Week 1 - "Create a Life of Meaning"

This week was a good week for "reflection" and finding the "inner-self", truthfully I have always believed that people have "more" lurking and hiding inside that they let on and that it simply takes "something" to get it to come out. But I realized that personally I have not tried to get that "more" out of me for a little while, I have been kind of in cruise control figuratively, not that I haven;t been pushing myself to work hard, do as much as I can, or be the best I can be, but simply finding the "inner" part of me that has those dreams or wants inside that tend to get suppressed with life's disappointments or discouragements. This weeks focus really helped me take a moment to look inside and find more of me that I haven;t seen for awhile, the activity that really made my brain open up was the "50 Things I Want to Do" exercise, basically it is an exercise where you make a list of the fifty things you want to make sure you do before you die or pass away. Sounds maybe a little "The Bucket List", "Second Hand Lions", "Brian's Song", or even "A Christmas Carol", but a good exercise that you might be surprised as to what comes out if you allow it to do what it can do. If you haven't done it try it, just try it and you will see what I mean. Here is a good website to check out if you are in need of ideas or thoughts that can again summarize and amplify the significance of the exercise, http://www.my50.com/ .

The other topic starts with a fun trivia question:

• How many times did James Dyson fail before he finally had a vacuum cleaner that he could sell?

Regardless of the exact answer at this moment it was definitely more than one, two, three, and yes even one hundred. The next point to emphasize this week is to "fail forward", what that means is 

failing with learning attached. A person can fail many times, I like the good examples of this with  Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, or the Wright Brothers, all of there scenarios represent that with failed attempts eventually success was an eventual result. Failing is not failing, when learning is attached and a person can advance in knowledge. So in the big scheme of things just because your first try is unsuccessful don't give up, because with enough tries it eventually will, especially if your determined and have a passion for it. 

I enjoyed this weeks information and found it motivational to keep on the track of "not giving up" and that "there are really and plenty of worthwhile goals we can accomplish" and the only thing holding us back is ourselves, whether it be allowing ourselves more financial freedom to do it, not trying hard enough, or simply needing a new goal to reintroduce drive again. If you need a pep talk yourself right now or something new to read to help you boost morale here is a great talk that we read for our assignments this week by Jeffery A. Thompson, I believe it is worth the read http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1900 

By the way the answer to the question regarding how many times James Dyson failed before he had a vacuum to sell is 5,128. Don't ever give up on something you are passionate about.

Introduction Week

This week in B183 we had the opportunity to begin reading "The Start-Up of You" by Reid Hoffman (Co-Founder & Chairman of LinkedIn) and Ben Casnocha (Entrepeneur) with the expectation of providing a book report by Week 3 on the information contained in the book. Not going to "fib" or "lie" just got the Amazon.com box on our porch yesterday with one of the contents being this particular book. So in preparation for reading the book I followed the suggestion of going to the link provided in this weeks lesson material on I-Learn promoting the book and where someone may order it at www.thestartupofyou.com to gain some insight to the book and what it might have to offer its reader. The thing I was initially impressed with were some of the endorsements on the page by individuals that have accomplished many great feats in their careers and leadership responsibilities. It seemed there was one parallel I noticed in the endorsements, that the book helps people understand better what they can accomplish, seems like that alone is an attractive reason to read the book and see what "I" myself and capable of and where I am missing out on possible important insights to do even better!

The second thing that stuck out to me this week was the videos we were assigned to watch and take quizzes on, the first http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=279 was a shorter video with a gentlemen by the name of Guy Kawasaki speaking entitled "Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow". He explains his personal story of finding his way in what he was interested in and even quitting Law School after attending for 10 days! Really interesting and motivational in letting someone know its okay to move on until you find the right fit for yourself. The second video was a clip of former President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints President Gordon B. Hinckley during a dedication of the Hinckley Building https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0wgImIOYLU , President Hinckley's words were very touching and his comments regarding this generation being the greatest. His words make me want to live up to his commnents after listening to it, I would recommend listening to it and asking yourself what you have done to live up to his comments of this generation being the greatest.

I look forward to more next week and stay tuned for what is next week, hopefully more nice weather and opportunities to learn!

I have started a Blog!

For my B183-"Introduction to Entrepreneurship" class we have been assigned the task of creating a blog for the task of keeping an "Entrepreneurial  Journal". I am sure there will be more to come as the semester foes on, my next post will be an update of "Introduction Week" and what I have learned so far. And one of my favorite comic strips (Calvin and Hobbes) to start us off for this semester.