Entrepreneurial Journal Blog

If I had one final lecture to share with a group of students on what I have learned so far, I think I would talk about what it means to be an entrepreneur, how to balance family and business, and honest and business ethics.  What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?  Before I started this course, I had a general idea of what I thought an entrepreneur looked like. It was a very strict, successful model that was almost impossible to achieve. As much as I wanted that, I wasn't sure if I was capable of it. I learned that being an entrepreneur takes so many forms. One of my favorite ways to define it is "being an everlasting learner on the path of self-mastery." This isn't an unachievable feat! Anyone is capable of being an entrepreneur if they are willing to work hard, learn from their mistakes, and listen to Jim Ritchie! Balancing business and family is one of the most challenging things an entrepreneur can face. It isn't like a normal 9-5 job or more lax than one, li...

This week, I really focused on Randy Haskin's entrepreneurship study. I noticed that throughout a lot of the essay, he used more positive verbs or talk. Problems weren't negative; they were progressive. Failures were stepping stones and learning is ongoing. He didn't make it seem like a chore or burden though. His experiences and advice were motivating and opportunistic. Here were some of the quotes that really inspired me from this week's study. "A good leader has more than 'vision'—a good leader sees an endpoint, and then somehow garners sufficient resources around him or herself to work towards that end. What they see may be five years out, but they say, 'I've got this vision, and I'm going to keep pushing and pushing until we get to that point.'”  This really reminded me of one of the chapters from  Mastery . Entrepreneurs need to have a vision of success and perseverance, which felt very reminiscent of this quote from Haskin. It isn...

Virtue and Integrity are vital to an economy because that is how markets operate, according to Handy.  Personal ethics can influence an entire business.  If these ethics are not moral, everything becomes too unreliable and there is no trust to keep an operating market open. People would keep their money elsewhere because the economy would not be considered safe enough to reinvest in. If no one plays "according to the rules," the fragile system could crack and eventually break. Harvey states that this increasing lack of distrust is seen when companies place their own safety, finances, and well-being above all. Charles states that the real justification for the existence of business is not just to make a profit and leave it at that. It is to make a profit so that the business or company can "do something more or better." "A good business is a community with a purpose, and a community is not something to be "owned." He claims that the issue without this ...