Josiah Mackenzie

How do you move on after overwhelming loss? I’ve been thinking about this question a lot over the past couple days.

Last week, I learned something that will dramatically change the plans I had for the next few years. For the past 6 months, I’ve been preparing mentally, educationally, and financially for a new endeavor I planned to take. All my dreams would come true once this happened.

Everything was ready, or so I thought, with only one small aspect outside my control. As fate would have it, that one aspect ended up preventing all chances of my plan taking place.

So what do I do now?

1. I tried to put it into perspective. I’m young, I’m healthy, and have unlimited opportunities ahead. To every one of you reading this: we’re the luckiest people on the planet.

2. I learned some lessons. These included:

• I don’t have total control over my life. Taking responsibility for one’s life is a hallmark of high achievers, but the reality is we cannot control every possible outcome.
• Invest in skills with many applications. Thankfully, I did this. However, in hindsight I could see how it could have turned out even worse if I did not.
• Enjoy the process. There is a scene in The Way of the Peaceful Warrior where Dan, the gymnast, is telling Socrates how all his problems will be solved once he wins the gold medal. Socrates has him consider the possibility of not achieving that - which makes Dan angry. Later, Dan gets into an accident that dashes his dreams, but launches him on a path to discovering what provides true meaning. There is so much I can relate to in that movie; it seems every time I’ve accomplished something big, I wish I had enjoyed the process more. I need to stop the “once X happens, then I’ll be happy” mentality. There is so much I can be thankful for right now.

3. I’m looking into other options. I refuse to give up. If my first plan failed, I’ll come up with two more. If those don’t work out, I’ll come up with more. With each failure, I’m closer than every to accomplishing what I want.

I’ll never give up on my dreams, but I’ll also remember to enjoy the process.

I came across at terrific post on Wisebread on giving advice to your younger self. Will Chen made this insight:

Don’t develop a tunnel vision about “what I want to be when I grow up.” People change careers all the time. Some of the most fascinating and successful people you’ll meet are doing something completely unrelated to their college majors. Keep an open mind. Audit a bunch of classes. Extend yourself. Learn things that are of interest to you instead of focusing purely on what you think will become useful to your career later.

My own experience fully confirms this concept. Pursue anything you find interesting. Get to know people from all walks of life — not just ones you think will help your career. You never know how these experiences and people will help you later in life, but they probably will.

By developing an interest in everything, and you’ll find life a much richer experience.

Over the past few months I’ve become jaded by the endless number of self-proclaimed success ‘experts.’ If everyone promoted the same principles, it would be harmless, but it seems that half of them believe the exact opposite as the other half.

To cut through all the smoke, I’ve created a list of 8 businesspeople I deeply admire for their innovation and track record of extraordinary accomplishments.

Benjamin Franklin (for self-improvement)

Andrew Carnegie (for investing)

Richard Branson of Virgin Group (for having fun at work)

Paul Orfalea of Kinkos (for team building)

Barbara Corcoran of The Corcoran Group (for real estate)

Donald Trump of Trump Organization (for deal making)

Steve Jobs of Apple (for innovation)

Keith Ferrazzi of FerrazziGreenlight (for relationship building)

I’m going to begin a serious, in-depth study on how each of them achieved success in their field. This will involve reading autobiographies, biographies, interviews, and any other material I find that will give me insight into their lives and thought patterns.

In the future, I plan to post summaries on each person I’ve studied. If this study goes well, I will create new ‘advisory boards’ for spirituality, philosophy, personal improvement, microfinance, leadership, and so on.

Here’s a tip to help you visualize your end goal and keep focused as you work towards it:

Pretend it’s July 5, 2037 right now. What does your professional bio look like?

What goals have you reached?

What organizations do you belong to, and what is your position?

What life accomplishements are you most proud of?

Where do you live, and what do you enjoy doing?

Take a few moments to write out your professional bio — as you want it to look 30 years from now. Print it out, and place it where you can see it often. By beginning with the end in focus, you’ll be more likely to achieve what you want in life.

(Photo credit Pergamon on Flickr) 

As many of you know, I spent the last five months studying abroad at the Dublin Business School in Europe. During this time, I not only had the opportunity to learn from some of the best professors in Ireland, but was able to travel extensively in nearly every Western European country.

The past five months have been a period of incredible growth for me. Professionally, I had the chance to study and observe some of the major trends taking place in Europe. From globalization to the development of the European Union, I have learned much through interviewing interesting people and simply observing how business is done in another part of the world. I’ve become even more convinced of the power of approachability and relationship building. Simply being friendly has allowed me to meet hundreds of people while in Europe: from rich US real estate magnates willing to share investment advice to Italian entrepreneurs with fresh business insights.

Personally, I have learned so much about people and cultures over the past months. Looking at American life from the outside has given me a new perspective that will likely change the way I live in the future. By getting to know people from Austria to Australia to Israel to Syria, I now see the importance of having a diverse group of friends that allow you to see things from their viewpoints. Studying abroad has truly been a life changing experience for me - one that I would strongly recommend to every student.

As an added bonus, I was able to accomplish 8 of my life goals in the ‘adventure’ section:

• Experience ‘tea time’ in London
• Ski in Scandinavia (photos)
• Attend a Finnish hockey game (photos)
• Attend Trance Energy in the Netherlands (video) (video 2)
• Taste wine in a French vineyard
• Shop along Champs-Elysees in Paris
• Enjoy an afternoon at a Paris cafe
• Spend St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin

This past Thursday I had the pleasure of attending the Extreme Entrepreneurship seminar in Lexington, Kentucky. It was one of 10 stops for the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour hosted by Michael Simmons and Sheena Lindahl.

Needless to say, the content was excellent. In addition to hearing Michael and Sheena speak, Ryan Allis and Doug Fath also gave interesting presentations on how they built their companies. It was very inspiring to hear their stories, and ask some questions on how they achieved success.

If you live or go to school in the eastern US, I would highly encourage you look at the Extreme Entrepreneur tour schedule for the rest of this fall. I can guarantee you’ll love attending an event, and come away fired up to take action in your own life.

I don’t usually follow celebrity news…it’s not “news” in my opinion. But Mel Gibson’s incident over the past few days may be more than celebrity news. I think it can teach us as entrepreneurs some important lessons.

Marketing Lesson: Break news
To be honest, I’m reluctant to include a marketing lesson in a moral issue like this. But the truth is that websites that break news get visitors…lots of them (LA Times). TMZ.com got access to the key sheriff’s report, and in the days after the case, was mentioned in nearly every news story related to the incident. So if you can break news, preferably important news, do it. Not only is it great free publicity, you help uncover important information.

PR Lesson: Accept responsibility
When you or your company does wrong, admit it fully and take personal responsibility for the actions taken. Fortunately, Mel did this, and appears to be making moves toward reconciliation with those he wronged.

Personal Lesson: Guard your reputation
I know far too many stories of people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who ruin entire successful careers with one stupid action. From politics to sports to religion to entertainment, I’m sure you can think of some examples yourself. It doesn’t take much — one seemingly small word or deed can waste the decades of work you spent building your reputation. And it’s more of an issue the more visible you are. As Mel Gibson said himself:

“I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena.”

Reduce the chance of this happening by taking precautionary measures.  It’s not worth risking your entire brand by doing something stupid while you’re incoherent. Keep your head clear at all times.

After reading The Power of Focus, I decided to create a list of 100 things I want to accomplish during my lifetime. The book (which is great by the way) talked about the fact that if you have defined goals, your mind subconsciously works out a way attain them.

So I put my goals into 7 categories: Financial (income, investing), Business (ventures, products, sales), Adventure (vacations), Health & Fitness (physical challenges), Personal (learning, purchases, projects), Relationships (others), and Contribution (giving back).

The book said to put down even your wildest dreams and not be hindered by what’s “realistic.” That’s exactly what I did. Some of the goals are relatively common (learning snowboarding), and others are much more exclusive. I choose several difficult goals for each category (eg, owning a record label and car dealership in business, visiting the south pole and space in adventure) because I like working toward something challenging.

I’ve very excited about what’s ahead!

Josiah Mackenzie’s 100 Life Goals

To converse easily with a wide range of society, you need to know a little bit about everything. Having a broad knowledge of life allows you to ask intelligent questions with anyone you happen to meet.

The other day it suddenly struck me how relatively narrow my knowledge of life really is. Though I’ve made a conscious effort to experience new places, situations, people, and ideas — it’s so easy to get stuck in a pattern of repetitious activities. So to further fight this tendency, I’m going to try an experiment.

For the next 90 days, I will dedicate time each day to intense learning of something I normally wouldn’t be involved in. I’ve made a large list of subjects to study, which typically fall into three categories: 1) a hobby, 2) a sport, and 3) a city, state, or country. For example, today I’m learning about Pottery, Archery, and Helsinki, Finland.

My learning technique is simple:
1) I pick 1 item from each of my 3 lists, and spend 20 minutes “cramming” information on the subject.
2) To do this, I read the Wikipedia article, and if time permits, several other beginner/how-to websites.
3) I make a list of 3-5 “insider” questions I can ask someone who is involved in the subject I’m studying.

After a couple days of trying this, it’s been very effective. I’m excited to see where I’ll be at the end of 90 days.

Today I read a post by Seth Godin on encountering a “sea of black suits” — students preparing for a SIFE competition. This really hit me for two reasons: 1) I personally have friends preparing for that competition right now, and 2) I used to believe in dressing “professionally” was one of the fundamental elements of success.

Here’s what Seth had to say:

Everyone is so focused on not messing up, on not blowing it, on not standing out that they all blend together instead.

It’s far more important to stand out of the crowd than to blend in.

Instead of trusting in clothes to bring you success, focus on:

• providing valuable information,
• improving your people skills,
• differentiating yourself

Work on those, and you’ll draw more attention than any suit could bring.