Final Post....for now

This wraps up what has been a lovely old time of giving blogging a test drive. It's actually been pretty good. I may even see if I can write for the Marriott School blog after this. As it turns out I've got quite a few opinions stored up in my head and it feels good to get them out every once in a while. But until then, I'll leave with one ending thought:

"Just do it."

Nike got it right in a lot of ways with that statement. It's been something that I have been relearning the last couple of days and goes along with some of the previous posts. Often times in life, as we go making decisions both big and small we can easily get caught in "paralysis by analysis." This happens we look at a choice or a problem from so many angles that none of the solutions seems particularly good and we become stuck. Stuck in an ugly rut, that prevents us from progressing. Something that I have found is generally the case is:

1. make a choice and if it's totally off, and you really are believing it's the right choice and not just doing it because you secretly want to avoid the other choice, you will feel that it is not right and be guided to retract your choice, or you will learn a valuable lesson.
2. Often times it is the harder of the two choices, it is not always. That too can be taken to the extreme.
3. Although there are sometimes choices that are appropriate to mull over for a long time, you will almost always be happier if you just go for it and make a choice, or try it out, than if you stay in the same spot turning in circles because both sides look good or both sides look bad.
4. Last but not least sometimes you just need to "take no thought beforehand" of what you're going to say and just do it. This applies to sales. This applies to dating. This applies to business decisions. When we become overly calculated in what we do some of our power is lost because we trust our brains more than our hearts and feelings. There needs to be a steady balance where we use both.

Anyway some more food for thought. I hope it's been worthwhile. Until next blog.

A thought on how to stay out of time debt.

I read an interesting article after writing my last post about time debt. It was written very passionately and seriously and it was basically how to beat time debt. I'll give a little summary of what I got from it below. 

The writer began explaining the standard sales thing that you see on internet,"I'm going to teach you something here that will earn you thousands of dollars and that will change your life at a moments notice, etc. etc." At first I honestly felt a little like rolling my eyes, even though the person that wrote it is close to me. But I decided to read on because I know that person isn't a liar or a cheat and I must say I was impacted. It was a lot different than some of the usual approaches on the internet. Not necessarily something utterly new but something that is worth considering. He said to take pen and paper, sit where you would be interrupted and ask yourself and answer these questions:

"1. What have you intentionally stalled or put off in your work and life? Things you 

keep telling yourself you “should” be getting done…that keep getting put off or 

stalled…over & over again. 

2. What's delayed or incomplete? Things you started but have left hanging 

unfinished, that you feel are important to do. 3. What keeps recurring as an irritant, that you're no longer willing to tolerate? 

Something around the house or office...maybe a repair that's needed... 

something that, every time you see it, irritates you that it is not done... AND it 

NEVER seems to get done. 

4. What do you keep telling yourself you have to remember to remember? This 

kind of thing clutters your mind, creates STRESS… and the feeling of needing 

to "work even harder." 

5. What don’t you want to face, that you know you need to face, now?  

6. What do you resent having to do, that you're no longer willing to do? 

7. What bugs you that you keep not getting done? 

8. What do you keep not getting done that you said you’d get done? 

9. What are you ignoring? 

10. What don’t you want to deal with? 

11. What keeps recurring as an obstacle?"

He speaks on a little more about how all of these things interrupt the natural flow of life. It clogs up your brain, your patience, your confidence and your hopes and dreams and stops you from progressing. 

Admittedly I absolutely do not believe in cure-all solutions. They are fundamentally flawed I believe. But I do believe that what's mentioned above is indeed very valuable and would help whoever reads. So give it a shot and see what you think. Maybe things will be better than you thought. 

 

Time Debt

Debt is one of the great ills of this age. Fortunately I have never experienced it but reports indicate that there are huge incredible amounts of people in at least some kind of negative debt and that those rates keep rising. It comes from the basic principle of people spending too much and not bringing enough in. The concept of debt however I don't believe applies to just money. It applies to a number of other things, including what I would like to talk about which is time.

"Time is the great equalizer." 

That was a comment that stuck with me in one of the entrepreneurship lectures here at BYU. I had to wrestle it around in my mind a little bit to understand what it meant but I have come to very much believe it is true. We are all given equal amounts of the same currency, (time in this case) and are given the chance to spend it how we will. The phrase spend time is actually quite accurate. And depending on what we spend it on depends on what our returns will be, positive or negative, happy or sad, satisfying or not satisfying. That's where I believe the concept of time debt comes in. 

Time debt is essentially procrastination. It is when you spend too much of your time in a flippant way or towards things that aren't really what you need (or need to do) at the moment. And, like real debt, once one is found the grasp of time debt it is hard to get out. You basically have two options: you have get dragged through life a little bit and miss out on other things to be able to accomplish what you need to accomplish (in other words scrimp on your other activities in order to pay back your time debt), or you can openly fail whatever you had set out to do, be it a class, a project, and event etc. and lose reputation (declare bankruptcy). Neither solution is positive obviously and thus it is in our best interest to generally avoid time debt. 

If we do that time will work for us instead of against us and we will feel continually more happy as we accomplish more and more. 

Killing Babies

So I imagine that you're reading this specific post simply because of the title. A little shocking isn't it? Well let your curious mind rest assured that I am not talking about real babies. I'm talking about business babies, or new business ideas to be exact.

New business ideas are like babies. When your mind gives birth to them, so to speak, and you believe they have potential, there are few things more beautiful and satisfying. You think about them over and over, how nice they look, how nice they sound, how other people will love them, the places they'll go, the things they'll accomplish, the things you'll do together.

"Ahhhh the possibilities," you sigh contentedly.

You often even name your baby. Once that happens it becomes serious. It's like your namesake son, carrying on every positive attribute inside of you.

This goes on for some time, depending on who you are and depending on how serious you are about your ideas. But, more often than not, its doesn't last.

First, you start to share your baby with other people.

"Isn't it amazing?!" you say, expecting wells of excitement to burst out of them. But their responses aren't so kind.

"Hmm what about such and such?"

"Haven't I seen this before?"

"Are you sure people would actually buy that?"

"That's a nice idea, but have you looked for any real jobs lately?"

They're insulting your baby. They're calling him ugly.

"Well that was just a foolish person anyways," you say to yourself. "No need to listen to him. What does he know about the industry anyways? And where is he working that he has to brag about? People these days."

But the problem is the same thing happens with the next person. And similar after that. And even worse after that. Person after person, (aside from your occasional biggest fan) tells you honestly their not interested.

"My baby?! I loved you. I can't leave you. I, I, I even named you." Doubt, confusion and sadness follow. And then it happens. You know you have to kill your baby.

So goes the way of the entrepreneur. Killing business ideas left and right, with temporary pieces of his own heart, mind and soul inside of them in the attempt to find just the right one. It's a hard a lonely road but someone's got to do it. Until next time.
.

Sustainable Help

The word sustainable seems to be the goal of just about everything in business. Sustainable growth, sustainable business models, sustainable sales and the list goes one. That is indeed what I am searching for as well; a sustainable solution for my need to make a living, and my desire to do good and create change. What I'm seeing a lot of is one or the other solutions.

Privately owned businesses usually tout killer returns, income, and wealth. Non-profits tout social good and a warm and fuzzy feeling. I want both.

Do I know how I'm going to do it? I do not. I do however feel pretty strongly that you should try and stop poverty on the home front and then go and end it on the foreign front. In other words I would feel a lot happier having created an enterprise and then going and teaching that to people rather than just going straight to teaching it. I also don't want ti to be just a good month or two experience. I want it to be a ginormous part of what I do. That's why micro-franchising interests me. It has the potential to offer both solutions.

Come summer 2012 and wherever I decide to go, we'll see what happens. Hopefully my above assumption is correct.

Happy Thanksgiving

There was an interesting thought given in my finance class yesterday about Thanksgiving. These facts are somewhat unverified because they were just spouted off by the Professor without any references but the message is convincing. He spoke of the first thanksgiving and how it all took place. He said we all often hear how the pilgrims had a grand feast with the Indians and like now we think it must have been an abundance. T/he reality is however, that an English ship for some reason had recently gone to port at Jamestown and had had to take many of the rations that they had there. The year had still been rough crop wise and the colonists knew that winter was coming and honestly that most of them would die, because of exposure. But they had a small celebration and gave thanks. So what, if they were planning on many of them dying that next winter, were they thankful for? According to this Professor, it was for freedom. Despite their terrible condition and pretty dim looking future in the new world they were grateful to be free. And, he said, that is the real reason for this holiday. It isn't just a celebration that says wow we have a ton of food and live somewhat in luxury so thanks God. It's about being thankful for freedom. 

Now whether all that is true or not I have no idea but I think it is a powerful principle either way and a more meaningful outlook on Thanksgiving in general. So let's keep that in mind this thanksgiving and besides thinking up random lists of what we feel thankful for, we can remember to be thankful to be free. 

Honestly just some random thoughts

Sometimes I feel like I just want to get going on life. I want to start a company now, get married now, move out of the country and solve the worlds problems now and so on. I just want to get it done. Part of that desire I believe is good. It leads me toward progress and toward the goals I have set for myself. 

Part of that however I also believe is not good. It distracts from the blessings and the good things to be learned from the here and now. There is a cool quote I heard quoted recently from the writer Oliver Wendell Holmes that says, "Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out." (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/o/oliverwend104426.html#ixzz1dw0GQVj7)

For some reason this quote has stuck with me this whole week. It's very true and it's very sad and it's something that I want to avoid and something that I am all too often guilty of. How often do we do what he speaks of? Prepare to be happy at some point down the road, prepare to be fulfilled, prepare to be help other people more, or prepare to actually just be ourselves and be happy with ourselves. These are things that are important for us to live a full life and things that are often overlooked. So that is the challenge for the week: not to be silly and over spontaneous and "live like we're dying" and be ridiculously cliche but to just get going on what is important to you and do it now.