Social Entrepreneurship

What is Social Entrepreneurship? From what I understand and learned this week, social entrepreneurship focuses on serving and helping the less fortunate. The goal is to make the world a better place. In an article we read this week it mentioned that the world has had a perception of the work force: there are laborers and there are entrepreneurs. In the article it stressed the importance of understanding that we are all entrepreneurs. 

It is essential that if you get involved with social entrepreneurship that you don't focus on solving the problem, but being engaged in solving the problem. It is close to impossible to solve the problem on your own and fixing everyone's problems. If we want to make a difference in the work we'll have to engage ourselves in a good cause and take one step at a time. We learned about a couple of people that started up a hybrid company, which is a profit and social entrepreneurship company. There was a guy by the name of Blake who went to Argentina and saw that there were a lot of kids running and walking around without any shoes. He also saw a popular shoe style there that was relatively cheap. What he ended up doing was creating the shoe known as Toms which is similar to the popular Argentine shoes. Every pair of Toms shoes that were bought, another pair of Toms were donated to kids in Argentina and other kids around the world who were less fortunate. 

This type of entrepreneurship is what I'd like to eventually end up doing. I love the concept of making profit, but also donating something that is needed throughout the world to the people that need it. That is my goal in life, to make a difference in someone's life. 

At the end of class today we went over a few things. Something that was quoted really impacted me; "Living on purpose is the only way to live." We then went over self-reflecting questions like, what was I born to say? Who was I born to serve? What was I born to create? I continued writing: "Create your purpose: Start where you are with what you have. Make something of it. Never be satisfied." That was said by George Washington Carver. These statements and self-reflecting quotes gave me the motivation to starting thinking of where I'm at right now, where I'm going to end up, and what I'm going to do in order to make a difference in the world. I'll continue to have those questions in mind as I develop skills, characteristics, and Christ-like attributes. 

Formula for Success

Growing up I enjoyed the blessings of a father who didn’t lack much in money. Looking back I realize he spent his money on others, including me. He used his money to serve the people he loves and cares for. For example, my dad spends his money on traveling so that others can experience different cultures, learn history, and in large part, be aware of what is out there and how you can grow from those places and experiences. He would also buy not only his children braces but also our friends who needed them but couldn’t afford them. He has been an example to me all my life. Because of him I want to use my talents, time, and money to serve other people.

Whether I have money or not, I know that I will be used as an instrument in the Lord’s hands to serve my brothers and sisters. The formula for success given by President Monson is key in understanding that money isn’t everything and life is so much more than financial success. He said, “First, fill your mind with truth; second, fill you life with service; and third, fill your hear with love.” I know that if anyone were to follow this formula of success and not worry about money, everything will fall into place and the life of that individual will be happy and complete by the time his or her life is done on this earth.

Money for me is something that will be convenient and beneficial for those in my reach of service. But. Like I said earlier, if I don’t have a lot of money to spend on others, I will still use my time and talents in other places. I want to love the people I’m around and I know that if I truly want to love them the way Heavenly Father does, I will have to lose myself and focus on the one.