Rooted in my Heritage: An Entrepreneurial Journal

This course has been entirely different from what I thought it would be when I started and I am extremely grateful for that. Throughout this semester, we have focused on the value of ongoing learning both through formal education and informal avenues of learning, leadership, pursuing dreams, setting ethical boundaries for how to conduct ourselves, finding the right companions and mentors, and using our passions, strengths and talents to become who we were always meant to become. When I first started this course, I thought it would be much more business oriented, more focused on foundational details of what it takes to start up a business.  I was wrong.  This class was much more.  I took this class in conjunction with a writing class geared towards professional writing for my major.  They dovetailed together beautifully because what I learned from the combination of these two classes, was that I don't want to be an entrepreneur.  I want to write. I want to be a l...

This week as I reflect upon the study material for my entrepreneurship class, I keep coming back to the ideas set forth in chapter four of A Field Guide for the Hero's Journey  by Jeff Sandefer and Reverend Robert Sirico. This chapter is all about the companions that we travel with on our journey.  In every epic adventure, the hero never goes through the entire journey alone.  There are always trusty sidekicks, helpful people who coincidentally happen to be in the right place at the right time to help, and usually wise sages to offer advice. The same is true for our lives and the adventures that we embark on.  Man was not meant to be alone. We are sent to earth in families with numerous individuals who impact our lives for good or ill along the way.  The people we choose to surround ourself with really do make an enormous impact on what we will or will not be able to achieve.  While we may not be able to choose the members of the family we are born into, or...

Throughout this course, so far we have studied creating a vision of our future self.  This has included examining our childhood dreams, the goals we have for our future, and the core values that we want to embody.  Each of these components are crucial for setting our own personal course to who we want to become. I am fully on board with this line of thinking.  It resonates with me and I embrace it whole heartedly.  But there is still a big looming question mark to this plan that I just haven't figured out yet.  What was I born to do? In the video segment, "Do What You Love," Tom Kelley talks about a time when he heard Jim Collins lecture concerning a Venn diagram that had as the three intersecting circles:  What are you good at? What were you born to do? What will people pay you for? Mr. Kelley related that people usually have a pretty good handle on knowing what they're good at and market research is really helpful to know what kinds of things people will ...

 This week our studies were centered around creating a life of meaning.  We spent time reflecting on what core values are important to us, what our childhood dreams were and maybe still are, the bucket list items that we hope to accomplish during our time here on earth and what kind of plan we want to create for our life to help us accomplish our goals. I love this kind of pondering!  This is dreaming and planning and figuring out what brings me joy.  I have been doing this kind of thing since I was kid laying in my parents backyard looking up at the fluffy clouds, wondering what my life might be like.  I'm a dreamer.  I like to create plans and put them into action.  I've been able to experience a lot of really cool things that way.  One of our readings this week was a transcript of Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture: Really Achieving your Childhood Dreams." Randy was a dreamer too.  Even though his life was cut short due to cancer, he lived a rem...