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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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W FOURCY Radio.
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Well, hello this morning, Hello today. I'm glad that you're
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able to join me for the next edition of Next.
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Really, one of the reasons I started this show is
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everybody has a Next, And it really started because I
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was looking at people a little older and maybe finishing
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their major career and thinking about what's next for me.
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And there's so many talented people out there, and there's
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so many people that have so much.
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To offer life society.
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Beyond just saying well, I made my major career and
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now I'm retired, I'm also finding out and the show
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is going to expand to this as well, that there
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are a lot of people in their fifties that are
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in certain jobs and they feel stuck, and people need
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to think about what's next and get rid of rid
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of the fear to execute and move forward with something
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next that may be more exciting frightening, but something that
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builds them to their next life level and carries them forward.
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And that goes for kids in school. I mentored students
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at the Cameron School of Business at UNCW, which is
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a University of North Carolina Wilmington, and they're thinking about
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next all the time and are unclear about it, which
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brings me to my next guest, Mark Papillon. Mark is
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who I met. It lives in my community and who
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I met actually as a mentor at the Cameron School
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of Business, although I knew him before. But he is
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really an spectacular individual and he's a perfect example who's
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someone who is next. And he has started the No
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Right to Fail book and series and educational program which
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is a virtual hug for students and for self empowerment.
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I really think it fits a lot for almost everybody
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somewhere in their life where they need a virtual hug.
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You know, Mark is such an interesting person because he
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English is not his first language. He had to come
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here and learn English. He's a native French speaker. He
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was in sales for most of his career for Johnson
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and Johnson, and then he had a passion for helping
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others be successful. And you're going to hear that and
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see that in what he's done. He and I are
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both mentors, as I mentioned before at the Cameron School
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of Business, which speaks a lot because you're giving back
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all the time. But then you put your heart and
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soul into this new project, no right to fail as
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a virtual hug. So tell me about it. How did
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you get started on it? Would Why did this become
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a passion for you?
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Mark?
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Well, it starts slowly, and it starts with inspirations. You know,
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when I retired, I was very conscious that I was well,
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I should say my first retirement. When I retired early
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at fifty five, I was very conscious that I needed
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to do something bigger for the rest of my life.
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It wasn't just getting comfortable, although I could have, but
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that was not the intent. And I started reflecting on
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my career. But the one one big insight that came
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up is I've been mentoring students and young executives for
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the past twenty years and my wife one day said
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to me, Mark, every time you mentor somebody, they get
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a job.
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And wow, that's pretty good.
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Yeah, And it kind of stuck with me a little
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bit because I never saw at that time what I
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did is being extraordinary. I just started as being very intuitive,
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and you know, the intuition felt like this is the
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right thing to do. Nobody's really talking about it because
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we always kind of looked at shaking hands and soft
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skills as being something that everybody should do. Everybody does,
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and then I suddenly realized that it wasn't like that.
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Now you're right, you know.
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And the other thing, the other thing that kind of
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spurred me on is a big part of my life.
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People would tell me I was lucky, and I don't
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want to. I don't want to discount the fact that
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I was very fortunate in my life. But lucky did
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never resonated with me because lucky implied that I didn't
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have anything to do with the success, and I felt.
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I just want an interruption there for one quick second.
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No luck is where opportunity meets preparation and somebody grabs.
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It so well. The book talk We had to do.
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You with You yes, go ahead, Mark, And.
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The book talks about that because you know that we
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used to call the word luck. Now we call it
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unforeseen opportunities because we bring we bring luck to ourselves
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if we do the right things, if we work hard,
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if we surround ourselves to people that are smarter than
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we are.
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Uh.
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And by the way, that was always my motto. Every
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time I hired somebody, I would tell them, look, I'm
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hiring you smart because you're a lot smarter than I am,
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because I need a job done around here, and I can't.
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I can't do all these things because I don't have
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the qualification all these good statement. Well, yeah, exactly, exactly.
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So so that was that was the kind of the
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second inspiration. The third one is I I was being recruited.
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I was trying to find my way into how I
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volunteer and give back to the community. And I was
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being recruited a lot by a lot of organizations. And
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by the way, most of those are very very well
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meaning organizations. But I've got a little, a little stubborn
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edge to myself, and I don't exactly and I don't
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want to be fully scripted, and and and the reason
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I didn't want to be fully scripted. Was not out
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of arrogance, is the fact that I felt I had
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a big message to to send and I did not
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want it to be diluted or or derailed. And incidentally,
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you know, as we talk about this today, I'm giving
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back and the book and the program is free of charge,
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not because I'm I'm a saint here, but because I
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didn't want to dilute my own voice by putting an
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agenda on it. And and the minute, you know, the
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minute you put a dollar or a price on something,
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you you derail your agenda very quickly because people start
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to wonder why you're doing something.
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Yeah.
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Interesting, So so this is kind of where where where
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the backgrounds inspiraated? Uh, it was the inspiration came and
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and then the mentoring of students is something very very rewarding.
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And I'm owning my space, which is really really an
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interesting place for me to be right now.
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Yeah, you've it's taken off. So tell me about the book,
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No Right to Fail?
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What what can people expect when they get the book
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and when they get the program? And you know, how
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are you spreading Well, let's make it two parts. Tell
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us about the book and the program and then tell
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us about how you're spreading it, because I know it's
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taking off in certain places.
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So yeah, well you know the whole the whole thing
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about No Right to Fail is I call it a
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virtual hug for self empowerment.
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I love that.
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And I think the first thing people will notice when
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they see the book if I always tell people, look,
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I'm not trying to win a Nobel Peace Prize on it.
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I'm trying to communicate a message. So when you read it,
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I think people would be would be surprised to see
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how simple the language is in the book. And mainly
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that's the audience I'm trying to reach, right, I'm trying
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to reach a young audience of juniors and seniors in
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high school, and we'll talk.
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We need simple too.
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But I also have a collateral audience that's really rising
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fast about people needing second chance. But what I like
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to say is, I'm very proud to say that it's
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a big idea in simple language. It's not, you know,
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voluminous with a lot of words, a lot of pages,
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a lot of chapters, but it's very much to the point.
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But I have a core belief two core beliefs, right,
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one is that everybody can be successful everybody. I mean,
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I mean that, and nobody is born on the wrong
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side of the tracks. And the only reason some people
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are born on the wrong side of the tracks is
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there's sometimes there's no one there to tell them that
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they have it within themselves to get on the right
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side of the tracks.
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Yeah, great point, great insight.
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And so that's where the virtual hug comes in, right.
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Uh.
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The virtual hug comes in in giving a confidence to
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people that they don't have to be the next guy
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launching the NASA rocket. They just have to be themselves.
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And if they adopt I've got like nine steps in
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this book, and I virtually would tell anyone that they
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they do those nine steps, they will be at least
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middle class in this culture, or maybe even more, they'll
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be an entrepreneur. And it's not it's not hard, but
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it is difficult because it doesn't imply lack of commitment.
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You know, you have to work hard and you have
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to be committed to this, and you know easy and
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then and I'm getting into tangents here, and I don't
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want to get ahead too much, but you know, we
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live in a society of mirages today, and what I
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mean by mirages is we have technology at our fingertips.
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We can send one hundred resumes, you know, in a
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half hour. Well, and then I talk to students all
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the time and they get upset when they don't get
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a reply. Well, they didn't put any more thought into
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it and pushing the send button than the people read, right,
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So they expect the person will reply when they're just
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pushing send on their end. In the old days, we
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used to have to write a letter to each candidate.
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Right, and you didn't have a you didn't have an
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AI up thing that could do that for you.
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Yeah. And oh, by the way, I tell the students,
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you know, if they think they're smart AI, I can
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I can sniff out an AI resume and two shy?
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Can you really interesting? Interesting? Wow? That's a that's a
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there's an article right there, Mark.
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Yeah. Well, I always tell the students that what I
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want them to do in their letters and resumes. I
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don't want them to be grammatically or spelling incorrect, but
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I do want them to be a little quirky. And
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I don't mean quirky in a bad way, in a
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cute way. Because all the AI bots out there are
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are throwing out resumes that don't look authentic. Yeah, so
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if you put a bit a little bit of authenticity
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of who you are in that writing, it kind of
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beats the algorithms a little bit.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, Well it's tough to do, I think, but that's
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a good point.
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So so tell me, so, how did you write the book?
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Tell me about the book and what what what how
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you wrote it and and sort of the I expand
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a little bit more on the why behind.
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Yeah, well the why is, you know, and my quest
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wanted to give back. I was searching for my space
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and I'm going to say thank you COVID, probably one
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of the few people that's gonna say thank you COVID
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for one thing. Here is, prior to COVID, I decided
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to pay back in my own county and I worked
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probably one hundred hours plus on this presentation and I
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was starting to present it to schools and things around
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my own area of Brunswick County, and I was starting
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to get some traction, very small traction, and I have
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to say candidly it wasn't as good as it is
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today because I've had a lot of time to think
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about it, put the book together. Then COVID came and
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we all got locked out.
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Yeah.
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Right, So now I'm sitting here with a presentation, and
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I'm sitting here with a big idea, and I have
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nowhere to go. I mean, I'm stuck in my house.
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So I told my wife, I said, this is ridiculous.
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I've spent all this time and one thing about me
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people know about me is I'm a little bit restless
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and a little bit of perfectionist. Is Like, I'm not
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going to sit here with this presentation. I said to
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my wife. This is much a much bigger idea than