Looking back on my 30 years in business (building several businesses and successfully exiting), I often think of how much easier things would have been if I’d had either a mentor and advisor or a team of board members with industry-specific expertise – especially during those first years. If I’d had a mentor with expertise far above my own, many lessons that I learned through trial and error could have been learned much faster. My businesses might have run more effectively and economically, and perhaps we would have reached our goals and mission in a shorter time.

You see, you don’t have to be an expert in everything. As a young entrepreneur, or NGO or tech startup founder, you might think that you need to be and do everything, and be available 24/7. But the truth is we can’t be all things in our enterprises. Wearing multiple hats and trying to be a jack-of-all-trades does not work well in the long term for anyone who wants to change the world for the better and create an impact.

To get to the top, and to play the A-game with the bigger players in your industry, you need to be completely honest with yourself about what you are good at and stick with that. Furthermore, you need to know how to hire team members with expertise and integrity to handle the rest. Putting together a quality team, from employees to your board members, can make or break your enterprise.

Once I started working with people in my team who were experts, running the business was far easier. I didn’t have to worry about taking care of things I had no knowledge of, while I could continue to focus on my strengths and ensure I developed these to the benefit of my team and company. The success of my businesses, such as ALLTEC – a multi-million-dollar company that I built and recently exited – was due to the strength and expertise of each team member. As an entrepreneur, two of the most valuable things you will ever do for your enterprise is knowing when to ask for help and, secondly, working with the right people.

If I knew then what I know now, and you asked me what I would have done differently 30 years ago, it would be finding a mentor or advisor who had the knowledge, experience, and skills that I didn’t have. Having one or two people who know more than you, and who have years of experience, can make all the difference. As humans, we learn best from others.

I’m passionate about leaving the world a better place than I found it. It troubles my soul to look around me every day and see how our natural world is being devastated. And though I know that finance, commerce, and global trade are all necessities for us to provide for our families, I also know that if we worked together as a human race, we wouldn’t have to go about destroying what gives us life. There has to be a better way!

By working together and sharing our knowledge and experience, I believe we can create the technology and find solutions to most of our global problems. 

If you are equally passionate about clean energy, climate change, environmental sustainability, and the development of disruptive technology that benefits our planet, I would love to hear from you. Connect with me if you are interested in a business relationship, wish to develop technology with a positive global impact, or need a mentor to help you in your company or NGO. I'm also open to serving on your board of directors.

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