Week Nine: Dream Big Dreams

Life is to pursue goals. Dream big dreams and do the work it takes to make them come to pass.

In my life, I’ve surpassed every goal that was had for me. I don’t come from a family of college graduates. I’ll be the first woman with a degree. I don’t have family members who have had careers, rather they have had jobs that barely took care of living expenses and had no 401k or retirement plan.

I wanted more. I wanted to live a better way and I learned early nobody was going to hand anything to me. And I got to work. And now I’m in a career for the 3^rd largest mining company in the world. I had a dream to be more than I was shown. And along with my dream I did the work it takes to bring life to my dream.

This week I was reminded the importance of the gospel teachings in my life. A thought I particularly loved was that “to testify is to know and to declare. The gospel challenges us to be converted which requires us to do and become”.

We can know what we want and declare it. Words do not mean anything without action behind them. Nothing comes until we take the action needed to do and become what we dream.

In addition to our dreams, we have a plan for our life from the gospel of our church. From our reading this week I loved the thought, “The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become”.

When we focus our lives on becoming as Christ, we have a pattern for becoming in other aspects of life. Being a success is as individual as the person making the goals. If we are to succeed in career goals we need to have balance and perspective and a way of living that I have found is more productive when it involves gospel principles and commandments and covenants than just business pursuits alone.

Week Eight: Loyalty and Leadership

In a reading this week there was an example of a man who was a courier to President McKinley. The man was asked to deliver an urgent message to a diplomat of another country. He didn’t ask questions or assemble a team to analyze the situation. He acted on the request. He took the mission on and accomplished what the President asked.

This kind of employee is needed more in the workplace. Time is not wasted in meetings and deciding how to act. This employee acts and is able to execute with minimal direction.

I really enjoyed this thought from the courier reading to go with the above comments:

“And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking idiotic questions, and with no intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets “laid off”, nor has to go on strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town, and village – in every office, shop, store, and factory.”

Frank Levinson

Ethics: people are decent. They don’t think about it, they just do the right thing. Moral has a broader connotation – being nice, caring about each other. Morals are a standard, or they should be. Morals are not an option. The whole goal of business is to weld customers to you and part of that is treating them as you’d like to be treated.

Guy Kawasaki

Trust people, and they will trust you. Be willing to be the one to trust first. Zappos offers free shipping both ways giving the customers their trust first and this returns the customer’s trust in them and creates loyalty. Don’t forget to be willing to give a little to get something bigger. Default to “yes” - when you meet people think how you can help that person.

One of the most important thoughts this week was having the ability to execute. Those who execute with minimal direction are achievers and get things done while others wait for motivation and direction to get started. The following tips were given to develop the right attitudes, habits and instincts for crisp execution:

1.     Accept the mission and get started

2.     Be curious

3.     Immediately sketch out a plan

4.     If you need resources don’t be afraid to ask

5.     Enlist help when needed

6.     Report back and show your work

7.     Underpromise and overdeliver

8.     Expect to make (small) mistakes and own up to them

9.     Put results before schmoozing
10. Replace the voices in your head with positive ones

Week Seven: Overcoming Challenges

In a talk by President Thomas S. Monson, he said “Throughout the journey along the pathway of life, there are casualties. Some depart from the road markers which point toward life eternal, only to discover the detour chosen ultimately leads to a dead end. Indifference, carelessness, selfishness, and sin all take their costly toll in human lives”.

I loved this entire passage. His words are a great reminder of the need to make wise choices and have a plan in our lives. In addition to that plan we must have the determination and discipline to stay constant in our journey and avoid detours.

Heath Bradley – Acton’s Hero’s Journey

Nobody wants to buy a service, but they want to help you accomplish a cause or meet a goal. When your business has a goal that people can support, they are more willing to support a goal or dream instead of feeling pressure to buy something.

Don’t be afraid to get off the roof (take chances). Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Be real.

In our reading it came up that some people don’t want to acknowledge their inadequacies, but those that do will be massively increasing the chances of success. If the potential entrepreneur prefers not to face his human limitations, they might be better off staying in a traditional job. I liked this because it put the information out there and gave the reader a chance to realize the entrepreneur route is not a bad one, it just clearly has some tough challenges you’ll have to go through. It was a nice dose of reality.

It was also a great piece of advice in our reading that one of the greatest strengths of successful people is the ability to get things done because this means understanding what you are good at and then delegating the rest. Make sure you are clear on how you can add maximum value and then find others to help with everything else.  

Week Six: Moving Forward With a Driving Passion

Best advice of this lesson: Statistics show more than half of all businesses that start up fail. About half of all marriages fail too, but that doesn’t stop people from getting married. If you go into business or marriage thinking you’ll fail because most people do, chances are you’ll fail. Pay no attention to the statistics. Own your dream and give it 10% chance from your hard work and determination to succeed.

Guy Kawasaki

Money isn’t all its cracked up to be. Have a goal to change the world, not to make as much money as you can. While in school, live off your parents as long as you can. Don’t rush through school to get to the workforce faster. Take your time. Enjoy school. Enjoy traveling abroad and seeing the world beyond the textbooks and real life jobs.

Carly Fiorina

Leadership is about capability, collaboration, character. Most important capability you can have is to ask a question and hear the answer. Customers may not always be able to tell you what they want, but they can always tell you what’s wrong. Don’t quit innovating and taking risks. Celebrating new ideas is a leading indicator of a business. Every person reaches a time when the old answers aren’t good enough anymore and the only thing that works is creativity and risk taking and innovation. The people who keep learning and trying new things remain vibrant and young. Don’t stop learning.

Be willing to change and to innovate. Don’t think you have all the answers. Charles Darwin said,“It is not the strongest of the species that survives nor the most intelligent, but those most adaptive to change”

Best perks of being an entrepreneur: work where you want (at home or a remote island), work with who you want (no more coworkers who skate by and but in minimum effort), you’re in charge of your time, you’re in charge of your success.