Reflections From CLP

Reflections From CLP Class of 2022 Representative:

Ben Savory

I want to thank my classmates for nominating me. Whether it was motivated out of mutual respect or motivated as punishment for always having a wise question to ask during a session, thank you anyway.

I have seen a lot of speeches over the years. In fact, I see a lot of toasts every weekend. Averaging about three toasts between best man, maid of honor, and father of the bride, I have heard probably about 600. That may be hard to fathom, but because of that, I feel the need to do my best to give a best man toast to CLP ‘22.

In my experience, there are a few things that make a good toast. One, write it down. Don’t wing it. We have all seen that. Introduce yourself because not everyone knows you are. Tell a personal story and highlight what you admire about CLP. Make them laugh. If you can’t make them laugh, make them cry. Give advice and get the hell out of there. No one came for you. Lastly, the best toasts have visual aids.

So, to kick it off, I am Ben Savory. I run an events company that specializes in wedding DJs and photobooths. People always ask me; Do I get to party for a living? I tell them no. There is a lot of work preparing, planning, and dealing with pressure. You must be professional, but in reality, yeah, I get to party for a living, and I eat a lot of steak or salmon.

I fell into this work accidentally, but now it seems inevitable. My dad owned a record store on Boscawen for a little while before I was born, and was a big, big music guy. When I was ten, my cousin would pick me up at 6 a.m. and have me run a soundboard and recording tape deck for church services. I went to college for theater and during the summers I would run soundboards and lights for summer camps. Then I found myself out of college, working in youth ministry. I had a couple of speakers and a microphone and a lot of friends getting married, including myself.

Next thing you know, I move back home and DJing more and more. I hated telling people, no, I was booked and so I asked if someone could come to do it with me. And next thing you know, I’ve got a business, two kids, and I really care about this place we call home.

I wanted to get more connected. I wanted to find more ways to help and so I join this thing called CLP and found myself to be the dumbest person in the room. I thought “I could learn from these people.” I do not know what I’m doing, but I filled out this form and Doctor Dave can now tell me exactly what I am doing, why I am doing it, and everything that I am terrible at.

We started flying through this program and I realize it’s hard to sum it up. I tried with a graph.

The first thing is a blue line that’s going straight out at a 45-degree angle and that’s growing personally and professionally. That line was hard to draw because Will Lawrence brought the average so high, that I had to remove him. He’s not in there. He’s just already in the top tier. Then green where it kind of zigs up, comes down, zigs up, comes down, and levels off. That’s the names of my classmates I remember. The first day, I don’t think I knew anybody, and then I realized I didn’t remember anyone, and then by the end, I gave up. The red is the amount of fun we were having. It started out fun. It got really great. Then we went a toured a prison, so a small drop and then it went up again. Then the drop is SimSoc. Then CPR was pretty good. The yellow which takes a steep dive and levels out is “Yeah, 8 a.m. is totally a fine time to start.” The orange is people who got new jobs during the program. And lastly, the purple line is the number of evaluations that got filled out.

Throughout the year, many of my classmates showed up in my life, which really mattered to me. Tiffany and Oscar came to another event that I was doing in Sterling. Carly has booked my company several times for her events. John even went with me to look at wood slabs from a woodland Santa that was carrying a Glock.

I grew close with a lot of you. When I saw others in this class struggle, or be hurt, or had people in the community coming after you, I got defensive. When people on Facebook blamed Seth for the county going to hell and pretty much the end of the world, I wanted to bang some heads together. If you knew him, you’d know better. Or, when folks were going to violently protest the schools over masks and budgets, I wanted to roll in with Daddario like a personal bodyguard, though he obviously doesn’t need it. Or when Jasmine was upset about parties being thrown on the site her ancestors were owned, beaten, and traumatized, I wept. I was embarrassed for days because that reality had never occurred to me. So that’s what I learned that there is so much of the community, about other people, and the corporate world that just never occurred to me. I bring such a small perspective to the table, so here is what some of my classmates learned. Tiffany said, “Not to judge a book by its cover. The more success that we have in life, never forget to be humble and give back to others who are in the same or different path.” Oscar said, “First, I learned a lot about myself that helped me gain confidence in my personal and professional life.”

I learned a lot about the community, which I’ve been a part of since I was ten years old. There are so many challenges in our community we need to overcome, but at the same time, we have a lot of caring individuals that are helping tackle all of these. It takes different kinds of individuals and their views to make a community grow. I’m very optimistic that our class includes a lot of those individuals. Jasmine wrote, “From CLP, I learned how intentional and thoughtful people of my community are. With this same intent for work, may we apply it to diversity and inclusion.” Marcus said, “Leadership comes in so many different forms to the people we met, the different industries we come from. You can carry together and learn from each other and all of us and make an impact together. To me, the Community Leadership Program allowed me to see different parts of our city and the needs, but mostly, it allowed me to make lifelong relationships with new people.”

So what do I say to a group of people? What advice do I give to the smartest in the room?

I can only share what’s been on my mind a lot this year as a business owner, and that’s that I have been lied to, a lot, or at a minimum, mislead. I was told my whole life, that if I wanted it bad enough and I worked hard enough, I could be the best in the world. The best what? Well, that didn’t matter apparently. I just had to pick something. You could be the best something. The trick was, you had to figure it out. In reality, there is only one best of anything. The best soccer player, the best business, the best person. The best DJ. We make caveats. The best in America, the best in Virginia, the best in Winchester, the best at the corner of Cork and Cameron. I realize I am never going to be the best. I’m just not. I’m not even going to be the best friend, the best husband, or the best father. There are guys out there crushing it day in and day out.

Here is why I don’t want to be the best business or DJ in the world anymore. I think when the mission is to be the best, a lot of compromises can be made to justify that endeavor. I think when the goal is to be the best business in the world, we are willing to cut corners, cut people, give up time with family, make sacrifices, victimize, be greedy, take

advantage, even lie, cheat, and steal. That is what it takes to be the best. You can justify taking out and demoralizing the competition and I just don’t want that. So I want to change the mindset. I want to be the best business for the world. It is not a caveat to me that I want to be the best DJ for this community. I believe if my focus is on being the best for my town and my neighbors, it changes when I say yes to and what I say no to. I may not charge someone as much as possible. I might give a little more away. I might help over there. I might hire that person that is a little rough. I might support, cheer, and even aid my competition. There’s enough to go around and I’m telling you, your clients and your employees want this. I know for me in my circle, we’re no longer choosing the cheapest or most convenient options. We’re paying attention to how companies impact the world. How are CEOs treating employees, conducting themselves, and spending their wealth? I don’t want to give my money to someone or something that isn’t striving to make an actual positive impact. I’m willing to spend more to buy local or even buy less quality if that means part of what’s going to others in need. This buy one, give one, or partial profit or social-driven business model is resonating for this reason. So my advice is to think about being the best for whatever you do for the community and how might that change a lot of other decisions you make.

With that, let me get the hell out of the way. Let’s raise a glass to you, CLP ‘22. May the road always rise to meet you. May the sun shine warmly upon your face and may you never ever have to do SimSoc again.