At just 32 years old, Jake Locker is running his own fitness center in his home state of Washington. He is doing something that he loves every day and he enjoys every second of it. This is one of those stories that I just really enjoy. Jake Lockers life has had many ups and downs but he has now figured it out. Jake was taught by his father at a very young age to leave everything better than you found it. This is an attitude that he not only still carries to this day but he carried his whole football career. Jake was a 4-star prospect coming out of high school. He held offers from many great football programs, but decided to stick with his home state Washington Huskies despite a 2 win season. Jake had a great career at Washington and climbed NFL draft boards. Jakes last season the team went 6-6, which is much better than when he got there. Jake had only had one injury in his college career, but it went a bit downhill as far as football goes from here. Jake was selected 8th overall by the Tennessee Titans in the 2011 NFL draft. Jake had some solid moments as a Titan, but ultimately retired after a couple injuries and just four years. He stated that he had completely lost passion for the game of football. Jake now is a successful business owner and is much happier than when he was an NFL QB, so props to him for that. I always enjoy when people take a situation in which they aren’t crazy about and make it into one that they enjoy. Props to Jake Locker for making life decisions to make no one but himself happy.

Johnny Manziel, otherwise known as “Johnny Football” has had a roller coaster ride of a life. At just 27 years old, the problematic former Heisman Trophy winner and overall football phenom is already out of the game. For Johnny, he was well off from a very early age. His parents, Paul and Michelle have a net worth of over $50 Million. His parents are oil tycoons and successful business people in their own right.   meeting when they were working as bartenders. Johnny’s mom went on to work in real estate and his dad went on to build homes and sell cars. However, the family is actually independently wealthy, due to Bobby Joe Manziel, Johnny’s great-grandfather, having hit oil when he moved to Texas in the 1930s. This is all apart of the rise and fall of Johnny Manziel. As a High schooler, Johnny was a 4-star prospect out of Tivy High School in Kerrville, Texas. he held offers from many schools including Oregon, Stanford, Baylor and many others but ultimately chose Texas A&M. He redshirted his first season, but the year after that is when the legend of Johnny Football was born. Johnny was the first Freshmen in college football history to when a Heisman while putting up insane numbers like 3706 Passing yards, 1410 rushing yards, and 47 total touchdowns. Johnny led the Aggies to an 11-2 record while knocking off Alabama 29-24 in the game that he is now most known for. He also led the Aggies to a 41-13 Cotton Bowl win against Oklahoma. In his second season, Johnny improved on his stats with another impressive season. He netted the NCAA a record $1.1 Billion in revenue.  Johnny fell a bit in the draft due to character concerns falling 23rd to the Cleveland Browns. This is where all the problems started for Johnny. After two years full off underwhelming football, and many off the field problems, like partying, and problems staying out of trouble with law enforcement. Johnny then tried his luck in the CFL, but it didn’t work out. He played with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Montreal Allouttes before his tenure in the CFL eventually ended. He also tried out the spring league before that. So you’re probably thinking to yourself, “how is Johnny Manziel an Entrepreneur?” Let me get into that. Johnny got his life turned around in early 2019. He decided he wanted to make a comeback in the league that was short lived, the AAF. Johnny signed with the Memphis Express and played well as their starter while he was there, setting his sights back on the NFL. Before the AAF season Johnny started his own clothing brand, he launched a whole shop with merchandise with the title “#Comebackszn” Johnny made a profit out of his bad situation. Anyone who can turn a negative into a positive business opportunity is entrepreneurial. And that is what Johnny Football did.

Kevin Smiley is a 27 year old Canadian who is the founder, President & CEO of SuraiTea Inc., a tea packaging business which hires recently arrived Syrian refugees. His objective is to, through the sale of premium teas, create high-value jobs for refugees and create a sustainable source of corporate donations from SuraiTea Inc to the not-for-profits active in the refugees resettling effort. SuraiTea recently won the 2016 Ottawa Social Impact Award. At only 27 years old, Kevin is innovating in a totally new way. He has been following the issue of syrian refugees very closely since 2015 and he has learned a lot. He has learned about the strain on economic resources experienced by non-profit organizations. Kevin Smiley always looks at things through the mindset of an engineer. He always tries to see how things work and how he can solve problems. When Kevin heard his entrepreneurship professor talking about a start-up weekend at the uOttawa Telfer School of Management with the theme of refugee resettling. He shifted all of his focus from some of the other ideas he had to how a business could be created to help refugees get settled in Canada, and he started to develop a business canvas. He described the ideation process, as ” a type of creative chaos where everything and anything as a business idea was written down to help refugees.” The model for Kevins business is pretty simple and he describes it in 2 steps: Create high value employment opportunities for refugees who have arrived in Canada; and, to establish a sustainable source of corporate donations to the not-for-profit organizations that are active in the refugee resettling effort in Canada.

Everyone knows about the app Facebook. Most people have one, but even if they don’t, they know of this social media juggernaut. The founder of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg, who is currently 36 years old. But when the app was founded, he was only 24. Zuckerberg and his roommate at Harvard University, named Eduardo Saverin. While attending Harvard, Zuckerberg majored in Computer Science. The whole idea behind the app was inspired by a botched attempt to get internet users to rate one another’s photos. It all started in 2003, when second-year student Mark Zuckerberg wrote the software for a website called Facemash. He put his computer science skills to questionable use by hacking into Harvard’s security network, where he copied the student ID images used by the dormitories and used them to populate his new website. Website visitors could use Zuckerberg’s site to compare two student photos side-by-side and determine who was “hot” and who was “not.” The app was only open for a few days because it was shut down by Harvard execs when it was discovered. A few months later the idea called “The Facebook” was initially created. The site was named after the directories that were handed out to university students to help them to get to know one another better. The app was only up for 6 days when Zuckerberg was in hot water yet again. Harvard seniors Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused him of stealing their ideas for an intended social networking website called HarvardConnection. The claimants later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, however, the matter was eventually settled out of court. As you can see, Zuckerberg faced many challenges when he was developing the app. But he never gave up. And now he is the creator of the most successful social media app on the planet. He is the definition of a true innovator.

In 1946, a fast-food juggernaut was born. Founded by Samuel Truett Cathy and his brother Ben, what was originally named the Dwarf Grill, but has now turned into the 1.6 Billion dollar company as Chick-Fil-a was born in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia was started.  The brothers originally built it near a Ford auto plant with the idea of bringing in its hungry employees. And I think it’s safe to say, it worked. The brothers noticed that some of their customers were taking rolls and chicken meat and turning them into sandwiches, giving them the idea for the Chick-fil-A concept. Chick-Fil-a has had so much success because of their vision, and that was excellent customer service. In his original restaurant, Truett would close on Sundays so he and his employees could rest and worship. That still holds true today in every restaurant. Another big example of why Chick-Fil-a is so successful is their marketing strategies. Truett used humor in commercials to boost the company profile. With funny commercials like “Eat Mor Chikin.” Cathy died at age 93 in September 2014. His chain continues to thrive and open new locations. Cathy is one of the most successful Entrepreneurs in the fast-food industries history. From taking a small restaurant named Dwarf Grill and making it into what it is today is remarkable. People love to eat at Chick-Fil-a because it is always reliable and you know what you’re going to get: Great service and great food with a short time of waiting for food. There aren’t many restaurants, not fast-food or even dine-in where you can say that. That’s why every town you go in and see a Chick-Fil-a it’s always super crowded and the drive-thru line is backed up big time. During this whole covid pandemic Chick-Fil-a has flourished with sales up 54.2% since this time last year, Total company revenue was $3.8 billion in 2019 compared to $3.0 billion in 2018, an increase of 26.7 percent. As you can see it is only getting more and more popular every single year, and I really don’t expect that to change much at all in the near future. All thanks to the innovative mind of Samuel Truett Cathy.