My Story

I started working at the age of 14 while still going to school. I was young, but life taught me early that nothing should be taken for granted. Balancing work and education was challenging, but it gave me something far more valuable than money: discipline, resilience, and the determination to build a better future.

At 17, I was fortunate enough to receive a college scholarship in Kansas, an opportunity that changed my life. But the scholarship did not pay for everything. I still had to work while studying to pay for my accommodation, food, and daily expenses.

Looking back, I realize how incredibly lucky and blessed I have been. I have had opportunities that many people never receive, and I am deeply grateful to God for opening doors for me, putting the right people in my path, and giving me the strength to keep going when things became difficult. I have worked hard for everything I have achieved, but I would never claim that I did it all alone. Hard work matters, but so do opportunity, timing, the people we meet, and, for me, God's help.

I earned my bachelor’s degree at one of the best business schools in Spain while working part-time to pay for my education myself. I completed a graduate diploma and an M.B.A. in the UK while working in consulting, and eventually completed my doctorate at an Univesity of Applied Sciences Institute in  Zurich while working hard for several companies.

Over the years, I have been fortunate to live in the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Spain, and Thailand. I have started three companies international trade related across Europe and Asia. Twice, those ventures ended in bankruptcy. Those were painful experiences, but they taught me some of the most important lessons of my life: 1. How to fail, 2. How to accept failure, 3. How to start again.

Today, fully recovered with scars, I look back at those failures without shame. I am proud of what I have done, not because everything worked, but because I was fortunate enough to have the courage to try again. I possess a wealth greater than any millionaire's, simply by desiring what I already have.

Everything I have achieved has been built from the ground up. No one paid my tuition fees. No one bought me a home. No one gave me money to support myself or my family. I had to build my own path, step by step, year after year. I am proud to call myself a self-made man. But I also know that being self-made does not mean being self-sufficient. I have been helped, encouraged, given opportunities, and blessed in ways that I could never have planned myself. For all of that, I am grateful to God and to the people who are part of my journey.

I worked very often 84 hours a week from a very young age. That work allowed me not only to survive, but to build a life I am proud of: financial independence, five books, 22+ journal articles, a career in academia, decades of college teaching and consulting, three companies launched, experiences across five countries, and, most importantly, the greatest wife and daughter, my family, and this is where my deepest sense of purpose comes from.

My mission in life is to succeed professionally but I can only truly succeed if my students succeed, end of the story. Their achievements are, in many ways, my achievements. Their growth is my reward. If what I teach helps a student become more confident, more capable, more independent, or more successful in life, then I know that my work has meaning.

I often like to say to my students: “I am what I teach, and I teach what I practice.” I cannot teach resilience if I have never experienced failure. I cannot teach entrepreneurship if I have never taken risks. I cannot teach perseverance if I have never had to start again. I cannot teach leadership if I am unwilling to lead by example. My life is the classroom, and my experiences, both the successes and the failures are part of what I try to bring to my students.

I am 55+ now, but I still feel young enough to dream, create, take risks, fail, recover, and start again. I am grateful for everything behind me, but I am equally excited about what lies ahead. My life has taught me something simple: we must give first and collect later. Sometimes you work, sacrifice, help others, and keep moving forward without knowing when or if the reward will come.

But I have learned that life has a way of giving back. I have been lucky. I have worked hard. I have failed. I have recovered. I have been blessed.

And today, I can look back with gratitude and say: Thank you, God, for the opportunities, the failures, the lessons, the people, and the strength to keep going. I am proud of the life I am building and even prouder when I see the people I have taught building lives of their own.

This journey is not over. My greatest challenge now is not simply to succeed myself, but to help others succeed.