Leadership

Local Lassitude

Ecosystem allies, startup community members, and friends support one another by encouraging their art. This does not have to be transactional. It can be showing up, a kind note, an unplanned phone call, or just a click to signal support.

What happens when we feel less local engagement with our art and it has us feeling disheartened? This has us questioning relationships within the local startup community, choosing to be more private, and almost tired of caring. People are busy, sure, but after sacrificing so much to generously build community, our energy feels taken for granted.

Leaders who have made a ruckus beyond their local community often experience this “idealization of the distant”. People think the best can only come from far away, right? Sure, always import knowledge, but local goodness remains… until it doesn’t.

Oddly, for the same reason we’re not feeling local love, our growing, but more distant networks appreciate our real skills, creative art, and are willing to invest in spending premium human time together. This drives attention to where true fans remain thirsty.

At the same time, locally, after all that’s been built, been sacrificed, people/environments change and over time, we can feel really under appreciated, even disrespected. The proximity value of leveraging local leaders is clear and so much good impact will always remain, but egotistical, mental anguish remains.

This devolved state may rhyme with burnout and may intensify during transitional times, but it’s not stagnant nor is it all bad. We don’t stand still. We stay wild. We revisit our fitness and creative practice. We remain grateful for good times shared. We live well and still ship art, but how can we reinvent local relationships with fellow leaders who were cool, but now feel like metric-meeting, transient disappointments?

Perhaps answers lie within the art of quitting the right things at the right time, but when it’s people we’re quitting, the related emotions impact how we treat others throughout the network. This creates suffering, delusions, and consumes personal bandwidth. If we’re going to remain generous, is it unrealistic to demand a local response? Not every time, but at least once in awhile, especially when someone is experiencing another summit within their body of work! If so, people’s topophilia (love of place) fades and the genuine heart of a startup community ends up fractured and hardened.

10/16/26 – Asked Seth Godin

By Ben McDougal, ago

Small Business Owners

Words matter. When “small business” and “small business owner” are overused, it becomes belittling. Breakthroughs await those with expanded vocabulary.

First, let’s get an elephant in the room. There is a need for categorization between different types of businesses, and size is an obvious differentiator. This determines how government policies, regulated programs, and other environmental resources are distributed.

Unfortunately, broad categorization leads to business owners not thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs.

Whether it’s the size of a company, revenue, or other quantifiable metrics, using “small business” may be required for economic structuring, but it limits how many leaders think about their own potential.

The opportunity to shift this narrative exists within events where the assemblage is comprised of small business owners. In these settings, use small business terms to target the promotional messaging, then find ways to release those technical terms at the event. Emcees, speakers, panelists, and staff can embolden the audience by using “small business owners” when necessary but then intentionally using more alternative titles that add depth to the attendee’s mindset. Instead of everything being focused on small, use synonyms that describe greatness, importance, appreciation, and yes, small business owners:

  • Entrepreneur
  • Founder
  • Leader
  • Student
  • Innovator
  • Heretic
  • Dreamer
  • Creator

    By using these synonyms, we can quietly inspire more inclusivity through fresh assimilation at events. Even if public policies remain rigid, more people will learn to celebrate and identify with more codifications.

    Over time, more people who may have kept themselves in a box will start to feel enlisted in all that is an entrepreneurial lifestyle. As more small business owners hear, use, and relate to enlivened vocabulary, the expanding taxonomy exposes new ideas, untapped resources, and unexpected realms to confidently explore within the local communities we love.

    Brewed From Within
    #36 📖 Leadership

    By Ben McDougal, ago

    Jargon vs. Understanding

    Humans seek to define emotions and articulate thoughts, yet a lack of understanding leads to fancy words and long-winded rhetoric. Sounding smart may protect our perceived knowledge, but as Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

    To gauge levels of understanding, there are two questions to ask. First, can we deconstruct, expand, or compress what was said? Second, can we then describe the exact same idea in five different ways? If not, seek further insight to go beyond memorized jargon.

    Genuine understanding leads to more transformative conversations. As you seek to translate emotions into thoughts and thoughts into words, here are quick constructs that signal a state of comprehension:

    • Actively listening with genuine interest
    • Using fewer but more effective vocabulary
    • Feeling untroubled by uncomfortable silence
    • Ongoing execution and creative adaptation

    Brewed From Within
    #35 📖 Leadership

    By Ben McDougal, ago

    Permeability

    Forever careers seem to be a thing of the past. Gone are the days of people working at one company their entire career. With rotating talent in high demand, scarcity can overshadow abundance. We fall back to reporting meaningless metrics, counting the keystrokes, and paying people just enough not to leave. Even the term talent retention feels desperate.

    What if, instead of trying to trick talent, we create remarkable roles in an inclusive environment that gives agency to team members eager to keep a promise?

    Seth Godin argues that enrollment can last when we invite people to leave. Instead of fighting to keep people in place, what if we optimize onboarding and welcome turnover while creating conditions to make this the best job someone has ever had? When people are invited to be indispensable, they feel significant, and the team will be led by those who aren’t just collecting rent for their time.

    Extra Shot

    “When you dance on the edge of infinity, there’s always enough… because you aren’t taking opportunity from anyone else, you’re creating it.” –Seth Godin

    When we create a gratifying but more porous environment, more gyrations within the team means leaders must be intentional with how they guide a business, relationships, and the environment overall. Having the best people in the right role takes extra attention, while ongoing commitment helps leaders stay in-tune with team dynamics.

    When departures occur, don’t blame the individual. Life happens, and talented people will always have new opportunities emerging. Responsive exits instill appreciation long after someone has left. This supports future hires, as modern leaders evaluate conditions, remain accountable, and nurture a performance-based culture made to stay… until it’s time to go.

    Brewed From Within
    #40 📖 Leadership

    By Ben McDougal, ago

    Significance

    Most of us seek peace, love, and significance.
    All can be achieved by offering each to others.

    Visions, missions, and titles guide teams in a shared direction, but linchpins want work that matters, and culture outshines even the most thoughtful strategy.

    The race to revenue makes it easy to see why we’ve been seduced by surveillance, predictable profit margins, and forced productivity. Too often, the easy metrics borrowed from such compliance are the ones that get measured. This leads to endless meetings geared toward delivering information, avoiding blame, and asserting authority for those in charge.

    The illusion is that control will lead to predictable results thanks to a maximization of resources. The problem is, humans are not a resource.

    Extra Shot

    Are your meetings led by a few people talking and most pretending to pay attention? Perhaps it’s time to get real by inviting the team to lead together.

    Leaders who make a difference welcome tension from those who make a ruckus. We nurture initiative, even when results aren’t perfect. This creates enrollment, where enthusiasm is met with consistent action. Promises that are kept lead to progress, which makes intentional permeability easier to execute. When everyone on a team is proud of the impact they make, roles are better understood, contributions last longer, and appreciated energy would be missed if it were gone. This is work worth doing, and it sounds like a symphonic choir when everyone on a team is given a voice to sing their own song of significance.

    Brewed From Within
    #39 📖 Leadership

    By Ben McDougal, ago