Ethics & Launching Leaders

 

  As I was reading this weeks material for my Intro to Entrepreneurship class I was reminded of several business scandals I've seen in the news throughout the years. I kept wondering if these individuals forget to set their personal code of conduct, leave their morals and ethics at home? I also saw a disgraced former public official as the host of a news show a few years ago. I thought to myself "He did what he did and he gets rewarded with his own news show?" Ethics to me is doing the right thing always, am I perfect? Not by a long shot, but I always try to be honest and do the right thing everyday. I set my bar high, and I've become known at my place of employment as one of the most honest people my manager has ever worked around. I wondered these things because we read about a speech that was given by Clayton M. Christensen called How Will You Measure Your Life? In this speech he discusses how to live a life of integrity. He calls this  how to stay out of jail, and he tells how it begins with one setting their standards and principles. If you don't set your standards and principles and know where your ethics are aligned you won't have the right measuring stick, you won't be able to know where out of bounds is at. What would happen if there wasn't the outside line painted on the court or field, would there be an out of bounds line? No, because there wouldn't be something there to say "Hey, this is out of bounds!" We need to do the same thing with our lives we need to paint a line on our court to say "This is wrong, this isn't who you are, this is out of bounds!"

    The other thing I did this week was finish the book called Launching Leaders by Steven Hitz. This was a really good book. The only thing wrong with it was the cover, it looks like a textbook cover! This book talks about several things, One of the main points is aligning your life with that of God. another one of them is setting your core values which feeds into ethics. It also talks about the formula for success. To me the formula for success is what really stood out in this book, I'm going to quickly list them here so you have an idea of what they are and then I encourage you to go out and read the book for yourself.

The formula for success steps go as follows:

    1. Get up early

    2. Work hard

    3. Get your education (this is a continual process, it doesn't stop at any point in your life)

    4. Find your oil (Find your passion! What drives you?)

    5. Make your mark

    6. Give back

    

    For some reason this resonated with me. I typically have woke early for the majority of my life. I remember waking up for school in elementary at 6:10 a.m. I remember growing up working for a prominent rancher in my home town and we had to be at his house by 6:00 a.m., I leave for work each morning by 5:30 a.m. at the latest. However, just yesterday I woke up at 4:00 a.m. to work on some of my homework in the morning before I headed to work, and as I was doing some pondering I realized I needed to take the day off to get somethings done around the house and do some homework and to also do a much needed repair to the truck my oldest son drives. About 9:00 a.m. I received a phone call that a member of my ward had unexpectedly passed away from a sudden heart attack. I went to the home of the family to comfort them and give them blessings of comfort. I know I was supposed to take the day off to help that family. I listened to the spirit, and I'm not sure I would have had that prompting if I hadn't of got up early.

    Working hard is something that's just been instilled in me from a young age, and I'm currently getting my education by following a prompting and getting my degree.

    However, I realized through this formula that I still need to find my oil, I think I know what I want to do, but as I continue to finish my degree the Lord will inspire me as to what my real passion is.

    I think each of us can make our mark, by being a mentor to somebody in our town, our church and with our neighbors and co-workers.

    It seems with my calling I'm always giving back to different things in the ward and in the community. I always instill in my family that it's important to serve so you can be the answer to somebody's prayers and bless their lives and we will also be blessed in numerous ways in our lives.

    These are lessons I've learned and reflected on this week. I hope you will read the book Launching Leaders by Steven Hitz and make sure you set your out of bounds line so you don't cross the line and hurt those you surround yourself with.