Issue #29. Laura Youngson, Michelle McBride and Zack Weiner join Three Questions With...

This week's version is all about enterpreneurship and creation. We have it circled around apparel, footwear, beverage, media and property. Hope you enjoy Laura Youngson , Michelle McBride and Zack Weiner . ?

Laura Youngson is a STEM advocate, TED speaker, and four-time Guinness World Record Holder (what an opener). She’s always been drawn to the power sport had in bringing people together and in 2017, she set out to make make a lasting mark in the game she loves. She is co-founder of IDA Sports , the maker of the first-ever boot (aka cleat) made for a woman’s foot.

Mistake: After working?for about a decade I got told that I shouldn't have done ten jobs in ten years - it made me look flighty?and that I'd never stick at anything. At first, I was disappointed and kept thinking the problem was me. But as I grew, I realised that I had just been maximising the opportunities available to me, saying yes to adventures and creating transferable skills that are invaluable whilst running my own business. Having worked with many different people and cultures, I approach problems differently and adapt to a wide variety of situations and challenges, all of which help me be a better entrepreneur.?

Purpose: I often think about what impact?you can have on the world,?both localised and personal and systemic and wide. Can you leave the world better than you found it? And what does better look and feel like for whom??For IDA, I ask, can I change a culture of indifference and underfunding towards female athletes and female entrepreneurs? How can I empower others? If only 2% of VC funding goes to women, and I'm one of the?fortunate ones, how can I make it better for others??On a localised level, I ask, can I make products and share experiences?that make our consumers play better, feel better and experience?that sense of belonging? If so, then the business is doing what it is supposed to and positively impacting those lives

Passion: What gets me up in the morning is the thought that I can change the larger?brands and how they cater to female soccer players. Small, little old me, with a startup business, can shift a large Goliath to be better, do better and create better. All systems need renewal and innovation. My interest lies in finding that fulcrum that makes change faster, easier and smoother so that you can change a paradigm and move on to a new trickier problem.?Beyond that, I love a good dinner party story, such as, "do you remember that one time we got goal posts to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and played 90 mins of soccer with a team of all female athletes. That was cool". I hope it all leads to a no regrets retirement where I don't need to ask, "what if...", because I always seized the opportunity to make a difference.?

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Michelle McBride didn’t want her son drinking sports drinks filled with artificial ingredients and extra sugar at his baseball games. She wanted a natural option that was backed by science to provide truly effective hydration. Reading about athletes who drink chocolate milk for recovery after sports sparked the idea to look at milk as a natural source of hydration. So she is created GoodSport Nutrition .

Mistake: I was a big, “I can’t do that, I don’t know how,” kind of a person.??No matter what “that” was - if I didn’t know exactly what had to be done, how it would be done and every potential back up course of action should things go awry, I wouldn’t even try.??It also made me skeptical of other people’s ideas.?Now my mantra is:??“Commit.??Then figure it out.”?I didn’t have the first clue “how” when I had the idea for my product or my brand.??I committed to the concept and eventually pieced things together.??Sometimes it seemed insurmountable but the secret is that you never know it all- I’m still learning “how” to do part of my job every day.??Too many great ideas out there are never pursued because people are too hung up on knowing exactly “how” they are going make it happen.??You don’t need to know how to do it all from day one.??Commit and one step at a time, you can figure it all out along the way.??

Purpose: To be a good person and enjoy life!

Passion: I am most passionate about family- ours is a big, loud and extraordinarily fun family that brings me a ton of joy.??I feel the same about great food, friends and celebrations which often go hand-in-hand. ?I’m also very passionate about learning, remaining curious and staying informed.??And I love the water so on the weekends in the summer, you can find often find me on a paddle board.

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Zack Weiner is the co-founder and President of Overtime , the leading brand for the next generation of sports fans, with over 65 million social media fans and followers, driving an average of over 2 billion video views each month. He also co-created OTE (Overtime Elite), the transformative sports league that offers the world’s most talented basketball players a better pathway to becoming professional athletes. Follow their story. The business and growth is crushin' (I am a proud investor in the business).?

Mistake: Taking yourself too seriously generally backfires, but so does not taking yourself seriously enough-- I feel good about my current level of seriousness?:)?

Purpose: I strongly associate purpose with intentionality-- in anything in life-- am I just going through the motions, or am I thinking, feeling and behaving with intention.?

Passion: Creating! Positivity, growth, relationships, products, culture-- because it can change the world and is fun!

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