Week 13: Last Lecture Excercise

Looking back at my life it has been a series of many different ups and downs that have brought me some of the worst pain and also my greatest happiness in my life. As a result of these many ups and downs in my life I have been able to learn a few important things that I would like to impart to each and every one of you to help you along in your journey of life.

The first thing that I would like to impart to each of you is to surround yourself with people that you can trust in this journey we call life. These people are often not what we expect them to be but they are exactly what we need. One of the first people that ever came into my life in this way was my best friend Cherysh. Her being a tom boy, farm girl from Idaho and me being a big town girl that loved to shop, we were not exactly what you would consider fast friends, well at first. As a result of our situation in Nursing school we were somewhat forced to get to know each other and what we found is that on the outside we were completely different but on the inside we were the yin to each others yang and she was the better half that I never thought I would have in anyone outside of my future husband. We would die for each other and there isn't anywhere we would not go for each other if the other was ever in need.

These are the kinds of friends that each of you must search for in your lives. It is these people that will stick by you through your highs and your lows and help you get to wherever you want to be in life.

The other important thing that significantly changed my life for the better was finding something outside of work that brought me joy and happiness. Yes I know that everyone's family and loved ones bring them joy and happiness but in order for all of us to stay sane we must have something that is just for us and us only. For me those things are my relationship with God and exercise. Believing in a higher power and having a personal relationship with God has allowed me the ability to love others more deeply, know myself better and have something to always anchor my life in. On the other side going to the gym and doing yoga on a regular basis has allowed me the time to disconnect from everything that may be going on in my life and help my to do something just for myself. It has brought me peace in some of my darkest hours and helped level me when the going got tough.

So I urge each of you to find something in your lives that is just for you. Whether it be cooking, fast cars or even serving others find something that brings you joy and do it as often as you can.

The most important thing that I would ask each of you to remember is how vital your family and loved ones are to this journey that you go on. All the money and success in the world will mean nothing to you if you have no one to share it with. Making time for your family members and loved ones no matter what and always telling them how much you appreciate them will allow them to know their significance in your life and how much you love them. Never ever forget just how important they are to you and hold them close whenever you can.

I hope that as each of you embark on your own journey of life that you remember what I have told you today and find the things that matter most to you so you can share them with others along the way.

Week 12: Work Life Balance

This being one of the last blog posts I will get to write for this actual class I wanted to write on something I have been reflecting on quite a bit thanks to the books and talks we have been reading in this class and as a result of my personal life experiences. This is having a work-life balance as many people may refer to it as.

Work-life balance to me is being able to work a full time job with the flexibility to work from home or somewhere else when needed. Along with this that the company believes in the importance of family and the time and energy it takes to raise one. This last week I have come to realize just how important this is to me. My now fiance just took and started a job that takes him to a different state in somewhere in the country for 5 months out of the year and earns a very good living. It also allows him to do whatever he pleases for the other 7 months of the year with minimal work in between. This is a huge blessing for our family except for him being gone for 5 months out of the year.

This proves to be a problem in that I do not want to have to always be away from my husband for 5 months out of the year without being able to see him. Having the ability to and spend time with him during those 5 months of the year is extremely important to me even if it is just a few weeks out of every summer that he is gone.

At the same time I am also searching for and in the process of accepting a new job. A huge portion of my choice of job depends on this work life balance to be able to travel with my husband for a few weeks out of the year and work remotely during that time.

I know that no matter what as I continue to make my family a priority then I will be able to have a happy marriage and a happy family. I want to always remember this when it comes to jobs I choose and how I move forward in any career that I choose.

Week 11: Being a Finisher

This class is coming to a close and I am sad that it is almost of for everything that I have been able to learn. I want to be able to continue to learn in this manner on a regular basis. As I do this I know that I will be able to continue to grow both personally and in my business knowledge as well. 

This week reading the talk by President Monson really hit home to me in that I was able to think about the kind of person I am in the workplace and in my person life. As a result of some awful things that have previously happened in my life I had been left with the mindset of thinking that I could not accomplish many of the things I wanted to accomplish in my life. Then a little over a year ago I decided to make a change in my life to decide to go back to school and go after many of the things I have wanted in my life such as getting an MBA. 

Reading the talk "Finishers Wanted" reminded me yet again of my goals in school and also in my personal life. I absolutely loved the poem in the talk that reads:

“Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;

Beginners are many, but enders are few.

Honor, power, place and praise

Will always come to the one who stays.

“Stick to your task ’til it sticks to you;

Bend at it, sweat at it, smile at it, too;

For out of the bend and the sweat and the smile

Will come life’s victories after a while.”

I want to me able to always remember to be a finisher in my life no matter what I am doing. It reminded me of the book "The Dip" and how if I am going to actually do something then I need to do it 100% and be willing to make the sacrifices to make it work instead of giving up when the going gets tough. I know as I give my all to the things that I want to do in my life I will be blessed in many ways that I will appreciate in the long run both personally and in my professional life as well.

Week 11- Family First Always

This week I was able to realize whole heartedly what really is important to me above all else things. That thing is my current family and my future family. When we were listing our concerns that we had about being and entrepreneur and that affects it may have on my life that main thing that came to my mind was my family and my future children.

I know that I want almost nothing more then to be able to have a business of some type of my own someday. The only thing I want more then that is to have a happy, healthy family that is close and loves each other.  To me the most important thing is to have this. There are a few ways that I want to make sure that this happens in my life now and in the future.

First, I want to make sure that I set a consistent schedule of things that will always be consistent with my family. I will make sure that I am home for dinner every night of the week to be there with my husband and my children. Along with this I want to make sure that every Saturday afternoon and Sunday is dedicated solely to family.

Second, that no matter what my family comes first at all times. When my children have sporting events or concerts and such  I will make sure that myself or my husband is at every single on of their events and to take them to every single practice. I want my children to know how loved, appreciated and supported they are in all things.

I know that as I support them in those things and always make time for them one on one they will be able to be supported. They will also become the people that they are meant to become and I will be able to have a great relationship with my husband.

Never Settling For Less Then I Am Capable

This week I had a realization about myself and what I am capable of that I want to make sure and always keep with me. The book put it fantastically when it said “People settle. They settle for less than they are capable of. Organizations settle too. For good enough instead of best in the world.” (p.13) This is something that I want more then anything is to not settle for something but instead to be the best in my field at something that I love. This is not always easy and requires a large amount of time, energy and sacrifice that in the end is worth it. “How dare you settle for mediocre just because you’re busy coping with too many things on your agenda…If you’ve got as much as you’ve got, use it. Use it to become the best in the world, to change the game, to set the agenda for everyone else.” (p. 74) Never before had I realized that importance of not just looking to fit in but to stand out in my field of choice and in my life in general. I think often times the easy thing is to not be the best but instead to be mediocre just to get by in life. This is not what I want, instead I want to be the best at whatever I do in my life whether it be in a job, as a mother or in a business of my own. I hope that I can remember this at all times in my life and not just now.

Week 9- How to be a Rowan

Yet again I am learning something week after week in this class that has continued to help me grow and learn as a person both for my personal life and my business career moving forward.

As I may have explained before I just recently lost my job to lay offs in the company I was work for that was going under. When we were reading the article this week it made me think of the person that I am, the person that always gets the job done. I was always taught to never quit and you always get things done in our family. Failure has never been an option for me in my life. 

The entire reading to me focused on doing everything you can to be that person people can trust to get the job done and get it done right. I loved how is was put when the article said “The secret to such success lies not within the IQ that you were born with but with having the character and courage to accept a worthy mission and get the job done. If you want to live a life full of interesting challenges, focus on the action-oriented steps above until they become habits.” I want nothing more then to be that person who has a life full of interesting challenges. I want to know how I can continue to challenge myself and find those challenges daily.

For me one of the ways that I am going to do this is by starting in a position at a new startup company. This was an opportunity that presented itself when my boss at my old company met with me to offer me a new position. He offered it to me as a result of me always getting the job done. He rarely to never had to correct me on the jobs I was assigned and I was always the dependable one to get the job done. This idea of having this Rowan mentality has lead me already in my life to have so many great opportunities and I cannot wait to see where it leads me in the future. I want to be a name that is known to get the job done in all circles.

How can each of us find the interesting challenges that will continue to build our character regularly?

Week 8-No Matter How Long or Hard the Road

This class never ceases to amaze me in that I continue to learn something fantastic every week that I am in this class. I have loved it and I am sad that it is already half way over. This week I have been reflecting on my life for the last few years as I have some life changes coming my way very soon. 

I am getting engaged here very shortly and will be getting married this Fall. Along with this I am starting a brand new job in the next few weeks, buying a duplex and purchasing a dog. All of this will happen in the next 6 months. My path to get to this amazing place I am currently in has not been an easy one though. I have never shared this before in a public place so I ask that you be sensitive with what I am writing. I am writing this for more my own record then anything.

Some people say bad things come in 3's and I am living proof of the talk by Elder Holland on hanging in there even when the times get tough because God will always reward us.

FIRST:

This August marks 4 years since my brother and I were in a fatal ATV accident that almost took our lives. Just above Cedar City my brother was driving us up on a red rock gravel road to the water reservoir with my parents just a little ways in front of us. In his competitive nature he was speeding up the roads as fast as he could in order to catch up to our parents. As a result of this instead of going left on a turn we went right and our ATV became sandwiched in a large fence and we were thrown from the ATV. My parents were able to find us shortly after the crash and we were blessed to be able to get one phone call out to our family that we were staying with as their was little cell reception there. Following this a man came in truck that happened to have Onstar that was able to contact emergency services and 2 life flights came to our rescue. 

I was life flighted to a level one trauma centre in Las Vegas, Nevada after I had passed out and they found that I had suffered a subdural hematoma (a severe quick bleed on the surface of the brain), broken most of the bones in the left side of my face and a severe concussion. After a blessing from my Dad when they arrived in Las Vegas and what was a sheer miracle my brain bleed subsided on its own (which is extremely rare) and I was released from the hospital a little more then a week later.

A week after that I had reconstructive surgery done in the left side of my face and I now have 4 plates and 12 screws that were placed in my face. I had a small amount of short term memory loss but was able to have a full recovery within about 6 months to a year.

My brother on the other hand suffered a compound fracture of his femur (his bone had broken and punctured through his skin) and was taken to St. George to have a titanium rod placed down his leg. As a result of improper care given to him at that hospital he proceeded to get a severe infection. From this he almost went septic (where the infection is so severe it begins to shut down your organs) and we almost lost him multiple times over the course of 2-3 months. As a result of this infection he had 9 surgeries, 3 different titanium rods  
placed down his leg, 3 PICC lines placed and removed and was in out of the hospital for over 3 months.

There came many points where we did not know if my brother would make it but yet again through a lot of spiritual inspiration, blessings and pure miracle from God he made it through. The road to our recovery was not an easy one at all but throughout the process each person in my family received inspiration to know that he would be okay. He is now surviving a mission in Ghana Africa and will be home this coming Fall and I could not be more stoked.

My brother on the left with one of his converts being a goof as usual :)

SECOND:

Shortly after our accident I started dating a guy that less then a year later would become my husband. I knew without a shadow of a doubt through inspiration that he was the person I was meant to marry and be with forever. We were married in June 2012 in the Seattle Temple and I could not have been happier.

Right after we got married he flipped a switched and the man I had dated and known for over a year was not the man I was married to. The day after we got married and moving forward he became both emotionally and verbally abusive on a regular basis. I was expected to not only work full time to provide for our bills but to also go to school part time, take care of all of the household duties, cook all the meals, and do anything else he asked me to do, all while he only went to school with 12 credits. 

If I did not do exactly what he believed I should I was told how worthless I was. That I would never be a good mother, that I was a terrible wife, I would never finish my degree or amount to anything in life. Along with this he punched holes in walls and threw things when he was angry. 

After seven months of marriage he came to me after returning home from the temple and said that God has given him the revelation that we were meant to get divorced and we were no longer supposed to be together. Shortly after he left me and filed for an annulment of our marriage, along with our temple marriage in 2013. 

To say the least it was the most awful situation of my life. I had done exactly what I was prompted to do and we both had received clear inspiration that we were meant together and yet my ex chose a different path for both of our lives. Although our marriage was hard I made a promise to God to do everything I could to make it work and that is exactly what I did. Upon my ex deciding to end out marriage I was blessed with immense amount of peace by our Father in Heaven that I had done everything God had asked me to do and I was able to move on knowing I had done all God has asked of me.

THIRD:

After everything that my family and I have been through we are close to say the least. About 3 months ago I had a very scary dream where in that dream one of my parents became very sick which I though was just a dream and shook it off until I was at home for Christmas two months ago. Shortly after being home my parents told me the news that my Mom has stage 2 breast cancer. 

This completely rocked my world to say the least and my initial reaction was to be angry with God for having put me and my family already through so much. Then my Dad said something that resonated with me  in that "God blesses us with these trials to make us stronger and to help us grow individually and as a family" and that completely changed my perspective.

She just started chemo 2 weeks ago and with her treatment plans she has an over 70% chance at a 10+ year survival rate. Similar to the situation with my brother through a lot of prayers, priesthood blessings and other things we all know that my mom has a very long life ahead of her. 

My Mom and I shortly after I received the news of her Cancer

THE WHY:

If you read this far I am more then impressed and you may be wondering why this is important. To me this is important because these experiences have allowed me to become the person I am today, which is a better person then I could have ever imagined being at this point in my life. This quote fits perfectly as to the last 3 years of my life. 

"As you wage such personal wars, obviously part of the strength to “hang in there” comes from some glimpse, however faint and fleeting, of what the victory can be. It is as true as when Solomon said it that “where there is no vision, the people perish” (Prov. 29:18). If your eyes are always on your shoelaces, if all you can see is this class or that test, this date or that friend, this disappointment or that dilemma, then it really is quite easy to throw in the towel and stop the fight. But what if it is the fight of your life? Or more precisely what if it is the fight for your life, and your eternal life at that? What if beyond this class or that test, this date or that friend, this disappointment or that dilemma you really can see and hope for all the best and right things that God has to offer. Oh, it may be blurred a bit by the perspiration that keeps running riverlike into your eyes, and in a really difficult fight one of the eyes might even be closing a bit; but faintly, dimly, and ever so far away you can see the object of it all. And you say it is worth it, you do want it, you will fight on."

No matter what the situation in my life whether it is personal or in business I will never give up because I know and have seen that faint, dim object of it all. I will never quit, never surrender and always continue to push on with the help of those that love me and my Father in Heaven. I am beyond happy with where my life is right now and I look forward to what is next.

My boyfriend (soon to be fiance) Kyle and I at his work Christmas party