WinnersDare

03/05/2026

This is a tight 17 minute Podcast including my entrepreneurial journey with its ups and downs:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1mvn2iD4pXYWAQgo3RoisP?si=771bb8bfa5e14c6a

Financial Freedom Podcast with Dr. Christopher H. Loo, MD-PhD · Episode

02/21/2026

Book 101 Review, in its sixth season, features Michael Ritsema as my guest.

https://www.youtube.com/live/q22_-WQ_waI?si=xJNGGbfMle_LHUAD

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04/09/2025

Winners Dare to accept the challenge:

What does it take to grow a business from the ground up—and survive the challenges along the way? Mike Ritsema, CEO of i3 Business Solutions, shares hard-earned lessons on entrepreneurship, business growth, and the crucial role of cybersecurity. Whether you're a startup founder or a seasoned business owner, this episode on the KAJ Masterclass LIVE will help you navigate risks, scale effectively, and embrace the challenges of success.

What does it take to grow a business from the ground up—and survive the challenges along the way? Mike Ritsema, CEO of i3 Business Solutions, shares hard-ear...

09/30/2024

Some of you may remember the Great Recession 15 years ago.

13 years ago, Jane and I were coming out of tough times during and after the Great Recession. I shared on Facebook the ELO song "Hold on Tight to your Dreams."

You may be going through a tough time right now – emotionally, physically, financially, mentally, relationally. Indeed, life has its ups and downs. We wander through this life with peaks and valleys. While I’m a goal person who pursues the peaks, I try hard to embrace each day as part of the journey of life. Really, this journey is a rollercoaster. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Things will work out. You’ll make a comeback. I firmly believe that. Believe the lyrics to Hold on Tight to your Dreams.

On Saturday night my friend Tom and I traveled to Chicago’s United Center and saw Electric Light Orchestra in concert. This was Jeff Lynne’s Over & Out Tour and the last chance for this bucket list concert for me. The concert and experience did not disappoint. The memories made – and brought back from 13 years ago are treasured.

A lot has changed in the last 15 years in my life personally. I’m sure a lot has changed in your life, too. Take a moment to reflect. Technology marches on and life marches on. We experience the good, the bad, and the ugly. Embrace the journey!

Hold on tight to your dreams.

Mike Ritsema
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkekqVPIc2M

01/02/2023

In general, I believe there are two types of people:
1. Goal: Pursue the next mountain top
2. Journey: Enjoy the journey.

I know I’m a goal guy who works hard to relax, smell the roses, and enjoy the journey.

In business, we do yearend planning to create an operational business plan for the next year. I challenge each of us to do the same: pause, reflect, and create a plan for 2023 and beyond. This reflection or plan may include improvements, changes, resolutions, goals or plans around areas of your life::

I ponder deeper as decades pass. At age 20 – 30 – 40 – 50, I ask myself what I accomplished in the past decade and what do I want to change or improve going forward?

Apparently, the new buzz word is ‘Intentional’ as opposed to ‘Resolutions.’ I really don’t care about the semantics and am more interested in the process.

In business we do yearend planning to create an operational business plan for the next year. I challenge each of us to do the same: pause, reflect, create a plan for 2023 and beyond. This reflection or plan may include improvements, changes, resolutions, goals or plans around areas of your life:
 Mental: reading – learning – stimulating
 Physical: moving – exercising – eating
 Spiritual: pausing – reflecting – quiet time – connecting
 Financial: income – spending – budgeting
 Relational: communication – quality & quantity time

You know what ‘they’ say, “Some people spend more time planning a summer vacation than planning their life.”

Serious about this stuff? Write your goals down. Post them in your calendar for December 30, 2023. Create a recurring calendar event to review quarterly.

I challenge each of us to be intentional once per year about our life plan and direction. An occasional redirect may serve us well.

Happy New Year!

Mike Ritsema

09/05/2022

"Winners and losers are self-determined. But only the winners are willing to admit it."
John Wooden

12/14/2020

Team:

Over the weekend, I watched the documentary: Quincy – as part of the BLM series on NetFlix. It’s the story of Quincy Jones life.

Wow, the guy was prolific and compelled due to his passion, creativity, and gift for music.

I’m always interested in the opening and closing of anything – books, articles, movies, television … documentaries. Quincy starts this way:
“I was born on the south side of Chicago, man. During the '30s man, during the depression, we lost my mother when I was 7. They took her away in a straight jacket. My brother and I - we were like street rats. I wanted to be a gangster until I was 11. You want to be what you see. And that's all we ever saw. ... To know where you came from makes it easier to get where you're going. I learned a long time ago that your music can never be more or less than you are as a human being."

Here's a guy born during the great depression (1933) with a tough to impossible start who pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Although he roamed the streets in his youth, one advantage Jones credits is his father’s work ethic and loving strength to hold the family together. His father’s had a rhyming motto: "Once a task is just begun, never leave until it's done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all."

His list of awards, honors, and accomplishments are overwhelming and too long to list. A summary:
 2,900 songs recorded
 300 Albums
 51 Film & Television Scores
 1,000 Original Compositions
 80 Grammy Nominations
 28 Grammy Awards
 1 of 18 E.G.O.T winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony)
 Thriller - Best selling album of all time
 We are the World - Best song album of all time

The documentary closes with this quote:
"Such big stuff, man. It's a big responsibility. This generation you know. It is what happened. It's a journey for this f!@ #$% country, man. Chicago, No joke, I didn't see anybody white until I was 11 years old. And the kids, the kids' minds - most of them - not into that s**t. You have to be taught how to hate. That's not natural, man, to hate somebody due to skin. You had nothing to do with that. How somebody can judge somebody by the color of their skin is f%^&* up. But I have a feeling that God will prevail. The light will prevail. We've come a long way. We have a long way to go."

And that I believe – that God, the light, we will prevail.

Winners dare to take the risk of accepting responsibility for their passion and gift. They’ll find themselves compelled to pursue the music within themselves.

That’s my lesson from Quincy Delight Jones Jr.

I recommend this documentary and challenge each of us to do the same.
https://www.netflix.com/title/80102952

11/09/2020

I love a rags to riches story. I love a ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ story. I also love the story behind the song & lyrics.

Dolly Parton has won 11 Grammy Awards, recorded 51 albums, written over 5,000 songs in her lifetime, and is ‘the best-selling female country music artist of all time, with over 100 million albums sold worldwide’!

This article – TELLING STORIES https://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/202011/MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId=1634519&app=false&cmsId=3866437 – reviews her rise to stardom and the book, SONGTELLER, gives the story behind 175 of her songs. Oh, the Parade Magazine article, Dolly Parton Shares the Heartwarming Stories Behind 10 of Her Favorite Songs https://parade.com/1110183/parade/dolly-parton-songs/, tells the story behind, ‘I will Always Love You’ (1974) , ‘Jolene’ (1973), and ‘Coat of Many Colors’ (1971)

Dolly Parton is about 74 years old, has been performing for more than 60 years. At my age, I’m always amazed by the Warren Buffet, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Nancy Pelosi, and the late Alex Trebek – of the world.

They’re all in their 70s or 80s and still working! Why?

I believe each has found their passion and purpose.

Dolly Parton says, " For the most part, I just write because I want to, because I love to and because I have to. It just comes out. It’s got to go somewhere." Certainly, she found her passion very early, is prolific, is persistent, and is consistent.

Parton sums up the road to success this way in the Costco Connection article:
CC: You’ve described yourself as a dreamer, but you are also a very savvy businesswoman. How do you reconcile those two aspects of yourself?
DP: Anybody can dream, but you got to get off your butt and get out and make it come true. I always said that it’s OK to dream. It’s even OK to change dreams in the middle of a stream as long as you know you’re still heading toward a direction. But you’ve got to put legs, arms, fingers, toes, wings—whatever you got to—on a dream. In other words, you’ve got to make it come true. You’ve got to work it before it comes true. So that’s the business side of me. Like I say, there are lots of dreamers out there that just sit around and dream forever, but they don’t get to see them come true because they don’t have the s***k to get out and work [for] it.

Find your passion, find your purpose, work hard, long, and steady – and – surprise, you’ll be an all-star success in life!

10/19/2020

I never met Bob Woodrick, but know of him as he owned D&W Food Centers with 26 locations and 3,700 employees.

He passed away recently and his obituary caught my eye.

Simple words that have a summary impact:
“What we are most proud of is the way he lived his life. It was a rich life of passion for "people" – the goodness of all people - and the legacy he leaves his family with, as well as the greater Grand Rapids community.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an obituary end in this way:
FOOTNOTE: “While sorting through my dad's things in his desk, I stumbled upon a Stenographer's Notebook he had kept dating back to the 60's. I leave you with this gift from my dad: ‘In my late twenties I came to the realization, that life is more than just existing, more than just starting and ending a day, more than just breathing. There is something in life that should always be before us, and that is the search for truth.’ "
--Bob Woodrick, 12/25/1960

A couple things we can all learn from Bob:

First, keep a journal – or at a minimum, pause to reflect at least yearly. What is my purpose, direction, result, value delivered?

Second, keep learning, growing, maturing, improving, expanding. Read books, webinars, documentaries, conferences, church – seek, search, pursue and expand your perspective on truth.

Truth, discovery, and learning are all around us.

Robert Arthur Woodrick’s Obituary both taught me something and inspired me to improve.

07/05/2020

Winners Dare to Step into the Arena and DO something:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

The Man in the Arena
Theodore Roosevelt
former President of the United States
Sorbonne in Paris, France
April 23, 1910

02/26/2020

6 books for personal growth:

Read about the latest in technology - i3 Business Solutions can guide you through any IT support or technology implementation that your small business needs. Reach out to us today!

09/23/2019

Success is spelled R.I.S.K.