LifebyMark

 Welcome to LifeByMark Installment #4! How do you approach difficult, untenable or complicated decisions?   How do we enter this market? How do we save for retirement? How do I get healthy/fit? If you're like many people, you likely seek to simplify the problem by starting with your perceived constraints - the things you "can't" do: "Someone else owns this part of the market already" "I can't find any money to save" "I don't have time" etc. I would like to suggest that starting with constraints is "asking the wrong question".  I have suggested to many teams over the years that a better way to begin is to ask where do you really want to end up first. Why?  I find that often once I've finished considering all the constraints (what can/can't I do?) there are no longer any possible destinations worth going to.  So, you might think that means there aren't any good destinations.  I have found that absolutely not to

 Welcome to LifeByMark Installment #3! So... picking up on the theme of my last post "Give the Gift of Friendship", my wife and I are also working on its first cousin: "Give the Gift of Listening".   Now we all know people who are just good at this.  I have to say, I have always admired, and in some cases, been in awe of these people.  I know people right now that are just amazing at this. This is not a natural strength of mine, but I want it to become one!  I was a little cautious of writing about this for fear that some of the people to whom I have not listened well might respond to point it out!  So I know that suggesting that we should all listen better is not exactly an original idea.  We've likely been told that our whole lives.  The only "new" idea here is the same one I mentioned in my last blog, which is to think of it as a gift we give others, rather than just a self betterment step.  It's not about me getting to state my case or make my

 Welcome to LifeByMark Installment #2! One of the new practices we've been adopting for the last several years is something we call "Give the Gift of Friendship".  If you're like us, while your kids are home it's pretty easy to spend A LOT of your time revolving around them and their activities, including much of your social life.  As we entered "empty nest" and started approaching retirement we began to realize we might need to work harder on making and having friends, or we might find ourselves alone a lot more than we wanted!  We've always enjoyed friends, but never considered ourselves particularly good at making new friends.  I should admit here that I grew up as a very shy kid and have always felt a bit insecure about my ability to make friends.  Even admitting that in this blog makes me uncomfortable. We talked a lot about wanting to have a good group of friends, and in keeping with our "Lean Forward" philosophy (discussed in blog #1

Hi!  My name is Mark Johnson and this is my new BLOG!   I plan to discuss several topic areas over time as follows: How To Get The Wind At Your Back (Financially) Fitness, Hiking and Travel as a lifestyle Giving the Gift of Friendship Architecting Businesses That Are Customer Needs Driven I will inject interesting thoughts that tie all of these together as we go along, starting with today - I have an overall philosophy my wife and I call "Lean Forward". By that we mean purposely trying new things, being open to new thoughts, seeking to learn new things, try new foods, meet new and different people, imagine new ways of solving problems, etc. This philosophy has served us very well for a long time, but we think it is even more important as we've entered early retirement at age 56 almost two years ago. We've seen a tendency in people to NOT lean forward and even to pull back as they age. They find a comfortable groove and try hard NOT to leave it. We think that lea