Financial Security

For me being financially secure is on the very top of my list for career goals. I am sure that it is also on the top of many other people's list too. To me this seems like such an unreachable goal, one that will take me my whole life to complete. Is there another way? The answer is yes. In class yesterday we have a guest speaker come and share his insights about how he has become financially secure. He said that the only way to do this is to make the money work for you and not you working for money.

That is achieved by thinking like an investor. It's not just about saving the money that you make, but investing it so that you get a return on the money you have. He recommended a few books to read to start the process of thinking like an investor. Here are a few that I am going to start reading: Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki; The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson; and The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason.

How will you measure your life?

That is the great question of life...how will we measure our success, our happiness, our impact in this world? Do we use a measuring tape? A scale? How? The answers can only come from deep inside each one of us. We must recognize what we want most in this life and them create a vision that we can work towards every day. A wise entrepreneur and professor named Clayton Christiansen always taught his students to ask themselves three questions: How can I be sure I'll be happy in my career? How can I be sure how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness? How can I be sure I will stay out of jail?

Those seem quite simple, but Dr. Christiansen expounds upon them in an address recorded in the Harvard Business Review. I believe that if we have a vision, attainable long and short term goals, and set standards that we will never deviate from we will find value in life. We will at the end of our lives know exactly what that value is. We will know how to measure our life. A very successful entrepreneur named Corey Bell, President of Trifusion, said that "the richest place in the world is the grave yard, because it is full of people who die with dreams not fulfilled, businesses not build, and love not found." That made me realize that the only person that will be disappointed that any of those dreams were not met will be the individual. The only one holding us back from making them reality is ourselves. This section in class really made me dig deep inside myself and confront what is was that was holding me back from making my dreams come true.

The Power of Organization

In my $100 challenge group this last week we didn't sell squat. In class when we would see each other we set up a couple of days tentatively that would work for selling but when the time came no one was committed. The excuse that we all gave was that we were busy with homework. That is definitely a legitimate excuse since we are all full time students that work, but if we want to succeed we must sacrifice. We decided that all were willing to sacrifice a little time but that we needed direction and a schedule to guide us. Organization of our team on days that we could sell would be the solution to our problem. So someone stepped up and collected all of our school and work schedules and organized the selling responsibilities.

Who would have thought that people like to have direction sometimes? Organizing the team and delegating the responsibilities allows for individuals to prove themselves and for the work to get done. All it took for our team to start the cash flow again was a simple piece of paper and a few extra minutes from a team member to organize it. On Saturday we sold more than we had in a whole week in just 1 short hour. Thanks team I know we can finish strong!

Adding True Value

As an entrepreneur one of the biggest decisions that you will make is who to hire to help you run and operate your company. The focus this week in class was all about finding the right people to do the right things. There was a guest speaker on Tuesday that talked about their local business that they started a few years back. They are doing very well now but initially they had a rough start all because of the team that was running it. They said that the right people make all the difference between success and failure. In my other business class today we talked about how to decide out of all the candidates which ones fix your needs. The rule is to judge three things. The 3 C's: Confidence, Competence, and Character. They can't just have a high score on one or two of these categories but all three. Employees become and asset to the company. Zappos Company requires that their employees fit their "culture", culture meaning that they have the attitude of working hard and building value for the company, not just getting pain for work. In all these discussions I have really learned how important it is for me to be that kind of individual that companies need. Not just pretending to be all those things, because everyone can see through fakers, but really putting my whole heart and soul into the company so that I can add value.

I have actually had a personal experience with this before. a few years back when I was a sophomore here at university I had to complete an internship of at least 300 hours. I somehow through the mercy of God landed on at a small floral shop in Virginia. I worked for ten straight weeks full time with no pay. I loved the job and the learning that I was getting so going to work every day was worth it even though i wasn't making anything. I planned on finishing up the last week there and looking for another job elsewhere so that I could earn money for the fall semester. One day the manager came to me and asked if I would consider staying and working for a wage. I realized in that moment that since I had worked hard and proved myself that it paid off and they wanted me to be a continuing asset. I accepted and worked the remainder of the summer. When it was time for me to leave for school they begged me to stay and work for them. I was tempted but I knew that schooling was very important for me to finish even if it wasn't necessary in this industry. Fast-forward three years to May of this year. I received a call from the manager of this same floral shop. I had kept in contact and visited them when I was in town. They knew that this was my last semester and I would be graduating. They asked me to consider coming back to work as a full time designer. They said that if I wanted this that they would delay hiring someone in the fall so that they could prepare for my coming in January. What an opportunity?! I have learned so much about the importance of being a good employee and working hard to add value. If I had just treated my internship with no respect because it wasn't paid I would have never had this great job offer right out of college. Employers know what makes a great employee compare to just an employee. Great employees bring customers in and they keep them. That is what allows the business to thrive and grow. Once again it’s the right people doing the right things.

$100 Challenge

My professor issued the class a challenge at the beginning of the semester to get up, get out, and do something that makes at least $100 in profit. So he divided the class up into teams and we began to brainstorm ideas for a small business that could flourish quickly. One of the guys in my team had a connection with a company nearby that sells Anti-Fog Spray and a compact electronics cleaner. Selling a product is sometimes easier than selling a service, but if you don't have a lot of starting capital then it can be challenging to obtain product upfront. We all pitched in $20 and bought what we could for our starting inventory. The next step was to sell. We chose a nice apartment complex and started knocking doors. Within the first week we sold almost all our inventory with profits well over $100! It seem as though we have already reached our goal, but we haven't. All of the profits that we make from this small business we are donating to kiva.com

This is a website that gives loans to individuals and entrepreneurs in developing and third world countries so that they can make their dreams come true. My team found a group from Rwanda that has asked for a loan of $2,000 in order to buy pesticides and other needs for their farm. They call themselves the Habimvugano Group(see picture). My team has two weeks left to sell our products and we really hope to reach profit of $2,000 so that we can give it all to these fellow entrepreneurs in Rwanda!

Entrepreneur or Artist?

The Acton Hero video that i had to watch this week was very inspiring. Phil Romano started the restaurant chains of Fuddruckers and the Macaroni Grill and has become very well known for his great entrepreneurial skills, let alone a wealthy man. What I found fascinating is that he calls himself an artist not an entrepreneur. He finds the most happiness in life giving back to others either through a great restaurant service or in building friendships or in showing his artwork. He says that he "wants to be remembered by the things he has done, not by a tombstone." Meaning that his actions speak louder than his words and he wants to make a difference in this world. I believe that he definitely has. This is a small section of one of his artworks.

What I also thought was interesting is that Romano had an experience in his early 50s that made him reflect on his life work. I like to call those experiences a "Life Check". Most individuals experience them when they are much older and don't have much life to live. It's usually brought on by a change in health that makes one realize that their life is not going to go forever. When we are young we may often feel that we have an infinite amount of sunrises, so if we waste a day or two with frivolous things it's ok. What we need to realize is that we are human and life is way to short to waste any of it. Everyday counts toward building our dreams and finding true joy and satisfaction in what we have accomplished. Have a life check experience today and start becoming who you might have been!

Got Nothing?

Got Nothing? No money to start that business you always wanted to? Well guess what?! You are an entrepreneur and you don't need anything! Entrepreneur Ken Zolot from acton.org said that “Entrepreneurs can make good out of nothing.” What you do need to have is passion and a love for people and satisfying their needs. If we are out there to make people happy and not just to make money then we can be successful. Zolot also said that you have to "push yourself to the edge and brake a few rules to show customers what they want." From what I have been learning in my class discussions I fell that anything is possible if you believe in yourself and what you have to offer to people. If you love what you do and you use all the resources around you then your dreams can happen. Some of the companies that we learned about that started with less than $100 are very successful now. Examples are UPS, Walt Disney, Estee Lauder and Gillette, among many more.