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 10: Dream Big Dreams

Juno Ellen GIF from Juno GIFs

This week you will make your tenth 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?

This week I worked hard on my Entrepreneur Interview paper. I re-listened to the interview a few times really soaking it all in. I had noted my impressions and went back over those notes seeing if my impressions had changed from when I first heard Jo's comments to now. First impressions remained the same. That in and of itself was interesting to me.

I particularly enjoyed the short video "License to Pursue Dreams" by Marissa Mayer at Google. She said that passion and momentum build when skilled employees have access to great tools and the time to stretch them in new directions. My ears perked up a bit with this one. Jo Day, my entrepreneur interviewee, and her husband Kevin created their company out of frustration with the tools made available to them at their jobs. This goes hand in hand with "necessity is the mother of invention." Our lives are made better because of great tools. As humans, we gauge the animal kingdom's intelligence in part based on a species' use of tools. As God's crowning creation, we can be better too with the creation and use of better tools. I loved what Ms. Mayer added though, that the time to stretch ourselves in new directions is critical too.

Another lovely bit I learned this week in the videos was from Acton Hero Kathy Huber. When asked about thinking outside of the box, she said she always liked to play with problems. I loved that she used the word "play." Do we allow our children enough time to play and to figure out their own problems? Do we allow them to struggle enough? Or do we fix everything, make it better, eliminate failure possibilities, refusing to see them as growth, strength, and character builders? I think yes.

My favorite assignment for the week was watching/reading (then) Elder Dallin H. Oaks' talk "The Challenge to Become." He said,

Now is the time for each of us to work toward our personal conversion, toward becoming what our Heavenly Father desires us to become. As we do so, we should remember that our family relationships—even more than our Church callings—are the setting in which the most important part of that development can occur. The conversion we must achieve requires us to be a good husband and father or a good wife and mother. Being a successful Church leader is not enough. Exaltation is an eternal family experience, and it is our mortal family experiences that are best suited to prepare us for it.

I LOVE how President Oaks ALWAYS nails a concept. He is a prophet, seer, and revelator indeed. My husband and I discussed this talk quite a bit this week. It helps us to remember that charity is not an act, but a condition or state of being. We must be changed into better creatures--into Christlike creatures--by our actions & choices. And we must know and remember that it is in the family situation where this is most likely to happen. It was wonderful reading this again as 2018 comes to a close and 2019 brings changes in format at church. So many people are focused on only 2 hours of church that they're missing the point. The point is 1 more hour of instruction and practice in the home, the most holy of places on earth next to the temple! What a wonderful time to be alive!