Community Rules Everything Around Me

Finding the right fit is a key step on each of our journeys; family, personal, business, money, lifestyle. So how top line important is it to find the right community fit? I'd say right there at the top. Gotta be, right?

What are the few major (I mean really major) decisions we all make that impact our whole lives, the ones we have some control over? Your family is there, of course, but you don't choose your family, you're born into it. Hopefully, they are part of a strong community that you can grow into. Those were decisions other people made that effect your life, throughout.

After that, it's up to each of us to decide who to congregate with, who to build with, who to work or study with, who to spend time with, who to grow a family with, who to share our interests and desires and fears with. These form our closest bonds and relationships - and from creating those we create community.

Your network is your net worth is kind of true but it always made me feel a bit icky tbqh. Too transactional for me - as if you're putting together a project or building for the purpose of monetizing - and that never sat right, you know the feeling?

Building community is an outcome of lots of time investing in developing solid one to one relationships that get strengthened the more ties bind it together.

It can then act as both springboard and safety net - and like anything the more you put in, the better the outcomes will be - not just career or business or money.

This week was a big week for communities I am in coming together - some on purpose, some I put in motion, some just random different worlds colliding.

Last Friday, there was a get-together at Linkedin's NYC office (yes, on a Friday, and yes, during that crazy storm) but lots of incredible professionals showed up. Some I've known for a long time, some I just met then - but we have an instant connection, a commonality that bridges any gaps.

This Tuesday the powerhouse that is Sunny Shuoyang Zhang, PhD and team brought the Born Global Community into the greatest city in the world - and we hosted a room full of diverse professionals, founders, investors, and supporters from around the world. Literally every continent was represented - except for Antarctica, and I was thinking next time to bring a penguin

...Again, the divides between people dissolve when you bring them together in the right space, with the right purpose and goal. And not too shabby that I spent some time earlier on the floor of NYSE and with a tremendously talented community builder, Nicole Casperson .

Your community is your force multiplier. Find more than one, the effects really start to compound. Bring them together and break out of silos and separation, there's a universal desire to belong. Be the person that makes more people belong to something bigger than themselves. Value is a vague term, but that is such a value creation move, nothing is better, or more satisfying - for all sides of the equation.

What is your network or community doing for you is not the right question -

Ask what you can do for your community.

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