Entrepreneurial Journal Blog

 I think a big reason why Randy Pausch achieved so many of his childhood dreams was because his parents didn't put any limits on him.  He was able to draw on the walls as a kid.  Pretty soon he was writing chemistry formulas on the walls.  I think that limits can be put on us by ourselves and/or by others.  It reminds me of the quote by Henry Ford, which says, "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't -- you're right." I think that it's important for us to have dreams, ambitions, and goals.  Without them, what really is the purpose of our life?  It is human nature to have dreams and ambitions.  These ambitions give us a sense of direction, and a sense of purpose.  The beauty of it is that they can be whatever you want.   Growing up, one of my dreams was to play football at my high school.  When I was in elementary school and middle school, our youth tackle football team would go watch the games together with our coaches.  Sometimes they would let us h

  This week was a great start to the semester.  We opened up by getting to know some of our other classmates and reading through the syllabus.  We also had the opportunity to study a couple of talks, reading materials, and videos.  I think that there were some good insights from the study material.  One of my favorite insights was from Elder David A. Bednar, who suggested that we should avoid the academic path of least resistance.  After all, we are here to learn and to strengthen our knowledge in our field.  Cutting corners will not help us whatsoever in the long run.  I think that it is important that he called that out.  I think that all of us have been guilty of doing so.  Like President Hinckley said, we cannot betray ourselves in any way.  By cutting corners, we are betraying ourselves and our families.   This week we also read material about the importance of journaling during our entrepreneur journey.  Journaling is much more than just writing your experiences down.  We can wri

 I think if I were to give one final lecture to other students about what I have learned, I would say that entrepreneurship doesn't really have a common denominator.  There really isn't a beaten path for you to follow.  You can customize and tailor your journey to your liking.  You don't have to give in to the pressure of doing what other people want you to do.  I would also share about how important it is to talk to others and see how they created their entrepreneurial path.  This is something that I learned from this class and my intro to business class.  I have been able to interview several people in different fields, and I've been able to learn and take pieces from their journey that I think would be beneficial to me and my journey.  This helped me construct my own plan and tailor it to my own liking. My last bit of advice to someone who is about to start their entrepreneurial journey is to jump into it right away.  Something that I have realized is that if you don

      I think that this week covered a more broad set of information.  The topics that we covered ranged from trust and ethics to leadership and capability.  I think one of the most important things I learned from this week was creating trust with the customer.  Guy Kawasaki gave a couple of examples of this.  An example of this is companies paying for shipping costs, even if someone is trying to return the product.  It shows that the company trusts the consumer.  This makes shopping with those certain companies a lot more appealing because you won't have to worry about causing unnecessary friction.  It's just another way of putting the customer first.       In general, it's important to hire ethical people.  But how do you do it?  In one of the videos, we learn that it may be a lot easier than it seems.  What you want to look for is someone who is nice.  Why?  Usually it's because these people that are nice in social settings are more likely to put the team needs first

 There were a lot of things that I learned this week.  One of my favorite things that I learned is that as an entrepreneur we need to learn how to think differently than other people.  Most people's thinking process if logical and in a timing-oriented order.  However, in one of the videos that we watched, it suggests that we take a completely different stance on how to solve a problem.  Instead of doing what most people do, we have to look at the problem backward.  If we do this, we can find new insights and make more connections than if we were looking at the problem from the same angle.   Something else that I learned this week was from Elder Holland's video.  Something that he said that inspired is "Don't you quit!"  I like Holland because he reminds me of all the coaches that I had throughout my sports career.  I think having a positive attitude and an attitude of relentlessness is super important in not only the gospel but in entrepreneurship as well.  It'

 This was another great week about learning about entrepreneurship!  There are several points that I would like to go over in this blog.  The first thing that I liked from this week was the talk about self-mastery.  What that talk helped me realize is that I'm never going to be able to achieve the goals that I want without self-mastery.  I read a quote this week that said, "Discipline will get you miles further than motivation."  Sometimes we just need to gain control over ourselves and do things that we don't want to do.  That can sometimes be the difference between success and failure.   Another thought that I had this week was the importance of work-life balance.  As entrepreneurs, it is very easy to focus all of your time and effort on your work.  This can cause you to neglect your responsibilities to your family.  In one of the videos that we watched this week, it talked about the importance of setting rules and boundaries.  By setting rules and boundaries, the s