Today’s episode is a TREAT. We have a returning guest on the show – so ya know it’s gonna be a good one. She was one of our VERY first guests when we launched this podcast in the fall of 2019. Natalie Franke. Seriously if you haven’t yet listened to her first interview (it’s episode #5) It will make you cry all the good tears and inspire the crap outta you. So go listen to that right now if you haven’t yet.  

Natalie Franke Hayes is an entrepreneur, mobilization marketer, community builder, and neuroscience nerd.

As one of the founders of the Rising Tide Society, the Head of Community at HoneyBook, and author of Built to Belong, she leads tens of thousands of creatives and small business owners while fostering a spirit of community over competition around the world.

We had this incredible, insightful, beautiful-hearted woman back on the show to chat about ALL things community in our world today.

If you have ever struggled with the comparison trap or find yourself looking at friends or even other people online and feeling triggered with jealousy, discouragement, competition, or anything else then you need this episode. 

Today we talk with Natalie ALL about competition in life and how it is both healthy and detrimental, how to distinguish the two, how to fight for community, how to overcome comparison, and WHY we so desperately need each other in this world around us. ESPECIALLY in this pandemic era, we’re currently facing. 

We discuss everything from being friends with competitors, pursuing meaningful relationships online, ways to recognize and deal with our own insecurities and issues when we feel jealous of someone else’s success, and SO much more.

Seriously, if you’re ready to be given a BOATLOAD of powerful truth that will change your life, you need to keep listening. Natalie communicates with so much power and simplicity that you’ll be either crying or screaming “YESSS” this entire episode. And we promise, your life will be changed after listening to this and implementing what Natalie shares. 

The Inspiration Behind Built to Belong

We are at war, with a culture with competition. A culture that pits us against one another. A culture that insights fear and insecurity, doubt and scarcity in spaces that it doesn’t belong. We are operating in a space where we look at one another, not as friends but is this person a threat? Can you trust them? Are they going to steal my ideas? Are they going to celebrate with me? All of these questions come into play not only in the small business world but in every single aspect of our lives. 

Natalie wanted to write this book because she is tired of every part of our lives feeling like a competition. Every single part, not just the competitive parts, not just entrepreneurship. Not just athletics or competition in the arena, things you would expect. But everything from kids, to marriage, to dating, to bodies, to happiness, to salaries, to houses, to style, to ascetic, to Instagram feeds to followers. You name it, it’s a competition. We deserve better, we all deserve better, and we were made for so much more. We were created for something so much richer and deeper in our relationships with others than this shallow water that we have been wading in for so long. 

Built to Belong was born out of that. Born out of what can happen when we change our mindsets and fight back against this culture of competition. 

Community After Covid 

Natalie admits in the book that she has been wrong about one thing for a very long time, she use to believe that an online community wasn’t a true community. She believed that in person was truly the only route to building an authentic community. 

Where we are is we have endured a collective trama over the last 20 months. We’ve gone through something very very difficult. We haven’t been able to rely on the traditional routines and community intersections that have held us together as a society for a very long time. These aren’t complicated things, for some folks this means they haven’t gone back to church physically in over a year and a half. Maybe your not going physically into a grocery store or an office with your coworkers. Or go to a coffee shop to co-work with other creatives. The reality is we have lost some of those intersection points that naturally bring us together. For some folks when they go through a difficult season they tend to retreat. When they are confronted with overwhelm, burnout, fear, some people tend to retreat. And often what keeps them going are those woven routines and intersections that force them from isolation in their homes and out into the world with other people where they can be seen, heard, and valued daily. We haven’t had that. 

This has led to an increase in loneliness. New research has come out that 1 in every 10 women don’t have a single close friend and 15% of men also indicate they don’t have a single close friend. 

Quality over quantity is what matters when it comes to friendships and relationships, but not having one single close friend should send alarm bells off for everyone. This loneliness epidemic is roaring in the ethos, why don’t we pivot and ask the question. What about online? What about the online community, can that solve the problem? Natalie believes yes it can but for an online community to fill the void of where we are missing that interaction, longing for that one on one connection in the chaos. We have to start using technology as if we are trying to connect with others and not use it to entertain ourselves and consume content. 

Those are two distinct things. We forget that the potential is there and we aren’t using the platforms to connect. When you open the app and start scrolling you are watching people from a distance and not loving them up close. We have an opportunity to do that in ways no one else ever has. Technology is pulling us in our separate corners but also allowing us to fight back. To connect with anyone and anywhere and not be bound by geography. 

Best Advice if Your Scared to Join a Community

Buy Natalie’s book. She was the scared one. Who was living superficially on the outside and feeling so deeply disconnected and isolated and yearning for relationships on the inside. 

Next start with one action at a time. Don’t feel overwhelmed with the idea of having to do it all. Start with one conversation, with one person that you want to connect with. Start with one name that you put on a post-it note behind your computer that you want to engage and connect with in the next month. Do you feel comfortable picking 3-5 people every month, challenge yourself? Start with one conversation, one person, and go from there. 

Cultivating Relationships within Competition 

Let competition fuel you and not let it burn you out. A flame can be both a method of repulsion but can also wreak such havoc. Focus on how to let that competition in your industry fuel you to be innovative, push you forward, encourage you to try new things. 

How we frame our social group boundaries in our minds plays a significant role. If you get asked the question, “Are an inee or an outy?”, you’re going to have one of two answers. We’re going to start dividing people into two groups, that is what happens in competition. This photographer versus that photographer, ones an inee and ones an outy. What if we ask instead, “Do you have a belly button?”, we have redrawn the group boundaries. There are no inee’s or outy’s, there are human beings with belly buttons. We can do is work to redraw those boundaries. 

We need to start seeing each other as a collective group. Coming together to work towards a common goal, an enemy that is greater than you, and works together to fight against. It’s not you versus me it’s us versus what?  

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in the process of writing this book? 

We cannot exist without other people. We are literally the blending of two other people’s DNA. Without our parents, we don’t come to exist without being connected to our mother’s womb. We rely on another human being for the first 9 months of our life and are connected to her through a cord that literally keeps us alive. We can’t exist without others, yet we don’t get that when we become adults. We have been taught so fiercely that independence is a key value that we should adhere to and fight for. Never let that clot that we should also fight for one another. We belong to one another. As human beings we cannot thrive in isolation, we must thrive together. We need one another, we were created for one another, God made us do this life together. 

Imposter syndrome is a liar. Don’t be afraid to create something terrible the first time around. Don’t be so set on making it perfect in the first draft, the whole point of the first draft is to be bad. It’s going to get refined. Be bad and embrace it and then learn and grow. 

 

Show notes 

Gigi Pip Hats: https://ctgro.com/VUumgWLeq 

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Content Creation Guide: www.theheartuniversity.com/content

 

Follow along with Natalie: 

Built to Belong Book: www.nataliefranke.com/book 

 

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