The 2018 Cultivate Team Summit

When our team gathered together in early April for our annual Cultivate Team Summit, it’s safe to say we were in the midst of one of our fullest seasons–preparing for a summer launch, on-boarding new team members, 2019 PowerSheets development, and much more. On paper, it might not have made the most sense to take two days to strategize, dream, and enjoy each other’s company.

However, we knew it would be fruitful. We knew gathering together would refuel and reinvigorate our work. In the same way the prep work in the PowerSheets Goal Planners calls you to pause and helps lay the groundwork for what lies ahead, these two days together were an intentional choice to do the same thing. We took the opportunity to pause to remember the things that fall to the wayside in the midst of growing to-do lists. We went back to our why–what fuels us, what motivates us, what matters most.

With that as our goal, we walked into out time together knowing it would be fruitful, and we weren’t disappointed!

Ahead of each team summit, we send our team members happy mail with an agenda, packing list, and a few fun surprises! This year, we filled custom Cultivate sprout piñatas from Cute Piñata Creations with candy, and we tucked in a walk in love t-shirt to help our team stay cozy while traveling!

Our friend Heidi and her team at the Carolina Inn kept us well-rested and well-fed during our entire stay, and we couldn’t be more thankful for their hospitality! Heidi’s entire team uses PowerSheets, and we love knowing we get to play a small role in cheering them on as they cultivate what matters most in their lives–both personally and professionally!

We started Monday morning bright and early with biscuits, coffee, and a few fun surprises for the ladies! Meanwhile Back on the Farm sent us bags so we had a way to carry around our PowerSheets, clipboards, and all of our fun accessories throughout the summit. (Modeled beautifully here by our own Kristin Winchester!)

After passing out new t-shirts (sign up for our email list to be the first to know when these are available for purchase!) and May Designs notebooks, our team was ready to dig in.

Up first, a company history presented in emoji form. This gave us a chance to look back on where we’ve been and introduce our story to the two newest team members who were in attendance.

Next, Kaylee and Marissa led us in a review of our Vision Tracker Organizer, and we jumped deeper into discussing EOS as a team. If you’ve been following Lara’s blog, you know we’re been working through implementing the traction model and Entrepreneurial Operating System into our company for many months. If you’re interested in learning more, here are a few of our favorite resources: Traction, EOS Worldwide, and What the Heck is EOS?

We then walked through a healthy organizational check-up, and came away with a few action steps. The areas where our team is thriving? Team culture and people! You can call me biased, but I firmly believe we are one of the best teams out there. And good news, we’re hiring!

One thing this team does well is celebrate others, and celebrate we did during lunch! They planned a surprise wedding shower for me and offered me encouragement, advice, and a whole lot of laughs (and a few happy tears, too!).

In the afternoon, we dove into studying how we can build on what we’ve learned from our Enneagram types to make us better communicators and team members. The Enneagram is different than many personality typologies — instead of explaining your behavior, it explains the motivation behind it. We studied and discussed how we can best get along with and offer feedback to fellow team members.

We’re often asked what our favorite resources are, so here are a few of my personal favorites: Enneagram: A Christian Perspective, The Road Back to You, The 9 Types of Leadership, and The Enneagram Institute.

We ended the day with more vision planning and strategizing before heading to eat lots of yummy tacos at one of our new favorite restaurants in Chapel Hill.

After a wonderful first day, we wanted to set our ladies up for a great day two! They came back to their rooms with a cozy set of Plum Pretty Sugar pajamas, Skin Savior from our friends at One Love Organics, and jewelry from Goldenstrand.

We dove right into day two of our team summit by syncing up with Amber for an in-depth strategy planning meeting for the rest of our year. We talked about two very important things:

• How can we best serve our Cultivate family for the remainder of 2018?
• How do we prepare well now for our 2019 PowerSheets launch?

We came away with lots of great ideas, but more importantly, for every one thing we decided to do, we said no to two things. We revisited our company PowerSheets to remind us what we’re saying yes and no to for the rest of the year, and it was enlightening!

We had the chance to surprise our team with two fun gifts to remind them to cultivate what matters most: bracelets with our PowerSheets word of the year from Genuine & Ginger and monogrammed yoga jackets from Marley Lilly to help us continue to prioritize wellness as a team (bring on those Monday FitBit challenges!).

After our strategy session, we headed to grab famous BLTs from Merritt’s Grill, where we soaked up sunshine and conversation with the team.

To us, the recipe for a great team summit is simple: 50% strategy and planning and 50% fun and team-building. When we came back from lunch, our team moved into what Marissa and I called a “A Barking Good Time!”

We ordered The Great Follicle Debacle mystery game, arranged for a few costumes and props (no one went home empty-handed), and had a barking good time uncovering which pup was responsible for pouring the hair remover in Petunia the Poodle’s shampoo bottle! Each lady fully embraced their role (we have quite a few talented actresses in our midst), and luckily Petunia wasn’t too mad at the culprit, Casey!

We ended the evening around a dinner table laughing out loud at a game of team trivia and full of gratitude for how our friendships have flourished over the years we’ve spent working and doing life together.

As a tangible reminder to continue to grow good things, each lady went home with a copy of Cut Flower Garden and zinnia seeds for our friends at Floret Flowers, Belvoir Fruit Farms lemonades and Carolina Inn cookies, a Belle & Union Co. tea towel, and a Swoozies travel bag.

We recognize that having time together is a gift, and we are so grateful for this chance to celebrate all that’s happened and look ahead at the good things to come! We’ve grown a lot as a team over the years — thanks largely to Lara’s leadership and commitment to our vision — and we can’t wait to continue to bring you all on this journey with us.

As the resident gifting fairy, it fires me up to tangibly say thank you to the ladies on our team who pour their hearts in the work we do each day. A huge thank you to our incredible sponsors and friends: Belle & Union Co., Belvoir Fruit Farms, Cute Piñata Creations, Floret Flower, Genuine & Ginger, Goldenstrand Jewelry, Marley Lilly, May Designs, Meanwhile Back on the Farm, One Love Organics, Plum Pretty Sugar, Swoozies, The Carolina Inn, and walk in love.