Downstream of the Weather
Happy October, everyone.
At the end of September, I spoke at Final Fridays, the breakfast Mark and Amanda Hopper host at their Greer office for local business owners and leaders. I want to share some of what I talked about there
In these essays, I talk a lot about the value of being involved in community. The way Taylors gets anything done and the way any of us flourish together depend on people choosing to show up and be present in community.
But I don't think we talk enough about what it costs. A lot of people get involved hoping it will be good for their business. I'll come back to whether it is. Either way, getting involved isn't marketing. It's rarely easy and often messy, and it's a long-term investment whose costs come at the beginning.
The first cost is time. I've had seasons of doing more and seasons of doing less, mostly because of how much time I could give. When family, paid work, and everything else begin to fight for my attention, something has to give. Sometimes I’ve chosen business over community, and other times community has won out.
My 2024 run for County Council is a good example. For a full year, I stopped chasing new business, because most of my entrepreneurial energy went into the race. I made that choice, and there's only so much time in a day.
The second cost is money. Volunteering your time is one way to contribute, but sometimes a project needs someone to show up with resources and take one for the team. That's easier said than done. I've tried to live it out in how I run my business, absorbing what I can when I'm part of something I believe in. But when things are tighter, I think it’s OK to say, “I can’t do this right now.”
The third cost is your reputation. Being involved in anything means taking a stand, even if the stand is only what you choose to spend your time on. Tie your name to anything with lasting impact, and some people will cheer you on while others mock you for it.
With all three, count the cost before you begin. It comes due whether you counted it or not.
So why do it?
The costs are real. But often, showing up is simply the right thing to do. The fabric of our community depends on people giving their time and energy, and nothing happens here unless someone is willing to pay those costs.
And as for the question I started with: does being involved in community help your business? I do think the returns are real, even if they're rarely immediate. Being involved in your community isn't like putting money in a high-yield savings account and collecting 4% a year. It's more like planting a crop. You're downstream of the weather, and most of how it turns out is beyond your control.
That goes for your time, your money, and your reputation. When you take a stand, you don't know how the issue will play out. When you put your name on an organization, you don't know everything that will happen to it.
The best we can do is anchor ourselves to efforts we'll be proud of, no matter how they turn out.
I'm proud of what we've done with Taylors TownSquare to help revitalize our community. I've gotten to put my technical skills toward getting the word out and organizing projects around it, and it's been worth it.
This isn't new advice. You have to be invested in the process rather than the outcome, because the process is where you'll spend nearly all your time. The outcome is a quick blip.
The artist Rebecca Rebouché put it this way in an interview with The Great Discontent: "There's no music playing when your dreams are coming true."
So here's my question for you. What would you be willing to lose time or money on, once, for this place?
