This is the best analogy I’ve heard in a while.
When speaking with Doug Griffiths, author of
13 Ways to Kill Your Community, recently about community building and the path to economic prosperity, he said to me (loosely paraphrased):
"A spider doesn’t focus on the entire web, it focuses on one thread at a time...you really need to focus on one thing and the rest will come."
You know, I couldn’t agree more.
I’ll be the first one to admit I’m less effective when I’m trying to do too many things at once. But when I focus on one or two key priorities for the day, lo and behold I get them done.
Interestingly, I Googled how spiders construct webs (just to double check), and I found out that spider’s ability to create these incredible structures is largely due to outside forces—the breeze. (
https://bit.ly/2sEZ1Ko)
And although the form is similar, each web is beautifully unique.
But if it were not for this ‘outside force,’ the spider would be likely unable to complete the task at hand and finish the web.
So, the key takeaway:
Don’t underestimate the power of outside forces when community building or planning our economic path. Let's focus on one or a few key priorities because some of our growth will inevitably come from outside forces.
And oh, what a unique community web we may weave.