Built to Belong

by Natalie Franke

  For Rising Tide, this means uniting our members around educational content that is relevant to all small-business owners. We cover topics that are critical to their success and also provide resources that are highly relevant to whatever they are facing in their business during that point in time.

  For example, during the Me Too movement, this meant creating a Safe Working Environment clause for community members to add to their contracts to protect them against sexual harassment on the job. During the onset of the pandemic, this meant creating a petition and fiercely lobbying for Congress to forgive the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and provide financial relief to businesses that were being forced to shut down.

  Finding common ground enables the creation of content and valuable programming that gives a unique advantage to members who are a part of your community. It clarifies that they benefit from being a part of the group as opposed to going at it alone.

  Solving a shared problem

  Nothing brings people together like a common enemy, especially one that they must unite to overcome. This section isn’t just the plot of nearly every superhero film ever made; it truly can transform the way competing members unite in community with one another.

  When we have alignment around solving a problem that we all agree is important, we are more likely to work together in unison. For Rising Tide, this looks like fighting against the loneliness of entrepreneurship as well as the hardships of running a small business. All members know this pain and all desire to overcome it.

  As for defining your common enemy, focus on the following questions:

  • What are we fighting against? What is the greatest threat to the collective?

  • What are we risking if we fail? How dire are the consequences?

  • Why do we need one another to overcome this? Why is together the best way forward?

  Answering these questions will provide you with the language you need to communicate in a way that unites members around a shared problem and equips them with the motivation to push past previous psychological boundaries and step into a newly defined community together.

  CHOOSING ABUNDANCE

  Beyond broadening and shifting our perceived social groups, we had a second challenge to overcome when building a community of competitors. Even when members perceive themselves as a part of the same community, they have a tendency to feel as though they are fighting for the same pool of scarce resources.

  It’s like when you see someone getting something you wanted and you feel frustrated, jealous, even envious. Those feelings can be exacerbated by a competitive mindset of scarcity.

  In 1989, Stephen Covey first coined the term “abundance mindset” in his best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He defined the term as: “a concept in which a person believes there are enough resources and successes to share with others.” Conversely, he outlined the antithesis of the abundance mindset—one built upon a mentality of scarcity. In my entrepreneurial journey, I heard countless business owners talk about looking at competitors through this lens.

  Mindsets of scarcity run rampant in highly competitive spaces—in business, academics, athletics, and life. Wherever there are limited resources, albeit objectively scarce or perceived to be scarce, humans shift from being open and altruistic to self-preserving and self-serving.

  A scarcity mindset says: There is not enough to go around. What is good for her is bad for you. It is a zero-sum game and when you’re not winning, you’re losing.

  An abundance mindset says the opposite: There is more than enough to go around. When someone else finds joy or achieves greatness, it doesn’t take away from your ability to do the same. There is success awaiting you, and there is also success awaiting others.

  Abundance says that there is room for everyone to pursue their dreams.

  A mindset of abundance encourages community and collaboration to rise above competition and creates an environment that invites unity. It stems from self-confidence, is affirmed through core values, and elevates the good in all of us. It means that we can celebrate the accomplishments of others without feeling diminished by their success.

  It acknowledges that we are all created with unique gifts and talents that provide value to the collective.

  My talents and gifts are different from hers. Her superpowers are different from mine. We can coexist and truly thrive together.

  On a practical level, choosing abundance means focusing outward, embracing your unique gifts and talents, choosing the win-win over win, win, win, welcoming change, and championing community over competition. I will explain more about these now.

  Focusing outward

  Scarcity encourages us to remain inwardly focused—to concentrate on what we’re lacking and what we don’t have. Abundance shifts our focus outward—to look for ways to serve and to ask how we can help. Businesses that adopt this mindset fixate on serving their customers rather than on chasing down their competition. You cannot lead when you’re following in the footsteps of someone else, always fearfully reacting rather than proactively creating.

  This looks like stepping into a community with a heart for giving, to provide value before asking for anything in return. It means challenging comparison with camaraderie instead. Choosing to cheer for people rather than always trying to get what they have. To center yourself in a spirit of gratitude and appreciation for what you have and what you’re able to offer.

  Embracing your unique gifts and talents

  When I first started in photography, I heard the saying “the riches are in the niches.” I assumed this was strictly referencing how a company brands itself to target a super-specific ideal client and quickly learned that this applies to our individual contributions as well.

  When we embrace a mindset of abundance, we don’t feel the pressure to be everything to everyone. We understand that each person has value to offer the collective, and it is through our uniqueness that the whole is strengthened.

  Abundance encourages us to hone our strengths and encourage others to do the same. It creates clarity in competitive fields.

  Choosing the win-win over win, win, win

  People that operate from a mindset of abundance are all about the win-win. They aren’t gunning for the competition, but rather hoping that everyone gets a fair shot at success. They look for moments to come alongside others and enjoy opportunities for mutual benefit.

  If scarcity were a kid, he would be the rascal on Halloween who dumps the entire bowl of candy into his own basket. You know the one. Instead of taking a single piece, he sees an unguarded stoop, a giant candy bowl, and takes all the spoils for himself without regard for others.

  Abundance is the considerate kid. The one who takes his favorite piece, the one meant only for him, and continues on his way. The kid who has faith that there are countless houses filled with candy ahead of him if he continues putting in the work and pounding the pavement.

  Abundance is all about the win-win. Scarcity leaves us chasing win after win after win without clarity or concern for others.

  Welcoming change

  In an abundance mindset, change is not to be feared. When circumstances shift or problems arise, it brings about new opportunities to discover the good that awaits us. Those with this mindset don’t stress over short-term losses because they trust that better is always on the horizon.

  It might require a heavy dose of hard work and patience, but nonetheless, there is so much more in store. As a result, they welcome change with open arms and see it as an inevitable part of life. Those with an abundant mindset step into new communities with open hearts. They welcome new relationships without fear of losing old friendships they have built along the way. Love and connection remain bountiful in the present and the future.

  Scarcity mindsets are rooted in fear of the unknown. Clinging tight to what feels certain, those with a scarcity mindset hesitate to shift horizons and tackle new problems. Change is often met with complaining, concern, and a reluctance
to move forward. New relationships are weighed down by distrust, fear, and uncertainty.

  Scarcity asks: What do they want from me? Why should I trust them?

  Abundance answers: Connection awaits, and I can’t wait to see the friendship that follows.

  Championing community over competition

  Scarcity wants to push others down. To squash their progress before it takes shape—to prevent the success of other people at all costs. A mindset of abundance is about the art of rising. Improving oneself and therefore gently challenging the rest to rise up too.

  Abundance says community. Scarcity says competition. Abundance says there is enough for all. Scarcity says there is still not enough for me.

  As we fight for deep relationships in a shallow world, we must also fight for a mindset of abundance and a belief that better awaits us in the future. There will be times when this mindset feels counterintuitive, when it would be easier to keep others at a distance out of fear and when we are encouraged to contend for accolades and beat others in the process.

  An abundance mindset doesn’t require us to stop being our best or to embrace a sense of false humility in our pursuit of success. Instead, it challenges us to set aside fear and move forward in faith—to believe that we can build a better future, together… and to trust that there truly is more than enough to go around.

  Shifting our mindsets has the power to bring us closer together. It gives us a foundation from which we can learn to trust and fight to defend one another. It can take a group of competitors and turn them into a family.

  In our homes, our communities, our companies, shifting the culture of belonging will always begin by shifting the mindsets that exist within that space. It means taking a hard look at the way we are wired and evaluating whether we can use those tendencies in the pursuit of building a better future.

  Belonging can begin only when we stop viewing one another as members of opposing groups and see the abundance opportunity that exists all around us. Community can thrive only when we broaden the psychological boundaries that pit us against one another and instead fight against common enemies that we have the power to overcome only if we work together.

  It isn’t easy to do, but it can be done, and it all starts with us.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DIGITAL TOGETHERNESS

  For five years, my husband and I had dreamed of embarking on a cross-country road trip and meeting with our community members face-to-face.

  We talked about the idea obsessively every few months, but we never could seem to make it happen. Hugh would research travel trailers, I would get hooked on tiny house living TV shows, we would sketch out our route, but something would always stand in our way.

  First I needed brain surgery, followed by a period of recovery. Then we conceived our miracle baby and took maternity leave. The dust finally settled at the end of 2019 (and by that I mean that we finally started sleeping through the night again), and the conversations around this hypothetical road trip resurfaced.

  However, something was different this time. We’d survived a hell of a lot in that half a decade, and we weren’t willing to let this dream slip away one more time.

  So we did the only rational thing that two new parents with an “almost” toddler would do. We sold our house and nearly everything we owned, packed our lives into a rental Suburban, and hit the road as soon as the holidays concluded. And we spent two months driving from Maryland to California—changing diapers in the backseat, testing the limits of dry shampoo, and meeting the most incredible humans along the way.

  Small-business owners, creative entrepreneurs, and freelancers packed into coffee shops, parks, and theaters to connect in person. We danced under the stars in Miami, picnicked under the Spanish moss in New Orleans, and hugged more than twelve hundred people from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

  Then we arrived in San Francisco—our final stop on our cross-country road trip. That’s when it happened. The pandemic.

  Seemingly overnight the world was brought to its knees, and conversations started bubbling up on the West Coast about stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, and a widespread public health crisis. We had spent the last seven weeks doing nothing but hosting large groups of people, and suddenly it was no longer safe to gather.

  We booked an early flight home as fear was reaching a boiling point on the West Coast. It was only a matter of time before it spread east. We spent our son’s first birthday on a plane from Oakland to Baltimore—with a pack of antiseptic wipes and two face masks left over from my company’s wildfire preparedness stash.

  The world we returned home to was vastly different from the one we had left behind in January. Within a week: businesses closed, schools canceled, and every facet of our daily lives shifted.

  Physical distancing became the norm. Masks became required outerwear. Trips outside the house were reserved for essential reasons only.

  As the virus sent the world into isolation, it directly challenged everything we knew about community and our sense of belonging. In order to survive, the human race was forced to adapt… and so we did.

  ONLINE VS. OFFLINE

  What a strange practice it is, when you think of it, that a man should sit down to his breakfast table and, instead of conversing with his wife, and children, hold before his face a sort of screen on which is inscribed a worldwide gossip.

  —Charles Cooley, Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind

  You read that quote and thought the author was talking about a smartphone, didn’t you? Yep, I did too the first time that I read it.

  The truth is that these words were written in 1909 by American sociologist Charles Cooley about the delivery of the daily newspaper.

  Yes, the newspaper—let that soak in for a second.

  Cooley spent his life examining American society including the rise of competition, individualism, and our fascination with technology. And despite being a sociologist from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, his words feel oddly modern. Cooley’s observations perhaps illuminate our innate human desire to consume information and highlight our natural curiosity to understand as much as we can about the world.

  We want to learn whatever we can about other people’s lives—to listen with perked-up ears to their tales of triumph and defeat. We need to know what is happening in our community and beyond it. Information is power, and curiosity is a cognitive trigger that keeps us reaching for more.

  Our passion for acquiring information reaches as far back as our deeply sacred traditions of oral history. It exploded with the creation of the printing press, and it has continued to evolve with each emerging stage of technological advancement. Today, a single tweet can change history in a matter of seconds, and through the democratization of information, anyone can share whatever they want, whenever they want.

  Our desire to consume content is not new. However, the speed at which we are able to receive it, the manner in which we are consuming it, and the quantity of it have changed.

  For many of us, the majority of the content that we engage with on a daily basis is consumed through an electronic device, delivered via social media.

  It arrives nearly as instantaneously as it is published, and we hold the key to anything we want to know, twenty-four hours a day, in our pockets. As a result, the amount of time we are spending on our devices is rising year after year. According to an online survey conducted by GlobalWebIndex in 2019, adults spend on average two hours and twenty-four minutes per day on social media, which has increased from one hour and thirty minutes in 2012. Currently, the typical social media user is on almost eight different platforms.

  Additionally, the rise of esports has transformed the way that people consume content online. When I was growing up, a computer game was something you played—not something you watched others play.

  However, due to platforms like Twitch and YouTube, watching video games is now more popular than traditional spectator sporting events in the United States. Young
gamers and fans are spending approximately three hours and twenty-five minutes each week just watching esports activity.1

  That’s a lot of time spent on a lot of different forums, which are all vying for our attention.

  Our lives now revolve around these little machines, and sometimes we can become seemingly disconnected in the pursuit of discovering information and consuming content.

  Think about it.

  We open our devices, begin scrolling, and an hour passes in what feels like minutes. Dopamine-driven feedback loops invented by Silicon Valley scientists keep us refreshing for validation—yearning for likes, follows, and fulfillment in the pixels that ignite the pleasure centers of our brain. Over time, we can become reliant on social networks to give us our daily rush of hormones, and we slip into dependency without a second thought.

  With each refresh, each new set of notifications, we find ourselves a little more addicted to the virtual world and continue consuming more and more of it.

  As a result, our minds are constantly at risk of content fatigue—bombarded constantly from the minute we wake up until the minute we fall asleep.

  The struggle of the endless scroll is real.

  With technology rapidly changing the way we engage with one another, psychologists and sociologists have raced to better understand the impact of social networks and online relationships. Researchers studying the impact of social media on mental health have concluded repeatedly that increased time on our digital devices can have negative effects on our well-being.

  Let’s look at a few. Increased time spent on social media is correlated with:

  • Increased depression: A 2018 study from the University of Pennsylvania found that social media users with high depression scores who were randomly assigned to limit usage to thirty minutes per day significantly reduced their depressive symptoms.2