Shut up and listen

Hello Reader,

As of last weekend, fall is officially over in the US. Labor Day weekend signals the beginning of the school year and reminds us that it's time to get serious again about the rest of the year (if you're as excited about it as me, I have the perfect episode coming up for you next week!).

Last year, I took a four-week summer break to spend time with my niece and nephew from Ireland. We were kicking it by the (ice-cold East-German) pool and eating our weight in ice cream.

This year, I'll be honest, I was unprepared for what hit me. At SCCF, we spent the month of August on listening tours: We visited entrepreneurs throughout the Shenandoah Valley to hear what's working for them and what isn't. We are committed to putting the needs of the entrepreneurs we're hoping to serve at the center of our work - and that means we need to understand what those are.

It was my first experiencing the entrepreneurial journey through eyes that were not my own and it was deeply humbling. Hear more about our listening tours in my second summer skill session and see us in action in one of our stories.

After all three listening tours, I was exhausted. As in: Sleep-12-hours-each-night-and-take-two-naps-during-the-day-exhausted.

But in reality, the real work starts now: We are synthesizing what we learned, we will prioritize our efforts and weave them into our strategic plan for the coming years. On the storytelling side, we're producing case studies to share our learnings with entrepreneurs, support organizations and ecosystem builders in the Valley, and we'll use these case studies as the foundation of our region-wide storytelling efforts. If you want to learn more about storytelling, you're really going to enjoy our third Summer Skill Session!

And then of course, we have the Shenandoah Valley Entrepreneurship Summit coming up. Looks like fall kicks off as busy as summer ended!

Thanks for coming along on this ride!

P.S. THANK YOU to those who have been sharing the show with their networks! It means the world to me that you're finding so much value in these episodes that you recommend them to your friends!