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The topics and opinions express in the following show are
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Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are
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condemned to repeat it. Kevin helen n believes that certainly
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applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at
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W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com
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and now your host, Kevin Helena.
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Thank you all for joining in again today.
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I'm Kevin Hallanan and welcome back to Winning Business TV
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and Radio on W four We are streaming live on
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talkfortv dot com. That's the number four and of course
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run Facebook live at Winning Business Radio as well as
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we're available after the show in podcast form on whatever
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platform you like and that's YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple again
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wherever probably one hundred or so outlets wherever you like
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to listen to your favorite podcasts. The mission of Winning
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Business radio and TV, as regular viewers and listeners know,
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is to offer insights and advice to help people avoid
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the mistakes of others, to learn best practices, you know,
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the how tos, the what toos, the what not tos,
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to be challenged, and I hope to be inspired by
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the successes of others. Who are those others. They're consultants, coaches, advisors, authors,
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founders and owners, entrepreneurs, people with expertise. But you know,
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virtually every successful person I've ever had a chance to
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talk to has had some form of failure in their
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lives and careers. So while we all have to get
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our knee skinned once in a while, I'm driven to
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keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to
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learn from history so we don't repeat it. I've spent
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the better part of my career equipping businesses to grow,
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and that's from solopreneurs to small and medium sized companies
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all the way up to the Fortune fifty. I've seen
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some of those companies win, and to varying degrees, I've
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seen some of them fail. I've had the opportunity to
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rub elbows with some of the highest performing people around
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and with some who probably should have found other professions.
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In my own businesses, I've had lots of success, but
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some failures too, and I like to think I've learned
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a lot from those experiences. So yeah, you'll hear a
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little bit from me, but mostly you're going to hear
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from guests, and today is no exception. My guest today
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is Mike Dwyer. He's the founder of Emplanic Career. Here's
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his bio. About ten years ago, a friend asked Mike
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to look at their resume, and somehow that became an
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occasion to do more than the usual supportive critique, and
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morphed into a conversation along the lines of what would
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excuse me? Would it make sense for you to look
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at this or even that direction? And that deepened Mike's
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interest in workplace issues help people navigate their careers and
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a personal challenge on how he might continuously prepare to
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help people with their careers. Many recent grads, as long
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as long suffering seasoned professionals, are looking for meaningful work,
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something that makes them feel part of something larger what
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do they want to spend the majority of their waking
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time doing. After a long career in both the private
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and public sectors, consulting stints with Erst And, Ernst and
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Young and Deloitte Consulting, and a master's degree in management
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from Salve Regina University, Mike and a select group of
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advisors developed Enplana, the career pathway. They help sort through
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the noise, choosing sorry, choosing a meaningful conversation, a more
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meaningful contribution to the workplace, or succide or society. Mike
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helps seniors look at how they like to spend their time,
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the soft and hard skills needed to take the next step,
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identifying network and educational opportunities, and more. Based at Amberge
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Innovation Center in Boston, they primarily help people discover their
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next chapter. Mike and team worked with white college professionals,
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especially in tech, financial services, and accounting, law, risk and
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professional services. In the last few years, a strong element
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of fighting back has emerged. Globalization, outsourcing, technology and disruptive
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competitors have shifted job security from the expectation of the
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organization to a responsibility of the individual. Mike grew up
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in Triple Deckers in Somerville. I'm curious about that he
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attended two crucial and formative summer programs growing up boys State,
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which was at UMass Amherst and led to attending university there,
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and during the summer before his senior year in high
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school at Phillips Exeter Academy, for which he said he
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was in no way prepared. As mentioned, Mike attended UMass
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Amherston stayed to work for the university at Whitmore Hall
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management services in that systems and administration. He lived in
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southern Sunderland and Deerfield, mass later coming back to the
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Boston areaduring which time he worked in the Route one
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twenty eight tech belt, but also in downtown Boston. He
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and his wife, Kathy have been married for decades and
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have a thirty six year old son, Connor, who's a carpenter,
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and thirty one year old adopted daughter Annie, she's an
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ICU nurse at Mass General. Mike and Kathy's joy is
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their kids and their spouse partner, with whom they offen vacation.
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They currently reside in Hingham, and he feels fortunate that
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he's able to take the commuter boat to Boston which
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is one less stressful than driving or taking the tea,
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and two gives them a chance to get a jump
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on the day. They have two sibling sheltercats, Quinn and Leo.
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Mike.
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Welcome to Winning Business TV and Radio.
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Thank you for being here, Thank you Kevin, and thanks
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for such a great intro. I'll try and live up
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to it.
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Of course, I know that is so common that people
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say that. I've said it myself. So first, tell us
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a bit about Kathy.
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Oh I met her. It sounds glamorous, you have to
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look beyond it. I met her at Waterville Ski area
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on the weekend, so that sounds like okay, ski getaway.
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These guys a big time, right, not at all? Was
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twenty five below zero. We were in snorm Parkers and
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I just said, you're a single on a double chair lift.
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Could I join you? And that started a conversation her
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secretary at the time almost ended us. I tried calling
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a couple of times, no kidding, Jerry screened, and on
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my third and final try I got through and the
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rest is history. And she has a master's in Human development,
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has just retired recently from being a special ed coordinator,
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which I think is a saint to her job, right,
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I mean sure, yes, And so I'm lucky enough. She's
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still a little bit active. She's doing some adult literacy
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work and like that.
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So that's Kathy, love it and tell us about your kids.
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Well, they're so successful and we're lucky because you know,
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you have your ups and downs in family and family.
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Like you said, we had some dark days and uncertain ones.
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My son dropped out of a few colleges, but just
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to shut up his father, he's now running a six
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person carpentry business with high end rendering Cadcam. In other words,
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exactly what he would have done if he'd gone through
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the honors program and any of those colleges. Daughters and
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ICU nurse at mass gen and the reason it's so
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important to me to talk about adoption. I actually asked
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my daughter for permission to say something at a church
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service one time, because it's extraordinary that when you carry
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a baby for a weekend. We got Annie at five months.
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You can't remember when you didn't have her. And I
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can put my hand in my heart and say I
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have a biological and it adopted. There is no difference.
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I'm sure that's exactly the same. So we're lucky, we're tight,
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we do things together. They crack me up, they know
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how to make fun of me better than anything on
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planet Earth, and so we have a good time.
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I can agree with that sentiment too. So Somerville.
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My connection to Somerville is that my dad had a
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business for years on McGrath Highway, and so I knew
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the area pretty well. And that was in the well sixties, seventies,
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a little bit into the eighties, so I know Somerville
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fairly well. Tell the folks though, what it was like
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to grow up in Somerville, and in particularly in multiple
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sounded like triple deckers.
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Yeah, I mean we were poor. We didn't get a
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car till I was ten years old. And at the time,
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you know, in the sixties, what you saw were you know,
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this dad was coming home from John Hancock with the
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Boston Globe folded up under his arm, and the other
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dad was coming back from the Charlestown Navy Yard and
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so on. But as the suburban flight and the tax
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base dropped, things got a little shaky. So I remember
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being a freshman at hu maass Amherston bringing a couple
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of well it was West Roxbury was Tony to me
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and bringing a couple of West Roxbury friends back, and
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this little black and white TV in the kitchen is
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saying somehow, the news breaks in and says most automobiles
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stolen in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Somerville. I'm saying, okay,
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that's over. Thank goodness, that says most stolen cars recovered
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in the Commonwealth, Somerville. And so that's what it was like.
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I think eleven percent of our high school class went to.
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College, so it wow, didn't.
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It wasn't like what my kids grow up in in Hingham,
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where you know, they list every single kid and there's
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six kids who were taking a gap year and one
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of them is going to be a musician or something,
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you know what I mean. But it was quite different
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than that. And mind you though, the whole time they
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were always good, hardworking people. You describe the business Ummergraph
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Highway right.
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For sure, for sure who and which that business hired
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a lot of local, local people, So you know, that's
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all I got to know. So what were your early interests?
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Well, it certainly wasn't being a student. I learned how
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to work before I learned how to do anything useful.
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Academically and so well, that'll never you'll never go wrong, right,
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and so you know you mentioned that. I'll step back
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a little bit. So I was an okay student in
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high school, but by the summer after senior year, I
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was working three jobs to save money for college. Not
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that I did particularly well when I first got there
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or knew how to manage money, but I certainly worked hard.
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But I you know, I think a lot of us
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have our formative years, our biography create motivations and imperatives
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in our lives. And you know I mentioned that experience
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of being a Phillips exeter. I was so out of
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my league. I mean, you know, this guy's dad was
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head of surgery at your you know, but it made
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I Guess what I'd say is, over the decades, that
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was the first impetus to figure out the mainstream and
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later I wanted to share it. And so while I
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wouldn't pretend to know anything about race or gender, I
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can say to almost anybody, let me show you how
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to do this. Come on, now, you could be an AVP.
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You can get going, you know, be authentic, you can
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be yourself. But here's some of the things you can
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do to fit into mainstream work makes sense.
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It does. It does.
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So you spent time in the software and business services
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space and particularly payroll. Tell us a little bit about
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those early positions, kind of what you learned along the way.
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Well, you know, there's another thing. People always misunderstand the
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sentence I'm about to say, and then the second sentence
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rescues it. So bear with me. Okay, I have I
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got seven hundred college boards. So people always say it's
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I thinks he's bragging. Now twice in my life, for
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six or seven years I worked where everyone else had
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eight hundred college boards and so first a software house
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and then later in Bermuda, the reinsurance company. So what
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does that do to you? Well, I just expressed kind
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of a motive or a dynamic that says I want
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to share the mainstream. The second one is if everyone
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around is smarter than you, you have to figure out
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how to be useful, and that's not a bad thing.
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I had to try harder, pay more attention, and in
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both things I eventually got so I got my feet
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under me. So I hope you're seeing that that that
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created a couple of dynamics that are lifelong and that
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I want to share with people. That's excellent.
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Now you mentioned Bermuda and I saw that in your
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in your breast kit. Ernst and Young took it to Bermuda.
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It must have been terrible, Well it was. The wife
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was there with two kids, kids, and I, you know,
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I was platinum in one airline and silver or another,
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not initially earninging. I was just busy, but it was
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it was nice. I mean, there was a great place.
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The kids went to Montessori school. Nice. You know it's there.
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I wouldn't pretend there aren't racial tensions, but there are
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also a lot of neighborhoods that have been intermixed for centuries.
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You'll hear if you see a Trimmingham, that's a white person.
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00:13:27.639 --> 00:13:29.919
If it's an outer Bridge, that's a black person. But