Think Like an Entrepreneur - Become a Sparkplug
By Frank Spillers
Think Like an Entrepreneur - Become a SparkplugNov 18, 2020
What is Your Community Purpose?
What is your community's purpose?
What could you make your community's life about?
Does it attract people?
When you have a purpose for what you are doing, it raises the bar of your participation in life.
You are compelled to reach, to stretch, and to go beyond your most base concerns.
It makes you get out of your selfish self.
How are Your Community Relationships?
Have you ever really thought how much weight relationships have on your quality of life?
Perhaps you have ignored the importance of relationships to the point of neglect or willful ignorance.
The new insanity is trying to get others to be different so you can be your best self.
It does not work that way.
You learned how to be in relationships from watching everyone around you during your childhood.
So how do you fix that to make better relationships within your community?
Turning Your Community Around will require Holding Your Promises
Your sense of personal power is directly correlated to the strength of the relationship between you and what you say.
Keeping your personal promises is the single most underused, undervalued, and ignored source of power for people.
Promises don't have feelings to consider; they also don't' care about the weather or how much money there is or what people think.
They stand there alone in the universe, calling you to be your greatest self.
Your promises are the future, your feelings, the past, and the the choice you will have to make every day between now and when you die.
RuralCommunitySolutions.com
Are You Willing?
That is a question that you, as a community, need to ask.
Are we willing to live in our community the way it is?
What are you tolerating?
What are the things that you pretend aren't really a problem or that you are avoiding addressing?
When you really start to analyze why you do what you do, then you can change. However, if you just say "we are willing to live with it the way it is," then that is what you get.
Maybe all of your community members do not feel the way your leaders feel. Maybe your leadership is fine with how it is but other people are not fine with how it is. Then you need new leadership or a way to work around the leaders.
Father's Day - Is It For Every Father?
What is Father's Day
To some, it is a day that celebrates fathers.
To others, it is a day of stress.
Do you know the difference?
Self-Sabotage and Stress in Entrepreneurs
Behavior is self-sabotaging when it creates problems and interferes with long-standing goals.
People are built; they are not born.
The time you make a decision to believe.
People are programmed to think about/do about/the things you think about and you do and get.
Do you have a Mental Health effort in your economic development strategies?
What are the Workplace Trends?
Engagement
Covid-19 Impact
Stress
The Gallup Report
What Happens When Your Entrepreneurs Have Stress?
Ultimately, healthy people are happier, more productive, and less prone to accidents on the job than those who aren’t in good health.
People don’t resist change.
Their programming resists change.
How you handle change determines how you handle stress.
Five Steps to Change
In light of your past experiences, your current circumstances, future hopes and dreams, where do you need to begin making consistent deposits of time? Everyone has the same amount of time.
There is 24 hours in a day for every person in the world.
Why do you use your time the way that you do?
Remember - You NEVER run out of time.
Mental Health - Entrepreneurs - Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
What does mental health have to do with an entrepreneurial ecosystem?
Support.
Join in the conversation.
Take the De-Stress Steps
Are you an entrepreneur?
Now is the time to De-Stress.
Do you know what to do?
Tune if and De-Stress with these simple steps.
How Do You Change a Community?
When we coach a community, we use a three step process.
Learn the steps, change a life.
Engage Marginalized People
How do you get the marginalized voter engaged?
Voters are tired of politicians and political parties.
They feel no one listens to them or understands their needs.
Here is a process that you can do to bring in the people that do not normally participate in the democratic process.
We call it civic democracy!
It is how this country was built.
More Reasons Why You Need a Community Coach
As a community coach, engaging the full range of community residents and organizations is vital.
Community power structures are often uneven and may even discriminate against certain community segments and residents (either intentionally or through subtle biases).
We cannot force a community to commit to fuller community engagement, but in our role as a community coach we can encourage the merits of broad community engagement and help communities through smart strategies and tactics to help the community realize fuller resident and organizational participation.
Contact us for more information on how we can become your community coach.
www.ruralcommunitysolutions.com
#AskMe
Ask Me Campaign
It is as Simple as Black and White.
Either you are or you’re not fully vaccinated, so give others permission to:
Ask Me Due to the hesitation of some people to get vaccinated, mistrust of people in today's environment, and the lack of willingness for vaccine passports, we are launching our campaign, "Ask Me."
When you see a person display an item with "Ask Me" on it, you will know that the person is giving permission for individuals and businesses to ASK to see their COVID-19 vaccination record.
This is only for those who are willing to show they have been fully vaccinated.
https://ruralcommunitysolutions.com/ask-me-1
#AskMe
Why Do You Need a Community Coach?
As a community coach, engaging the full range of community residents and organizations is vital.
Community power structures are often uneven and may even discriminate against certain community segments and residents (either intentionally or through subtle biases).
We cannot force a community to commit to fuller community engagement, but in our role as a community coach we can encourage the merits of broad community engagement and help communities through smart strategies and tactics to help the community realize fuller resident and organizational participation.
Contact us for more information on how we can become your community coach.
www.ruralcommunitysolutions.com
#AskMe
Life’s Defining Moments
We are all going through the same storm, we are just in different boats!
COVID has us all in different places.
Some are all alone riding the waves and not knowing where they will land
Some are in Lifeboats, trying to survive as a group,
Some are in Yachts excelling, and
Some are in a submarine, not acknowledging the storm at all.
Wherever you are, you will want to pay attention to how you are responding to the storm.
Life's Defining Moments is a workshop designed to do exactly that.
How you come out of the storm is up to you.
Grow Your Garden Twelve Months a Year - Communities - Families - Schools - Businesses
Did you know that food researchers at Ohio State University and Cornell University in New York found that children are five times more likely to eat salad when they have grown it themselves. Use it for personal, commercial, and educational benefits.
The Tower Garden is:
EFFICIENT: Grow 20 plants x 2.5’ by 2.5’ of space.
ECO-FRIENDLY: Uses 1/10th the water and land required by traditional growing and virtually eliminates the need to ship and store produce.
COST-EFFECTIVE: Lasts a lifetime and easily pays for itself — typically in about 2 years.
SAFE: Made from USDA-approved, UV-stabilized, food-grade plastic.
Be Entrepreneurial - Feed your community - Become Food Secure.
What Makes a Person Decide to Buy From You?
Why does a person choose one over another?
Do you know what they want? Why the want?
List the Features but sell the Benefits.
Come on in and get excited to grow your town, business, organization, and/or church.
The time is now!
CONFLICT - What is it?
You know when you are in conflict with someone of something.
Maybe it is a thought, or it could be a person.
So what is conflict?
We'll define conflict and tell you how you can solve conflict.
How to Attract Your Workforce
Attracting your workforce is more than just offering a job for pay!
In the following, I will explain what businesses want in a worker but more important, what a worker wants in a business.
If you can not offer a workforce environment, how do you expect to attract a workforce?
Here are a few simple steps that you can start now.
Customer Service
Does your community, business, organization, church, and school have great customer service?
Does it take someone yelling to get your company to respond in a urgent manner?
Do you really care about your customer?
When You Have a Belief, You Are Right
BELIEF - (Merriam-Webster)
1: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2: something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion : something believed
3: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence.
Have you ever tried to change somebody's mind?
A belief is based upon a person's past.
If you want to change the future, you have to understand their past.
That is where Engagement is the right pillar.
What Exactly is Rural COMMUNITY Solutions?
Unity is being together or at one with someone or something. It's the opposite of being divided. This is a word for togetherness or oneness.
Community is a unified body of individuals: such as people with common interests living in a particular area and a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.
When you put them together you get UNITY in your COMMUNITY.
Why would you want anything but this in your building WEALTH.
Attract the conditions that you wish to create.
Entrepreneurial Word of the Day - TRUST
TRUST
a: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something
b: one in which confidence is placed
2a: dependence on something future or contingent : HOPE
b: reliance on future payment for property (such as merchandise) delivered : CREDIT bought furniture on trust Merriam-Webster
Do the people that live in your community TRUST you?
Do the people that do business with you TRUST you?
How do you know? How can you gain their TRUST?
Let me know.
Entrepreneurial Word of the Day - KINDNESS
Kindness
When you look at the dictionary, kindness is defined as the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate.
Other synonyms of kindness are goodwill, warmth, tenderness, selflessness, and benevolence.
What does KiNDNESS do for others and you? It is good for the body.
Kindness has been shown to increase self-esteem, empathy and compassion, and improve mood.
It can decrease blood pressure and cortisol, a stress hormone, which directly impacts stress levels.
Are you growing your business with KINDNESS?
Are you growing your community with KINDNESS?
Let me know.
Entrepreneurial Word of the Day - INTENTION
INTENTION:
1: a: what one intends to do or bring about
b: the object for which a prayer, mass, or pious act is offered
2: a: determination to act in a certain way : RESOLVE
Are you growing your business with intention?
Are you growing your community with intention?
What is it that you intend to do?
Let me know.
Your Word of the Day - Consistency
Merriam-Webster on Consistency says:
a: agreement or harmony of parts or features to one another or a whole :
The furnishings and decorations in all the rooms reflect a consistency of style.
specifically : ability to be asserted together without contradiction
b: harmony of conduct or practice with profession
followed her own advice with consistency
Does your community act with consistency?
Let me know.
Startup Weekend and Finding Your Best Hard Cider!
Meet Jay Cooper, entrepreneurial ecosystem builder extraordinaire! Jay is in the Startup Weekend crowd in building Startup Communities around the world. Startup Week is a celebration of entrepreneurship and the people shaping the entrepreneurial ecosystem in your city. Provocative speakers - Techstars Startup Week features innovative speakers and thought-provoking roundtable discussions where you can keep on top of the latest technologies and trends. Hands-on workshops - Jump in and join hands-on workshops and other activities with people who share an entrepreneurial spirit on topics relevant to your startup community. Make new connections - Knowing you’re not alone can make all the difference. Startup Week provides participants many opportunities to engage and connect with like-minded individuals. Celebrate your city - With dozens of sessions, an opening ceremony, keynote speakers, pitch competitions, happy hour events, and a closing party, Startup Week is the place to have fun while supporting your community. You can find Jay at - email at jaycarlcooper@gmail.com LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaycarlcooper/ Web sites are: https://www.jaycooper-media.com/ http://ciderfinder.co/
Jay is in the Startup Weekend crowd in building Startup Communities around the world.
Startup Week is a celebration of entrepreneurship and the people shaping the entrepreneurial ecosystem in your city.
Provocative speakers - Techstars Startup Week features innovative speakers and thought-provoking roundtable discussions where you can keep on top of the latest technologies and trends.
Hands-on workshops - Jump in and join hands-on workshops and other activities with people who share an entrepreneurial spirit on topics relevant to your startup community.
Make new connections - Knowing you’re not alone can make all the difference. Startup Week provides participants many opportunities to engage and connect with like-minded individuals.
Celebrate your city - With dozens of sessions, an opening ceremony, keynote speakers, pitch competitions, happy hour events, and a closing party, Startup Week is the place to have fun while supporting your community.
You can find Jay at - email at jaycarlcooper@gmail.com
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaycarlcooper/
Web sites are: https://www.jaycooper-media.com/ http://ciderfinder.co/
How Does Your Community Respond to New Ideas and New People?
Acting in a responsible manner is an attitude. It is a lifestyle. It’s your action of how you talk to, talk about, think about, and treat the people who cross your path every day. It is the environment that you create for you and others to live.
Responsibility is an attitude as well as an action; a choice that can be broken into different meanings.
Response - How you react and respond to any circumstance or event.
Ability - Your choice and your talents. Your learning and your experiences.
Be Aware of Your GAP. You have the Ability to Respond in ANY way.
Do You Use Your Failures to Teach Others?
The best teachers are the ones that have failed the worst. The best teachers are the ones that have been through the darkness and learned how to come out better on the other side. The best teachers are the ones that can take their mistakes and offer them to others as lessons to be learned from and not repeated.
Relationships are everywhere and the basis of everything. We need them in the workplace, we need them in our families, we need them in our communities, we need them in our lives, period.
However, if you do not have a great relationship with yourself first, you cannot have a great relationship with anyone, ever.
I teach relationship building because I have a passion to help others so they do not have to go through what I went through. I live those moments every single day but I do not live in them. I have learned to forgive myself and hope and pray that I am forgiven by those that I have hurt and truly love.
Here is what I have learned.
Do You Have Spotlight or Floodlight Focus?
The environment in your community creates the population or lack of population.
Many organizations are working on what is in front of them and ignoring the cause. It is like going to the doctor and getting medicine for a symptom but ignoring what the cause may be.
Implementing a proven system to engage your community just might be the cure for all of your community ills.
You never know unless you try.
America’s New Business Plan from the Kauffman Foundation
America’s entrepreneurs don’t ask for much. They embrace the future by building it themselves, working toward goals with the spirit and drive to overcome every hurdle in their paths.
But too often and for too long, America’s policymakers have taken that spirit and drive for granted. Being “pro-business” has come to represent favoring big business in today’s politics.
Making it easier for everyday Americans to start their own businesses is essential for creating economic growth that works for everyone. After all, this is what the American Dream is all about: the belief that anyone, regardless of who they are or where they are from, has the opportunity to make a better life.
Unless leaders move quickly to reduce unnecessary barriers and expand the circle of American entrepreneurs, the United States will no longer be the most innovative nation with the most dynamic economy on Earth.
The Foundational Values of a Startup Community
You have a multitude of entrepreneurs in your community but you might not realize the impact they provide.
The foundation of any community that is working towards building an entrepreneurial economy is community engagement.
You have to start with the community support of entrepreneurs first.
It is an understanding of what exactly is an entrepreneurial economy and what culture does it take to have one?
What is the Number ONE Cause for a Person to Leave a Job, Community, or Organization?
Why do workers leave companies?
Why do teachers leave schools?
Why do students leave schools?
Why do volunteers leave your organization?
Why do people leave your church?
Why do people leave your community?
Why?
It is your lack of one action!
Entrepreneurs are People Also
Have you ever looked at a business owner and wondered, "how did they become the owner of this business?"
Entrepreneurs go through a process of identification.
They know deep down a deep desire to be.
It is a guarantee that failure will happen.
It is a guarantee that success will happen. (Maybe not the way you define success however.)
Is your community allowing that to happen?
It all depends upon how this question is answered, "Is Your Community Welcoming?"
The Economy is Fundamentally About People
Do you really actively listen or do you just wait to talk?
That is a question that you should be asking yourself in all of your communications.
Understanding another's point of view and perception is the foundation of building a better economy.
Your economy is all about people.
When people talk together about common concerns, they begin to see themselves as public actors.
They talk about what they can do, not just what others ought to do.
Building an Entrepreneurial Economy is Walking Your Talk
Do you walk your talk? How about your community? How about your church? How about any organization you belong? In Your Relationships?
It is one thing to think and talk about what you do and what you believe, but the proof is in your actions.
Walking your talk is one of the most important actions that you can take to build an entrepreneurial economy. Entrepreneurs, community and organization members, all need to know that what you say is what they will experience.
It is the foundation of trust.
Bringing Communities Together by Tearing Down the Walls of Separation
Your workforce does not all live within your community. They will come from many different towns within your region. We call that the "commuting community."
Are you paying attention to the economy of the towns your workforce and you retail trade comes from? If you do not, you are missing a huge opportunity to increase your economy.
Tearing down the walls of former athletic competitions, school mergers, county seat charters, and the larger vs smaller town jealousy, is an eye opening experience.
Our Community Builders Institute is a powerful, specialized, regional process that builds #collaboration in a Spring-Fall experience to build #entrepreneurship, #education and getting to know your own #community-we bet you find something you never knew!
You'll experience a rise in volunteerism, new projects, and enthusiasm. In one five-county area implementing this Institute, more than 250 jobs and businesses were created during the three years of community participation
Entrepreneurship Starts Early in Life
Are your youth staying or returning to your town?
Some of the most interesting revelations we have working with communities is going into its schools and leading our unique discussion about their community and how they see themselves fitting into its future.
A wise community takes time to understand, instruct, and support children with local opportunities and make room for them to lead.
Small Community Engagement Institute - Handling Community Conflict
Does your community have any conflicts? Does your community make decisions together? Do you know how?
Years allowing your mayor and city and county officials to make community decisions have encouraged communities to "let them decide," rather than be involved in decision making.
If this is your community's story, #RuralCommunitySolutions will discuss the power of our #SmallCommunity #Engagement Institute to face "wicked" issues you may have "swept under the rug" for years to build civility into your community.
Making decisions together leads to happier, healthier, collaborative, and prosperous towns.
Leadership Builds Relationships Which Builds Leadership
Vision, collaborative planning, and collaborative partnerships are the essence of effective community leadership. Though it can be learned, community leadership is not a science, and no one set of practices ensures effective leadership. Community leadership needs to be flexible to suit different situations. Leaders need sound knowledge of people and resources to act as creative problem-solvers.
Leadership involves commitment, not just interest.
Commitment is most effective combined with purpose, passion, shared vision and goals to get you where you want to be. Shared vision works best when community-centered, not self-serving.
Trust is a major indicator of effective leadership, with a number of sources. It may come from the personal integrity of a leader, from his/her hard work or from previous leadership with the community, encouraging community members to listen and respect that person’s point of view.
Trust may develop when leaders, through their attitudes, approaches and actions, indicate they recognize that responsibility is owed to people as well as the bottom line of the project. Respect comes to people who lead to benefit all.
Do you see yourself as a leader? Often in rural communities, those who are paid, positional leaders from a chamber of commerce, or the economic development office, are the ones assumed to be leaders. We know that leaders are everywhere and there is a vast, often untapped network to build your community.
#RuralCommunitySolutions suggest ideas who to include in your meetings, events, projects, and especially in your planning. They may be people you never thought would be great leaders.
The Community Prosperity Institute
The Community Prosperity Institute. This Institute utilizes quantitative and qualitative research about your community to look at #CollaborativeLeadership through your
People - to renew itself demographically.
Place - to optimize placemaking to offer competitive quality of life amenities.
Economy - to create economic opportunities that enables diverse residents to make a living and pursue their dreams.
When people truly live in healthy relationships, their personal environments change, impacting family, neighborhood, and community perceptions one person at a time.
Why Entrepreneurs?
Talented, motivated individuals should be able to create and grow businesses where ever they chose to live.
Communities need to build support and knowledge-sharing around them.
Entrepreneurs pass on the tradition of entrepreneurship to the next generation.
Through entrepreneurship, the world will become a better place.
By implementing our Four Pillars of Prosperity, you will build an environment to create a startup community so entrepreneurship can flourish.
But only if you let it.
True Collaboration Leads to Networks of Trust
True collaborative leadership focuses on appreciating individual gifts and talents and how people use them to work together across functional and organizational boundaries.
Collaborative leaders are in the people business, the business of building, shaping, molding, and drawing out the best of the people in your sphere of influence.
When you practice true collaboration, you will build a network of trust that supports a startup community.
Second Step is to Engage Entrepreneurs
To fully understand another, to build a relationship with them, here’s a simple rule of thumb: you have to understand how and why a person learns and becomes who they are.
Take the second step and learn how to engage the entrepreneurship community.
Entrepreneurs will tell you what they need when they trust your community.
Do you actively listen or do you just wait to talk?
The First Step of a Startup Community
The environment is the most important factor of a startup community.
The environment will only be grown from the ground up.
Discover how you can create a better environment where startup ventures thrive in your community.
Take the first step on a 25 year journey.
Time to Plan Your Main Street Business Succession
If you want your community to keep its Main Street businesses, support planning business succession.
Sweet Joy Shoppe in Atlantic, Iowa, talks about their succession of the family business.
Values and faith are key to the continuation of this popular eatery.
Learn the steps to a smooth family succession.
Have a Berry Good Time at the AABA
Aronia Berry is a SUPER Fruit! Healthy for your body and healthy for your bank account!
Meet Kent Klinkefus, past president of the American Aronia Berry Association.
The American Aronia Berry Association’s primary purpose is to educate and facilitate communication among the members.
Join us as we talk about benefits of the association and the benefits of Aronia.
You will have a Berry good time.
American Aronia Berry Association - www.americanaronia.org
What are the Benefits to Feeding the World Aronia Berries?
Dennise Bowyer from Bowyer Farms in Missouri, will talk us though the Aronia Berry from a growers perspective. As an entrepreneur, Dennise sees the ups and downs of building new markets and educating the public about healthy foods.
Aronia berries are a small, round fruit native to North America. Their sharp taste dries out the mouth, earning them the nickname "chokeberries." Don't let the name fool you though, chokeberries are safe to eat and have numerous health benefits.
If you live in North America, you may notice aronia berries growing in the wild. They look a bit like small cranberries, though they can be red or black, and grow on shrubs throughout the continent. Historically, they've been used by Native American tribes to make teas and treat colds as well as to eat. Today, these berries are eaten all over the world. You can get them fresh, dried, or as a juice.
This little berry has incredible health benefits.
Do your research, and grab a glass of Aronia Juice!
American Aronia Berry Association - https://americanaronia.org/