Topsoil Property Co

The first person walked into a staff meeting today of an up-and-coming, growing organization with a great reputation, only to find out they had lost $200,000 to $300,000 and were in jeopardy of being shut down in less than 3 months. The second person who worked at Target walked in one morning, and over 50% of the employees in his highly successful department had been fired. The third person works at a new non-profit and is working to build a new type of school that has never existed before. They have money in the bank to pay people for the next 3.5 months. Which one of these people lives within an "uncertain" organization?

“Remember that if you don’t prioritize your life someone else will.” ― Greg Mckeown, Our culture glorifies the “rags to riches” stories. The majority of advice, books, and school is about how to become “successful.” But what do you do once you’ve become successful? “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.” ― Greg McKeown Today’s definition of success: when the amount of positive opportunities available to you is greater than your capacity to complete said opportunities. Going from having nothing to having too many opportunities is what success means. Building your skill and ability to consistently say “yes” to the right opportunities and “no” to the wrong ones is what will keep you successful and better yet, give you compounding impact on your time & efforts. “Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest poss...

Three areas to focus on: Common language : How we talk about our work internally and externally. (aka Branding). Habits & rituals : Surfacing & solving problems. Celebrating wins. Meetings. Check in. Etc. (aka Culture).  Tools : Finding the most efficient way to execute our work. (aka Technology & Infrastructure). By investing in any of these areas you will increase the understanding and capacity of your team. Better understanding leads to better relationships and better problem solving. Which leads to a healthier organization. Thank you Patrick Lencioni .

The edge between hope and hopelessness is thin. As is the edge between finding energy in your work and feeling burned out. Find strength in those who came before you. Acknowledge how hard it is to accept the things you cannot change today so that you can focus on what you can do in this moment. Find peers whose friendship re-fuels you. Keep building. ____________________________________________ Q: What’s the most frustrating thing you’ve learned? A: When you know how bad the problem is, you don’t want anyone to live through that problem for one more second. Nothing we do feels like it’s happening quickly enough. I’ve been thinking a lot about how Harriet Tubman freed slaves and fought for the freedom of slaves at the same time. There’s a special type of mental stability she must have had — to fight for a big, transformational shift, while at the same time trying to free as many people as possible. I think we have to figure out what our Harriet Tubman strategy is around this work. Ever...