Week 7

Well here I am in week 7 of my Business 183 class. I am still very much enjoying my class and enjoying the reading and learning I get to do.  This week we talked about the seven habits from Stephen R. Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.  I would like to focus on one of them, habit 4, think win/win.

Especially in today’s world, we tend to think if someone wins, someone else must lose.  We are taught to think of ourselves, crush the competition, and disregard the other side. Mr. Covey stresses that this doesn’t have to be the case.  In business especially, we need to work on this win/win principle.  He stresses that we must focus on results.  An example of a win/win situation is bringing a product to market.

 In the process we could look for losers if we wanted to.  Maybe we were try to undercut a supplier and squeeze them promising more business later, maybe we make a cheap product and sell it high to hurt the consumer.  Instead, if we think of the win/win situation, we can work with our suppliers so we can get product at a good price and they can have a good and lucrative deal with us.  In turn, we make a good, quality product for our consumer and price it fair where we make a good profit, but we add value to our customers.  I know this is a simplistic view, but it shows how winning on all sides is better for everyone.

On another note, my waking up at 4:30am is still going great.  I’m eating well and able to focus on the things I need to.  I would continue to challenge anyone reading this to try it out.  Until next week.

It is time to wake up!

So I have had an epiphany this week.  After reading in my textbook, The Ministry of Business, and other articles we have been assigned, something kept coming up over and over.  I will paraphrase, but I kept seeing people say, they didn't know of any successful person who didn't get up early.

Now a little background on me, I am NOT an early riser or a morning person by nature.  I would consider myself much more of a night owl.  I don't exactly sleep in (wake up at 6:45am to get my kids ready for school), but my mornings were mostly unproductive.

Fast forward to this week.  I decided a change needed to be made.  I downloaded a great app called Sleep Cycle and decided to wake up at 4:30am.  I also had this idea after a mentor interview with my good friend Ryan for my B100 class.  So, I set my alarm and tried to get to bed early.

In conjunction with this new sleep schedule, I needed to get myself physically ready for work and business.  I decided it was time to eat better as well.  I have been on a ketogenic diet for a few days now, and that coupled with sleeping and getting up early has been amazing.

When the alarm went off at 4:15 or so, it was hard not to turn it off and go back to sleep, but I didn't.  I got up and woke myself up.  After getting some water, I sat down at my computer.  It was spectacular.  After about 15 minutes of waking up, I had so much energy.  I dove into my school work.  I was able to finish a large majority of my school work without distraction, without worrying that something would interrupt my schedule.  No more working late or having kids activities make it so I have to cram homework, I was in the zone.

Fast forward a few days, and its Wednesday morning at 5:45.  I am no track to have all my schoolwork done for the week and I'm jumping into next week already.  No last minute cramming!  I can finish my work, plan my day and focus on work and my family.

So to anyone out there reading this, make yourself a morning person, you will thank yourself if you do!

Fantastic Five

Well, here I am in week five of my journey.  We have started a new book called Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard.  I will report more on that in weeks to come.  What I really wanted to talk about today was the hero's journey. In a lecture given at BYU-Idaho I learned about what it means to go about your life in the hero's journey.  The hero's journey has a purpose, a goal, an end in mind.  So many people try to succeed by putting others down and only thinking about themselves.  To live a hero's journey, we must not only think of ourselves, but serve others.

He talked about what most successful people over 60 say about what is and has been important to them.  Was I a good person?  Have I contributed something meaningful? Who did I love, and who loved me?

I really tried to ponder on these question in my life.  Are these the things I am focusing on as I go about my life, my business and my family? Are you?  These are the questions that I challenge anyone reading this to ponder, who do you want to become?

I hope you can take this journey with me.

Week 4

Well, another week has passed in my business class at BYU-Idaho (online). This week I finished our assigned reading for the book,The Ministry of Business: How Correct Principles Magnify Business Success.  It's a great book that teaches about how to be a great person, and a great business person.  In the book, you learn about many great principles, including relying on your Heavenly Father, being honest, getting mentors, and having a plan.  It really helped me in the way I look at running my business personally.
This class has been really helped me focus on who I am, who I want to become, and how to get there.  I wrote my personal constitution this week and focused on some of my fears.  Through these exercises, I was able to look deep into my own heart and be extremely honest with myself. I had to really ponder who I wanted to be.  How would that look?  How would I get there?  What were my daily, short term, and long term goals that would help me accomplish these things?  After doing that, I then had to write down four fears I had, what was the worst that could happen, what I could do to prevent that from happening, and how, and how long, it would take to recover from such a bad state.  It helped me understand that maybe these things weren't so bad.

We can ALL do great things.

Week 3, integrity

Week three has now come and gone in my business class.  I am really enjoying the texts I’m reading the lessons I am learning. This week we continued to learn about how our character is of major importance in our lives.  We can choose to put God first, money first or ourselves first.  We can be the type of person people trust, or one that others fear.  I know I want to be someone who always stands up for truth and can be relied on.  To do that, I must always focus on one thing.

Integrity!

When reading about integrity it really made me think about who I am and how I run my current business.  Do I always do what is best for my customer?  Am I always honest in all I do?  Those might sound like simple questions, but I think they are something all of us have to truly ponder.

The other aspect I want to emulate is serving others.  Growing a business (or many) and the financial gain that can come from it can enable us to give to a greater degree.  Money is not evil, love of it is.  I know plenty of very well off individuals that give greatly.  I also know some whose only pursuit is to gain more and more wealth.  I know which I would rather be.