W11 Reflection: Entrepreneurial Journal

·       What is your attitude toward money?
For me, I know I view money the wrong way and my husband is the opposite. While we work well together, our sense of money has been hard on our relationship in some ways. I am the spender and don’t like to think about money. As a small business owner, I know I need to face my weaknesses and learn how to understand money better, even though it overwhelms me. Luckily, my husband understands it much better than I do and is very patient at teaching me.

·       How can your view of money affect the way you live?
For our situation, the way I view money can negatively affect our family if I spend too much on a rug when I “think” we have enough money but should have gone to the gas bill instead. If I don’t talk to my husband first about bigger purchases, it could negatively affect our relationship. Throughout our marriage, this is something I have had to work hard at, communicating first before buying something. My husband and I are quite opposites, he hates spending money and sometimes that is hard on me when I feel so guilty about buying even the smallest thing.

·       What rules are recommended for prospering?
Rule 1. Seek the Lord and have hope in him
Rule 2. Keep the commandments, that includes the temporal ones, tithing, and fast offerings. Rule 3. Think about money and plan how you can become self-reliant.
Rule 4. Take advantage of chances for learning so you will not be ignorant of these matters. Education, as President Hinckley has taught us, is the Key to Opportunity.
Rule 5. Learn the laws upon which the blessings of wealth are predicated.
Rule 6. Do not send away the naked, the hungry, the thirsty or the sick or those who are held captive.

W08 Reflection: Entrepreneurial Journal

Out of this week’s reading, the clip from “Good things to come” stood out to me the most. I think as an entrepreneur, it is easy to get caught up in life and focus on the things that aren’t going well. I can’t imagine having the problems of the man in the video, and having to leave his wife and kids behind when he went to go find help. What I took away from this video, was how important it is to realize the hardships don’t last forever. In this life we will have hardships and while the gospel doesn’t take away those hardships, it teaches us how to work through it. I think we can compare that to our business as well to those hardships and trials, and how we can better prepare for those trials we’ll go through in our business.

Another part of the reading this week, was the video with David Carrington. I like how he said, “Well that’s good, but what’s your next best idea?” As an entrepreneur, we need to constantly be coming up with and thinking of new ideas. I like how he phrased it, in the sense we always need to have some kind of a good idea. Looking at different problems, past or present, and being able to figure out a solution where most people wouldn’t look. The last part I was interested in, was how David mentioned the three ways to grow a business. To me, it made sense and I knew how important those three things were. The three things increase the number of customers, increase the frequency of purchases, and then increase the average order. It is simple, but also putting it simply helps me not get so overwhelmed as well. Even simple things are helpful, and can be a great value to my business.