Pertaining to Things both Temporal and Spiritual

Pertaining to Things both Temporal and Spiritual

Video: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/principle-1-exercise-faith-in-jesus-christ?lang=eng

How can I more fully act with faith in Jesus Christ?

I can stop doubting and overthinking some things, and act. Faith is a principle of action. When the Israelites crossed the river Jordan they were promised that they would cross on dry land. The water didn’t part until they got their feet wet. The same applies to all aspects of my life, including entrepreneurship. God will help after I make the first step.

What difference would it make in my life if I worked to exercise more faith in Jesus Christ?

Fits of all, I would accomplish more things simply because I would actually start more projects. Instead of just having ideas and plans that never come to reality, if I exercised more faith I would act more.

How could I be of better service to others if I exercised my faith more completely?

I would be more courageous to talk to them and learn about their needs to better serve them. By acting, I would also be able to create projects that provide jobs, goods, and services that others need. Also, by exercising faith and following the promptings of the Holy Spirit I would be guided to those who I can serve. 

My Last Lecture

When I was eleven or twelve years old I was the moderator of an online forum about Real-Time-Strategy Games. The website was managed by a fourteen year old boy in Spain who knew PHP programing, and the forum was moderated by other boys my age in Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina. We never saw each other in person and never received any kind of training, but our website became the largest Spanish-speaking online community about RTS gaming at the time. When I look back I realized that we were not afraid to fail, because for us it was just something we liked to do in our free time; a game! What if we could see life like those little kids running one of the most important websites of its kind without even knowing what they were doing? What if we could stop being afraid of failing because we enjoy what we do?

My first summer job was selling computers at a convention in the WTC at the company where my dad used to work. Before I started selling, my dad warned me that I was going to be rejected many times, but that each rejection was only a step closer to a sale. When I realized that I could do it, I was so excited that I sold more than the salespeople who worked fulltime for the company. I think it was because I was inexperienced, unbiased, and willing to learn.

Over time I have grown up and learned that failure is something to be avoided, selling is unpleasant, rejection is hard to take and popular websites are almost impossible to create. Taking classes in college that have an entrepreneurial perspective has helped me realize the need to bring that child I used to be back to life. The most important thing I have learned from entrepreneurship is that I need to unlearn many bad lessons, and start learning with a new perspective.

Christ always taught that we need to become like small children because they are meek, humble, and innocent. I say that entrepreneurs need to become like children because they are willing to learn, not afraid to fail, and are still capable of dreaming big.

If I could give a piece of advice today to whoever reads this is to never stop learning, to be willing and eager to fail, and to be humble enough to correct the course.

‘’Stay hungry, stay foolish’’ Steve Jobs.

$100 Project Report

 Coming up with ideas is hard for me; I have a lot of very exciting ones when it is time to do something else, and I have trouble remembering them when I really need them. Perhaps I need to develop the habit of writing them down. When I was coming up with the idea for my $100 project it was one of those times without a lot of ideas. I chose to make and sell crepes because I wanted to do something within my reach, both financially and time wise; that meant doing something that I knew how to prepare.

I found many challenges along the way like choosing the right kinds of ingredients, setting an appropriate price for them, keeping them warm and reheating them, finding customers, etc. One of the greatest lessons I learned was that people love to buy, but hate to be sold to. I had to find ways to make the product attractive and use strategies that persuade customers to buy it because they want to, not because I offer them something. Some of the strategies I used were making signs or ads, offering the product to other people in front of my customers, and eat crepes in front of them so they would have a craving for them also. I also realized that it was easier to sell to big groups of people, and it became even easier after the first person said yes and created social pressure for the rest.

During this project I made the crepes at home and sold them with my wife’s help. I cooked them, then put them in a topper, and right before it was time to sell them I would reheat them, add a sweetener and put them in plastic food boxes.

I learned that most of my customers were college age women. Most of them are with their friends (other women), or boyfriends who buy the crepes for them. Older people don’t really like them, or know them, and younger people often can’t afford them.

At the end I was only able to make $60 USD in profits. I didn’t reach my goal since it was difficult to sell and very time consuming for the revenue obtained. I developed more respect for people who sell people in the street for a living. It is difficult to sell at the beginning when nobody knows you. My most loyal customers were my wife’s classmates since they already knew and liked the product. It takes time for a business like this to build a reputation among people in the area, and that reputation is essential for having returning customers and become profitable. I see why buying franchise can be worth it: it addresses the reputation issue from the very beginning.

Next time I launch a business (and I have better ideas now), I will choose something that I am more passionate about, I will run it for longer so I can learn and correct the things that don’t work, I will build it like a system to make money and not as a job, and I will involve more people around me.

The main thing I learned from this experience was the value of failing. I learned a lot from my failures and I even tried to fail as soon as possible with little things so I could take notes of what doesn’t work and try something different. Those small corrections really helped the project, and got me excited about failing with bigger and better projects so I can make them successful one day. I also learned that I’m capable of doing anything I want to achieve; this might sound counterintuitive since I didn’t achieve my goal this time, but towards the end of the project I realized that I’m smart, I know how to create online businesses, I know about finances and accounting, and I am willing to fail and learn. This was an epiphany for me that I need to find a project and make it real soon. I can do it.

Journal Entry Lesson 13

This week I learned about failure. I reviewed the story of Esteban de Antuñano that I learned about a couple of months ago during an online meeting of the BYUManagement Society Chapter Mexico. I wonder why we never learn about people like him in history classes at school here in Mexico. Apart from the normal class material, I also watched a few videos from entrepreneurs talking about their failures and what they have learned from them. It was very interesting to see that side of people who are very successful now. All of this is helping me develop a desire to try new things and learn from them even if I fail.

Another important lesson is working on my business, not in my business. This has really opened my eyes to what being a business owner really means and how a business can grow and become successful. In the last few days I have been thinking about business ideas applying this new perspective to them.

Acton Hero: Tom Nall

From this video

Tom Nall started as a salesman selling insurance door to door, then he worked 35 years at an alarm company. After that, he created Republic Tequila, a Tequila importing company.

According to him, being an entrepreneur takes a little bit of ‘’insanity’’, and not being afraid to fail. He recognizes the importance of learning at every chance in all kinds of different situations. When he started working he realized about the importance of learning how to sell.

When he was working at a relatively small company and competing with bigger companies he learned that they needed to ‘’have more imagination than the big companies’’ in order to be competitive. I  relate to that with the following experience: Recently I made a small investment in a startup that sells videogames. At a pitching event, they were asked if a big company like Steam could just do the same thing that they were doing, the answer from one of the organizers of the event was that an employee at Steam could do it reluctantly as a part of his job, but an entrepreneur at a startup can do it better because it is his/her passion.

Tom Nall says that entrepreneurs are calculated risk takers, and that founders need to give other 

Journal Entry Lesson 12

Many times I had said that I didn’t want to do business with family and members of the church because of stories of local LDS businessmen and my own experience. This week I started to question that as I read about successful family business and the advantages of doing business with family. I have learned that the key to a successful family business is making sure that the conditions are set forth clearly, upfront, and fairly. It is also necessary that all parties keep a long term perspective in the business and not just try to ‘’make a quick buck’’.

As I come close to the end of my $100 project I have started to think about the things I learned and the things that I will do differently in the future. I just sold my car and I’m about to cancel a cellphone data plan that I was paying for. This will give me a little extra money available and I’m considering starting a small business with my wife, similar to the $100 project, see how well it works and go from there.

Acton Hero: Erick Slabaugh

From this video.

Erick Slaubaugh was a ‘’reluctant entrepreneur’’ who joined his father’s company when he was 19 years old right as the company was going through a very tough time. Apparently he started from the bottom and worked his way up to become the CEO; he had to earn his position and learn even though he and his father owned the business.

I was very moved by the memories Erick shares about his youth. He ‘’started with less’’ than his friends in a certain way. As a co-owner of the family business, he had to work very hard and at the moment he couldn’t enjoy life as much as his friends. He had to make sacrifices like working long hours, not going to parties, and not earning big paychecks; today the tables have turned and his friends say that ‘’he was lucky’’. He was not lucky, he just worked much harder and now he enjoys the rewards.

Erick mentions that en entrepreneur needs to have the courage to make hard decisions, but let one’s moral values guide those decisions. A successful person must also be humble enough to ask for help and find mentors.

Another valuable piece of advice is not to invest in something just because is trendy when we don’t understand it. He tells about how he invested in a venture during the dotcom bubble because many people were making money off it, but that the investment would have been much more successful if he had just invested it into his own company.