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.