Entrepreneurial Journal Blog

This week the biggest thing that stood out to me was the utilization of Stephen Coveys 7 Habits. We went over all seven in a summary format covering the main points, which I feel can apply to everyone’s life if they look for ways to improve themselves. The first was be proactive. The more we are willing to be the first to ask, volunteer, or step up to the plate when we are needed or can add value, the quicker we will find ourselves progressing in life. People trust and value hose that they don’t need to supervise all hours of the day, they know they can trust you and will come to them if they need anything because you are independent and a go getter. The second was begin with the end in mind. Having a vision and goals you are working towards is the only way you can progress anywhere in life. Third is put first things first. The ability to prioritize and make things happen regardless of how busy you are is a crucial skill in life and in entrepreneurship. Next is thinking in terms of win...

 This week I had a profound takeaway that I already knew deep down, but it helped me further ingest the meaning and truthfulness of what I learned. My biggest takeaways were that my greatest legacy will not be your business or money, it will be your family and your service in the kingdom of God, that the Lord's purpose for me is not to make a bunch of money, it is to raise a family in the gospel and have joy. It might be a byproduct of that pursuit, but all he really asks is a heart and a willing mind, and that I need to prioritize. God and family should come before anything else, and even my career can be crunched to fit around what is most important. I want to try and take myself out of my head and the future and appreciate the moment more. I heard a quote the other day that 20 years from now when I have gotten to where I want to be today and made all this money, that future self would trade it all with all the money to be right back where I am now to live in the moment. That was...

There were two activities that stood out to me this week. First, the class discussion board and the scenario we were presented with. The woman was presented with a situation where she had to decide how to divide her time in the future between a business and starting a family. More than anything directly said in the case, it made me think about how I never want to be in a situation where I have to choose between work and my family. First, my family will always be more important but I feel that if I structure my life and my business in the way I intend to, I can attend to both more than sufficiently to keep it healthy. The other one was the activity where we had to choose a “board of advisors”, essentially the 6-7 people we trusted more than anyone else to keep us on the right path in life and help us get to where we are wanting to go. My chairman that I selected was Jesus Christ. The reasoning behind this was that I know that above anyone else, He is the person I know will never lead me...

 This week has possibly been my favorite so far. It was a culmination of what we have done over the course of the semester to this point, which has all been very valuable in my opinion. It helped solidify the foundation I believe we all need to have in order to have a successful career and a fulfilling life. This included things like finding and expressing our core values to us now, but also what we need to change or continue believing to become the people we want to be, having a solid vision for our life and a roadmap of how to get there, and utilizing tools like the Launching Leaders book by Steven A. Hitz and his Formula for success to align our dreams and visions into actionable steps that are much more achievable in our day to day life. This formula is something I have taken down in my notes personally and has really struck a chord. I have started applying myself to it and I truly believe its principles can lead to a successful and fulfilling career and life. It is to get up e...

 This week was centered around a moral compass and set ethics that we want to hold ourselves to throughout your career. I am a firm believer that if you wait until the moment you end up in a difficult situation to make an ethical decision on how you want to handle it, you will usually make the wrong one. Deciding your ethics and a code you will live by in any situation that guides your action will always end you up on the right path and people around you will respect you more for it. We watched some videos of entrepreneurs that had lost everything due to the poor ethics of others around them, but had decided that they would rather that happen than to stop to the level of integrity of those who had wronged them. You can always get a new job or make your way back financially, but it is very hard to recoup integrity once you have given it away. We also made a set of ethics or a code of conduct that we ourselves wanted to abide by, and wrote it down in a hard format. The wording we use...

 This week has been my favorite so far and it would be hard to dethrone it (although it is early to be saying that). I am a huge advocate for having a vision and a plan for you life, nothing happens until you have a goal for where you want to go. This week was all about developing that life vision and plan. We made a list of the top 50 things we wanted to do in our lives on a "bucket list", which made me think deeper about what I wanted to accomplish in my life than I had before. The first 25 were pretty easy, but then I really had to start thinking about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be over the course of my life. We also did the "Stars and Stepping Stones" assignment, with a supplemental starter jobs assignment that helped us identify the jobs we needed to be in and land to have us on a good trajectory to achieve all of our dreams. Having not only a final vision and goal for your life, but steps to actually get there and checkpoints to break up a bigge...

This week we learned some more about the why of Entrepreneurship, specifically related to this course. Finding a why is incredibly important both in life and as an entrepreneur. We covered a broad variety of topics, all of which were key to discovering the "entrepreneurial spirit" inside of us. If we bring aspects of hard work, personal branding, doing what we love, and devoting everything we have to the Lord, we are on a track for success to bless those around us. Although not explicitly said, something I gathered from the readings and videos was that we are building ourselves before and along with our businesses. We can't develop a functional and successful business without first having the traits and characteristics we want that business to hold and operate off of. If we build our "personal brand" in business terms, it involves having attributes that Christ would have, things like honesty, integrity, grit, vision, proactivity, love, and service. The gospel an...