Forming Those Big Goals

I’ve been talking a lot about my past in recent posts. I thought maybe you should hear my whole story—maybe shortened a bit—so you understand how my goal setting and persistence has really paid off over the years.

I was born in Portland, Oregon but have lived in quite a few US cities and even overseas. I attended high school for a little over two years in Turkey, then we moved back to the US where I graduated in 1962 from Ames High School in Iowa. Afterwards, I attended Utah State University on a basketball and track scholarship.

This was the time when my big goal setting really started. I went to college, dreaming of eventually being a professional basketball player but after spending most of my time on the bench, I decided I needed a plan B and pursued a Degree in Business, and I really took to it. After I graduated, rather than continue to chase my dream of playing professional basketball, I went on to further my education in business through post-graduate work at De Paul University in Chicago.

My business career began as a stockbroker with Goodbody & Company in 1969. I also worked as a stockbroker for Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis, and for Bosworth Sullivan, the latter for whom I managed an office in Salt Lake City, Utah from 1972 to 1974.

Although I did well those first handful of years in business, I knew I wanted more. I considered a political career for a little while and ran for Utah State Treasurer in 1975. I didn’t manage that, but I had another big goal I was working towards. I had decided that I wanted to be a millionaire.

Now that was a really big goal and one that made people wonder about me a little. But I did my research on how to make it happen and then started purchasing real estate. I bought cheap, dirt bag properties, fixed them up, and began making huge profits selling them in a hot market. In just four short years, I made over a million dollars. I’d reached my goal!

However, I didn’t stop there. But I will stop this post here and wait until next week to tell you what happened in my life after I hit that first big goal. Hint: I didn’t stop making big goals and just kept challenging myself. I encourage you to be the same way. Have big dreams, write them down, and don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done.

A Glimpse Into My Past

I was going through some old papers and came across a biography I wrote about my life. I thought, since a lot of people ask me about my background, I would share some of that with you here:

Mark O. Haroldsen was born in Portland, Oregon, way back in 1944. He attended high school for two plus years in the Middle East before moving back to the USA where he graduated in 1962 from Ames High School in Iowa. Mark attended Utah State University on a basketball and track scholarship. His time on the bench, however, helped him decide to drop the basketball dream and pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in Business which he received in 1969. He followed this with some post-graduate work at De Paul University in Chicago.

His career began as a stockbroker with Goodbody & Co. in 1969. Later he worked for Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis, then went on to work as a manager for Bosworth Sullivan in Salt Lake City, Utah from 1972 to 1974. After a short political career, he lost his bid for the Utah State Treasurer and started buying real estate. This change was inspired by a Denver client that was making millions in real estate.

After gaining tremendous success in real estate, Mark started a real estate seminar company which he ran from 1978 to 1986. The multi-million dollar company set the standard for real estate conventions, retreats, and information, presenting up to 50 seminars a week using a huge staff and brilliant speakers.

Not only is Mark an extremely successful real estate investor, he is also the author of many books including his first and most successful book, How To Wake Up the Financial Genius Inside You. The book sold over 2 million copies and landed him on several national talk shows.

After the enormous success of that book, he began publishing the Financial Freedom Report, a real estate magazine that ran for over 20 years. And yet, that was just the beginning. He then got into a much more profitable part of real estate, known as development. 

I’ll stop sharing my bio there as I would like to go more into how that development thing worked out in next week’s blog, including how I made millions of dollars in profit through real estate development.