Entrepreneurial Journal Blog

 The readings this week had a lot of good insights.  This week had a general conference talk called Perseverance by President James E. Faust.  In his talk, he talks about necessary skills that we can learn on a mission.  He numbered them as follows: 1. How to organize and use time wisely 2.  The importance of hard work—that you reap what you sow 3. Leadership Skills 4. People Skills 5. The value of gospel study 6. Respect for authority 7. The importance of prayer 8. Humility and dependence on the Lord My favorite quote is when he said, "Success is usually earned by persevering and not becoming discouraged when we encounter challenges." I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to play sports in high school.  It taught me so much about hard work and perseverance.  It taught me how to work hard for what I want, and if I don't get it, to get up and try again the next year.  It taught me how to make a plan in order to reach my goals.  It ta...

 I enjoyed this week's readings.  I learned a lot.  I learned about the importance of doing what you love for work.  I think oftentimes we make decisions based on finances.  Obviously, finances are important, but money can only motivate us to a certain extent.  There was a study done by Princeton that showed that a salary of $75,000 a year is the plateau for creating day-to-day happiness.  Anything over that doesn't have much impact on an individual's happiness.  In other words, if we are pursuing a career for money, we will end up disappointed. I think it's more important to do what you love.  If you don't love what you do, you will be less likely to put in more hours, which will make it harder to be successful.  I think that this was an important realization for me.   I think that this is something that I should apply into my life. Another thing that I learned from this is that it is more important to make great decisions eve...

I liked reading about integrity this week.  I think that it's something that we are starting to lose in our society.  President Joseph F. Smith called integrity "the cornerstone of character," which I couldn't agree more.  It is a vital character to have in all relationships, from being a husband/wife to being a coworker, friend, or leader.  It means to do the right thing, even when it's the hardest choice to make!   It reminds me of a story from when I was younger.  When I was in middle school or early high school, I was doing some work for my grandpa in his backyard.  He lives on about two acres, and about 1.5 of those acres is garden.  It's quite large.  Me and my younger brother, who was in 6th grade, were moving manure that had just been dropped off.  We were driving one of his old Chevy trucks that he prized greatly.  On one of the loads, I started backing up to turn the truck so the bed was closer to the garden, making i...

 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 coache...

  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.  Journal...

 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...

      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 ...