Shana Lynn Bresnahan: All right, so this last pillar here, this is. The one we think about the most connection. We think about this the most, but we usually think about it wrong. Like most people think they have a connection problem in their community, and so they go over here and go, how do I do a more engaging post? What am I posting at the wrong time in my group?
What do I need to be doing? But connection is, it's a internal thing. It's a. It's a human feeling, right? It's a gut thing. It's not like a, oh, I liked your engagement post, or I didn't, or you posted it at 3:00 PM you should have posted it at 3:00 AM. That's not what this is about. And so most of the time when people say they have a connection problem, they actually have a safety problem.
And that is the number one piece here is safety. How do we create safety? And this goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I won't go into a ton of detail, but this is like your physical needs, right? And then here you have belonging. People talk about this all the time, but right here is safety.
This is like emotional safety. So before I can go from my physical needs are met to, I have a sense of belonging with a group of people. This piece has to be met. And we so often forget that piece. That safety piece is really important and safety. I will just tell you, it comes from being really clear on this cause, right?
We're really clear. I know why we're here and really clear on this culture and actually upholding and nurturing and protecting that culture, which requires you to be somebody that they can trust. You have to be somebody of authenticity and integrity. That doesn't mean complete transparency. That means you are who you say you are, and you will do what you say you will do.
And if you ever fall out of alignment of that, you're the first one to admit it and correct it, right? You are who you say you are. You do what you say you'll do. That's the best way to build trust. And then you need to lead. When I talk to community creators and leaders, the biggest thing I run into is you take a backseat in your own community.
You're afraid to create structure, right? You're afraid to lead, but that is what creates clarity for your members. They need to hold onto that clarity because that's what gives them safety. But if there's not a clear leader in the community, they're either gonna go somewhere where there is a clear leader.
Or they're going to raise one up. Now, that doesn't mean you have to be, my friend John calls it the sage on the stage or the guide on the side, right? You don't have to be the sage on the stage. You don't have to be the know-it-all. You don't have to be the one leading all the calls. That's not what I'm saying.
You definitely shouldn't be the one commenting on everything, but you can be the guide on the side, but you are still the leader of the culture. You are still the leader of the cause. You're still the one that ignited that first torch. And is helping ignite it for everybody in your community. That's still you.
Okay? So make sure that you lean into that leadership, right to in order to create that safety and these other pieces. Space. How are we gonna facilitate our community? Where is connection gonna happen? This is where I really like you to open up your mind that it's not just the platform, it's the Zoom calls.
It's the in-person meetups, right? It's the phone calls, it's the note in the mail. There's so many spaces and so many mediums where we can connect with our community and help them connect with each other. And then this last one, Is scale. How are we gonna scale intimacy? And this is a problem that usually doesn't come until much later down the road, so we won't go into it, but it is a key problem of connection is how do I scale intimacy once we've created this amazing community and now we're getting hundreds and thousands of people in here.
Like how do we scale that?
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