On a cold, blustery morning last Thursday, Oct. 29, an exuberant crowd comprised mostly of high school and Fresno City College students filled the FCC gym to hear speeches, take part in networking, and even make a little money. The students had a common purpose – learn how to connect with their communities and use available resources to create wealth.
Following an introductory speech and a pump up stretching and goodies session from the Q97 promo team, the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour’s speakers delivered their messages. “Entrepreneurship is the best, or one of the best vehicles for creating a life where you make a lot of money, where you make a difference and you do something that you’re passionate about,” said Michael Simmons, one of the event’s keynote speakers. “The beautiful thing about it is you don’t have to wait until you have a lot of money; you don’t have to have certain grades or SATs or come from a certain place or be a certain gender; anyone today can start a business and be an entrepreneur.”
At the age of 23, Simmons has authored multiple books, started a few businesses, and become a very successful entrepreneur. He now takes his success story to students on tours, using speeches filled with humor, cell phone polling, and stories of yoyo champions turning into millionaires.
Another speaker, AJ Yager, 28, currently runs four businesses, has written multiple books, and is a large success. Delivering his speech after Simmons, Yager told students that “self improvement, if even just through reading 30 minutes a day, is the most powerful tool for anyone to become a success.” He told stories about how he started his first business at the age of 10, how he has met multiple millionaires and billionaires, including Cameron Diaz and her sister, Chimene, all of which he accomplished by starting with nothing and taking the advice from his grandfather.
“He challenged me to read 30 minutes a day; he had all the tools. He hooked me. He gave me all these different books that made me get a little smarter, a little bit better every day. Little did I know by taking this challenge, just so he would buy me a stereo in a year, how much my life would change after that,” Yager said.
Bertrand Gervais whose speech followed Yager’s, has been rated the number one entrepreneur in New York. Gervais brought up the members of the Fresno City College chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO), the group that brought the Entrepreneur tour to Fresno City College.
Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization is an organization dedicated to creating a network for prospective entrepreneurs to get connected with their community and become wealthy in the process. Pheng Vue, a member of CEO, said that the event at FCC has been planned for a while. “We started planning [the event] about the beginning of June, and from that point on, we’ve put many, many hours into planning the event and getting sponsors.”
Vue also said about the event’s purpose, “We want to bring entrepreneurship to students as a career choice, because a lot of people are raised with the mentality of ‘I’m going to get a degree and I’m going to go work for somebody.’ What really drives and builds the economy is new businesses and entrepreneurship. It’s a really exciting career path to follow but a lot of people don’t think about it so we want to open them up to that.”
Following all the speeches, students were allowed to roam the gym where many organizations and booths had set ups for networking. Groups such as the Muslim club at FCC, Mary Kay and ITT Technical Institute were represented, and students seemed to enjoy visiting all of them.
Jamie Simmons, an FCC student, said she enjoyed the event. “Yeah, I think it was pretty cool,” she said. “I had never really thought about entrepreneurship before but man, if I can become one, get rich, and never have to work for anyone, that’d be great.”
Other students were not so impressed. “I don’t think a lot of people are going to follow through on what these guys were saying,” David Rodriguez, a third semester engineering student, said. “I want to hear how they did it exactly, their business steps, not just a bunch of clichés about being successful. It’s cool, maybe a small percentage of people might benefit from this, but it wasn’t really working for me.”