Choosing your start-up team is imperative for the success of your project. In fact: you must be so certain in your choosing of the community’s founding members that you can’t possibly fathom a future without them!
Make sure to be keen and not overlook skill-sets that people may bring to the table. You can’t expect to know what your community will need months or years from now. However you can know when someone speaks to you about something they love to do and it makes you smile, chances are it will make others smile and that is precisely how to make your community feel rich & wealthy.
Valhalla’s Founders were skilled in:
- Marketing
- Graphic Design
- Web Development
- PR
- Education
- Videography
In our case it would have been helpful to start off with a contractor (plumber/electrician/architect etc) of some sort, someone who can look and conceptualize all processes of physical building/maintenance.
You’re looking for people with intense passion, discipline and finesse.
From my experience, it’s the unique skills which often show their awesomeness to your community in discrete but very magical ways.
Marty is Good w/ People
In 2012 we had a Halloween party at our HQ to raise funds for our young project. We aimed for one hundred guests but cramped our cottage with 3. It was epic! So epic (and loud) in fact that the local police force showed up on our residential street to pay homage. Every member had their hands tied with party tasks but Marty -being our Chief of PR- genuinely catered to the police, walked them in and around the house of un-sober dressed-up young adults, told them about Valhalla Movement and exchanged business cards. The cops became sympathetic to our cause and secured the street from loud guests. The party went on for the rest of the night until Valhalla felt like getting the HQ back at around 4AM. No fines, only kindled friendships.
Once you identify and value a potential member’s skills, there is one last thing that closes the sacred gap of becoming family. It’s qualitative in nature so it involves that you absolutely meet the potential squad members in person and see if they have open hearts and open minds.
Open Heart
The secret recipe to any good meal is plenty of love.
Is the potential member ready to love?
There will be inevitable scenarios were opinions may collide and arguments must be well tamed in order to avoid it becoming an unhealthy ongoing distraction within your organization. In order to clear a path of understanding between members, one should sidestep the mind and speak directly from the heart. This involves being empathetic; caring sincerely about this person’s emotional and physical wellbeing.
At Valhalla, what resolves most of our arguments is remembering that we genuinely love one another. It’s not easy to always remember the way out of an argument, but the fastest way is to remind both parties that they’re speaking to a brother or sister with dreams and ambitions much like their own.
(Don’t judge, remember that it starts with you too. Do you love yourself truly and are you ready to fall in love with the people with which you’re choosing to start this awesome community? It’s going to take some interpersonal efforts but the ability exists within us all.)
Open Mind
What gives Valhalla such intense energy and flow is that every day we all expect to become more learned.
Your founding members -to a large extent- will act as teachers to the first few waves of recruits and the best teachers are those who are willing to learn. For some people, it is a massive blow to their ego to listen to someone and try to sincerely understand what they’re saying, but coupled with an open heart it becomes possible.
You want individuals that -not only- want to learn more, but; are willing to do so from anybody. I can sincerely say it is one of the most key elements to our organization’s successful projects.
PE@CE & Love