Nexus Presents: Moments Worth Remembering

Join us as we kick off Part One of our one-year anniversary special, celebrating some of the most impactful conversations and insights that have shaped Nexus at UCF over the past year.

In this special anniversary edition of Nexus at UCF, we revisit standout conversations with entrepreneurs, executives, educators, and industry leaders to explore entrepreneurship, leadership, innovation, and the impact of artificial intelligence on the future of business. From building resilient startups and embracing calculated risk to leveraging AI, fostering workplace culture, mentorship, and adaptability, this anniversary compilation highlights some of the most valuable lessons shared by our guests throughout Nexus at UCF's first year. As Part One of our anniversary celebration, this episode reflects on the ideas, experiences, and perspectives that continue to shape the future of business.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 Intro

01:17 Leadership: How to Succeed

03:55 Leadership: The Required Character & Perseverance

06:22 Advice: Facing storms and taking opportunities

08:47 Advice: Taking risks and finding your passion

10:25 Advice: Problem solving and being fully immersed

13:28 Advice: Joining communities and organization alignment

15:08 (Outro) – Thank you for listening!

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🌐 Website: https://nexusatucf.wixsite.com/nexus-at-ucf
💼 LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nexusatucf
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🔗 Connect with UCF
🏛️ College of Business Website: https://business.ucf.edu/
📊 College of Business on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/ucf-college-of-business/posts/?feedView=all

🌐 UCF Website: https://www.ucf.edu/
💼 UCF on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-central-florida/posts/?feedView=all

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Transcript

SPEAKER_08 0:00

A year ago, Nexus was just an idea. A few students, a Google Doc, and a whole lot of ambition. I'm Brianna, co-founder of Nexus, a student-run business podcast and organization that's exploring what's becoming the future of business. Back then, our entire team fit on one hand. Today, we've got an entire orator and a whole lot more people helping bring Nexus to life. Over the past year, we've grown into a team of nearly 20 students, had conversations with founders, leaders, CEOs, and people who challenged the way that we think about business. Every conversation brought a new perspective from entrepreneurship and leadership to innovation and the people building what's next. Those conversations didn't just shape the podcast. They shaped us. Because if the last year taught us anything, it's that the future of business isn't something that you wait for. It's something you help build. These are the conversations that allowed us to do exactly that. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_06 1:03

Success doesn't happen alone. And when you try to go it alone, you will fail because you can only do certain things by yourself well, right? It's that my son is in baseball. It's the lesson that he is learning right now that you can't carry the team alone. Even the points that you score, if your team isn't functioning at the highest capability, you're not going to be able to win the game because it takes an entire team to do it. It's the same process with mentors and anything. I I've had so many people in my life. In fact, uh my father stands to be one of my greatest mentors. He was, he ended um vice president of marketing for Chrysler. So he was constantly had a big corporate job, you know, always public speaking in front of people, really great business advice. You know, I got incredible faithful advice from my mom and really great business advice from my dad. And what that allowed me to do was learn how to pivot and accept feedback. And I have sought out incredible mentors across my journey. Where people go wrong with mentors is that they try to either one, ask them too many questions, or they don't tell them the ugly stuff. And mentors can't help you to get to the other side if you're only trying to tell all the glowing things about you.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

You gotta ask the uncomfortable questions.

SPEAKER_06 2:22

You gotta ask the uncomfortable questions and you gotta give them space to dive deep so that they can actually help you to accomplish what you want to accomplish. And there isn't a time in anyone's life where they shouldn't have a mentor. But I currently mentor multiple people that I meet with on a regular basis, typically every month or every other month that I'm spending time with them. And I have mentors that I seek out. And sometimes it's just okay, I need your advice. I've processed through this for a day, I need your advice on something. You know, can you walk me through this or can I share with you what my thoughts are and you can tell me if you feel like I'm on the right track.

SPEAKER_05 2:57

I always challenge our team because we have to constantly be uh innovative and evolving because if not, the competition's gonna run right by us. And so, you know, one of the benefits we have at Southeast Elevator is we've done seven acquisitions. So we've acquired companies that used to be competitors, and I always say we have like the dream team of elevator. I got I got the best elevator team in the in the country. And if we go back to the dream team analogy, I'm just coach daily, and I gotta make sure Rodman's talking to Jordan and we got everyone working together here. But it's um, you know, it's something that you've got to just constantly be looking at, creating a strategic plan, making sure that you're spending time looking at it uh monthly, quarterly. Are we addressing those items? Because you can get very caught up in the weeds of just fighting the fires to get through the day. And we've got to, you know, I would say every company needs to constantly be looking at themselves strategically as to how are we getting better, what are we doing in the market, how are we reacting to new forces in the market and and staying on top of that.

SPEAKER_07 3:57

Character isn't shown in the good times. Character is shown when you have the full right to misbehave. Right? So you can gain trust one of two ways, over a long span of time or during a storm. And when your team witnesses you take the high road, protect them, ask questions, not act out of emotion, not act out of a short-term strategy, but rather a long-term strategy, you'll gain their trust. Um, and in that resiliency, in that storm. That's why soldiers are in our military create such deep bonds. I mean, that battle buddy is everything. You might not like the guy next to you, but you know he'll die for you.

SPEAKER_09 4:44

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 4:45

Because you have a greater mission. And so if you're able to instill that kind of environment of we have a greater mission, I don't have to like the things you like or agree with the things that you agree with, but we understand that we serve a higher purpose, then you can get work done. But so many times we get so involved in who said what and in their communication style and how we're offended and things like that, that we really get lost in what I call these micro missions rather than the overarching mission of serving customers well or our community well.

SPEAKER_06 5:20

I think if anybody tells you that they just got it and they they have full confidence they're lying. I don't think anybody is ever 100% confident all the time. In fact, I was just recently speaking at an Orlando Business Journal event for women, and this question came about. And they said to me, Are you confident all the time? And I said, No, definitely not. And they said, But you seem so confident. And I said, preparation and passion, along with experience and learning how to overcome is what shows the confidence. All the experiences that I've had in my life have shown me that no matter what comes my way, I'm going to be able to cross the bridge. I'm going to be able to get to the other side. And I've learned the skill sets that I need in that preparation and feedback from my team and other mentors that I have seeking other experts out when I need support that I know I can launch forward. I know I can tackle whatever is in front of me, but it doesn't mean that I'm confident when it comes across.

SPEAKER_07 6:22

A person's ability to stand back up quickly after getting knocked down is really a good part of resilience. What I've noticed is some younger people they take a lot of time to like rebound. They have to think about it, they have to process it, they have to understand what just occurred rather than going, ugh, that sucked, and and march on and not really allow it to stick to them heavily. So for me, um, just that ability for quick rebound is a really important part of business resilience because you're going to have a bad day, you're going to have hard conversations, especially when you're the HR director.

SPEAKER_09 7:00

Oh, I bet.

SPEAKER_07 7:01

And you can allow other people's problems, other people's bad days, or even business problems stop the mission and vision that you've been given for the long-term health of your business.

SPEAKER_05 7:14

My biggest advice is just always be willing to pivot. Uh, it is something that five years ago, I had no idea what the accessibility market was uh or the opportunity that existed there. And if I look at my journey uh back to the jet ski analogy, I guess thinking about it even more. That's kind of been my life. It's been a jet ski of dial-up ISP, garbage trucks, vacuum excavation equipment, home elevators. I've been all over the place as far as different industries, but they've been different doors that have been opened from people that I've networked with or somebody that I knew. Um, and just always be willing to look at an opportunity and understand your risk level. Uh, understand, you know, there are people that want to work at a company for 35 years, and that's okay. Uh, there are people that, you know, every two years need a new car and need a new you need a new job, and it's something that that's okay too. So it's it's knowing who you are, but I always say life is too short, and back to the the rose card. We got one walk through it. So let's make sure you're making a difference and you know, w wake up every morning with that passion and that drive that I'm gonna make this place better today than it was yesterday, and rinse and repeat. I mean, it's uh, you know, we have our good days, we have our bad days, but I always say when you find yourself and it's just a job, life's too short. Go find something else. You know, understand what what lights your fire and sometimes you gotta go stand out on the ledge there and you know, look at the pool and say, uh, they're gonna be okay, I'll I'll swim.

SPEAKER_07 8:48

I love living a risky life. There's nothing to be gained by sitting on your couch and scrolling through Instagram. You know, there there's no risk there. There's risk in love, there's risk in profit, there's risk in business, there's risk in promotion. Someone's gonna be mad that you got that job, that you got that promotion. So there's risk in l literally everything that we kind of navigate, and there's a cost opportunity there. So I think for me, if you're unwilling to take risks, you better be very comfortable with complacency. Um so all the fun things that I've done in life had had great risk. Um with great risk comes great reward. Um and what I what I fear for kind of the youth of our days is their memories are gonna be social media posts and not actually going and doing and experiencing the world. They're more viewing the world and experiencing the world.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

I always tell my students and people that I meant to like, it's okay to have multiple jobs now, right? And you don't want a job hob, but you gotta figure out what you want to do in life, what's your passion, right? Um, and a a lot of students I think now, even me, right? Um, I didn't understand what my true passion was when I was in college. Right, what I really wanted to do. And by doing little jobs, right, it allows you to experience what you like, what you dislike.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Um the highest achieving of students are very innovative. They often have new ideas, and if you put them in an environment where they cannot express that or provide innovation to business processes, you're going to tend to lose those folks because that's what they thrive on is the challenge, the solving of the puzzle. So companies that really want high achieving students who have really the critical thinking skills and the problem solvings are going to need to utilize those skills instead of just saying this is your one job, you need to do this every day. And then they're going to have to be patient because and and the students and the are also going to have to be patient too, because the business environment is also a complex environment. It's not one where you can just walk in and say, now I want to change this entire business process. They need to understand, too, that there are a lot of moving parts and components to that.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

I think too, being learning to be a good leader as well as a good team member. So having a positive attitude, making the best of the situation, uh being supportive, taking on leadership roles when you have the chance, demonstrating your proficiencies, your skills, uh, taking the initiative are all traits that serve uh everyone well in whatever organization they're with. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Immersion is really just the sense where you're you are so focused on one activity that you start not noticing other things that are going on around you. And maybe time goes by really fast. It's called time slippage, where you think you're playing a video game for an hour and you look at your clock and oh my gosh, it's been five hours. I had no idea because you're so immersed. It's just your mind is so focused on something and the distractions are cut out, time goes by quickly. Um and you can also just sort of become better at things, too, because you're so focused on them. And I thought that was just a neat way to look at entertainment because, especially from the film side, if I watch a film in a theater, I really allow myself to get that the music is so loud and all you have is the picture and it's dark and quiet, hopefully. But then there are distractions. Someone's phone rings or someone talks or something, and they're like, ah, you know, I want to stay immersed in my film experience. But that would be a really interesting way to study like what makes it more immersive, what makes an experience more immersive, and how do people enjoy that experience? And so I looked at did a lot of research into seeing how can I make this into a dissertation and discovered there's a lot more research actually about immersion in video games than in other types of like and than in film. So I ended up changing my focus into immersion in video games, which was fine. I got to play a bunch of video games and um and sort of measured how immersed people were in that game and then how that affected their experience. Did they like being immersed? Did they would they rather just be casuals? Because that that's the whole the what it all comes down to is if you really want to be immersed in something, you can change the change the criteria that are around you to make it a more immersive experience. Or you can intentionally make it less immersive by just checking your phone every now and then or talking to friends and kind of having some fun doing other things and just do something casually. But people want different experiences. You might not want to be immersed. So forcing someone to might not be the best outcome for a film or a video game or a theme park or whatever it is you were talking about. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_09 13:28

Throughout your careers, what are some examples of how cultures within a culture have improved, maybe retention in companies or workspaces that you both have been in?

SPEAKER_03 13:39

So I think if we look at just UCF as a whole, it's it it's a big university. Folks think, oh my goodness, it's got 70,000 students, it's just huge. How will I ever fit in? And if you watch and you look around UCF, there are all these smaller communities within this university. And the Honors College is one of those communities. But what is really nice about being among a larger community is that you can be part of many communities. Yes. And I think companies need to see that too, that not to silo folks, but to say you can be part of this community, and even if you're in the accounting team, but you have an interest in finance, you can still relate to those folks and maybe go and do happy hour with them or have lunch with them, but to build cross communities and where people can move across them. And that I think builds skill sets and also makes for better problem solving. Because when I go to lunch with you, I'm gonna learn about the challenges that you face. You're gonna learn about the challenges that I face, and together we might be able to solve each other's challenges. And that's part of the beauty of the Honors College with all of the different majors and people working together to try and see what the solutions are.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

I think uh complex organizations uh try to align their mission with the goals of every department within the organization. And so may I be looking at uh the common goals of being aligned, or everybody being on the same page regarding what the goal is helps the organization be effective.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

Thank you for tuning in to Nexus at UCF. If you enjoyed this episode, you can find more on your favorite podcast platforms. Make sure to follow us across social media platforms at Nexus at UTF. My name is Thomas Justice, and I produced this episode. On behalf of the entire team, thank you for tuning in to Nexus, where we connect you to the future of business.