Course Reflections

My experience studying Entrepreneurship this semester has helped me gain a clearer understanding of what it means to be an entrepreneur, and what it takes to become so.  There are several things that resonated with me as I went through the course.  The concept that stood out to me the most is that to become an entrepreneur, you need to get to know yourself.  It’s not just about knowing that you want to start a business, an entrepreneur needs to understand what they are passionate about and what their skills and strengths are.  Once they have learned these things, they can use that knowledge to find a need they can fulfill using the passion and skills they have. 

The second thing that stood out to me is the need to truly believe in whatever venture you create.  One cannot become a successful entrepreneur if they do not believe in what they are offering people, whether it is a good or a service.  When you are passionate and believe in something, you will put forth your best efforts, and resist becoming discouraged.  Starting your own business is hard and believing in what you are doing is what keeps you from quitting when things get difficult.

Another part of what learned is that an entrepreneur needs to give back.  When someone who starts a business find success, it is important to use some of that success for the benefit of others without receiving anything in return.  It is in serving others that we maintain our humility and our humanity.  It is easy to get caught up in money and success when you find it, but that is not where true happiness lies.  True happiness is in taking care of others.  Remember to serve others.

The last thing that I found important is that we cannot get so caught up in our successes that we forget to spend time on our families, at church, and taking care of ourselves.  Starting a business takes a lot of time, energy, and persistence.  If we are not cautious, we could find ourselves devoting too much time to our business and not enough time in the things that are eternal.   As President David O. McKay said, “No other success in life can compensate for failure in the home.”  It is important, as we start down out path to becoming an entrepreneur that, to make sure that we maintain a proper perspective, and keep our priorities in the right order.  Then, we will be the most successful selves we can be.

Use Your Skills and Talents

This week, we learned about being grateful and we also learned ways to help us find our path in our careers.  On of the things that I thought of when I looked back on our studies this week is the need we have to be grateful for our skills and talents.  I have not always been proud of my talents. I am a smart person who is generally able to catch on to new concepts quickly.  When I was in school, it was not a popular thing to be smart, and I have never liked to stick out.  The average student would comment on my good grades, and some of the smart people resented how quickly I picked things up, so I found myself frequently trying to hide my intellect.  It took me growing into adulthood and marrying my husband to finally accept my intellect as a blessing and not something to be hidden or ashamed of.  We all have skills and talents that are unique to us.  It is our responsibility to find a way to help others using the gifts we have been given.  It is also important that we show our gratitude to our Heavenly Father for giving us our gifts, so that we may help others. 

This leads into the next thing point that stood out to me this week.  It is important that we find a way to use our skills and talents to bless the lives of others.  There is more than one path to finding our own way.  My path has taken many years with twists and turns.  I worked many jobs in college, then quit after having my first baby.  From there I became a stay at home mother, and caretaker to my husband as he battled mental illness.  Now, the path has turned back towards a career, however, I now have a new perspective.  I have found that I have a deep love for math and finances.  I am currently exploring that path as I work at an accounting clerk.  I’m not sure where I will end up, but if I keep my eyes open to new opportunities while learning as many skills as I can, I know I can be prepared when opportunity knocks.

A Life of Service

This week we studied about how we need to care for each other both in our personal lives and as we consider what we want to do in our professional lives.  I remember listening to Elder Jeffry R. Holland’s talk, “Are We Not All Beggars?”  In conference a few yeas ago and being impressed by its power.  Reading it again this week, I noticed a different part of his message.  What I noticed can be summed up when Elder Holland quoted “because I have been given much, I too must give.”  My family has struggled financially for many years.  We have remained below the poverty level for our entire married life.  Our story is complicated, but it has been a long struggle through multiple jobs, mental illness, bearing children, and gaining an education.  That being said, Heavenly Father has always made sure that my family has more than enough for our family.  For many years my focus has been on making our money go as far as possible.  In the past year we have been led to a path that is leading us to financial stability.  Hearing this talk again from this point in my life, reflected on the gratitude I have for the many people and blessings I have received to get me where I am now.  I also realized that I want to be that blessing for others who are in need.  I’m not sure yet what I am able to do to lift others beyond what I have been doing, but I know that I need to search it out.

I also learned about the need to make any of our business endeavors meaningful to us.  We need to seek a way to help others.  We need to find the thing that we do well and use it to bless the lives of those around us.  We could take whatever job comes across our path that earns us money, but that may not be the job that Heavenly Father has called us to accept to help us become the person He wants us to become.

Perspective and Priorities

There are 2 things that stood out to me the most this week.  The first thing that stood out to me is how many different ways there are to approach the same situation.  In our casa study discussions, I had felt so sure that I was following my conscious and that was good enough.  As I read the responses, I realized that my solutions were short sighted and only focused on my immediate needs.  In the case study about Hopkins I had not considered how the wife’s actions were not entirely fair to the husband if her grievances had not been communicated to him.  In the case study about the dance recital, I had not considered that I could use my any spare time I had to take care of my client and being there for him, then going to the recital. These things seem so clear until we see them through another’s eyes.  It drove home to me the importance of keeping people around me that can help me see the better alternative.

The other thing that stood out to me is the importance of finding balance in my life.  It is something that I struggle with daily between a full-time job, 6 children, and part-time schooling.  There are times I have to make choices where one part of my life gets less time and attention in favor of something more important.  It is hard to find that balance and know when the right time is.  If we stay close to the spirit and make sure that we have our priorities in order, we should be able to keep a good balance.  I was particularly interested in what Randy Kosimar has to say about balancing your life.  He indicated that our priorities shift as life goes on.  Some things will be most important at one time, then less important another.  What is essential is that we keep re-evaluating our priorities and adjust our balance accordingly.

Who Will I Become?

This week we read a talk given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks called “The Challenge to Become.”  In this talk, Elder Oaks discusses the difference between evaluating ourselves based on actions versus evaluating ourselves based on our desires and who we have become.  This is a topic that I think of and struggle with often.  I know that I am a good person who does good things and am doing my best to follow the Savior and become like Him; however, I sometimes encounter people who are closer to becoming like Him than I am and realize how far I still must go.  It is important that we not only do good things, but we also desire to do good things.  I struggle to become more than I am every day; I call it growing pains.  When we go through trials in life, we need to do more than just endure them; we must learn from them and become better people.  It is through our trials and our experiences that we become the person that our Heavenly Father knows we can become.

This principle can be applied in our professional lives as well.  We should have dreams of what we wish to achieve in our professional lives.  Like our spiritual selves, we cannot achieve these goals by staying the same person all the time.  We must learn and grow constantly.  As we do, we become better, more valuable workers who can achieve greater things than we could before.  To reach for our dreams we need to seek out the skills and people we will need to help us get there.  We must be constantly rowing and changing to achieve our big dreams.

I was also interested in learning bout Google’s “20% time” from Marissa Mayer’s video “License to Pursue Dreams.”  It was fascinating to me that if you invest just 20% of you time into your dreams, you can create great things.  What I found so fascinating about this is the idea that you could potentially achieve your dreams if you give it just 20% of you time.  You can work on a goal while still having time for a career and your family.  Dreams and goals do not need to be held back by the need to sustain employment if you can invest 20% of your time.  That is less than 34 hours a week or just under 5 hours a day each day.  Right now, I am spending that time working on my dream of getting a bachelor’s degree.  I am interested to see what goals I will be able to achieve after that.

Leadership

I have enjoyed learning about what it takes to be an effective leader this week.  I especially enjoyed reading about Jim Collin’s book Good to Great and “Leadership with a small ‘l’” by President Kim B. Clark.  From the time I was a teenager, I was told that I have leadership potential.  I have never been able to see it in myself, and have rarely had a chance at church, school, or work to use it.  Knowing that leadership was supposed to be part of my life had become somewhat disheartening to me, as I could not see myself in that position.  Reading the summary of Collin’s book helped me see the qualities in myself that would help me become an effective leader.  Reading the qualities of a level 5 leader helped me to see which ones I have that can qualify me for leadership.  I can work on these qualities to become a more successful leader. 

President Clark’s talk showed me how to lead in the Saviors way and be a leader in my home.   He teaches that we need to lead by example, with vision, and with love.  The Savior is the perfect example of a leader.  To become a leader like him, we must study the scriptures and attend church meetings.  If we study his life and his attributes, we can learn to be better leaders in our home and at work.  We can also pray to help us develop these skills as well.

After this week, I have found that becoming a leader is possible if I am willing to develop the skills and talents that I have.  It is also important that I use my skills for righteous purposes, and not simply for my own gain.  I know is I stay close to the spirit, I will be able to become the best version of me.

Hang in There!

This weeks learning really hit home for me.  As the mother of 6 young children with a full time job, trying to finish her online degree, I frequently feel tired and overwhelmed.  Sometimes I wonder if it is all really worth it, and think that maybe I should just put off my degree until the kids are a little older, or I’m able to get more sleep, etc… The list seems to me as never ending.  When I start to feel exhausted, sad, or drowning I let myself think about it, for just a moment.  What if I did stop now?  What if I put it off until and easier time.  This may seem counter intuitive, but it helps me see it from all angles.  The answer is always the same: this is a temporary state, there is not going to be a time when it is easier, and I am doing this so that my family will have the security we so desperately crave.  As I said this lesson hit home.

Elder Holland taught us that good times will be ahead if we can keep moving forward.  If we push through the trials, we will find light and joy.  I have seen this in my own life, and look forward to seeing the light get infinitely brighter.  I also enjoyed listening to Elder Holland’s talk, “However Long and Hard the Road.”  His perspective on the many different trials that other saints have faced over the ages has helped me know that I am not alone, and many have made it through great trials before me.  I was especially touched by the story of the many hardships the saints endured as they built the Sat Lake Temple.  I drew similarities to my own life, realizing that on the other side of such trials are great blessings.  I can also apply this in my career.  If I keep pushing forward and doing my best, I will be able to find opportunities to learn grow, and advance my career.

Self-Improvement

Reading about The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People this week, I found myself thinking about which habits I feel the deepest connection to.  I found that there are some I am fairly practiced at, and some that stood out to me that I need to work on.  The one I feel I need to focus on improving in the most is Habit 7, “sharpen the saw.”  I am a very busy person, with very little time to take care of the things I have to do, let alone the things I don’t have to do. After reading this section, I realize that I am approaching it all wrong.  If I neglect myself, and don’t do some of the things I want to do for myself, I will be less effective at everything else.  I plan to set goals for myself of realistic things I can do to make sure I am sharpening the saw everyday. 

The other habits that I connected with are habit 3: “put first things first,”  habit 4: “think win/win,” and habit 5: “seek first to understand, then to be understood.”  I feel that these habits work together, and can help me achieve my goals.  Think win/win was especially interesting to me as it is something I had never thought of before.  I was very intrigued by the idea that if we engage in a transaction where one person make all the compromises, both people lose.  I really put that idea in my heart and it is the other habit that I want to improve in my life.  I want to make sure that any solutions I may find to a problem are mutually beneficial, and that everyone is able to walk away happy.  I know that as I work to improve in this area, I will improve my relationships with those around me.

Family, Faith, and Career

My studies this week got me thinking a lot about how my family, my job, and the need to find balance. I just started working for the fist time in 9 years back in April of 2018.  I started back to work as a part time employee but am now working full time in a job that has started me on a path to my career of choice.  With all this sin mind, I have had to ponder a lot how I plan to balance family and work.  My husband is able to stay home with our children, so I know that they are getting love and parenting from their parents, but as their mother, I still have a responsibility for their emotional well-being.  With all this weighing frequently on my mind, I was truly appreciative of our studies this week.

In the video, The Entrepreneur and the Family, Steve Blank talks about ways we can balance our entrepreneurial pursuits with our families.  I don’t plan to start my own business, but I do hope to be a leader in a company one day.  As such, I was interested in what blank had to say about family and work.  He made rules for himself with his family that he cannot break, such as family dinners.  He had several ideas that I felt I could apply in my life to help me stay close to my children.  The part of the story that struck me is that he came home for evenings with his children but would go back to work when they got to bed.  I too can be creative in the ways I balance my family with my work.  If I make my family the most important thing, I will be able to plan my work accordingly. 

I also enjoyed listening to Jan Newsman talk about the importance of God and Family.  He teaches us that we should “never be to busy to take a calling in the church.”  I need to make sure that I put my Heavenly Father first as I continue down my career path.  I also need to make sure that I take care of my family.  As I do so, I will be able to find true success in my life.

Character and Courage

This week I enjoyed learning about the character and skills required to be a successful entrepreneur.  The video that stood out to me the most is the video A Hero’s Journey.  From the video, we learn that when a person gets to the end of their life, they will ask themselves who did I love, who loved me, did I contribute something meaningful, and was I a good person.  This brought me back to when I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  One of Covey’s habits is “begin with the end in mind” (Covey, 2004).  If I am to begin with the end in mind, I need to decide now what I want people to be saying about me when I get to that point in my life.  In thinking about this, I realized that the most important thing I want people to say about me is that I love my family.  With this in mind, I need to make sure that I keep them at the canter of my life.  I also want people to say that I was a good person.  If I keep close to the gospel of Jesus Christ, I will be able to accomplish both of these things.

I also enjoyed reading the story about Erica Mills starting her own card company.  In general, I am a very cautious person. I do not have the desire to start my own company, however, I do have the desire to advance in my career.  Erica Mills story about how she was able to have the courage to take risks and make the mistakes necessary to grow a business was encouraging to me.  I hope to be able to have that kind of strength as I pursue my own dreams of becoming the CFO or controller of a small, local company.

Works Cited

Covey, S. R. (2004). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Being More Effective

This week I learned about making effective decisions and making decisions that will help you be happy and successful versus making choices that will make you a lot of money.  Being a successful entrepreneur does not mean that we have to be at work all the time as we learn from Jeff Hawkins in “Effective Choices, Not Longer Days.”  We can choose to spend our time in whatever way we feel is the most effective.  We should also work “smarter not harder.”  I have found this to be true in my own work environment.  I recently moved into a position at work.  When I first learned how to do my daily tasks, they took me an hour of more each.  As I got to know each task better, I was able to find ways to simplify to task and drastically reduce the amount of time I spend on each one.  The same things that took me all day to complete I now get done in a few hours.  This has given me the opportunity to take on more roles and learn new skills at the company.  I learned how to do my job smarter, not harder.

This idea can be applied to my job when I become entrepreneur.  I should learn the intricacies of each job that needs to get done.  The more I learn about each task the better I will be able to streamline the task into its most effective execution.  I should not become complacent when I have increased the efficiency of a task but should always seek ways to improve.  This brings me back to one of my core values: education.

I also learned about my fears and acting to prevent them.  I have many fears as I am starting into a new career field.  My goal is to become a leader in the financial industry. I want to become a CFO or treasurer of a company and I find that I have many fears as I start down this path.  I completed an activity where we evaluate our fears and create action plans to avoid them, I realized many of my fears have to do with the perceptions other people have of me.  The best actions I can take to avoid these fears is to be proactive, and not become frozen by my fears.  If I am actively avoiding my fears, there is a high chance they will never manifest.  I also learned that I need to be doing more tow build my confidence in myself and my abilities, and to learn to worry less about the opinions of others.

Motivation

I really enjoyed our lesson this week on honesty and business ethics.  I found learning about the motivations we have in business from “Making a Living and a Life” from Elder Robbins to be incredibly insightful.  It was interesting to see the different motivations that people have for business, and how those motivations color their interactions with their customers.  Learning about the different grades and the motivations behind them made me stop and take inventory of myself.  Those who get an A grade are motivated by a love of God and their fellow men.  I would like to believe that I fall into this category, however learning about a B level motivator, money, really got me to reflect on which is my primary motivator.  In the past few years, I have had many difficulties that were threaded with not having enough money to take care of my family.  I go to work to earn money to take care of my family and make sure that we have the things we need, and some things we want.  I am now trying to reconcile if my desire to meet the needs of my family falls in the category of loving my fellow men or money.  I will need to do more studying before I feel at peace with where I stand, as I would like to believe that I put God first.

The second thing I learned about this week that really struck me was learning about Magdalena Yesil and her life.  She had such courage and strength to follow her heart and do those things that made her feel fulfilled.  She did not put money at the top of her need but doing what she felt most suited her.  In fact, Yesil lived a modest lifestyle, and had money to invest in her own ventures as a result.  I will strive to have her level of bravery as I develop my career.  I pray that as I find opportunities to learn and grow, I will not shy away from them, but will meet them with courage, strength, and excitement.

Chase Your Dreams

I was struck by several things that I learned and read this week.  First, I loved the video we had the opportunity of watching on treating life like an experiment.  I found this video to be very inspiring to me and helped me to see one of my major flaws.  I am terrified of failure.  I want to do everything right, and everyone to love me.  I know that this is not a realistic desire, and I am working on conquering it.  I had not thought of my ability to think through things logically and rationally as a tool to overcome this weakness.  I need to be willing to fail, so that I have experiences that I can learn from.  It’s these experiences that help us improve and learn.  At work, I learn from my mistakes all the time, but not without having frustration first for making those mistakes.  Going forward, I will strive to think of those mistakes as a natural part of the learning process, and that I learned the way to not do something.

I also found myself inspired and uplifted by Randy Pausch.  He was so full of life, energy and joy, despite his staring death in the face.  As I listened and read about his experiences, I realized that I had a lot that I could learn from him.  First, it’s ok to dream, and go after your dreams.  If you are willing to put the work into going after your dreams, they are achievable.  My dream is to become the CFO of a company.  I know that if I can keep my focus and work toward that dream, I can achieve it.  The second thing that struck me about Mr. Pausch is how at peace he was with his death.  I could tell that he had led a full life and did not have the regret of not accomplishing enough.  I pray that when I reach the end of my time here on earth, I will be able to look back on my life and have no regrets for the dreams I did not chase.

Learning About Me

I started into this course with one thought in mind, I do NOT want to be an entrepreneur! I don't want to be in charge of starting and running a company, and I certainly do not want the economic insecurity that can come with owning a business. That was my attitude toward this course, and what a poor one! I should know by now that first impressions are not always what they seem, and that there are important life lessons in every experience we have. Luckily for me, I do not rely solely on first impressions, as I know that they tend to be hasty and subject to the mood of the moment.

While completing the assigned reading and video assignments, I began to develop a different picture of what I am going to learn in this course, and the importance that it will have in my life. First, and most importantly, I learned that this course is NOT about learning how to start a business. This course has been designed to teach me how to learn about myself. I will learn how to stop and learn from my experiences in life, then apply what I learn. That is a skill that applies in any venture we have in life.

Second, I learned that it is ok to do what I enjoy in life. Guy Kawasaki had many insights into this point, and I was grateful to hear them. I was taught that, in life, we do what we are good at that will make us the most money. The things we enjoy are to be done in our spare time as a hobby. This is not always the case, we can earn money doing things we enjoy.

Lastly, I realized that I will be learning to have confidence in myself. One of my character traits that I wish to work on is my tendency to second guess myself and question my judgement. I am excited to learn how to be a leader, and how to learn from my life. As I do these things, my confidence in my abilities will grow. With additional skills for evaluating myself, I can learn to have confidence in myself and my decisions and have faith that I can learn from my mistakes.

I’m glad that I did not let my first thoughts cloud my attitude as I get acquainted with this course. I am truly excited for the lessons I have ahead of me and getting to know me.