Communication is of the essence

Just last weekend I experienced how hard and stressful it can be to communicate openly when a situation is uncomfortable. I had a conflict with a close friend of mine, where I felt like I wasn't being treated the way that I should. I'm pretty easy going and I'm not quick to anger, but I also don't like feeling like I don't matter. Not that anyone does, but I had gotten to a point that I felt like I was pretending everything was ok when it wasn't. I finally made it known that I wasn't ok. I neglected to make the clear point that I had intended to make because I was anxious to leave after I had said all I had to say. The situation made me uncomfortable and I was afraid it could potentially turn into a fight.  I was tempted to just avoid communicating all together because the situation became increasingly uncomfortable and the communication barriers became even stronger, but something told me that I needed to actually talk to this friend to clear things up. I grudgingly followed the prompting that I had and called them to arrange a time for us to chat. Even after I made this phone call I was still tempted to just drop it and move on. In fact I almost  did. Even when this person texted me a couple days later to get together and talk I almost felt relieved that I wasn't able to on that day. I did eventually end up talking to my friend and straightening things out, but I was very tempted to blow it off because it seemed uncomfortable. I'm really glad that I didn't succumb to that temptation because I realized that when it is most difficult, that is when it is most important.

Comfort Zone

Just the other day my business mentor was mentoring me on building my business. One thing that he really stressed in our meeting was to never allow yourself to be too comfortable talking to people. At first this didn't make any sense to me, but then he explained it. The most important thing is to be always pushing your comfort zone. He told me that the second the I felt really comfortable talking to people and getting contacts for my business that I should be worried. The reason being that when you are comfortable you aren't growing. This made perfect sense to me. In the LDS Church, we've always been taught to step out of our comfort zone and to be constantly learning and growing. I began to ponder more about this concept. It's like in anything that we do, if we aspire to be better then we need to always be pushing ourselves a little bit harder in what we want to achieve. It is also a matter of pride. We can never become to great and there is always room for improvement in anything that we do, even if it is something that we have come to succeed in. There is always room for improvement especially since we are human beings and no human being is perfect. I've come to realize that if I want to expand my network that I should never allow myself to be too comfortable interacting with people. I would encourage everyone to never get too comfortable with who they are and where they are in life. There is always room for improvement if you want true success in life.

Building a Business

I've always had an entrepreneurial mindset and given the state of our economy and the lack of job opportunities it seems like the best route for anyone to take. I have a love and passion for planning social events.  My plan is to run my own successful business so that I can work my own schedule and be home with my family, however I also enjoy writing and would love to work for a magazine while trying to build my business. The thing that I love the most, which both of these dreams entail, is working with people. I love to help and learn about different people in any way that I can. When I came home for the 7 week break from BYU-Idaho, my 21 year old brother told me about a business that he was trying to build and he even had a mentor. He invited me to a meeting in order to give me an opportunity to learn more about it. When he first told me about it I thought that it sounded ridiculous. I thought maybe he had been sucked into a scam, but the more I listened and the more research I began to do about World Wide Dream Builders (WWDB) the more I realized that this business is really about building your own business and helping other people to build theirs. What really inspired me to want to build my own business was a book titled Rich Dad Poor Dad: The Business of the 21st Century. It is written by Robert T. Kiyosaki, a multimillionaire investor, business owner, educator, and speaker. In this book he talks about how given this economic time it is the best time to build your own business, but that it takes a lot of time and effort. Building a business happens over a period of time and takes a lot of persistence and self motivation. A couple things that Kiyosaki and WWDB both teach is that building a business is about reaching out to other people and helping them to build their own business, which in turn helps you to build yours. My plan is to start building a business with WWDB and working with the different companies that they associate with, such as Amway, Best Buy, Barnes and Noble etc. before I graduate this next semester. I know that this will take some time and I plan to work in journalism until this business and my event planning business can take off. I am really excited about this and I'm going to try this plan out for the next five years to see what will happen with it.