Elder M. David Merrill, a senior missionary assigned to the BYU-Hawaii Center for Instructional Design and Outreach (CITO), recommended in a January 17 lecture that School of Business students use entrepreneurship principles to pursue their education.
Elder Merrill, a retired Utah State University instructional design professor, explained that President Steven C. Wheelwright recently invited him to return for a second mission at BYU-Hawaii to help with cost-saving, distance learning initiatives. He also pointed out he has not been particularly successful as a business entrepreneur in the traditional sense, but that during his academic career he learned "secrets that can help you be good students."
Tracing his early career, Elder Merrill recalled writing a proposal for a media research grant that went through several iterations and rejections before he learned "there are only three" important components to such efforts:
- "Number one, find out who writes the check. Who's the decision maker."
- "Second, find out what their passion is... Real leaders have a goal to change the world. You need to know what that is. That takes some homework."
- "Third, you write what you want to do in terms of their passion."
"If you do that successfully, you always get the money," Elder Merrill said, noting he has obtained millions of dollars worth of research grants. "No is not the right answer... If somebody says no, I say obviously I've got to do more homework."
In outlining his next principle, Elder Merrill told how his brother, Academy Award winning movie director and producer Kieth Merrill, sometimes doesn't know how his screenplays will turn out. His writing style includes creating characters and personalities, then putting them in situations, "and they tell me what they're going to do."
When such inspiration comes, Elder Merrill continued, it's important to "always have a notebook and pen" ready. "When you get an idea, write it down, or draw yourself a picture." He added that it doesn't have to be neat or even well organized.
"Writing is thinking — and the two go hand in hand. I often tell my students [who] say they've got it all figured out, let me see your notes. Oh, it's just in my head... I've learned one thing: As soon as I get my ideas on paper, they start 'talking' to me."
As an example, he recalled how some people were surprised to find all the bookshelves in Dr. Hugh Nibley's office were filled with shoeboxes — not books. The late Dr. Nibley, a well-known BYU professor and scholar, told him all the boxes were filled with five-by-eight cards "that contain two things only: Those things I agree with, and those things I don't. I said, well, that's everything in the world; and he said, oh no, dear boy. Most things aren't worth considering."
"We cannot learn everything. There's way too much, even in your own field, so how do you decide what it is to know," Elder Merrill continued. He said a good indication he used with past graduate students who wanted him to be on their doctoral committee was to ask for the first draft their dissertation in a week.
"I said, how do you know what you're going to study if you don't know what your dissertation is going to be about. How do you know what to listen to in a class? How do you know what to read if you don't know where you're going? How do you know what's important if you don't have a question?" [Read Dr. Merrill's paper, Write Your Dissertation First.]
Though still undergraduates, Elder Merrill stressed all BYU-Hawaii students are "working toward a career. You're all getting an education. Why? What are you going to do with it? How are you going to change the world?"
"If you're going to be leaders, then you'd better know where you're going," he continued. "You need to learn what it is you want to listen for." For example, he suggested the students ask professors if they can change some of assigned projects to better conform to their own objectives. "Too often in education we spend our time letting somebody else determine our agendas."
Elder Merrill recalled he often had to "beat up" some of his graduate students to get them thinking more creatively. "You're here to think. You're here to create. If you're here to be leaders, you need to say it's okay to create. I don't have to just follow what everybody else is telling me. Don't be afraid to think," he said, noting that the idea for FedEx was a master's thesis that the professor failed.
"Have confidence in your own ideas. When you get inspired by an idea, write it down. Think about it. Bounce it off people," he said. "Submit yourself for creative exploitation."
"You've got a lot of wonderful teachers here at BYU-Hawaii. Find one you admire, find one that's doing things you like to do, and make time to go do what they want to do," Elder Merrill said. "We're all here to prove ourselves. We're all here to learn to live the gospel. We're all here to learn how to help move this Kingdom forward."