‘The Profit’ abandons the keynote stage in favor of much more intimate approach

To say Wednesday’s keynote speaker was unorthodox would be putting it mildly. For example, there are several segments of his presentation we are honor-bound not to repeat here. Also, the speaker spent perhaps five out of 60 minutes actually on the stage and in the spotlights. And, although audience interaction is a familiar keynote tactic, very few speakers can compel attendees to reveal intimate secrets into a microphone in front of a thousand peers.

Marcus Lemonis is a self-made billionaire, one who was born in the midst of a civil war in Beirut, Lebanon, and whose adoptive parents raised him in Miami. He is CEO of Camping World, Good Sam Enterprises and Gander Outdoors, and rose to fame as the star of CNBC’s reality TV show “The Profit.”

But he’s still trying to figure out who he is.

And for an hour Wednesday he encouraged the audience to take a close, hard look at who they are as employees, employers, coworkers and as human beings.

“What is your purpose? Your talent? What will you do with it? And what will your legacy be? What will they say about you when you’re dead?” he asked. “If you can think about what it means to be a better human, you will create a better business.”

We tend to think business is about superiority, about out-competing and out-manufacturing as though it’s a big competition, Lemonis said. “It is a competition, but it’s about finesse, not strength.”

Overcompensation is a common crutch for the strength-obsessed, who are unlikely to ever admit they don’t have an answer for fear of being seen as “dumb.” But none of us has all the answers, he said.

Except, perhaps, for his mother. With a towering bouffant and standing seven-foot-nine (or so it seemed in his young mind), she kept him in line when knee-jerk reactions tilted his moral compass.

He asked audience members to stand if they have a coworker they wish worked somewhere else. With help from audience members, he enacted a scene wherein an 11-year-old does not want to be friends with or sit anywhere near the unpopular kid. Then he asked if there was any difference between the two scenarios.

“Mom and dad keep us straight when we’re kids, but who keeps us straight at work?” Lemonis asked. “You spend more time with coworkers than spouses, kids, parents. Isn’t it our responsibility to be their shepherds?”

It’s easy, he said, to terminate an employee and post a job. It’s hard to make sure everyone is treated equally, and with a fresh, baggage-free perspective.

“When you go back to work, do it with a different perspective,” Lemonis said. “The soul enrichment you get will shock you.”