Final Post

Intro to Entrepreneur is one of the best classes I have ever taken. It isn’t just a class about entrepreneurship but a class that sends the student on a search of self-discovery. This class will not only help one decide if entrepreneurship is the right choice but also help the student decide what direction they want to take in life. The class teaches about how to know what is important to each of us. It teaches about how to strive toward those goals that we choose. It teaches about pushing through obstacles. It also teaches us that if we have faith in God and align our goals with His, anything is possible.

I learned it is important to find what I am good at doing. I need to learn what my gifts are and focus on those when creating a business. In "Living Life as an Entrepreneur Hero" Jeff Sanderfer says if you don't know your gift, ask a friend. It is often something you are so good at you don't even realize you are doing it. He also says being an entrepreneur is like living life like an adventure.

Guy Kawasaki says that your last focus should be money. You can be poor and miserable, and you can be rich and miserable. He said if you do what you love you will be happy and probably make money. If you choose something that will make the world a better place, will also be more likely to be successful.

Plan your life goal. Start at the end (about age 80) what do you want to be known most for? We are really only capable of doing 2 to 3 things well according to Sandefer. What are we willing to sacrifice to do the other things well? Now work backward decade by decade with that end goal in mind. What needs to have happened at each milestone?

Jeff Sanderfer says, "Your steppingstones are not a rigid plan. Instead, they are a way of dealing with reality. Even with all the careful preparations and millions of calculations prior to an Apollo mission, NASA still had to make hundreds of mid-course corrections during a journey to the moon. Your life is much more complicated than a space mission."

Rand Pausch says, the brick walls are not there to stop us. There are there to give us a chance to see how bad we want something. They are there to stop the people who want it badly enough. He said "what would you say if it were your last chance to say it?"

Remember the spirituality of life's calling. God has given us gifts we need to work and share.

"If you can muster the drive, courage and confidence to get back up and try again, you will not be defined by the obstacles; you'll be defined as one who overcame them."

Plato said: “The first and best victory is to conquer self; to be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile.”

"What matters most in life is not what happens to us, but how we respond to whatever happens. Our basic nature is to act, not to wait to be acted upon. We have the ability to take the initiative in any situation we are in." Stephen R Covey

I love this plan for dealing with that overwhelm feeling: “If the objective seems overwhelming or you are unsure of where to start, break it down using the Vision, Strategies, Projects, Tactics (VSPT) framework: Vision Strategies: What are the ways you could achieve this objective? Sometimes there will be many strategies to choose from, other times only one. Projects: What big things need to get done to accomplish the objective? Create a series of major milestones.  Tactics: What do I need to do today to make progress on a project? Make a checklist. Quickly start on these tasks, and before you know it, you will be executing.”

I intend to write down my core values and pray for reassurance that I am on the right track. I am hoping to encourage my husband to read the book as well. For us to be financially fit we both need to be on the same page with our finances. I have always been terrible at creating and staying within a budget. This will be one of my biggest challenges. I feel like If I can do this, I can really do anything.

Randy Haykin shares that finding balance between his work life and the rest of the areas in his life is a constant struggle. I feel like I am already navigating that struggle by running my own preschool, raising my children, and taking online classes at BYU-I.  Some say balance isn’t possible and I believe in some ways they are correct. However, I think at different points in our life, our year, month or even day we may focus more on one area than another. However, if we truly set up our guideposts and guard rails and remember what is truly important to us, we can make that balance happen in our own lives. Whatever that looks like for each of us.

These are the most important things I took from the class. I planned to only take this entrepreneur class. However, I think I need to take all four of the classes. This has been a wonderful journey and I feel like I have a better understanding of the direction I my life to take.