be in business because things are changing so fast.
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  Speaker 1: How are the challenges different for someone owning an existing business?
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  Speaker 1: And I'll go ahead and outdraw on your where you
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  Speaker 1: are kind of right now? All right? You just said
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  Speaker 1: you're an entrepreneur at heart. You wake up thinking about
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  Speaker 1: what's possible, what's ahead. But at the same time you
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  Speaker 1: just became the sea of bed bath and beyond. So
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  Speaker 1: there are two buckets that I'm talking to here. There's
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  Speaker 1: the side that someone's out there and they're an entrepreneur
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  Speaker 1: and they want to start something. And then there's that
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  Speaker 1: person out there that that is either taking over or
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  Speaker 1: has an existing business. What are the challenges that are
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  Speaker 1: different and similar between those two things?
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  Speaker 2: I think the challenges that are similar is that every
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  Speaker 2: day is an opportunity to do something and wrong, you know,
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  Speaker 2: right you're wrongs or rights your mistakes. You know. As
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  Speaker 2: an entrepreneur, I find myself having to be really probably
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  Speaker 2: more transparent than I've ever believed I needed to be,
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  Speaker 2: to acknowledge, even through self awareness, what are the things
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  Speaker 2: that I'm not doing right? And you know, taking over
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  Speaker 2: a business that is struggling or growing. A business that
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  Speaker 2: is growing has kind of the same challenges. It's the
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  Speaker 2: pressure of understanding what other people expect of you, and
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  Speaker 2: the pressure of understanding what your your bankers or your investors,
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  Speaker 2: or your shareholders, or your or your wife or husband
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  Speaker 2: or your family. Like, there's a lot at risk and
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  Speaker 2: there's a lot to be accountable for. And in all
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  Speaker 2: cases the similarities are accountability, and I think we've gotten
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  Speaker 2: away from feeling accountable starting with being accountable to yourself
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  Speaker 2: and then recognizing who those constituents are that you're accountable
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  Speaker 2: to as well. That's tough. It's a lot of pressure.
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  Speaker 1: Marcus lamonas with us. He is going to be speaking
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  Speaker 1: at the Power Forward Speakers series, the twelfth annual, I
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  Speaker 1: might add, and it's presented by First Commerce Credit Union
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  Speaker 1: in the FSU Division of Research. Coming up Tuesday, January
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  Speaker 1: twenty seventh. I'll tell you about getting tickets in just
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  Speaker 1: a few moments, Marcus, you have you're starring in a
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  Speaker 1: Fox program called The Fixer. What have you learned in
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  Speaker 1: your time doing that?
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  Speaker 2: Is?
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  Speaker 1: Are there sets of commonalities when you come into a
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  Speaker 1: business that you're trying to help you know.
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  Speaker 2: For the last fourteen years between making the profit for
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  Speaker 2: a decade and now making the Fixer, what I found
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  Speaker 2: is that I love working with businesses that really were
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  Speaker 2: willing to be transparent about who they were and what
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  Speaker 2: strengths and what their weaknesses were, and really what the
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  Speaker 2: opportunity was ahead and what I struggled with. The kind
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  Speaker 2: of businesses that I did not enjoy working with are
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  Speaker 2: ones that always thought they had it all figured out,
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  Speaker 2: that didn't need to be asked questions, that didn't need
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  Speaker 2: to be pushed. They had all the answers before you
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  Speaker 2: even asked the question. And I know that what we're
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  Speaker 2: going to find at FSU when we do our event,
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  Speaker 2: is that we're going to find that the folks of
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  Speaker 2: North Florida, the folks that own these small businesses or
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  Speaker 2: aspiring businesses, know that they need to show up as
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  Speaker 2: I do too. By the way, the same applies to
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  Speaker 2: me with the mindset that we all have something to learn.
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  Speaker 2: And when I meet people that think they have all
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  Speaker 2: the answers, usually they're the first to go and the
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  Speaker 2: last succeed. And the ones that are the most curious,
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  Speaker 2: not critical, the most open to listening to new ways
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  Speaker 2: to think about things and modify their own approach. Those
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  Speaker 2: are the ones that have historically, from my experience, been
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  Speaker 2: the ones that have reached the level of success a
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  Speaker 2: lot quicker than the ones that don't.
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  Speaker 1: If your career is a book and we've written X
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  Speaker 1: number of chapters so far, looking at those chapters in
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  Speaker 1: your career, is there a particular time frame or business
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  Speaker 1: adventure that worked out or even one that didn't that
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  Speaker 1: as you think of it now, kind of makes you smile.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'd rather than focusing on a single business, I
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  Speaker 2: want to focus on periods of time, Okay. And the
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  Speaker 2: first thing that comes to mind is, you know, the
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  Speaker 2: hard times. So two thousand and eight, two thousand and
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  Speaker 2: nine financial crisis has always sat deeply in my mind.
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  Speaker 2: That couple of years of COVID I've sat in my
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  Speaker 2: mind where I had to reinvent myself or reinvent my business.
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  Speaker 2: And what I learned in both instances is that I
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  Speaker 2: was never as prepared as I needed to be for
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  Speaker 2: the unexpected moments. And what I learned about myself that
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  Speaker 2: makes me smile is my ability and not perfect and gosh,
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  Speaker 2: I have a lot to learn and still a lot
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  Speaker 2: to grow, but my ability to understand how to pivot quickly,
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  Speaker 2: how to adapt, and how to listen and learn from
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  Speaker 2: other people to be more prepared the next time it happens.
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  Speaker 2: And I would say, through those two instances, you learn
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  Speaker 2: more about what kind of people to surround yourself with.
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  Speaker 2: That makes me smile because I love the people that
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  Speaker 2: I'm with. I learned about how I grew. That makes
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  Speaker 2: me smile because I realized that I matured as a
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  Speaker 2: business person and as a human and how we got
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  Speaker 2: to the other side. And I will always think about
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  Speaker 2: the hard times and what I did to dig out
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  Speaker 2: of those hard times. You know what, this is maybe
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  Speaker 2: one thing that I would want everybody to come to
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  Speaker 2: this event prepared to do. You never know what somebody
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  Speaker 2: else is going through in business, because business, particularly the
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  Speaker 2: kind of businesses that we're all in, are the intersection
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  Speaker 2: of business and family and business and personal life, because
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  Speaker 2: the lines are very blurry between when it starts and
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  Speaker 2: stops and how to balance giving time to your family
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  Speaker 2: or balance that you know, being able to provide for
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  Speaker 2: your family. And it's a it's a wonderful but frightening intersection.
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  Speaker 2: And I think what we need as a group a
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  Speaker 2: thousand of us and we share those ideas. We're going
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  Speaker 2: to walk away with a few things I believe that
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  Speaker 2: will apply to everybody, so that when they let their
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  Speaker 2: head lay their head down at night and they hear
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  Speaker 2: some of the things that I'm not embarrassed but struggle
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  Speaker 2: to disclose, they will realize that anything is possible for them,
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  Speaker 2: absolutely anything.
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  Speaker 1: And that'll probably bring a smile to their face.
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  Speaker 2: How about that, Well, that's that's We all need a smile,
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  Speaker 2: but we have to acknowledge, we have to acknowledge everything
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  Speaker 2: to get to that smile.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Marcus, thank you for prying time out of your schedule.
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  Speaker 1: I look forward to being there and enjoying the time
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  Speaker 1: with you, and thanks so very much.
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  Speaker 2: You got it, Take care, hope to see everybody soon.
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  Speaker 1: Go bye bye bye. Marcus lamonas with us and again
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  Speaker 1: FSU Division of Research working with First Commerce Credit Union,
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  Speaker 1: it's the Power Forward Speaker series with Marcus Lamonis. He
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  Speaker 1: transformed Camping World into well America's leading RV retailer. He
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  Speaker 1: is now the CEO of Bed, Bath and Beyond. He's
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  Speaker 1: going to try to get that back on track and
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  Speaker 1: he'll be at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall. You can get
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  Speaker 1: your tickets now, go to tickets dot f su dot edu.
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  Speaker 1: That's tickets dot f su dot edu. Back with more
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  Speaker 1: of the Morning Show with Preston Scott