Tim Flowers

Greensboro, North Carolina

Instigator

I've been a manager and an entrepreneur most of my life. Starting as a part-time cashier in a gas station, I worked my way up to shift manager, then assistant manager, and kept going until I was a manager for the world's largest convenience store company. But that wasn't enough, so I kept pushing until I became a district manager for a major oil company. Why stop there? I kept advancing and eventually became the vice president of a regional oil distributor before leaving to start my own company, which generated sales of a quarter million in its first year. I later sold that company and became the president of a chain of gift shops. But the long hours and lack of freedom led me to think