Tarryn is a Leader!

         This week’s study took us down the journey of leadership. It got me thinking about my daughter. She just graduated high school and has been a natural leader her whole life. People are drawn to her. After graduation she took a job at Wal Mart. She is working in the online order/pickup department. It is her first week and I am already hearing comments of how this or that could be improved or made more efficient. She took this job because it is something that she can do for a short time without getting attached and feel bad when she leaves in September. Her natural abilities are far beyond this entry level job and I see management qualities in her that will take her far in whatever field she chooses.

Leadership skills are something that my daughter got from my husband, not from me. Being a leader is hard for me. Developing plans and delegating are not my strong suit. That is one of the reasons that I went back to school. I want to build a business teaching others how to sew and quilt. I want to quilt with a long arm quilting machine and help people get their projects across the finish line. I feel that having some schooling in my background will help me accomplish this dream.

I am excited to learn from Dean Cropper, who built Cropper Medical and the Bioskin brand. He has been there and done that. He and his wife have persevered through the hard times and I am sure they have celebrated the good. They have built a legacy that they are able to pass on to their children. Thankfully their children have embraced different parts of the business. There are many family businesses that the children don’t want any part of.

My quilting business could be one of them.

Perseverance

 Often times, when I have a challenge that I am trying to work through, I think of the pioneers of the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They had some HARD challenges. The journey across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley was long and difficult. Many didn’t make it due to illness or injury causing death along the way but the people knew what they were doing was right and that the Lord would bless them in their efforts. They persevered despite it being hard.

We learned from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (who at the time of the address was the president of BYU) some of the details regarding the building of the Salt Lake temple. The building of this temple took 40 long years of blood, sweat and tears. Once the foundation was dug out and prepared, they had to cover it back up. This must have been so discouraging. Then they had to do it again because it was cracked when they uncovered it. Elder Holland discussed the hard work it took to get just one stone from quarry, cut just the right size and shape and how the people saw very little progress from week to week on the building. But the people knew they were doing the work of the Lord. They had faith and kept on going.

My business isn’t the first priority in my life right now, my family is. My children are growing and getting ready to leave the house for their own adventures. I am trying to savor the time I have left with them. That is a challenge itself. I work my business when they are at school or work. They pop home for a few minutes here and there. I try to spend those few minutes with them. They have been extremely supportive of me. Offering encouraging words when something doesn’t go just right, cheering me on to the finish line of a project or watching the little guy so I don’t have any interruptions. They are wonderful children!

I strive to keep the example of the pioneers in my thoughts when things get hard. They persevered and so can I. I can build a business, with the Lord’s help.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

     I would say that most of us have heard of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This week we focused on learning what these 7 habits are. I haven’t actually read the book, but I think that I may have to now. The 7 habits are broken into two groups. The first three habits, once mastered, give a person a private victory. The last four, once mastered, give a person a public victory. A person must have had a private victory before accomplishing a public victory.

In my life right now, I am drawn to the private victory. I have a beautiful family with lots going on and often struggle to feel on top of it all. The first habit is probably the one that jumps out at me the most. Be Proactive. To me being proactive is the same thing as playing offense in a basketball game. You are the one to make the move rather than responding to the move someone else made. I have had a few times in my life when I was successful at being proactive. More often, though, I am on defense. Just scraping by to get everything done, everyone where they need to be, and fed. Don’t forget to feed the children. Things will get messy if you forget.

I feel like these 7 habits (be proactive, begin with an end in mind, put first things first, think win/win, seek first to understand, then to be understood, synergize and sharpen the saw) will help me on my road to a successful business in the quilting industry. I have already partially skipped the first habit and began to visualize my quilting studio filled with people, learning from one another and building a community together. I guess I need to go back and work on being proactive before I get too far ahead of myself.

When I accomplish my private victory, I will be prepared to move on and have a public victory.

Boundaries

I am a stay-at-home mom of four kids. With that title I wear a lot of hats and do a lot of different things. Let’s add the titles of student, small business owner, teacher. May is the busiest month of the year (I used to think it was December, then I had kids in school). The kids are finishing up the school year with concerts, awards ceremonies, basketball games (yes, basketball in May, weird) and graduation. My family is my top priority and there must be some give and take among the different responsibilities. I only get my daughter for a few more short months before she goes off to college and the next phase of her life.

My study for the week has revolved around developing boundaries for each part of life. One example given was a man that built his business around his kid’s schedule. There was family dinner, bedtime stories and one on one time. He worked on his business while they were at school and after bedtime. They never felt like business came before them. This is what I am striving for.

Something that I love about attending Brigham Young University Idaho is the way that the instructors incorporate a spiritual side of whatever topic you are studying. This week, we were reminded to not forget the Lord in our day-to-day activities. If we decline serving others because all our time is going toward building a business, the Lord knows where our heart is.

Since I went back to school, setting boundaries has been a hard thing for me. I have been squeezing schoolwork in wherever it fits in the schedule. I have been guilty of “not having time to serve.” Funny thing is though, the Lord makes up the difference when I serve anyway.

Boundaries are important!

Passion and Perseverance

This week we covered a few topics that caused me to ponder. One was the concept of finding your passion. Many ask, well how do I find my passion? I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to find it. I have had a few years to work on this and I feel like I have found my passion. I have tried many things over the years, but I always come back to sewing. My thoughts are constantly filled with beautiful fabrics, the next project or how to accomplish something I am stuck on. I lose track of time when I sit with my sewing machine and I get giddy when a project is coming together smoothly and beautifully. I have been caught staging photos of my projects in strange places, sometimes just to embarrass my children. It is something I am good at.

Finding your passion and using it in your work is a common thread each week in my class. When your work is your passion, it doesn’t feel like you are working. It isn’t hard to give back to the community when you are doing what you love.

I have also pondered the characteristic of perseverance. Perseverance is being persistent when “doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” There are many examples of perseverance in my life, my grandmother being one of them. This grandmother passed away before I was born and I have heard many stories from her life. She is someone that I look forward to meeting when my time on earth is finished. Grandma and Grandpa Stark had many struggles in their marriage. Grandpa experienced several injuries that made it hard for him to work. With eight children and limited work, they had very little money. The church building was in a neighboring town and the meetings were spread throughout the week, not the block schedule we have now. Grandpa didn’t go to church with Grandma very often and it was difficult to get eight children there. She and her children were faithfully in attendance each week.

Her example of perseverance is powerful in my life. Just as she did, I can do hard things.

The Formula

 

I spent this week finishing the book “Launching Leaders: An Empowering Journey for a New Generation.” I think the intended audience for this book is in their twenties and thirties. I am on the tail end of that age group and found that many of the concepts taught are things that I try to implement in my life already. After guiding the reader through the journey of taking control of life through the Cycle of Spirituality, the author, Steven A. Hitz, presented “the Formula.” The formula comes from the guidance of two of his treasured mentors, blended together. Living these six steps will provide a “joyful and abundant life.”

They are:

• Get up early                         • Work hard

• Get your education             • Find your oil

• Make your mark                  • Give back

Applying these steps to your life can empower you to be successful in living your life intentionally. Hitz shares an example of how these steps helped a handful of students. An instructor, with permission from the principal of a local school, took five students and conducted a semester-long experiment. This instructor spent one hour a week with these students, helping them apply the formula in their lives. In the end, those five students “went on to win all of the school’s academic awards and were instrumental in their school becoming the highest scoring in the nation on that year’s standardized exams.” Apparently, it really works.

If you know me personally, you know that I am not a morning person. Waking up early is one of the hardest things for me. So, when I learned that this was the first step in Hitz’s formula, I cringed. I want to apply the things I am learning and I want to be successful at it, but getting up early and I don’t get along. I am determined to try. Here’s to my adventure in striving to live “the formula.”

Learning from the Journey

     This week our class highlighted Magdalena Yasil. Magdalena is a successful entrepreneur in the engineering field. I found her story very intriguing. She grew up in Turkey and came the United States to go to college in the early 1970s. When she was young she developed a love for the engineering world. The field was predominantly filled with men which potentially could have created a problem for her. She was determined to study engineering, so she did. She felt strongly that she could do anything despite the cultural beliefs around her. She took each opportunity given her as a learning experience to fill her toolbox of skills. She is a very successful woman.

    What I admire about her and her story is her dedication to get what she wanted. She was willing to work hard and do well. She was able to look past the stigmas of gender and follow her passion. I am sure that she heard many negative comments regarding her gender and her chosen field. She continued to work hard and progress. Learning from her example, I can persevere through the challenges of building a successful career. I am starting this journey much later in life than Magdalena did.

    As I am finishing up the book Launching Leaders, I love the reference of airplanes mentioned. In this case the reference is about charting your course, having the end goal in mind with checkpoints along the way. It reminded me of Elder Uchtdorf teaching about the same thing. Elder Uchtdorf warned that if we are just a single degree off in the beginning, we will never make it to the correct destination. That degree grows over the course of the journey. The book adds to this concept that having checkpoints along the way keep us on the correct path to arrive at the end goal. Recently I found myself at a checkpoint, evaluating my end goal and if I was on the right path to get there (I was a few degrees off). 

A truly inspired concept.