Your tribe vs. a tribe

If you are building something, what phase are you in, and what is next? Are you building at the pace you thought you would? If not, what is holding you back?

I ask some version of those questions almost every day, across a gallery counter, at a chamber meeting, on a call with someone who just left a job to build the thing they actually care about. The answers vary. The thing holding them back almost never does. It is a person, a place, or a thing. The partner who is not pulling. The office that drains. The habit, the platform, the tool that eats the morning. Nobody says "my tribe." But that is what they are describing, and this first session is where I give it a name you can use.

The story that started it

I have been a small business owner since I was eighteen. I started a lot of things, some succeeded, many failed, and I got better at it. Then 2008 wiped me out. Houses, boats, cars, everything people call success, gone. I lingered as a victim from 2008 to 2012, and one afternoon I lay down in the middle of the day and told God that if he was so powerful he could get rid of me now.

Two sentences came back, and they came at the same time. The first was a question. If you're so damn smart, how did you end up here? The second was a choice. Either lay down and die, or get up and live, but no more in between. I got up. And then the inquiry started: what does living actually look like, at forty-two, with three kids almost grown? Fourteen years later I still do not have the answer. What I have is the language, the infrastructure, and the distinctions that came out of asking, and that is what the four sessions are.

Your tribe is not a tribe

Here is the first distinction, and it is the one people trip on most. When people say tribe, they mean a group: your work tribe, your faith tribe, the horse lovers, the book club. Shared identity, common mindset, something you can join and leave and be asked to leave. That is a tribe. It is real and it is valuable, and it is not what we are talking about.

Your tribe is the people, places, and things you frequently and continually interact with. Not who you like. Not who you are related to. Who and what actually receives your time, money, and energy, again and again. In the book I am about to publish, Your Tribe, I put the definition this way:

Your tribe is your real social network determined by your allocation of time, money, and energy; the result of good or not so good stewardship in your life. They are the people, places, and things that you frequently and continually interact with, consciously chosen and accepted or unconsciously allowed and tolerated.

Read that last line twice if you are building something. Consciously chosen and accepted, or unconsciously allowed and tolerated. Most of what is holding a builder back was never chosen. It was allowed, one unit at a time, until it became the shape of the week.

Life is interaction, and it happens in units

Life, in its simplest form, is interaction with people, places, and things. Even alone, you are interacting with something. And interaction can only happen now. You have no tools for the past and no tools for the future. You only have tools for right now.

So I break now into a unit I can actually hold: fifteen minutes. There are ninety-six of them in a day. A coffee is four to six. This session was four. When I got narrowed into the unit, I noticed most of my stress came from the memory of the past or the imagination of the future, and that inside one unit I could choose and accept more consciously and allow and tolerate less. I do not believe in managing time. Time spends itself. I believe in managing priorities inside the unit you are in.

For a builder the arithmetic is blunt. Choosing one thing in a unit un-chooses every other thing that unit could have held. The question is not whether you are busy. It is where the units are landing, and whether that is where your build needs them.

The ten-year friend

Whenever I teach this, one rebuttal shows up by name. I have this incredible friend. We have not spoken in ten years, but when we do, we pick right back up. I receive it warmly, every time. And then I ask the person to look at what they are describing. Fond memories, a bond, something friendly and beautiful. Not a living relation. There was no interaction, and without interaction there is no life between you. There is a story.

My argument is not to exclude that person. My argument is simpler. If they are near and dear to you, why have you not spoken in ten years? Pick up the phone. Through interaction they are back in your tribe, just like that. The framework only asks that the defining be done awake, and it begins with self-honesty, self-honor, and the honoring of others.

Who crosses the line

A participant asked what makes a person cross from your world into your tribe. Factually, in this framework, you simply allocate more time, money, and energy to them. But when I do that on purpose, I hold three criteria.

First, the law of reciprocity. There are four personas: the giver, the investor, the receiver, and the taker. The first three are welcome, imperfectly, as long as they are working on it. A clear-cut taker is not in my tribe. Taking is never acceptable, in any condition, at any time, not even taking back.

Second, active listening. If you believe you will have a relationship with someone who cannot hear you and see you into existence as a greater possibility, you are deceiving yourself. The interaction will be one-sided, frustrating, and non-causal to your best life.

Third, deep work. I am not looking for perfection from anyone. I am looking for someone who is intentional, taking action, in growth rather than stagnant or in decline.

Here is the honest part. We only accept less than that when we are lacking in our own self-worth. That line around your tribe is where you begin to love yourself enough to be yourself unapologetically. Not to carelessly offend others, but to no longer carelessly offend yourself.

The builder's question

Your tribe is where your resources go, and your build is made of the same resources. That is why the question that opened this piece and the framework that followed are one conversation. So, plainly: of the people, places, and things that received the most of your time, money, and energy this week, which ones did you choose, and which ones did you allow?

Session two draws the line between your world and your tribe, and shows you where your life actually happens.