How strong are we?

     I have been running my family business with my brother for over 13 years.  I have seen many nursery fall during the recession, some that have been around for over 50 years.  What made them fall?  Why could a nursery not make it through this recession and survive the other 4 in the last 50 years?  I always thought businesses became stronger as they got older, but I think even time will chink the armor of age for a business.
    I keep coming back to the reason our company has survived the many years, 50+ years.  My father claimed that we should have been bankrupt at least twice.  My father always said the reason from not going into bankruptcy was because he paid his tithing and he followed the Lord.  Many in the business world would question our standards as being old fashion.  If you really think about it, the Lord teachings are in line with good business practises.  Treat your customer with respect and understanding, the Lord would say "love they neighbor as thyself".  Be honest in your dealings with your customers and vendors.  That screams hard core Christian values.
   I am in sales and I am owner, so basically everything that I sell has my name on it.  I want to go to bed each night saying to myself, "Did I do what was right in my life today", that includes my professional and personal life.  I have built my name in the company that is fair to my employees, customers and vendors.  If I have that philosophy I know I will be successful.  Even if the business does go down, which I know it won't, I can say I was always honest and the Lord knows it.  I guess this is why I love business so much, I can live my religion at work.  I am glad that I can set the standards for how the company operates
   I appreciate this week's lessons on keeping to our core values and ethics.  I like that if we have good business ethics we will have success.  Strong businesses are strong because the know who they are and are not ashamed of it.

A Child's Dream

         Did you ever dream about becoming an astronaut or being a professional baseball player?  I remember going outside throwing the baseball at the side of the house to work on my glove skills and begging my mom to take me to the batting cage to improve batting.  Then one day I stopped dreaming of being that baseball player and dreamed of another dream.  I guess the nice thing about being a child, the world is still conquerable.  

         This last week I was able to listen and read an article about Randy Pausch.  He gave a great lecture about going after your childhood dreams.  He wanted to pursue a few things like doing zero gravity, be an imagineer, win a big stuff animal, and many more.  He went on to tell how he went about achieving these dreams.  He first mentioned his mother gave him the moral encouragement and also his mentors.  These people were giving him the strength when he felt like quitting.  He goes on to say, "Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore?"  We need to decide in our lives what kind attitude we want to have.  If we choose to be the "Tigger" we will see the success we want because we have fun doing it.  Then he goes onto loyalty.  Loyalty is a two-way street, we must be willing and ready to defend and protect.  As we create this loyalty we will create friends that will help us down some of these hard road.  Another subject he talks about is the "Never give up" attitude.  If we keep our dreams close to us and say to ourselves on a regular basis never give up, the person you only have to prove in this life is ourselves and at the day we leave this mortal husk we will ask ourselves, "Did I do everything I could do...?"  When we never give up then we will never have to ask ourselves this.

         

       Marty Sklar (Disney Imagineer 50+ years) wrote in one of his books "Dream it Do it".  This man is in his 70s and he is still dreaming.  If a man of that age is dreaming, I feel very strongly that we should always dream.  I believe when we stop dreaming, the world will stop turning.  I am always telling my kids to never stop dreaming.  If want to be the astronaut then do it, don't let anyone say you can't.  Then I ask them, "Why do you think people will crush those dreams?", the would answer, "no idea", I would proceed to tell them those people can't dream or they themselves are scared to live their dreams and want to make people sad like them.  If we do stop dreaming we will never know if we can harness the power of the sun in cold fusion, or seeing flying cars in real use.  The best dream is the one that is being lived and being improved upon.  We should never stop dreaming, if we do then all those men and women who came before us will be crying in Heaven because they will feel their work is for not.

   

     I had dreams of being professional baseball player, then I realize I was not very good at it.  I was ok when I realize that, because my next dream came into my life and I still dream about it.  I know I cannot live that dream at this moment because of my obligation.  My dream is to work at Disneyworld as a tour guide.  It sounds dumb and childish, but think about getting paid to take people around where both parents and child are really happy and the proceed to tell of a marvelous story of a man who wanted to create an "Utopia" of sorts.  I love history and Disney and being a tour guide would be great.  The reason I cannot go after that dream at this time is because it doesn't pay well to support a family of 4 and be able to afford the comforts I like.  When I retire from this job, I told my wife I would like to work at Disney World.  She agreed, and their is my promise to myself. 

        If you feel like stop dream, don't.  If we can't find it, hang out with a kid for a day or two.  We need to always dare to dream the impossible.  I will use Walt Disney - "All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them".  Do we have the courage to pursue our dream?

An Entrepreneur's code

In this weeks course I came to a conclusion the entrepreneurs are people from all directions of life and talents.  This next part is a reflection of my feelings of the entrepreneur.

Dear Entrepreneurs,
   We have journeyed many miles, failed at many things, worked harder and longer than most, and yet here we are with no company, no income, and nothing to our name.  Then why do I not feel bad?  Why do I still yearn to seek out another venture, to risk it all knowing that it might fail?  Why am I not exhausted from the endless amount hours I have put into make a product that failed?
    Now I remember why.  I am an entrepreneur.  We have code, nothing official code set by any club or school, but we do live by when we get knocked down we get back and say, "Well at least I failed (fell) forward".  We are the people who make this world a better place, we yearned to have our product be the best and to be successful.  We are willing to sacrifice now for big returns later.  We are the heroes that created i-Pods, Disneyland, airplanes, and even rubber tires.  If you look at these men and women in the business world who created these wonderful things, they have one thing in common they were fearless.  They knew if they failed they would lose everything if not most of everything they had.   The world wants to knock us down because we are the strength that binds humanity together from our ingenuity.  We must never give those people the satisfactions of beating us.
   Remember this quote when you are tired "When you feel like quitting, remember why you started" author unknown.  Please don't give up, we are the future and future would look dimmer if you quit.

Sincerely,
Disney Freak