Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Tag: Business

  • EntreLeadership: A Playbook for Life

    When Dave Ramsey’s signed copy of EntreLeadership arrived in the mail, I settled down for the night and figured I would read a few pages.  Two hours later, it was one a.m. when I turned out the light.  Yup, the book captivated me right from the start.  Bill Kybels, a senior pastor from Willow Creek Church, summed up my feelings about the book:

    “I love this book! One minute Dave sounds like a Harvard prof, and the next minute he is coming at you like an alley fighter!  Either way you will wind up being a better leader.”

    You cannot lead without passion,  Dave writes.   How true this is.  The most successful leaders are driven by passion, and it is this passion that sustains them year after year.  After reading the chapter on passion, I immediately thought of Hands & Voices. When I first joined this parent-driven organization, there were just three chapters. I agreed to start the fourth chapter– only because I saw the passion that burned in the eyes of Leeanne Seaver and Janet DesGeorges.  Their passion mirrored my own, and I knew I found a home in this organization.  If there’s a testimonial to the power of passion that leads, then Hands & Voices embodies it.  In less than ten years, we went from a handful of chapters to world wide.

    But back to the book.  At first glance, one might simply think this is a business book about leadership, nothing more.  At first, I wondered what I might get out of it– after all, I’m a mom, a writer, an early intervention provider and a board member.  But then I remembered that I’m also a Send Out Cards distributor, and hello… that’s a business.  And since I’m at the beginning of it all, I’m where Dave was back when he set up a card table in his living room.  Dave calls this his playbook, in fact, he calls this a “championship playbook for business.”  But I find that definition to be too narrow.  When I turned the last page of this book, I realized it was so much more than just about leadership in business. It was in fact, a playbook for life.

    Throughout the whole book, I found myself underlining bits of wisdom that I could apply to every day life.  One of my favorites: “You are never too old. You are never the wrong color. You are never too disabled. You are never the wrong political party. There is never a big enough obstacle to keep a person with passion operating in a higher calling from winning. ”  Good stuff.  And it applies to anything in life.

    You know what else I liked about this book? Dave opens up wide about the mistakes he made along the way and shows how he evolved as a leader.  How many times have we placed someone on a pedestal and thought to ourselves, “I’m not like them, they’re so successful, so good at what they do, I could never get to where they are.”  So we don’t even bother to try. We don’t push ourselves and test our limits, because we’re measuring ourselves against someone who has paid the price to get where they are today.

    Not only is Dave a great leader, but he happens to be a barefoot water skier as well.  Deep into the book, in a chapter about recognizing others, he shares a tidbit about Keith St. Onge, the two-time World Barefoot Champion:

    “Because of our success and the media I do, I have been blessed to meet many famous and world-class people.  A few years ago I met and became friends with the world champion in a particular sport.  I was a little worried that he would be arrogant and instead he was gentle, kind, polite, and an amazing athlete.  As we talked late one night at my kitchen table he told me of the untold hours and sacrifice his father had gone through to help him train through his teenage years.  He humbly attributed his world champion status to his dad’s encouragement and sacrifice.”

    Without Keith knowing, Dave sent a two-page letter to his parents, Claude and Jackie, sharing what he observed from working with Keith and thanking them for being great parents.  “I was totally emotional reading it,” said Claude. “Having Dave compliment our son and us– well, I had tears of joy. I read it more than once.”

    “When I got that letter, I felt so proud,” said Jackie.  “For a long time, I didn’t feel that I had anything to do with his success. I was grateful that Dave took the time to share what he thought about Keith, that he expressed his feelings in a letter to us.”

    The ripple of that letter goes on.  When I first read a copy of Dave’s letter to Keith’s parents a year ago, I started to become more aware of how I could recognize and honor others in my life.  I sent out cards, letters and emails and took more time to acknowledge the impact of those I’ve crossed paths with. And that’s what EntreLeadership will do for you– it’s not just a playbook for businesses, it’s a playbook for life.  Dave ends the book saying, “Go make a difference in the way business is conducted.”  But you won’t change just the way you conduct business, you’ll change the way you journey through life.

     

     

  • Michael Janger, Business Consultant

    Tell me about your job. How did you get into this line of work?

    I am a strategy consultant who provides finance, strategy and marketing advisory services to clients in the assistive technology industry, including nonprofits that serve people with disabilities. A finance industry veteran, I worked at American Express, Thomson Reuters, and IBM, and was the second profoundly deaf student to receive an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to my work, I write about disability issues and business at michaeljanger.com.

    I was born profoundly deaf, and not having the sense of hearing in a world full of hearing people presented me with challenges on an almost daily basis. Socially, academically and professionally, it was very difficult to communicate on a functionally equivalent level with my peers. The saving grace for me were innovations in technology that have enabled me to prosper in my career and my personal life. So, it is a passion for me to work with companies to better market products that make a difference for people with disabilities.

    With my finance and strategy experience in Fortune 500 companies, it was a natural progression to a line of work where I could offer my skills in a market I know well, as a person with a disability.

    What is the best part of your job?

    I enjoy working with clients to solve their business problems. It feels good to know I am helping them perform better, and more importantly, provide consumers with disabilities with better choices when evaluating products that enable them to function in a non-disabled world.


    What are some of the challenges of your job?

    This is my first entrepreneurial role. It was not by choice that I left American Express in 2009 — the Lehman collapse and credit crunch resulted in major layoffs at American Express. In a difficult job market in finance, I decided to lay the groundwork for a consulting career where I could provide my substantial finance and strategy experience to companies in a market that I know intimately. But it is a lot of work. You have to be disciplined day in and day out, and network as much as possible to build your business and get to know the major players in the amazingly diverse world of people with disabilities.

    What was it like growing up deaf?

    An important starting point — especially for those who are hearing — is that as someone who was born profoundly deaf, I did not lose anything. I have no memory or knowledge of what it is like to be fully hearing — to speak easily on the phone, listen to a podcast, or appreciate the finer points of music. The experience I have every day is of someone with a limited sense of hearing growing up in a world dominated by people who can hear perfectly well.

    This meant adapting to situations where the odds are always stacked against you. In high school, I did not have a real social life in a day and age when there were no cell phones, e-mail, or Internet. My hearing classmates called each other by landline phone, and I could not use the phone on my own. Sometimes I had to ask my parents to make the calls for me — which was very awkward to do in the image-conscious world of adolescence. It was not until college, where people see each other constantly in dormitory halls and campus greens, that my social life flourished.

    My childhood experiences have given me a strong desire to be connected to everything, to have access to as much information as possible. Which might be too much of a good thing today, in the age of information overload. But it has come in handy for me in my work, as I tend to be pretty good at collecting and analyzing data, and doing exhaustive research on the various business issues I face in my work.

    What advice would you give a deaf/HH person who is looking for a career like yours?

    As a finance industry veteran, it is important to build up substantial credentials in your field of expertise before venturing into a business of your own. Unlike marketing or creative writing, finance tends to be a pretty conservative industry where intelligence, trust, and solid academic credentials are key success factors. To shift from finance into a business of your own requires a strong network of people who can help you make your business work, and a vastly different approach to work that relies less on analyzing numbers and more on creative, team-oriented problem-solving.

    In whatever you do, it is important to follow your passion. A friend of mine, who is also deaf, put it very succinctly: “The best job is one where I can work for free.” And when it comes with a paycheck, it’s even better.