MiGoals: A stationery company with big dreams

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In an age where there’s apps for literally everything, Adam Jelic and his team at MiGoals are bringing things back to the basics; the humble pen and paper.

Adam is much like the “get shit done” mantra that created MiGoals’ most famous product. He is a straightforward, genuine guy who spoke candidly about the challenges he’s faced. Yet he also spoke about his immense passion to empower people, that’s evidently the driving vision behind MiGoals.

Been chasing dreams since 16

When Adam was 16 he had dreams of being a professional soccer player but was slightly lost as to how he could achieve it. However, things started to click into place when he read a book called The Hero’s Journey by the late great AFL star Jim Stynes. This book sparked the concept that if you want to do better, there are tools and things out there that can help you speed this up. Ever since then he’s written goals to help him focus and help him accomplish his dreams.

A lightbulb moment

Adam explains that whilst goal setting had been a constant in his life since he was 16 it was during a development day at an old job that he really had a lightbulb moment. The mentor had asked them all to take scrap pieces of paper and write their goals on them. This was nothing new for Adam as he’d been jotting his goals down on bits and bobs for years. But the scrap paper method had always bothered him. It was frustrating to be constantly losing his goals and to do lists. All of a sudden it hit him. Right then and there he decided to create his own goals journal that was personal and structured. That was the beginning of MiGoals.

The noble pen and paper

Adam is insistent that even in an increasingly digital world there is still space for a physical object such as a diary. He explains that he believes people are becoming hybrid users and whilst their phone is convenient, putting pen to paper has a unique quality. To him there’s something special about putting pen to paper and that tangible quality is simply irreplaceable.

These days we are inundated with information and Adam thinks people are realising as helpful as their phone is it’s also hindering them. He explains “it’s actually making us feel more overwhelmed and anxious than anything. The amount of information that is accessible to us, it’s giving us action paralysis. We’ve got all this information but we don’t know what to do with it”.

Xero and MiGoals collab

Caterina Atkinson a videographer at Xero spearheaded the collab between Xero and MiGoals. Caterina explains that the idea behind the Xero collaborations is to bring this metaphor of how Xero helps small businesses and manifest it into a physical product that the two of us have made together.

MiGoals has always been on Xero’s radar, often featuring in our social media and Caterina thought they would be perfect for a collab. Their get shit done notebooks had caught their attention in particular. They thought that an ironic play on those notebooks as a paperless company would be “for shit you can’t store in the cloud”.

Caterina approached them with the idea and they were immediately enthusiastic. From there our in house illustrator and their design team collaborated to create the “for shit you can’t store in the cloud” notebooks.

Migoals-Xero-Collab

Be passionate and believe in yourself

Adam’s advice to entrepreneurs starting their own business is twofold. Firstly, do something that you’re passionate about because running your own business is really challenging. “If you’re doing something you love when times get tough and challenges arise you’ll probably have the fuel to keep going”. Secondly, he says to believe in yourself. He explains that he used to listen to people who shut down his ideas and told him he wasn’t going to succeed. But when he was 26 he said “bugger it” and decided to follow his dream. “So it took me a long time to really believe in my abilities and the fact that you can change and create something of value.”

However, Adam says once you believe in what you do people will naturally come on board to support you.

More than just a journal

Adam believes that MiGoals goes far beyond an organisational tool. To him MiGoals creates products that can help people set their goals, get more organised and help them follow through with their dreams. Their purpose is to help people do better, become inspired and more empowered to follow their beliefs and dreams.

Whilst some may think of MiGoals as a stationery company, Adam sees the bigger picture. He has ambitious plans to see MiGoals as a leading personal development brand. He likens it to Nike and Apple. “You go to Apple to buy beautiful designed products and you go to Nike to get your health and fitness in order, we want you to go to MiGoals to develop your best self”. He explains that if you want to be more empowered whether it be to buy stationery products, do a workshop, download a tech app about goal setting or empower kids to set goals you’d go to MiGoals. “We want to become the leaders in that field where we create beautifully designed products that have impact as well”.

Ultimately, Adam says he hopes that MiGoals will be the brand that helps people become the best versions of themselves.

MiGoals is launching their new 2018 Goal Digger Planner through a Kickstarter campaign on the 7th of September. To learn more about it click here.

Additionally Xero is running a competition this week where you can be in to win some of our “For shit you can’t store in the Cloud” notebooks. Check out our Instagram for more details!

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