William “Willy” Walker is the chairman, president and CEO of Walker & Dunlop, a 76-year-old company that is the tenth largest commercial mortgage lender in the United States. The company was co-founded by his grandfather in 1937. For most people, joining the family business right after college would have been the automatic choice. But when Willy received his MBA from Harvard, he took a daring, unexpected detour.

In true entrepreneurial fashion, Willy by-passed apprenticeship, refused great offers from several top American firms, and instead flew south: first to Chile to work for a venture capital firm, then to Argentina, where he drafted a plan for a startup airline – knowing very little about aviation. The advice given to him by a mentor was a guiding principle: “Accumulate as many scars as quickly as possible.”

In conversation with ENTREPRENEURradio, Willy illustrates the advantages of taking risks and confronting failure early on. His experiences in South America (where cultural differences sometimes led him into tough spots) taught him how to balance his idealism with the realities of being out in the field. He says: “You need to be prepared to accept failure, and you need to understand that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Put your head down and keep pushing forward.”

The ability to push forward served him well when, after more than ten years in Latin America Europe, he returned to Washington to lead Walker & Dunlop through the difficult 2008 real estate crisis. The risks he took- and the triumphs he achieved- earned him the 2011 Ernst and Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” award for his category in the Washington area. How willing are you to take risks as you navigate the realities of business? Download this podcast at ENTREPRENEURradio.org for more.

Just because a job or position doesn’t exist where you currently work doesn’t mean you can’t do it…

Aspiring writers, musicians, photographers and producers are no longer beholden to “the studios” to provide the equipment, produce and finance a project. That technology is available on your personal computer, iPad—even on your telephone.

Trina Sargalski grew up in Miami.  She transitioned from a career in education to a career as a freelance writer and radio producer/reporter.  She shares with us the personal career path she’s developed that incorporates her passions for “good food and good stories.”

Today, she’s creating audio stories about South Florida for Under the Sun on WLRN 91.3 FM, South Florida’s NPR station.  She also writes and produces media for Miami Dish, a website about “everything edible and local in Miami.” She demonstrates that you can create the job you want, once you understand what it’s possible to do.

Danny Scheurer founded Save-A-Vet after returning home to Illinois with disabilities sustained while serving in Iraq. Save-A-Vet helps dogs injured on military or law enforcement duty by hiring veterans to care for and manage them. The group, says Danny, has three objectives: “Create facilities in every state for our K-9 partners; hire retired, injured or disabled law enforcement and military veterans to live and work in the facilities; and lobby to have the dogs classified as veterans rather than equipment.”

Kurt Walchele founded Survival Straps on a camping trip. What do you do when your watchband breaks? If you’re Kurt Walchle you find a way to fix the problem, launch a business and create a product whose potential for doing good is unlimited. His product, Survival Straps, creates watchbands woven from a dozen feet of super strong military spec paracord which you can unravel, in an emergency, to give you a rope that will hold, tie, fasten, connect and secure just about anything.

Our guest is PR expert MJ Rose, who left advertising to become a novelist– only to find that the key to her success as a successful writer would draw upon the corporate skills she thought she was leaving behind.

Have you ever been blown off with the criticism “That’s not how we do things around here!.” The ability to know when to use commonly accepted wisdom, and when best practices from other environments can provide a breath of fresh air, is the essence of successful innovation. These thoughts fall in line with MJ Rose’ marketing philosophy.

MJ’s new book Seduction is now out! Get yours today, here.

Leading under pressure—is there any other kind of leadership?

Livelihood guest Dr. Gaby Cora believes that people can avoid burn out by anticipating stress and building daily reserves by continually recharging our energy.

Doing work you love can be dangerous to your work-life balance.  When you love what you do, it’s hard to shift gears away from work.

Think of the Prius hybrid electric car: it’s a “charge sustaining” hybrid vehicle. This means that it recharges itself while its operates (using the power from acceleration from the small gasoline engine);  it also recovers and stores energy created during coasting and braking.

Join our conversation with Dr. Gaby Cora as she describes ways in which you can avoid burnout and increase your energy. In today’s demanding environment, stress and pressure can translate to well-being—if you know how to manage it.

Today’s guest, Michelle Villalobos, rewires the uh oh experience.  In her world, those moments of dismay can serve as early signals. They let you know that the path you’re on will no longer take you where you hope to go.

Uh oh is the sound of waking up, and realizing that something unexpected is happening. It’s not really welcome, and not wholly unexpected.  Opportunity doesn’t just knock- it blows down doors.

Michelle Villalobos is a Personal Branding Strategist who helps individuals develop and design their unique Identity, establish Influence and turn that influence into Income. She is the founder of The Women’s Success Summit, Miami’s largest conference for entrepreneurial women, which draws hundreds of women from South Florida and beyond every November.

If you’re ready to welcome the unexpected,  she can help you turn it into opportunity.

http://www.mivistaconsulting.com/

If you can imagine your future, you can create it. Dorie Clark, who writes for Forbes and Harvard Business Review, describes the essential elements for this process:  insightful self-inventory;  awareness of your unique and essential values;  crafting a new narrative.

Dorie Clark is President of Clark Strategic Communication, a marketing and communications firm doing brand development work with clients as diverse as Google;  Yale University; and the National Park Service.

Clark served as the New Hampshire Communications Director for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign,  and as the Press Secretary for former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich’s campaign for Governor of Massachusettes. She teaches campaign management, media studies, and government at Emerson College, Tufts University, and Suffolk University and is a media trainer for the grassroots advocacy group Democracy for America.

Psychologist Dan Lobovits wasn’t seeking change. He had a satisfying career helping people and communities deal with the emotional impact of trauma. An accomplished marathoner, his Twitter profile describes him as “ loving my work wife, kids, dog, gardening, bread making, beachwalks, and of course, yoga”.

As his parents and their generation encountered the ageing process, his experience and sensitivity helped him re-envision aging as a life stage with its own unique stage of life, rather than as a trauma or a condition of illness. He utilized a unique set of personal resources-a sense of optimism steeped in his admiration for the survivors of trauma, and an entrepreneurial inclination that defines unmet needs as opportunities rather than problems. He shifted his professional practice to create a business called LifeSpan Health Services to develop products and services to promote health and well-being to help our aging population master the art of growing older while healthier, and with grace and wisdom.

And who could have imagined that this mid-career marathoner who has logged 40,000 miles of running would become a poster boy for the best practices of his new organization?

Our greatest opportunities emerge at the intersection of our expertise, purpose and marketplace opportunities. Get inspired and find ideas, resources and insights to help you navigate your personal career path. Livelihood: Create What’s Next On Your Personal Career Path with host Marcy Rosenbaum: Thursday January 12, 2012 7:00 pm EST on Radio Ear Network

Dr. Dan Lobovits is Founder/CEO LifeSpan Health Services, LLC. whose mission is to help people live well longer and age gradefully. They provide brain health assessment and training, individual and group counseling and community lectures. They are actively building a network of strategic partnerships with clients and families, academia and private healthcare providers.

In 2011, he received the Outstanding scholarship Award, Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California.

Here’s link to reach Dr. Dan Lobovits http://lifespanhealthservices.com/

Lifespan Health Services has made a corporate decision to deepen its commitment to brain health research. Each month a portion of Lifespan’s profit goes to the Michael J. Fox Foundation so it can continue its vital work. Dan says, “As we help you, you help the cause of conquering brain disease.”

Trisha Torrey identified a need for a new role in health care. Some call it a navigator; some call it a patient advocate. Tricia is a pathfinder in the emerging field of professional health care advocacy.

When a medical crisis happens to us, to or to someone we love, we find ourselves literally in a fight for our lives with little time for preparation or negotiation. We struggle to come up to speed on a disturbing new vocabulary, a complex set of decisions with unpredictable outcomes, decisions about the costs of health care that can bankrupt a family.

Trisha Torrey realized that we need trusted advocates for health care issues just as we do for issues related to financial planning and legal issues. Health care advocates, she says, “are knowledgeable about medical issues, and health care rules and regulations; their role is to help extend the quality and the quantity of life by helping a patient and their family ask the right questions.”

Professionals in health care advocacy demonstrate a deep body of knowledge about medical conditions, treatments, protocols and resources—not as medical experts but as an experienced guide in this unwanted journey. They balance skills of empathy and objectivity to help patients understand the new world of medical information; understand the choices available; and how to approach decision making from a perspective of personal values and priorities.

Trisha Torrey wasn’t a health care provider when she began this journey- she was a patient, struggling for survival. She learned, the hard way, that knowing the right questions makes all the difference. She leveraged her skills as an educator and a marketing specialist to help establish a new professional identity not only for herself, but for hundreds of people who see people as more than patients, but as educated and knowledgeable consumers and partners in the health care process.

How do you make your Livelihood decisions? It’s a decision that affects everything in our future, not just how we spend 50 weeks a year, but often the neighborhood in which we choose to live, how much money we’ll get to make and who our friends are going to be.

Career planning is often delegated to guidance counselor offices and other resources, and we are limited to choosing from what they have to offer.

Today’s guest Paul Tieger, wrote a book called, Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type, that could be considered the declaration of independence on passive career planning to active career planning to owning a new career.

It’s designed to help you find a perfect career for you based on your unique personality style and interests. So how well suited are you for the work you currently do?