Week 3

A theme in this week's readings seems to be that you can't separate who you are at work with who you are at home. If you're spending forty hours or more a week at work, then who you are at work is very much who you are a person. Your motives will come through in both aspects of your life. If you are motivated by a desire to serve God and striving to be your best self, then that will inevitably shine through in your professional life. Similarly, the opposite is true. If you are motivated by pride and selfishness, that will be what people eventually notice about you.

Sheri Dew's talk about integrity really struck a chord with me. Since I was a child, my parents have instilled in me the importance of honesty - being honest with others and with yourself. Lying always makes things worse. My parents made a point of teaching us that, so much so that when I accidentally broke my mother's sunglasses once, I was brought to tears when I told her that I had broken something I had promised to be careful with. Of course, my mother was very sweet and forgave me, but Dew's talk reminded me of just how important honesty is. Even in the little things. Even for something as small as some broken sunglasses.

Week 2

I can firmly say that I am a dreamer, so much of this week's readings were inspirational for me - a reassurance that perhaps I have so many dreams for a reason. I have long believed that much of life is about choosing the right dream and after reading and listening to this week's material I am somewhat relieved to find that I was right with that assessment. I'm looking forward to learning more about choosing which dream to pursue and techniques I can use to be successful while I am on that journey.

Randy Pausch is a really great example of what it means to dream realistically. For others, his dreams were unrealistic but part of the reason why he was so successful was because he didn't let the bigness of his dreams scare him and he wasn't afraid to dream big. Dreaming can be very important. A dream is something you can hold onto when life gets you down. It can be motivation for you when there is nothing else there for you. Dreaming can push us to try things we never would have before and to aim for the impossible, not knowing that we are indeed capable of the impossible.

One of my childhood dreams is to be a successful novelist - one as successful as Tolkien. His books are still read and studied to this day. They contain many lessons, some technical as they relate to writing and others ethical. Tolkien's books have played a part in shaping who I am today, and I want to write something as powerful as them. I do believe that this dream is achievable. I think it includes a lot of hard work, and perhaps it sounds a bit presumptuous to say that I am capable of writing something that incredible, but I believe that with enough work and dedication that it is within the realm of possibility.

Week 1

One of the questions that was asked this week is if some days I feel like I was put on this earth for a purpose and other days feel completely lost. I was surprised to hear that question, mostly because it resonated with me as a solid "yes." I have felt that way quite often, which is one of the things that has drawn me to at least learn more about entrepreneurship. I'm not really certain whether or not it's what I want at this point, but I feel like learning about it will be valuable to me and my future.

One of the first lessons I learned about entrepreneurship is to dream big. That's an easy task for me. Sometimes I feel like maybe I dream too big and the only way to possibly tackle any of those dreams is to department from traditional employment at some point. My passions are widely different some each other and sometimes seemingly at adds with one another. I want to be a traditionally published author some day, a dream I have been pursuing for nearly ten years now. Another is to work to help increase the population of exotic animals like tigers. I believe it would be a shame to lose such magnificent creatures. Yet another is to travel and see the world. The more I learn in school, the more dreams I seem to collect. Last year I added a new dream to my list: helping children around the world.

With such conflicting dreams, I knew an English degree wasn't going to help me with all of those; but Business Management with an emphasis in entrepreneurship? To me, that seems like a whole different story and could be very helpful in pursuing anyone or all of those dreams. I don't know how to get to the end of most of those dreams, but "all epic journeys and all paths [...] begin with a first step." I just need to start with one step at a time and I think I'm going to start with the dream I'm closest to, becoming a published author.