The Fighting Entrepreneur

After giving you my abbreviated history the last couple weeks, I thought you might also be interested in a little battle I had with the US government. This article tells the story. It is from February 1997 and was printed in the Salt Lake Tribune.

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Best-Selling Author Wins in Court

The Federal Trade Commission has lost still another round in its fight with Utah businessman Mark O. Haroldsen, author of the best-selling How to Wake up the Financial Genius inside You.

US District Judge David Sam has dismissed the FTC lawsuit against Haroldsen’s FreeCom Communications and other defendants in the case. Sam ruled the government failed to allege in its lawsuit exactly how Haroldsen’s company defrauded anyone.

Last June, the judge turned down an FTC request to freeze the assets of Haroldsen’s companies. He also refused to appoint a receiver to take over the business operations.

“The FTC uses intimidation to cause businesses to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend themselves against ridiculous allegations,” Haroldsen says. “I hope the FTC realizes they have lost and move on.”

The FTC, and a joint effort with the Utah Attorney General’s office, filed its complaint in Utah federal court in June 1996. It contended Haroldsen, three other individuals and six related companies made unfounded claims at seminars and in television “infomercials” to persuade people to buy $495 starter kits to help them launch home businesses.

The government contended that few if any consumers actually earned substantial income from the business ventures FreeCom detailed — ventures that included the resale of distressed merchandise, the operation of vending machines and the sale of vitamins and color-change T-shirts.

Shortly after the government filed its lawsuit, Haroldsen’s attorney Richard Casey responded that company records indicated customers’ complaints were low, less than a fraction of 1 percent.

Haroldsen’s hope that he will be able to go on with business without the cloud of an FTC lawsuit may not be realized.

Although he dismissed the lawsuit, the judge gave the FTC permission to file an amended complaint within 30 days.

“This is a setback, but we are not too concerned about it,” says Jeff Gray of the Utah Attorney General’s office, which has been working with the FTC.

— Written for the Salt Lake Tribune by Stephen Oberbeck

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That happened in 1997 but the FTC continued to file suit and, essentially, harass us until July 2001 when the court again found that “the FTC utterly failed to introduce sufficient probative evidence in support of its allegations.” In the end, we sued them for attorneys fees and won.

This whole experience is kind of a lesson in being an entrepreneur who thinks differently than everyone else. When you try something new, and especially when you’re successful at it, people might question what you’re doing. But if you believe in what you’re doing, if you’re offering a useful product or service and are helping people along the way, there’s no reason for you to question it yourself. Believe in what you do, and I think you’ll always come out on top.

Should We Really Set Huge Goals?

 

Is there any great advantage of setting very BIG goals?

Well, yes, there really is a good reason to set very big goals, as long as they are realistic. Setting huge goals excites the mind and actually can stimulate the brain enough to create extra energy. But if you do set big, big goals be sure to break them down into smaller steps and be sure to WRITE down both the big goals and the smaller steps with time frames for each.

While working on this blog, I saw that Holly Richardson, a regular contributor to our daily newspaper The Salt Lake Tribune, happened to put out a very interesting and helpful article on goal setting entitled, “Autumn is the perfect time to set new goals”. In it she writes “We’ve all heard the stats: The average New Year resolution setter makes it about mid-way through January before they’ve given up on the ‘resolutions.’ Maybe the reason is those resolutions are the ones people feel they ‘should’ make, not the ones they really want to make.”

Vancouver based educator Mehrnaz Bassiri, drawing on the work of organizational theorist Carl Weick during her, “To Achieve Success, Start Detecting Your Small Wins” TEDx talk, explained that, “Small wins have a transformational power. Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion to favor another small win and another small win until the combination of these small wins lead to larger and greater accomplishments.”

Small wins really do add up and keep you motivated and excited about those big, huge goals. That has certainly worked for me.  I vividly remember when I was 27 years old setting, what was a huge goal for me at the time, to have a net worth of one million dollars by the time I was 30 years old. Believe me, a million bucks back then was a ton of money especially since I was only making about $30,000 a year. That huge goal gave me so much energy. It kept me excited and working hard.

I was one year late in hitting that goal, but it inspired me and motivated me to set some much bigger multi-million dollar goals which I was very fortunate to accomplish as well. And yes, I did set lots of little time driven goals along the way to each big goal, writing them down complete with dates to have them accomplished. Plus, as I hit those numbers, I made a record of my successes in my personal journal.

Holly Richardson gives one more bit of very good advice: “Pick one or two people to share these goals with and who will cheer you along the way and get going!”

Next week I want to share with you some very good stuff I’m reading and learning from. I am reading a super great book by Charles Duhigg called The Power of HABIT. You’re going to really like the wonderful advice that can change and lift your life to a much higher level.