Week 14: Celebrate Your Life

This class has been informative and has led to quite a bit of introspection and thought. I've thought a lot about the advantages to entrepreneurship, as well as the costs. I've also thought a lot about the risks of not pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities. I would hate to reach an old age and realize that I had always wanted to do something entrepreneurial, however never made the time or taken the chance.

I really enjoyed the weeks where we were challenged to look at ourselves and to take an honest appraisal of our talents, our abilities and our desires. I enjoyed the week we read about Randy Pausch. An excerpt of his talk was required reading, however I enjoyed it so much that I watched his entire last talk online. It was very inspirational. I also added his book to my wishlist on Amazon, and am hoping someone will get it for me this Christmas. I loved his enthusiasm for life and his willingness to meet and accept a difficult and unexpected change to his journey when diagnosed with cancer. His story caused me to reflect on what I want to do with the time I have left. It was also inspiring to hear about achieving his dreams, though some of them seemed far fetched and improbable.

Another valuable week for reflection was when we focused on the 3 most important questions for any entrepreneur: 1. Have I contributed anything meaningful? 2. Was I a good person? 3. Who did I love and who loved me? I answered these questions at the time, and I've thought about how I'd like to be able to answer them in the future. I think these answers to these questions will change throughout our lives. I plan on continuing to ask myself these things and give myself opportunities for course correction.

Another enjoyable aspect of this course was reading the cliff-notes version of The Sever Habits of Highly Effective People. This is a book that has been considered a classic for years, yet I've never read it. It has been added to my reading list. I really appreciated the 4 quadrants of time management. I often think about trying to tackle my tasks while in quadrant 2 to avoid them entering quadrant 1, where work is done in a rushed fashion-which is not ideal. There have been many times in my life I've worked out of quadrant 1 for the majority of my time. It creates stress and the work is often suboptimal due to time constraints. I've made an effort to accomplish tasks earlier, before they become emergencies.

All in all this class has been helpful and beneficial. It's given me much to think about and I think has pointed me in the right direction. No it's time to go forth and do!

Week 13 - A Journey of Gratitude

Throughout the week I've thought about gratitude. We talked about the link that gratitude has with joy in a recent Sunday school lesson. Interestingly, joy and gratitude seem to go hand in hand - there is a very strong link. Having gratitude may often require some thoughtfulness and effort on our part. When we have a heart filled with gratitude the world around us looks so much better. Even though two people may have identical circumstances, if one finds a way to feel grateful for what he does have, rather than dwell on everything he doesn't, he will find joy within himself.

It's caused me to reflect on some of the things I'm grateful for. I'm extremely grateful for a body and mind that work well. I see so many people who are not whole in body and/or mind who struggle in life. Some people have mental health disorders that lead them to have poor decision making, which in turn leads to further pain and suffering. Take for example the problem of homelessness. The vast majority of people who are homeless have mental health disorders which make it extremely difficult or even impossible to function as a productive member of society. I'm grateful that I was raised with goodly parents who taught me, nurtured me and taught me.

I'm also extremely grateful for the many avenues of learning we have available to use today. The internet and technology make so much possible. Instant communication with family and friends, instant answers to most questions, driving directions, a camera available at any time, etc. Modernest technology is a miracle, and like any tool can be used for good and for evil, however I'm very grateful for the good.

Week 12: Becoming a Change Maker

This week a video that stuck out to me was titled "A new breed of entrepreneur". In the video that speaker talked about that fact that many entrepreneurs become successful financially at a young age. Rather than retire and live a life of luxury they decide to focus their attention and efforts on solving problems faced by the entire human family. Things like poverty, lack of education, hunger, poor healthcare, underserved populations, environmental concerns. All of these issues are probably too big for any one person to solve, however some entrepreneurs will throw themselves into trying to solve these issues.

That's the kind of life I think I'd really enjoy. Once yourself and your family are cared for and supported then you could really focus on what you want to accomplish without having to worry about supporting yourself financially. That seems like it would be so freeing. In an ideal world you could support yourself while working on your passion, however I don't think that's the case for me. I can't think of a way to financially support my family while working on a dream. However I do think that I'm moving closer to that point. With more hard work and some time and luck, I think I can get there.