With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
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NIK WEST JUNE 2020 BCBUSINESS 31 F or many, Fridays are a way to relax—a port in the hectic storm that is the work week. Not for Adam Kreek. "It seems really normal to me, but it seems odd to a lot of people," he says with a chuckle when recounting how he spends his Friday mornings. A former Olympic rower, Kreek leads 10 to 15 profession- als on a 5:30 a.m. run up Mount Douglas in his hometown of Victoria, followed by a jump in the ocean. (During the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone has been practising physical distancing.) Among the regular participants in this excursion, called Viking Training, are Tony Zarsadias, co-owner of real estate agency the Condo Group, and UVic bi- ology professor Patrick Walter. "It started as kind of a com- bination of physical training and strategic planning," Kreek recalls. "We wanted to set a goal that wasn't just about fur- thering our business initiatives but also keeping our bodies and mindsets dialled in. Sort of strategic training and strategic planning in one." Having laid down his paddles (at least competitively) after winning a gold medal in men's eights at the 2008 Olym- pics in Beijing, Kreek didn't choose to pursue a career in geotechnical engineering, which he studied at UVic and Stanford University. Instead, he got involved in coaching and leadership training. "After your Olympic career ends, you have this opportunity to go and speak at conferences— only you don't have a whole lot of experiences other than your sporting experience," Kreek says. "But it exposed me to the industry of consulting, and of leadership consulting. And I really enjoyed the interactions, so there I was at these confer- ences, sitting with CEOs and executive teams at the table and trying to find a way to craft my story, a way that's relevant to people going through the professional grind." The light bulb really came on in 2013 when he and three Motivating people is second (and third) nature for Olympic gold medallist Adam Kreek by Nathan Caddell W E E K E N D WA R R IOR WARRIOR SPOTLIGHT Kreekspeak Business Solutions offers speeches, workshops and retreats, and executive coaching to organizations and profes- sionals around the world. Though he and his wife are the only full-time staff mem- bers, Adam Kreek employs a number of contractors as needed, including website marketers and salespeople, and works with Vancouver outfits like the National Speakers Bureau and Page Two Publishing. –N.C. WATER WHIRLED Former rowing champ Kreek has continued his tough Friday routine during the pandemic Moving Speech O FF T H E C LO C K others decided to attempt the first-ever row from mainland Africa to North America. "When I was putting together this program to paddle across the ocean, it was very entre- preneurial and sales-driven," Kreek remembers. "And 73 days at sea gave me a lot of time to think about what I was going to do for a career. It became clear that strategic planning, executive coaching and leader- ship training, that was the path for me." He ended up following that trail, taking courses in execu- tive coaching and executive ( quality time )