The Final Post

 If you had one final lecture to share with a group of students on what you have learned from this course, what would you share?

The biggest and what I consider the most important thing that I have learned this semester is that building a business or being an entrepreneur is all about serving other people. The first great commandment is to love God with all our hearts. What is the second great commandment? It is to love our fellow man. Both loving God and loving others is one of the greatest motivators of starting a new business. Businesses should be all about helping others live a better life or serving others. Truly successful businesses remember this key point and a huge difference is made in the lives of the customers and the lives of the employees. 

What would be your last bit of advice to someone wanting to begin the entrepreneur journey? What words of advice, direction, or caution would you give him or her if you had only one chance to give your own last lecture?

The last bit of advice that I would give to all of those wanting to begin your entrepreneurial journey is to remember where you started, who brought you to that point and have a vision of where you want to go. Using that vision create stepping stones that will get you to where you want to go and finally don’t forget who you are or what you can become. 

Never forget your loved ones. Always make time for them. Do not become the Ebenezer Scrooge of your story. Keep your loved ones close and do not let the money or power get to you. Finish the race by serving and taking care of others. Use your wealth and power to help others. Use it to bless the lives of your family, loved ones and all the children of God that you can. Work hard, but do not work so hard that your forget the reason for doing so.

Dream Big

     As a kid most of us if not all of us have big dreams! Some of us dream to play in the NBA or to be a police officer. When I was in Kindergarten, I wanted to become a garbage man. I drew a picture of a big garbage truck. Later on I changed to wanting to play professional sports. I think the situation happens for most of us where we end up having naysayers and negative influencers in our lives that try to dissuade us from dreaming big. There are also many instances of good examples and mentors that push us to continue the big dream until there is success. 

    I think that as we dream big and I think we should continually dream big even when we are older, that we should find mentors and examples that will be motivators and will help us succeed in our big dreams. 

    I think along with dreaming big in our careers we should also be looking to who we want to become as people and not just what we want to do. What kind of person do I want to become? I think as we are dreaming big with what we want to do we should also dream big on who we want to become. Are we striving to become and do big things? 

If we haven’t started dreaming big in who we want to be and what we want to do we should start dreaming now and do what we can to accomplish that dream. The best time to start dreaming big was yesterday, but the next best time to start is today. 

    Its also very important to persevere through the challenges that will come as we travel on our journey of dreaming big and achieving those dreams. If we don’t persevere we will not be able to accomplish our big dreams.

Great Leadership, Great Businesses

     By trusting people you will become trusted. Trust is hard to build and easy to lose. Ethics and morals are so important for leaders and for businesses. So how do good leaders and good businesses do it? Good leaders and good business put the trust first. When consumers or even disciples trust good businesses and good leaders the trust is reciprocated. Consumers will buy product and disciples will follow. 

Great businesses also need to have great people that will uphold the moral standards and ethics of the business. There are some individuals out there that are not worth hiring. They bring the moral down in a business and they end up over time undermining the leadership and the business. Their heart wasn’t in the business from the beginning. In my study this week on great leadership and great businesses, it was mentioned that great businesses hire “nice people”(Hiring Ethical People, Frank Levinson). Why would it be important to hire nice people? Well in doing so you are creating an atmosphere where people are treated how they want to be treated. Partnerships inside and outside of the company are forged and business is conducted in an ethical way. NIce people find peaceful solutions to challenges. 

Great leaders are humble and professional. They lift others to greatness. They will also take the heat in the tough moments and they will share the praise in the good moments. Great leaders inspire and serve their followers. The same thing goes for great businesses. Great businesses will take the heat in the tough moments, yet they will do their best to overcome those tough moments. They share in the good moments with their team members and their customers. Great businesses inspire and provide services to their customers. 

Without great leaders and great followers (nice people), good businesses will not become great. 

Overcoming Challenges

 I was super grateful to have this lesson this week. It was an answer to some challenges that I have been having this week at work. 

Lesson 1 that I have learned this week is that even when we have challenges to overcome we cannot overcome those challenges by lowering our ethics. As business owners and entrepreneurs we need to remain ethical even when the competition is not. If we lower our standards we will begin to lower our standards in other areas of our life. By remaining ethical your customers will appreciate you and they will want to continue doing business with you. 

Lesson 2 I learned this week is to get to the root cause of the issue, problem or challenge. By getting to the root cause we can begin to correct the overall issue and then we can also make plans to prevent those issues from reoccurring in the future. At my current employment we utilize root cause analysis such as the 5 whys to correct the current issue and prevent future issues. Even though I have a little bit of experience with the 5 whys already, I was still able to glean some very helpful information. For example with each of the 5 whys I can find one thing to correct at each level of questioning. By doing this I am able to improve more than just the root cause issue. 

Lesson 3 is probably the most important thing I learned this week and that is that even after all I do, whether through finding the root cause through the 5 whys or maintaining our ethics, we still need to know that we are only human and that we can only do so much. We need to include the Lord in overcoming our challenges. Jesus Christ overcame the most difficult challenge known that is overcoming both physical and spiritual death. Of all the examples of overcoming challenges we can turn to the One who has overcome the greatest challenge and we can ask Him for His help.

7 Habits

 Usually the most important step in any journey is the very first step. Why is the first step the most important step? Well without the first step there is no journey. What is the second most important step right after the first step? It is every step after the previous one. What does this mean to me when it comes to the ideas that come from the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? It means that the most important of the 7 habits to me is the very first habit. I can’t skip to the last habit and expect to be a highly effective person. I need to begin at the beginning if I want to become that highly effective person.

Proactivity is the beginning habit from the book 7 Habits. It is important that we act and are not acted upon. Those that act and not wait to be acted upon are proactive individuals. We are free to choose what we want and we are able to make choices until the consequences of our bad actions remove the ability to choose. For example if I choose to break the law I will have the consequence of going to jail. While in jail I have a lot less freedom and I am unable to make many choices while in jail. I am unable to go to the store while in jail. That being said, making good choices brings good consequences. The more good choices we make the more freedom we have and more ability to make choices. Being proactive is also making good choices. When one is proactive they are consistently making good choices that bring them more freedom. An individual that makes the choice to go to school will have more opportunities for work and with more opportunities for work most likely will bring in more money. With more money comes more freedom to act. Proactivity is so important in order to also develop the other 7 habits. This is why this habit has the most meaning for me. 

By following all 7 habits I will have both private and public victories and I will be successful and as the title says effective.

Time is a Precious Gift

         This week I have learned many things such as being a monogamous entrepreneur and other tips to becoming an entrepreneur. The thing that I pulled from this week though that was of the greatest value was that its ok to “crunch” certain activities into the little amount of time that I have. This week,  most specifically today while at work I happened to see some erroneous abuses of time. This time was my time. I had planned out and scheduled my day at work, when one meeting was rearranged for me 3 different times. What a waste of time and also a disrespect to my time. As I was listening to the video “Loyalty to God and Family” I realized that time is one of the most precious gifts we have and how do I spend my time? Am I using my time wisely? Am I crunching things into my precious time that don’t need to be there? Am I minimizing my time with the Lord or my family and placing other things there?

I am very much going to look at where my time is spent and remove activities that crunch my time with the Lord and my time with my family. They receive priority and then my work and then other things. How many times do I make sure not to miss my Pickleball games, but when it comes to family scripture time or even personal scripture time I can be late? This is going to change. I am going to put my time with the Lord first and the time with my family. All other times will be secondary. This lesson could not have come at a better time. If I am going to expect people to respect my time I need to respect the Lord’s time as well as my family’s time.

A Hero's Journey

This week was an interesting week for school, work, church and family time. I have tried to keep a balance between all aspects of my life and I realize that it is not an easy task to balance so many good things in my life. What does this have to do with what I learned this week by watching the video “A Hero’s Journey”? Well, one of the main takeaways from that video was that we need to live every moment in life like it matters, because every moment does matter. One of our most precious gifts in this life is time. We don’t all have the same amount of time, but it doesn’t quite matter how much time we have, but what we do with the time that we have. 

It isn’t so much the end, but the journey that we are on. What have we learned? What are we doing? Are we helping those in need? How do we use the time that we have? What can we do to help others on this journey on earth? Have we loved? 

So what does this mean for me? Am I taking advantage of the time that I have to do good things for my family? Am I taking advantage of the time I have at work? Am I serving and helping others at church, in my neighborhood, or in between? Am I using my time to fit school into all of these other very important activities? I don’t know that I have quite been able to use my time as I should. I am going to reevaluate my usage of time by keeping a schedule this week. This won’t be a normal schedule, but it will be more like a time usage journal. Am I using my time this week to the fullest or can I change something next week to better my journey and become the hero of my journey?

The Power of Dreams: Reflecting on Randy Pausch

    From a young age Randy Pausch had a dream to be an astronaut, create video games, and work with Disney. He never gave up on his dreams and he had a lot of support from his loving parents. His parents allowed him to dream and to write those dreams on his bedroom walls. He was giving free rein to dream and to act on those dreams. He did act on his dreams and he was able to do certain things that others have not. Even though he didn't become an astronaut, he did experience zero gravity and weightlessness. He did help create virtual worlds and even worlds within our world with Disney.

    Dreaming is an important part of achieving goals in life. Dreaming is the first step, but we also need to act on those dreams and keep them alive. By taking small steps to make the dream a reality one is able to keep their dream alive and eventually accomplish that goal. We do have to act. A dream with our eyes closed is only a dream. To make that dream a reality we must act. What dream actions do we need to take to make that dream a reality? I think it's important when one has a dream that they write it down and then brainstorm  what it will take to make the dream a reality. Realistic expectations need to be set. SMART goals created and then action needs to take place. When we fail, we need to get up, learn from our mistakes or failures and then move forward. This is what many who have created some of the greatest inventions have done. They were able to make their dreams a reality, even with failures. 

    One of my childhood dreams was to be rich enough to be able to take care of my family and then have extra to help others in need. I am 36 years young right now and that dream is still possible. Have I made that dream a reality yet? No, I have not. At this moment I am taking care of my family, but do not have a lot of extra to help others. I need to create small stepping stones to get there.     

Faithful and Diligent

     One of the biggest things that I learned this week was about being faithful and diligent and how the two relate to one another. We build our faith by doing. When we do a thing such as take a course through the university we gain knowledge which in turn increases our faith. Sacrifice also plays a part in this as if we want to do a thing we sacrifice other things to accomplish the thing that we want to do. Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven, especially when sacrificing something that does not bring us closer to God for something that does.

    Life is not easy and the life of an entrepreneurial hero is no different. As stated above sacrifices need to be made in order to be a successful entrepreneur. It is important to dream big and take the necessary steps to accomplish the goal that one has set out to accomplish. We need to get over our fear of change and make the changes, or sacrifice. A first step needs to be taken and then it is one foot after another. Left then right and then left again. 

    It is also important to accept that life is hard and rarely is it fair. Growth comes from challenges and resistance. 

    The world has changed. According to the video "Rediscovering the Entrepreneurial Spirit in All of Us" it speaks about how we are all born entrepreneurs and that we have forgotten how to forage our own food. It is within us to all be entrepreneurs and we need to tap into that latent ability. We need to always invest in ourselves. We need to learn and develop skills. We need to find out what it is that will set us apart and then learn that thing. Invest time and learning into yourself. Be faithful and Diligent!