Last Lecture

Looking back on my life, the one thing that I wish I had done differently is making decisions.  Not the decisions that I made, but the way that I went about making decisions.  I would encourage all of you to learn how to make decisions and then stick to them.  This has been the single largest area of my life that I have lost time.  When we think about it, time is the most precious resource that anyone can have.  If I had learned to make decisions about what I wanted in life earlier, I would have had more time to pursue those goals.

All of the best things in my life have come from when I was decisive and went after what I wanted.  My biggest triumph was getting my wife to agree to marry me.  From the moment that I met her I realized that she was the one for me.  Because I made that decision, I was able to focus my attention on getting her hand.  We said our marriage vows nine months after meeting.

The next most important thing that happened in my life came from the decision that my wife and I made to have children.  I was married the day before I turned twenty-one and was a father by twenty-two and a half.

Among my biggest failures include things that I did not make a decision on for some time.  I could not decide what I wanted to get a degree in and so I put off my education until I had an abrupt change in my career.  Because I did not have a degree, it was difficult to reenter the work force in my previous position as a store general manager.

My wife and I made a decision after I had lost my job to look at moving away from Illinois.  We realized that living there had served a purpose, but we no longer needed to be in that part of the country.  We decided to move to Idaho and it has made a world of difference for my family.  When I compare the value set that people in our neighborhood have in Idaho as opposed to the values that our previous neighbors had in Illinois, it is like night and day. 

I realize that not everyone will make the same decisions as me, and that is OK.  The most important thing that they can do is to make decisions.  Don’t spend all of your time trying to analyze the outcomes.  Trust those that care about you to help you make good decisions.  Listen to your loved ones.  They can give you a perspective that you may have never considered before.  At the minimum you will have strengthened a relationship with someone important to you and that will help as you encounter difficulties in your life’s journey.  That is a good place to start.

Gratitude

As I reflect on this week’s readings and videos, I realize that the most impactful reading was the talk by President Monson on gratitude.  I realized that there are many things that I am grateful for which I have not been showing any gratitude.  This talk helped me to realize the type of person that I want to be.  I want to be someone that shows gratitude for all that I have and for the relationships people have with me.

I need to show more gratitude to those around me.  This will cause by entire disposition to change and will draw more people into my circle of influence.  When I think of people that are successful I realize that most often it is people that others want to be around.  If I can develop gratitude muscle so that I don’t have to consciously think about showing thanks, but simply doing it by reflex, then I will have become successful in this part of my life.

I have found that I am normally not very expressive with my emotions.  When I do take off my emotional mask and let others know how I am feeling, the return of emotional energy is great.  It can feel almost overwhelming at times.  This may be part of the reason that I have not shown my emotions too frequently.  This is another thing to put on my list of goals to accomplish.  I am sure that my family will be more than happy to help me achieve my goal and will support me in pursuing it.

Doing What I Can

This week I have had time to think about what I would like my entrepreneurial endeavor to accomplish.  I want to be able to help others.  I know that I will be able to care for my family regardless of what I do, so I want to do something that is useful to others beyond me.  If I can create a business that helps solve one of the world's problems then I will feel as though I contributed to society.  I realize that I may not have a big effect on the global situation, but I will have done what I can.

When I was reading about the micro-loans and how they were able to improve the lives of those that are trapped in poverty because they are denied credit, it made me think of credit in a new light.  Is credit simply the ability to borrow money for a time, or is it a trust that is given to a person that they are responsible?  I think it is more of the trust that is important.  Having trust among businesses allows them to have transactions.  If there is no trust, then companies would not get materials shipped to them to turn into products unless they could pay for them in full in advance.  Also, the company purchasing the materials would not be willing to pay for them until they could be inspected for quality.

In short, our economy would come to a grinding halt.  Because of this I feel that trust is one of the most critical pieces that economies need.  This includes trusting individuals to do as they promise.

As I watched the talk by Elder Gay, I was touched by the story of the teenage girl that lost her parents in Sudan.  The strength that she showed from having gone through that experience is remarkable.  I hope that I can gain that type of conviction.

Virtue and integrity help businesses to trust one another.  This allows them to create wealth.  It allows individuals to pool their collective wealth to be used to create more wealth.  If we lose virtue or integrity, people will withdraw their wealth from the collective pool and the economy will collapse.

The real justification for a business to exist is if it can make or do something better than others that is a benefit to society.  If it can’t make or do something that benefits society in some way, it is more of a parasite than a useful entity.

Two solutions that Handy proposed that I agree with are to share the fruits of labor more evenly with those that are providing the intellectual capital, not simply the money.  This will help to inspire employees that are making a more significant contribution to continue to innovate.  The other idea that I liked was having a number of employees of the company on the supervisory board.  This will help the company understand the real life challenges that employees are facing and help them to keep the needs of their most important resource taken care of quickly.