An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Choose teammates by skill, not their resume — an impressive resume does not mean that a person will be a great fit for your company. What you really need are outstanding skills and even better characters.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jurica Barac.

Jurica Barac is the Chief Executive Officer at HIGHLANDER, known as the ultimate hiking event and adventure of a lifetime. Jurica built the HIGHLANDER team from the ground up, while establishing the national face of the global brand and its business, and now further expanding the adventure on a global scale. With Jurica’s guidance and leadership, people of all ages can venture on trails while being immersed to beautiful scenery and the most breathtaking views during their experiences. Before devoting his work fulltime to HIGHLANDER, Jurica worked at Red Bull for six years as their Country Sports Manager, responsible for all strategic operations for national athletes and the event program. Additionally, Jurica was a professional cyclist for almost 10 years, where he was able to explore the world and experience thrilling adventures and the world’s natural beauty — which then inspired his philosophy behind the HIGHLANDER brand. Born and raised in Croatia Europe, Jurica studied Economics and graduated from COTRUGLI Business School with an Executive MBA. On his spare time, Jurica enjoys traveling, adventures, and connecting with new people along each of his journeys.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in the ’80s in the middle of the Croatian War for Independence. During that time, my hometown, Osijek, was constantly under attack. This was a very difficult time for my family and I, we had to sleep in the basement to protect ourselves from shelling’s during the night; but, together we got through it and I’m so grateful the war ended and I was lucky enough to have a ‘normal’ childhood.

After the war, my friends organized a post-war BMX and skate club for the whole region, and I found myself falling in love with extreme sports. Next thing I knew, I became a professional BMX rider. I saw it as an opportunity, and the only way to get out of the challenging post-war situation. I became a pro athlete for Red Bull and met amazing people who helped opened doors for me, and I learned how to fight for my dreams. Today, I’m still fighting hard, but to achieve a new dream: helping people around the world improve their lives through long-distance hiking by expanding HIGHLANDER around the globe — and I’m lucky to have amazing friends and an amazing team by my side, which makes all the difference.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I like karma, so my favorite quote is, ‘what goes around comes around’. This quote taught me that there are no shortcuts in life and life’s energy is like a boomerang — throw it in a good way, and it will come back more powerful and better to you — and the same goes for the opposite direction. I am always positive and I think of the world as a good place with good people, and good things always happen to me. Every time I help someone, I receive help in return that is ten times greater. I’m also trying to learn more from my older friends, because their wisdom truly guides me through life.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

There are plenty of great books and movies, but if I have to choose, it would be the book Spartan Up!, written by one of HIGHLANDER’s investors and my friend, Joe De Sena, Founder and CEO of Spartan Race.

It’s about how you can change your frame of reference to improve your life. The book discusses how we have become too soft, nervous, picky, and impatient because of the “easy“ lives we are living today in comparison to the past. We are simply too used to receiving instant gratification. This book teaches you about how challenges can help you to become a stronger person, and can make going through life’s future challenges much easier. You have to challenge your mind from time to time — and I love it! The book resonated with me so much because it teaches the same ideals that I’ve dedicated my life to sharing with others, in an effort to help improve their lives. Being out on a mountain encourages the same mindset the book talks about. Through HIGHLANDER, when you’re experiencing nature while away from society, away from electronics, away from work and distractions, you realize you do not need ten pairs of shoes, you appreciate a warm shower and cozy bed. When you remind yourself about all the great things you have, and you shift your mindset, life becomes better and better.

There is no shortage of good ideas out there — but people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

I think that if you have a passion for something and really want to do it — you need to sit, craft a plan and jump right into the water. It is really about commitment and starting your plan. It will be hard, and results will take time, but it’ll be well worth it in the end. It’s like when you start going to the gym and the first month is super tough and you may not initially see significant progress, but suddenly there’s a huge difference the next month. It’s good to take advice from intelligent people, but your final decisions must be based on your own gut feeling. Nobody can live your dream better than you.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

In my opinion, it’s more about how you want to do it than just the idea itself. There are plenty of similar ideas and concepts, but there has to be strong commitment, passion, vision, and energy to make it work or make it better. There is always room for something better, so simply do it. Great people have built MySpace, and then a few years later — Facebook was created with a different approach, and look at where they are today.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. Trust your instincts. Even if you’re young and not as experienced as others may be, it’s your company and your vision, so go with your gut. I made several big mistakes because I didn’t listen to my gut. These decisions weren’t the right moves to make, but I listened to other colleagues’ opinions who were older and more experienced than I was at the time, and I ended up making the wrong decision.
2. Make sure you establish clear expectations on all sides. I always try to address expectations upfront — and if I don’t, I find myself facing more challenges and complications later on.
3. Never bid, always make win-win situations when doing business. Business is about creating value for all parties and for yourself. There is no good business if you’re the only one benefiting from it. This is my number one rule. When the COVID pandemic first hit, my business was saved and even prospered because I never bid — I was always looking for my partners to be happy as well.
4. Spend more time planning, and plan ahead for the long-term. Over the last 10 years, I learned that good planning, research, and reviewing your options could save your life. It will take more time, but you have more options later on.
5. Choose teammates by skill, not their resume — an impressive resume does not mean that a person will be a great fit for your company. What you really need are outstanding skills and even better characters.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product or company that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Put everything on paper, make plans, calculations, SWOT analysis, think about risks and solutions, think about the steps you will take — do everything in your power to be prepared for anything, and jump in the water. And of course, secure the trademark.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I think a combination of the two is the winner. You start with what you have and create value. In the beginning, my friends helped me a lot in this aspect. Also, choose strategic partners who can foster the business, and that help you to prosper together. Once the business is big, good investments from VC’s could be the next logical step, if it would benefit all parties. I always want my partners to be happy, which in return — makes me happy too.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

By dedicating my life to launching HIGHLANDER events around the world, with the mission to help people improve their lives through the benefits of long-distance hiking. I used to work for Red Bull, where I organized over 500 events, and I loved it because its my passion; however, I knew I needed to make a change. I liked my friend’s idea of organizing 5-day hiking adventures designed as outdoor festivals where people could go to recharge from the bustle of the city, rather than competing against one another. I liked it so much that I decided to organize it all around the world for people who need to refresh and motivate themselves to reconnect with nature. Our vision at HIGHLANDER is to make stronger and better people, and make the earth a better place for living.

If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

This is a perfect description of every HIGHLANDER event. We motivate people to climb out of their comfort zone, release stress, become more powerful and educate themself about sustainability and protection of mother nature.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would love to meet with Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, to hear his thoughts on HIGHLANDER and our mission. We share the same values, like respecting the planet, appreciating adventure and understanding the importance of disconnecting and spending time in nature, and I’d love to discuss potential synergy between our brands as HIGHLANDER continues to expand around the world.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

---

Making Something From Nothing: Jurica Barac Of Highlander On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.