My "Last Lecture". Honestly I don't feel very qualified in giving a "lecture", but, I will do my best to convey the lessons I have learned. I feel like I have learned a lot throughout this semester. There were a lot of very great lessons to choose from. I would say that some of the most important things I have learned that I feel would be appropriate to share for my "last lecture" are the importance of having good values, being strong in what you believe and reaching your goals, don't be afraid to ask questions, and don't be afraid to take risks, make mistakes, and fail.
I don't think I can stress enough how important it is to have good values when starting a business and in life in general. The values that you live and go off of in life, really can affect the success of a business. If your only goal is to gain money, than you aren't going to be very successful in life. Your business could be successful, but not your life as a whole. You need to value what you are doing, you need to value the customers, and you need to value your employees. You need to have honesty, trust, loyalty, love, care, etc. within your business and actually hold up to those values.
You need to be able to stand strong in what you want. It can be very scary, but persevere! Set worthy goals and don't let anything get in your way.
Don't be afraid to ask questions and be teachable. It is inevitable that mistakes are going to be made, so don't be afraid to take advice and learn from those mistakes so that they can be avoided in the future. Taking risks and failing is all part of life, not just business. I think that we learn some of life's greatest lessons from our failures. But, that is the mindset you have to have if and when you fail. You can't let your failures keep you down. It is what you learn from the mistakes and what you do with them that either make you successful or not. You have to be willing to learn and try again. You need to have that determination. You can't let the first sign of trouble bring you down forever. If you do that there will be no room for success, no moving forward.

This week in B283 we focused a lot on failing. I learned that more often than not, people fail, sometimes several times, before they have success. It was very reassuring. I feel like I have not done as well with my $100.00 challenge as I would have liked. But, I have a learned a lot about what I could improve and where I could make some changes. Most of those changes would need to start with me. It was interesting to me to learn how many very well-known people have had some significant failures but have become some of the most successful people. We did an assignment this week where we had to choose an entrepreneur to study that has had some sort of failure in their life as an entrepreneur. I chose to study Walt Disney. I learned that he was fired from a newspaper agency because he lacked creativity. I would never of known that looking at all he has done with his life. I learned that he had started a business before Disney that went bankrupt. One other person mentioned Michael Jordan. He was kicked off of his high school basketball team. I learned that it is okay to fail. I learned that it is okay to fail, but that it is not okay to just give up. I learned that it is what you take from failing and what you do with that lesson that counts. Failing is inevitable. But success only comes if we keep working for it despite our failures.

This week has been a good week. We have learned a lot about family owned businesses and how a well established family owned business should work. There is a lot that needs to go into owning a family business. There are very personal relationships that need to be taken into account as well as making a living/profit off of the company. I have worked in a family owned business before, and there are definitely challenges. One of them being it was hard to spend time with the family because, often, the business would be brought up. And I won't deny that it was necessary, but it was hard because that seemed to be the main focus of all of our conversations. It became better and it was worked out. But, believe it or not, relationships can become strained in family owned businesses.
My $100.00 challenge project is coming along! I'm excited to get the final results all worked out. There was a lot that has had to go into it, but it has worked out. There are definitely things that I wish I could have done better had I had the time to do it better. But, overall, I am satisfied.

This week for B283 we have talked a lot about becoming an owner of a franchise location. It was very interesting and we were given a lot of very good information, but as I was doing the assignments, I learned that I really did not want to become an owner of a franchise. I think that there are many pro's to becoming a franchise owner, but I also think that there isn't a lot of freedom. I think that if I were to open a company, I would want the freedom to do what I want with it as needed. With a franchise there are many regulations and restrictions. Those regulations and restrictions are not necessarily a bad thing, but it does limit creativity and freedom of expressing ideas.
On a different note, I have a couple of new buyers for my $100.00 challenge product. It has been going pretty well and I am excited to see the end results. I have to admit that I will not be making a lot, but I have been able to learn a lot and figure out things that I need to do differently to get the results that I want and need.

This week has been a really good week in B283. There has been a lot of really good information for us to study. We learned a lot about the founding of Burt's Bee's and the process the founders of that company had to go through to make it as successful as it is today. That story is a very inspirational story that everyone should know. The founders of that company are very inspiring. That was probably my favorite case study that we have studied at this point in the semester. It was inspiring because it just goes to show that anything is possible as long as you put you heart and mind to it and are willing to take some chances.
My $100.00 challenge is going pretty well at this point in the semester. I have the majority of my product about ready to be sold and have buyers! So that is exciting. I was getting nervous for a little while there because of the setbacks I was having with finding the supplies I needed and not being able to find the right things. But I am excited to see the results of the work that I have been putting in to everything.

I have really enjoyed the lessons this week for B283. They focused a lot on hiring and values within a company. It focused on the types of people you should hire and how to go through the hiring process and weed out the "good" from the "bad". There was a lot of very good and valuable information that was given. This week has been better for my $100.00 challenge. I was able to get the supplies needed for my product and start on getting it all put together and ready to sell. I've been a little worried about my late start, but feel like I can still pull it off. I am excited with how everything is turning out, and to see where it will go once it is all done! I'm learning that there are a lot more details that need to go into these kinds of things than you think starting off. I'll be honest, I didn't think that I was going to have any problems starting off, but as I've tried to get everything figured out with trying to find the supplies that I needed, who to sell to, how to market it, etc., I've learned that it is much more than just putting it together and selling it. You have to figure out who your target market is going to be and then how you are going to market to them. You have to make all these decision that you may not realize at first. It is definitely a learning process for me, but I am liking what I am learning and figuring out how to apply it. 

This has been an interesting week for me and my $100.00 challenge. I have had to make some major changes due to lack of resources for the product I had originally planned on doing. But! I was able to come up with some different ideas/plans and have the products that I need to get it all together and will be able to have everything ready to go. Later than I had originally planned, but it is getting there, slowly but surely. I have had to completely change my product. My target market will remain the same, but the product will be different.
Some things that we have focused on this week in B283 is our leadership/managing styles. We have learned a lot about what it means to be a good leader/manager within a business. Something that seems to have stuck out to me is that a good leader is going to be willing to make sacrifices. A good leader will put the people/business before their own needs or wants. Several of the articles that we read seemed to boil down to the fact that a good leader will make sacrifices and be very selfless when it comes to the better of the company and filling needs. The willingness to sacrifice and serve will be some major ingredients to becoming a good leader.