The Test of Life

In watching  the podcast for this week, I loved and insight from Elder Maxwell:

“Perhaps it helps to emphasize - more than we sometimes do - that our first estate [pre-mortal life] featured learning of a cognitive type…. The second estate [earth life], however, is one that emphasizes experiential learning through applying, proving, and testing. We learn cognitively here, too, just as a good university examination also teaches even as it tests us.  

In any event, the books of the first estate are now closed to us, and the present test is, therefore very real, we have moved, as it were, from first-estate theory to second-estate theory laboratory. It is here that our Christ-like characteristics are further shaped and our spiritual skills are thus strengthened.” 

--Elder Neal A. Maxwell

This ties into the dream of Jacob’s ladder in which he learned that he would have to climb the rungs of the ladder himself.

What an interesting way of looking at our lives. We got the instructional part in Heaven. Now we are on Earth taking the test. We have to do the hard work and prove ourselves, rung by rung, to return back to our Father in Heaven.

Reference:

All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience, Elder Neal A. Maxwell, pages 19-20

My Last Lecture

I have never felt entrepreneurial. The only reason I took this class is because it’s a requirement. My ideas have changed in fourteen weeks. Even though I may not have ideas for companies, I have learned that I have an entrepreneurial mindset and view of business. Whether or not you start your own company, having that mindset is crucial to doing business in today’s ever changing world.

Here are some key principles I have learned in this course.

Jeff Sandefer, in talking about living life as an entrepreneurial hero, teaches the concept of choosing your fellow travelers well. 

I read somewhere that you are the aggregate of the five people you spend the most time with. I had to stop and think - am I spending time with people who lift me, make me better, share my goals and morals? Sandefer said that “No matter how talented the person is, life is too short to put up with jerks. And life is too long to associate with liars or cheats or gossips.”

We are like chameleons; we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.

                                                                                                   --John Locke

Lesson Learned: Choose carefully those with whom you associate, because you will likely become as they are.

Stepping Stones:

As Steven Covey teaches, you must start with the end in mind. How can you get where you are going, if you don’t know what the ultimate destination is? You need to determine what it is that you really want and what will remain important to you throughout your life. Create a bucket list. Make goals. Write down your dreams. Make them real. These goals become your stepping stones to your ultimate destination.

The ultimate horror is not death. The ultimate horror is to wake up at age fifty-five or sixty and realize that you have wasted your life; either that time has slipped past while your dreams waited, or that you never had any dreams at all.

-          Jeff Sandefer

Lesson Learned: Decide what your ultimate destination is and determine the stepping stones that will get you there.

What is Irrelevant:

Magdalena Yesil grew up in Turkey in the 1960’s and went on to become a respected product design engineer, businesswoman, entrepreneur, and angel investor in Silicon Valley during the 1980’s and 90’s. As a young girl she somehow developed a deep abiding belief that gender was irrelevant to accomplishment. This had a huge impact on me. I feel that you can change the word “gender” to anything that fits your situation.

 “_________ is irrelevant to accomplishment.”

I am working toward my Bachelor degree in my late 40’s. Age is irrelevant to accomplishment. I can do this even if I will be 50 when I graduate. 

What is it you think is holding you back? Determine that it is irrelevant to that accomplishment and go do it!

Lesson Learned: “_________ is irrelevant to accomplishment!”

How Will You Measure Your Life:

Professor Clayton M. Christensen’s HBR article “How Will You Measure Your Life?” made a huge impression on me. At the end of his course he asks his students to answer these three questions:

·         How can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?

·         How can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and family become and enduring source of happiness?

·         How can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?

He isn’t flippant in asking question #3. Two of his Rhodes Scholar classmates spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron was his classmate at HBS. Christensen said “these were good guys—but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction.” 

What do we learn about going off in the wrong direction? “Allocation choices can make your life turn out to be very different from what you intended.” If we don’t spend our time doing what we want to become, we will become what we spend our time doing.

Regarding question one Christensen says: “Doing deals doesn’t yield the deep rewards that come from building up people. I want students to leave my classroom knowing that.”

Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.

-          Clayton Christensen

Speaking to question 3 he states: “justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of ‘just this once.’” He gives an example of his college basketball days when his resolve to never play on Sunday was tested. He was pressured by coaches and players alike. He remained strong and didn’t play. After that experience he learned it was one of the most important decisions of his life. Why?

My life has been one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over in the years that followed. The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time.
-- Clayton Christensen

Lessons Learned: Build up others to receive truly deep rewards and spend time doing what you want to become.

Ethical Guardrails:

While you are creating your goals, dreams, and visions, decide on your ethical guardrails. Think of these as the bumper guards children use in bowling alleys. These are things that you will either always do or will never do. Decide now so that when situations come up, similar to Christensen’s “never play on Sunday” rule, the decision will already be made. 

Ethical guardrails will help keep you from going off course and making decisions that go against who and what you want to become.

Lesson Learned: Ethical guardrails can help keep you safe.

Resources
How Will You Measure Your Life, Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business Review

Of Stones and Wings

On our journey to become entrepreneurial heroes, or in any pursuit in this life, we will invariably encounter stones in our path. Things that impede our progress, make the journey more difficult, or make us feel like we are failing.

“These obstacles are the necessary means for developing the faith and persistence to overcome the real challenges that inevitably confront any person who has set out to do something heroic.”

-          Jeff Sandefer

Those obstacles may be the very things which, by overcoming, will make us what we are striving to become. We just need to keep going, move that stone from our path, and continue forward. We cannot allow despair in these moments to take over what we have already come so far to do.

Be Like The Bird

Be like the bird that, pausing

in her flight awhile on boughs too slight,

feels them give way beneath her —

yet sings—

knowing she hath wings.

—Victor Hugo

I want to be like the bird. Even when the ground seems to be falling out from underneath me, realize that my wings are my Savior and that I can sing.

Of Habits and Understanding

This week we discussed Dr. Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The seven habits are:

1.      Be proactive

a.       Take charge. Act instead of be acted upon. Take responsibility.

2.      Begin with the end in mind

a.       Have an end goal then live in a way that will take you there.

3.      Put first things first

a.       Prioritize. Stay in the “Important and Non-Urgent” quadrant.

“Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.”

-          Peter Drucker & Warren Bennis

4.      Think win/win

a.       Seek mutual benefit for each party, not just yourself.

5.      Seek first to understand, then to be understood

a.       Listen to understand, not to respond. Empathy.

“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.”

-          Goethe

6.      Synergize

a.       The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 1+1= anything greater than 2.

7.      Sharpen the saw

a.       Don’t be so busy sawing that you don’t notice your saw is dull. Renewal.

Two concepts that really stood out to me were Habits 5 and 7.

Communication is vital in relationships and work life. Most people, when they listen to another person – aren’t listening to understand - they are listening to determine how to respond. They are more concerned with their part in the conversation than they are in what the person is actually saying.

“The key to good judgment is understanding. If we judge first, we will never fully understand.”

The first item listed in sharpening the saw is physical exercise. This is something I need to do. I am caught in the endless cycle of being too tired to get up an hour earlier to exercise; however, if I don’t, my health won’t carry me to what I want to accomplish in life. I feel like I am doing pretty well with the other three items: spiritual, mental, and social/emotional.

I look forward to experiencing what Dr. Covey states will come from 30 minutes of daily exercise: improved quality of the remaining hours every day, preserved and enhanced capacity to work and adapt and enjoy, and a paradigm shift of my own self-image.

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier – not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.”

-          Emerson

Of Stepping Stones, Callings, and Stars

This week we worked on discovering what we want to be when we grow up and how we are going to get there.

First, we created a Bucket List. This is something I've never put down on pen and paper. There have been things that I want to do, but I've never taken the time to create an actual bucket list. I think I felt like -- if I don’t actually tell anyone, then I won’t be as disappointed if I don’t get them done.

My top three items were very easy. Visit the pyramids in Egypt, do a photo safari in Africa, and finish my degree in Business Management. The first two things I have wanted to do for a long time. I quickly put in a few more, but then had to really stop and think. I looked on the internet for ideas, that sparked more ideas, and I also included things I have already accomplished. A few are very simple such as take a pottery class. Others will take a lot of time, planning, or money, such as ride an elephant, learn Italian, and discover my true calling in life.

Next, we created a Stars and Stepping Stones chart. This is following the premise taught by Steven Covey of beginning with the end in mind. Your star is your calling in life. 

Picking your own star involves understanding what is important to you in life, and what is likely to remain important.

We visualized ourselves at age seventy then thought of what we would like to have said about us if at an awards dinner. What do we want to have accomplished? etc. Then work backward to fifty. What do we need to do to get there? This was an interesting exercise to actually put in writing. Again, similar to my bucket list, putting things in writing is like admitting I really want it. What if it doesn’t happen?

The ultimate horror is not death. The ultimate horror is to wake up at age fifty-five or sixty and realize that you have wasted your life; either that time has slipped past while your dreams waited, or that you never had any dreams at all.

Lesson Learned: Having dreams is good. Making them come true is better.

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Reference: Sandefer, Jeff. "Stars & Steppingstones: Some choices only come around once." actonfoundation.org, n.d