Where are my loyalties?

As I watched a video by Jan Newman, I thought to myself, “As my life continues, what activities am I crunching into the time frame I have?” Newman talked about never crunching your family, spouse, or the Lord to fit in all the other aspects of life such as hobbies and interests. It is the hobbies and other recreational things that should be crunched down, even our careers. This concept ties into some of our previous materials about following our passions. We should follow them in our careers; however, they shouldn’t take our focus away from what matters most.

The Lord does not care what job we had or how much money we made. He wants us to have honesty and integrity with our fellow men. If we can use our careers as a standpoint from which we can bring others to Christ and serve them, we will be a light to the world. 

Mastering the Hero's Journey

I am learning a lot about myself in the short amount of time that we have been going through this course. Even without my trying, I see clearly my shortcomings and inadequacies. I feel like my mind is being opened up; not just opened to new ideas and insights, but also to my failings and successes in life. Everything in my mind is swirling in a vortex of thought, metaphorically speaking. I suppose my next course of action is to organize those thoughts and persevere to overcome my weaknesses and limitations. I love the concept of perseverance. We you get into a rut, or when life gets rough and difficult, enduring to the end is all that we can do.

I think that pursuing our passions in our careers is key to us enjoying our jobs. Who would want to go to work in a place that you dread going to? Why waste your time at something that you hate doing? We should find our passions and work towards being a master in something. As was mentioned in the video titled “A Hero’s Journey,” people will pay good money to watch pros like Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods. We may not be the greatest at basketball or golf, but we can find what we ARE good at, even masters at, and have people pay us for that. For example, if someone is an incredible artist, people will pay money to either view the masterpieces or even purchase them outright.

That should be our goal then. To find our passions, master them, and persevere in this lifelong journey. 

Of Ethics and Priorities...

When reading the case study, I tried putting myself in in the shoes of Magdalena Yesil, seeing how I would react to each of the offers and decisions that she faced. I am not sure I would like the kind of life she was living. That is, I can’t see myself moving from company to company like she did. I like to have more stability and want to live in one area, avoiding having to move if I can. However, I can see why Yesil moved from company to company. She loved starting up new companies based on the ideas that she would get. She loved the feeling of companies taking off and thriving after opening. I want to have a similar experience in my future careers. I want to be in a career or company that I feel passionate about and where I can help others reach their dreams.

Reading through “Making a Living and a Life” was eye-opening to me. Seeing the different levels or grades that are given to people based on their motivations lets me know that I need to set my priorities sooner rather than later in order to better serve others.

This goes great in conjunction with the Personal Code of Conduct that we wrote. Here is mine so I can find it easier for future reference:

“I will never…” ethical guardrails –

• ·         I will never use company funds for personal expenses.
• ·         I will never cut corners to finish a project on time.
• ·         I will never blame others for my mistakes.

“I will always…” ethical guardrails –

• ·         I will always be honest.
• ·         I will always put my family first.
• ·         I will always keep the customer’s interest in mind.
• ·         I will always look for teaching opportunities.
• ·         I will always listen to my wife’s counsel.

I may add to this list later in the future as I think of new ideas. As I follow these ethical guardrails, my motivations will be able to stay at the A-level, with a love of God and fellowmen being first with income second. It was a little hard to write this list of ethical guardrails since I’m not married yet and I don’t have an established career. Writing them out will be very beneficial, though, as I will have them for when I do have a wife and career.

A Search for a Star

I love the article that I read titled “Stars and Steppingstones – Some choices only come around once.” My mind really resonated with its words. It talked about finding our own stars, meaning that we need to find what is most important to us. This got me thinking a lot about what is important to me and what kind of a job I would want to have. It is not just the type of job, really, that is important, but also the idea of where will I be at the age of fifty and then seventy.

At the age of fifty, I saw myself with my wife and 3-4 children (that depends on how many we decide to have). My oldest child would be around the age 25 with the rest down to 22 or so. I would be working either at the hobby store that I opened or at another store in the same department. I feel that the steppingstones that I have set will help me to achieve my ‘star’ of owning a hobby store or working for a place such as Games Workshop.

• ·         Why do you think Randy Pausch was able to achieve so many of his childhood dreams? – Randy Pausch set out with the mentality that success takes a great deal of effort with many failures along the way. Rather than letting those failures discourage him, Randy focused on what he really wanted and made them happen.
• ·         Do you feel that dreaming is important? Why or why not? – Dreaming is very important! Without dreams, we are not motivated to pursue anything. We sit there content with what the world can and will throw at us. It is very unfortunate for those that don’t have dreams or even those that believe that they can’t achieve their dreams.
• ·         Discuss at least one of your childhood dreams. Explain why you believe you can or cannot achieve this dream. – Growing up, I loved dinosaurs. And I still do to this day. What kid wouldn’t love dinosaurs? Because of this fascination with this ancient monsters that roamed the earth millions of years ago, I dreamed as a kid to be a “dinosaur hunter” as I called it in kid terms. More specifically and accurately, I wanted to be a paleontologist and dig up dinosaur bones. Unfortunately, priorities change throughout the years and you come to the realization that certain areas in academics are more difficult than other areas. This was the case for me, struggling to do well in science and math. Also, I’ve always wanted to have a family of my own, spending a great deal of time with them. I figured that paleontology would take me away from my home and family for long periods. 

A New Adventure...

So. This will be another place for me to place my thoughts.

This time it will be about lessons learned on entrepreneurship stuff. Have you ever noticed how long that word is? That's five syllables! That's almost as many syllables as many words in Russian.

When I first saw this class as one of those required classes for my major, I thought that this course would teach me how to be an entrepreneur. Upon reading further into the course materials, I now know that I will be learning more about how to really get my life in order and develop a life plan before I start a business. This is what I am looking forward to learning.

I've been debating in my head as to what I would want to do with this major. I thought about opening a bakery at first. I then thought to myself that it would be really cool if I could incorporate my painting hobby into some career, like owning a hobby store of sorts. I guess we will have to wait and see, right?

I had one of those 'aha' moments. I don't know if 'aha' is the right word to use, but the readings and videos in conjunction with the last devotional from President and Sister Gilbert made me think a lot about how much is being invested in me. I need to take advantage of the time I have here at BYU-Idaho. Five semesters seems like a long time, but the time will go by too fast and then I will need to rely on what I've learned to make something work after graduation.

That means, that I will need a plan for the future. Here's to a new adventure!