Last Lecture Exercise

An entrepreneur’s journey begins in your heart.  You cultivate a desire to make a difference and then take action to do so.  There are many great examples of entrepreneurs that have gone before us.  It would be the best interest of the person that wants to become an entrepreneur to study and research about those successful entrepreneurs.  

It included readings from three great and profound books: The Ministry of Business by Steven A. Hitz and James W. Ritchie, Mastery by George Leonard, and A Field Guide for the Hero’s Journey by Jeff Sandefer and Robert Sirico. These books helped to change my life and caused me to look at things in ways I had never looked at them before.

Along with the books, each week was filled with fascinating readings and case studies of different individuals. These helped develop critical thinking skills and helped me develop guidelines from which I could direct future successful careers. The course never loses focus of what is really important in this life, as well as in the life to come, and teaches us that real success is obtained by those that maintain their vision upon these very important principles.

Many of the ideas shared in the course fly in the face of worldly wisdom. Much of the advice requires faith to even begin to embrace them. But as witnessed by such a cloud of witnesses, the truth of what is taught is made manifest over and over again. The course material provides fertile ground for thoughtful and prayerful pondering and meditation of its principles. I rejoice in the fact that I was able to gain a testimony of several of the principles taught within the course during the short time I was in it.

From my experience I have learned that as entrepreneurs we have the blessing and the responsibility to give back to the community. Changing people’s life for better should be your daily mission because in the end of the day doesn’t matter how much money that we have in our bank accounts but how many people we helped. Entrepreneurs have the possibility to help people by offering them jobs, charity for poor families, orphan children, giving scholarships etc; supporting the youth by offering them internships and hiring them because they are the future and we should believe and invest in them. Entrepreneurs should be careful when they sign the contracts with clients, investors, suppliers because in case of disagreements the contracts will save them from other people or business they might not work with integrity and they should also try to avoid debts when it is not necessary. In some cases, the debts will help the company for example to expand but we should be very careful when we will do the plans before taking the debts. Doing a budget, it is fundamental for a business, otherwise we will end up spending more than we have because we don’t know how much we have and where we need to spend it. 

For an entrepreneur to be successful it is very important to have a team that believes in the culture of the company, that work with integrity and that it is involved in the success of the company. It would be great for the business if the leader discusses the important decisions with the team and hear their ideas because he/she can learn many things from their knowledge, experience and the employees will feel appreciated, important. Very fundamental for an entrepreneur is also to have mentors. It is very necessary to ask for advises for the things that you will not know because it will help you to make the right decisions. Asking for advises is not something that you should feel ashamed because we should be lifelong learners and we need to learn from others that know something that we don’t for some things like: finance, marketing, sales, technology etc

I would highly recommend that anyone who has the opportunity to take B 183: Introduction to Entrepreneurship do so as their lives will only be enriched, and their spirituality and testimony deepened. The course has helped me in countless ways, and has changed the way I view and think about common situations, especially in professional and business settings.