BUS 110 Week 4: How Will You Measure Your Life?

This week, we took a look at how we, as individuals, would measure our lives. I started the week thinking that I was doing pretty well in my life. I knew that I could do things better and that I was definitely behind in some areas. However, I have always told myself that if I just keep plugging along, all the areas where I have faults would eventually catch up to the rest of me. 

I now see that I should have been paying better attention to my entire life. I have focused most of my efforts on my career first. Secondly, I have devoted time to self-interest. I left my family and friends with little to no investment at all. I have been even worse when it comes to my spiritual side. 

Career-wise, I have been able to find many different paths. I reached ever onward for the next level. First, I was a Security Officer, then I assumed the level of Security Dispatch, and next came Field Training Officer. The next level to strive for was that of Defensive Tactics Instructor and Verbal Defense and Influence Instructor. Once I reached this level, I helped to develop the Use Of Force Policies for my then-employer. 

I thought that I had a good grip on my life. I thought that I was pretty set and happy with where I was. This week, while looking at where I am in life and reading the assigned reading for the class, I found that I was not being honest with myself. 

I was not happy; I was delusional and lying to myself. I told myself and others that I was only afraid of two things in this world: snakes and my mother. Now I know that there were some real fears hidden beneath my bravado. I realize that I am genuinely fearful that my contributions to the world will never be seen, or perhaps that I haven't made any true contributions at all. My other fear is one that deeply scares me to my core. This fear is that I will not be able to care for my wife, family, and friends in the way that they need. I am scared that they will see me as a fraud and decide that they can do better without me. I worry that my wife will decide that I am too much trouble to her and move on to somebody that is a better match for her and that will be better able to care for her. 

Now that I have discovered these additional fears, I will have to begin working on ways to ensure that they do not come to fruition and that I am always treating my loved ones as if they are a true part of the person that I am and that I am becoming. 

BUS 110 Week 3 Honesty & Business Ethics

This week we looked at and learned about honesty and ethics as they related to business. I have tried to live my life with as much and honesty as I could. I apply this to every situation that I have at work every day. How would I want to be treated in this situation? What is the honest option? How can my personal ethics be applied to my career?

How would I want to be treated in this situation? When I approach any situation that includes choices and options that could be, or lead to dishonesty towards others or me I would want to be treated with as much honesty as they can. Allowing for this i can better treat other people with as much honesty as I am able to muster. I do not deliver it in a way that could hurt the person that I am talking to though. Honesty goes a long way in a person’s personnel life and can go an even greater distance in their professional life. In the professional world your word is what can make or break a deal. It can keep a valued employee working for you, or it can drive them away. An honest businessperson will usually win out over the dishonest person in the end. 

A person’s or businesses ethics start with their level of honesty. If they have a high level of honesty, they are more likely to act in more ethical ways towards their employees, customers, partner businesses, and suppliers. Ethical people will choose to bring their business to others of the same high standards. This can be a boon to those that lead their businesses with high moral values.

The line of being an ethical business is a fine line and must always be watched. If you trip up and begin to fall you will have a harder time getting back to the top of the hill you have fallen. Your employees will have a hard time trusting you to treat them properly. Your customers will be unwilling to bring their business to you and your suppliers will not trust you to pay for their goods.

How do you as a consumer want to be treated? How would you feel if your employer treated you unfairly and had little to no honesty with you? Would you want to supply a company that has few or low ethics? Make the right choices and you will benefit from them in this world and the next.

Bus 110 Week 2 Reflection

This week we were asked to watch several videos and read some information about leading a life of meaning. This is an interesting concept to me. Before this week I had thought that living with meaning meant that you had lived a life in service to a greater cause. To have made a large impact on the world around you. I always felt that I was doing this by the very nature of my chosen career. I have worked in security for most of my life. I always said that I was making the world safer just via the fact that I was there doing my job. 

 

After watching the video about Randy Pausch's last lecture and the reading for this week it could mean something different than what I thought it did. I could live a meaningful life by constantly pushing up to and through the barriers that I found on my path. I did not have to focus on making one large impact. I could make several smaller ones and accomplish the same thing. Like Pausch I could reach for my dreams and continue to make small changes to the world around me through my efforts and will to succeed. I could show my family that if you want it and work hard at it you will get. You just must push past the "brick walls” that are there to stop the other people. 

 

There will always be something that tries to block your path. It is incumbent upon you to find a way to past it and move on to the next thing that you want to accomplish in your life. When we were kids’ people all around us told us that dreams could come true. What they did not tell us is that we hard to put the effort into them to ensure that they came to fruition. Dreaming is a very important part of life, not just for children but for adults as well. It is our dreams that give us the will to continue to push through the morass that we find ourselves getting stuck in. 

 

Dreams give us the fuel that we need to keep life on the tracks we set when we first began to look into our future and make plans for our lives. Our dreams should always be on our minds. The ever-constant friend and encouragement that we as people need to continue down our roads.

BUS 110 Week 1 Reflection

This week, I began the next phase of my education. I spent much of last year completing a program called BYU-Pathway. This is a program through the LDS church that my wife is a member of. It is designed to help people that are thinking about getting back into school. It guides them through four or five courses that help to see how much work may be involved and gives them ways that they can deal with the added stress and efforts that will be required of them. 

After successful completion of this program, you are encouraged to apply for a degree program so that you can continue to reach your goals in life. I have chosen to continue and finish my pursuit of obtaining a degree in Business Management. This is a degree that I have been working on for a few years. I believe that this will help me to better care for the people that I care about.

This first week of the class has been a little rough on me. I had to squeeze in my classwork between being sick and trying to cover for my boss quitting his job and just walking away without giving any sort of information about what he had been working on for the next couple of weeks.

To accomplish my studies, I leaned on some of the lessons from the Pathway Program. Through that program I learned to rely on those around me for their help with matters that I have difficulty with. I also learned that I just need to have the correct mindset for the tasks at hand. By ensuring that I am going into this and all future weeks of my education with a growth mindset, I will give myself a much better chance of success in the weeks, months, and years to come.