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. 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 Liam Rhonda show we're here for you and we're ready to go. Let's do.

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Morning Las Vegas. How are you doing? Miss Leah Crover on his beautiful Saturday morning.

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Good morning, Rhonda. Hey, it's cold.

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Oh my God. It is it's cold.

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That's how I am doing it is cold. But how are you doing today?

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I am super fantastic. It's so bright and shiny outside today. I cannot wait to get out there and do something.

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Do something I can say good morning to my servers of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. We are putting we're ready to put together some Thanksgiving basket. That's right. I am so excited. We are going to help some families out this Thanksgiving season. So good morning saw roars Good morning scoreboards. Have fun. Let's get those baskets together. And let's have a good time.

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Fantastic.

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You I know you got an event going on. It's coming up.

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I do. I'm working with the 100 black men in Las Vegas, they have their Thanksgiving and friends event and they're gonna be given out 1000 dinners to folks in the community to senior citizen homes. Who you notice first question, the Culinary Academy is providing the food they're making the meal so the meals are already done. So all the person would have to do is just come pick up their meal and take it home and eat it up. And so on Wednesday, we will be at Nevada Partners at 11am. And we will be at the Family Support Center for CCSD at 11am. So if you'd like to register or RSVP for a free meal or if you know someone who would like to have a free meal for them and their family for Thanksgiving, go to eventbrite.com and look up Thanksgiving with 100 Black men and you can fit in you can let us know which location you'd like to come to to pick up your meals for your family. So you can have a happy Thanksgiving. So

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are we okay, so let me let me make sure I'm clear. are we sitting down eating these meals or are we getting to go plates

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you get to get your you will show up and your plate will be ready to go and you will pick it up and take it home. And then the next day on Thanksgiving. You put it in the oven for a little bit warm it up and then you're ready to rock and roll.

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I think that is absolutely amazing. Where do I sign up because that means I can get a meal and I can you know I can get a meal and I can eat. I'm sure it's gonna be good food.

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It's gonna be very good good food. The culinary does a fantastic job. Have you ever eaten at the Westside bistro I have enough it was they they run the Westside Bistro. I'm gonna tell you guys, especially for you entrepreneurs, you need a place to go take a meeting and have lunch. Check out the West Side Bistro. It is fantastic. The food is great the students are and they're learning the whole hospitality business and they're learning the cooking and serving and the drinks and blah blah blah. But it's fantastic. The food's good. But yes, the culinary is is providing the food and no doubt it's gonna be great.

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No doubt it's going to be great. So if you if you know someone that is can hear the sound of our voice, you know someone that needs help during this holiday season. And sometimes just too proud to ask. Yeah, when you think about a lot of given it's a lot of food. And the fun is in the kitchen, but I'm like who gonna eat all the foods so I'm making a habit of you know, going from house to house and partaking in everyone else's festive activities for Thanksgiving

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is a wonderful thing where you can go house to house and make yourself a plate. Then bring it home freeze it and then pull it out anytime you want it. Yes, you can. Because Food always tastes better the next day because the seasonings have set in.

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Well, depends on who's the one to cook it. I know for me, I like fresh food and Rhonda knows I like fresh foods. So I like fresh food.

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I like fresh and I love leftovers. Leftover queen. Okay. Yes,

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she is Yes, she is. That is not my call my call and I am not the leftover queen. But I want to say you know what, Rhonda? We've been doing this show now for over a year almost a couple of years, a couple of years now. Yeah. And really, we really want to know what entrepreneurs aren't being an entrepreneur is something special, it takes a special type of grit to be on. First of all, I say that you got to have ego when you have to be humble, the ego that says I can go out here and I can make a living doing my own thing or this idea that I think people will pay me for, but humbling because people actually pay you for your services. But it is not an easy road. Not an easy road. Not at all. And I know Doran COVID with the pandemic. A lot of entrepreneurs didn't make it right and I want to say to you don't give up. Don't give up don't give up. You might have to regroup read Do don't give up. Because that was a very hard time for everyone in so many ways. And but I also know that there's opportunity in that because some businesses thrive,

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a lot of businesses started

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a lot of business and a lot of businesses started. And if you started your business, and I just did a seminar today, and we were just talking about, you know, if, if you want to start a business, what are some of the things that you can do? I am an avid, avid supporter of our chambers, our chambers are set up for small businesses. And whether you had to urban urban chamber Las Vegas chamber, Henderson chamber, Asian chamber, African chamber, African Women's chamber, women's chamber, the Hispanic Chamber. Yeah. Just being able to go to the chamber because I was doing for the for urban Chamber of Commerce this morning, we were doing we had they have a series that is talking about, you know, just Moneysmart. So as a small business owner, what are the things that you need to think about today was tax reporting and planning? So tax reporting and planning, just, you know, you're entrepreneur, you set your business up? Now you're like, Okay, what do I do next? Well, you know how to sell your product. But who are the people that you need to hire. So best, I mean, rule of thumb, I always say, from I didn't that got this from my mentor, 30 years ago, you want an accountant, and you want an attorney? Well, because things have changed. Now, you also want a marketing person, because the social media, is how a lot of businesses are growing, talking about their products, people are buying their products. I think I've purchased more stuff online, in the past three years, than I have the prior years before that, in the past three years from small business. And these are from small businesses, right? These are some I mean, and finding out about different different designers and stuff like that. And I can tell you, as an entrepreneur, we have to be creative and genius. And really understand that, you know, if you're if you're called to do your business, it's not always going to be easy, right? It's not always going to be fun, but it can always be rewarding. That's right. Always be rewarding. And I've been an entrepreneur now for 15 years. So it's always rewarding, even when the money I mean, because I tell people, sometimes I eat a chicken, sometimes I eat the feathers, right? But I'm always eaten. And but I've planned it where when I have very good months, I say. So when I have not so good months, I can pull a little bit of want to savings, but I've become very frugal. And you know, just an implant consistently plan, do review, plan, do review plan to review. You got anything to add.

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I want to say that I over the last month. You know, I was deep into all of the politics and I was out you know, everyday relations.

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Everyone won their races. Congratulations to everyone that has the guts to run for office.

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Oh, yes. It's hard work. Ladies and gentlemen, you guys have no clue how hard it is on the candidates that are running for office. But I had an opportunity to work with several small businesses around the city of Las Vegas. And let me tell you something, they all did a great job. I mean, they all came to the events. They played the music, they serve the food, they they were fantastic. So I want to give a shout out to everybody that worked with me on my political campaign work. Let's see that's DJ benzo DJ Kelly J, not a boy. And not a boy is one of my favorite. And then we had we had enjoy Chicago food truck. We had blazing chariots food truck, we had it's lit food truck, we had country boy catering, we had Joe to go coffee. We had Shadyside coffee, we worked with so many different food trucks, and they were fantastic. So I want to say thank you to everyone that worked with me on my political project, you really made the work of joy

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made to work with joy. And you know, I don't we don't get into politics, but as business owners, we got to

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vote. You got to we have to vote every time after we have to vote.

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I know I was we were we were waiting for the results for different races. And a girlfriend of mine called me from Texas. And she's asking, you know, did you know certain pay person when? And I was like, Well, you know, we got 49% of mail in ballots. She so 49% of our vote people mailed in your ballots. And she was aware I was like so in the state of Nevada. There's no reason why you didn't vote. That's right. There's no reason because the ballot is mailed to your front door mail to your front door. You do some fill in the blanks. Sign it. You must sign it. You must sign it. Yes you do. You must sign it and the reason why I'm stressing that is because they had to cure ballots. We shared it and part of curing the ballots was matching the signatures and different things like that. That's right sign it and send it back in and the postage is already went up the postage is there

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and then You could fill out the ballot drive to one of the early vote locations and drop it

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and drop it off. So and you can verify because I, you know, me I looked at because I when mom was in the mass, like I said in the bed, I looked at my, my all my stuff because I laid my stuff out, I filled in the blanks, put it together, mailed it first day, and checked on the website to make sure that it was counted. And it was green, it was counted. That's right. And I was like, Oh, that was easy. Because you know, normally I like to touch the buttons. Yeah,

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some people like to to touch the button. For those folks. That's fantastic. But for some of you guys who are so so busy, especially you entrepreneurs that are really busy running businesses, the best thing you could have done is filled out your ballot, drop it in the mail, or filled it out and dropped it off at an early vote location, it would have taken 60 seconds. So I hope you did exercise your right to vote this time. And I hope you do it again. When we get ready for this next big race.

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Oh, yeah. Because there's some more races coming up. There are some I mean, we are betting our next big election is in 2024. Where we will be electing president we are going through Yeah, for Biden's reelection. So again, pay attention and may say, Well, I'm too busy. I don't think my vote counts. I can tell you in some of those races, every vote counts

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in all of the races. Every vote counted. If you were following everything on the news last couple of weeks, and you were following the numbers. You saw that the margins were very thin, very thin. So you know, some people one by 100 volts or 10 volts or five volts or one volts. So yes, your one vote absolutely counts.

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Absolutely count. I can tell you that. For me. It is in my phone. Okay, so let's see who's calling me this morning. You know, and they unknown. So I thought I had my phone on silent. I'm sorry, I don't. But every we can every vote counts. And I had someone tell me that they were their dad didn't vote because he was a convicted felon. So his misconception was as a convicted felon, he could not vote. And I'm like, that's not the law in the state of Nevada is you can vote as a convicted felon if your rights are restored. So again, exercise your right. That's right to vote, exercise your right to vote. But I'm glad is over. It was a interesting season. I'm glad it's over again, congratulations to everyone that won their races and congratulate everyone that even ran, you know, like a lot of courage. It took a lot takes a lot of courage, lots of courage to run these races. Be an entrepreneur, why do you want to know this state assembly State Senate, they're going into session, we need to know what laws I mean, if someone if some organization is lobbying for it, you know, just for your profession, you know, food trucks, businesses that do retail sales, sales and use tax, you want to know if the tax rate is going to increase. You know what's going on in the legislature. And you want to make sure that you're informed. You don't have to go like in detail and know all that, you know, but you need to know what's going on in sessions, what bills are being drafted, what they're talking about, and give updates. And I know that certain, I'm going to ask if we can get someone to come on. It's anything that's dealing with small businesses to come and talk to us after next year, especially during session about bills that can affect our businesses. I know for my business in the 2017 session, it was a doc prep license. So you had to have a doc prep license in order to file or to if you have certain types of businesses adopt prep license is required. And as reading through the legislation, I was like, Oh, so now my staff has doc prep licenses, right? Because it's required for us doing taxes if we're not enrolled agents, pop Certified Public Accountants and see attorneys to have this license. So again, you want to keep up to date with business licensing, different requirements that you have to have to have and if things change, if things change, that's so

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true, especially your business licensing people, please pay those because let me explain what happened. I had a client that finally got their business license during COVID, which I helped them with. Well, silver flume sent you an email 60 days before it's due days, 30 days, 30 days to write. So when I set this business this up for the client, it was that information will come to the clients email address, right. So now it's two years later, and now something has popped up that the client wants to be part of and what do they need to have a business license? So what did they do? They called me and said, Hey, did you have you have you Did you pay my business license to renew? I was like no and I wouldn't do that. I said because the information comes to you to your email box. And you would have received it you would have called me and said you receive Did it and said, Let's go online and pay but you did not do that. And he was like, Yeah, cuz I need to have a business license for this next thing, this next project I'm working on. And now they you know they want $1,200. I was like, yes, because you haven't paid any late fees and late fee. So you got to pay for the license, you got to pay for late, late fee, and it's 1200 out and I'll pull your checkbook out

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for you check. That's costly. When you don't, it's costly when you don't, when you don't renew when you don't renew, they do. So one of the services that we do offer is that reminder service at my company. And what we find is, and we tell our because we we serve, you know, we serve as a resident agent, you don't have to be an attorney and state of Nevada resident agent. And because what we were finding is early on, clients weren't renewing their state business license. Either they forgot. I mean, whatever life gets in the way, life happens, life gets in a way. But we were able to work with clients and tell them Look here, we can do this for you. We can see because silver flows, while still still you send us a message. That's right. But now you have an extra layer, because I'm also going to call you, remind you and remind you, and remind you and ask you to pay

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and after you after you miss paying it one time, and you have to pay that $20 Because I have to say this several years back, I did the same thing was very early on when I started my business. And then there was a little light in the beginning. And then I you know, didn't renew my license. And then a project came up that needed to have it and I had to pay that $1,200 And I have not missed since then.

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Well, let me tell you. So I'm blessed. I have it. And but what I do is this so I know when best practices, you know when you started your business, right? Okay, that's right. So I have I started mine on May 31. Just happens to be my mother's birthday. So not know my mother's birthday. Not only does she get a president, but so does the Secretary of State. So everybody gets presents. Oh, mommy's birth. Everybody gets everybody gets everybody gets together. And it was I had to find a way. You know, we talked about documentation being an entrepreneur or something being responsible. When you set these businesses up. These things are not a suggestion because those penalties can add up. They sure can they add up to pain? Oh,

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who wants to? Nobody wants to pay those?

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I could do a lot with that with a couple 100 data sets Amelie.

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Oh my god. It's a car who

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knows? Part of it? It's a lot. You just, it pays to have professionals around you, right that can assist you in your business. Being a business owner is definitely like I said, again, one of the most rewarding things. But I know I had to get better at certain things like certain things I'm good at because I am an accountant. So the filing the taxes and doing I'm good at that stuff. That stuff is like clockwork, I can do my own stuff, right? Do I do for other clients? No. So when it comes to like when they have employees, for me best practices, hire payroll company, hire a payroll company. Because what you don't want to do we were talking about this this morning. You pay your employees, you're supposed to remit X amount of dollars to the IRS. Sometimes the money doesn't get to the IRS, you start using it for operator because you're a small business owner, and sometimes you are you're juggling, you're juggling, don't juggle with the IRS this body, right? Don't juggle with the IRA, pay them, pay them and paid them. And again, that's why I like payroll companies, because what payroll companies do is when you run payroll, they send you a bill for how much everything is you need to have this amount of money and you don't even look at it. This how much I need to have enough, you know, in the bank, that much money is in the bank. Y'all take the money. That's it. That's all. We're good. That's right. And, again, you don't get into trouble because if you start using the money, oh, I'll pay it back, oh, I'll pay it back or not. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger may be disciplined in another way. So that you don't have that, that issue. And this morning that I was shocked. That was one of the things that was in the presentation because we have already done a presentation and that was one of the things you know, do not do not use the payroll tax money. For operational expenses. Always set that money to the side and

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a different account actually should have two different accounts. You should you should should have should payroll accounting, you should have an operating expense account

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and you really want to do that because you want to make sure especially when you when you have multiple employees, you want to make sure because you don't want to get assessed with a trust fund recovery penalty. If the IRS really starts digging in and this becomes a habit of you using that money. You want to kind of go It's kind of budgeting, like, if you is a budget in a different way, because it when you do, it's a little bit more sophisticated. Because if you're dealing with a small business owner, you make $100, you got to figure out how you're going to spend, or how you're gonna spend, allocate that $100. And depending on what your annual income will determine what the allocation should be, because number one, you always want to pay you, right? That's why you became an entrepreneur. But more importantly, you want to make sure that everything else is covered. So if you have a tax liability, the tax liability is covered. If you have rent, you have to pay, the rent is covered. If you have just utility bills, all that other stuff, right? All those bills are covered. And but as an entrepreneur, you have to really sit down and become intimate with your numbers have a good relationship with your numbers. Yeah. Because they'll tell you what you're doing.

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Mike right now. Well, you shouldn't be planning for next year.

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Actually, right now we are in August. That's a conversation we can have next month, planning for next year. Looking back at this year, because a lot of things have happened this year, a lot of things have changed. Having that review, and planning for next year, if you want to do I mean if you do budget and we do a budget, so we do a budget, I know how many people that I need to touch next year in order to for us to reach our desired number. But I also know how much money I'm gonna spend next year. And I was just like, oh, oh, my Yeah, no, that first I was like, Oh, okay. Got it. All right. And then honestly, as entrepreneur, I know, we don't talk about the spiritual sides of this. But for me, I'm like, I've got you got this, right, because I don't have a clue. How are we gonna do this? You promise? Okay, got it. I'm just gonna do the work. But getting up every day and doing the work every day and doing the work and handling our business.

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That makes sense. It makes

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a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. So for you, what do we what do you have planned for 2023? Oh, wow.

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So now that events are back happening again? Yeah. Yay. Yes. I

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think the shutdown happened when you were about to have an amazing Oh my god.

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Amazing. I had I've worked so hard in 19 that I set my 20 up beautifully to reach my desired goals. Right. And then it went away. After the first quarter. The first quarter was great, like my first quarter or 20. I'm knocked out of the park. So then we went to the second quarter in COVID. It didn't go so well. But the beautiful thing is that my business has started coming back to me. I'm so happy about that. brought on a couple of new clients that I'm very excited about. So next year is looking fantastic for me. Okay, next year, almost started with a bang starts with CES and then we keep going

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starts with CES and keeps going because you because you don't want now if you have because you're doing events, right? So Rhonda will I mean we'll talk will tell us about about your company and what you do.

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So smart Time Productions actually produces different events in Las Vegas and around the country. And those events consist of galas, fundraisers, activations, at festivals, activations just every day. And I guess you're saying to myself, what does that what does that?

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What does that what does that

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so I don't know if you remember driving down south Las Vegas Boulevard. And you saw the VW bug in that little corner on Fremont Street. It's off Las Vegas Boulevard and I had the bug up in the air and it was a lift, it was lift to promote and market lift. That was an activation of activation the state for a for a for three months in people walked by look at it, take pictures, do all that type of stuff. So things of that nature when you go to believe it or not. When you go to Costco you see the ladies they're serving you a sample, that's an activation, it's just a different type of activation. That's the food and beverage activation.

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Alright, so So y'all, we learned something new today. So when we go into these stores, and we see them handing out samples, we can say that's the activation VAFA

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activation is a bet that that brand wants you to know about their brand. So they're offering you a sample of that brand. So you could taste it and then buy it from whatever store you're in. So stuff so many things like that. And then we do VIP events. We do red carpets for different award shows. We do all types of things we work we do. We do conferences, you know, if you have a conference, we we we do conferences, from top to bottom. We do conferences where people speak speaking engagements, you know,

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we do a whole bunch of stuff. So because we'd never know what happens behind the scenes. You

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never know what happens behind the scenes, when you show up to these events is just not a lot.

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But I've seen Rhonda work and it is a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make sure that the event goes off without a hitch. Exactly make it to make sure that it goes smoothly. Yeah. How long have you been doing this a long time?

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A long time, but I love it. So it's not like his work.

Unknown Speaker 24:50
It's not like his work. And though in the future, we said we wanted to talk about some other things because I know there are a lot of different things going on. I want to see if we can get the personal development Ah, yes, that would be great. Yeah. So we can talk about some tips and tricks because during COVID A lot of things happen, you know, to people and just your mindset. Yeah, yeah. Now with said, let's have a short talk about minds. Absolutely.

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You know, I think that'd be great.

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Because do you have a mindset to be entrepreneur

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is a special mindset. It's not for everybody.

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But you can develop it though what you can you can develop it takes some work, takes some work takes some work, but you can develop it got to have some hustle, baby, you got to have some hustle.

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And some discipline like you were just getting ready to hear

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you got to have hustle heart and discipline. You gotta know how to say no, yeah, you do. Got to know how to say no. And know when to walk away. That's right. And be okay. Yeah,

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that's absolutely right.

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You got to know when to walk away and be like, you want to know what? I'm okay.

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And you do have to learn that word. No. And it's a hard word. But you have to learn it. Because you have to sometimes you have to use it in certain instances,

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and you got to look in the mirror. Yeah, you got to look in the mirror because this is self reflection every day. self reflection every day.

Unknown Speaker 26:03
Well Miss Leah Crawford. It's been so fun chatting with you today. Las Vegas. You've been listening to less talk with Lea Crawford and Rhonda Nolan. I am Lea Crawford. I am Rhonda Nolan and thank you for listening to our show today. We will see you next time.

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Thank you.

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Bye bye. 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.

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Let's talk Glee and Rhonda with your hosts Leah Crawford and Rhonda Nolan every third and

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fifth Saturday at 8:30am. We will be discussing ways to build your business with a sprinkle of inspiration.

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This show is sponsored by Rockford management group and smart time consultants.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai