My Journey To a Degree: A Mid-life Crisis

Well it has arrived - the end of the semester. It sure has flown by. I have learned so much this semester about entrepreneurship. My top take-a-ways are: 1. Entrepreneurs needs to be tough and thick skinned. It is not for the faint of heart or the easily discouraged. Not all business ideas work out and you cannot take it personally and be discouraged about moving forward with a new idea. Only a small, select few great ideas ever come to fruition to a full blown company and if you give up after one failure you will never get too far. 2. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Because of what I said above I think each person needs to evaluate for themselves if they are the type of person who can weather the ups and downs of starting and running their own business. Not everyone is cut out for the stress and demands required to run a successful company. It's okay to decide that it is not for you. Being honest with yourself is important in determining what type of career future is bes...

It is hard to believe this semester is drawing to a close. It has flown by! This week was a great one in terms of content. It was great to reread President Monson's talk on gratitude. He always has such wonderful things to say about being grateful. President Monson is such a good example of someone who was always grateful. He reminds us to be grateful to our parents, our teachers and our Heavenly Father. Life can be overwhelming and sometimes we get caught up in wanting and expecting more instead of sitting back, enjoying and giving thanks for all we already have. I know I am guilty of exactly that. This week has been helpful in keeping me focused on being grateful. I look forward to applying the things I've learned in this class to my life. There are some entrepreneurial things I would like to pursue and this class and given me more confidence in starting something. Reading about Randy Haykin was great as well. He had a lot of helpful advise for those looking to start out o...

This has been a good week. I've accomplished a lot personally and scholarly. The material this week was interesting because it focused a lot integrity and business. Sometimes it seems like that aspect gets lost in the search to make money. One article, What's a Business For, talks about the importance of honesty and integrity in business. It suggests that if companies are not trusted people will not buy from them or invest in them. Instead they will find other places to put their money. They will eventually turn to the government for financial interests. It also suggests that the reason for the existence of businesses is to accomplish something collectively that they could not accomplish alone. It suggests that a company needs to associate with a cause to give it meaning and be charitable. I agree with this because it had to be about more than just bringing home a paycheck. There needs to be meaning and reason for going to work each day. When we are focused on giving back an...

Another week has come to a close and I see the end of the semester in sight. The semesters always seem to go fast and that is one thing I really like about BYUI - just when you've had enough and feel like you can't do it anymore it comes to an end. This week we learned about the costs of being a business owner. It was interesting to hear what some classmates thought about the mini cases where someone had to choose work over family. For me some things were cut and dry but others had a completely different view of things. In reading Attitude On Money by Stephen Gibson I thought many of his thoughts reflected my thoughts on money. Money itself is not evil and doesn't make a person evil. It is the worshiping of money that creates a problem. When we put too much emphasis on money it can be problematic. We all need money as part of life. Wanting to make a lot of money isn't a horrible goal; only if it's your only goal and everyone and everything else suffers because of ...