The Keys to Building Real Community
Think of the đ€ button as "would you recommend this to a friend?"
Having celebrated a birthday earlier this month, it always helps me to remember that we cumple años folks, so turning (in my case) 53 means turning the page on that one and beginning the 54th year.
I also got Covid! Finally! I mean, I was starting to believe it just wasnât going to happen. No surprise, all it took was going to see a Tom Petty cover band (I know) on a Saturday might (I know, I know) in exurban Marin County and⊠I know, I guess I was kind of asking for it. I felt pretty gross for a couple of days, but Iâm back at it now and feeling at least 70% of my usual mostly-euphoric, and yet still sometimes-morose self. Delirious, really, is the state of mind that I enjoy most, but I just donât get to experience that often enough. Any ideas on that score that donât involve drugs or jet lag?
Finding Community
I want to write about community, and Iâm not quite sure how to get there from my birthday. Itâs not quite the through line about how âmy communityâ really showed up on my birthday. Itâs not that they didnât, but I did have Covid, and also, well, itâs not just about showing up on my birthday. Real community is there all the timeâand thatâs where I find a bit more of a connection. Community has been a challenge for me, especially early in lifeâand then it became a career, and now, more and more, itâs evidence of how weâre all connected.
When I was a kid, my friendsâwe certainly didnât call it âcommunityâ thenâwere the people I did stuff with. What we did was get high and drink, and not all that much else. I know thatâs not all that unusual, but it didnât exactly make for the most vibrantly alive group of people to run with, when the primary activity was burying ourselves under as many substances as we possibly could. Still, I had and still have a lot of beautiful friends from that world, and those of us that survived certainly do constitute a very strong community at this point. We recognize each other, we share history, we know names and places, we check in, we look each other upâoften without some hesitancy about getting too close again, because the for a lot of us, myself included, we canât help but see that shared past through stained glass. Still, weâre together in a way, and I feel how powerful that is. One of my first and best friends from high school is still a close friend of mine, and Iâm godfather to his first daughter. I once bought a flat with another guy from those years, and he still calls me his house-husband. Several old friends are regular readers here.
By the time I got into my thirties, I felt the pain of not having my own community that fit that era of my life. Grown out of my high school years and my twenties, I had solid, well-paying work in the early years of âdigital mediaâ here in San Francisco, but at the same time, I didnât feel like part of that world. It was cool, I guess, but I didn't fit in. I didnât know whether I wanted to. I didnât, or I didnât know how, or I didnât careâand I also wished that I didâall of the above, really. The result was that I never really made the most of that world, and instead made a diagonal move and started my own business, which wasâŠa community. A conference, first of all, but thatâs what a conference isâa gathering of a professional community.
I knew from the start that the reason for me to do this was not just to create a great conference but to create a great community. I wanted people to actually feel that they wanted to come to my conference of their own accord, and for it to be not just worthwhile but fun, interesting, and a good use of their time, in their own judgement, not just because their company was paying their way to some three-day boondoggle in a cool-sounding city.
The thing is: it worked. We focused from the start on creating great community, and people noticed. We made sure everyone in the room were peers, we introduced new people, we made people feel included. We didnât just âmakeâ people feel as if they could trust each otherâwe created an environment that actually did serve as an authentic foundation for meaningful connection, and the result was real trust. And also, a pretty good time, even if the subject matter of the conference was as dry as the lowest, most forlorn and forgotten basin in the dustiest corner of some still-nameless desert.
And far less consequentialâbut community, it turned out, did matter, and I saw that it also could be createdâand even that I could create it. Thing was that the community that I had created served other people. Nothing wrong with that, but by the time it became something of substance, I was no longer one of the people that my conference servedâI was the creator, the CEO, the host, and the founderâbut I wasnât really one of. I was so far inside the inner circle that I was a circleâof one. People would want to say hello to me, but the fact was, they werenât there to meet meâthey were there for the actual purpose of the whole thing, which was to connect with and learn from their working peers. I was an outsider on the inside. And, as I mentioned, I had come to have a really bad taste in my mouth about the fact that the whole thing was aboutâŠadvertising.
Between then and now, Iâve learned a lot about finding and being part of communities that I actually want to be part of. One thing Iâve had to do is lead less. Lots of us are better at getting out in front than joining up. Leading isnât necessarily harder. Iâve had to learn how to be part of something, and itâs been a major positive feature of my mid-life to find myself part of groups on the basis of my participation as opposed to my force of will in creating something. Many of these communities have been around sports such as kitesurfing, open water swimming, and paragliding, but Iâve also been part of vibrant communities of entrepreneurs (EO and others), men (EVRYMAN and others)âand now, of writers and writing.
I think one good indicator of what one âisâ is the answer to the question: on what basis or through which aspect of your life do most of your interactions with other people happen? For example, if you interact with more people through sitting in therapy sessions than any other single activity, youâre probably a therapistâor someone who does a lot of therapy as a patient or client. If you meet most people playing basketball, or drums, it seems likely that you could be a pro ball player, or a dummer. As a young person, most of my interaction were with people drinking and doing drugs, and itâs true that that is what I identified with as a person, at least for some time. A âtotal garbage head,â as David Carr put it in his great memoir, Night of the Gun.
These days, even with just the modest volume of work that Iâm putting out, the majority of my interactions with other people come through writingâthrough classes (although Iâm not in any right now), writing groups, fellow writers, editors, publishers, and readers. This week I have one meeting on my calendar every day with someone or a group that I came into contact with through writing. One is a reader who reached out to me, another is a podcast guest thatâs become a friend. Two others are fellow writers and Substackers, and another is someone who invited me on their podcast. Friday morning is my regular writing group. A full schedule, especially given that my main task is writing itself. I donât usually have this many meetings, but it shows the power of immersing oneself and allowing community to coalesce. I feel like Iâm in it, for real.
Youâre all part of this
As I send this, there are now 750 of youâsubscribers to my Substack, that isâwith some charity, getting close to 1,000, or at least to 800. Numbers donât really matter all that much, and Iâll get there, and to whatever the next number is, sooner or later. Whatâs more important are all of you who have chosen to subscribe so far, and who read my work regularly. I hear from all sorts of folks all the time, and of late itâs been especially gratifying to reconnect with old friends through my writing, as well as meet new people through my work, and through Substack. Those of you who have felt to inquire know that my door is open, and so if thereâs something youâd like to talk about, just ask.
I need you to âLikeâ all of my posts ;)
Well, I donât quite mean that you have to actually like all of my posts, but for those that you actually do like, let me just say đ€đ€đ€ PLEASE take a moment to click the âLikeâ button đ€đ€đ€ on the post here on Substack.
Not just this one. All of them.
I know, itâs a tiny bit of a pain in the arse, and it might feel like youâre contributing to some sort of social media barf-bag⊠but, in this case, a) itâs not the same as social, in that itâs not funded by advertising, and b) that little heart really helps my work bubble up on the platform so that other people can find it, c) itâs really not much of an ask, in exchange for the work that I do in writing and editing, and d) clicking the little đ€ lets me know that you like the work! I know that a lot you read without âlikingâ and thatâs up to you, but if you are reading my work, and you really do like itâthink about itâdonât you want me to know that? I want to know!
That said, of course, I donât write for the likes. Iâm writing because I want to and need to, reallyâbut, and, I do want people to see my work, and I am working hard to build a platform here that will serve to support that, and eventually, I hope, help me to get published.
Hereâs how to interpret the đ€ button
One way to think of the đ€ button is as a Net Promoter Scoreâyour click on that little heart is the answer to the questionâif someone asked you about it, would you recommend this piece to a friend?
You could think of it as a favor, or you could think of it as a trade, but I think itâs just fair⊠if you read a piece here on Substackânot just mine, but anyoneâs!âall the way though, click the đ€
Itâs the right thing to do.
Thank you, paid subscribers!
Hereâs a massive shout of THANK YOU to everyone who has become a paying subscriber recently: Mary, Tom, Sean, Michael, Thom, John, Zoe, Bill, kingultra01, Julie, Tom, Danielle, Jean, Volker, Taryn, Anthony, Samir, Peter, and Zach. Those of you that have chosen to kick in some cash to support my work make a huge difference for me.
Especially if youâre a regular reader, why not join them and become a paying subscriber?
If youâre a regular reader and youâre not a paying subscriber, Iâd love to hear why not, or what, if anything, would make it worthwhile for you to do so. Comments below âŹïž
Thanks to all the other writers who recommend me!
author of Sex at Dawn and Civilized to Death, who writeswho writes and who writes who writes who writes author of Radical Intimacywho writes who writes
as well as
Thanks to all of my podcast guests!
Adam Gayner, Roddy McDowell, Lucas Krump, T Callahan, Bob Conlin, Anthony David Adams, Robert Ellis, Kenyon Phillips, Noah Rainey, James Brown, Fernando Desouches, Bill Maeda, Chris Ryan, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ashanti Branch, and Galen Kirkpatrick have all been outstanding guests and with Charlie Engle and Adi Jaffe coming up soon, Iâm nearly at a twenty episodes. If you know of anyone who would be a good fit for BROTHERS AND TEACHERS, please let me know in the comments below.
Other Memoirists on Substack
Iâve been considering the idea of assembling a collective of other memoirists here on Substack, something like Fictionistas or Inner Life but for folks like myself,
and others. Y'all interested? Know any other memorists writing on Substack? Comments below âŹïžWhat Can I Do For You?
So â what can I do for you? Are there topics that youâd like to hear more about? Some way youâd like to be more connected? Some writing youâre working on yourself? How can I help?
Questions for you
What communities are you a part of that are most meaningful to you?
Through which aspect of your life do most of your interactions with other people happen?
Whatâs most valuable to you about being part of this community?
Always interested in connecting with other memoirists. Thanks for the shout out. Appreciate it.
Lee G. Hornbrook
âMy Own Private Waste Land: T.S. Eliot, Mental Illness, and the Making of a Memoirâ
https://leehornbrook.substack.com
I meet the most people at work. They're all 20-30 years older than me, but I definitely value their life experiences. I'm hoping to meet more people through other means. Thanks for the shoutout. Cheers!