The Widest Net by Pamela Slim

Author:Pamela Slim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

PREPARE FOR HEARTBREAK

Thus far, I have been extolling the virtues of building real, human relationships and not looking at people like numbers in your business.

To be responsible, I need to also tell you that operating from a relational perspective will sometimes be extremely difficult. I think of one of my favorite lines from my favorite movie of all time, Moonstruck, when Nicolas Cage’s character says to Cher’s character: “The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and ‘die.’”

• When you have meaningful relationships with your customers, and you care about how they feel about you, it will be hard to hear feedback that they are unhappy with something in your business.

• When you mess up in public and say something offensive (we all do and will), you will have to face the heat of people you know, and don’t know, who are mad at you.

• When you transition to a new business model, you may need to stop serving some of your favorite customers. This will hurt. A lot.

• You may enter into a partnership with good intentions, and through experience, find you are not the best fit. This can feel awkward and scary.

• A beloved customer or client may choose to stop working with you and go work with someone you may not like or is not as talented as you are, and you may get jealous.

There is no way around this. You will survive this heartbreak by remembering three things:

1. It is your job to serve the mission of your business. If you have chosen a mission that has deep meaning to you, the discomfort is worth it.

2. Don’t take things personally. This second agreement from Don Miguel Ruiz’s powerful book, The Four Agreements, will save you a lot of heartache. Even though it may feel like it, you are not your business.

3. The heartbreak of real human relationships is better than the heartlessness of a transactional business. It does not build character or create meaning to dehumanize your customers.

I summarized my community-building ethos into a manifesto.

COMMUNITY BUILDER’S MANIFESTO

Many of us spend time in our neighborhoods, businesses, social, and spiritual spaces working to bring awesome people together.

Who doesn’t want a bustling, downtown, a packed event, or a thriving online forum?

We call this work “community building.”

But what does community building actually mean? How does it behave? How is it structured?

Based especially on my work the last five years building the Main Street Learning Lab at K’é and three decades of gathering people in business, in the arts, and online, this is how I choose to define community building.

Community is the earth, water, air, and sunshine for our sense of belonging and purpose.

It is the ecosystem—the set of people, places, structures, organizations, resources, and behaviors—that allow us to feel like we are seen, heard, understood, and valued, and where we find the tools to reach our goals.

Our best work takes place in a community that we understand and that understands us.

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