What is the Introduction to Entrepreneurship Course?
An introduction
The Big Picture
Every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important today, and
when you say of a thing that “nothing hangs on it” it sounds like blasphemy.
There's never any knowing—how am I to put it?—which of our actions, which of
our idleness’s, won't have things hanging on it forever.
—E.M. Forster
To put it simply, living a life of meaning is about living life with intent. It’s about deeply,
honestly knowing ourselves. And it’s about developing the wisdom to appreciate that this brief
spark of consciousness of ours is an enormous, rare privilege—one in which we’re capable of
extraordinary things.
As such, BYU-Idaho’s Introduction to Entrepreneurship Course is designed to help you know
yourself—your strengths, your passions, even your dark side—and to help you chart a course
forward and blueprint those extraordinary things.
This course provides what few—if any—business schools do: the tools and resources to
evaluate and take stock of your life and to view it in the context of your entrepreneurial
aspirations. It doesn’t matter which leg of your adventure you’re on—upon meeting a big
milestone, after selling your business for more money than you’ll ever need, during the middle
of a rut, or looking back at the end of life—the diagnostic tools you’ll earn in this course will
be invaluable.
But it will only be invaluable if—and only if—you are willing to dig deeply and honestly inside
yourself. It’s hard work. And it’s never ending. And not every person is ready, willing, or able to
take the courageous steps required. The question is: are you ready?
Because inevitably you will come to a place in life where you’ll find yourself asking “Is this all
there is?” and “What should I do next?” When you do, the instruments you tune here will be the
first items you reach for if—and here’s the big if again—you’ve paid the price to learn to use
them in a way that transforms your life.
If you have paid that price, then when the path eventually ends, as it will for all of us—when all
those important “little trifles” have finally culminated—you’ll likely look back and ask yourself
the following three questions:
1. Did I contribute something meaningful?
2. Was I a good person?
3. Who did I love and who loved me?
Starting to live a life of meaning now means never having to regret the answers to those
questions.
The Four Goals
The Introduction to Business Course is like a compressed preview of your life ahead, an
accelerated version of the trials and lessons you are likely to face on your life’s journey as an
entrepreneur.
This preview of your future is this courses sword in the stone, so to speak: without a lot of effort
and preparation, it won’t budge.
Here are your four biggest goals:
1. To discover an entrepreneurial “calling,” the startup of you
2. To choose constructive habits and to deeply etch them onto your character
3. To select your next “steppingstone job or begin your entrepreneur career.
4. To Embrace Disciple Leadership by examining “The Ministry of Business”
Discover an entrepreneurial “calling”
A calling helps you decide what to do with your life and who you want to become. It is a
mission where you use your greatest gifts and strengths, in a way that brings you great
passion and joy, while serving a deep, burning need in the world.1
FIGURE 1. INGREDIENTS OF A CALLING
1
Gifts/Strengths World's Deep, Burning Needs Joy/Passions Adapted from Jim Collin’s book Good to Great.
2
Choose constructive habits and deeply etch them onto your character
A second goal is to choose and deeply embed into yourself habits of listening, learning, and
personal ethics, so that when you’re faced with an ethical dilemma, you’ll be better equipped
to make choices that align with who you want to become.
Select your next “steppingstone job”
The final goal of the Life of Meaning Course is to prepare to choose your next steppingstone
job—that is, a job where you can master the skills and develop the knowledge and
relationships you will need to advance your entrepreneurial journey.
Embracing Disciple Leadership
At BYU-Idaho, we are striving to become Disciple Leaders. That is why BYU-Idaho is
often referred to as a Disciple Preparation Center. We strongly belief in the principle of
small “L” leadership or everyday leadership. You can make a difference without the need
for a title or position of leadership.
Stars and Steppingstones
Your star is the ultimate manifestation of your calling. Steppingstones are how you get there.
A visual representation of the metaphor (Figure 2) shows life as a series of thoughtful trial-anderror experiments, each of which move you toward what you want to accomplish and who you
want to become. Often, the logic of life’s path is only seen in hindsight, but this course provides
you the basic foresight to accompany that hindsight.
FIGURE 2. THE STARS AND STEPPINGSTONES PATH
3
There are multiple ways you could decide to approach stars and steppingstones. You might use it
as a planning tool, where you begin with the end (your star) in mind and work backward toward
the present to develop milestones until the next steps in life (your steppingstones) become
clearer.
Or you might be more spontaneous and—while choosing certain skills or areas to master—
remain open to the opportunities that present themselves along your journey, designing each one
to move you closer to fulfilling a calling and living a life well-lived.
For either approach, ethical guardrails help serve as reminders of the wisdom of making
consistent ethical decisions in a way that helps keep your life and your aspirations on course.
A Warning about Stars and Callings
Defining a calling and choosing a star that represents your long-term goals can be intimidating.
After all, who can predict the future?
And for most of us, discerning a calling is a frustrating, lifelong experiment. Very few of us have
a “road to Damascus” experience where a calling or star becomes crystal clear in a flash. For
many, a calling is only clear near the end of life, as we look back and trace the threads and
chance occurrences that made our lives full and complete.
But the lack of clear-cut direction is a poor excuse for refusing to take intentional steps toward
the type of life you want to lead and type of person you want to become. Otherwise, you’ll
become disenchanted and disappointed, and likely give up the search before your epiphany
comes.
So while the view ahead may be foggy, there’s plenty you can do, right now, to forge ahead. You
can work hard to uncover special skills and talents. You can pay attention to which activities
bring you great joy. You can commit to master skills or areas so that you start attracting
opportunities to you. You can commit to new and exciting adventures—even ones as short as a
year or two—which, when woven together, can make the path of a calling clearer.
The Course Flow: A Hero’s Journey of Entrepreneurship
This course has a course flow that mimics the classic Hero’s Journey, but customized for
entrepreneurs.
The course is roughly broken into 14 units, to help you examine and acquire the 14 mindsets
of successful entrepreneurs:
1. Branding yourself: the startup of you 2. Learning to Create Meaning: Having a purpose driven life 3. Embracing Core values of honesty and living by the spirit 4. Creating a personal constitution 4
5. Apply habit of highly successful entrepreneurs 6. Harness the power of relations and mentorship 7. Move forward with passion 8. Manage adversity 9. Acquire Disciple Leadership skills 10 Move forward with peak performance 11 Manage Money 12 Give Back 14 Have an attitude of Gratitude 15 Celebrate Life The Life of Meaning Framework
During the course, you’ll use the Life of Meaning Framework (Table 1), a series of questions to
help you diagnose where you stand on your journey and decide what to do next. Whether you
decide to start with the My Star column and move backward, or with The Present column and
proceed toward Next Steps, the framework will help you trek forward.
TABLE 1. LIFE OF MEANING FRAMEWORK
Life of Meaning Framework The Present Next Steps WHO AM I? WHAT COMMITMENTS MUST BE MADE AND KEPT? Am I moving ahead or am I stuck? Next steppingstones: discipline, job, or calling? Am I experiencing joy on a daily basis? What deposits did I make last week? Where is my most dangerous blind spot? What deposits will I make next week? What resistance is keeping me from becoming who I am meant to be? Mileposts, Guardrails, and Role Models Relationships AM I MAKING PROGRESS WHO IS WALKING WITH IN THE RIGHT ME? DIRECTION? My Star WHY AM I HERE? Am I using my gifts to make measurable progress toward a meaningful milepost? Am I making consistent ethical decisions? Who is my highest relational priority? An intentional, accidental, or planned life? Am I taking care of my inner needs and health? Have I violated an “I will never” guardrail? What promise needs keeping or relationship needs repairing? Which communication habit is my highest priority? What injustice or opportunity am I pursuing that will change the world? What are my most important values? Who am I becoming more like today? How much money do I need? A Recurring Tension: Your Star, the Present, and Next Steps
Imagining your life as a Hero’s Journey sets up a tension between an idealized future (your star),
the realities of the present, and the often difficult next steps you need to take to make progress
and grow.
5
Understand that there is no perfect “next step.” No matter what you choose to do next, there will
be surprises and missteps. You will have to advance through struggles, through trials and errors.
That’s just the way life works. But you know this.
And you know that just as there is no perfect next step, there is no perfect “next job.”
Nevertheless, you have two choices: (1) to be thoughtful about asking questions and setting
priorities, or (2) to flail about without making difficult decisions and setting priorities, hoping the
perfect job will come to you, until you run out of time, energy, and money and take the next job
that just comes along, a job that is unlikely to advance your life in the direction you want.
To help you make better choices, you’ll be asked early in this course to “declare your intentions”
about how much of a life change you want to make, and what price you are willing to pay to
make it. Then, every few weeks, you’ll be introduced to exercises and tools that will allow you to
narrow your list of choices. That way, you’re neither paralyzed by some idealized fantasy nor in
denial about the sacrifices and tradeoffs that may be necessary.
Changing your life and making serious investments in your future is difficult—in fact, it can be
downright terrifying. If you find yourself becoming overly critical, overwhelmed, or frustrated
with the course or with your fellow classmates, then you’re likely experiencing the kind of
intense inner struggle that can lead to transformational personal growth. If this becomes the case,
try to have the courage and maturity to look inside yourself first, before lashing out at others.
Creating a Portfolio of Your Life’s Work
During the course you’ll gradually assemble the lessons you’ve learned about yourself and your
intentions for the future into a portfolio—called a My Life Portfolio. It’s a place you can revisit
and add to throughout your journey onward: recording accomplishments you’ve made so far,
collecting your plans for the future to create a valuable resource for keeping on track in life, and
demonstrating your foresight, intentions, and progress to others.
This portfolio will include the following Items: Bucket list of 50 things, My top 3 Job and Entrepreneur list, Stars and Stepping Stones chart, Personal Constitution, Deconstructing your fears list, Personal board of advisors, Code of Conduct, 14 weekly journal entries related to each mindset. 6
Summary
Life is difficult. And life is full of challenges. But life can also be full of joy and meaning if you
ask the right questions, make thoughtful commitments, and pick up just a little bit of luck—or
gratitude—along the way.
This course is designed to deliver the challenges, tools, and frameworks to prepare you for a
meaningful life as a principled entrepreneur. The easiest way to think of this course is as a
compressed preview of your life ahead, an accelerated version of the trials and lessons you are
likely to face on your own life journey as an entrepreneur.
Work hard to begin to discern your special calling as an entrepreneur, have the courage to etch a
few more good habits into your character and to take the next steps on your adventure, and you’ll
be well on the way to your own Hero’s Journey of Entrepreneurship.
7