Last Lecture 2016

I can’t wait to go back and read the last, “Last Lecture” I wrote for a previous class.  I imagine it’ll be much different from this one because of all I’ve learned in that time.  I thought about going back before, but I think the contrast will be more telling if I’m not reminded of what I said.

This class can be summed up into one quote for me.  “Work on your career, not just in your career.”  I’ve changed the original quote because I still have very little intention of owning my own business, but I consider myself and my brand as my business.  What I need to keep working on is me personally. 

I will not improve upon me without specific and planned action.  It won’t happen just by showing up to class, to work, or to life in general.  Much like my Gym Membership doesn’t do me any good unless I actually workout, professional development takes work. 

When I show up each day, I now plan what I’m going to do, not solely so I don’t forget anything, but more so I’ll be able to see what I’ve done, how I did it, and what I learned.

If I have a meeting where I present, before I go in I ask myself what I’m going to get out of it professionally.  Am I going to be a more direct speaker? Am I going to make sure others feel heard? Am I going to show how much knowledge I have?  When I come out of the meeting then I go over what worked and what didn’t.  I get feedback from others if possible and I try to learn from it. 

By having this targeted objective I can make sure that I’m not just going through the motions for my employer, but really making sure I’m getting better at each and everything I do.  What worked well, what didn’t, and how will I improve upon it for next time?  Those are all things that are leaned when you “work on your career, not just in your career.”

Time Marches On

I believe “Time Marches On” is a song title, but it’s also how I feel about my life.  I can see the phrase works in business as well.  Time will continue to pass, with or without our permission. While we can’t control many things that happen around us, we have complete control over what happens within us.

In reading E-Myth and other articles over this semester my biggest takeaway is to be observant and plan for the picture.  It’s so easy in our work, business, or even family to get caught up in the day to day “operations” that we forget to plan for the future.

The past couple years I’ve been blessed to be in a position at work that gives me ample time for reflection.  That will be changing in a few weeks as I move to a new position that is much faster paced.  I will have to make time to make sure I “work on (my) business, not just in (my) business.”  My career is my business, it’s my brand and I need to be focused on growing it.  If I just go in and learn my job and get lost in the work, I’ll eventually get burned out and time will have passed with little growth done.  If instead I focus everyday on what I’m going to do to grow and then at the end of the day evaluate what went right, what wrong, and what I learned I will make sure that I’m using the time that’s passing to its fullest possibilities.  To me, that will be success.

Good Example

As we’re nearing the end of this semester I’m starting to reflect on what I’ve learned over this course.  I’m looking forward to going back and reading these blogs again as this has been quite an adventurous time in my life.

I feel lucky to have been able to read about some great business people and situations they have been in to help shape me.  I can’t believe how many times I keep coming back and quoting E-Myth or talking about an Acton Hero in my day to day work.

This week we were in negotiation on our house as the inspections had come back in and indicated a few problems, one of which we hoped we’d had more time on and that was the roof.  Watching our real estate agent work though was really impressive as he tried to look out for our best interest while still being realistic about the market place and the situation we found ourselves in.  He looked for the Win-Win.  He was a great example of all the things we’d been reading about.  He takes great care in making sure the customer is satisfied and often views everyone as his customer, because down the road they could be.

I’m preparing for the presentations of our $100 challenge and stating what I’ve learned from it.  I was certainly not successful, but I feel there are many things to learn none the less.

Working Together

I celebrated a birthday this past week; I’m now 36 years old.  I think the biggest thing I’ve learned in the past couple years is how little I know.  I know that I’m gaining knowledge faster than ever before, but part of what I’ve learned is how important it is to have great people around you to help when you need it and point out things you didn’t or wouldn’t see.

We’ve made an offer on a house in Georgia and have had the inspections done.  They came back with some work that needed to be done.  I feel great that I have an agent there who can help me decide what to ask for and how to negotiate this.  Like this weeks Acton Hero though said, it’s great to have people to do things for you, but you still have to know what they are doing and what it all means.  I’ve been trying to educate myself on real estate, negotiation, and home ownership all over again. 

My $100 challenge still isn’t going the way I wanted it to and at this point I’ll have nothing to donate to my cause at all.  In the end I’ll only have some books that I’ll be donating to schools, instead of selling them as I had hoped. (Although I guess that’s not the worst thing in the world.)

Business in Other Areas

Currently I live in the great Pacific Northwest, about 40 min. south of Seattle, WA and very fast pace.  I don’t think I ever realized how much so till I went on my house hunting trip to Georgia this past week.  My family and I are relocating there for business.  Everything just moves at a slower pace.

People are so nice in both places.  Traffic is bad in both places.  There are a ton of trees in both places.  Life though is much different.  From the airport personnel, to bankers, to real estate agents, restaurant staff and many other people it becomes very obvious that different things are important to different people. 

If I was to do business in one area vs. the other I would have to learn what is important and to whom.  The real issue comes though when you have a national business or even an international business.  How do you then make sure that you give each group of people what they, even subconsciously, desire?  It can’t be easy.  It’s where a balancing act of empathy, with speed comes into play.

On my $100 Challenge I feel like I’m getting behind.  It has been less than successful, but I also hope that I’m learning what not to do as well.

Life experiences

I’ve often been amazed at how much we really learn when we take what we read or study and try to place it in our own personal lives.  This past week we got an offer on our home in Washington and now I sit in a hotel room in Atlanta, GA getting set to go house hunting this week here.

In going through this process I’ve been able to look at a lot of service industry business.  I’ve watched the TSA, Delta, Hertz, Extended Stay America and many restaurant businesses as they try and serve my wife and me.  I’ve been very impressed with many of them.  Things that are so small such as Hertz programming my GPS to say, “Good Morning Greg Buchanan” when I get in the car.  These things really make such a big difference in my overall happiness with the company, even if I’m not thinking it.

Having taken this course makes me see that even large companies want to embrace that small company, personalized feel so that we have a good experience.  Often what falls through the crack is although the company wants that, does each and every employee?  If and when I ever run a company my people development will be my biggest focus.  I loved the example this week of Jet Blue.  There are many other companies that you come across that you know people just love working there.  It shows in everything they do.

My Recent Happenings

In this week’s blog I’m going to talk about what I’ve learned about business through preparing to sell my home, my status of the $100 Challenge, and the fun I’ve had reading E-Myth.

Preparing to sell and now listing my home has been quite the task.  My wife and I put a lot of work in over the past couple weeks to make sure everything was clean and ready to go.  On Tuesday we listed our home.  Despite us putting in the listing that we needed two hours’ notice for a showing, the first call we got from an Agent was at 4:22pm asking if we could do a 5PM show.  It was then I realized that I was going to have to be accommodating, but also put my foot down to set realistic expectations.  We agreed on 6PM.  We’ve had 11 other Agents come through the house with their clients.  Most have been wonderful to work with.  You can tell that they understand the importance of their brand.

Trying to move and continue with school work has proven very difficult and my $100 Challenge has suffered a bit.  I’ve been able to gather my product, but have yet to advertise or sell any of it.

The one thing I have been able to do is read E-Myth.  Actually I’ve been listening to it.  I knew in my situation that sitting down to read would be difficult so instead I bought the CD’s so that I can listen to them in my car.  I have a 45-60 minute drive to and from work so when I get to where I’m going I take a couple minutes to jot down some notes of that section I listened to.  It’s been working well and I’ll get through it in plenty of time to complete my report.  My favorite concept so far has been that if you don’t do it right, you won’t own a business, you’ll own a job.  I know many business owners who has fallen victim to this trap.  I’ve been trying to see it through their eyes.

Learning outside of class

The biggest thing I’m learning this week is that I just can’t do it all.  As I have mentioned before I found out a couple months ago that I was losing my job and had to find another one, hopefully within the same company, but it may not be in the same location and certainly not what I was doing now.  I was lucky enough to get a promotion, one that I’ve been wanting for quite some time.  With that though, I have to move my family across the country this semester from Washington State to Georgia.  We have to sell our house, which of course means we have to get it ready to sell first.  We have to then decide where we want to live, do a house hunting trip and make the move.  It’s a lot to be done before Christmas which is two months away.

It has been fascinating to me to watch so many different types of business and how they work through this process.  We’re lucky enough to be working with a relocation company who is taking care of a lot of the behind the scenes stuff for us.  We’ve met with two real estate agents on this side, a Pest Inspector and talked with a household goods moving company, an auto mover and a real estate person on the other side.  All this was after working with upper management in the location I’ll be moving.

While I’ve failed miserably at getting my homework done the past few weeks, I’ve been watching, asking questions and learning from these many different business people, some entrepreneurs and some corporate employees.  I’m blessed to go through this opportunity and hopefully I’ll find out a way to get my homework done so I can pass this class as well.

Wow, what a week this has been.  About a month ago I found out I was losing my job.  That was quite a shock to me.  I had the opportunity to stay with the same company but I would have to apply for something else. I also might not end up in the same location.  On Tuesday this week I interviewed and Thursday I found out I got a new job.  The only catch is that we are now relocating from Washington State to Atlanta, Georgia.  I'm so excited for this move and this opportunity, but it will provide many challenges over the course of this semester.  One thing I learned this week as I was going through this is that perfection is often very over-rated.  I know I didn't do perfect in my interview, but I was better than the competition.
As I started my business plan this week for our $100 Challenge at first it was hard because I thought I had to be perfect in my plan and my abilities.  I now realize that it's OK for me to be human and imperfect, but I have to keep trying.  That is what will make me successful, far more than if I waited for that elusive perfect plan.

Small Business Creation Begins

Once again I’m back at it to create/continue my Entrepreneurial Journal for a new class.  One of the big parts of this blog will be as I work towards an assignment called the $100.00 challenge.  It’s where I try to create a small business and earn $100 over the course of the semester as I sell it.  I then donate the earnings to another small business person.

I have no desire to be a small business owner myself, but I know the skills I learn in this will only help me as I look into management and teaching in other areas of my life.  This week I did an assignment called Points of Pain where I brainstormed problems/issues that needed solving and any ideas I could make for a business to solve them.  Half were to be the $100.00 Challenge and the other half the ideas were to be a Big Idea.  I had fun with this, one so much so that I even stopped what I was doing and called my wife to say, “You’re never going to believe what I just came up with.”

Many of the ideas were around things I’m very comfortable with; computer use, teaching, sports, math, scouts and youth.  Many would be things that I could easily do on the side, once I’m done with over 20 hours a week in homework that is.  At any rate, I have a great semester of this class ahead of me, here we go.

Last Lecture

Once again my business classes are much more engaging and exciting than any other class.  This reconfirms my desire to continue with the major of Business Management.  Over the last few months I’ve focused on a Life Plan vs a Business Plan.

My biggest life plan is to focus on balance.  I have some regrets in how I lived my earlier years in that I didn’t take advantage of school and work opportunities as I should have.  I’ve learned though recently that I can’t just go back and do it the way I should have.  Instead I need to focus on moving forward in the present.  I do that by having balance and using the time I do have now wisely. 

After a good 7 hours of sleep each night I have 1020 “Productivity Points” or minutes left each day.  I get to decide how I want to use those and how they will help me be the most successful in the end.  My life plan means that I have a big picture approach to things and not just a short term, what’s fun now outlook.

It’s not always easy to see and execute that plan though.  For instance this next semester I’ve decided to take it pretty much off, I’ll only be taking one religion class.  Even though I want to be done with school, my family and I need to spend a little time together and focus on what’s really important.  Now if I just spend all this time in front of the X-box, then it would be a waste of time.  Instead my plan is to attend sporting events and scout outings with my boys.  I’m currently on a trip to my parents with just my daughter.  It’s this kind of family time that shows I get the bigger picture.  I’m also going to spend it focused on me.  I scheduled a 5K to help me exercise, I am taking a religion class so that I get back on track with my scriptures.  I also have planned a few dates with my wife.

School has taken up so much of my life the past few years and it will again for a couple more, but this break the next 5 months or so will help my family in the long run.  We are an eternal family after all and just like everyone we need to keep our eye on the bigger picture when we consider our “Life Plan.”

Reprioritizing

This was a big week for me.  I’m at a point in my education where I’ve been going to school for quite a while.  Unfortunately, I still have about 2 years to go because of all the other demands on my time it’s taken quite a while to get to this point and I’m beginning to feel burnt out.  This time of year I get very restless because I want to spend time with my family or even just out in the garden working.

A thought hit me like a ton of bricks the other day, what if I take a semester off?  I’ve never done this before.  I do always take the summer off, but at BYU-I, the summer is only a few short weeks and still about 4 months away.  I looked into it and with the help of my wife made a decision to “mostly” take the semester off.  I’ll actually still be taking one religion class, because religion and specifically daily scripture study is one thing I need to be better at.

I still wasn’t completely confident of my decision until I watched a video by Stan Christensen.  He said two things that hit me pretty hard.  He said, “Don’t do things because it’s what other people want you to do” and “You get to make your own story.”

I know not everyone will think it’s a good idea to tap the breaks at this point in my education.  I have a clear plan though and this doesn’t change my plan, in fact it reinforces my need for a balanced life that is primarily focused on my family.  For a number of years now I’ve had school as a priority, at least for the next 5-6 months, school will get to play second fiddle.

Cultivating Relationships

This week I had a great time as I finished reading “A Field Guide for the Hero’s Journey”.  I love short stories and poems and that is what this book is filled with separated into 9 different topics.  The one that stuck out the most to me was #4 – What Companions do you want with you on your Journey?

I’ve had a general philosophy that has served me well when it comes to friends over the last 30 years or so and that is that people are placed in our path at certain points in our lives to help in ways that no one else could in that moment, but it doesn’t mean those same people will be who you need at the next point in your life.

While I still stand by that philosophy, I’ve also found myself lately growing more desirous of deeper relationships.  I feel blessed to have my wife and my kids and I am working very hard to make sure that I cultivate those relationships, because those are going to be with me for eternity.  Outside of my family though, I want some relationships that are meaningful and long lasting as well.  Through my study this week I have found that what I really need to work on is my humility.  I need to find those people that have skills opposite mine that we can both help each other out and then I need to actually put some effort into it.  Invite them over, talk to them and listen to what they have to say.

Some may laugh at this and say “duh” but for someone as introverted as I am, these are challenging steps that will require faith and prayer on my part.

Love what we do

I had a small battle internally over what to blog about this week.  There were a few different topics but what I wanted to write about was just a small piece of what was said.  It had to do with a video I watched of Marissa Mayer of Google.  She was talking about her people being given 20% of their time to work on “Personal Projects”.  These were things not given to them to work on, but the ability to use their own creativity to drive their work.  It turns out 50% of items actually developed came from that 20% of time.

What this shows me is that we have to be invested in what we’re doing in order to be successful.  When we’re happy, challenged, and trusted we can rise to amazing heights.  I see this play out in my own life on a weekly basis with schoolwork.

I’d much rather spend my Saturday teaching my children important lessons.  Some of them are not always fun, but they are still better than doing my homework, even if I enjoy the lessons I learn by my classes.  I also see it in how I gravitate toward my business classes because they engage me in a way the other classes don’t for me.

This is not new information, but when we love what we do we will do it better.  When we appropriately challenge ourselves while doing what we love we will grow.  When we do this over an extended period of time, we become successful.  My hope and goal is to spend more time doing what I love and being successful.

Efficient or Not?

I have a question for my readers this week; which is a better trait, being a self-starter or being a great communicator?  I hope that I’ve picked the right words to describe my dilemma I’ll explain below.

This week I read a story, “A Message to Garcia” by Elbert Hubbard.  This story is about a man who is called upon to deliver a message.  He doesn’t ask any questions, he simply takes the message and sets about finding Garcia to deliver the message.

The article then spends the next 10 pages talking about how we just need to act, not question the why and how most corporations wish they had more self-starters.

Maybe I’ve been in the corporate world for too long, but this seems highly inefficient.  When a leader or customer asks you to do something it’s important to use good communication skills to find out if that person has any helpful information or maybe some action has already been done.  Is it efficient to reinvent the wheel that’s already been built?

Back to our story; the man that took the message could have asked, where have you already looked for Garcia or where was Garcia last seen?  Imagine that Garcia might have been found in hours instead of days.  What if this was a critical or time sensitive message and the Messenger, trying to instead be the hero, took precious time, just because they wouldn’t ask the right questions.

I get that we can’t always have all the information before we act.  We may also discover problems and should in that case be self-starters to get things done.  All too often though, there is a path before us and it would behoove us to ask prudent questions and communicate what is desired and what we can do.  This is the way of the modern world, and I for one, feel it’s a good change from Garcia’s Messenger.

I Don't Have to Agree

Let me attempt a little Humility before getting to my point.  There are a lot of smart, amazing people that I’ve learned so much from in my life and I know that I have a ton more to learn.  That said, I think one thing that has taken me some time to learn is that I don’t have to agree with every professor or every published work that I read in academia. 

My reason for going to college really wasn’t for the money.  I love my job and don’t plan on changing when I graduate.  It was to protect me against an uncertain future and help me to learn and grow.  Part of that growth was to come out of my shell so to speak.  While I still love black and white rules I’ve known for quite some time the world often operates in the grey space.

This week I was to write a book report on the book Mastery by George Leonard.  I enjoyed reading this book, but not because everything he said hit home.  Instead it made me question what I believed about mastery versus dabbling or hacking my way through life.  While those words have negative meanings in most cases, what he was really describing is also known as “Balance”.  I disagreed in my paper that we need to be masters of anything but instead strive for a balance in our life to find true happiness.

I just enjoy being able to disagree and articulate my opinions, hopefully in a respectful way, but also one that shows I’m beginning to feel comfortable with my own level of education.  I feel less talked down to in situations and more that I know how I truly feel and not just what someone else has told me I should feel.

Balancing Act

In the 1985 movie Brewster’s Millions this man is given a set amount of money and told that he has to spend it all in a very short amount of time.  Suppose you were given $86,400 each day and you had to spend it all in that day.  You couldn’t keep any of it with you for the next day.  What would you spend it on?  It’s kind of fun to think about.

Well the news for some of you is that we are given 86,400 each day except it’s in time (seconds to be exact) and it’s up to us how we spend them.  Will we spend them sleeping in bed, obviously some of that is needed to function properly for the rest of the time.  Some of it needs to be on work, we after all didn’t get the windfall Brewster did.  There are so many things that we could spend that time on.

The theme of my learning this week was a balance of everything.  We need to balance our Work, Family, Church, School, Exercise, Fun and other activities.  This is something as a 35 year old College student I’ve had to learn firsthand.  I have a family with three kids.  I am the sole breadwinner for my family.  I also have had many different church callings (primarily around scouting), and of course I take 3-4 college classes each semester.  I’ve not gotten the balance perfect by any means, but I have learned that I don’t need straight A’s.  I don’t need to be at every activity for my family as long as I am there for a lot and they know I care.  I can delegate at work and in church callings as long as I’m pulling my weight when I can.  So much of our life we stress over what we’re not doing.  When you’re in the thick of your life though the greatest attribute you can have is to go to bed each and every night seeing all that you accomplished, because trust me, no matter how much you think about the next day, it’ll be waiting for you in the morning with another 86,400 for you to spend.

Personal Board of Advisors

This week I went through a great exercise and I wanted to share.  It was called “My Personal Board of Advisors.”  The basic idea is that you pick a Chairman of the Board along with 6 or so other advisors that would advise you on life and the decisions you make.

I have always been one with a lot of acquaintances but what I would consider very few actual friends.  In those acquaintances though are a lot of people I look up to.  After going through my Facebook friends list, the Ward Directory, and my Work Directory I came up with about 30 names – any of which would be wonderful advisors to me.

I separated them into different categories because one of my focuses in this activity was to make sure I didn’t have a board of all the same type of people.  Getting everyone to just agree with me would be useless.  I wanted diversity of thought and opinion.  Some of the categories I thought would help that were, Family, Church, Female, Fun/Energy, Work, and Same age or experience.  I found that many of the people I picked often fit more than one area in my life.

After getting my list the last part was to write a paragraph each for the names selected and tell why they would be on your board.  I found that a couple that were no-brainers to be on my list were the hardest to write for because there was so much that was intangible.  It was fun to try and come up with reasons of why their opinion would matter to me and to really question if they are who should be on this list.

In the end I ended with a great idea of some people I already have in my life that I can bounce ideas off of, who can help mentor me and be there for me.  The wonderful part is that I know all of these people would in a heartbeat.

I strongly encourage anyone reading this to try the same exercise.  Good luck with your Personal Board of Advisors. 

Personal Constitution as a Guide

Although I procrastinated this week for my Entrepreneurship class, because I had quite the science group project to do, I am so glad that I did because it helped end this week and start off the next one on the right foot.

I finished up reading The Ministry of Business by Steven A Hitz and James W. Ritchie, linked here if you’re interested (http://amzn.com/147503802X).  It was an amazing read with so many things to work on.  I found it was more of a workbook than just a page turner.  I plan to go back through it with my wife during the upcoming summer break so that we can be on the same page with our goals as a couple and family.

One thing that I did this week was my personal constitution.  I’d highly recommend it for anyone.  It’s in chapter 7 of the above referenced book.  The steps are as follows; first you start out by figuring out your Governing Values.  You do this by writing short phrases that you want to describe yourself.  They don’t have to be what you are now, but how you want to become.  Once you have a few (I have seven currently) you then take time to rank them.  This is an important step because as is explained in the book, if you have Integrity and Financial Independent listed you have to know which one comes first.  What if you’re put in a position where if you just fudged a number a little you’d be more financially independent?  If you had Financial Independence ahead of Integrity you might do that, but if you had Integrity ahead, you wouldn’t.  After getting them in order you go through and write out what you mean about these statements and why they are important to you.

Once the personal constitution is done you then go through and make long term goals, short term goals and finally Daily task ideas for each one.  This will help you as you go throughout your life to stay focused on what you’ve said is personally important in your life.

I found so much joy out of this activity.  I think it will really help me to stay focused.  As is mentioned in the book, after sleeping for 7 hours each day, we all get 1020 productivity points (or minutes) each day and it’s up to us how we spend them, so spend them wisely.

Wisdom in Getting Up Early

James Richie’s Formula

1-      Get up early

2-      Work Hard

3-      Get Your Education

4-      Find Oil

5-      Make Your Mark

6-      Prepare to Serve/Give Back

It’s fun taking a college class when you’re 35, as I am.  I feel that I’m young enough to still have my choices now matter for a significant period of time, but I also feel that I’m old enough and experienced enough to value what I’m learning more than I would have at 21.

I see such great wisdom in the Formula James Richie presented.  I know from my own experience that getting up early and attacking the day is a must.  Up until last semester I was struggling with finding enough time to balance my work, school, family, scout and church responsibilities.  When registering for this semesters classes there was a quote by the study department on the bottom of the schedule that said, “Treat school as a 9-5 job.”  My first reaction was, “well I already have one of those, so that doesn’t work.” 

As I thought more about it though I realized that what it really meant was to make sure you have structured uninterrupted time every day.  My then current plan of coming home and doing homework at the end of the day wasn’t working.  I decided right then and there that I needed to completely change my order of things around.  I started getting up at 3:45am and getting to work by 5am.  This gave me three hours before work and before most people showed up to do homework at work.

It was this structure that allowed me the opportunity to pull my grades, which at the time had been 2 D’s and an F, up to two B’s and a C.  It’s also helped me so far this semester to help me stay mostly on track, despite a week-long trip to visit my parents.

It’s not always easy, but the benefits are undeniable and that is why I will continue to get up early despite my super comfy bed’s death grip on me.

Childhood Dreams

I had quite the busy week, but it fit right in with the topic of the Entrepreneurial Journal Entry.  One thing I’ve never done is travel much.  I’ve been a lot of places, but I don’t go often because I don’t have the time or the money.  This week I went to surprise my mom (dad knew I was coming), they live in Dallas, TX.  This past year both my mom’s mom and my dad’s dad passed away.  It’s been difficult on them, but soul searching for me.  I’ve learned that I need to spend more time with them and get to know them in ways I haven’t before.  I’m 35 and my mom is in her late 50’s and my dad his early 60’s.

My favorite part of this week was doing the Bucket List.  Traveling to see my parents like that by myself (without my wife and kids) was a bucket list type item.  Over the next two years I plan to take a long weekend trip with each one of them so they have a special memory when it was just me, them and my parents.

The video of Randy Pausch was emotional for me.  I ended up watching other clips of his story.  What an incredible man.  I think he achieved so many of his childhood dreams because he was allowed to dream.  I loved his plea to parents to let their kids draw on walls and be creative.  Kids need that space to do that.  I don’t know that I’m quite ready to do that yet, but I’m getting there.  Dreaming is really important because without it I think we become too focused on the average and don’t look at the possibilities of what is out there.

I don’t remember much of my childhood dreams.  The ones I do were very superficial.  The one that I remember the most was when I was a little older and that was that I wanted to coach sports.  A goal of mine is to work my way into a great position at work so that when my boys are old enough to be in high school sports I’ll have the freedom to take time off work and coach their teams.  I’m well on my way to do that and it’s so much more meaningful than I thought it would be because it’s involving my children and not just my love of sports.  

Getting Started

As part of my Business 183 class at BYU-Idaho we are to create an Entrepreneurial Journal in the form of a Blog.  Anyone who knows me knows that as much as I love to write, blog, and post I get very little time to do so.  This will not likely last past this semester, seeing as how it’s apparently been about 4 years since I wrote my last blog post, but I am super excited to do it for now and who knows, maybe it’ll stick.

I’m taking four classes this semester, this one, obviously, a Natural Disasters class, an Accounting class, and during the second block a New Testament class.  Out of all my classes, this was the one that I really didn’t know what to expect.  When I got my three books the week before class started I couldn’t help myself and I got started right away.  At night while I sat outside my kid’s room waiting for them to fall asleep, I started reading.  I read the introductions, about the authors, and the forwards written.  I even wrote up my initial feelings on them.  That got me really excited to what this class might be.

Once I got access to the online class I got even more excited.  The thought of developing a “Life Plan” instead of a “Business Plan” is great for me.  I really have no desire to be an Entrepreneur in the common use of the word, but I love the idea of learning how and applying it in my personal and professional life.  I love working for a larger corporation that has been around forever because it makes me feel more secure.  I feel that many of the same qualities that would make me a good Entrepreneur will also make me a great leader here.

I’m at a great place in my career.  The “end” is in sight for my bachelors (about 5 semesters left), I’ve got a great job with amazing leaders that are mentoring me at every turn, my family is supportive, and my company is going through such wide sweeping changes and growth that we have many leadership opportunities available.