Week 14--My Last Lecture

Thinking back over this semester of learning how to become an entrepreneur, I have learned that there is a lot more to becoming an entrepreneur than just one day deciding to start a business to start selling something.  Being an entrepreneur takes heart, determination, honesty, loyalty, trust, hard work, passion, leadership, gratitude and balance.  When you start down the road of entrepreneurship, make sure you have a direction. Know what your goals are. Know what you want to accomplish.  But with this course that you want to take, be open and willing to change directions if what you are doing is not working out the way you planned. 

I think the three biggest lessons I took away from this is as follows.  

• Balance.  As a mother, right now my biggest focus and responsibilities are my family.  I learned from many that if your true to yourself, your goals, and your values, you can balance your family with starting a business. It will be tough in the beginning while the company is starting up, but if you can get through that part, balancing your family and work is doable. I really liked what Randy Haykin said, “I do believe that I am a better worker and leader if I feel balance in the rest of my life. . . Balancing work and family has been a real challenge, but I thin the most rewarding part.” (Linda A. Hill, Jennifer M. Suesse, “Randy Haykin: The Making of an Entrepreneur”, Harvard Business School, August 1998) Remember that when you are at home, be extremely present.
• Challenges.  Challenges are a part of life. They are also a part of starting a business.  Overcoming challenges, if done in a positive way will build our potential. “The only limitations you have are those you set on yourselves. . . In life’s most crucial and telling tasks, my plea is to stick with it, to persevere, to hang in and hang on, and to reap your reward.” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “However Long and Hard the Road”, BYU Speeches, January 1983) Life’s setbacks and challenges are there to help us grow to see what we are made of.  Is what we are working for worth it?
• Integrity.  Being true to yourself, the company, and to your customers goes further than any other aspect of business.  I recall a story about a man, who just out of college took a very competitive marketing job.  The other men he worked with were very competitive because they wanted to get the job done and meet the deadlines.  It wasn’t this man’s nature to do whatever it took to get ahead. He was worried he was going to lose his job because he didn’t do things like these other men. But because he wanted to be true to who he was, he took a different approach, one that in the end allowed him to get his projects done before the other marketers.  He was full of integrity.

I am still not sure I want to be an entrepreneur but taking this class has opened my eyes to the possibilities that I just might be able to one day start my own business. It has taught me that I can be a mother and a business woman. I just need to make sure I set strong values and balance my career with my family. 

Week 13--A Journey of Gratitude

There are many who we can be grateful for and to.  As I have gone through this week’s lesson, I have thought about this semester and what people did for me so that I could succeed at being a good student. I don’t think I have thanked these people for their actions in my behalf. My family has been the biggest supporter in my schooling. They have stepped up in cleaning, cooking, running kids to activities, all so I could spend a little more time doing homework.  I don’t think I have thanked them enough.

From the support I have received so far from my family, I know they will continue to support me as I graduate and start working in my chosen career.  But for this to happen, I need to be grateful all along the way.

In Recognizing and Shaping Opportunities, it gives three lessons to learn if you are wanting to become an entrepreneur. It suggests that first you need personal, educational, and professional experience and networks. Second, recognize that having an idea is just the first step; you then need to shape it into a viable business opportunity. And third, narrow your focus to find a market entry point that can be tested, refined, and then used as a platform for developing the business to its full potential. (Lynda M. Applegate and Carole Carlson, “Recognizing and Shaping Opportunities”, Harvard Business Publishing, September 2014)

As I follow these steps outlined here, if I choose to become an entrepreneur won’t necessarily be easy, but I will be on the right path. Learning from others is one of the best ways to be successful.

Week 12--Becoming a Change-Maker

There were many great things I learned in this week’s lesson.  I liked how everything was geared towards helping others.  Showing that you can be successful by showing compassion and helping others when they are down on their luck. 

In the article, “Microlending: Toward A Poverty-Free World”, I liked the example of how one man, Muhammad Yunus, tried to change the way bankers and many other people see the poor. He recognized that “because of barriers created by our societies, individual people never get the full opportunity to bring out their potential.”  (Muhammad Yunus, “Microlending: Toward a Poverty-Free World”, BYU Studies Quarterly, 1999) One way he tried to change the way people think.  He saw that banks wouldn’t lend money to the poor so he decided to loan them money.  The people worked hard and every penny was paid back.  The mind-set of the bankers never changed, no matter how many loans Yunus made and were paid back.  He said he finally gave up on trying to change the minds of the bankers and just kept doing what he was doing. His persistence has led to the Grameen Bank lending money to 2.3 million poor borrowers in 39,000 villages of Bangladesh.  (Muhammad Yunus, “Microlending: Toward a Poverty-Free World”, BYU Studies Quarterly, 1999) Yunus’ dedication and love for the people really was changing their lives.  One little gesture of faith that their potential would be unleashed, and they would pay back the loans allowed Yunus to help these people.

Another aspect that I liked this week was from the video of Brother Gay. A few things he said:

• “Beyond making ends meet whether you have little or much of this world’s good, will never be a fundamental determining factor of personal peace and happiness but rather it is your attitude towards wealth that will be critical.”
• “Begin to make service your constant practice. Provide basic needs and rescue others.”
• “The only way we can legitimately prosper in business is if we strive to make our hearts and actions one with these divine instructions and humble enough to know His will and meek enough to follow.”

His talk was all about how we need to lift others along the way. The Savoir lifted those around Him and as disciples that follow Christ, we should do the same. It doesn’t matter how much we have, we can always serve and help others in need.

What’s a Business For?

1. Based on what you read in the first two pages (pages 3 and 4), why are virtue and integrity so vital to an economy?   As trust erodes, people will not want to “play the game” and will take their money and put it elsewhere. As they do, the creation of wealth for our country will be left up to the government.  Trust is fragile and trust in businesses and the people leading them is cracking. (Charles Handy, “What’s a Business For?”, Harvard Business Review, December 2002)
2. According to Charles Handy, what is the “real justification” for the existence of businesses?  The real justification for the existence of businesses is “The purpose of a business, in other words, is not to make a profit, full stop. It is to make a profit so that the business can do something more or better.  That “something” becomes the real justification for the business. Owners know this. Investors needn’t care.” (Charles Handy, “What’s a Business For?”, Harvard Business Review, December 2002) Businesses are there to do something more than just make a profit. That profit should be to help others who are in need.
3. What are two solutions proposed by Handy that you agree with? Why?

1.      Changing the language and the measures of a business needs to be addressed so that employees of a company are treated better and not as property of the company.

2.      Regard the corporation as a community whose members have legal rights. 

I think that these two solutions would benefit companies greatly. If the employees knew they were more than just the ones getting the work done, if they felt like they had more in the game of the company, I think they would work better and want to do better to build the company. They wouldn’t feel like they were working to build the CEO’s salary.