Exercise 1 in Initiative: My personal essay

I'm doing a course in entrepreneurship based on this book by Josh Spodek. Here's the first exercise we had to do - write about entrepreneurship, initiative, taking responsibility, what motivated me to do this course, and why I'm wanting to do this now:

I don’t think I’ve intentionally taken much initiative. I wasn’t really encouraged to or needed to; everything in childhood was handed to me. I was directed towards what I should like, what I should do and not do. I only started taking initiative when I got older; but even then, it was to walk through doors that were open rather than actively open doors. The only two incidents I can remember are when I really wanted something: 1) desperately wanting to travel and study no more after university – I made it happen and travelled around Europe for a year; and 2) trekking up the hill to my now husband’s house because I wanted to see him.

What has worked so far in creating projects: imitating others. Taking someone else’s idea and tweaking/embellishing it to suit my needs and tell a similar but different story has worked to a certain point. Starting from scratch, not so much.

Entrepreneurship is not something I was thrilled about. It was something I did/stumbled into because of life happening. In fact, I don’t even know if you can consider it entrepreneurship. It was more like me finding a way to make a living and keep my brain cells from dying while raising small humans. As for responsibility, I’m trying to take more responsibility for my life. Yes, I can’t deny that I’m a product of my environment and culture, but I can’t use that as an excuse forever. I’m an adult and have to own my choices and decisions rather than play the blame game.

I decided to take this course because God made our paths (Josh and mine) cross. It’s a ‘happening that happened’ while I was searching for a way to write consistently. Josh introduced me to SIDCHAs, which just clicked. I don’t quite know exactly why this concept stuck when all the other productivity ‘hacks’ didn’t, but it did, so here I am. So taking this course is valuable because if he can help me make one thing ‘click’, he might be able to make the rest click too. It would be lovely to be passionate about something; wake up with a fire in my gut and be excited about what I get to do. Because I don’t really have a dream. Or if I do, I don’t know it. I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Then again, I don’t really ever want to grow up.

Two memories come to mind: 1) when I was about 17/18, I had an interview for a scholarship. The interviewer asked me what I would do if I wasn’t offered a scholarship in the degree of my choice, to which I replied that it wouldn’t be an issue. I didn’t get the scholarship – the feedback was that I was too flexible. In hindsight, I think they were really kind to word it that way considering I had no passion/direction. 2) During a heart-to-heart chat with my younger brother, he expressed confusion that I can have no clear dream/passion/direction but amazement that I still ‘somehow made it work’. I didn’t realize that’s how I was being perceived until that moment.

In the next 6 months, I hope to learn more about me – what I like or don’t like, what I feel strongly about and what I can do about it. I want to get to know myself much better. It feels selfish and makes me feel a bit guilty, but I’m aware that serving myself will in turn, serve others. I know it, but it will likely take time to KNOW it because my heart and mind aren’t always connected. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about projects (problem-solution pairs) yet. On one hand I think it’ll be great to be involved in something I’m passionate about. On the other hand, I want to file it in the too-hard basket. What’s wrong with cruising through life? But because the default is the cruising, I won’t know what the being involved is like until I test it. So this is a test.

Areas of interest

I can think of 3 areas of interest: Jesus, money & math (this is one area), and coffee & chats/connecting with people. I think the ideal area of interest would be one that incorporates all three. If I think of a Venn diagram, the intersection between all three circles would be THE field of interest. I can’t think of a word or short phrase to describe it. Yet. It might be a cool niche.

Lists of people

Field of interest: SJ. Martine, Josh B, Jennifer C

Highly valued: Pete and Debbie Ochs. Alan and Katherine Barnhart. Julie Wilson. Teri Bledsoe. Janine Maxwell.

Role models: Jesus. Lydia. Tim Mackie. Pete Greig. Howard Dayton. Randy Alcorn.

I’d like to start taking initiative in all aspects of life. A large part of the journey of following Jesus is stewarding LIFE (labour, influence, finances, expertise) well, and I don’t think I’m quite there. I don’t want to get to accounting day and have to tell Him that I hid all my resources in the ground because I was afraid.