Author of The World Changer’s Handbook: A Young Person’s Guide to Creating an Impactful Life
I started writing this book in September 2016 not knowing it would ever turn into a book. My daily blog sparked my creativity and soon I had over 100 posts. Taking a look back over all my posts in December, I started organizing it all into a book. Here’s a post from the early days of the project.
I worked on this book for an hour a day nearly every day in the Spring of 2017 while finishing up my last semester of school. I had help from some phenomenal people like Zach Obront of Book in a Box and Ann Maynard of Command Z Content.
The World Changer’s Handbook went live on Amazon at the end of May 2017 and launched as a #1 New Release in the Business > Entrepreneurship > Non-profits & Charities category. It’s been adopted by Horn Entrepreneurship at University of Delaware as a gift to all incoming entrepreneurship majors.
Here’s what some people have said about the book:
The World Changer’s Handbook is far from your ‘run of the mill’ motivational or self-help book. Zack masterfully introduces coherent and captivating concepts in every chapter, and finalizes each chapter with a quick list of concrete takeaways that call the reader to action.
All of us are capable of making changes that can improve the world in which we live. This book allows the reader to take small steps rather than becoming overwhelmed by trying to take giant steps. The enthusiasm of the book’s author, Zack Jones, is evident in every piece of advice and each action statement.
Founder and Leader of 20k Passions 2016 and 2017
On April 21st, 2017 the University of Delaware was flooded with passion. Eighteen volunteers brought their energy and enthusiasm to engage more than a thousand students in thinking about an important question: What are you passionate about?
The idea behind the event is that every person on campus has at least one passion. It’s too easy to go through school and life without ever stopping to consider what this passion is. That’s why we created an event to start a conversation around what we truly love to do. For some people, this was the first time they’ve thought about this since they picked a major three years ago. For other people, they felt like no one cared enough to listen to their passion.
We weren’t trying to sell or promote anything other than the fact that everyone has a passion that deserves to be heard. For students who wanted to learn more about pursuing their interests, we made a handout and hosted a followup workshop. Anyone who participated got a free “I Passioned” sticker to wear proudly throughout the day.
This wasn’t for a club, or a program. This was a student-led movement to make our campus more passionate. The best part of the event was seeing the looks on people’s faces when they realized someone cared about them. People left our stations feeling inspired. We collected over 1000 passions thanks to our incredible volunteers. Thanks Daniel Farmer for this sweet video and thank you to everyone who participated!
President of The Entrepreneurship Club at University of Delaware
For two years I led a group filled with the most motivated and curious students at UD. We held weekly meetings that I facilitated with Jordan Gonzalez. This is where I first started experimented with workshop style learning. We tested many different formats in the 50+ meetings we held during those two years. We saw a lot of growth after making the meetings more engaging. The club more doubled in weekly attendance from spring 2015 to fall 2016.
We also held a weekly speaker series called Free Lunch Friday where we brought in entrepreneurs to share their stories with our students. When our executive board first started out in 2015, Free Lunch Fridays consisted of me crossing my fingers hoping my friends would show up so we could fill the room. By the time we were done in Fall of 2016, we had Free Lunch Fridays that were standing room only because there were no more seats for the 60+ students in attendance.
Leading the Entrepreneurship Club was a formative experience for me. I still have so much to learn about leadership and entrepreneurship, but that role gave me a great foundation. I was lucky enough to sit in on Horn Entrepreneurship staff meetings during those two years so I stayed plugged in to what was happening in the broader UD ecosystem. I saw models of great leadership and got exposed to some life-changing opportunities.
I have a soft spot in my heart for student entrepreneurship clubs and I’m happy to help anyone at any university interested in building one.
Founder and Head of Experience at Ignite! Early Student Move In Program
Ignite! was the brainchild of Adam Breese and I. We saw the opportunity to welcome students to campus, create community and teach them about creativity. The project went from idea to funded in just a couple months thanks to Horn Entrepreneurship and the support of Tricia Monnig. In our first year we had 19 students move in on Thursday night, participate in a series of workshops all day Friday and have tons of fun while doing it.
Here’s a pic of the full group after doing an escape room just off campus.
Facilitating a full day of workshops is one of my proudest accomplishments. I was nervous that the students wouldn’t understand the purpose, or that the topics wouldn’t resonate. Once I started, the nerves fell away and Ignite! is my proudest accomplishment to date.
Youth Workshop Facilitator
Using the skills I learned at Google and Stanford, I facilitate creative workshops for young people to engage with entrepreneurship. I’ve given dozens of workshops to nearly one thousand different students from middle school to graduate students. I’ve worked with organizations like The Boy Scouts, TeenSHARP Delaware, Delaware Youth Leadership Network, Abington Friends High School, The University of Delaware’s College of Engineering, Upward Bound and FAME, to name a few.
