Continuing our series from previous months – Read below about Chapters 11 and 12 of the book, 13 Ways to Kill Your Community.

Chapter 11—Ignore “Outsiders”: Outsider are a special and powerful group. They weren’t born in your community so they aren’t there by default like you. Every single one of them chose your community on purpose so they know what great things it must offer, and what potential awaits it. They are the new frontiersman who have a strong community spirit and an entrepreneurial attitude. They come from places where they never had what we often take for granted. They see our communities as full of possibilities and opportunities, where they can have a fantastic life with just a little work. We often don’t see those opportunities or appreciate what we have anymore. We spend most of our time complaining about how what we have isn’t good enough and then demanding more. To ensure failure make those outsiders feel different. Exclude them. If you are lucky they may in fact change their mind about your community and decide to leave. Then your community can finally become a home-grown family of failures right before it dies.

Chapter 12—Become Complacent: Success can happen to anybody. Once you have some success, the best way to ensure it goes away is to assume it will always come to you and will require no effort on your part. Assuming you are miles ahead, and always will be, is the fastest way to ensure everyone else passes right by you. In reality everything is either healthy or dying. Many people say they want to have a ‘sustainable’ community, but what they really mean is that they want the ‘status quo.’ In this world there is no such thing. Everything changes and it takes a lot of work to just hold your ground. In the words of Wayne Gretzky, “it takes a lot to get to the top, it takes even more to stay on top.” Seeking to be vibrant, dynamic, responsive, adaptive, and enterprising can give you what your community needs to keep from dying, but seeking the status quo immediately becomes complacency, and complacency is the perfect way to ensure that your community will end in good time.

Catch the final chapter recap in next month’s edition!

This article was published in the Venango Chamber’s July 2024 VenangoWorks! Newsletter.