Ethics & Launching Leaders

 July 24, 2022

This is my journaling blog, where I'm going to go on a journey from just being ordinary to being extraordinary.

I'm taking an Intro to Entrepreneurship class for the summer semester at BYU-Idaho. I've always been fascinated by entrepreneurs and how they do what they do. If I were to be completely honest, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur as well, however, when I was growing up my father was an entrepreneur and I thought he did alright. I never figured out why we always seemed to struggle financially when I was growing up. In my home it was either feast or famine, and looking back on it, we were more the famine. I didn't realize we were poor most of the time until later on in life I did some retrospection. I was talking to my father one night on the phone and I told him I never realized we were poor growing up. He stated "Neither did Dolly Parton". I guess when your growing up that way, you just don't realize certain things, they just seem normal.

A few years ago my parents again made another horrible business decision or spent money they didn't have or most likely both. I received a frantic phone call from my mother that they were being evicted from their house because they hadn't made a payment in over a year. Frankly, I'm surprised it took them a year to get foreclosed on! They asked my family and I to run up and help them move out. They were giving me what I wanted and selling other things in a frantic haste. In one moment my mother held up my fathers journal and asked if I wanted it. I said no, and then hesitated and said yes. About a year later I was rooting around in the garage and came across that journal and started flipping through it, and I found my grandpa's obituary and read some thoughts my Dad had put down about his love for his father, etc. Pretty soon I found myself reading the journal from cover to cover and went to bed at 1:00 a.m. I had never read such a sad book in my life, for days, maybe even weeks I felt an emptiness within me. I think I felt a little bit of anger. He would write business decisions down or state why he did something that was contrary to any sort of business common sense, and I remember saying out loud as I was reading his journal "Why would you do that?" or "That was the dumbest thing you could have done!". No wonder we were so poor all the time. I also realized he's always looked at the negative side of everything. He's always looking at what can go wrong instead of what can go right, he's essentially digging his own grave. When successful people are showing him what he can do to do better or wanting to help him out, he literally thinks their out to get him or setting him up to fail somehow. He's had accountants and very wealthy business owners tell him what he needs to do and he does completely the opposite and falls flat on his face.

It was sometime later I was talking to my best friend who's a successful entrepreneur and I realized the reason I don't start my own business is because I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of giving my family the same outcome my father gave us. I don't want that, I want success, I want a secure future! However, I want freedom and wealth that I know I can achieve through entrepreneurship. I have another friend who's a successful entrepreneur and I had to interview him last semester for another class project. It was inspiring, to know that if you surround yourself with others that are just like who you want to be, they want to help you succeed if you let them. They will give you the guidance if you let them.

As I've started this class I've been reading the study material from this week, I've realized failure is normal, but make it quick and cheap and have a backup plan you can quickly jump to. The biggest thing I've realized is DON'T BE AFRAID TO FAIL and DON'T CARE WHAT OTHERS THINK OR SAY! If they could do it better they would have by now. One of the essential key's I learned this week is to TAKE INTELLIGENT RISKS. I also know I can't let my father's negligent failures constrain me. I also need to do the necessary preparation within myself to know I can do this, and it start's with this class and this journal.

I'm excited for this class, I'm excited to see where this quick seven week journey takes me. No matter what, I know it'll take me from ordinary to extraordinary, because any movement forward is progress.