How do you fail 2nd grade because you can’t read, flunk out of Ohio State University your freshman year 
testing out with a 7th grade reading level over the following summer, flunk the first year of PhD qualifiers, never purchase a text book in graduate school, yet; graduate 2nd in your PhD class in Economics / Industrial Organizations?
Simple, not giving up and going home
How do you never go to a ski area until you are 11 years old, teach yourself how to ski on a little (100 vertical drop) hill in Cleveland, Ohio called Mont Chalet (now its a housing development), become a walk-on for the University of Utah ski team that wins the NCAA Championships two years then race on the US Pro Ski Tour while attending graduate school?
Simple, Dreams we Dare
How do you report to your first job upon graduation with your shiny new PhD with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board as a financial economist only to find out the position has been cancelled while you were driving out from school. You bump into the Executive Director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Company on the street on your way out that remembers you from a presentation you gave on your dissertation 3 months before and hires you as his special assistant on the spot. But, he’s fired 3 weeks later, and you end up in the basement of the building making zerox copies as your new job. You find out that the new executive director grew up on your street in Chagrin Falls, Ohio but they won’t let you talk to him because you are from the old regime. So, you hang out in the restroom outside his office every night for a week after everyone else has long gone home, figuring sooner or later this guy has to pee. You find out he has a restroom in his office. But you become his special assistant anyway and are named Deputy Director at the FSLIC, then you spend 10 years off and on giving testimony to US Senate, depositions and endless questions by the US Treasury Department and attorneys?
Simple, staying the Course
How do you rise from an entry level telephone loan officer position, breaking all company sales records by almost double your first month then promoted to production manager (open a call center in Denver tech village) to National Sales Manager over all 50 branch offices in only 13 months at FirstPlus Financial, only to leave a month later because the company has been cooking the books and has lost all it’s wall street investors?
How do you open a real estate investment business with hopes as big as you can stretch your arms out to either side of you and end up losing it all in the real estate collapse a few years ago; lose your house, your cars . . . everything?
Simple, you start over again from zero
So, why do you open a record label with absolutely NO knowledge, experience or expertise in the music industry to help all these inner-city, highly at-risk teen girls that have been beaten down time and time again by life, family and everything else?
Answer
Simple, I made a promise to never give up on the girl’s hope. The best of us was always our hopes and dreams. — Rob Roe, PhD., CEO, HRW Music Group
