My last will and testament for this class

I have been in business for myself for either full time or part time for about thirty of the last thirty eight years. I have learned a few things, and there are a few things that I have not learned, and … there are a whole bunch of things that I just don’t seem to learn from.  No matter how many times I have made the same mistake.   Here are some things that I have learned I will pass on.  One, if you are going to open a business, you need to be in love with it. Not just like it or think it is a good idea, but really love what you are going to do. The reason I say this is that you will soon be sick of it.  It will be your life twenty four seven for a long time.  In those moments when you are sick to death of it, remember how much you love it.  It will help carry you through those tough times. Two, remember that the reason you went into the business (besides doing what you love) was to make money.  Charge for what you do and get a fair return for it.  You are not running a charity!  Three, partners will create problems. A dishonest or unethical partner will put everything you have at risk.  You may even end up broke and owing a lot of money that will take a good while to pay back and recover from. Even after the cause of it all is dead and buried.  Fourth, continue your education. Knowledge is power. Last, know this, the most valuable thing you have is your family and your relationship with it. Do nothing in your business (or life) that will jeopardize it. Nothing is worth that cost. Family is Forever (like it or not).

So here we are at the end of this class.  My chickens are happy, they come out to see me when I am in their yard.  Today, my daughter and I unloaded a trailer load of firewood that we picked up while working laying a ton (more than that literally) beautiful slate on a deck in my dad's back yard. We layed down over two hundred sq. ft. the last two days.  It is really beautiful so far.  I will put down at least another six hundred feet down before we are finished. It is only a small part of the yard, but it will become an important area once we are done.  I was too dirty and tired to take a picture so you will just have to believe me on this.  Anyways, now to the points.  The chickens are happy, my daughter is very happy to have them, and I am actually happy for both the chickens and my daughter.  The girls will be laying eggs in a few months and the Egg Ranch will soon become a business.  Beyond that, today while working, my daughter broached the concept of starting a business flipping houses.  We discussed it for several hours while working and I have told her that we will have to put together an actual business plan to present to an investor.  This will have to be very detailed and highly accurate. I now actually have a small crew of increasingly skilled craftsmen in my daughter  who is the multiple full academic scholarship winner from several universities including BYU Provo as an entering freshman.  That was not the best school that offered either. Also my young fourteen year old son has really proven himself this summer too. He has been working and doing a grown man's job in mixing concrete and mortar along with general construction labor jobs as assigned.  I have been impressed (and that does not happen to me easily in the trades)

So to the point again,  I am actually interested in starting that business as a family business.  My daughter has worked in the trades with me since she was four years old and is qualified to be a swimming pool contractor by herself.  So as a smug and happy daddy, I think I will sign her off and let her do that and also possibly take another jump into a serious entrepreneurial venture.  I have done this several times in the past, but I will have to admit that this specific class has kinda worn my resistance to it down, so congratulations, job well done.

So, after not seeing the Egg Ranch survivors for another week (I got a call from a company that I worked for several years ago last week and will be starting with them in two weeks after I get back from a short trailer trip and then a week at Scout Camp with my son), and they are getting huge.  Now the downside. My beloved daughter has decided that the cage is too big.  I informed her that she will have to live with it for another month or so as I have spent my twenty dollars and used up all of the recyclable and old laying around materials that I currently have at my disposal. I also pointed out that I am also out of time for awhile.  She agrees, but the day this class is over and I am no longer bound by the twenty dollar rule, there will be some changes.  More live stock, a misting system, a concrete pad for the hen house...   I have an ever growing list.  The good news is that there seems to be a never ending supply of people that expect to buy fresh eggs from the Egg Ranch.  In another six months is will have paid for itself and be providing a small net gain of "Egg Money."  I am just glad that there is a restriction that is keeping the possibility of having "Milk Money" as just a dream.  My daughter really has been a fan of cows since kindergarten.

Now about this weeks material.  This is an area that I to be found worth looking at.  Family businesses are fraught with traps that can be devastating.  I would be very hesitant to do that. I value my family too much to put it at risk over money.  That is all I have to say about that.

Ahh … the blog post at last.  That means I am kind of done for the week.  It has been a long one.

I will start out with last Sunday and an ox in the mire situation.  The chickens for the Egg Ranch where not handling the 110 degree temperatures in the compound. It had been really hot to say the least. So my daughter brought them into the spare room for the duration (and btw they poop their weight every day). Man did it smell.  Meanwhile yours truly went to grandpas to get a patio cover that he bought a few years ago and never used. Instead he spent thirty five thousand dollars and built the patio cover that his swimming pool contractor (again yours truly) had said his pool needed.  I took it over to the Ranch and assembled it into a really neat Great Huntress proof aviary for the three surviving birds. There are plans for flock expansion next semester.

Her is the newly minted Crazy Chicken Lady, the cooler aviary, and of course my Grand Puppy the Great Huntress.

Started Sunday night and finished Monday and Tuesday in excruciating heat. But, DA DADA DAH I like it for the time being.  It is shady and has plenty of light.

So much for the $100 Challenge.  It has been a challenge and I am afraid that it success will be in the coming year vs the coming month. 

Now for something good for my soul.  This is the thing I liked this week from the various literature that I have read.

“It isn’t that I live without fear — it’s that I choose to live with my fears until they subside; I walk alongside them, embrace them and then harness them into a means of preparation and self-navigation… It’s this method of not allowing my life to be ruled by the question of “What if?” and choosing instead to get out there and feel the world around me that has consistently brought me pain as well as every next great chapter of my life.” – Nicole Donnelly

This is really a good statement about how one may approach life.

First I am going to discuss the concept of being aligned with God.  One of my callings in church is that of Emergency Preparedness Guy for the Ward.  I year ago I put together a lesson plan for a short course of eight lessons on being prepared. When is started this endeavor it became immediately important to me that this course be more that wheat and beans in a closet. It needed to be centered on spiritually being prepared. If one is spiritually on sync with the Lord, then one will be more open to getting the inspirations and prompting on being prepared that will be of significance to one’s own needs verses what someone else would need.  Every family is different and may have some different preparedness needs at the different stages of life.  In Elder Perry’s address he talks about gaining wealth for personal gratification mentality of “he who dies with the most stuff wins,” verses gaining wealth and using it to build up His kingdom.  Elder Perry’s discourse on that retriggered the thought about making sure that we are right with the Lord before embarking on a venture or endeavor.  If we put that first we will have the right and the needed perceptiveness to the promptings of the Spirit that we would need to be successful in out venture.  Basically just be sure to do what we need to do to be entitled to the blessings that we need.

Now to the Egg Ranch.   Who would have thought how much the three surviving birds can poop?  Just sayin.   We had a heat wave of temps well over one hundred degrees for the last week. The birds had to be moved inside for the duration as they are still a bit young. They have really stunk up the house.  At the same time I have spent the last week painting the inside of my daughter’s new house. Spent yesterday in bed recuperating from four days of prepping and painting for fifteen to twenty hours a day. Thursday I personally spent nine hours on a extension ladder, step ladder, and a step stool. That was the twenty hour day. We quit at four in the mourning.  I mention this as an excuse for bringing the chickens into the house verses using an old yard sprayer hooked up to a hose to make a fogger to keep the birds less hot in the coop.  So Monday I will do something permanent, because they will not ever live in the spare bedroom again.  It is the last room that still needs to be painted.

So after last week’s catastrophic loss of one quarter of the livestock of the $100 Challenge, there may be light.  As it turns out my daughter has an old high school friend who has become a crazy chicken lady and is actually brooding and selling baby chicks.  My daughter talked to her last week for the first time since the start of the project.  She was immediately chastised for not getting the chickens from her for free instead of me having bought them for $3.50 at the feed store.  My daughter, who is now on the path of becoming a crazy chicken lady herself, may score a few more birds at no cost.  This will increase the output without the cost of additional investment. We shall see.

Now to this week’s learning.  The leadership style survey had no surprises for me as I have been screened for this very thoroughly once before. It was fun to see that I am stuck in my ways and have not changed much in the last decade.  I did print out the whole emotional intelligence article and will reread that as I think there is a lot to that that I can get by spending more than a few minutes on it.

Well time is short and I am late to post this so I bid all adieu.