Intro. to Entrepreneurship Interview Preparations!

Good evening everyone!

I am grateful for the opportunity share with you some of the things that I learned about being an entrepreneur this week. One of the assignments that we have to do in class is focus on talking with an entrepreneur in an industry we are interested in. It never really crossed my mind that it would be appropriate to ask someone in the industry for some pointers. The way that I was thinking about it is that I am asking someone successful in my preferred industry how I can become a competitor for them. My thinking wasn't on point in that I wouldn't have to start my business in their region for starters, and even though we live in a competitive age people still want other people to be successful too. If someone were to approach me seeking counsel on how to better themselves for a situation, I would gladly help them out. Between the 8 billion people on Earth, there is an endless pool of knowledge to pull from to increase our capabilities of starting a successful business or even work on ourselves. Heavenly Father wants each of us to share our gifts and talents with each other to make our mortal journey easier. It is a good thing that we are all different, because if you approach someone for guidance, and they have nothing new or beneficial to offer you then this world wouldn’t be near as successful as it could be. From my experience, it is best to make sure all pride is put the side. Whether you are teaching or being taught how to do something, be open minded to the idea that other people were put into our lives for an important reason and they should be treated as such.

Master Your Life!

Hello everyone!

This week I had the opportunity to reflect on George Leonard's book Mastery and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. Both books offer advice that anyone can apply in their life to be more effective in reaching their goals and dreams. The habit that meant the most to me this time around was "Think Win/Win." Usually when I am trying to accomplish something or am working on a goal, it is something that I am doing for myself. I love the idea of a win/win situation, because it benefits all parties in a meaningful and uplifting way. Truthfully, it is sad that the world has become so competitive that it seems that win/win situations occur less. I was even more impressed by Stephen Covey’s thoughts on a win/win or no deal situation. A win/win or no deal situation means exactly how it sounds. No deal will occur unless both parties are guaranteed a win. This should always be the case, whether it has to do with personal, spiritual, or even professional matters.

I really enjoyed reading through Mastery the past few weeks because it is a book that not only breaks down the challenges that you face mastering a skill, but ways to do it more effectively. We all tend to make new years resolutions about things that we want to accomplish or skills we want to obtain. The problem is we tend to fall short on those goals. George Leonard offers advice on how to not only find strength to attain mastery in different aspects of our lives, but how to accomplish it as well. If you haven’t read either of these books, they aren’t just for people in school. They are literally for everyone and can legit make a difference in your life.

My Entrepreneurial Self Discovery Journal Entry

Hello everyone!

Yet again, I have the opportunity to share with you some cool insights that I learned from my Intro to Entrepreneurship. This week we got to hear from a couple of speakers that stood out to me. The first speaker, Steve Blank, is talking about the journey to starting a new business. He expressed that it can be soul sucking and very time consuming to start a new company and get it off the ground. If you are single, he said it is much easier to start a company than if you have a family as well. Steve had a family when he started working on his own business, but he wanted to be sure that he had time for them. To ensure he could balance his time wisely, he made a set of rules with his wife and kids specifically regarding how he would handle time management while running the company. It was through his set of rules that his company didn't take over his personal life and time with family. Every entrepreneur should be doing this, because controlling your type is typically one of the benefits of personalized time management of the company. The next person that I wanted to briefly touch on is Wences Casares, founder of Lemon Bank and Wanako Games. He shared an idea that I agree and disagree with. The idea is that if you want to do really well at something, stick with it for a long time. What he meant is that if you are an entrepreneur, don't just give up on what you are working on, but instead stick with it for the long hall. Where I agree is that if the product or project is consistently moving forward in a positive way, then stick with it, but where I disagree is that sometimes staying with something is a bad idea. I work in healthcare contracting, where I contract doctors for health plans. Sometimes they don't want to join the plan I am contracting for, so instead of pursuing a dead lead, I move on to someone new. The same applies to business, in the sense that if you aren't seeing any kind of positive success, then it would be better to spend your time and resources on something different. I'm not saying the product/project has to be completely different from the first, but you don't want to stick with something that is getting you nowhere and using up your time and resources. It is important to really try and find that right balance. 

The Journey of a True Hero

This week, I am pleased to have the opportunity to share my thoughts on a video that I watched titled
"A Hero's Journey." The main speaker was a man named Corey Bell, who basically shares why and how he became an entrepreneur. He starts off by talking about how he worked at several different jobs, but yet none of them made him feel fulfilled. He wanted to be able to serve other people better and felt that the best way to do that would be to risk losing a steady job and starting his own business. Even though it worried his wife, and he ended up having 9 of his siblings live with him, he pushed through  the challenges and became a successful entrepreneur. His main points explained that we can  do anything that we put our mind to, and that the word "can't" shouldn't be used in our vocabularies. Where I agree with Corey is that we are all children of God and with that being said, we all have infinite potential. If we want to start a business, we just have to find the right motivation and make a move. If you don't try then you will fail, but if you try and fail, at least you had a chance for success. Obviously with any entrepreneur, there is always the risk of failing, but Corey points out that there are always a million jobs to go back to if it doesn't work out. We all have to ask ourselves what we want to accomplish in this life, and how we can serve the world around us. Corey's reasons for starting a business may be different from mine, but as long as the reasoning is pure then it is worth trying. The most important thing that stuck to my mind from the video is that Corey points out that the graveyard is the richest place in the world. What he meant is that the graveyard has many people who have passed away that never attempted to live up to the dreams or goals. It is a shame when people with amazing talents and ideas don't share them because it could have been world changing. As you go through focusing on your professional choices, make sure you are doing something that will help you feel fulfilled in the end. There is nothing worse than getting to the end of your life and have a long list of "what if's." You don't want to look back and wonder why you didn't take any risks to achieve the things you wanted most out of life. 

My Life Plan to Deconstruct My Fears!

Good evening all!

This week in my Introduction to Entrepreneurship class, I had the opportunity to think about a really important factor in our lives, which is our fears. Specifically I focused on my fears of what would happen in business scenarios. My fears included the idea of waking up and hating my job, not being able to achieve my dream of producing a screenplay, starting a business of my own and it failing, and finally getting let go of a high end executive job. Each of these fears, at least for me, would have negative impacts on my personal and family life as well as my financial situation. My class was asked three questions this week to focus on, and I am going to share them as well as answer them below:

  1. If you pursue your calling with discipline, intentionality, and the help of fellow travelers, what are the chances that your worst case scenario will really happen?

I think that there is always the chance of any fear coming true; however, when you help others and allow them to help you, it is much less likely that you will fail. Also, if you have a great work ethic and are disciplined to your role then you will typically find success in it. 

2.  As you look at your list of fears, what themes emerge? What is at the core of what you really fear? Financial ruin? The judgment or disapproval of others? Physical harm? Endangering the ones you love? Embarrassment?

The themes that emerge in my fears are usually having to do with the idea of a business scenario going poorly and negatively effecting my family's way of living or their comfort. I have seen many times in my life where bad financial situations have cause divorce or other sad family situations. Each of my scenarios leads to financial struggle. If I were to really break down the core of my fear, it would be endangering the ones I love. What I mean by this is endangering their mental well being and their level of comfort in the home. I never want my wife or kids to feel that they are deprived of basic necessities because of a business scenario that goes poorly. 

3.  What is the risk of taking no action – not following your calling? How do you plan to deal with fear when it pops up on your entrepreneurial journey?

The risk of not taking action or following your calling is that you will likely find yourself miserable in what you do. There are few things worse than working a job that you hate, because our jobs take up 1/3 of our day as it is. It is soul sucking and can negatively impact how we take care of ourselves and the way we treat others around us. In order to overcome my fears on my entrepreneurial journey, I took a step back to first determine what the fears were and then came up with an individual plan for each fear on how to overcome it. There are some fears in our life that are debilitating, and we have to be prepared to overcome them by being prepared with preset plans to do so.  

Education and Career Decisions and Moving Forward With Goals

Good evening all!

This week I gained some really interesting insights that I learned through my Introduction to Entrepreneurship class. The first thing that comes to my mind from the reading this week is the idea of "failing forward" This is essentially the idea that we all fail constantly in this life, but rather than letting those failures beat us down, we should be letting them build us up. Thomas Edison failed over 1,000 times in an attempt to create the light bulb. Currently, the light bulb is used worldwide and is a crucial piece of technology in society. Imagine if he gave up and we still had no light bulb today. It would be horrible. Each of us has goals and tasks we would like to complete in this life. When we fail at achieving them, it doesn't mean that we are done for. We can push through the failures, learn from our mistakes and keep getting one step closer until we reach success; just as Thomas Edison did with the light bulb. It isn't any secret that everyone fails at different things in their lives. It is how we handle those failures that will define our true success in this life. 

The second and last insight that I wanted to share from my learning this week is about a young woman named Magdalena Yesil. At 12 years old, she lived in Instanbul, Turkey with a strong desire to learn about the field of technology. As she approached the end of her high school years, she was prepared with the university options she wanted to attend and did everything necessary to reach her goals. Her first options were IIT located in Chicago, and MIT located in Massachusetts. She chose IIT, not realizing that she would dislike the Chicago region. She still had the passion to learn her craft, but it was important to her to do it in a place that she could still enjoy her life. She decided to turn to Stanford University in California. This would give her a home that felt similar to Istanbul, and still allow her to push forward with her higher education. The point of this story is that there are multiple options we can choose to achieve the same goal. Some of the options are going to make us miserable, some content, and others full of joy. For Magdalena, Chicago helped her reach her goal, but she was miserable. Instead, she moved to Stanford, got the education she wanted and was very pleased with the region. If we aren't happy with an option we are currently accepting, whether it is in our personal, professional, or educational goals, then we should find other options to achieve the same goals and bring us joy at the same time. 

Who is Randy Pausch and What Did He Teach?

This week, I had the opportunity to learn from a unique individual by the name of Randy Pausch. He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and was an excellent father and example of diligence to personal goals. The reason that he was able to achieve many of his life goals is because he is a positive thinker. Rather than look at failure as a bad thing, he looks at them as stepping stones. Rather than looking at road blocks as an opportunity to quit, he aims to break them to show how badly he wants to reach his goals. As I pondered what some of my life goals and dreams are, I realized that a lot of them get put on the back burner. Goals and dreams are extremely important in this life. They help motivate us to do something, they give us purpose and something to hope for. The problem is that if we don't prepare ourselves for the failures and road blocks, they will get put on the back burner like mine did. Randy learned early on that if you want to be successful at something, just keep going at it until you have achieved it. Don't think that you are ever too old to adopt this thinking, because even as we get older ,we can still achieve our dreams.
 One of my childhood dreams was to become a screenwriter or an actor. I loved the idea of conveying a message on screen for others to learn from and inspire them. I am 28 years old, and at this point in my life it is very possible to achieve both of these dreams. If I wanted to, I could go online and find a class either on YouTube or Groupon to learn how to write a screenplay. There would be roadblocks along the way, but because I already know that and expect them it wouldn't be too hard to overcome. There are professionals all over the world that do what I want to do. I could reach out and find inspiration from others who have achieved my dream and overcome trials to reach it. Heavenly Father gave us brothers and sisters to help us through challenges and to build off one another. With acting and screenwriting it is all about building off of others. Since I consider myself a person that can build rapport with anyone, and because I am a diligent worker, it would be very possible for me to achieve my dreams. It all begins with just starting.