Mark Morgan Ford is a lifelong practitioner of writing, teaching, entrepreneurship, martial arts, and philanthropy.
From 2000 to 2010, he posted more than 3,000 essays on his Early to Rise blog, which, at one time, had a circulation of nearly a million readers. From 2010 to 2015, he retired from all but one of his business concerns and created an educational curriculum on wealth building. He donated the curriculum – which consisted of thousands of pages of advice and instruction – to the Wealth Science Institute, a non-profit organization whose goal is to encourage industry, entrepreneurship, and prudent financial management for the “not-yet-wealthy.”
As an entrepreneur, he has been involved in dozens of multimillion-dollar businesses, including one whose revenues exceeded $100 million and another that broke the billion-dollar mark. His current business interests include the Agora companies (a large international publishing group), Ford Fine Art (a broker of Latin American and contemporary fine art in Miami, Nicaragua, and Delray Beach), AWAI (a company that teaches writing and graphic arts), Lion’s Kill (a movie production business), and Palimi (a business consulting company).
As a real estate investor, he has been involved in more than a hundred projects and developments, from single-family homes to apartment buildings, office buildings, and resort communities. Travel & Leisure magazine recently voted the hotel facility in one of these resort communities – Rancho Santana on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua – “one of the 100 best in the world.”
A student of martial arts since 1998, Ford has won three Naga championships. He received his black belt from Marcel Ferreira in 2015.
His charitable activities include FunLimón, a community development facility across the street from Rancho Santana that provides a range of services, including an athletic program, a micro-lending program, a trade school, and a literacy school.
He has attempted to retire four times in his career, never successfully. His current goal is to give away 90% of his wealth in the next decade.