Building a company while also
having a rich family life is not an easy feat to accomplish. In fact, this is
the reason why the vast majority of people who fail to reach long-term success
fail. Well, Mark
Hanrahan is one of the individuals who found a way to balance their time well enough to accomplish all of their daily milestones
while also being a constant presence at their household.
As a long-term businessman who has been in the industry for over two decades,
Mr. Hanrahan has done everything from public accounting to real estate. In
fact, he stared his prominent career as a CPA working at an entry-level
position at Carney, Alexander and Marold CPAs. During this time, he learned the
basic concepts that pertain to establishing a company and helping it withstand
the test of time.
Now, Mark Hanrahan is the proud owner of Markmel Co. and has achieved almost
all of the entrepreneurial objectives that he set for himself. More
importantly, however, he found a way to properly juggle his work ventures with
his family dealings. A great proof of this is the fact that he even has time
for things like completing sixty triathlons and six Ironman races.
As a successful businessman, what do you think are some common reasons why people fail to reach their goals?
I think that there is no way to give a reason that applies to everyone. I
personally know more than a hundred different reasons that lead to someone’s
entrepreneurial downfall. Some of the more common ones tend to boil down to
things like procrastination and a lack of organization or time-management
skills. Then again, there are businessmen and women who possessed the highest
levels of these types of skills and still failed due to some other factors. In
fact, I even know certain individuals whose ventures went bankrupt due to
problems with addiction. Point being, it is very hard to put a
one-size-fits-all label on a group of mistakes that people can make during
their business careers.
Since you mentioned addiction, how common do you think it is within the business spheres?
I do not think that it is incredibly common. Nevertheless, there are obviously
instances of brilliant entrepreneurs who suffered due to their addiction
issues. Take Seth Leaf Pruzansky, for example, as he is currently one of the
very successful businessmen in the market. Right now, his company called
Tourmaline Spring is doing amazing numbers and grabbing market share from the
competitors effortlessly. In the past, however, Mr. Pruzansky was addicted to
one of the most dangerous drugs in the world, heroin.
What is one strategy that you would recommend to those who might be dealing with the aforementioned issues?
In all honesty, I do not think that I am quite qualified to speak on the issue.
The reason why is the fact that I have never dealt with any problem of this
nature myself. So, it is hard for me to put myself in someone else’s shoes and
describe what I would do in a similar situation. Nevertheless, I do know that
trusting people close to me would probably be my first step. That means that I
would rely on my wife and close family to help guide me through the recovery
period.
What are some of the ways that you believe people can overcome failure?
Look for a silver lining. Sometimes, doing so will be quite difficult as the
failure will seem too grave. Regardless, you have to be able to find the
positive side and spin the failure as something that will help your career. In
most cases, this is actually true as you are bound to learn from failing. For
instance, losing market share to a competitor will help you identify your
weaknesses that the opponent exploited. That way, you will be ready for similar
scenarios in the future.
Was there ever a point in your career when you thought that you will not be able to get back on track?
Definitely. In fact, I think that every business person in the world had dark
thoughts of this nature at some point. For most people, they tend to take place
in the early career stages when confidence is still being developed. In my
case, it happened when I first started Markmel Co.