Lessons Learned and Unlearned

This course has taught me so much over the past 14 weeks. I have been humbled by the sheer amount of new information I've received, and I've recognized the Lord's hand in my life in helping me apply them. As I went through this course, the thing that kept coming to my mind was the importance of family in having a happy and successful life. I am so grateful for the emphasis that was put on this during this semester, because I feel that it is so easy to lose sight of our priorities in an increasingly loud world. Family has been on my mind a lot during this semester too as I've been dating Gabi Iverson. She and I actually just got engaged last night, so family has naturally been the center of my thoughts for much the last few months. I truly believe that if I put her and our future kids first each day, the Lord will bless me with the time and energy I need to still work and pursue my entrepreneurial dreams. I also still need to continue reading in my scriptures, praying, a...

This week  learned more about the importance of clear communication. I won't talk about the actual things that happened in order to keep things confidential for the others involved, but there were a few occasions this week where miscommunications caused some misunderstandings and a little bit of conflict. Nothing major happened, but there was some added stress and anxiety because of simple miscommunications. I have learned that I need to talk less and use more small, concise phrases instead of talking a lot to get a small idea across. I tend to try to prove my point and convince others that I'm right, but instead I end up coming across very confrontational, even when I didn't mean that even a little bit. I also need to ask more clarifying questions if I don't know the full truth of a given situation. I tend to jump to conclusions when I don't have sufficient information to correctly do so, and it often ends up coming back to bite me. In order to do this, I have trie...

Integrity is something that I have thought about a lot in the past week, both in a professional and a personal sense. I have chosen to define integrity for myself as a personal commitment to live by truth and righteousness, regardless of the trends or common sins in the world. In order to truly have integrity, one must understand truth and the difference between right and wrong. We have to understand the commandments of God and the ways He has asked us to live life, and then we have to choose to lead our lives in a way that is harmonious with those commandments. Integrity is not perfection, but it is living life with the intention of one day becoming perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. In a business sense, integrity is absolutely essential to finding true success. It is possible to achieve worldly success by cheating people out of money and going about endeavors dishonestly, but ultimately that will cause economic downfall as well as personal failure. For example, the recession...