Passion

hello my name is Gary Shotton and I’m standing here in China on top of the Great Wall of China you can sound a look here in the background and see how this is a a restored section of this wall that’s some 3,000 miles long took almost a thousand years to build and a lot of people involved over that time period so what a wonderful part of history and I’m here in China because a group of us here are to build relationships and become stronger friends of our Chinese Christian friends that are here doing business and using the marketplace as our common ground to reach people for the for the good of the kingdom good of the of the Chinese government good of the Chinese people good for all if we can reach a common ground to serve God through the marketplace and so I think the key for me is to know what I’m supposed to be doing in life you know if I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be in doing in life if I’m not sure of what my purpose in life my my calling in life is then I don’t know if that I’m going to be very strong and going forward in that I’ve watched different sporting events and I can see when maybe somebody is not encouraged or they’re not strong they’re not confident they’re not confident in themselves and so no matter how much i want to encourage someone there’s something inside of each one of us so we have to become encouraged and encourage ourselves along with outside so i hope we can cover some points now when i was coming i was reading a book here it’s called the great china puzzle or the Chinese puzzle basically I was reading a chapter and I suck covered a quote here that just absolutely describes my thoughts so I circled this and it was by a mr. Howard Thurman I don’t know this man very well but what a good quote it says don’t ask yourself what the world needs ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive so my encouragement to you is find something as it says here that you come alive with it you live it you breathe it you think it now I’m not at the expense of your family and not an expense of your home budget not at the expense of being a workaholic that’s not what I’m talking about but I’m alive with what I supposed to be doing I’m traveling all over the world encouraging entrepreneurship I’m encouraging people that it should be in business to take that step now that doesn’t mean everyone should go into business but those that are supposed to and will never be satisfied without going into business those are the ones that I’m here to encourage let me tell you a couple examples my dad my dad was an entrepreneur he always designed to be an entrepreneur he knew that he was not a scholastic person was the college degree he was kind of felt a little bit I think a bit inferior in that area but that wasn’t his Iranian arena but as an entrepreneur he was fabulous and I got to set under him he a little bit of his background to encourage himself and at times he was discouraged he had times i know i had to encourage himself to go on but he was went to the navy it was his back in the in the nineteen forty forty-five forty-six in that era and he wasn’t in World War two but he was in the Korean War and he told me at one time that that he really hated being in the Navy not that the Navy’s bad it wasn’t for him he was so disappointed that they send five people out at that time to do what one person could actually do then the four were leaning on the shovel that just wasn’t him he was always wanting to drive and do something all my life I watched my dad and he was always doing something to expand his farm operation now he came from Kansas that’s one of our state’s here in the United States and he went into a new territory a new area play that had very marginal rainfall farm and a lot of people didn’t think would ever produce but he worked diligently at it he encouraged himself he kept strong at it he had crop failure but he had crop success and over a period of years actually almost 20 years before he could buy his first piece of property then it started rolling and he bought his first peoples piece of property and bought another piece of property he actually his mom I know this to be true well he asked his mom to invest I didn’t ask his mom to give him money but ask his mom if she would buy a piece of land in in where we currently have our farm and that’s what got things started that’s what a Scott is there to begin with and so from that we started to form corporation and it just grew he was into cattle he had a ups and downs in the cattle business I’m telling you he happy was an entrepreneur and as far as I’m concerned he was my guide he was my idol he’s my my person I look back on and asked myself what would dad do now let’s talk about another one most of the people around the world have heard about the company called Walmart well Walmart was formed by a man by the name of Sam Walton and if you have a chance read some of his books read a book and you’ll hear some of the tales and his stories of how he got started how disciplined he was how he failed and he opened up a business at a certain location and and he didn’t have a contract and he got his business up and going and then when it came time to renew his contract the owner of the property will got jealous and didn’t give him a contract wouldn’t let him go on so he had to start over in another town it’s a case after case after case of he he lived and breathed being an entrepreneur and you know I can identify with that I can see that being that’s what I’m called to do now i’m going to give another example just recently here in the last couple weeks you know if you watch many of these videos that i own a machine shop and i won’t name this individual but if he hears this video he’ll know who he is and he’s somebody that i spotted he’s worked for us five years and you know he’s a good worker he’s very intelligent and I we got his notice he said he’s going to quit oh no we don’t want him to quit oh yes because he’s going to start his own business you know it’s kind of like a seed if you have a seed and you put a little moisture on it and you put it in the ground you can hardly stop it from growing it’s going to sprout it’s going to grow its going to develop into something that has even a chance and this individual will do fine I know he will because he’s that drive and an energy while he was working for us he was always doing something on the side he wasn’t someone that just set home and watched TV he had something going just like my dad just like Sam Walton now for myself I have that inside of me I had a reason to work for the big oil company for ten years and then I had a reason to move to a new state where we live now and you know I wasn’t going to find a job I wasn’t cut out to work for somebody else I knew that I was one to own my own business had to start real humble it’s another whole video but I started with a horse trailer pulled behind my family car and that’s how I got started and I learned at first it was just to get it money so I could pay my bills but after a while I realized hey this is where I could cut my teeth this is where I could learn entrepreneurship this has all the challenges that would create everything I would need to know I didn’t really like that that’s one thing about being an entrepreneur it’s not necessarily easy it’s one thing to look and see they think that you’re on your own boss and you can do whatever you want that’s really not the case everyone is your boss when you’re an entrepreneur your customers are your boss if they don’t tell you what to do but you do what they want in order to keep them as a customer and so it’s a process of time it’s a process of developing your skills it’s never ending of a process of being always gaining knowledge always learning something I read this book i’m not a big reader i’m reading about the Chinese culture I want to know how my Chinese friends think I’m going to speak on this and I’m speaking on this in the next couple nights on this subject of what does it mean to be an entrepreneur and I believe this will help thank you for listening I ask that you would watch these videos that you would share them.