We can do amazing things when we are in His side!

I enjoyed very much this week's readings and videos. Here are the point I want to remember, extracted from the week's material:
-People might laugh at you, but with the Lord you can do amazing things.
-Take inputs and come up with solutions
-We have to run our businesses. They can't run our lives.
-Stop back and think: "why am I doing it?"
-Some blessings come soon, some come later, some come only in Heaven, but they come!
-When facing a problem and when we don't have time to solve it completely, try the 5W's and
tackle at least one thing / one improvement in each area.
I had a very nice week and I just came back home from a date with my husband. We went to the movies and watched a new arrival directed by Mel Gibson called "Hacksaw Ridge". It tells about the life of a righteous man who wanted to serve his country in the war, but had promised the Lord that he would never touch in weapons (just like the anti-nephi-lehies did). He then went into war and faced opposition, but stayed true to his faith and became a hero saving many wounded soldiers.
The movie portraits how he saved all those man with the help of the Lord and got to be respected by his opponents, later. He believed in Revelation and received it to save the lives of many.
(The movie also had the most realistic battle scenes I have ever seen. I felt I could have a glimpse of what it really was to be there, and to bound with ones mat-soldiers in the field (like mission companions). The film is strong and made me ponder about how stupid wars actually are...)
This is a real story, and it made me ponder a lot about how we are made strong when we have the Lord in our side.
I am taking time recording this because I want to remember how I felt, and how grateful I feel for all the opportunities I receive from the Lord: living in a peaceful country, having the chance to run my own business and for knowing I can be made super strong -the strongest!- when I am in His side.

Setting Priorities.

This week I really enjoyed the readings and videos. When watching the video about Stephen R. covey “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, I specially pondered about the third one, “Put First Things First”.

Setting priorities is a hard task for me. In my days I have many things to do and I struggle to find out what are the priorities. Moreover, I have been feeling that I haven’t put the Lord first in my life the way I should, so I took action upon it.

I took some time to go to the temple, to read more the scriptures and to look for revelation in a more specific way.  I feel that these decisions lead me to be a more productive person this week. I could identify some tender mercies from the Lord this week and I feel grateful for those moments.

I also enjoyed learning about the keys to Mastery, in George Leonard’s book. As a teacher, the process of learning and of overcoming plateaus  are very interesting topics that have direct influence in my job.

I have also enjoyed the book because I love learning. I think I fall into the “hacker” category of learners, those who start and plateau after some time, and are ok with it. I have had several hobbies in my life and have been interested in many different things. I know I have plateau in many, many areas and because of this I can do one thousand different things but I don’t excel in many. I want to excel in many areas, and I hope I can apply the principles from the book in my own life.

Being a Natural...

This week I really enjoyed the videos we had to watch. I could relate to Wences Casares and how he feels he is a natural entrepreneur. 
Casares states that he hasn't chosen to be an entrepreneur, but that rather it is something he has a tendency of doing. He illustrated his feeling by telling us of a time he was traveling with his wife in India, and while she was learning Buddhism, he was interested in how much money the fisherman could make, and about the costs of their boats.
As Casares do, I also often analise different business in my mind and thing of their possibilities of growth and how is the return different entrepreneurs have.
I also liked very much Steve Blank's ideas on family and on having a company. I fell I already need to set some boundaries for how I spend my time. Blanks tells us about some of his family's rules and about how he would always have dinner with his kids at 7, put them to bed and continue to work from home for  5 more hours!
I don't have kids yet, but I always try to stop my work or studies to have dinner as a family with my husband. I hope I can learn to balance my time even better, and to set my priorities straight. 

Letter to my future self

Last week we finished reading "The Ministry of Business", by Steve Hitz. I really enjoyed the book and its teachings, and I hope I can apply all of the steps of the formula into my life.
Now, we have started reading the second book of the semester, "Mastery". I am looking forward to learn very much with this book.
I like to read and I feel I don't have enough time (or don't MAKE enough time) to read as much as I would like to, so I really enjoy when reading books become part of the courses curriculum.
This week, among the many interesting material we read and watched, we have the "Hero's Journey" -Which by the way, I wasn't very clear on the speaker's name... the link doesn't describe it, and his introduction was cut out of the clip.
The Speaker shares with us his opinions about entrepreneurs and about humility. I loved his teachings about not feeling the smartest person in the room (being constantly humble) and about the letters for our future selves, for when hard times may arrive.
I will definitely apply those teachings into my life, and take some time tomorrow to prayerfully ponder about my hardships and trials, and write letter for myself! I want to write letter for myself even for other areas now, for example, for when I achieve a goal, or feel sad about something. I loved the idea!

This week's thoughts

This week I have been pondering deeply on the course of actions I will take on my business, and how I will make my processes smoother and easier.
As I have mentioned here before, I run a very small language school from home and I use Microsoft Excel to organize every thing here! It would be great to have a software tailor made for my company, but I am still too small to afford that.
Meanwhile, I became a little tired of wrestling with the macros in excel, and thought it would be a nice option to hire an specialist to input all the macros I need for my formulas to work perfectly. I suppose there are people who could do it easily and who would not charge me much for this solution. I will start looking for options!
*Reminder - ask the members of my mastermind group for suggestion of people who could do it for me.
This week I've really enjoyed James W. Ritchie's video. I was kindly reminded of the formula for success and I wrote it in a big and bright post-it and stuck it to the wall right in front of me, so I can see it always!
I have been struggling with waking up early ever since.... ever since I was born I think! It has always been a challenge I really hope I can overcome soon! It is so difficult! Mainly because going to bed early is a hard task to me...
I will definitely work on that this week! 

BE BLUE, THROUGH and THROUGH

This week I really loved the readings!
I specially liked the devotionals from BYU-I. I enjoyed them so much I thought I should never miss another one on Tuesdays.
Sister Dew taught me that we need to be 100% integrous in our actions, and that even a small deviation from the right choice will lead us to sin. If we are not completely righteous and chose to do just a little thing in a wrong way, we will grow  to be more and more tolerant to sin.
Integrity is a virtue I hope to always have!
Elder Robbins talk was already familiar to me, since many courses ask students to read it. Still, this time it seemed I was able to learn a lot more. I used my listening technique, and I had a long drive that day, so I could ponder about how I treat my clients, and the kind of service I offer.
I know my students like my classes, but I definitely can do better on planning them and preparing more. I know I am able to do much better.
I want to be an A kind of entrepreneur, a leader Level 5, and a disciple of Christ!
Goal: Spend more time preparing classes, it will for sure improve my product and my business.

Thoughts on my Journal System

I love the idea of having an entrepreneur's journal. It is a practice that I have been developing for a while now and that I find is pretty helpful to me. With my journal I organize my thoughts and goals, analyse my income and financial matters and draw and outline ideas that will make my business grow. 
I have found that the best way of maintaining this journal (or at least the best approach so far) has been to keep it in the same book with my private journal. It is a large paper notebook that stays on top of my desk and just I have access to it. 
I cherish this assignment since it will give me more insights on how to improve my recordings, and -who knows- I might end up having a virtual version of my own journal here, but I feel its entries are too personal and contain private information.
With this said, I will continue to use this blog for the sake of the course and see how I feel with the online version of it. I do know that if I ever change to an on-line version, it would not be public. 
According to my opinion, in this secret little black book of mine I have my ideas of how to become better, be more competitive and organize my financial life... I've pondered and I can't find a reason as why to share my notes.

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First, I must say that I loved this lecture. I watched the whole version of it and I think I learned very much with Randy.

• Why do you think Randy Pausch was able to achieve so many of his childhood dreams?

I think he followed the opportunities Heavenly Father put in front of him, and I also think he never forgot what his dreams were. He kept them in mind throughout his life and worked for them.

• Do you feel that dreaming is important? Why or why not?

I think it is more than important, it is vital. If we don't dream we will never enjoy the journey to get to places in life. We won't have goals.... It would be very sad.

• Discuss at least one of your childhood dreams. Explain why you believe you can or cannot achieve this dream.

I have many childhood dreams, one of them is to be a plastic artist. I believe I cana chieve this by continuing to express myself through art, in many forms. Art is not the path I chose to make money in life (tough I do think it is a possibility), but I want to continue to improve my skills and be able to look back on line and know I have developed artwork that have embellished the world around me.