This week, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the talk of Elder Gay. His African woman’s story was very sad to read. I realized that the world needs true heroes like a lot of good Christian entrepreneurs who care for their neighbors more than money. If we focus on the profit of the company too much, we lose something important. I know money is a very essential base for our society, but we should never be obsessed with it because there are too many brothers and sisters who are waiting for help. Here are some of the quotes from his talk:
Entrepreneurship and Consecration:
“What an exciting life is available for each one of us today. We can be explorers in spirit with a mandate to make this world better by discovering improved ways of living and doing things. God left the world unfinished for man to work his skill. He left the electricity in the cloud, the oil in the earth. He left the rivers unbridged and the forests unfelled and the cities unbuilt. God gives to man the challenge of raw materials, not the ease of finished things. He leaves the pictures unpainted and the music unsung and the problems unsolved, that man might know the joys and the glories of creation. True pioneers solve problems and rise to bless others by opening new frontiers and finishing the undone work God left for us to do.”
The first blind person to climb Mount Everest, a man by the name of Erik Weihenmayer
“A pioneer is one who is motivated by the sense of the possible, and then reaches out beyond routine and convention into uncertainty, and then uses adversity as a pathway to accomplishment.”
Logic would tell you that by only extracting the surplus, you should be able to sustain the population indefinitely. Only one problem: as Finley and others have discovered, following maximum sustainable yield has resulted in unintended, disastrous outcomes.
What a powerful lesson. If we just do with our resources and talents what others suggest we do with them, we’re going to miss the mark very badly.
They do this by looking outside, as opposed to inside, themselves for answers on how and where to invest, their time, their talents and their energies. They rationalize, they separate temporal from spiritual, and rarely look for deep solutions.
“I had to teach myself something that the whole world around me laughed at, and it is this: it is not what you have, but who you are. And who you are is not what you say, but what you do.”
Successful pioneers are always inward focused as well as outward driven.
“Forgotten is the fact that our assignment is to use these many resources in our families and our quorums to build up the kingdom of God. To further the missionary effort, and the genealogical and temple work. To raise our children as fruitful servants unto the Lord, to bless others in every way that they may also be fruitful.” Kimball
Shetobreyon principle
“In the days of service, all things were founded, in the days of special privilege, they deteriorated, and in the days of vanity they are destroyed.”
As you noted it seems rational enough that the aim in building companies and embarking in business enterprises is to make lots of money. But if this is our priority and objective in studying business and investing capital, no matter the intended purpose, even if it is to bless others with your abundance, you will as Nephi suggested, never succeed.
Harold B. Lee: “When you begin to make service to meet others needs your constant practice, you are beginning a program that will make you successful in your chosen field, and your needs will begin automatically to take care of themselves. This great idea in action has made great inventors and great businessmen.”
Monson:
“We must awaken in the members of the church the need to rescue. What was the message of the master? Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me. We need to leave the comforts of home and go to the rescue. The Lord is mindful of everyone. Ask yourselves, ‘Have I rescued anyone lately?’”
Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with, and free with all of your substances, that they may be rich like unto you. But before ye seek for riches, seek ye the kingdom of God, and after you have obtained a hope in Christ, you shall receive riches if you seek them, and you will seek them for the intent to do good, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to liberate the captive and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.”
President Monson, “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of here, ‘give me a light that I tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied ‘go into the darkness, and put your hand in the hand of God; that to you shall be better than light, and safer than a known way.’”