What is my story? I usually say, Do you have seven hours and seven beers? It's a long story, but I'll try to make it short. I think anytime you ask someone about their story, Ah, lot of times it starts with what's their family of origin? Where did they grow up? How did they grow up? How did their upbringing shaped them to who they are today? And I've been really blessed and fortunate. I grew up in a large Irish Catholic family in Wisconsin, and my parents wanted to have a baby girl and said, They try to They have one. Well, my parents popped out nine straight boys, and then the 10th one was finally a girl, and I'm the number nine boy. I'm the run to the Irish Catholic. Later, I'm the number nine son. So I always tell people, um, if you ever know why I spent tens of thousands of dollars in therapy. As a result, try being the number nine son. I don't feel good unless I get get beat up for the first hour of the day. That's part of my family upbringing. No, but I grew up in a family of off business people, entrepreneurs and kind of a sports family. And so my basic story is, for the last 35 years in business, I've been really blessed to combine my love of business with my passion of sports, and I've done a lot of different things. I bought and sold numerous cos I'm a private equity investor. I was a sports agent, represented 24 pro athletes and coaches, including three time M V P bread fire for the Green Bay Packers. And so I've done a lot of different things, and in the past 10 years I took all those experiences, and I've I've written four books. I've written four books, and I'm not a writer. Um, but I wanted to collect all these ideas, and I put him in a book about 10 years ago. My first book was called Networking is a Contact Sport, and I publish it. It made The New York Times best seller list, so everybody thought I knew what I was talking about. But really, if you look at all the books and really my career in sports and business, a Zay said, I've done a lot of things, but it's really been about one thing. It's been about networking in connection with other people, and I think that's really what business and life is about. It's really about this thing called Connection, and I use the term from this book networking, but it's really about connection. And so I don't care what the listeners do with your with your life for your job. But I think one thing and one lesson today that I want Thio I want to communicate is human. Connection is the most important thing in our life. I think all of us, more than anything want to connect deeper with ourselves with other people into a power greater than us. And I think the great people that I've studied understand this. I don't care if it's in business, politics, the military, religion. All the great leaders understand this thing called connection. So I think if you say what you what do you about Sweeney? What I think the main thing about me is I'm a connector and I have figured out a way to make a living over the last 35 years by being a connector

Yeah, well, I If you don't mind, I'm gonna do a little audible. A little change on that because this is my most recent book. A light shines through us, but and I could talk about it all day, but I think given the audience today of students that are looking for mentors, I think, and I speak to colleges all over the country, I think one of the best books for college students is this. It's called Moving the Needle. And the subtitle is, Get clear, get free and get going In your career, Business in life And I've spoken to tens of thousands of people. And I think the number one challenge that we all have in life is we get stuck. So the question is, why are you stuck? And I think after studying and researching, it's our inability to get clear. Do we have clarity and where we want to go? Can we get free? And people say, What do you mean about getting free? It's really about eliminating self defeating thoughts. And then, you know, sometimes we just need the tools to get going. So the tub subtitle is Get clear, get free and get going in your career business in life, and I think given the audience that we're speaking to today, one of the things I want to do is just point out because point out to the audience that one of the things students really have a challenge with is to figure out what their life's mission is. And I think if you look at the education system today, what do people say? Oh, I got to go get a job because I've got a lot of school debt. I've got to go get a job. I don't think any of us are looking for a job. I think we're all looking and searching for what's our life's mission, and it took me about 50 years to figure it out. But I'm not that smart. I'm not as smart as all of you out there. And so what I've done is I put together, and this is if you get the book on page 46 it's really the toe. Find your life's mission. You've got to combine your strengths with your passions. People say Follow your passion. That's not true. You got to be good at something, so find out what you're good at what you're passionate about. And then combine that toe. How do you serve others? And another way of how do you serve others who will pay you to do it? Who will pay you toe thio, take your passions and your strength And can we pay you for that? Now, this isn't something your listeners they're gonna look at and go out and find their life's mission tomorrow. But I hope by if they get this book and look at this, I can help them to begin a process to figure out how to get more clear and get free in order to do the things they want to do in their lives.

well instead of my latest books may be the best answer is to go back to my first book Networking. Why would I write a book if I was a businessman for 25 or 30 years? Why would I, 10 years ago go out and write a book? Well, I think the real thing is as you get older and if you spend a little time reflecting you realize you're not gonna be around forever. Someday you're going to die. Actually, all of us are going to die. And so I've done a lot of crazy things in my life and I have four kids. And the reason I wrote this book was not to publish it and try to make it a New York Times bestseller. All I tried to do was to communicate in writing some of the things that I've done that could be life lessons for my kids. I never had any intention of publishing it. And so when I reflected what was the number one thing in my life, it was really about networking and helping to serve others. And so I put that to get some ideas down, and I shared it with some of my good buddies. I call them my wingmen, and I told them what I was doing for my kids, and one of my buddies said You should publish it I said, Number one. I don't know how to write a book. I don't know how to publish it. I don't know how to market. I don't know how to sell it. So my buddies kind of encouraged me and helped me. And so when I wrote this book, it came out in the first week. It was on The New York Times best sellers list. So then everyone assumed I knew what the hell I was talking about because I had a New York Times bestselling book. So for the last decade, I've been on the road speaking and training and coaching people, and I really left what I did for 30 years in business. And now I think I'm doing exactly what I was put on this earth to do. And being part of this talk today is what I think I was assigned to do on this earth. So does that make sense