Does Your Community Have a Winning Attitude?

I was speaking with a colleague recently who has a new venture for rural communities. It is exciting and I can’t wait to share it with you all. But, in our conversations, he was defining “rural” as 60,000 and below. I quickly expressed my frustration with that number. But, I want to share with you how he changed my mind a little bit.

We have all experienced state and federal government programs defining rural as below 50,000. We know that muddies the water when applying for grants and programs. When we are a town of 3000 people or even 1000 people, we rarely stand a chance competing with a town of 50,000. They have more resources, more people, more of everything.

But, when speaking with my colleague, he expressed how he wasn’t really looking at the number, he was looking for the attitude. He wants to work with communities that have a winning attitude.  Regardless of the size of the community, if they have the right attitude, this new opportunity will be successful in that town.  

That got me thinking. (Scary I know!) Does my community have a winning attitude? Does your community? And, how do we portray that? Do we talk about our wins? Or do we talk about everything that is going wrong in our community?

Even large towns have issues. You probably don’t hear about them if you aren’t local. What you hear about are the wins! They tell you what new business is coming to town. They tell you about their plans for the future.  They share good things happening in their town. They talk about what could be. 

Our small town “wins” may look and sound different, but they are still wins. Tell those stories! Don’t be shy. Talk about a local business that has been there for 20 years. Talk about a new business that is opening, even if they only have one employee. Talk about the events happening. If you are sharing the good news, people are drawn to that. It also creates pride with local people. They will change their tune and start talking about what is possible.

Think about it like this: a coach would never win a basketball game talking about a team's faults. The coach wins by helping the team see what they are capable of. What is your town capable of? 

Does your community have a winning attitude? If you want to set your community up for new opportunities, adopt a winning attitude and see how it changes the landscape.