Author, Speaker and Coach, Teresa de Grosbois, helps upcoming thought leaders learn to leverage influence. Teresa Grosbois is a product of her own process. Throughout her careers both as a leader in the oil and gas industry and as an entrepreneur, she found she had a talent for building and sustaining influential relationships. Now she teaches that skill to emerging thought leaders through her company, Wildfire Workshops, Inc.
Like many entrepreneurs, de Grosbois evolved into her business over time. She started her entrepreneurial journey in the late 1990’s when she created an online campground directory. She later founded a non-profit organization to build schools in Africa, funding the effort with profits from writing and selling children’s books. Each of her ventures taught her something valuable she would use going forward into the next one. A particularly difficult year that included the death of her father, the breakup of her marriage, the closing of her business and significant health issues made it clear to her that while she had often been successful and enjoyed fleeting happiness, she had never experienced deep, sustainable happiness. She tells the story of being in the midst of a bathroom renovation project, sitting on the floor surrounded by tools when she realized she needed to be her next renovation project.
“I starting taking every self-help course known to man,” she explained in a recent interview, “I got a lot more serious about my health and I started choosing to build the life I really want.”
She had taken a corporate job to support her family, but knew that part of the life she really wanted was once again owning her own business. As a newly single mother, taking the step away from her secure job felt too terrifying, so she took a leave of absence to give herself the opportunity to test her business idea while keeping the safety net of having a job she could go back to if necessary. After just a few months, she had a positive cash flow. She walked away from her job then and has never looked back.
The idea for Wildfire Workshops came about as a result of a conversation with her friend, Shawne Duperon who pointed out that throughout her various careers, the one consistent characteristic had been that she had formed very influential relationships very easily and that many people had asked her to help them do the same.
“Like fish don’t know what water is, many of us don’t know our strongest gifts until someone else points it out. Like a lot of entrepreneurs, it took colleagues and friends pointing out that I was brilliant at generating influence and creating influential relationships and that’s what I should teach.”
Wildfire Workshops teaches students how to step into thought-leadership – to use influence to generate their business success. One of the reasons she wrote “Mass Influence” was to help entrepreneurs and business leaders use influence to grow their business success.
De Grosbois also stresses the importance of having balance in one’s life. She invests her time heavily in her business and is careful to maintain balance by making time for family and activities that energize her. She is an avid hiker and loves spending time in the mountains. She and her daughters had the wonderful experience of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro together. She urges her students to build the life they want, “Do what lights you up. That’s when you’ll be powerfully authentic.”
To learn more about Wildfire Workshops, Inc. go to http://www.teresadegrosbois.com. To connect with her directly, please email her at Teresa@WildfireWS.com.
To get her new book “Mass Influence” visit Amazon.com.