You Can't Download Community: On Giving, Asking, and Showing Up for Each Other

Nobody gets good at anything completely on their own.

I know that sounds obvious. But I think a lot of us spend years quietly acting like it isn't true. We perform with confidence that we don't fully have yet. We hesitate to ask the question that might make us look like we don't belong in the room. We show up to networking events with a subtle mental scorecard, cataloging who might be useful, who we should get in front of, and what we might walk away with.

I've done it. I think most people have.

And then you spend enough time around people who don't operate that way, and something shifts.

What Generosity Actually Looks Like in Practice

I've been in enough rooms now to notice the difference between people who show up to give and people who show up to grab. And the thing is, it's not always obvious at first. Both can be charming. Both can be impressive. But over time, it becomes really clear which one you want to keep calling.

The people I keep calling are the ones who share what they know without making you feel like you owe them something. The ones who make an introduction because it's the right thing to do, not because they're keeping tabs. The ones who check in just to check in.

I always say that when I walk into a room, the question I want to be asking is what can I give here, not what can I get. That's not a humble brag. It's honestly a practice. Some days I'm better at it than others. But it's the posture I keep coming back to, because every time I've shown up that way, something good has happened. Not always immediately. Not always directly. But it comes back around.

I always say that some of my best learning doesn't happen in a session or a classroom. It happens in the conversation right before I walk into one. And that only happens because we actually show up. We travel from wherever we call home, and we share a zip code for a few days, and something about being physically in the same space with people who care about the same things just opens something up.

We Don't Have to Be the Expert in Everything

Here's something I find genuinely freeing about community: you don't have to know everything. You just have to know people who know things, and be the kind of person they want to call.

I came into my industry not knowing a fraction of what the people around me knew. I still don't. And I've learned more from conversations in hallways and side rooms and coffee lines than I ever could have learned trying to figure it all out alone. My best learning doesn't happen in a classroom. It happens in the conversation right before I walk into one.

That's not a gap. That's the whole system working the way it's supposed to.

The most experienced, most credentialed people I know are also often the most willing to ask for help. That's not a coincidence. At some point, you realize that asking good questions and admitting what you don't know isn't a liability. It's actually what makes people trust you. It's what makes them want to bring you in, keep you in the loop, and call you back.

We get by with a little help from our friends. I mean that literally. Not as a platitude. As an actual operating philosophy.

The Ripple Effect of Showing Up

One of the things I think about a lot is legacy. Not in a heavy or self-important way, just in the sense of what are we actually leaving behind in the rooms we've been in.

When you show up with intention, when you make the introduction that has nothing in it for you, when you share the thing you know with the person who needs it, when you take the time to encourage someone who's just starting out, you create a ripple you'll probably never fully see. That person goes on to do something. They help someone else. They pull someone into a room they didn't know they belonged in.

That's community doing what community is supposed to do. It's not a transaction. It's a living thing. And it only stays alive because people keep feeding it.

I've been on the receiving end of that generosity more times than I can count. People who didn't have to show up for me, who did anyway. And every time that happens, my job is to make sure I'm passing it forward, not just paying it back.

That's the deal. That's the whole thing.

A Note on Asking for Help

If you're someone who finds it hard to ask for help, I want to say something directly: asking is not a weakness. It is not an admission that you don't belong. It is one of the most honest things you can do in a professional relationship.

The people worth knowing will not think less of you for it. They will think more of you. And the people who don't, honestly, are probably not the ones you want to be learning from anyway.

None of us figured this out alone. And the ones who pretend they did are usually the loneliest people in the room.

A Huge Thank You

A huge thank you to Kim Dallefeld for coming on Coffey Talk and for the conversation that sparked all of this. Kim has been in the industry for more than 30 years, has earned more awards than I can list, and tells the best stories of anyone I know. She is the embodiment of “She Builds.” She has truly built it all.

You can tune in to the full episode on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you prefer to watch your podcasts, you can watch this one on YouTube.

Thank you to Kim for your mentorship.