Inspirations Abound!

 Week 2 (September 20 - September 26) 2021

 This week has been really amazing as far as diving into who I am and who I want to be in my future! I read some amazing articles and talks. I watched some great videos! One of my favorite was by a man named Randy Pausch. If you don't know who he is, you should! His speech was about achieving childhood dreams, and I loved every part of it! Well, except the fact that it was his last presentation he ever gave. He doesn't hide his issues, in fact he states that he is dying from cancer. If anyone want to watch the whole video I found it on Youtube here: 

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving your Childhood Dreams

I highly recommend it!

My thoughts on why I think he was able to achieve so many of his childhood dreams is because he had a passion to do them. He also had an amazing view on life! He wanted those dreams bad enough that everyday of paperwork, everyday of mindless studying, and days that aren't so much fun he still had that clear image of his goals in him mind, and probably written on the wall, or in his planners, or where ever he will see it often. He didn't mention any of that, but I imagine he did that. I will never forget what he said about walls and how they aren't put up to keep people from doing things. They are put there so that only those that REALLY want it can do it. It certainly gave me a jolt of motivation to keep on going and to not place my own personal walls either.

I also learned that dreams are important! They are as unique as a fingerprint. There may be 1 million people that want to do what you want to. Say for example you want to be a farmer, but then narrow that to an Apple farmer, and that number drastically decreases, then more specifically, a farmer of granny smith apples, and boom even smaller group, but you want to grow them and supply only pie companies, OR maybe you want to be a self picking apple farm that makes cider. This is just an example of course, but everyone's dreams are different and important! 

Also, dreams are how the world becomes something more. To quote a Disney movie, that I really love:

"Find a need; Fill a need." -  Meet the Robinsons

One of my childhood dreams was to be a cartoon voice. I just thought it was the coolest job a person could have! Like at the beginning of "Mrs. Doubtfire" where Robin Williams is voicing a cartoon. That is the dream. I always loved to do voices, and mimic things. I would copy voices, sounds, songs, and believe me it annoyed my parents and teachers. Now a days there are huge starts voicing cartoons in movies. Back then it was all about Mel Blanc, "The Man of a Thousand voices". He did nearly 400 distinct character voices with precision and a uniquely expressive vocal range. He was/is the man! haha Now, the thought of attempting that dream gives me butterflies because as a child I didn't have as much a fear of failure. I really need to get that confidence back. It is on my bucket list, to be a voice actor at least once. I think over the years I have just turned into a big nervous chicken. 

🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔

However, this week I have felt the motivation to find what means the most to me in my life, and make it happen! So, that is what I'm going to do! I'll leave you with a quote by Randy Pausch:

"It's not about how to achieve your dreams, 

it's about how you lead your life. 

You lead your life the right way, 

the karma will take care of itself. 

The dreams with come to you." 

 

~ God Bless ~

Intro to Entrepreneurship

Week 1 (September 13 - September 19) 2021

This week I began class without knowing what I was going to learn. I read all the articles, and watched all the videos and I took notes. Taking notes is the best way for me to remember what stood out to me. So this week these are the stand outs:

• In the talk "Your Whole Souls as an Offering Unto Him" by Elder Bednar, the focus was on Faith and Diligence. These two are vital to setting goals and meeting them. He references D&C 103:36, "... All victory and glory is brought to pass unto you through your diligence, faithfulness, and prayers of faith."  To me this means that if you lack any of these characteristics, then you will struggle, and may even fail to meet your goal. He also referred to D&C 4:2, "Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day."  He then broke it down to mean that it means we need to have a Mighty Heart and a Strong Mind. With a Mighty Heart we have faithfulness/spiritual strength, and with a Strong Mind we have competence which is achieved through intellectual diligence and discipline. 
  

•  The next read was "Living Life as an Entrepreneurial Hero". This was really straight forward and I wrote some quotes that were inspiring to me. Including:
• "It's not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live." - Marcus Aurelious
• "First we make our habits, then our habits make us"  - Charles Noble 
• DREAM BIG 

•  I then read "What is the Introduction to Entrepreneurship course?"  This one told me what to expect in the coming weeks. The Four big goals are:
1. To discover an entrepreneurial "calling", The Startup of You.
2. To choose constructive habits and to deeply etch them onto my character.
3. To select my next "steppingstone" job or begin my entrepreneurial career.
4. To Embrace Disciple Leadership by examining "The Ministry of Business"

• I will be creating "My Life Portfolio"

• My favorite article that I read was probably "The Starting-Up of You". I enjoyed the layout, and just how it was stated so plainly. It taught me that I need:
• A mindset of Permanent Beta, which means that I must think of myself as a work-in-progress and therefore, I must invest in myself every single day. This concept is hard for me because as a mother of four I am so used to focusing on everyone but me, so this course and reading that really made me see how valuable I really am. I need to make me more of a priority.
• Assets: 
• Soft assets (knowledge, skills, connections)
• Hard assets (cash in the bank, equipment, location)

• I also learned about plans A, B, and Z 
• A.  What I'm doing now. My current implementation of my competitive advantage.
• B.  My pivot to B when my plan isn't working or when I discover a better way toward my goal.
• Z.  Shift to Z if something goes seriously wrong. Z is a lifeboat I can jump in if my plan fails and I need to regroup before getting back in the game.

• I also learned that my Brand is who I am. There for it won't work or grow if I am not true to who I am. 

• Finally the last lesson I think is note worthy this week is also a very important one. I learned it in the "Launching Leaders - lesson 1" video, and also from meeting all of my classmates. Business, as well as life, is a network of people. The more people we know, then the more opportunities we have to learn, and expand ourselves, our minds, and our businesses. 

My final thought for this post is a simple one that takes into account all that I have learned this week. 

Never Stop Starting!