Daniel Gutierrez was a young manager working late at night to prepare for the grand opening of a huge Best Buy store in south Los Angeles. His newly-hired staff, many of them recruited from that poor neighborhood, were hustling in a mad rush to open. But many of them were so stressed from the pressure that they rebelled in an angry manner and threatened to leave.

Gutierrez, not knowing what to do, hopped up on a sales counter and told them in a loud voice that they could go but if they did they shouldn’t bother to come back. Then he calmed down and said that they would work for two more hours. He also gave them a preacher-like sermon on how, if they worked together they would accomplish something monumental. The employees walked back to their work.

Difficult Family Life

This example of leadership is one of the exciting moments of the life of a popular motivational speaker whose roots were that of a difficult family life that included divorce and drug use, but who grew into a successful leader who now gives back to his community. As President and CEO of Pinnacle Achievement Group, Gutierrez calls himself “the world’s #1 Latino motivator,” and is a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, providing inspirational management coaching.

“I refuse to give up,” he says in his book, Stepping Into Greatness. “Not because I’m proud, but because I believe in my dreams, and I know that what God has begun in me, He will finish.”

This Texas native is another example of an entrepreneur and motivational speaker who has overcome personal adversity through an outgoing personality and incredible drive. What impressed me was his wide swings between his religious experience as a preacher-in-training to drug use and other immoral behavior.  And yet the good in his life triumphed.

His life shows how the use of one’s God-given talents for the good can lift a person above temptation of any kind. His website is at danielgutierrez.com.