Why Should You Care About Our Board Members?

Let's be honest, you probably aren't looking to ooh and ah over some corporate bios.  So why should you really care who are board members are?

Because the fact that we have a Board says volumes, and WHO we have on our board speaks even more eloquently to our real goals and aspirations.

Most coaching programs simply aren't very rigorous, let alone rigorously measured for performance, whether it be executive coaching, financial coaching, entreprenuership mentoring, or even plain old self-help and life coaching.

It may sound funny to group all of those industries together, but when it comes down to it, none of them are known for high coaching standards.

Our coaches are different.  We have incredibly high performance standards.  And part of maintaining that is having the entire company's performance and financials reviewed by an outside board.  Just having an outside board says we're interested in holding ourselves accountable, both to our clients and our own ideals.

And Then There's The Matter of Who Is on The Board...

Because our investing and financial philosophy is so utterly different from mainstream financial advice, it was important that our board reflect those differences.  It's important that we have proven entrepenuers and businessmen who made their money through an application of the principles we teach - even if it was an unconscious or intuitive approach to those fundamentals.

Scroll down and learn more about our Board.

Rick Sapio

Richard (“Rick”) Sapio, 46, is a lifelong entrepreneur who started his first company, a bicycle repair shop, after the death of his father, when he was 14 years old.  Since then, he has founded more than 20 companies.

After college, Rick worked in the investment industry, and traded distressed bonds.  Shortly thereafter, he became the youngest partner at his firm; after making more than $1 million in commissions and $100 million in transactions in one year, while he was still in his mid-twenties.

At the age of 30, Rick started an investment holding company, that has made more than 50 investments in the past 16 years.  Rick invests in private companies, public companies, and real estate.  His firm currently has more than 30 direct and indirect holdings, which include being the founder of six separate, publicly-traded funds, the founding GP of a private equity fund, and 11 start-ups.  His firm is also an active LP in 10 healthcare/medical device investments.

Rick was the President of the Dallas Chapter of Entrepreneurs Organization for two years, and is currently a member of YPO.  He is the four-time Chairman of MIT’s “Gathering of Titans” program in Boston.  In the past two years, his passion for business turnarounds has enabled him to successfully turnaround two mid-sized, private companies.

Michael Fishman

Michael Fishman is a widely known and trusted advisor to brands and personalities on marketing, positioning and business growth, with special category expertise in health, personal finance and personal development.  In his 25 year career, he has been instrumental in growing to category leadership such businesses as Rodale, Boardroom, Phillips Publishing/Healthy Directions, Nightingale-Conant, and many others.  During this time, he has advised on many of the most successful product build-outs ever successfully executed in B2C direct marketing.

Michael leads the annual Consumer Health Summit, the preeminent invitational executive forum for CEOs, entrepreneurs and marketing leaders which he created in 1994.  Michael is also a co-founder of Juniper Pond Media and its first webTV asset, SpendLessTV.com.

Michael was the only guest speaker at the historic Gary Bencivenga 100 Seminar. He has also been interviewed by Joe Polish for the Genius Network Series, internet marketing educator Ken McCarthy for the System Seminar teleclasses, and consultant Perry Marshall for his Renaissance Club.

Rich Christiansen

Rich is best known for his successes at Mitsubishi Electric, Novell, and About.com.  However, his true passion and talent is in starting up and launching technology-oriented companies.  Several of these most recent successes include Tornado Solutions, Know More Media, Cyclone Trading Company, MortgageSaver101, Mountain Grabbers LLC, and Custom Dreams LLC.  He describes himself as “a perfectly good business executive turned entrepreneur.”

Rich has over 20 years of corporate management experience in leading cross-functional teams and organizations in the technology industry.  He is a skilled market innovator with a strong technology background and a thorough understanding of how to deliver technology to the marketplace.

In 2003, Rich formally left the corporate world and is having the time of his life building, managing, and selling, his own compilation of technology companies.  He states, “I am not sure it should be legal for one individual to have this much fun.  I take great pride and satisfaction in mentoring young, talented individuals and in helping business opportunities emerge.”

Rich’s long term-goal is to be actively involved in helping enable commerce and capitalism in developing countries.  Of keen interest to him right now is Nepal.  He is raising a young woman from Nepal as his daughter and has many strong ties to this amazing country.  He recently returned from Nepal with his family where they not only trekked through the Himalayas, but also documented the Sherpa culture.  He feels drawn and compelled to help this country evolve out of its desperate situation.  He is taking an active role in the education of young girls who would have otherwise not been able to receive an education.

Joe Polish

Joe Polish is the Founder and President of Piranha Marketing Inc., and the creator of the Genius Network Interview series.  His marketing expertise has been utilized to build thousands of businesses of all sizes, from small mom-n-pop cleaning companies to large multi-national corporations.

In the cleaning and restoration business niche, Piranha Marketing has been the #1 marketing and business-building resource provider and coaching organization in the industry for the past decade.

In the general business market, Joe's marketing audio program with Nightingale-Conant, "Piranha Marketing", has been their #1 selling general marketing program for the past 3 years.

Joe's Genius Network interview series has tapped the wisdom of some of the greatest entrepreneurial and marketing minds on the planet.  Best selling authors from Bill Phillips to David Bach, marketing pioneers from Joe Sugarman to Gary Halbert to John Carlton, and perhaps the best known high-adrenaline entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.

Joe's passions today are developing his high level Genius Network Mastermind group, a marketing "brainstorming" group for highly successful entrepreneurs, and his charitable fundraising mastermind (the Centurion Mastermind) which the past year has donated a half million dollars to Virgin Unite.

Jason W. Byrne

Jason Byrne's life passion is to help others discover, grow, and live their Soul Purpose™ while achieving Economic Freedom through real estate.

Jason earned a Finance degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.  While there he was a key player in a high-tech start-up. From there he became Chief Operating Officer of fifteen quick service restaurants where he was responsible for 240 employees.

By 2001 the allure of real estate was inescapable, and he and his wife Hope founded HomeTrust™.  Initially buying, renovating, and selling homes, HomeTrust™ has since spawned a handful of other real estate businesses.  Jason owns real estate in multiple states, and recently his companies acted as principals in over 175 residential real estate transactions in one year.

In 2007, Jason co-founded a short sale company that pioneered the Wholesale Short Payoff™ model.  After scaling up people, proprietary processes, and technology - all while profitably bootstrapping the business - Jason successfully sold the company in 2009.

Jason’s newest venture is Enhanced Recovery LLC.  When a residential loan is late, and refinance/loan modification has been ruled out, Enhanced Recovery’s patent pending process brings the bank and the borrower together for a pre-foreclosure sale while avoiding the pitfalls of traditional short sale and streamlined short sale.

Jason is the creator of The Renter's Escape Plan™ and The Problem House Solution™.  Jason also co-authored the book Economics of Soul Purpose with New York Times best selling author Garrett Gunderson.

Jason lives near Denver, Colorado, with wife Hope, children Summit, Ethan, and India, 2 cats, and 6 chickens.  Outside of work, Jason's passions are quality time and travel with Hope and the kids, powder skiing, road and mountain biking, and learning to surf.