Episode #011 – David Burns – Baseball Jobs Overseas

“ Taking the train to work every day I dreamed about working online but I didn’t know what that would look like. It was an accidental business”      – David Burns

 

A native of Vernon, British Columbia, David took his first trip to Austria in 1999 to play baseball as an import player while in college.

It was there where he fell in love with the European culture and people immediately.  He married an Austrian woman and returned home to Canada. After graduating college and working a few years in the highly stressful financial industry, David left a successful career as a wealth advisor and returned to Austria to follow a passion for baseball and quench an entrepreneurial thirst.

His love of sports landed him a new career as an Athletic Director and teacher at an American boarding school where he also coaches girls high school basketball and volleyball. In 2004 he found himself helping the baseball club he started with find imports to play for their organization.

He discovered that the process was arduous, frustrating and time-consuming. There had to be a better way. He found the now popular Word Press website building platform and began to teach himself how to build a website to solve his problem. After riding the train to work every day thinking about how he could solve this problem that plagued the local baseball organization he founded International Baseball Community and the blog Baseball Jobs Overseas.

Since January 1st, 2013 he has helped over 700 baseball and softball players successfully sign contracts with organizations in over 23 countries in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

You can connect with David here: 

International Baseball Community

Baseball Jobs Overseas

Twitter: @David_BurnsJR

LinkedIn Profile

 

David shares with us in this episode:

• How merely wanting to solve a problem can lead to a new career.
• Starting with the end in mind will help you get off the ground.
• How he has helped hundreds of players prolong their careers.
• And much, much more!

 

How We Met

David was the guy that helped me open my eyes to the number of baseball opportunities that lie outside of the good ole’ U.S of A. I was living in Costa Rica in 2014 after coaching the Costa Rican National team and scouting for MLB’s Scouting Bureau at the time. My wife, Colette and I were starting to feel the urge of looking for a new place to raise our daughter as she was approaching first grade.

The opportunities for me to make a solid living in baseball were not in Costa Rica. I had to travel here and there to find short-term work as a coach and scout. As I do every October, I sat down and updated my resume and sent it out to all thirty MLB teams and anyone else I couple think of that might have a job for me. This was when I discovered David’s website International Baseball Community.

I contacted him immediately and asked him about the site and if it would work for coaches too. He was very upfront and said right now it is more geared towards players however he would be open to see if the same concept could work for coaches.

He asked if I would like to fill out a profile and see what happens. I did. I received offers from seven different organizations in seven different countries within two weeks. Most of them were not in a position to pay enough for me to support myself and family.

A couple had made offers that would sufficiently support a small family, but I wasn’t about to move to China for a year. I did get an offer from a place I had never dreamed of seeing in Corner Brook, Newfoundland.

I accepted, and after two seasons there I eventually landed here on Vancouver Island, BC.

If it weren’t for David following his passion for helping others and his love of the game I would not be living the dream.

Enjoy!

Love the Game. Live the Dream