Belong

by Radha Agrawal

  Starter Kit: Community-Building Event

  If you want to be proactive and create an event that can help get you started on your journey to your Outer and Inner Core Communities, here are some tips.

  I’ll start with a story.

  When my friend Tobias moved to San Francisco, he knew one person. He was feeling lonely and wanted to cultivate new friendships in the city around topics that he was passionate about.

  Instead of sitting around or trolling bars, he decided to start a biweekly meet-up called “Good Drinks.” He sat down, thought about the kinds of friends he wanted to make, and got intentional about meeting people who shared his interests in philanthropy and social impact. Then he created a simple Facebook event page called “Good Drinks,” set a date for the first meeting, and wrote a short description about the idea behind the gathering. Over the next couple of weeks, he invited anyone who expressed any interest and who he thought could be a good fit. He posted to social media, asking friends in other cities to connect him to their friends in San Francisco, and then invited those friends of friends by simply saying, “This is going to be fun! We have free drinks! Join us!” He spent forty dollars on drinks and arranged to hold the event at his office.

  Leading up to the event he was nervous that no one would show up, but then he realized, “What do I have to lose? Worst-case scenario, I hang out at my office for a few extra hours that day and have extra booze to try again in a few weeks.”

  To his excitement, five people showed up to his first event, which by his measure was a massive success! They had drinks and great conversations about current events, and everyone got along. When there was a lull in conversation, Tobias brought the whole party together by asking a few questions that he had prepared to keep the flow going. And it worked! For twelve months, he hosted “Good Drinks” every few weeks, and after a year he had hosted over two hundred people, seven of whom have become lifelong friends. All he needed was intention and courage to take the first step!

  The Six-Step Community Event Starter Kit

  1. Get intentional—What are you interested in and curious about? This is the most important thing to focus on!

  2. Give your event a fun name, set a date, find a venue, and create a Facebook event—or use your own method for spreading the word and getting responses.

  3. Start sending emails to all of your contacts and ask them if they know anyone who fits your criteria, then post to your social media or on meetup.com. Be thoughtful about how you present the event. Would you want to attend it based on the description?

  4. Spend whatever you can afford on drinks and food. Or if your event is more action-oriented, make it easy for people to participate and have fun. If necessary, have a rain date and keep your guests informed if you’re going to employ it.

  5. Prepare two to three questions to ask in case there’s a lull in conversation. Also, when you get above ten people, it can be harder to bring everyone together into one single conversation, so questions can become icebreakers for two people to connect over instead.

  6. Consider a bimonthly or monthly meet-up and stick with it! Community is built on accountability and consistently showing up!

  Movements are built with deep intention and patience.

  CHAPTER 6

  The CRAWL Method

  How to Build Your Dream Community from Scratch

  Once you’re comfortably established with your personal community, bring your discoveries into the world! Whether you’re looking to organize larger events with more people or scale your community for your business or organization, the methods I outline here will get you there.

  Over the last several years, I’ve synthesized all my key insights from building communities in twenty-five cities and a dozen college campuses across the world and from countless conversations and workshops with other top Community Architects into the CRAWL method. It has been an essential guide to building our Daybreaker community around the globe.

  Community takes time to build. You have to crawl before you run. So take your time, explore, get intentional, and be patient throughout this process. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

  Define Your Core Values, Constraints, and Core Community

  The three Cs in the CRAWL method will help you create a solid foundation for your community.

  Before you even think about your Community’s Core Values, start by defining your Personal Core Values.

  Go back to Chapter 3 and look at the values you added to your VIA circles. Now whittle down your values to three to five Core Values. A Core Value again is a non-negotiable and an umbrella that your interests and abilities can fit under. While they may change throughout your life, take some time to think about what you really value today. It can be as simple as concepts such as health, having fun, music, dancing, meditation, yoga, traveling, experiencing love, learning new things, running, or family. If you’re still figuring out what you care about, you’re not ready to start your own community just yet. Spend some more time Going IN.

  I whittled down my values into three Personal Core Values that I could stay excited about for a very long time: wellness, community, and fun. I knew that if those three elements were involved, I could be on board with just about anything. With these Personal Core Values identified, I could now think about what kind of community I wanted to create and get really excited about.

  Simple Steps to Define Your Personal Core Values

  1. Take some time to list ten values that deeply resonate with you. Look at your Values, Interests, and Abilities chart from Chapter 3.

  You can also Google “values” if you want some ideas, but don’t let the internet sway your thoughts. Think about when you are happiest and most “in flow,” or situations or events that light you up and that you reflect on for days. What was it about those moments that made the difference to you?

  2. Now whittle your list down to three to five strong Core Values. What are your non-negotiables? For example, physical health, nutrition, and sleep are non-negotiables for me—when I stay on top of them, I feel like my truest self; when I don’t, I feel unpredictable and out of sorts. As such, “wellness” is an easy Personal Core Value for me to identify. My friend Matisse loves learning about how our brain functions, so she’s always reading books about it, posting on social media, and learning new techniques to relax our minds through meditation and music. Her Personal Core Values are mindfulness, learning, and creative expression.

  3. Think about how you embody and/or model your Core Values. Are these values aspirational (are you reaching toward them?) or are they reflections (you already embody them)? Think about what feels natural to you, what doesn’t feel like work, and what you love to talk about. And think about what values you want to embody but may not be quite there yet. This will give you clues about your own Personal Core Values.

  Once you’ve identified your Personal Core Values, then do the same for your dream community.

  Identify five to ten Core Values that you’d like your community to embody. How do these Core Values align with what you’d like the community’s purpose to be? What would you like to be sure are the community’s non-negotiables?

  When Matt and I launched Daybreaker, we knew we wanted it to be intentional and not just your typical “dance party.” We were changing every aspect of the nightlife experience and our values had to reflect that—our events were in the morning, sober, and on weekdays before work! We were marrying the worlds of fitness and festival culture and were creating something completely new in two exciting and fast-growing spaces. So we spent several days going back and forth until we finally landed on our five Core Values. For every decision we would make going forward—from partners and performers to DJs we collaborated with to the food and beverages we would provide at our events—we’d look through the lens of these five Core Values:

  Wellness: Sweat, eat, and drink with intention. Be healthy ins
ide and out.

  Camaraderie: Open your heart and connect with people. Find friends on the dance floor and outside of our events. Make your city feel like a village.

  Self-Expression: Be your gloriously unabashed self. Dance with reckless abandon, wear crazy costumes, let your freak flag fly!

  Mindfulness: Be here now. Put your phones away and be present in the moment. Revel in gratitude.

  Mischief: Live life with a wink and push your boundaries. Play more!

  These five Core Values would become the North Star for our community across the world. It’s actually more fun (and freeing!) to create within a framework. It helps us know when to say yes and when to say no!

  Define the Constraints that will shape your community. Constraints are filters that give your community guardrails that help people decide if they want to join. They differ from Core Values, which are qualities that your community strives to live by.

  For example, two Constraints for Louis Vuitton are “price” and “heritage,” since their handbags are pricey and not everyone can afford them, and they’re a heritage brand—meaning they keep to a traditional design—so those who like more modern designs may not be into their bags. Conversely, Louis Vuitton’s Core Values are “innovative” and “creative,” which are their guiding principles and totally different from their Constraints.

  At Daybreaker, we have three main Constraints:

  1. Morning—Some people love the morning and can wake up early, while others are night owls. Some people have to be at work early or have kids to take to school and can’t participate. You also have to be a certain type of person to set your alarm at 5:00 a.m. on a weekday morning, dress up in costume, and dance before going to work—we know it’s not for everyone!

  2. Sober—Our events are sober, so a person who claims to not be able to dance or party without a drink in hand wouldn’t like our events.

  3. Dance + Fitness—Working out and dancing to electronic music with live instruments is an activity that requires a willingness to let go—you know if it’s your thing, and if it’s not.

  Your turn! Define your Personal Core Values and the Core Values of your community. Then think about what you would like to see as the Constraints for your community or organization. Remember, it’s not to keep people out, it’s to help people know what they’re in for!

  Now, on to identifying your Core Community: These are the special humans who give your community wings. When we launched Daybreaker, we invited a select group of FYFs to join our first few events and initially kept them private in order to establish a positive and energetic tone and vibe for our community from the start. We sat down over the course of several days, wrote out each friend’s name, and thoughtfully debated who was an FYF and would be a good initial Core Community member. We curated and edited and thought hard about the mix of humans we were inviting and whether they would all get along and energize each other. It wasn’t about packing the house with everyone and anyone. It wasn’t about getting “hot models” to show up and objectifying them. It wasn’t about inviting folks who had thousands of followers on social media. It was all about energy. We wanted to create a space that felt good. This is the definition of Community Architecture—thoughtful energy curation.

  The Big Secret:

  When you get the right mix of

  in a room, it’s magic, and a flourishing community becomes inevitable

  Knowing how to curate a good energy mix is the key to launching a magnetic community. The thing is, you can’t manufacture positive energy. You have to radiate it in order to attract it. This is why Going IN and understanding your Axis of Energy is so important as you begin to evaluate energy for your community.

  Good vibes want to be around good vibes.

  Authentic and positive energy are what ultimately catapulted our Daybreaker community around the world.

  Things to consider about each potential Core Community member:

  Energy—How’s this person’s energy? Positive? Vibrant? Inviting? Encouraging? Kind? Are they an FYF? What kind of energy do they bring to a room?

  Passion—Are they passionate about the community and the Core Values it embodies? Trust your gut. Someone may be passionate about your community but living on the left side of the Axis of Energy. If so, they’re not the right energy for your Core Community.

  Personality mix—Consider a balance of personality types. For instance—joyful leaders, enthusiastic followers, maternal types (not always women!), funny people, some high energy, some calm energy, big-picture thinkers, make-it-happen types, etc. Think about whether the mix of people you’re inviting will create the energy you envision for the community.

  Portals—Portals share without any fear or insecurity and love to cheerlead new communities. Remember, Portals are not the same as social media influencers. On social media, anyone can follow you and it’s mostly a one-way conversation. Portals are people who represent doorways to like-minded, authentic communities that you can actually belong to. Inviting Portals to join your initial Core Community will inspire more generous sharing.

  Think about these four elements as you create your list of potential Core Community members!

  R—Ritual

  Defining the rituals and traditions for your community is vital to developing loyalty and a sense of belonging. You feel the most connected when you participate in something bigger than yourself. Rituals are how we connect to one another meaningfully. It’s wearing the same sports jerseys as our parents and grandparents and knowing the same team cheers. It’s singing “Happy Birthday” in unison. It’s humming “ohmmmm” together in yoga class. It’s all the rites from every religion, including prayer and chanting. It’s even eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner together as a family—that’s a ritual too.

  When you participate in the traditions and rituals of a community, large or small, you inevitably feel a deeper connection to it.

  Growing up, my parents created many rituals and traditions for our family. Tradition was steeped into the fabric of my parents’ cultures and it was important to them that our family create our own. For example, rain or shine, on vacation or at home, social commitments or not—we ate as a family every Sunday. My parents were adamant about this ritual until we left for college. As much as we kicked and screamed at times, I now see the power of what they were modeling for us.

  Choosing rituals requires thought and intention. Think about what traditions or rituals you want to adopt or create and why they are important to you, your friends, and your community. They also require effort and participation in seeing them through day to day, month to month, year to year.

  What rituals and traditions can you invite into your life, office, and community? Think about whether you want them to be meaningful, fun, inspiring, or productive. Try to make them simple and relatively easy to commit to doing every day or every week.

  How will your members participate? How will their participation deepen their connection to this community?

  Rituals upon entry and exit of any gathering invite a deeper community experience.

  Entry and Exit Rituals inspire a sense of community and belonging. Think of hellos and good-byes and how they make you feel. It’s the handshake hello and the hugs good-bye that we remember, right? Yet we don’t take the time to think about how we enter and exit a community or business experience. Instead we have receptionists, bouncers, and hostesses greeting us in similar ways, and rarely saying much more than a minimal farewell. What if the cashiers at the grocery store paid you a compliment as they bagged your groceries? Or what if the greeter at the movies told you jokes in line or gave you a secret handshake on your way in? What if, as you left, you were invited to put a wish in a mini–wishing well?

  At all of Daybreaker’s events, we’ve designed distinct Entry and Exit Rituals. Instead of mean bouncers looking you up and down, we have a “Hugging Committee.” Ev
ery single person gets a hug and a “Good morning!” when they walk in. This creates instant camaraderie and releases oxytocin—the “O” in D.O.S.E., activated through human touch. It’s such a simple idea, but when it’s early in the morning and everyone is still groggy, a warm and inviting hug is a wonderful way to wake up our community and get the cobwebs out. I’ve probably hugged over ten thousand community members at this point, and the number of people who have thanked me afterward and shared that they were nervous about going alone or were going through stuff and needed a hug continues to remind me why this ritual is so important. It also reminded me that we don’t hug each other enough!

  At the end of every Daybreaker, our exit ritual is reading intentions together. We hand out “Intention Cards” and read them together out loud as a community. Imagine six hundred community members reading a beautiful poem or quote out loud in unison to close a dance party where you just sweated for two hours and left it all on the dance floor. We stop the music fifteen minutes before the end of the party to do this ritual together—it’s one of the most emotionally resonant moments at our events. It gives us something to hold on to as a group when we all part ways and head off to work.

  It’s also nice to give a token to your community members on their way out so they have something to hold on to, as so much of our life is digital, and a physical object can be more memorable and inspiring. Using all of our five senses inspires deeper connection.