So once again, I had an author of Your Own Story, daily growth hack listener, reach out to me and say, “Doug, loving the daily growth hacks, I just wish I could have these conversations more and more. How can I do that?” And to that person I say, “Well first of all, if you listen to these daily growth hacks, we’ve covered this subject before.” And if you want to hold on to your limiting beliefs of not having community, then that’s what you’re going to get. You’re going to get these limiting beliefs and they’re going to stick with you.
Because it’s just not true. In this modern day era, it’s so easy to reach out and connect with like-minded people. More than it ever has been before. So I’ll go over some tips on how you can do this. The first thing is you’ve got to get rid of your limiting beliefs. You’ve got to get rid of the limiting belief that you can’t actually have a community, that you can’t have conversations that matter.
Even within your own current community, you’ve got to get rid of that. If you want to hold on to that limiting belief and hold on to it tightly, that’s what you’re going to end up with. So, how can you go about it? Well first, you can find already existing communities. You an go over to groups like The Author of Your Own Story group, right. It’s right there on social media, it’s on Facebook. You can go on, you can request to join. It is a closed group.
We have it as a close group just because we don’t want people just spamming. You go into these groups, and I’ve been into them before, there’s always a few people that are just spamming and spamming and spamming. We didn’t want that, so it’s a closed group. So it’s private in the sense that it’s inside that community. If you request to join, we’ll go ahead and approve your request.
\But you don’t just have to do The Author of Your Own Story community, there’s many out there. There are communities that are just for men. There are communities out there that are just for women. Communities for moms, for dads, for entrepreneurs, and for business people. Now you have free communities, and you have paid communities. And I can tell you a little bit about my experience and what the difference could be.
Now, I ran paid and free communities in the past, and usually the paid communities, people show up. And they show up a little bigger. They show up in a way that they’ve actually given value. They’ve said hey look, this is worth my money and my time and they show up each and every time, not only asking questions but contributing. And that’s the key to communities right. The key to having your own tribe or to growing people around you who are going to uplift you, is actually giving value, it’s giving back to those people. It’s giving back to what they’re doing.
Answering their questions and thinking about it. I’ve mastered my groups that I’ve both been in and I’ve fun, I always get the most from somebody else’s problem, right? Somebody else’s situation that they’re going through, and then helping that person get through their situation, I get more. I get more than even when I’m asking for help on something else that I’m going through.
So that’s one way you can get community. Linkedin is a great way of forming communities as well, and I have a couple of communities in there. Linked in is great for business, B to B. Again I find Linkedin to be a little bit more sales-y. So, Facebook seems to be a little bit more social. There’s also private offline. I’ve run private and I have learned that dougholtonline.com, mastermind groups are offline, but off social media we have our own private groups. That’s for our inner circle, it’s for elite members. Those are paid, but there are other ones that are out there as well.
What else can you do? Meetup.com is a great resource, in fact, I talked to another entrepreneur just two days ago over coffee, and he was looking for jobs, or opportunities I should say. And meetup.com is one of the top things that I would’ve recommended for him. And the reason being is he was looking for a very specific subset of interest levels, and they already are groups that are pre-existing.
That means, there’s already a group he can plug into and have conversations at the level that he’s looking to have them at. Now they might not be the right fit, but if you don’t go out there and try, you can’t do this. There are also all kinds of other things. Reddit is a great way of looking out there. Reddit is a great community, depending on where you’re at. So you have those.
Now another thing you can do, and I highly recommend this, and this is something I think that most people leave out. Another thing you can do is actually asking questions to your current community. So, friends and family and co-workers you’re currently with. Now you may think that they’re playing a level below you, or maybe at the same level, and they don’t want to rise up. That might not be true, you might be very surprised. In fact, I found this to be true in my own life.Now, how did I do it?
Now, how did I do it? Well, one was is I really focused on listening, and that’s a big part of communication is just listening. But I would also bring questions, thought-provoking questions to the table. And these thought-provoking questions often were me sharing things that I was learning. Or sharing conversations of topics, or things that they were interested in. So if they were interested in acro yoga, I wanted to know more about acro yoga, and I would ask questions, and I was really curious.
And within those questions, other topics would come up, and I would learn intricacies about them that I never knew, which would help me grow. And since then, with that particular person that I’m thinking of, we’d become great friends. So this is just one way you can do it. Now you can share these daily growth hacks. Share them, and use me as your excuse. You know this crazy guy I watch or listen to depending on how you digest this, he recommends and asked me to share this with three people, and I chose you.
You can do it, you can put it all on my shoulders. And I’m fine with that, if that helps you break the ice, do it. Share this particular podcast, or pick another one that you like. That’s a great way of just stirring up conversations and conversations that matter. And you may find out that the existing people that you around actually have dreams and aspirations like yours, and maybe they just haven’t shared them with you, or maybe they’re waiting to take that first step, and you’re the catalyst, and to me that’s amazing, if you can be that catalyst.
So, in response to that comment and that question that I got, there is tons of community. In this day and age, you can reach out to so many people. I get friend requests on Facebook and Linkedin on a daily basis, and often times, those turn into conversations. And when someone’s trying to add value, of course, I want to add value back, it’s a lot of reciprocation. And so we start conversations, and sometimes those conversations turn into friendships and long-lasting friendships. I can think of one particular which is with somebody in the UK and I won’t mention his name, but we’ve become good friends, and we talk twice a week now.
And that was something, a conversation I think started several years ago, and it just built up. So, that’s what I’m talking about, having those conversations that matter and social media, or the internet, using that to leverage and find your community. Just don’t hold on to your limiting beliefs. Saying you don’t have access to a community, you don’t have access to quality men or quality women, or people doing this and that, is just BS, and if you hold onto those limiting beliefs, that’s all you’re going to get stuck with. You get what you hold onto.
On top of that, you know, my wife and I just moved to a new community, we have a new baby, so we have every excuse in the world not to be social, and we are going out right after I hit the record button and end this particular segment, we’re going out and meeting four other couples to have a beer, for me, for my wife to just be outside and just relax and enjoy the day.
And that’s what I want you to do. So, go out, make your list, go out and start associating with other people. If you need help, shoot me a message, and I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction of where you go. In fact, I prefer if you just shoot me an email, my email’s very simple. It’s my first name at the authorofyourownstory.com. And I’ll be happy to point you in the direction that I think you can find people of like interests or people that are playing at the high level that you are striving for.
And of course, my last request to you, is make sure you go out and be the author of your personal, your own story. Have a great day.
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