Andrew Limouris: Entrepreneur of the Year

In 2017 two of my US clients received EY (Ernst & Young Inc.) Entre­pre­neur of the Year ® awards. Andrew Limouris (Pres­i­dent & CEO of Medix) and Brent Par­ent (Founder & CEO of Mate­r­i­al Han­dling Ser­vices, LLC) were each rec­og­nized for excelling in inno­va­tion, finan­cial per­for­mance and per­son­al com­mit­ment to their busi­ness­es and communities.

As their coach, I could not have been prouder.

I had a chance to talk to these extra­or­di­nary lead­ers recent­ly, about what it takes to stay strong and resilient, through extra­or­di­nary growth – and for the long haul.

Here is an excerpt of my con­ver­sa­tion with Andrew Limouris, who was award­ed the Mid­west Entre­pre­neur of The Year ® 2017 in Tech­nol­o­gy and Tal­ent Services.

Con­grat­u­la­tions on your award! You were so emo­tion­al in your accep­tance speech — why were you so moved?

I was think­ing about my mom — who died 10 months after I start­ed my com­pa­ny — and how much she would have liked to be there. She gave me her bless­ing, helped me move into my first office, and told me that if I work hard, every­thing would be OK.

My wife and kids were there. They were so patient with me, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the first 10 years when my kids were grow­ing up. I was in a lot of pic­tures, coach­ing some sports, and things like that, but not always men­tal­ly there. I was extreme­ly focused on the business.

And my broth­er was there. He was jump­ing up and down with excitement.

There was a lot of emo­tion, and val­i­da­tion for this idea of a dou­ble bot­tom line — peo­ple, prof­it, and plan­et — that I talk about in my book, Won with Pur­pose, and know­ing that we are liv­ing it here at Medix. You have to be able to have pur­pose in every­thing you do — and to tie any suc­cess, any humil­i­ty, to where a per­son pays homage to some­thing greater than themselves.

Let’s talk about lead­er­ship – the upside and the down­side. If you were to talk to your 25-year old self — or to some­one at the begin­ning of an entre­pre­neur­ial life — what would you say were some of the lessons you’ve learned?

There’s a lot that goes into build­ing a com­pa­ny. It becomes part of your life in a way that inter­twines all your fam­i­ly stuff, your social life – it becomes who you are.

Your net­work is so impor­tant to your growth.

I would say to par­ents of kids five to 18: put your child in a sit­u­a­tion where they are work­ing in teams, with all kinds of per­son­al­i­ties and peo­ple. I don’t care if it’s choir, dance, jazz…hockey, foot­ball, bas­ket­ball or baseball.

One of the strengths that’s real­ly helped me, as an entre­pre­neur, is that I’ve worked with so many types of peo­ple, and know who I can sur­round myself with, to cre­ate some­thing great.

When you know you’re in a cir­cle of peo­ple who are not bring­ing out the best in you — who are inten­tion­al and mean­ing­ful, and who help you cre­ate the best ver­sion of your­self — run away fast.

My kids hate when I say, ​“You make good choic­es, good things hap­pen. You make bad choic­es, bad things hap­pen.” But it’s real­ly that simple…

You once said you paid a price for grow­ing your com­pa­ny. What do you do to stay healthy and resilient, for the long haul?

I have a thou­sand dif­fer­ent voic­es in my head: about pri­or­i­ties, met­rics and KPIs. Are my peo­ple hit­ting this? This area of the com­pa­ny isn’t hum­ming right now. I won­der how this per­son is doing: his father died, and are we show­ing up for him? And so-and-so’s preg­nant, and we have to cre­ate a great envi­ron­ment so that women can come back to work here, and rave about it.

The amount of anx­i­ety and pres­sure around every sin­gle aspect of find­ing data, HR, mar­ket­ing, legal, every office, every divi­sion, every leader. If you’re real­ly all in, you’re all in. Whether or not you are respon­si­ble, day to day, you are vul­ner­a­ble. You are accountable.

You say in your book Your Oxy­gen Mask First, that you give every­thing at work, and your fam­i­ly gets the scraps, at the end of the night. If I were to be 100% vul­ner­a­ble, I would say there’s an ele­ment of that that’s nev­er changed.

There’s no such thing as work-life bal­ance — it’s part of the ter­ri­to­ry — but I make an effort, with­in the 168 hours (a week) I have.

The peo­ple I work with are my broth­ers and sis­ters: I love them. And I love my fam­i­ly. There’s this blurred vision of who and what comes first, a lot of the time. So, it has been very dif­fi­cult, but one of the best things that hap­pened is I found some­one to sup­port me, who helps me to be account­able to what’s important.

I have three kids – Lidia 10, Eli 23, Denin 15 – and Eli is the most vocal about me being on my phone, and not pay­ing atten­tion. My wife, too. My son says, ​“You’re the boss, I don’t under­stand why you even have to go.” I love him!

When you go on vaca­tion you have to climb down the moun­tain. It takes 24 to 48 hours before you get to a place where you are kind of on vaca­tion. My wife thinks I’m awe­some, at that point!

I hear how much you care, and the relent­less­ness of that. Do you have rit­u­als or habits to take care of yourself?

I sur­round myself with peo­ple who give me what I need.

I was lucky to mar­ry some­one who absolute­ly lets me know my blind spots. She gives me kiss­es and hugs when I need them, but nev­er, ever lets me slide. I’m so open and vul­ner­a­ble with her.

Noth­ing beats a long shower!

And I spend time reflecting:

What did I do with my time today? What will I do with my time tomorrow?

What are the one of two things that make me tick? Why do I do what I do?

I want to pos­i­tive­ly impact lives by cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty. What am I doing to make that hap­pen? To make my com­pa­ny better?

I work out with some­one – a friend or a train­er. You start to talk about things – it may be sim­ple things — that helps you to sort things out.

Don’t for­get: stress is good, but only if you have peo­ple in your life – peo­ple you can depend on and count on. It’s only bad if you’re in it alone. With my net­work of peo­ple, I’m nev­er alone in any deci­sion I make. I feel so blessed to know who I can depend on, who I can talk to.

Have men­tors and a coach – it’s so important.

About Medix

Medix pro­vides work­force solu­tions to clients, and cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ty for tal­ent rep­re­sent­ing a vari­ety of indus­tries in Health­care, Sci­en­tif­ic and Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy. With val­ues in both pur­pose and prof­it, Medix engages in social respon­si­bil­i­ty in sev­er­al ways, includ­ing dona­tions to a sum­mer camp for chil­dren who lost a par­ent through ser­vice to their coun­try; engage­ment with an orphan­age in Sier­ra Leone, and men­tor­ing old­er orphans to devel­op work skills they need to pro­vide for them­selves, one day.

Medix has been fea­tured on such pres­ti­gious lists as Inc. Magazine’s ​“Inc. 5000 Hon­or Roll” (six con­sec­u­tive years on list of the nation’s fastest grow­ing pri­vate com­pa­nies), and Best and Bright­est Com­pa­nies to Work for in the Nation. www​.medix​team​.com.