At Disciplined Growth Investors we have a close-knit team that is curious, passionate and a little eccentric. In their own ways, they each exemplify the qualities that make DGI unique. In order to recognize and encourage what our people were already doing, we created Project Bold.
DGI sponsors employees as they make bold moves in their own lives. To try something new. To stare down the unknown until it hands over its secrets. To ride no coat tails. To rest on no laurels.
These are their stories…
Evan decided to jump out of a helicopter on a remote mountaintop with nowhere to go but down. His Bold Project began with a trip to Banff, British Columbia and ended with a day of heli-skiing (or in this case heli-boarding) down a secluded and treacherous swath of the Canadian Rockies near Revelstoke.
“Once the helicopter leaves, you realize that’s it. There’s no backing out.”
“Frankly, it was something I wasn’t sure that I could do.” But fear really didn’t enter the equation until the two-hour orientation before boarding the helicopter. “That’s where they tell you all the ways you can die.” A chance encounter with a helicopter blade, a tree or an avalanche could all spell disaster for the unprepared participant.
It took the helicopter a full hour to transport the skiers to the top of a remote 12,000-foot peak in the thick of the Rockies. The view was spectacular; then reality set in. “Once the helicopter leaves, you realize that’s it. There’s no backing out. You’re in it.”
Evan was an experienced skier but relatively new to snowboarding, which made the experience more difficult. He spent much of the first run picking himself up off the snow. “It was tough. The snow was crusty and choppy. You really had to push yourself.”
He survived the day’s runs with only minor bumps or bruises. “It really pushed my boundaries and built my confidence to do something that big.” That confidence has transferred to other areas of Evan’s life. “I decided when I came back that I wanted to start working on my MBA as soon as I can. Why put it off?”
“You see guys doing this on TV and you think ‘I could never do that.’ But once you try it, you learn that, with the right guidance and preparation, you can do it. You just need the boldness to take that first drop-in.”
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Disciplined Growth Investors
150 South Fifth Street, Suite 2550 Minneapolis, MN 55402.
Phone: 612-317-4100