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Reinventing Through Adversity: Entrepreneurial Lessons From EO’s Global Leaders

ZhubeiZhubei is the Co-founder of Venture Education, a Beijing-based consultancy that provides market intelligence on K–12 education in China to organizations worldwide. Before co-founding Venture Education, she taught English to thousands of university volunteers for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Committee and coordinated between CCTV and its overseas partners.

 

Adam HorowitzAdam Horowitz is the Principal of Lever Capital Partners, a Las Vegas-based firm specializing in complex commercial real estate financing across the United States. He founded the company in 2009, leveraging his extensive experience to arrange debt, mezzanine, and equity financing for prominent real estate developers and owners.

 

Paul CarrollPaul Carroll is the Founder and CEO of Avion Wealth, a Houston-based wealth management firm that assists clients in making smart financial decisions aligned with their goals and values. With a background in the US Air Force and degrees from the University of Maryland and Texas A&M University, he has built a firm managing approximately $850 million in assets.

 

Jeff LutherJeff Luther is the Founder and CEO of Home-Probe, Inc., a home inspection company serving the greater Atlanta and Charleston areas. Since establishing the company in 2002, he has grown it into one of the most referred home inspection firms in the Southeast, emphasizing high standards and client satisfaction.

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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [1:45] Zhubei shares how Venture Education pivoted through China’s education crackdown and a personal health crisis
  • [10:32] Adam Horowitz reflects on launching Lever Capital Partners during the mortgage collapse and finding support through EO
  • [17:15] Paul Carroll traces his path from pilot to wealth advisor after 9/11 upended his aviation career
  • [22:26] Jeff Luther talks about scaling Home-Probe and weathering major downturns in the real estate market

In this episode…

Reinventing a business in the face of crisis demands clarity, community, and the courage to pivot. From collapsing industries and personal challenges to leadership breakthroughs, how do today’s top entrepreneurs find their footing and come back stronger?

Zhubei reflects on navigating China’s sudden education crackdown while caring for a sick child — and how mentorship, empathy, and her EO community helped her rise again. Adam Horowitz shares lessons from launching a commercial real estate firm during a financial crash and the importance of building a strong network to weather any storm. Paul Carroll recounts his unexpected transition from airline pilot to financial advisor after 9/11 reshaped his future, and Jeff Luther explains how EO helped him rebuild and scale after devastating downturns in the real estate market.

In this episode of the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, recorded live at the Entrepreneurs’ Organization Global Leadership Conference in Honolulu, you’ll hear how Zhubei, Adam Horowitz, Paul Carroll, and Jeff Luther turned adversity into opportunity. Learn how EO’s support system fueled their resilience, helped them redefine success, and gave them tools to lead with purpose.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments

  • “You work on something not for the success, but for the pursuit.”
  • “The biggest thing, and I talk to people about this all the time, whether or not you’re entrepreneurs or not, is building that community.”
  • “I liked strategy and I like talking about these things, but I didn’t know who to talk to about it.”
  • “That furlough really motivated me to decide to look for something where I had a little more control over my destiny.”
  • “When you have other folks that share the same [problems], you realize you’re not alone.”

Action Steps

  1. Build a support network through entrepreneurial communities: Surrounding yourself with like-minded peers helps reduce isolation and sparks strategic insight during hard times.
  2. Reevaluate your core offering after disruption: Revisiting what clients truly value allows you to rebuild around your most meaningful and resilient services.
  3. Embrace vulnerability in leadership moments: Allowing space for shared grief or honesty can foster trust and long-term team loyalty during transitions.
  4. Diversify business models to reduce risk exposure: Separating direct-to-consumer and B2B services can insulate your company from sudden regulatory or market shocks.
  5. Use reflection to clarify your purpose: Revisiting personal motivation helps align your business with what energizes you, especially after periods of burnout.

Sponsor for this episode…

At Rise25 we help B2B businesses give to and connect to your ‘Dream 200’ relationships and partnerships.

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Cofounders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, FreshBooks, and many more.

The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.

Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.

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Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.

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Episode Transcript:

Intro: 00:02

Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show.

John Corcoran: 00:12

Hey everybody, this is John Corcoran with Dr. Jeremy Weisz, and this episode is a little bit different. This is a live interview that we recorded at the Global Leadership Conference from Entrepreneurs’ Organization, where some of the best entrepreneurs from around the globe share ideas and to learn about entrepreneurship. And of course, this episode is brought to you by Rise25, where we help B2B businesses to give to and to connect to their dream 100 relationships and partnerships, helping you to run a podcast so that it generates a referral pipeline and ROI.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:44

Yeah, I mean, John, after both of us have been podcasting for over a decade, the number one thing in our life is relationships, and we’re always looking at ways to give to our best relationships, and we found no better way to do that over the past decade than to profile the people and companies we admire and shout from the rooftops what they’re working on, and this interview is no different. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should go to rise25.com to learn more or email us at. support@rise25.com.

John Corcoran: 01:11

Thanks everyone. Enjoy the interview.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 01:12

Enjoy.

John Corcoran: 01:27

John Corcoran coming to you live from Honolulu, Hawaii at the Entrepreneurs’ Organization Global Leadership Conference. And my company is Rise25. And we are here with Zhubei who’s from Beijing Metro Metropolitan EO chapter. And Zhubei, tell us a little bit about what your company is and what your company does.

Zhubei: 01:45

So my the name of my company is called Venture Education. So me and my business partner Julian Fisher, we started the company 12 years ago. He’s also an EO member. So when we started, it was a very simple idea. I’m Chinese, he’s British. He understands how international education works and I understand Chinese students and parents. So we decided to make a company together. And for the last 12 years, we’ve pivoted our company so many times. So we started as bringing Chinese students to England for an authentic experience mixed with other countries, kids from other countries. And then we evolved into a learning centre in Beijing. We hired people. At the peak time we had about 70 staff from all was peak.

John Corcoran: 02:35

Was this right before Covid?

Zhubei: 02:37

It was before Covid. It was before that wipe out policy that China had on education industry. I’m not sure if any of you heard about it, but some of the publicly listed companies like New Oriental had their profit, had their market value vanished probably 95% overnight. Wow. Yeah. So that was a big hit on our industry. And that was when I, my daughter was was sick or had a medical situation at a point that the doctor was worried that she had blood cancer because her platelet was low. And it was a time when I was at my personal low because I was constantly worried for my daughter checking into the hospitals.

John Corcoran: 03:19

And all this happened while you were going through that.

Zhubei: 03:21

And whilst that happened when my company was falling apart, I had to sack most of the team because the policy overnight said we are not legal anymore, although we held a legal license and at 1000 square meter learning center, with the theater, with the gym, with classrooms, that was just designed right after I had given birth to my daughter. And so that was the first project after my baby, and that was my second baby, because I had three months off. And after the first month I thought, well, why not? We start a new center? And so it was a big hit. And it was it was a very difficult time because you have the team that you love so much and you trust so much and vice versa. And you had to let them go and you had to be that person sitting in that office and telling them, I am sorry, I have to let you go.

John Corcoran: 04:15

It’s devastating.

Zhubei: 04:17

And if it was any mistake that I made, and if I look back and I think I thought that I had to be strong and I had to stay indifferent to tell people because it’s a policy situation. But looking back, I thought that probably I did not allow myself or the team to be sad about it, to moan about the death of something we built together. And if I had the chance to do it again, I would have probably done it in a way where I just hug everyone and have a good cry, because that’s exactly what I needed at the time. So the rise up was when then me and my business partner decided that we have to, you know, separate the eggs into two different baskets. So at the time, we had already been providing services for the British Embassy and for some international schools and universities. So we decided to build a consultancy company that serves only the universities, schools and other educational institutions. So it’s going to be a B2B business. And he loves data analysis and report. So he went into that direction, which we hope that can scale. And also kind of counterbalances the risk from, you know, the direct market. And then I asked myself many times over during that time and I said, if there is only me left, and if there is one thing that I would love to do and I still want to get up in the morning, what would it be? And my answer was, I have to be with the students and I have to be with the people. And that’s what I did. And so I got together with some of my clients that stayed with me for a long time, and those kids have already gone to university. And so I got them into the room and I asked them the question, what do you think is the most valuable thing that I have given you over the past however years?

John Corcoran: 06:07

Which is a great way to find out what your customers want from you.

Zhubei: 06:09

Exactly. And the collected answer was the companionship, the mentorship, and just holding the holding hands. It was not the training, it was not the tutoring. It wasn’t any of those things that I sold for money. Right. And that was the moment that I realized what I loved doing the most is holding hands because of my own experience that, you know, I’ll talk about it in another time, that I just really have so much empathy for the kids and for the parents. None of them are bad people. They just they just they have different perspectives. They have different ways of handling these things. And I now know how to help them Because I’ve been there. Yeah.

John Corcoran: 06:50

And so quite the transition into something completely new.

Zhubei: 06:53

However, I don’t think it’s a transition because I had always been doing that, that support with the parents. Anyways. I just never charged them for that service. I just did it like a freebie. Yeah. And so instead after that, I kind of turned it around and gave my and and made my most valuable input. My current product was.

John Corcoran: 07:12

This before Covid.

Zhubei: 07:13

This was basically during during Covid.

John Corcoran: 07:16

Okay okay okay okay. So that’s quite a pivot for you during that time. Were you in EO at the time?

Zhubei: 07:22

I wasn’t.

John Corcoran: 07:23

Okay. And reflecting now on what EO provides value like how it provides value to you. A lot of times people join EO after having gone through some kind of like really difficult transition like that. And so how does it serve you now?

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