The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Post 2

The next section of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People the author wrote about effective habits. He believes effective habits are made up of, knowledge (what to, why to), skill (how to), desire (want to). An effective habits has one of those three. The book then goes on to talk about Maturity Continuum. Which the author explains as going from dependence to independence to interdependence. This makes sense, as an infant people are completely dependent on a caring figure. Usually a mother, then as kids grow up they become less and less dependent and struggle with their parents to find the right balance of independence. While some parents may feel their child still needs to be dependent. As people move through life they become more interdependent. Interdependent is understanding people need others to live. We can do it, we can put all our talents together and accomplish something is an interdependent idea. I believe the earliest kids see interdependent ideas work are often with athletics or in theatrical productions. I personally found it most in athletics, I also found that the more everyone buys into the interdependent ideas of the whole is greater than the some of its parts, the better the whole could be. An interdependent idea is to first seek to understand before seeking to be understood. A independent idea is a private victory, putting first things firsts. I see baseball as a sport with many independent victories lead to a greater, interdependent victory. Each at bat is an independent competition between the pitcher and the hitter. The team to win more of those independent battles usually wins the game, as a team, an interdependent idea. I find this book to be very interesting and spark many self reflecting questions for myself. I am starting to try some of the effective habits the book mentions.

Class 1/22/15

We have finished our store front project in class. We are also working on finishing the presentation for the project. Our practice run did not go very well with Ms. Stevens and Mr. Fischer, well it was okay. We have a number of things to work on however, I believe we will be ready to present come Friday. Our presentation had too many works on the screen and we were not all well prepared. Our group did not work particularly well together, and we did not communicate well about splitting up and helping each other on the work. Our group was often split, I am good at uniting people and I wish I used that skill more with our group. Dan is a work horse and likes to be in control and I could have been a better compliment to him by helping the group run more efficiently. However, I felt I did a good job with the sock project that I was in control of. We sold all our socks and made a profit. We sold 16 socks for $12 and two for $15. There was a lot of interest in buying our socks and I wish we could have had more to sell. I was in charge of this project and got all the socks sold and Dan and I collected all the money. So I am happy with my work on that project. I feel with the store front I did my part and left it at that. If I were more committed to helping the group run well I feel we would have ran better and in turn produced better work. I am excited for our  presentation, and I believe we have a strong group and can hopefully get some people excited and interesting in our business. Who doesn't love a dog care? Go Pats!

Class (12/8/14)

In class we have been working on a doggy day care and our $200 project. For the doggy day care, I have mainly been working on part three, the competition. I struggled a bit with the SWOT analysis, figuring out the outside threats and opportunities to our business was difficult because we are a doggy day care. I figured our main opportunity was the Hancock Village expansion. Hancock Village is a pet friendly apartment complex in South Brookline, which makes this is a very good opportunity for our business. The location of Hancock Village plays into our hands because for the people living in Hancock Village to go to the city for work during the day they will pass our day care on the way. The strengths and weaknesses of our business came easier to me. Our main strength is our location. Being right on route 9 makes a very easy pick up and drop off for dog owners coming from neighboring towns, such as, Newton, Wellesley, Needham, Weston, and Natick. Another strength of ours is that we intend to be a high end doggy day care with a flat payment, no addition costs like most doggy day cares. We feel if we can successfully do that we can be a good and successful business. One weaknesses for our business is our price. We run a rather expensive doggy day care, however,we believe we will be able to thrive because Brookline, Newton, Weston, Needham, Natick our main target towns are for the most part wealthy towns, and our customers will be willing to spend a few extra dollars on getting their dog the best care throughout the day. Another weakness of our business is our location. Our location is a weakness and a strength for us, it is a weakness because we are on one side of route 9, therefore people heading away from the city are very unlikely to turn around on route 9 to come to our day care. Especially during prime drop off and pick up times which we expect to be drop off 9 A.M. and pick up around 5 P.M. During these times, route 9 is extremely busy and people on the other side of the road will not want to turn around.

Class 12/22/14

In class recently I have been working on both the store front, and the $200 project. For the $200 project I ordered our socks, and they are sweet. We have a lot of interest and potential buyers. 11 of 13 kids on Daniel and my basketball team committed to buy them. We decided to sell them for $12 each to our team, because our coach was planning on ordering socks for the team for $12, and we told him we could do it but then we had to sell them for $12. So, 11 of our socks are being sold for $12, and then we have 7 socks not sold yet that we are planning to sell for $12 and we have a lot of interested buyers. We should easily sell all of our socks and make a profit. Although, the profit is not what we originally thought, we feel if we generate enough interest with this first batch and have our basketball team wear them during home games for promotion, we can sell a second batch at $12 a pair. Since I wrote the first part (yesterday) I have had 4 more kids commit to buying socks. So now we have only 3 left without buyers, however, those buyers should be easy to find. The demand for socks is there and no one is selling them. We will have no problem selling these socks and making a profit for our investor, Karl. We have moved onto parts 4-6 for the store front project, and our doggy day care is looking more and more like an attainable goal. Although, getting all the dog supplies and the construction for our business look to be expensive costs, we hope to be profitable enough that we can with stand some early expenses. I have enjoyed doing both of these projects and look forward to continuing both of them.