Ft Myers Beach - Good Neighbor
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Tune in to the Ft. Myers Beach – Good Neighbor Podcast, where the spirit of community meets the rhythm of island life. Each episode is a laid-back journey through heartfelt stories, local voices, and the connections that make our beach town so special. Whether you’re a resident or just dreaming of coastal breezes, let us be your guide to all things good in our neighborhood.
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Ft Myers Beach - Good Neighbor
FMBGN-RESIDENT-Gregg Flowers-Island Optimism
Have you ever wondered what happens when you finally take your own advice and chase your dreams? Gregg Flowers did exactly that when he and his wife Sarah left their comfortable life in Ohio after 30 years in logistics to start fresh in Fort Myers Beach. Their story isn't just about relocating - it's about reinvention, resilience, and discovering what truly matters.
Gregg's candid conversation takes us through the journey of becoming an "instant local" in a beach paradise, despite arriving just months before Hurricane Ian devastated the area. Rather than regretting their timing, the Flowers found themselves embraced by a community that pulls together in the face of adversity. As Greg puts it, "If you've been here three weeks or three years, as long as you're good people, you become a local just like that."
The heart of this episode explores how leaving behind the corporate world opened doors to unexpected opportunities in marina management and, more importantly, a lifestyle focused on joy rather than just earning a paycheck. Greg shares his personal philosophy—"No shade, just sunshine"—which guides not only his outlook but his mission to inspire others through their own life hurricanes. His powerful insight that "enjoying your job is a lot more important than a paycheck" resonates throughout the conversation.
Listeners will be touched by Gregg's authentic approach to community building and his practical wisdom about appreciating what matters most. From the simple pleasure of watching a free sunset (something "tourists save all year for") to the importance of supporting local businesses, this episode reminds us that paradise isn't just about location—it's about perspective. Ready to rethink what makes a good life? This conversation might just inspire your own journey toward finding your slice of paradise, wherever that may be.
Gregg Flowers
Ft Myers Beach-Good Neighbor
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Welcome to the Fort Myers Beach Good Neighbor Podcast, where the sun's always shining and the stories are even brighter. Each episode we bring you closer to the neighbors, local legends and beachside businesses that make Fort Myers Beach the slice of paradise we all love. Pull up a beach chair, grab a drink and let's meet the people who make this island feel like home. We want to send out some island love to Eric Tibbs from Edward Jones State Insurance USA and Home Well Care Services Fort Myers. They are the businesses that allow us to share the soul of our community with every listener, from local stories to the positive vibe of island life. Here's to celebrating all that makes Fort Myers Beach the slice of paradise we all love. Here's your host, cabo, jim Schaller.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Fort Myers Beach. Good neighbors Today we have a good neighbor, gregg Flowers, morning morning how you doing. Absolutely great. Can I complain? The sun's out.
Speaker 1:Water's beautiful.
Speaker 2:We're inside, we're in badass coffee if you can't tell Absolutely. So why don't we share a little bit about who you are and where you're from, and all the good details?
Speaker 3:I'll give the elevator speech. Sure, just this last may would have marked three years we've been down here. Okay, my wife sarah and I moved down from lewis center, ohio, which is just outside of columbus. All right, uh, we have a blended family, four amazing kids, but our youngest just turned 21 in february and three years ago and we said, hey, we kept teaching our kids go, live your life, live your dream. And we realized we weren't doing that. So we just thought you, you know what, it's time to practice what we preach. So as soon as he graduated, we literally moved down here A month before he graduated, had to fly back up to his graduation. Been down here three years, worked for the family business in Ohio for almost 30 years in logistics, tried logistics down here. The same, but Not the same.
Speaker 3:No, I wanted a Florida job. So uh got in the marina business, really worked at montmarine for a year and last three months then uh over here at snook bike.
Speaker 2:So that's the experience in that or none really none.
Speaker 3:My wife worked at uh ridge shrimp for a while okay and I was barred back in there and I was just getting burnt out in just 30 years. I just too long, too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted something different so actually, lisa from ridge shrimp introduced me to uh.
Speaker 3:And I was just getting burnt out on logistics. Three years Too long, too much, yeah, I wanted something different. So actually, lisa from Marine Strength introduced me to the dockmaster there, mallory. She said you don't think about marine life. And when I interviewed I told Gary. I said I don't know anything about this. It's basically logistics and water. I get it. We got to put boats in the barns, we got to have big customers happy, which I have no problem with. I thought why not?
Speaker 3:I realized that enjoying your job is a lot more better than a paycheck. We all love to have money to pay bills and buy a coffee a badass coffee. I realized one thing being down here that it's not about money, it's about just enjoying life. Even when we moved from Ohio, a lot of older people had told us don't wait till we retire, go down and enjoy it. And we have no regrets. I mean, we did move down here about four or five months before Ian, so that was a good timing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a that was a.
Speaker 3:Everybody says you got baptized like waterboarded, but you know a lot more people have worked off on us waterboarded, but a lot more people had worked off on us. We were about 20 minutes off island but got that experience right away. We were talking beforehand. We've been here three years, but one thing I love about Fort Myers is that if you've been here three weeks or three years, as long as you're good, you're good people, you become a local, just like that. I consider myself one of the last locals.
Speaker 2:Since the community, we've been through a lot of struggles over the last couple of years, but it's just a testament to the community and the people here.
Speaker 3:The way people pull together yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what it's about. Like you said, as you get older in life, you want to surround yourself with good people and good vibes, and that's what we're trying to do. Did we ask you why Fort Myers? How did you figure? This is where I want to go, you did not, but I did.
Speaker 3:We actually at one point we talked about Nashville. We love Nashville, but we realized it still snows there, so crossed that off the list. We had some friends from Ohio. Yeah, exactly, we had some friends that moved down to Florida. We kind of followed, we visited them. They were in Fort Lauderdale, spent some time there just vacationing Too fast-paced for me. When they moved actually over to Cape, a year later we came down to visit them in Cape, came down to Fort Myers a little bit, and Fort Myers reminds us of the small town we're from, except with amazing sunsets and sunrises and sand and everything else. So that's why we fell in love with Fort Myers, part of Ohio, but with the Beach Five, which we love.
Speaker 2:And you touched on a little bit about being part of the community. Are there things that you're doing to help give back?
Speaker 3:or support the community. Yeah, we try and definitely volunteer where we can. We're trying to get involved in the chamber. And I think one thing I started years ago just to kind of dive into my past, going through a divorce. It was a tough time and I realized, you know, I can sit here and whine about it and get up and do something about it. And I started helping my friends that were going through divorce.
Speaker 3:Sometimes when you go through whether it's a hurricane, a hurricane in life, if someone else has been through it. You know, having said that, I was telling you through Ian there are people down here that said what to expect? That's what we're going to do, we have no idea. But the same thing with my buddies at the ball to divorce. I realized I was how I was inspiring them. I helped inspire myself.
Speaker 3:So I'm not the best pickleball player, I'm not the best golfer, I'm not the smartest guy in the room, not the richest guy in the room, but I think god gave me a gift to help inspire people. So you know, every day I do, I try and get up and you know I do have a page called5 on Facebook and I don't do it for a million likes it never fails. I'll put a post on there, a video I did years ago, and I'll have one person not like it. But they'll send me a message and say, dude, your five-minute video helped me so much. And that's what I do, of course, and I truly feel that's what a gift that God gave me was always. Look at the bright side. I'm very optimistic. There's always, you know, just like last night, we had about an hour and a half storm down there as I'm driving home there's always a rainbow.
Speaker 2:You know, there's always.
Speaker 3:And there was yeah there was, it's a double. So to answer your question, I think that's. I'm starting to really develop some followers down here, not so much for the followers, but people that are understanding that. Oh my gosh, you know.
Speaker 2:I'm not alone. I'm not alone.
Speaker 3:People like yourself, I could tell the first time I met you throw off that vibe of being positive and inspiring other people, and I think we need more of that. So that's kind of what I'm trying to do now. It's kind of why I definitely accepted your invitation to do this podcast. We need more people like this. There's so much negative.
Speaker 2:We're trying to focus on the positive things, why people should visit here, but just life in general. I went through the same thing, went through a divorce, took me to my knees and you know, am I gonna let this bury me? It did for a long time, yeah, but then after a while I figured you know I'm the one that's gonna have to stand up and move forward and forgive everybody. It happened, whatever. It starts forgiving yourself exactly, and that's what you need to do when you find yourself moving forward. And, like you, I try to post positive things on a daily basis and you don't realize how many people, like you said, you touch when I have strangers come out to me and they don't even like what I post.
Speaker 2:Right, they see it and they're like you don't know how much it means to me every morning to see that and a lot of people are so worried about my.
Speaker 3:Thing I just noticed is I can post something about a divorce I went through, or struggle with a job or just life in general, and especially the divorce, a lot of people, a lot of men, didn't want to like it because the name is like oh, let's keep going through a divorce, yeah. But I would always get those messages or I would be out and someone said man, I haven't seen a video in a while. I really miss those. I'm. I didn't even know you watched them. So I definitely don't do it for the likes, but when those people walk up to me, it's not an ego thing.
Speaker 2:It's just like all right God, it worked.
Speaker 3:I'm touching somebody.
Speaker 2:Like I said, if it's only one person, that's what it's about.
Speaker 3:And I think that's what you're doing here. Not only are island, but you're just really trying to push that positiveness, because it'll take you and I five seconds if we jump on Facebook right now to go down and scroll and boom, there's someone complaining about something or someone's trying to be positive and someone's trying to beat them down or argue with them, and it's just keyboard muscles.
Speaker 2:Like I said, we live in paradise, so I like my new slogan. It's no shade, just sunshine, and I love that because the sun is always shining. I had an old basketball coach who told me that because the sun will come up tomorrow. How brightly it shines, it's up to you, true.
Speaker 3:Usually what I tell people is find the sunshine or be the sunshine, right, I mean, because it's going to be a rainy day. Someone's going to be complaining about how it's raining, but you know okay, when it it rains down here, it pulls off for a little bit. Exactly one thing I noticed down here in ohio if it's going to rain, it's going to rain all day here. It's going to rain.
Speaker 2:It's going to rain for about a half hour, right, because hello well, a little bit of lightning and I'll be gone and we'll be right back. Yeah, that's what it's all about, but um, anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?
Speaker 3:Don't be afraid to be yourself. I mean we actually we met didn't really meet the top the first time, but we were actually here for a network event for the chamber and number one. You know a lot of people like to network and it's not so much the old ways of networking. You pass down 25 business cards, you grab five and go home and you email them and try to get their business. I've noticed down here the networking. It was a good business event but it still gave us a chance to meet each other.
Speaker 3:And then a few days later we meet each other at Sandy Bottoms and there again it was hot as all day out, but people were out intermingling. I think we need more people like yourself that are trying to throw the positive vibe out there, because while we're doing that, we're also helping people like the Millers trying to get their business up and running because they want to get more tourists here. Not only just more tourists, I think. A lot of times people I've worked in the industry down here as far as barbacking and, yeah, it gets stressful but more importantly, we also want to have a place to go, just hang out and just enjoy a sunset. So one thing I can say is if you're watching this, just be yourself.
Speaker 2:As long as you're positive, uh, and if and if you're looking for someone to help build that positiveness, talk to cabo or look me up and then you know, on the other side of it too is like come to the beach, there's a lot of good things happening here. I spoke with somebody the other day and he's like I live just off the island because I come to the island and spend my money, because I could drive that way and go to Publix, and I could drive to the beach and spend my money Even none of the goods here.
Speaker 3:look where I spend my money locally and support the people that are here and you can tell the people that appreciate that, because there's many times I could stop on the way home at a public's I worked right by one and you know, just putting the money back into the island is the big thing and even and I will say, one of the cheapest things to do and most enjoyable things to do is just catch a sunset. Yeah, I took it. We were taking advantage of that when we first moved down here and then recently we haven't been doing as much. I told my wife and my daughter, elizabeth was like people save up their money all year to come down here and catch one good sunset.
Speaker 3:We can do it for free. To me that's one of the coolest gifts down here is a good cooler, a good sun on the beach and just watch a sunset. I've seen what I thought was a green flash once, always looking for that. The sunsets are amazing here. They're different every day they're priceless, but they hold so much value. I like your personality.
Speaker 2:I agree, I agree. That's why, when I beach, I beach all day Sunrise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't blame you. I mean, it's going to be different every day, exactly God's high fives, that's it.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, thank you for being such a good, neighbor,
Speaker 1:That's CaboWaboJim. com, or call 239-427-4100. We want to send out some island love to Eric Tibbs from Edward Jones State Insurance USA and Home Well Care Services Fort Myers. They are the businesses that allow us to share the soul of our community with every listener, from local stories to the positive vibe of island life. Here's to celebrating all that makes Fort Myers Beach the slice of paradise.