They answer to many different monikers – disrupters, pioneers, and innovators, to name just a few.
But at The Carousel, we like to call them Game Changers, those who embody all those inspiring qualities, and so much more!
We’re now into our third series of our popular video and podcast series hosted by Studio 10’s Sarah Harris, which showcases these messiahs of their respective fields.
So, what do our newest inductees – Dana Sawyer, Jody Allen, Maria Halasz, Ian Marsh and app pioneers Chris Adams and Geoff Marshall – think are the traits that make a Game Changer?
“It’s someone who is willing to walk the untrod path,” says Jody Allen, who has grown a humble cost-cutting Facebook page into a thriving business called Stay at Home Mum.
Jody now has more than 512,000 Facebook fans and a series of books under her thrifty belt, including The $50 Weekly Shop.
“It’s someone who is willing to go where no one else will. Being a Game Changer means that you take calculated risks.”
CEO Maria Halasz certainly falls into that category after returning from Japan with an unproven product called Évolis.
It’s now considered a miracle cure for hair-loss, for both women and men, she reveals to Sarah Harris.
“A Game Changer is someone who makes you look at things completely differently,” says Maria. “You need to be confident about who you are and what you think.”
Humble sparky Ian Marsh backed himself when the chips were down, pulling himself back from the brink to head The Streetsmart Business School, Australia’s most successful program for creating millionaires.
“A Game Changer is somebody who doesn’t accept the status quo,” says Ian. “It’s someone who wants to have the reality that they want, not what someone else has predetermined for them.”
Dana Sawyer refused to believe that Australian seniors were getting the best aged care placement advice possible.
That’s why she linked with former nurse Jayne Maini to grow Millennium Aged Care Consultants to turn the industry on its head, she tells Sarah Harris in her instalment of the latest series.
“A Game Changer is a person who has experienced, who has noticed, or identified a problem, and with determination and desire they’ve been able to change the status quo,” shares Dana.
Geoff Marshall, managing director of Thred, the app set to declutter our smartphones and simplify the way we engage on social media, believes being a Game Changer is all about foresight.
“It’s having the ability to look beyond the next window or opportunity into what might be happening down the road,” he says.
Adds Thred colleague Chris Adams: “A Game Changer allows people to see the world differently – after them everything is different.”
