Let's Talk with Leaha & Rhonda

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The following is a paid program sponsored by Crawford management group and smart time consultants. Please be advised that the voices and opinions you may hear do not necessarily represent the views of K u and v Las Vegas, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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Hi, this is Leah Crawford.

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And I'm Rhonda Nolan.

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Welcome to the let's talk with Leann Rhonda show.

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We're here for you and we're ready to go. Let's do it. Good morning. Las Vegas. How's it going?

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Happy Saturday, happy Saturday

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is Saturday morning. And it's a little chilly outside.

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It's right before Thanksgiving.

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It is right before Thanksgiving. Who's ready? Who's ready? Who has their Turkey in the dressing and a cranberry sauce? Who has started preparing their meal already

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and think about it this year, you can actually invite people to your house because we're not in the scare that we weren't last year. Remember?

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That's true. You can invite more than just you and your husband to dinner. You can invite the children and the grandchildren remember

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You didn't go home last night? Because you because of COVID. So we're getting we're moving in a direction where we you know, we were interacting more. So you had Thanksgiving is next week? Well, Rhonda, it is the end almost into 2021. Almost, we're almost there. Almost there. 45

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days left, and it's a wrap

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over. Oh, and it is done.

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And we will be in 2022 still dealing with COVID?

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Two to 202 to 202 to 202 to COVID 202 to God 202 DC 202. All right. So well, what are we talking about today?

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Oh, we're talking about a number of things. First of all, we want to tell you about a great event we went to we had the pleasure of attending Evany power 100 Gala a couple of weeks ago in Beverly Hills, where ebony media honored over 100 people from all different walks of life with awards on their accomplishments for things they have done for their community and for their culture. And so the event was fantastic. Some of the nominees included MC Light,

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and that was amazing because when she came on there, they played the old rap song from back in the day and we were sitting around the table and we were like why they stopped the music because we were just getting in the groove of the song. But she looked amazing too.

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Right? I mean, we we honored folks from all different walks of life, but we honor people who do a lot of work in social justice segment. Britney cutting ham, Cory Bush, Darnell Fraser, Eric afford Keith metals, Nicole, Hannah Jones, Reverend Raph Warnock, all those folks who do things to help the community we we we gave them an award we we showcase them and we also showcase the crown coalition. You're like what is it? I was gonna say well, what is the crown coalition Ron Brown coalition is a law that says you can wear your hair natural in the workplace if you choose to and that you cannot be fired or let go based on your hairstyle. I love it. Yes. And Congresswoman from Los Angeles Ashley started the bill and then Doug jumped on with it and help curate the bill and get it on the Senate floor and now we have 14 states that have signed the bill. So now we got to get the rest of the United States to sign it to make sure that people are not fired. You know based

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on their hair based on I am not my hair. You are not your I am not my hair and my hair. My braids on I have to I have my braids on. I have my braids in and I am not my hair and beauty. It can be defined so many ways, but it was good to see what I loved about the event the most. Well, two things the spelling bee the Scripps Spelling Bee Champion was there she was honored. And also the HB see you stem scholars. Yeah, watching needs 10 young ladies currently at HBCUs we're UNLV but we are Howard grads and we were Hu and that's all you heard. Well, you heard that the schools were there but your Hu you know, Hu you we were there we were just that just that college education.

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Yeah, that was something for me because typically they always award the homecoming queens. They showcase the homecoming queen and we see you now. Smart it's cool to be smart. So this year they honored the stem queens from HBCUs. And yes, we were very happy because they were to Howard University ladies that made the final cut. And p&g was a proud sponsor of HBCU Tim Sweeney, and gave each young lady a $10,000 grant and they did not know they were receiving they didn't. They didn't know to that evening We call them on stage to hand them there and a woman

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from png gave them the envelopes and those young ladies afterwards were ecstatic. And they were. Oh God, they were beautiful. Just absolutely beautiful there. I think look, I mean, Ebony magazine if I'm not mistaken when you guys go back to your public the other separate to print? Yeah, okay. Um, that media, when you go back to print, they are on the first cover, right? They are on the first cover. That is correct. They are on the first cover and beautiful, it is cool to be smart and how many times because athletes always get some recognition but athletes always get the recognition. You know, how many times do we we honor the children that are smart, even a little girl from Scripps from Louisiana. I mean, she was there just little. I'm looking forward to the things that she is going to do. We aren't you guys honored the woman for the vaccine. We did the vaccine, her and her team and she talked about her journey. We also

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honored journalists, we honored Abby Phillips, Charles McCray, blow EBO Darden, Nichelle Turner, Tamron Hall, and Don Lemon, and w. Kamau Bell. They were all honored at the event in the journalism tier. And then we honored some executives, we recognize some executives that were helping to move the culture forward. We recognize some folks from p&g, who are making all of those beautiful commercials, showing the different families together, doing things in a positive manner. So we want to say, you know, thank you to p&g and thank you to Mark Pritchard, and thank you to Damon Jones. And thank you to Stephanie Headley, who was leading the way for diversity and inclusion and Stephanie's amazing American

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talk got to talk to Stephanie on the elevator and just her her aura her her presence is it was thank you for the invite. I had. Well, you know, I enjoy Beverly Hills anyway, we just we had a ball in Beverly Hills.

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We did an ebony also honored the next generation and that was sponsored by McDonald's. So we had Noah Harris. He's a Harvard he's the first black Harvard student body president. We honored John moody, who's our artists and athletes and and he's a wonderful artist, his artist fantastic. Chiquita camera, who is co founder of a black Jen capital company. Chloe and Hayley very badly. They Bailey I'm sorry Chloe and Haley Bailey. They are new r&b duo, and Amanda Gorman, poet and activist. She also received award along with Nina de caster who was a director of screenwriter and Nicholas Johnson, who was Princeton University's 200 Oh 2020 class valedictorian, and of course Zillah avant garde she is the Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion. It was they were all honored as well.

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And what I love is the theme of it, it was bold, it was black. It was beautiful. And everything I mean, just everything about it spoke elec the whole weekend, the whole weekend. It was it was an amazing, amazing weekend it

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was and you can check out the show. And you can check out the power talks that happened out evany.com, just go to me.com. And go to the power talks tab at the top of the the website. And you can see all the wonderful things that happened during that event. And we also did some power talks where we got a chance to talk to some of these executives at these companies and talk about their journey and different things their companies are doing in the African American community. So check it out. evany.com That's huge.

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That's huge. Well, Rhonda again, I say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ebony is back, baby. Evany is back. Ebony is back and we support it. Ebony is back. Well, I do want to talk about we talked businesses. I know you said you had some stuff about some updates about the SBA, just general things that were

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going on. So basically, we're now at the end of the fourth quarter. And businesses are looking at their budgets kind of see where they are and how they're doing. If you feel that you your company needs some extra funding to help get you through the first and second quarter of next year, the idle loan is available. And you have until December 31 To get your application in. So if you had never filed for idle loan, you can put in a new application. And if you already had an idle loan prior and you reuse those resources, and you need a little more resources to make sure that your doors stay open through the second quarter next year. You can also apply for reconsideration for a larger amount of money.

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Good job, good job. So December 31, December 31 December 31. So have you know someone that got the idle loan, they're not aware you do not do not do a new application. You go into your application, whether you got denied before, and you apply for a re consideration, they are responding a lot quicker. Now. They have better systems in place. It's been a year and a half. They've been working and working and working better systems in place. They responded within 24 to 48 hours. Yes. may take a little bit longer to get funded, but you will get some response. So why look at your emails,

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your watch your emails, we're using Mail sba.gov. And all that information is right there. Also, this is national entrepreneur month. So for all you entrepreneurs, Congratulations, you made it this is your month. And the SBA has a lot of programs, other programs outside of COVID programs to help you further along your business. Well,

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the thing about it is if you're a new entrepreneur to SBA site is a wealth of resources. It's a wealth of resources. And they they they cross the border, because they understand that small business is the is the backbone of this country, even though large companies employ a lot of people, collectively small business owners employ more people. So it's very important to keep our small businesses open. Operating because everybody can work at the big companies. Right, right. And, you know, supporting our small and local businesses is also very important. Just turning the dial over in our community. So kudos, kudos to a national entrepreneurs mob. I've been entrepreneur now, for

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a long time. Yeah, it's

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been a lot. It's been a long time, right. But let's good segue into this though. Because I was thinking, as an entrepreneur, even though you're a business owner, life still happens.

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Five does happen, life still happens.

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You are you become a master juggler in a different type of way. Because depending on what your life is, you know, if you're single is one set of dynamics, if you're single with children, there's another set of dynamics, if you're married, there's another set of dynamics if you marry with children, nother set of dynamics and being able to maneuver your family, your work and your life. You know, because as entrepreneur, if you don't go get it, it doesn't happen. That's right, right. If you don't, if you don't, like I say, if I don't work, I don't eat. That's right. And sometimes I eat chicken, sometimes I eat the feathers. But if I don't work, I don't, you know, I don't eat. And how do you as entrepreneur and then also as an entrepreneur, know dealing with your emotions, because things happen with COVID, a lot of us have experienced a lot of death in and around us whether it was a close family member or a friend or just someone that that you knew, and you have to process your emotions, because sometimes you can't stop working. Yes, right. Sometimes you can't stop working. And, you know, what are some things that you find like say, when the pandemic happen when the emotion of being shut down? So identifying the emotion that was being scared, being fearful, having anxiety? What are some of the things that you did to help you get through,

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you know, had to pull up that Bible. You had to pull up the good book, and read some passages and get your whole mind and focus in order, okay. I know for you, you did meditation,

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I did. MIT, I got I got real deep into meditation, I started meditating and working out more, started meditating, working out and mine was positive affirmations. It was a bunch of positive affirmations and meditating and, and really accepting that this is where we are. And then start just started. I stopped watching the news all the time. Because the news was creating a fear I needed to have information but I needed to be able to process we're in a pandemic, and wash your hands go out limitedly especially when we were first shut down. I don't think I went out the house for the first two months, right? Nobody did. I don't think anybody Well, some people had to go out and go to work. But it was

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Oh, that's right. Yeah, the first responder first responders

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they had to go right so but just being able to sit and enjoy the time that I was home and really enjoy it. I think my children came out and we had a party every day, right? And we really got a chance to get to know each other and and do some different things, but it was having the anxiety and learning different techniques first of all to identify the emotion and then how do I handle and deal with the emotion and then move on? You know, I can I can sit in it, not drown in it. And then move on. It was huge. It was huge because then the pandemic became okay, so change things were changing how we do business with no people come into the office Nope, can't come into the office. So let me find a way for you to sign your tax return communicate with us in a secure manner because We're dealing with with your financial records. So let's find a way to communicate and still do business. And, you know, I had some older, you know, learning technology was huge

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technology was used. And if you were a person who didn't have a lot of experience using DocuSign, and in using Adobe, and all those things, you were not very happy.

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At first. I was not, I was not, but I found myself again, because be the blessing is being a consistent learner. I'm a learner. So I have, I don't know it. I understand. I don't know it, but I can learn it. So because I can learn it. Now I know how to use I know how to use all those softwares I know how to use a zoom became actually real good as zoom. Or you can drop this you can do this, you can make everybody mute you, could you I mean, then, you know what I'm gonna do Google meets, let's see if what Google means does. Learning how to operate function in a virtual environment, and still be productive, was pivotal. It was pivotal, but I am happy for the experience. I feel blessed because I learned how to do so much more. And it pushed me out of my comfort zone.

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Right? You had to think outside of the box, put the box away.

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Away, because the high we used to do things just we couldn't do it like that anymore. No, but then dealing with the emotions and then like with death, you know, dealing with the emotions that come up with death because you you see things and you you how do you how do you handle it? Right, you know, I I'm now an avid avid supporter of go get help.

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Yeah, yeah, I have several friends who lost a lot of folks during the pandemic. And they they needed to speak to someone about it, because they were feeling some type of way. And so they had opportunity to reach out to professionals, and have conversations with professionals and about their feelings, and they were able to work on those things.

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Yep. Every therapist I know was super busy. Yeah, every therapist I know was superduper hard to get an appointment. Yeah, dude. Yeah, they were they were super busy. And because they were super busy, then they had to go because they have to dump as well. Right? They, you know, they're people that I mean, so it was a lot of movement. And just your mental, because it's your mental health, right? It's

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your mental health. It's your mental health, that you need your physical strength, but you also need your mental so

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I got even better than for you Rhonda, even less, less, less take it I look at when I when I look at just just life in general, I think about my health set. How healthy am I? Am I going to the doctor's? Am I doing the things that I need to do if I have high blood pressure, diabetes, whatever? I mean, what's my diet? Am I working out on what am I doing to be healthy? My soul? Some people go to church, some people are spiritual, just different things. But what is your soul set? And where do you want your soul set to be? I look at my my mindset. Is my mind healthy, right? Is my mind healthy? Because if my mind is poisoned, it's going to affect everything else, right? And then I also look at my soul set my soul sets of my I'm sorry, my heart set, what is my heart saying? Right? Truly, what is my heart saying? Where is my heart and kind of put all those things into perspective, to think about, you know, these, these these four pillars, and I'm consistently if they are in alignment, because when I see a deficiency in one, it can actually affect all of them, right? All of them. And so working on what I can improve on and staying consistent in what is going well. Because during the pandemic, we got new customers, we got old customers, we have customers dying, and sometimes being able to say no, I can't do this, or no, realistically, I had because during when tax season was about to end, you know, clients calling in because they want to get their warm smile. Right? And honestly, we couldn't accommodate. So being honest and saying I can't accommodate you this year. Because you're you're calling me on October 13 for an October 15 deadline. I'll see you next year. I can't do it right and being able to say no and being okay. With the no because I wanted to take care of everybody that was already in our offices, our current clients, right? So it was it was different. And as an entrepreneur, you have to be able to make those decisions. Think through it and move on. You have to do what's best for your business. You have to do what's best for your business yet because I realized I was talking to some some other folks we were sometimes I think about getting big contracts, and I've had big contracts, larger contracts in my business. I learned that in my for me and my business. I need consistent smaller contracts.

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Those work for you better those work

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for me better, because what happened when I had the big one, the big one goes away? Where am I?

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Right, and you have staff to pay and staff day and bills to pay to keep your building open and right. But if I have, I have

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a number of medium small to medium contracts, one drops off, cool, okay, I love you wish you the best I can replace you, right? Easy to replace easy to replace them move on. I also you know, in, in, in, in sitting for this exam, looking at numbers, and making sure that your numbers are in alignment with what you want to do with your business and how you know that because the numbers don't lie, right? You know, people play with them, they cook the books, but you know, if you look really looking at your numbers, your numbers tell the story of your business. And

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we talked about that we talked about having, you know, having monthly sales goals. We talked about having those and, and, you know, keeping account of all the money that your company is bringing in and looking at what your goals are? What do you set the goal? And what actually happened? You know, did you meet your goal? And then why didn't you meet your goal? And why didn't you meet your goal? If you exceeded your goal?

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What what what did you do?

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Best practices? What did I do to exceed my goal this month? And how can I maintain that growth for next month, and for the rest of the year? So you have to have those conversations with your team? You know, with your team? What where do we go from here, and you know, this year was a tough one, because most of the year, a lot of businesses weren't really opening it, they weren't they weren't really operation operating the way that they had in the past of 2019. So it's a lot, but hopefully, you know, there are companies that did well, you know, although we're going through this COVID-19 situation, there are companies out there that did well that prospered and and some people didn't do so bad, you know, some people may only be down 10%, you know, what their your annual sales would typically be

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and that people heart I mean, heartfelt some people close. Yeah, and

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then some people, it just it just didn't work, it just didn't work for them. They could not, they could not carry all those bills, the overhead of running a business they could not carry without having their customers walk through the door or order online, or however they sell their product.

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What I can tell you is though, the process to success is failure. Absolutely. The process of success is failure. And I know, the company I have now wasn't the first company I started, right is the best one I did. But it was the first one I started right and failure.

Unknown Speaker 22:38
But you learn from your failures. I mean, you may have you may start a particular business, you learn more from your failures, though, then you do your success. Actually you do. But most of the entrepreneurs I know, did not win on their first business at all or second business. They didn't win to the third or fourth business. But they what they read that too. But sometimes they took what they learned from the first and second business and applied it to the third business and they were able to be successful. Because it's a learning process. It's a learning process and learning from exactly to learn. And it's in some for some people, when you're starting something new and you're rolling the dice, it's probably good to already have a job, you know, where you know that your everyday bills and whatnot can be taken care of, while you work on this new business, and to get to where it needs to be, and therefore you're less stressed.

Unknown Speaker 23:24
Alright, so the thing about it, okay, so with the book, I started reading a book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And that's what that's what and that was the logic. It was if you have a job and you're doing a side, the side thing, that the side thing needs to generate equal more money than the job that you have before you replace it before you replace the job. Correct. And it's the same. I mean, same logic, like I'll think about me being an entrepreneur, and if I was married, so marry couples, if one person is starting the business, the other person keeps their job, so that you can make sure that you know Maslow's theory in the law of hierarchy, you know, we got food, clothing, and shelter, if those needs are met. Because that causes a different type of stress when those needs aren't met, you start your business and you push your business now I wasn't blessed in that way I started a business and didn't have any other income. So it created a different type of stress, a different type of stress, because I am trying because of the field that I'm in integrity is very important. And dealing with different documents and having this hurt some customers away because I didn't feel comfortable with working with them. Because when I'm your accountant, we're in a relationship, right? You know, I have to feel comfortable with the integrity of the person that I'm dealing with. I mean now you can have and when I say integrity, not you can have bad years right? That's okay let's report the bad years. But you can't right off the boat and in in the trip that you took with the family that Enjoy the data data die and talk about whatever was a business. No, it wasn't having those hard conversations and saying, it's not a business expense, and does your income match your lifestyle?

Unknown Speaker 25:10
Right? Right. And I've done it both ways. Back in the day, I had a fortune 500 job, and I had a business on the side that did very well. And then this time, I just started it with nothing. And it was hard at first, you know, but rewarding, but once I got it go, and it took me two good years to get it to where it needed to be. But the feeling you have when you have a successful business is unlike anything else

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it is I can't say that the feeling I like the time freedom. Because I am able to maneuver I have more control over my time, right. And even though I work I know and also because I one time, I will also believe in work life balance. I've got the office so that I work because I was working at home. And first when I first started the business, and I was meeting people at Starbucks, I knew where every Starbucks in the city was. When I went to an office, somewhere, my mentor told me take everything out of your house now work on your work life balance, because that's where you are. So for years, I didn't do don't don't even don't even call me about nothing that has to do with the business because I'm home. Right and um, business is turned off. And I was blessed to be able to do that the pandemic changed it. So now I have a healthy balance. You know, I compartmentalize my daughter calls the stations, we have stations in the house, this station isn't a workstation, when you're in the station, you're not working station is a workstation. This station is a no bipolar that does several different things as multifunctional. So I can say that, in anything, be open to change. Don't be so rigid, especially as an entrepreneur, be willing to flow.

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But you do need personal time for yourself. You have to have to it depending upon what time you start work. I start work typically about 5am and by 5pm. I'm done. Well. I shut it all down computers, everything. I leave my office because I go to work. I work from home. So I go from I get up, I take my shower, put on my clothes and I walk down the hall. I'm in my office and I'm in that office from 5am to 5pm at 5pm. I close the drapes I cut the lights off, I shut the computer down and I go downstairs

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and that's fun because that's what my kids used to do. They say

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open up the drapes, open up the drum at work. drapes the almost floor right then I walked downstairs to my kitchen a living room I make myself something to eat. I plop in front of TV and I let my mind relax.

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So I got one even better I got a better one for you. Friday is my day.

Unknown Speaker 27:48
Yeah, Friday that's been your day. Definitely a four minute Friday is

Unknown Speaker 27:51
my day. And not don't don't Hey, though, look at where you going. I'm going to do me and when I finished doing me, then we can talk about it. But in this whatever whatever it is, again with the weekend but Friday Fridays me and I know Brenda's like well you know somebody wants to come in on Friday. Absolutely. I don't even let it get finished. She says Friday that's me

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Friday is my fun day. I either like to cook something good you know that I really want like some catfish and a big potato and a nice salad. You identify me? Oh my god. Right yeah. Oh my god. So you there's a day that cooks

Unknown Speaker 28:24
I mean, she can cook now. I know everybody that knows me. knows I don't I have learned I can't cook. I have learned that I can cook not bad at it but how should one meal and she's not gonna bite

Unknown Speaker 28:38
me. I know I'm gonna do I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna do better with that. I'm starting to email

Unknown Speaker 28:42
her you email her let her know that she needs to invite Leah over wish he is cooking Rhonda will

Unknown Speaker 28:47
but you know Leah has been very busy because I don't know if you know Las Vegas LEA has been preparing herself for the CPA exam. So she has been underground. I have only seen her on the radio whenever we come to tape the show otherwise I haven't seen her as much as I will

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pray because she like it

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all right on Monday more All right, we're gonna I get

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my final tour. So last day for me. Yes, yes, yes. If a gold right. I will be Angelique Lea Crawford sci fi out in the universe next month and so next month I think we're done. We're done. Nothing we over. We're done.

Unknown Speaker 29:20
We're right on time. Listen, Las Vegas. It's been a pleasure speaking with you today I'm Rhonda no mind Lea Crawford. This has been less talk with Leah and Rhonda on K u and v radio. Happy Saturday.

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Happy Thanksgiving.

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Happy Thanksgiving and don't forget to exercise this week. Have a good one with Apple go bye bye.

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You have been listening to a paid program sponsored by Crawford management group and smart time consultants. Please be advised that the voices and opinions you heard do not necessarily represent the views of K u and v Las Vegas, the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai