Entrepreneur Dr. Dorine Rivers, Ph.D. has spent her life building effective business infrastructures by creating and identifying opportunities for visionaries and providing effective solutions.
She knows great ideas are meaningless without execution. Rivers addresses these topics, and others, in her recently released book Brain to Bank: How to Get Your Idea Out of Your Head and Cash In.
Rivers explains, “Brain to Bank is the all-inclusive critical blueprint needed to successfully set in motion your new company, product, or service and help you get your idea out of your head and into the hands of consumers. Brain to Bank is for those who have an idea and are desperate to take that idea into the real world and will do whatever it takes to get there.”
She goes on to say, “No matter how brilliant you know your idea to be, the chain of events that brings that idea to market must follow a well-thought-out course of action. People have great ideas, but many times they don’t know how to start monetizing that idea. Brain to Bank walks you through every step of how to do that.” She even provides a downloadable roadmap.
Rivers earned a Ph.D. in business management and has investment banking and general contractor licenses, as well as several other certifications, most of which were obtained while raising five children, who at one time were ages five and under.
She is CEO of Arizona-based Alpha 81 Inc., which supports corporate innovations, expansions, and exits in software, technology, medical, life-health sciences, education, and other industries.
Rivers has been an entrepreneur since she was eight years old. While other kids in her neighborhood were hosting lemonade stands, Rivers and her brother would freeze Kool-Aid into ice cube trays, insert toothpicks, and sell what became known as Cubesicles to the local neighbors.
“I’ve always been an outlier and continue to invent new ways of doing things,” Rivers said. ”What’s the point of creating things already in the marketplace?”
Rivers appreciates the struggles and opportunities her life has provided. That includes the time she begged neighbors for the unpicked apples in their trees and canned applesauce and pureed baby food for her five young children. “Whatever it takes,” she is fond of saying.
She’s always had grit. When she was a young child, her dad took her skiing for the first time – not on a bunny hill, but on a much more challenging mountain. His advice: “See you at the bottom.”
“Somehow I got to the bottom of that huge mountain,” she said. “My whole life has been like that,” said Rivers, explaining she was the first woman in her family to graduate from college. Her higher education quest began by selling her life’s possessions to pay the first quarter’s tuition. Then she worked three jobs to keep paying tuition until she finally finished her undergraduate degree.
“Either you have grit or you don’t,” Rivers said. “If you have it, be glad that you do because you’ll need it to keep going when everything else falls apart.”
Rivers’ favorite quote is Helen Keller’s mantra: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
When asked, “What’s next?” Rivers grinned and said, “Well, the word “retirement” is not in my vocabulary, so stay tuned! For now, I’m helping others to get their idea out of their head and cash in.”
For more information on Brain to Bank check out: http://braintobank.com/.