Do You Have The Right Rhythm and Clear Expectations In Place?

A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether.

Roy H. Williams

Charles Bender is a, self-described, “smart man” and serial entrepreneur who has spent the last 20 years in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization learning to be more wise.

Married to Celia, for 27 years, and father of two amazing young men, Calen and Corbin, he has dedicated his adult life to ending generational poverty in his family.  Charles quickly learned that his path to financial and personal independence was to build successful businesses that add value to other human beings.

He started his first business, Renaissance for Singles, in 1997 and built it into a national franchise with 35 offices in 8 states with revenues exceeding 20 million annually.  “We had amazing success early and really thought we understood business, little did we know just how lucky we were”, says Charles.  In 2003 regulatory changes to telemarketing created a massive shift in the business model that he was unsuccessful overcoming, resulting in the business being shut down in 2005.

In 2003 he moved to the “country” and quickly learned that his new home did not have access to broadband internet services. In 2003 he founded Skynet Broadband (www.skynetbb.com) to address those problems for his community and other communities that lacked access. In that time Skynet Broadband has spun out another business, Biz IT Pros, a managed service provider for IT services, and made the Inc 5000 list in 2013. In 2017 Biz IT Pros merged with another MSP and together they formed Attentus Technologies (www.attentus.tech). Charles runs both entities today.

Charles believes that our values drive our choices and the better we can articulate them the more intentional our choices become. A follower of “Stoicism”, Charles believes that many of the stressors’ entrepreneurs feel can be directed to not having clearly articulated values to use as a decision-making framework and the errant belief that we can “control” more than our own perceptions and choices.  

Charles is a 14-year Rotarian and volunteers extensively in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, currently serving as the incoming Regional Chair for the US West region. #EOWestisBest

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