CFD 224 - Mike Brcic Uses Business to Make Positive Change on a Global Scale
Entrepreneurship is never a straight line. That’s what Cash Flow Diary podcast guest Mike Brcic shows us through his story. He carries a lot of titles with him, but my all-time favorite is Chief Happiness Officer. Before this, and before he started the most popular mountain bike adventure company in the world, who was this interesting Canadian business owner and entrepreneur?
He was a typical college student working toward graduation with a degree in economics and history. Then he graduated, degree in hand. It’s at that moment it struck him that he’d need to do a bit of soul searching because he didn’t want to work in economics and/or history. So he threw his belongings into his vehicle and headed to the mountains. He got fired from his first couple of jobs and figured out he’s not a good employee.
Mike took a $10K loan, partnered with a friend and opened a mountain bike tourism company. A few years in he bought out his partner and by year nine his company was doing great. He was living the life of a lot of young men’s dreams! Even with all his success and adventure, Mike says something was missing.
In 2004 he started dating a woman and after a short time she dumped him. She said it just wasn’t working. Something in that experience pushed him into an odd, disjointed path… and into a serious depression. He gave himself over to the dark forces of his depression, crawled into bed and slipped further down the rabbit hole. It took about two years to come out of it. His business was failing. He was broke. Something in him was broke. Mike said one night he woke up and knew he’d have to reach out to others to help him crawl out and up into the light. He moved into his mother’s basement, started taking anti-depressants, and then implemented yoga and meditation in his life.
Mike says who he is today was shaped by that period in his life. Like so many other entrepreneurs, he was able to redefine himself from those struggles and failures. Fortunately he emerged after many months to be the man and entrepreneur he is today… the SOCIAL entrepreneur he is today.
Mike says that today one of his main goals in life (besides striving to be the best husband and dad he can be) is to use business to make positive change in the world. He achieves this every day through his adventure travel company Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Adventures, and through my courses, workshops and consulting for social entrepreneurs.
Sacred Rides opens adventurers to new places, new cultures and new ways of being. The company’s mountain bike trips support community projects around the world. But that’s only one side of Mike’s professional life. He took breaks to try out other things, but always came back to his biking company.
Mike also works to create other social entrepreneurs, delivering workshops and courses to mentor entrepreneurs who seek to change the world through business. He says he’s blessed to have worked with hundreds of amazing entrepreneurs and that he continues to learn more about social enterprise. Wanting to make it a more formal business, he created a social enterprise think tank. It’s pretty cool!
You might have to listen to this episode a few times, because there’s that much great information inside the interview. Mike’s a busy and productive man! Learn more. LISTEN NOW.