Dream Big Week

This week started with a great message in “A Message to Garcia, Will you Deliver it?”  When asked to deliver a message to Garcia, it says Rowan the messenger “didn’t equivocate. He didn’t ask McKinley for detailed instructions. He didn’t hire a consultant or assemble a task force. He simply took the letter and delivered it to Garcia.” It is so needed to just be able to “get the job done.” It is so important that as employees we are competent, reliable and can execute things that are asked of us, and on the flipside, as an employer we should look for those kinds of qualities in the people we hire. 

Another principle I enjoyed learning about this week was “Leadership with a Small L”. It is so important to lead by example, with vision and with love. These are the ways the Savior led and as we strive to emulate the pattern he set, we can be a leader for good. 

Guy Kawasaki talked about we need to think of other people as we are leaders and have a mindset of being a “Baker” not a “Eater”. The Eaters see the world as a place to get as much of the pie as possible and the Baker sees the world as a place to make bigger pies and more pies.  We should always default to answer with a yes when people ask questions and we should always try to help others. 

My favorite thing this week was the entrepreneurial interview. I chose to interview Lisa Peat who is the founder of the Taylor House in Roseville, California. She helps girls from the ages of 18-24 who just have left the foster system or were at risk. After realizing they don’t have the support and skills they need to get to the next step in life she decided to get involved and help. She purchased an old home that needed fixing up. Leading the way of friends and family and other volunteers she has worked with they made it a place where a few girls could live. The moved forward and set up programs to teach them financial skills, life skills. Through these resources they also help the girls apply to college, and set up medical care. 

Lisa coordinated volunteers and paid staff that have helped 60 young women move forward in life. Even one of them is there while she finishes her Masters Degree. Some of the advice she gave was to be informed of what a non-profit requires before starting one. She was driven by her passion for these girls which was a good thing, but there is so much more work that goes into it. There are non-profit boot camps and programs that help inform people of what it takes to run a non-profit. One of the difficulties was the element of being a residential non-profit and it has special requirements and regulations. Being a non-profit allowed her to be able to pull in additional funds so she didn’t need to keep funding it out of her own bank account. Because of this she now has a Board of Directors that help run the program and also oversee the funds that come in. It is important they are allocated properly.

What Lisa has created is successful and has helped so many girls and continues to help more. It is successful in the sense that it keeps growing, but even more importantly it has changed the direction of so many lives. In changing the direction of their lives, it will change the direction of their posterity’s lives and will do good for generations to come.