Jordan's Entrepreneurial Journal

  Week #7 Lessons Learned 7 Habits of highly effective people has been on my list to read for a while now. It was nice to get a small taste of the lessons from that book in less than 10 pages. Although everything from this was good, the biggest thing I will take on my entrepreneurial journey is the idea of keeping a healthy surplus in my “emotional bank”. Every interaction we make has an effect on our balance. I think this concept pairs up well with another business concept of “moments of truth”, which is the idea that every interaction with a customer tells something about your business and yourself. If you smile at every customer and say thank you, they will likely think you are an honest person who wants their business, but if you share a bad personal attitude at one of those customer interactions, the moment of truth for that customer changes to something negative about you and your business. If we seek to build up our emotional bank we will have positive moments of truth and b...

  Week #5 Lessons Learned Elder Faust’s talk about perseverance was inspiring for me this week because It caused me to reflect more on my mission. As I think about the skills I acquired while serving I think about the time management skills and people skills and especially the interpersonal skills I had to acquire while living with someone 24/7! Elder Faust pointed out that the skills we learned will help us persevere throughout our lives and he was spot on!  Another thing I learned was about finding our passion. I like the idea of having a “portfolio” of passions and using that as your foundation since the road is easier to traverse when you have more options to sift through. Personal Thoughts & Impressions Jeff Sandefer’s article was really interesting talking about luck, skill, or character as the most important part of having a successful business. I think I agreed with most of the things said but I really do think luck has a lot to do with it. It’s been said Luck is t...

  Lessons Learned The most valuable thing I took home from this week was the Vinn Diagram in the “do what you love” video presentation. My wife and I have talked about the topic of “what your ideal job is” many times and it’s something I think we differ on opinion with. I’ve told her it’s more about finding what you enjoy enough vs doing what you love. The Diagram does a great job explaining it’s about finding the right mix of what you like, what you were born to do, and ultimately what people will pay you to do. The who around us is also important since you could be in the world’s best job but surrounded by the worst people and you would likely be worse off than being in a job you hate surrounded by the best people.  Lessons Not Yet Learned I’m still working on the Core Values. Even after our assignment, I think I have an area to improve on in this category. I do enjoy the way Jim Ritchie describes this in his book though and find his videos extremely helpful. He reminds me o...

  Lessons Learned I run my own small business and I think the devotional this week where we learned about different business grades hit me hard. In the wintertime I sell hot chocolate from my hot dog cart and people often ask me about coffee and I’ve been tempted but always joked that I wouldn’t even know what makes a good cup of coffee. This devotional solidified my faith in not selling coffee. Not only would I probably sell a terrible product but would sacrifice a piece of my faith for profit.  Another thing That was good for me to learn this week was the ingredients for success. I struggle with waking up early and after watching this video, I feel more recommitted to getting up and starting the day outright.

  Lessons Learned This week the concept of finding your calling really hit hard for me. As I began reading Launching Leaders and read “What’s your calling” something that I couldn’t stop thinking about was how we define ourselves. I know a lot of people who really define themselves by their jobs. As I read Steven Hiz’s experience being voted out of his position in a company he spent over 2 decades building from the ground up it made me think about where I spend my time and what things I might consider my calling in life. I’ve always been aware of the time we spend working in life. Statistically, it makes up over ⅓ of our entire life, and that’s if you’re lucky. I’ve worked jobs where I poured my heart and soul into the role and been promoted and lost time with my family, lost service opportunities and when It was time to leave or in some cases, when I was let go, all I had to show for it was lost time. These things just really helped me understand how important finding your calling...

Lessons Learned Being faithful is good, but it’s better to be faithful and competent. There isn’t anything virtuous about walking through life ignorant of the things around you. Becoming the most competent disciples we can require us to academically avoid the path of least resistance. I’m not sure I agree with Elder Bednar’s thoughts on avoiding the “what do I need to do to get an A” since professional clients will give you the scope all the time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t exceed the expectations of the scope.  Lessons Not Yet Learned The “Stars and Stepping Stones” concept was a little confusing for me. I read over it a few times but what I originally saw as the end of the entrepreneurship journey seems more like a reflection on the path to get there. I will need to take a “step” back on this one a little and ponder on it through the next couple of days. Personal Thoughts & Impressions The videos this week really hit me personally as someone who already has a small passi...