Community and Tribe Building 2.0 :
Each Week on Thursday I’m gonna share 3 Ideas for creating, building, and attracting your dream community and tribe in the Personal, Professional, and Digital Space.
1. Personal: Write Specific Birthday Letters 📝
Recent podcast guest Joe Wehbe... created a ritual of writing birthday messages to those people in your network you care about which I loved.
So I tested this out and it has been an absolute joy to do, and I have found it way more enjoyable than simply creating an Instagram story.
I remind myself of the positive influence this person has had in my life. Also if I can’t be stuffed and really don’t want to write a letter it often acts as a good filter.
The prompt for starting the letter could be as simple as:
1. What have I learned from this person?
2. What are some meaningful moments we have shared together?
3. What do I appreciate, respect about this person?
Then just let your fingers write type with freedom.
Imagine if you write 20 letters a year… That’s 200 letters in ten years filled with beautiful moments that you have captured and can read and reflect back on when the going gets tough. 🔥
Caveat: My cousin Brett recently told me that my other cousins were annoyed with me because I didn’t remember their birthdays… I hardly use Facebook, Instagram, and other services and this is where I would often get reminders. So for me, it is important to put these reminders in my Calendar… as I have had a tendency to forget.
2. Professional: Encylopedia of People 🌍
Even though I am young in my career, I have often been asked how do you know so many people?
The truth is… I still don’t feel like I know enough people.
I want to know as many interesting people as possible. This doesn’t mean that I take the people I have for granted, it’s just the excitement of exploring the possibilities to intertwine myself with new cultures and experiences.
In Derek Sivers's brilliant new book - How to Live… He said “what matters is not how many people you know, but how many different kinds of people you know”
He elaborated further to say that in Icelandic, the word for IDIOT means one who has never left home to journey abroad.
You may be thinking… Liam, the last two years I haven’t been able to travel because of a virus, I don’t have enough money… blah blah blah.
You don’t need to travel physically to explore cultures and have interesting conversations with interesting people.
In the Constant Student Community, we have welcomed people from 6 different Continents through zoom… and I felt my ideas and possibilities stretch and my ignorance dissolve conversation after conversation.
Also, I have met Indians, Americans, and South Americans all in a smaller town in Adelaide.
Find people from different countries, different industries to help you develop unique solutions to your everyday work problems.
The phrase - “I don’t know how to solve your problem, but I know someone who does” is incredibly valuable and then grows exponentially over time.
3. Digital and Technological Tools. 🛠
I’ve explored many tools like Mighty Networks, Slack, Facebook groups, Whatsapp, Discourse, along many more apps. Let me explore two quickly :
1. WhatsApp - (1 on 1’s or Small Groups).
WhatsApp has been useful for a small podcast group that I have been doing with friends Joe and James.
I have family and friends internationally and prefer it to Facebook Messenger as I find it cleaner and less distracting. Also, I love sending longer voice notes so it goes for longer.
Yet I still find it tiresome and overwhelming to look at all the comments for groups that are 6 active members+, so I end up ignoring most of them. (Haha apologies family group chats 😂)
2. Circle - (Monetising a Community and Tribe)
For our next cohort at the Constant Student, we have decided to move onto Circle.
As it was clean and easy for discussions.
You can lock pages that create specific targets that intrigue members
Their roadmap for the future of the community platform looks very promising.
Monetization has been easier with payment plans going forward.
Much Love
Liam