Executive Director of non-profit organization New Beginnings Stephanie Harris shares the challenges and highlights of directly serving her community and people experiencing homelessness. With over 1900 homeless children in Lake County, Florida, Harris has her work cut out for her. Harris talks understanding her team’s passions and allowing them to incorporate their faith into what they do.
Executive Director of non-profit organization New Beginnings Stephanie Harris shares the challenges and highlights of directly serving her community and people experiencing homelessness. With over 1900 homeless children in Lake County, Florida, Harris has her work cut out for her. Harris talks understanding her team’s passions and allowing them to incorporate their faith into what they do.
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Speaker 2:welcome to this edition of a survivor's journey with rocky destefano. The premise of the show was at every one is leading something or someone, whether you're a parent leading your family at coach leading a team or a team member leading a few or even a c, e o leading an organization. Hey Larry, how you doing today? You know, we are all trying to get into this for sure. That's right. That's right. Well, again, we are all on a path of being a leader and we hope that everybody listening will be able to walk this journey with us and you know, it's exciting because you've helped us create these servers moment. Yeah, and I understand that's really catching on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're real excited about that. And you know, the idea with that is it's a quick hit. It's kind of like a b12 injection, a little bit of energy before you start your day. And the greatest thing is we're able to invite different people, different voices, people that have other experiences and had been led different ways. So we're very excited about it. And when you say we're getting other people, you know, the amazing thing is we're starting the surfers radio network. Yes we are. And that's going to be a platform where a whole bunch of different podcasters are going to be on. So you can choose which one you want to listen to. Absolutely. And we're trying to get you some great content from different speakers. And, and speaking of the servers, radio network. Joining us here in the studio today with misty. The studio dog is. I'm sorry. It's misty, the wonderdog. Okay. Misty the wonderdog gotta get that right. But she's sleeping here. It's not. I mean it's not wonderful right now, but I have seen wonderful things that have missed it. But um, anyway, today here, joining us in the studio is Stephanie Harris. She is the executive director of New Beginnings of central Florida, a wonderful organization that helps homeless people transition to live responsible lights. Good Morning Stephanie. We are excited to have you here on a server's journey and we just wanted to get to know you a little bit. If you could tell us about yourself, your family, and maybe some hobbies that you enjoy.
Speaker 3:Sure. Good morning and thank you for having me. I, well, I am Stephanie Harris and I've been here in Claremont for five years. Hard to believe it has been five years. I live here with my husband and my 15 year old daughter. We have an older daughter that graduated from college the year we moved here and moved up to Jersey to go to school and Seton Hall. She was a swimmer there and now she started her career in social work. She works for dcf up in New Jersey, so not easy. Right. All right. So, um, my husband blames me regularly that she took up more of a surface servant's position instead of that doctor of physical therapy. She said she was going to do, but that's okay. She, she loves making a difference in the community, but she definitely finds challenges working in the state. And then my 15 year olds, a very academically driven student here. She goes to South Lake and she's an athlete as well. She plays softball, which keeps me busy. I'd like to say I have hobbies, but it seems like nowadays my hobbies being mom had been going to soft tournaments. Um, but I do enjoy boating. I like water scheme. We have jet skis. I'm just like to take some time to spend with family, but my hobbies are really just surrounding myself with my family whenever
Speaker 1:we have the time to do so. So now I have to ask, who in your family is an athlete between you and your husband? Are you both?
Speaker 3:No, that's the irony. I mean I danced for 27 years, so I mean that can be athletic, but it's as Tori reminds me regularly that's not the same. It's not that same competitive spirit, but I still am a competitive person by nature, but I was just never on a team sport. My husband dabbled in different sports but never, never competitive like that. We just, he, I mean he discovered early on with Madison. He just felt like her finding a passion for her would be good for her. It keeps her, you know, balance keeps her out of trouble, keeps you know, keeps the girls focused on themselves. And not on others. Um, and I mean it worked, it was pretty effective with pattison, so, so far so good with, with Tori. Tori is much more academically driven than Madison was. Um, which is good, but it's a lot of pressure. She puts, she puts more pressure on herself than, than we do and she wouldn't agree with that, but she definitely does.
Speaker 1:Well, I, I have a family full of competitive cheer. Yes. And they are quick to remind me that they're much more athletic than any football player out there because that was my sport in high school. But um, it's amazing to me specifically with young women how much athletics helps in building self esteem and their image in a way that's very healthy. I think a young young women have a real hard time in today's society. So
Speaker 3:yes, it can be challenging. And I did cheer my senior year of high school, so I did have a stake that. But it's still nothing like the commitment that will you watch softball goes through every week. I mean five minimum of five games every weekend in the Florida heat. No. Thank you.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna talk a little bit about Stephanie's with New Beginnings of central Florida and you've been with them for about a year and a half as the executive director. Um, if you could tell us a little bit about what is new beginnings, what's their mission and what do you do there?
Speaker 3:Pretty loaded question. Yes. Our mission's pretty easy and pretty, pretty self explanatory. I mean, our mission is to empower our neighbors and need to live a responsible life. Um, it started off and saying that we want to empower those that are in need to build a responsible life and helping them through taking numerous steps to back on their feet. Um, new beginnings was founded and started by a businessman that came to Florida, met up with some friends. They had encountered a homeless man and there was nothing here for them. There was no resources, there was no place for him to go. It became very obvious that there needed to be some type of program that would help people reenter the workforce. So new beginnings really has involved, evolved. It's, we continue to try to meet the needs of the community. So our core is still important to find a way to empower those that need to live a responsible life. That person can be an individual that's homeless. It can be an individual that's working, but still finding themselves homeless because that happens a lot. It could be a family, it can be a single parent and their kids that can be a single woman in their child or that could be a single man and his children. So
Speaker 1:what has their own issues? You know, a single woman is much different than a woman with a, with kids or a single man or a family.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And the needs that we would need to have in order to help them are very, very different. It's not as easy. I mean, we've, we identified this year alone, the ability to help a single dad was very, very difficult. There is no place in central Florida that you can send the single dad with daughters, right? Because for obvious reasons, where would you send a single man? Which typically you send them to a men's shelter. Where would you send a single man with a older son that meaning over 15, over 16? Well, sometimes you might find a shelter that are take them, but there's no place you can take, send a single dad with an eight year old daughter. Right. So we've, we have identified some of our facilities that we're able to help someone in that situation. We have, we've now diversified our programs a little bit to meet those needs and I'm sure we'll we'll get into that, but I mean the core is really new beginnings mission is to empower those in need, deliver responsible life. We do that and helping them all through the way, introducing them to Christ, helping them with work therapy, introducing them some life skills. We really want to rebuild their life and help them. Correct their course.
Speaker 1:Right. How, how many homes different homes or residences do you guys have?
Speaker 3:Well, we have nine different facilities, nine different homes, and when I counted beds the other night I was like, wow, if we really were to double up, put bunk beds or trundle beds wherever we possibly could, you know, we could have as many as 68 pounds. Oh Wow. That would be a lot. And that would really be putting a lot of people, um, and it would really be maximizing the space. But at the same time, I mean currently we have 37 people that were housing, so.
Speaker 1:So talk about a little bit the, you know, because I understand the face of the homeless person is changing. I think people have a view, a stereotype of what it is, but it's very different. What you're finding now is there's a lot more families that they're working, they're doing their best, but they can't quite make it. Yeah. What is the homeless situation like today in, in Lake County?
Speaker 3:Well, the sad, the sad truth is it is a lot of families. I mean there's over 1900 homeless children and Lake County, there's over 400 just in Claremont. So when you think about that, I mean Claremont's a pretty decent town, but we're, we're small, we're a small, big community and we, um, to think that there's that many children that are homeless would be, I think a huge shock to the general population because you think of homeless, you think, Oh, you're going to see them sitting on the side of the road with their parent holding the sign. No, that's not necessarily the case because it can be, but that's typically not the case. It's usually they're homeless because they're sleeping on a friend's couch or they're staying with family and eventually that invitation runs out. So what we've found, there's a couple reasons why we identify that they're in that situation to begin with. Sometimes it does come down to just mismanagement of finances in some cases it's not having the education to properly finance and planning for their budget to maintain their household, but not in most cases it's because they can't afford to live here. Yeah. You know, a one bedroom apartments,$1,100 and that's if you're lucky enough to find one. Exactly. So it's realistically, if you have a single parent or even a husband, a wife and kids, they can't afford that. If they're bringing in, you know, minimum wage or maybe even$10 an hour, that's just not enough income to cover the cost of rental cost here
Speaker 1:in Lake County. So, um, talk a little bit about, you know, this, this is a big issue clearly. So not a lot of people I'm sure want to tackle this. So talk about what drew you to new beginnings. Uh, you know, why did you decide to make a change from your previous career to this?
Speaker 3:Well, it's, it's interesting that started my nonprofit career back in. Gosh, I got to think way back, I think in 2008 and I started with the Salvation Army in Virginia. I was the director of development. I had been volunteering with them for a couple of years. I was on there[inaudible] board and really found a passion and connection to help the underserved to help those that no one else really wanted to help or those that were just judged regularly because I could see, I could see both sides of that coin. I could see, I could see the individual that was truly taken advantage of the system, but then I could also see the one that didn't and that really just needed the help, not just a handout. They wanted a hand up and they wanted to be taught how to do it right. Um, and then really what hit my core. It seeing children because they are the, they're the victims of this whole system because they were just a victim of poverty and a cycle of poverty that they are raised in and that's all they know. Yeah, they, they are not. If, if someone, an organization like new beginnings isn't there to teach them and reach them and reach their parents, how are they ever going to learn that there is another option and that they are worthy of other options because we don't know what else happens behind closed doors. We can interview a family all day long, but as soon as the doors closed, we don't know what the parents are saying to the kids. We just know from our adult clients that we help. We knew what was said to them.
Speaker 1:You know, it becomes kind of your normal. Yeah. So if you go up in a, in a household where there's chaos or or drug addiction or alcoholism or if you grow up in a family that is undereducated for, for the need, that becomes your normal. So when you go out into the work force, it changes your entire view of what you can do and who you are and your worth. So
Speaker 3:you begin to believe your surroundings. You be willing to believe what you've been taught. So my experience with the Salvation Army really exposed me to it. I entered, I've worked with a couple of other nonprofits, um, both of which were more medically driven and really my passion when asked when I decided to leave the American heart association, I really decided I, if I'm going to stay a nonprofit, I want to go back to where my heart is, which is helping the underserved and just do a general search. I came across new beginnings. I was like, wow, it really is a lot like the salvation army. It's transitional programs. It's very, very similar, but it's more grassroots, which is even more important to me. Um, that's one of the hardest complaints you get from some national nonprofits as well as the money going to stay here, is it really going to help my neighbor? So that is, there's no question on that here with new beginnings. So, and I mean I couldn't have asked for a better location. I'm like five minutes from work. So.
Speaker 1:So talk about what are you the most proud of during your time with a new beginning?
Speaker 3:I would say the structure. I mean, when we came, when I came in and was a lot of observation of, you know, what credentials are in place, what type of staffing is in place to help the sustainability of the organization. I mean the board and the founder made a good decision in creating the sustainability by bringing me on board, which I appreciate very much. But then to help, you know, the board has been very supportive in me recognizing like, oh, we didn't have a mental health counselor or a licensed social worker on staff. So we pushed to get that position filled pretty quickly and we have a licensed mental health counselor which is a perfect, perfect fit. And I mean many cases immediately after we brought her on was proved that that was a blessing to bring her. And then to have a true a case manager, somebody that has a social work degree that that's what they're working towards. And they may even still be working towards their masters. But to have a case manager, somebody that's been trained in social work that can understand how to handle being a case manager. Because ultimately a case manager is like a person that's holding you or your hand every step of the process. They're your accountability partner. That's not an easy job they can wear, but I can see maybe there's a connection. We can get your daughter down here. Yeah, I've already told her. No, you're not working for me, but I got connections. So we already know other areas in her passions, ironically are also children. So, um, she has some thoughts. She has some plans, don't worry.
Speaker 1:So now I know that right now new beginnings is under a rather large construction process. They are building a, um, affordable housing is called woodwinds. Yes. Talk about that. Like the number of units may be in. Why is that so important?
Speaker 3:Okay. Well, woodwinds is a affordable housing workforce housing project that was established between a blue sky at developers and the Florida housing. So, you know, our founder has been working on this for more than six years. Just really identified much to what I said earlier that the cost of living is really the greatest boyd and the greatest need in this community for anybody that is in our community. So if you've got somebody that's living in a very low wage, they're really trying, they can be working full time, but they're still, they're not able to afford the housing here. So he identified the opportunity to bring some affordable housing apartments here where there's 96 units. Um, we are not the management company. New Beginnings of central Florida is simply the service provider. So we provide the wraparound services, which means the current programs that we offer to clients in our, in new beginnings is life skills classes, financial planning, financial mentors, a community mentor. We offer and expose them to church in various ways. We have some biblical classes that we teach them. We really helped them. One of the classes that we teach it, this is not the formal name, but it's what we call it, is Christianity 101, and it's. And those are the kinds of things that they will be exposed to. We can't teach them onsite, but we will introduce them, but the classes were going to have, are going to really help them with their computer skills, help them with rebuilding their resume, help them, make sure if they need any other assistance that they need food stamps or they need access to affordable healthcare. One of the things that they may need, we're going to be onsite to help with that. So if 51 percent of the units also have to be someone that's previously homeless, so that's really great because you know, we have an automatic referral source for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's, you're hopefully you're able to provide the new beginnings is a nine month
Speaker 3:program. Yeah. And it's, I mean, we're flexible. That's another thing that I think has kind of changed since I've been here because I've seen people that have only that have made it through and in the minimum of nine months, but others that I've had to go a little bit longer depending on where they're at in their recovery. Um, one of the biggest challenges is I don't consider someone a true graduate until they have their ged. Okay. Well, if you have somebody that's um, and we have somebody right now, he has graduated from the life skills and he has a job, but I can't, I'm not going to consider him a full graduate until he gets his ged, but he came in with a third grade education, so it's going to take a little while. Um, but luckily I believe he's, he will be able to move into permanent housing here shortly and we will still be there to help him in a system with that.
Speaker 1:And that's an important because nine months may get to the root issue. It may help them with a lot of different financial skills or maybe how to control an addiction, but it's probably not long enough to get them fully. Yeah. The woodwinds would offer a chance at another.
Speaker 3:Yes. You know, another leg of opportunity to stay in communication with them because that is a goal that we're working towards with anyone that's any of the families that have been in our program, which we named that program. The La Program last year. Sales are referenced. And Psalms, which means Paul's here and simple, simple analogy of, you know, what, just take a time to take a rest, let's reevaluate you where you are. And really just trying to help them determine what got them there. And we have a really good video on a family. One of the first families we actually helped with a family of five and he said, I just really didn't realize how many mistakes I was making. I was like, that's good. That becomes your normal when, when you grow up in it or when that's been your exposure. That's. Yeah. And so it's really, we're hoping that we have opportunities, more opportunities to extend our case management past the time they're living in our facilities. And that's challenging because staffing would would need to increase eventually. That is the perfect segway. So
Speaker 1:you know, we've talked about a server's journey and really is the belief that everybody's on a leadership journey and you are on several year a leader in your family with your girls and with your husband, your leader also in the business world. Um, and
Speaker 3:how, how many staff members do you have? And not only your staff, but I'm interested in the number of volunteers. How, how big of an organization is this fall? We have 32 employees and we have hundreds of volunteers. I mean, when I saw some of the questions which I appreciated because it allowed me to look up stats. We have over 9,000 hours a year to date and volunteer hours. So it's a lot. And it's. And I mean, granted, I, when I looked at this number I was like wow. And that's probably, there's probably more. It's, I mean, my own young daughter, my 15 year old has even started volunteering recently. Tutoring any children that are affiliated with our program. So. And I counted how many hours she's been tracking because I know she'll eventually need them. And I was like, oh, she put it in over 25 hours, just in the first week. So I'm like, that's, that's a commitment. So it's a lot of hours, but it takes a lot of hours and I mean it really takes a village and you know, we're biblically, we're supposed to help and serve our neighbor. Right? So it really takes this many and really we can always use more. I mean we, we know that there is a need for a couple more staff members and there's a need for dependable, dependable, reliable volunteers because we really rally our volunteers to help with every step of our program.
Speaker 1:Tying up the loose ends. I know that in this industry it is kind of like social work where it's very fulfilling. It can be very meaningful. You're probably not going to make millions of dollars a year. How do you, how do you lead and how do you serve your staff knowing that they could probably go and find a job that pays more. How, how do you lead them and how do you show servant servant leadership to them?
Speaker 3:It's kind of funny because I've had this conversation recently with our bookkeeper because in going back and just looking at history of payroll and doing that business sense of this job, I that I asked her that question and she said, well, it's really very simple and, and she's spot on. I mean, we have a, we are so blessed with very loyal employees that they're here because they truly believe in their heart of hearts and what we do and they see the good in what we do every day. They know they don't have to hide their faith when they come to work. They don't have to worry about not being able to pray, not being able to say bless you or not being able to do things that shows their spirit and their faith. Um, that goes a long way. And we really are a family. I mean, I know 32 employees sounds like a pretty big number for a small nonprofit, but we're a very close knit family. It's, you know, one person in our organization can't be going through something without others being their relative ready to rally them. We had family, we had employees that were affected by the hurricane in Puerto Rico. They had family in Puerto Rico, so it was all of us that kind of came together to support, you know, getting their family members, the generator sent to them, so really rallied together to support one another.
Speaker 1:And you really know who they are and what they're going through. And I think that's very important when you're trying to serve other people. Yeah. The, the, the other thing I'm a I'm attracted to is that you understand their passion and you allow them to be who they are. If they're a Christian and if they want to with a client or a volunteer. It's, it's allowed. And I think again, you're showing, okay, you can be yourself here, which we're finding is worth a lot of with a staff for sure.
Speaker 3:Well our, our accounts are actually. She had, when we hired her, she was working with us for part time when she started and then I was able to identify a way to bring her on full time. She got another job offer and it was a better paying job and it was with benefits and it had much more parks, but she said she chose to stay with us and go full time because she could bring faith into her sessions. She said, there's no way I could pray with my clients in the other position and I couldn't bring my faith to the table, and she said, I firmly believe that's a big part of what I do and this is someone that's licensed and this is her credentials are critical to everything she does. So she's very protective of that as she should be, and we protect her too. But for her to say no, I made the choice because I knew that I could practice my faith.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah. How, how do you live out the same servant, tight leadership with your clients? I was told a story. This is going back several years where there was a gentleman who was an alcoholic and who had been homeless for several years and um, he had a terrible, terrible backstory where he had, he was drunk and he had fallen asleep and his six year old daughter had fallen into their pool and had drowned and died. And so the counselors, through talking with him had realized that yes, he was an alcoholic, but that wasn't really why he was homeless because for years he was an alcoholic who was able to still get up and go to work and pay the bills. He was homeless because he believed he deserved it because of what happened with his daughter. And so it was an opportunity for the counselor to really serve him, um, and, and really show them you're worth a lot more even with this one, a steak. So that's got to be a different part of it too is how do you deal with people that are going through something. How do you, how do you find ways to serve them?
Speaker 3:Well, it's, it's interesting because we just sent our counselor to a new training that is a new type of trauma training. After she'd been with us for just about a year, she said she can't make met with me first. And then we met with her direct supervisor or director of client services and she wanted to make sure that I was aware of that over 95 percent of the clients that we serve have some form of trauma in their life that would be an example of a trauma. And it's everything from assault, from sexual assaults, from violence and neglect. I mean, the trauma is, the list is unlimited. So to, to this situation in the story you just explained, alcoholism can just be a product of, or it could have existed even prior to the trauma. Um, alcoholism isn't usually, and even addiction may not always be the root of what the problem is. It is usually a form of trauma or in some cases, ptsd that has put them in a very dark space. So being able to, this training really has helped because typically for a counselor to work with a client, you know, you know, we all know people that have been going to a counselor for years and some that still have to go to a counselor. Sure. It can take years to get to the root of what's going on with someone but this training and allows her to to shorten the amount of time it takes to get to the root of the problem and start working through it, which is really important because we, our time with our counselor counselors, time with the clients is very short. So if they're only with us for nine months, then we want to try to give them as much assistance as possible because there was no cost to them to do this. It's, you know, to go to a counselor, you're usually spending$100 a session, right? So it's, you know, for us, we're trying to help the clients understand that look, you're getting one on one case management that someone to help you through your life, help you get the right medical care that you need, help you get housing, help you find a job, help you through these steps of your life. And then you've got a counselor that's there to give you their undivided attention for an hour every week. And so that's. Yeah, that's very, very. That's a wonderful, wonderful attribute that we're able to bring to them, but this trauma program has really helped and she has already started to see some of those benefits and how it's really helped. We've had a couple of clients this year that the trauma has been actually one recent, um, his, he lost his wife in a house fire in his house and he lost his wife and that house fire and he was at work. So it's not that he was, at least as far as we know he was at work. Um, but it's completely torn his family apart. His kids blame him. He's not. So there's a disconnect, but that's a lot to work through. That's a lot for our case, our counselor to work through and that our case manager obviously it only knows enough about it that, that he shares with her to be able to work through it with them as well. It's, there's cases like that that we know that these, these situations can happen to anybody. It's not, it's not just somebody that's lazy and doesn't want to work. And that's the stereotype that we see. And even here, people think, oh well they just need to go get a job. No, that's not the case. Some of them are working, so that's not the case. It's, there is some people that we just really need to be able to look at them through our Christianize and understand we are supposed to serve our neighbors. We are supposed to offer a helping hand and really humanizing them, but you know, understanding that you know, what you see as somebody who's a homeless
Speaker 1:person or struggling with it. But there's this whole backstory, there's this whole part of their life you have to discover in order to understand really how to help them. Yeah. And that's probably the greatest act of service you can do. I think too many people throw them away as well. They're homeless. I'm sure that they deserve it. I'm sure that they've done something to get there when sometimes it's not the case. Yeah. It's a tragedy that happened and you know, maybe there were some decisions they made that helped them get there. But you know, there was a final, final Straw.
Speaker 3:A series of unfortunate events is how I explained it and in some cases it truly is just generational poverty to we. I mean a lot of, a lot of the clients we have served in the time that I've been there, they are truly a product of generational poverty in some that it's a mindset of just a poverty mindset. We have a gentleman that went to college and he, because he grew up in poverty, that is all he knew, so he went back to it after he got out of college, got married, had kids and lived in a van for two, three years with his kids. So it's truly the you can expose them, but we're really trying to teach them the way to live independently and teach them they're worthy of it. That it's okay. Like you were just as deserving of this as your neighbor. So that's a. that's a hard, hard thing to teach somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's amazing to me how, how often we self sabotage our, you know, and this, this gentleman went to college and so in some ways lived out a dream but something in his makeup. Something. In what he had seen in his life, continued to tell them you're not worth this, which is amazing. Yeah. Okay. So when you go home at night, how do you know? Like, tell me what a win is with a new beginnings. What, what is a high five moment?
Speaker 3:Well, just seeing our clients even at work therapy, they may not see it at the wind. Right. But I do because I know where the ultimatum is. I know we're, would they be if they weren't here? So the fact that we're able to expose them to work exposed into a new training, they may not see it as beneficial as it is, but I know that that's one step that's getting them into the right direction. And inevitably I have, there are more days that I will hear from a client or former client or someone that is working with a client of how blessed they are that they've been able to go through our program. I'm learned so much. It's, um, it's, it's very humbling and it's, you know, we know that we, I think one of the hardest decision, one of the hardest things for anybody to recognize working in social services is to recognize you can't help everybody and that's very hard. But I've been able to go through any client that's come into our program and if they didn't complete meaning they didn't go through the life skills classes they left. We've had some that came through, got through a portion of it, but they left with a relationship with Christ. Right. So to me that's still open because I hope we planted a seed so it's still, you know, we, we've been able to reconnect with people if that's the case, but we're not going to help everybody but I can still usually walk away and go, you know, what, we still help them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And sometimes you can't help everybody. And I think that new beginnings does a great job at understanding on the intake, who you're most likely to help, which is important. But I also think it may be that you're the introduction and it might be another program or another time, another season where they actually finish it. Yeah. But you're still introducing something, a life skill or nothing more than the fact that, you know, biblically speaking, we're, we're not worth it. But yet our creators still loves us and still, you know, made this way for us even though we're screw ups all the time. Yeah. Alright. So we're gonna transition here. We have a fun segment. Well it's fun for us. I'm not sure. But, so, so we're gonna kind of put you a little bit on the spot and so we called it this one or that one. Okay. So we're gonna give you two people or two franchises and we're going to say which one do you like better? And maybe one reason why are so. Okay. You ready for it? All right. Okay. First one is Elan Musk or Richard Branson bought out. Knew either one of those. Okay. Okay. So we're going to go ahead. We're gonna go ahead. This is a, a lot of Techie, nerdy people, which, which, which I am. So Elon Musk is the tesla. The car. Yeah. And Richard Branson is a, probably a sixties something longhaired a Virgin Atlantic Airways. He's the CEO of that, but we're going to skip that one. Okay. So next one is would be steve jobs or Bill Gates?
Speaker 3:Are you an apple person? I have an apple, but I, I actually Bill Gates. I lean more towards Bill Gates. Um, I think he has more of an entrepreneurial spirit, that philanthropic touch. Yeah. So, and I could be wrong because I know apple does well too. They, I mean any employee that volunteers gets apple pay that organization when they volunteer, but I mean I just, you see and hear a lot more that Bill Gates does from a philanthropic standpoint and I think that's your responsibility as a successful business person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he's been of the new generation of the billionaire is probably the biggest as far as giving and understanding its place in the community. So yeah. Okay. Steven Spielberg or Walt Disney. Walt Disney pigeon call. Okay, come on. You Go.
Speaker 3:So you are a much like, my wife is a Disney freak. So. Alright, a star wars or Harry Potter? Ooh, that's a good one. I think so too. Okay. See I. So we're not going to give up your age but, but, but there is a delineation line where for me it star wars for younger. Maybe it's funny because I wonder what my kids would say. Yeah. Because they liked both my girls would say Harry Potter for sure. She'd probably because she really likes ray so she likes the new star wars is rebooting. Okay. Now this final question is, is deeply personal? Um, I grew up in, I grew up in a house of girls and now I have a house of girls also. So Broadway or rock and roll. Broadway. Okay, good. So now what is your favorite show? Well, I've seen, I would say most recently I would say cats, but I mean I've seen the producers, which was hilarious. I mean I've seen a couple but not as many as I would like. We're always with Madison. Going to school in Jersey gives you an insight. We had an opportunity to go up there a couple times, but now we have to, we have to make another sharp. But yeah, I think Larry, have we had anybody? Uh, I think we've had one other person say Broadway. So this puts you in good standing when you're on rocky side were former digging. So I was a little bit of a performer so I appreciate that. Yes. My daughters are singers, so we say they are quick to tell me they're not really singing broadway singing this rock'n'roll. Got It. All right. So, um, last thing we want to ask you is to talk about a leader or maybe a quote that you look up to, maybe a quote that you live by. It can be either or both. Well, I can say there's, my funny quote is a Yoda quote. She, she is a star wars saying and um, it's, I can't, I'm trying to think of it now because, you know, he talks backward, we put you on the spot. So we just let me think. It's um, it's try it. There is no try. I know that I'm talking about it's do or not do. There is no try something along those lines. Yes. I know that when in fact there's a t shirt out there with it, so yeah, it's. I think it's a matter of really knowing that you, you, you can do something if you set your mind to do it right, you can't just, you and I see this a lot, not just in working with social services, but we see with our kids, you see it in society that people will find another excuse why they didn't complete
Speaker 2:it or didn't really go for it. I was like, you can't let somebody stop you. Like if that's what you're setting to do, then go do it. And a lot of times we stop ourselves. We can't visualize the success, you know? Yeah. That's awesome. Well, we really appreciate you being here and learning a little bit more about new beginnings and now your mission and we are excited to have you in our community, so thank you. We thank you so much for being on here. Thank you very much. Y'All have a blessed day. Thank you very much, Stephanie, for being with us here on a servers journey, a wonder, remind everyone that they can subscribe to the podcast, check out the websites, servers, journey, and also on Tuesdays, you know we have a server's moment. It comes out every Tuesday at so little brief segment and then you can learn more about it. And as rocky's Dwayne on Wednesday, the deep dive. So join us each week here on a servers journey. We just want to thank everybody for listening today and again, we want to remind you that all of us are on a journey. It's a journey of leadership, whether you're leading your family or your business and we just hope that we're adding value and that together we'll become better leaders. Thank you very much.