Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Did you have any particular experiences/stories that shaped your adult life?

I grew in Provo, Utah and had a delightful childhood, although I sometimes go lost in the shuffle being in the middle of nine kids—four older and four younger siblings.

When I was 11, I saved for two years doing all kinds of different jobs to buy a motorcycle when I turned 13. It taught me the value of goal setting, taking initiative and persevering through difficulties.

When I was 14 as a freshman in high school, I tried out for football. I was the smallest kid on the team (5’2 & 90 pounds). I wrestled and got pinned nearly match. I ran track and was the slowest sprinter on the team. My senior year, I was the captain of the football team. I was 6’0 & 180 pounds and led my team to the semi-finals game. In track, I was the fastest on the team, anchoring the 4×100 relay race and earning All-State honors for being one of the fastest sprinters in the state of Utah. I was voted Senior Class President for my class of 300 and voted “Best Body” by the senior class girls, a coveted award. These challenges taught me the importance of vision, faith, diligent and not letting others define who I could be.

What is something you wish you would’ve realized earlier in your life?

I would have been an entrepreneur earlier in my life. Being in a company and working for the man was not the best fit for my temperament and personality. Creating new things and running my own show is what I enjoy most and I spent too many years working for other people and advancing their vision, not my own.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?

“Stick to you knitting.” This is good advice when you’ve found what’s important in life. Not when you exploring new ideas or new approaches. I think some people in my profession play it too safe and don’t demonstrate enough courage to try new and different things because of the fear of failure or the fear of the unknown. Which is why I often look outside of my profession for ideas, insights and inspiration.

Tell me about one of the darker periods you’ve experienced in life. How you came out of it and what you learned from it?

When I started my new business at age 44, I was used to persevering through all kinds of challenges to achieve my goals and reach my vision. I wish I had spent more time thinking through my business model and the demand for my services. When demand for my services lessen, instead of pivoting I dug in deeper. It took me a long time to change and adjust my strategy. I realized that not every plan in life is worth pursuing. Sometimes it is important to change your direction and course correct when you experience failures or you make miscalculations.

What is one thing that you do that you feel has been the biggest contributor to your success so far?

Focus. When I look back on my successes, they came about because of laser-like focus. It is extremely hard to say no to enticing and easier things around us, but the rewards are always worthwhile.

What is your morning routine?

Wake up 7 am, I pray, meditate and read the scriptures for 30 mins. Exercise for 60 mins. And start work at 9 am. I focus on my high priority projects until 12 Noon and then look at my emails and have lunch.

What habit or behavior that you have pursued for a few years has most improved your life?

Reading. I love reading and read 3-4 books a week and 3 newspapers a day. The learning and insights have been profound. The more I read, the more I realize how little I know. But I have a broad general literacy that has served me well in my career.

What are your strategies for being productive and using your time most efficiently?

Doing your most important work in the morning (when you’re the freshest).
Only look at email a 2-3 times a day. Be disciplined in not looking too frequently at your smart phone or social media. And always have a time limit. I limit my social media to 30 mins a day.
Take breaks every 90 minutes—go for a walk, get some fresh air, get out of your current environment.
Practice GTD (Getting Things Done) – approach & philosophy created by David Allen

What book(s) have influenced your life the most? Why?

Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn From Their Mistakes—But Some Do by Matthew Syed. This book helped me realize that mistakes and failures are truly part of the learning and growing journey of business and life. Before reading this book, I beat myself up a lot over my mistakes and failures. Not anymore.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. This book taught me the enormous power of FOCUS. Steve Jobs knew how to focus and keep the Main Thing the Main Thing. And Apple Co. today still personifies this same focus.

The Ride of a Lifetime: Lesson learned from 15 years as CEO of The Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger. This book illustrates the critical importance of relationships. Bob Iger was a master at building and maintaining great relationships. His stories of:

1. repairing the relationship with Roy Disney (nephew of Walt Disney) who was a disgruntled shareholder who wanted to get rid of Michael Eisner, Iger’s predecessor.
2. repairing the relationship with Steve Jobs, which led to the Pixar acquisition and
3. building trust with George Lucas so that he would be willing to sell LucasFilm to Disney are amazing illustrations of the power of empathy and thoughtfulness.

George Washington, Alexander Hamilton & Ulysses S. Grant biographies by Ron Chernow. His lengthy sagas are not for the light readers, but shed incredible light on the personalities, strengths and weaknesses of our founding fathers and the important foundations they laid for our country.

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham, the best biography on Jefferson

John Adams by David McCullough, the best biography on Adams

Do you have any quotes you live by or think of often?

“If you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real.” – Roger Iger

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

“It’s easy to have ideas. It’s very hard to turn an idea into a successful product. There are a lot of steps in between and it takes persistence, relentlessness. I always tell entrepreneurs you need a combination of 1) stubborn relentlessness and 2) flexibility and you have to know when to be which. You need to be stubborn on your vision because otherwise it’ll too easy to give up, but you need to be very flexible on the details because as you go along pursuing your vision you’ll find that some of your preconceptions are wrong and you’re going to need to change those things.” – Jeff Bezos

“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not” – Oprah Winfrey