This is a guest blog post from my new friend David Greer. David is an author, serial entrepreneur, lifelong sailor, and success coach, focusing on strategic planning, sales, and excellent customer service to achieve personal breakthrough in both life and business.
In my book Wind In Your Sails: Vital Strategies That Accelerate Your Entrepreneurial Success, I highlight ten entrepreneurs who have led themselves and their companies in new directions. I want to share some of these stories to highlight Joshua Lee Henry’s theme of transformation in this blog.
Bob Park, Founder and CEO Fincad
Bob Park founded Fincad twenty-five years ago to solve pressing challenges in the modern over-the-counter financial derivatives business. The story of Bob Park is so much more than the products and solutions he and his company have created. This is a people story highlighting:
- Financial risks Bob took to start the business.
- Courage for Bob to bring in outsiders to objectively look at their business and then to take it on the chin when Bob himself was identified as part of the problem.
- Reinventing the business and the people to take Fincad in a completely new direction.
Bob has transformed his business in ways that he could never have envisioned when he started it. His growth and example show all of us how we can transform ourselves in whatever role we play in our businesses and community.
James Shaw, Founder Twin Creek Media
James founded Twin Creek Media out of necessity. He had recently graduated from a two-year marketing program. Jobs were paying half what James needed to support his wife and young family. Left with no choice, he founded Twin Creek Media and worked harder than he ever had before to make it a success.
James had to learn and grow continuously in the ten years since he started the business. While everyone else was saying they needed to specialize, James break through moment was when he realized that in their market what business owners wanted was a one stop marketing services firm who could look after all of an entrepreneur’s marketing needs. The exact opposite of what the experts were saying.
In the early days, James scrambled from client to client to make ends meet. What this taught him was that he would fail. As he says in Wind In Your Sails, “Get over it.” James gives all of us insight into how we can transform ourselves by taking on new challenges, knowing that some of them will fail, but that we will learn and grow from them.
Murray Goldberg, Founder Marine Learning Systems
Murray Goldberg is one of the leading North American experts on Learning Management Systems (LMS). As I wrote in Wind In Your Sails, Murray was engaged by BC Ferries, one of the largest ferry operators in the world, to look at their training systems. BC Ferries committed themselves to having the best training in the world.
Murray joined a small team that looked at how BC Ferries did their training. The group identified the key requirements of an effective commercial maritime electronic training program. This included capabilities for non-vessel specific core competencies along with specific training that was unique to each vessel and the equipment used on board that vessel. The solution had to also work on the ship, away from any Internet connection, and at home away from the ship.
This is completely different from how any other LMS works in the maritime industry. By focusing on the unique aspects that every individual needs to learn and ultimately to be safe, and to keep passengers safe, Murray and his team have created a special system that is transforming learning throughout the maritime industry.
In my book Wind In Your Sails, I feature ten innovative business leaders who transform both themselves and their industries. What do you need to transform you and your community today?
Advertising that Ignites Action 