Week 5: Mastery: Skill, Character, or Luck

This week there were some topics that stood out to me:

From Perseverance by James E. Faust: “What are you looking forward to learning and experiencing? What did you learn from the readings and videos this week? Be sure you comment on the key takeaways from the 22 minute video "A Hero's Journey" in this journal entry.”

From Perseverance by James E. Faust: “Perseverance is demonstrated by those who keep going when the going gets tough, who don’t give up even when others say, “It can’t be done.””

 From the “Are Successful Entrepreneurs Born or made?”: “So in the end, what made them different from others who hadn’t been as successful and fulfilled? They had stayed the course. Day after day; year after year.

Other would-be-entrepreneurs might have been even more talented, but they became bored. Hopped from industry to industry. Tried to get rich quickly. Relied on “who they knew” to attract opportunities and favors rather than mastering a skill. Tried to take advantage of others instead of doing what was right.

The entrepreneurial heroes in front of me loved the great game of entrepreneurship. So they showed up, every day, in the same industry, with the same people. Through trial and error, successful and failed decisions, they made tiny deposits of industry expertise, business knowledge, and trust which built a web of assets that made running a successful business much easier and served as a formidable barrier to competitors.

Are successful entrepreneurs born or made? Are entrepreneurs blessed with a rare gene or shaped by their parents and childhood? Turns out, these aren’t even the right questions.

Entrepreneurs become successful, one small investment at a time, in a never-ending process. Because entrepreneurial success isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. A journey taken one determined step at a time, in a way that builds lifelong treasures.”

From “How Do You Find Your Passion and How Do You Pursue It?” by Randy Kosimar “What are my values? What I care about?... The biggest issue is not choosing between right or wrong. That’s easy. The hardest thing to do in life is to choose amongst right answers. It’s the issue of optimization…So, the issue in my mind is to make a decision based up on a set of right answers as they marry up against what you really feel here about them. And then do them.

From “Most Entrepreneurs are Not Rock Stars“ by David Friedberg, The Climate Corporation: David Friedberg offers metrics comparing the possible rewards and chances for success between working for an existing company and starting your own venture. He also explains the advantages and caveats of trying to make impact from inside larger organizations.

From a Hero’s Journey by Bryan Carter:  When he was a young man he wanted to change the world and asked himself “Do I really have what it takes to be succeed? And I were successful would I lose my souls in the process? The answers can be found in this statement: “You have a very special mission on this earth, a mission that would succeed beyond your wildest dreams but only If you have the faith and the courage to find entrepreneurial calling. You are worried about the wrong things and for some of you that mean that you are going to miss the opportunity of a life time.

What is that mean to choose a hero’s journey? It means to live every moment of your live like it matter. Because it does. It means to live if you have an important mission, because you do. It does not matter the prize in the end but how the hero is changing in the process.

As teacher, Bryan Carter promise to teach his students how to learn how to learn, learn how to make money, and learn how to live a life of meaning. Learn how to learn is the most important: Learn to listen, learn to ask questions, learn to make my points, try not to be the smartest person in the room.

Learn to live a life of meaning: After a series of interviews with people of different ages, people over 60 years essentially said the same questions:

Have I contributed with something meaningful? Am I a good person? And who I loved and who loved me?

About the first question, “Have I contributed with something meaningful?” The secret to lock this question is never give up your search for calling. That special mission where you can find your greatest God given gifts and use them in a way that brings you a great joy and satisfy the dip burning need in the world.

Along the way of our professional journey we will find people much smarter than us and much harder worker, and if we want to be successful we need to expertise in something. We need to find a calling to fit our special gifts.

“Try this experience:

Ask 5 people you know well, what you did better than anyone else in the world. Press for specifics examples and numbers and you will discover your gift in something that you think it is easy, because is easy for you…

A calling must serve others.

Choose your fellow travelers well for is a trip you will take once… It is of most importance to be surrounded of people of character. Because… you will come to be like the people who surrender you.

Spend time with your family. The most special of your fellow travelers.

Paradox: It is not about you, it is all about you. It is not about your happiness. It is all about you because using your gifts to change the world will change you in the process.