Week 14: My Last Lecture

{For your last journal entry/blog post take the time to write your own last lecture. 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? 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? Write your last lecture about your experiences and answer the above stated questions. This assignment is the capstone to everything that you have been learning. This final entry will be worth 25 points instead of the usual 10 for each journal entry.}


With just a couple days of the semester remaining, I'm considering all that I have learned in B183: Intro to Entrepreneurship. It's been an interesting class, to say the least. I didn't know what to expect, really. At first, I was somewhat surprised by how much personal reflection and introspection was required of me. Now I am grateful for all of that time considering and pondering on my abilities, desires, needs, and passions. I'm also thankful for the opportunity and challenge to determine and state my core values, create my own set of ethical guardrails, and declare a personal code of ethics. Each of these challenges, along with other academic learning about entrepreneurship have made this class experience a good and worthwhile one.

If I were to give advice to someone seeking it for the purposes of benefiting their own entrepreneurial journey, I would tell them that they first need to know themselves before they can go about the entrepreneurial business of making the world a better place. That isn't to say that one needs to uncover every layer or mystery about themselves, but to know in their core who they are in the universe. For me, it's knowing that I am a daughter of God with limitless potential. I am a woman capable of much good. I know that I have something marvelous to offer the world, that my presence here on earth is to both my advantage and the advantage of others who come into contact with me. In knowing who I am, I also know who everyone else is: a son or daughter of God, with limitless potential and power to create amazing things and achieve the unimaginable. By first having at least a bit of a grip on one's true self, a proper foundation is in place for beginning an entrepreneurial journey.

Once we know who we are, we can better determine and define what we will and won't do. Knowing and actively remembering that we come from the Divine, we are more likely to behave with a higher sense of decorum. When commencing an entrepreneurial journey, it's so important to set ethical guardrails in place along either side of the path to where we want to go. Ethical guardrails are the "I will never" actions that keep us from becoming immoral and behaving badly in business and in life. Staying within our ethical guardrails ensures that we keep a clear conscience as we go about the business of making the world a better place and bettering our own personal lives too.

For a budding entrepreneur, I'd highly advise letting the mind dream. Purposely make time in the day to ponder, meditate, and allow the spirit within our bodies to work its magic, so to say. Each of us has limitless potential, but we stifle ourselves. We allow others to diminish our creative light. We end up settling with and believing the sad platitudes in life; that it is what it is. Dreaming is important because it allows us to be more in touch with the spiritual and less cumbered by the physical. We are spirits in mortal flesh. One day our flesh will be perfected/immortal, but until then, our flesh is a mortal overlay that can drown out what our spirits already know. Dreaming is detachment from flesh in a way. Dreaming can help us "remember" what our spirits already knew from before we were born. God sent us here with gifts, blessings, talents, and testimonies, and if we dare to dream, we can put all those things beautifully into motion for good. Dreaming allows us to gravitate toward our God-given desires, abilities, and inclinations. This is how we can change the world for the better.

President Thomas S. Monson said, 

"What an exciting life is available to each one of us today! We can be explorers in spirit with a mandate to make this world better by discovering improved ways of living and doing things. God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill. He left the electricity in the cloud, the oil in the earth. He left the rivers unbridged and the forests unfelled, and the cities unbuilt. God gives to man the challenge of raw materials, not the ease of finished things. He leaves the pictures unpainted and the music unsung and the problems unsolved that man might know the joys and glories of creation." 

By giving ourselves permission to dream and then do, we become the creators that God designed us to be in this life.

One last bit of advice I'd offer to someone wanting to spread their entrepreneurial wings is to seek to know their true calling in life. Knowing who we are at our cores is crucial in knowing what it is that we are to do with ourselves. Adhering to a firm and true set of ethics in life will allow for clearer vision. With clear eyes and a solid foundation of self, knowing what to do with ourselves as we walk ahead in business gives great purpose and satisfaction in life. Figuring out what we do better than anyone else, and loving that about ourselves is how we begin to understand our life's callings. When we can turn our righteous endeavors and passions into something marketable that will positively change the world, then we have truly gotten a good grip on our life's calling.

However, it is important to know that not everyone who has a desire to be an entrepreneur can or will succeed at being an entrepreneur. Not every entrepreneurial mind has been given the talents, skills, or blessings to be an entrepreneur. The markets in life don't necessarily always want or will always pay for our genius and creativity. But no matter what, it is important and necessary that in order to have a happy and full life, we must know who we truly are. We must choose to live a higher law. We must do that which God gave us talents, blessings, and abilities to do. And if it so happens that the entrepreneurial calling isn't ours, we should take heart. In a BYU devotional on June 1, 2010, Jeffrey Thompson said, 

"Finding your calling in life may not be a matter of finding the one right job. Instead, it may be that your calling is to bring your unique spiritual gifts to whatever position the Lord blesses you with."

In the end, we need to do the very best we can with what we have, and express gratitude in all things, every day. For the entrepreneur, there is no slacking or coasting our way to success and happiness all the while. An entrepreneur's journey is intentional and personal, and it will always make the entrepreneur see themselves and life in a more true and revealing light.

Week 13: A Journey of Gratitude

This week you will make your thirteenth journal entry/blog post. Reflect upon the things that you are learning and experiencing so far in this course. What are you looking forward to learning and experiencing? What did you learn from the readings and videos this week?

It's such a nice experience to begin my weekly lessons with spiritual talks that most certainly translate well into temporal life. This week is about gratitude. The opening reading/talk was by President Thomas S. Monson from April 1992 called "An Attitude of Gratitude." It is one of his hallmark talks and has been oft quoted for the past 26 years. I found his words particularly moving this week as I've studied the concept of gratitude in business. "We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate an attitude of gratitude." I've heard that countless times since 1992, yet I never once thought about it specifically in business terms. Oh sure, I've thought that in every aspect of my life, I must exercise and practice gratitude. I've been in yucky work situations where I told myself I just needed to be grateful. But I hadn't every pondered the whole talk and his teachings on gratitude through the lens of employment or business creation. Early in the talk, he spoke about the plagues of today: selfishness; greed; indulgence; cruelty; crime. Of course now I see how this talk relates to business! If I aim to bless the lives of my family and others with the fruits of my labors, then I had better be going about my business with an attitude of gratitude for my abilities, blessings, and all goodness from the Lord. Failing to do so will leave me feeling less full or abundant, and I may be tempted to choose the wrong in those times. 

"Chance favors only the prepared mind." ~Louis Pasteur

The parable of the sower comes to mind as I ponder on Pasteur's thought. I must prepare myself, my mind, my home, my résumé, and my life to be able to do all that is required of me and to be ready to encounter whatever dragons I may be called to slay. How terrible would it be for a brilliant opportunity to just pass me by because I was too lazy/oblivious/unprepared to get ready for it.

I like something that Larry North said. To the effect, he said that I shouldn't just collect advice, but that I must use it. Again, another parable comes to mind... the parable of the talents. Use it or lose it!

I'm really looking forward to learning more in this journey. Right now I'm just so thankful that I get to FINALLY go to school. I know I have a long road ahead of me, but how cool is it that I'm actually on that road! God is good.

Week 12: Becoming a Change-Maker

This week you will make your twelfth journal entry/blog post. Reflect upon the things that you are learning and experiencing so far in this course. What are you looking forward to learning and experiencing? What did you learn from the readings and videos this week?

I LOVED the readings and talks for this week. It's surely happened already, but I cannot remember the last time I wept for 20 minutes (out of tenderness, not frustration) during a college class. "Entrepreneurship & Consecration" by Elder Robert C. Gay has made an impact on me. He teaches that through business, we provide for basic needs, and then we rescue others as prescribed by the Lord. THAT is what business is for. THAT is what Handy never said in "What's a Business For?" Elder Gay taught that we have been prepared from the foundations of the world to LIFT this world! Empowering stuff!

Elder Holland's "Are We All Not Beggars?" was equally stirring. I loved hearing that talk the first time a few years ago. I am moved by the following...

I do not know all the reasons why the circumstances of birth, health, education, and economic opportunities vary so widely here in mortality, but when I see the want among so many, I do know that “there but for the grace of God go I.”18 I also know that although I may not be my brother’s keeper, I am my brother’s brother, and “because I have been given much, I too must give.”

We all have higher purpose. We need to love as Jesus loved. Nowhere in the scriptures have I ever found that Jesus really loved money, but I know He loved people. I need to follow His example and take care of myself, my family, and others.

Also, after reading What’s a Business For?, answer the following questions in your journal writing in ADDITION to your normal writing for this week.

Q1) Based on what you read in the first two pages (pages 3 and 4), why are virtue and integrity so vital to an economy?

Q2) According to Charles Handy, what is the “real justification” for the existence of businesses?

Q3) What are two solutions proposed by Handy that you agree with? Why?

A1) VIRTUE & INTEGRITY are vital to an economy because people need to be able to trust, otherwise they'll take their money out of play. "Markets rely on rules and laws, but those rules and laws in turn depend on truth and trust. Conceal truth or erode trust, and the game becomes so unreliable that no one will want to play. The markets will empty and share prices will collapse, as ordinary people find other places to put their money – into their houses, maybe, or under their beds. The great virtue of capitalism – that it provides a way for the savings of society to be used for the creation of wealth–will have been eroded. So we will be left to rely increasingly on governments for the creation of our wealth, something that they have always been conspicuously bad at doing."

A2) Handy's "real justification" for the existence of a business is to make a profit so that it can do something beyond, or greater than just achieving profit... something more or better than profit in and of itself. He says that business owners understand this, but that investors don't get it and don't care either.

A3) I agree with a call for businesses to consider trying their hand at making profit serving the poor as well as serving those more abundantly blessed. I agree with this because it's acknowledging that every human being has dignity and is a child of God. Lifting others up AND turning a profit, or turning a profit then lifting the poor... either way... is one of the reasons we're here: to serve one another. Heaven isn't going to be full of unkind, uncharitable, dismissive people, after all.

I also agree with the call for more honesty and reality in the reporting of results. Requiring more honesty & reality in reporting results, and somehow holding those feet to the fire, throughout the entire business would have people keeping each other honest. With everyone's tail now on the line, there is greater ownership in the whole situation. It would be awfully nice at this point for ownership to pay dividends to the key contributors, not just shareholders. The responsibility and ownership of the work from top to bottom will increase productivity, efficiency, and pride. Nothing bad, in the truth of all things, will come from more honesty.

Week 11: Measuring the Cost... Life Balance

This week you will make your eleventh journal entry/blog post. Reflect upon the things that you are learning and experiencing so far in this course. What are you looking forward to learning and experiencing? What did you learn from the readings and videos this week?

Balance is such an interesting word. When I think of "balance," I think of harmony, equal, and good. I think that everything is right. I'm learning that almost everyone who considers the term "work-life balance" thinks it means anything but harmony, equal, or good. Work-life balance may not even exist, and could have been a conjured up term by an HR team somewhere trying to get ahead of the angry, stressed out, sick, and tired mob of less-than-desired productive, overworked employees. In any case, trying to get the mix of work focus, family focus, and personal focus just right is a constant juggling act. Just about everything is always but a fraction of a step from falling to the ground. It's worth trying though.

In the video "Is Work/Life Balance Possible?" with Ann Miura-Ko, she explains during the "seed time" of your business that "balance" is truly out of whack, and this is where true passion comes in to play. If you're not truly passionate about the venture, then there will be a crisis of conscience. I know I've experienced this before... not in my own business, but in giving far too much for someone else's business. It's a terrible way to live, feeling as if you're always giving your best to the wrong place. For years I said, "I want to care about something worth caring about." This is where personal passion for the endeavor comes in to play. Something worth caring about will even out the balance a bit, when so much time, energy, effort, thought, and resources are going into the venture.

I really enjoyed the short video with Meg Hirschberg called "Surviving the Entrepreneurial Life: Work & Family." I think it's pretty swell that in the college setting I'm being taught to truly care for my family, to have date nights and daily time together as a couple, and to serve together regularly. It's comforting to be in a business major where it's not all just numbers, strategy, terminology, etc.

After you've read the article Attitude On Money, answer the questions listed below and add it to your journal comments for the week in ADDITION to your normal writing. Be sure to answer each question.

• What is your attitude toward money?
• How can your view of money affect the way you live?
• What rules are recommended for prospering?

1) 

My attitude toward money is pretty much that it is better to make money your slave and to be its master than the other way around. It's a necessary thing that represents my my work & accomplishments, and having more of it than I spend keeps me self-reliant.

2) 

I think that the way I view money is healthy. I don't blame problems on money. It's not as if it could change its behavior and give a better outcome. It has no feelings. It has no ability to choose. Everything money-related in my life that is positive is because I or someone else affecting me made it that way. Everything money-related in my life that is negative is because I or someone else affecting me made it that way. I choose to use money to my advantage because I'm not here to choose a life of disadvantage... life brings its own circumstances regardless of whether money is lacking or in abundance. I like to make my money work for me. I like to be generous with it when I can. I like to not feel burdened by lack of money too. Viewing money as a necessary tool for a decent life helps me and my family to choose to be smart & not so frivolous with our spending.

3) 

Rule 1. Seek the Lord and have hope in Him.

Rule 2. Keep the commandments (including tithing & fast offerings).

Rule 3. Thin about money and plan how you can become self-reliant.

Rule 4. Take advantage of chances for learning so you will not be ignorant of these matters. Education is the key to opportunity (Pres. Hinckley)

Rule 5. Learn the laws upon which the blessings of wealth are predicated.

Rule 6. Do not send away the naked, the hungry, the thirsty or the sick or those who are held captive.