Marc Tilker of the Marathon Group of Companies reminds small business owners and employees about finding their passion and loving what they do. The famous maxim from Chinese philosopher Confucius, “Choose a job that you love and you never have to work a day in your life”, rings true to Marc Tilker, president and chief executive officer of the Marathon Group of Companies. Marc’s enthusiasm and passion in his profession reverberates across the walls of his office to some of the community's marginalized sectors.
This philosophy traces its roots to his vernal days during the development of his entrepreneurial skills.
Marc has always had his hands full when he was younger, trying different business ventures that unfortunately had not achieved the goals that he had set upon them. However, this never brought his spirit down, and to Marc those failures of expectation were part of the learning experience, which made him try even harder. He believed that success was at hand if he kept moving forward, despite being clueless as to what shape and form it would manifest.
“I didn’t have monumental failures,” Marc said. “I just tried things and if they didn’t work, I just went on.”
He candidly mentioned, “My failures were applying for jobs and not getting them, trying small businesses and then not working, spending a lot of money that I borrowed and having to pay it back.”
In all those downfalls, Marc has learned not to give up and strive even harder whilst treading the path closest to his heart. At an early age, he has found that following ones passion was not exactly the easiest but was a surefire way to achieve ultimate success.
“I think I always wanted to run a business. I always knew I would do something, I just didn’t know what it was. What I learned was that small failures were okay, at least you were doing something. It’s better to try and fail than not to try at all and from this I always learned something.”
Marc had practiced door-to-door selling of a variety of products including flowers, seeds, and security cards. A few years forward, he imported bottled water from Austria, textiles from Europe, and subsequently tried his luck on real estate. All these ventures have not succeeded the way he wanted them to being that he was ahead of his time—an unsuspecting albeit unsuccessful pioneer so to speak.
His perseverance as a young entrepreneur has carried over to his current career as corporate executive and principal owner of one of Hawaii’s best-known conglomerates. As a leader, Marc instills in his subordinates the value of loving what they do, thus constantly tries to find what motivates them. He trusts that how one feels about his or her work is manifested by his or her contribution to the overall performance of the organization. To Marc, the only strategy to do well in life is to do something you like and do it with passion.
“At work I want people to enjoy what they do, and I think if they enjoy what they do, they’re going to do it well,” he said. “I want to find what motivates people and help them to excel at what they do. That is important to me. I want to enable you to be the best at what you do so that you could help make our company great.”
But how do we find that motivational tick in people?
“I think it comes out when you let them do their job,” Marc said. “You watch them and over time it evolves. You put them in a job and you sort of see.”
“To me that’s how overtime it reveals itself. But you have to be patient. You can’t let time be your enemy. And if your patient and you don’t force it, it sort of comes out and that’s the best way to be.”
Through following his passion and sharing the philosophy to his employees, Marc is able to ground a highly conducive working environment in his companies, which includes BEI Hawaii and HT&T. And beyond the intricate workings of the business, Marc protracts his passion towards the community.
Marc’s active involvement in non-profit causes clearly exemplifies the uplifting feeling that charity and philanthropy brings to people.
“I feel better about myself. I feel blessed,” Marc said. “The company is doing well. The economy is good. I have great partners. That part of my life was doing great and I felt like it was not an obligation but it was important.”
“This should be part of our mission; to take care and to give back. The employees are great like that. This past Saturday we did Walk for Autism. I’m not on the board of Autism or anything but we needed to help out somebody who had autism and boom we were there. I think we had 33 walkers and we gave lots of money, and everybody came out and we did it.”
Marc’s goal is to sustain a working environment conducive for every employee to perform at the best of their abilities. From there, the next step is to reflect this passion to the outside community, just as he enacts as intricate part of his career. With this formula, businesses may well be a step closer to building a better society.
Marc is the Treasurer of Tilker Medical Research Foundation a non-profit organization aiming to accelerate the discovery of new treatments and cures for neurodegenerative diseases by promoting innovative stem cell research and nanotechnologies.
His other community service activities have included serving as a trustee or director of the Hawaii State Chapter of the American Red Cross, The Hawaii Nature Center, The Board of Water Supply, The Gift Foundation, Flavors of Honolulu, The Hawaii Business Roundtable, The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii and other organizations.
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