Month: June 2019


Jun
2019

Jim Gray MD

categories: Interview
Jim Gray MD

Jim Gray MD is a doctor and entrepreneur who operates his own imaging center in Mississippi. He is a member of the American Board of Radiology and has been certified for over a decade. In order to become a doctor, he attended Mississippi State University where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in both arts and science. He then left the state to pursue his medical degree in Ohio, but he returned afterward to fulfill his residency plan. Ultimately, he left again to do a fellowship program in Cincinnati. Although Jim Gray MD moved quite a few times while he was going through his academic career, he always came back to Mississippi. Hence why his medical and entrepreneurial careers are now taking place there. 

Why did you choose to pursue a career in the field in which you currently work?

When I first started my college career, I thought that I would like to do something in the field of arts. After all, there are countless directions in which your life can go from there. In my case, however, the perspective shifted a little. Although I still think that pursuing a degree in arts can be incredibly beneficial, I decided to finish my academic plan and go after something else. So, I switched to the field of science and doing so has been one of the smartest decisions that I have made. Four years later, I had my bachelor’s degree in science. Of course, I wanted to go further and get a degree in medicine. One of the main reasons for this was the fact that I believed my talents could be utilized to help people. 

In what way does your professional role make it possible for you to have a positive impact on others?

Well, I work directly with individuals who may have an undiagnosed condition that needs to be confirmed in order to start treatment. This means that I can quite literally save someone’s life with my skillset. Nevertheless, I do this job in order to help people in every way possible, not just when it comes to potential life-or-death cases. Additionally, I do my best to provide personable patient care and help people learn more about radiology in general. This is achieved by using simple radiology reports that everyone can understand so that patients know exactly what they are looking at. 

Can you give our readers any advice about starting their own business?

You should start a business where you will use your skills to solve a problem. The reason why is that problem-based entrepreneurial ventures are much easier to begin as the demand for them already exists. Moreover, you are much more likely to find a niche that can be a long-term endeavor and provide you with hefty returns for the rest of your career. Ultimately, never start a business in a sector that you are unfamiliar with just because you are seeing high revenues there. Odds are, lack of personal interest can translate to poor operations that will cost you a lot of money. 

What do you do for recreation?

I try to do some physical exercise at least 3-4 times a week. Since I do not really leave my office for work, I often need to do something to provide my body with enough cardio exercise. Thus, I like playing sports or doing resistance training. Besides working out, I also enjoy spending time with family and friends. We often get together for a movie or some sporting event. These tend to be great times where we all catch up with one another. After all, most of us are very busy and do not get to interact as much as we would like. Lastly, I love spending time researching something related to radiology or medicine in general. Although this is not exactly recreational, it helps me rest by keeping my brain engaged. 

Is there an Australian you admire or who has had a profound influence on you personally or professionally? Explain.

The first one would have to be Steve Irwin. For those unfamiliar, he spent his life working to preserve nature and animals. Unfortunately, he died in 2006 when a stingray stabbed him through the heart while filming one of his shows. He was also one of the first TV personalities to have multiple shows and he helped pave the way for a lot of animal advocacy groups that are now popular. Ironically, he was nicknamed the “Crocodile Hunter” even though his mindset had nothing to do with hunting. 

Besides him, I am also a huge fan of Germaine Greer. She is a prominent writer who has helped the movement of feminism mature and become what it is today. Reading her work has definitely helped me gain a wider perspective on how the world operates.


Jun
2019

Connor Mulvey

categories: Interview
Connor Mulvey

When it comes to college, not a lot of students manage to graduate with honors. After all, doing so requires a lot of hard work and persistence that most individuals are not willing to reach. Chicago native, Connor Mulvey, on the other, is not one of them. By reaching the Dean’s List multiple times, he established himself as an outstanding student of Loyola University Maryland. Once he obtained his degree, he quickly found a job with the Genesis Group where he serves clients as a junior associate. Besides his professional engagements, Connor Mulvey also spends a lot of time running and resistance training.

Why did you choose to pursue a career in the field in which you currently work?

When I was in school, I was very interested in topics surrounding the fields of economics and finance. In the real world, however, most of the jobs related to these two skillsets tend to over-focus on one while neglecting the other. So, for example, if I was to become a financial advisor, my role would focus on personal finance while putting general economics on the back burner. 

With my current role, however, I get to use both my finance and economy skills and so much more. I constantly have to learn new laws and rules in accounting, investing, and more. In translation, there is seldom any downtime as I am constantly moving and trying to make myself a more valuable asset to my clients. So, the main reason why I wanted to be in this field is this constant change that makes my job unpredictable and exciting. 

In what way does your professional role make it possible for you to have a positive impact on others?

I work directly with clients who are in need of professional help in their marketing or public relations departments. Sometimes, my role is based on looking at their frame of operations and figuring out the bottleneck that is causing their efficiency to go down. Other times, however, I have to engage in extremely long negotiations to fix issues that might have been building up for years. This can be challenging but I enjoy it. The fact that I never really know what the next client will bring makes me work hard and, in turn, make their life easier. 

Can you give our readers any advice about starting their own business?

You need to do a lot of research first. Is your business going to promote its products or services online? Will you reach out to suppliers once you form your legal entity or after? How will you structure your employment contracts? What will be your primary goals and objectives? How will you reduce your acquisition costs? There are so many questions that you could spend months trying to answer.

This is why it is crucial that you do a lot of research and understand what it takes to jump-start business and how you can incentivize the demand side of the market effectively. After that, you have to surround yourself with great employees who will be willing to work hard and support your vision. You should structure the organization in a way that will allow the workers to pursue growth opportunities and move up the ladder. 

What do you do for recreation?

I am very physically active. I try to run or do some form of resistance training at least a few times a week. Running gives me the much-needed stretching and cardiovascular exercise that I truly yearn for after a long day at the office where I might have spent the past 10 hours sitting down. Resistance training, on the other hand, helps me stay in shape and I approach this as a passionate hobby because I get to track my own achievements. Both of these are also a great way for me to recover from work-related pursuits as I get to do something that has nothing in common with my professional career. 

Is there an Australian you admire or who has had a profound influence on you personally or professionally? Explain.

I have recently been reading a lot about Michael Chaney who is the former Chancellor of the University of Western Australia. He is also a successful businessman who spent 10 years working as the Chairman of the National Australia Bank Limited. His entrepreneurial career is extremely impressive, and I really enjoyed looking at all of his accomplishments. He has yet to have a profound influence on me, however, as I just learned about him. Nevertheless, Mr. Chaney is the kind of person who motivates people to reach their goals and strive for greatness. I know that his story has definitely motivated me to start working harder.