Love gang, welcome to The Greatness Machine.

I'm your host Darius from Shazday.

I'm so pumped to have you here with me. Now listen, the greatness machine were about two things. Number one, people were living their passions. And number two, those who are creating greatness in the world and doing both of these things despite the odds against them. Each episode, we're going to feature interviews with game changers, business leaders, telling us their origin stories. What made them tick? what got them to where they are now.

Why?

So it can help you step into your greatness

within your life, your business, and your career. Occasionally, you might hear a few solo episodes

for myself, as I say, as I leverage my 20 years of entrepreneurship as a CEO and founder

to help you grow and level up in your journey to scale your life and

your business. So come be a fly on the wall, enjoy the conversation, and I'm stoked to have you hear with me. Guys, welcome today's episode of The Greatest Machine. I'm your host, Darius from Shaw's Day. Boy, do we have a special guest. My man, Cheryl Penny is in the house. What's up, Cheryl? Hey, Darius, great to see you.

Great to see you as well.

Oh, man, I'm so glad to have is in the house. What's up, Cheryl? Hey, Darius, great to see you.

Great to see you as well.

Oh, man, I'm so glad to have you on the show, Cheryl. Your name has come up in so many circles that I'm moving with in these days and I was glad to finally get you on here to get to talk to you about all the great things you're doing in the world. Before we get started, though, do you mind if I do a little bit of housekeeping for our new listeners to the show?

Absolutely. Go for it. So for listeners who are new to the show, the greatness machine, we're about two things. People live in their passions and those creating greatness in the world and do so despite the odds. My friend Cheryl here is neither short of passion or greatness. So yeah, so, you know, Cheryl, your name has come up in a lot of the circles. I mentioned earlier before the show that your name came up with my friend Russ Norwood. My business partner at Rise is Joe Duran, who I know you've known for a long time. A great friend of mine, Russ Norwood. I was just having dinner with him last night here in Austin, Texas. And you you know, you're a pretty well-known guy. People have spoken greatly about you in the RIA world. So kudos to you, my man. Like, you have a great reputation. And it obviously speaks volumes to the awesome work that you're doing, my friend. I appreciate that. Thank you, dearest. You know, I want to give your formal bio. So, you know, a lot of the listeners in the show know that I've now gotten into the world of the RAA world with Rise. And, you know, like I said, you're a big name in that industry. You're the founder, president, CEO of Dainee C Financial Partner. You guys are managing nearly 100 billion of assets under management. And on the entrepreneurial firm, we got a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the show. You were recently named in 2023, the Florida entrepreneur of the year by the Tampa Pay Business Time. So, man, just awesome work, my friend. I'd love if you wouldn't mind, though, you know, here at the greatness machine, we love origin stories. And I would love if you wouldn't mind, you know, given some of your background, some of your origin story, how did you get to where you got to? Yeah, look, I think, you know, Darius, and it's great to see you and thanks for having me on. You know, we're all living our own unique version of the American dream. And, you know, my origin story is probably not your most typical journey to Wall Street, if you will. I'm from a

small fishing village in Maine called Eastport, Maine, and I was raised by my step-grandfather.

I was orphaned before that, and my step-granddad took me in, and we were homeless when I was

11, 12, 13, lived with different neighbors.

It turns out, you know, being homeless is actually great training to become an entrepreneur.

It forces you to do more with less, but had perfect attendance K through 12.

My granddad forced me to be president in school, wanted me to ultimately have a job where I work with my mind, not my hands.

He'd work manual labor, pretty much his whole life.

Fourth grade education was actually handicapped and overcome quite a bit.

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