Week 14 Vision without effort is daydreaming; effort without vision is drudgery; but vision, coupled with effort, will obtain the prize. - From "Finishers Wanted" - T.S. Monson

We come full circle in my Entrepreneurship class journey. The quote I used to begin my first reflection still resonates:  

It’s not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.                                                                                                                                      —Marcus Aurelius

I often have felt as if I were in stasis, and I was pleased with it. Not growing and advancing, but I did not feel as if I were losing ground either. I simply was. It is not literally true that I did not have learning and growing experiences simply because I had eight children and remained a stay at home Mom. It is impossible to not have learned from each child and their interactions with each other. But in essence I was secure being Mom and did not extend my reach much further.

It was my first goal in life and remains my most cherished.
Nevertheless, I had dreams.

Those dreams are what lead to journeys.

Journeys are what makes a life worth living and indeed defines what life itself truly is.
Through this class I learned of the importance of having and setting goals. You cannot get somewhere without knowing where you are trying to get. From a talk given by Thomas S. Monson we read, "True finishers have the capacity to visualize their objective."

The manner in which we attain an objective is also important, integrity leads to trust from others which in turn leads to greater success. That is not just concerning financial achievement, but is true of any interaction we have with others, even pets!

Being organized and managing our time allows one the ability to do more. Not that we need to be constantly busy…being busy for the sake of simply doing is not always productive. Learning to structure our day, our activities and our goals lets us track our progress.

Being able to see where we have been and where we are can sometimes lead to discouragement as we battle a dragon far more resilient than we imagined. But we must keep our eyes, hearts and minds on the goal; push through the difficulties and we will feel a greater sense of accomplishment.

Again I reference a quote used earlier in the quarter it was by Leonardo da Vinci, “You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself.” Then he goes on to say that “the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. … And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.” ​

As entrepreneurs we must learn to trust our own actions and truly learn to master those weaknesses, by making them our strengths. As learned from the book Mastery by George Leonard it is true that with practice a difficult thing becomes easy and depending on what it is, it can be pleasurable too. Tennis, for example, is hard at first but those who put in the time and effort come to love the game. Leonard likens the lesson to all aspects of life and states that as we seek to gain mastery it is important to accept that the pursuit never ends. Because we have our own never-ending story to experience it is important to remember to enjoy the journey as well.

So like Martin Luther King said, “Whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”
Work through the hard times, persevere find the value in your trials and never give in to doubt.
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And above all be grateful, humble and selfless.

My dreams are to own successful companies so that I can provide needed services to the less fortunate. My dream is to write something  that engenders joy when read. I don't feel a need to change the world, I just want to leave positivity in my wake.