Community thread: building community

Hello everyone, I hope you’re all doing well!

Last week I hosted Lisbon’s first Substack Writer Meetup. It’s the second time I’ve hung out with a group of writers in the last couple of months and it’s fast becoming one of my favourite things to do.

When I started writing this Substack I knew I wanted to build a community of system changers and connect you all to each other, but I didn’t imagine finding and building a community around my writing practice and how impactful this would be for my work, my sense of self and fulfilment. In my recent piece ‘Celebrating a year of System Changers’ I write about working through under-confidence. As I’ve navigated a lot of professional change in recent years, aligning more closely to my values and what’s most important to me, I’ve had to remember to trust that I’ll find my new tribe by being myself. I’m learning to follow what feels good, notice who I really enjoy spending time with and nurture all of that instead of listening to the ‘shoulds’ as I might have done before. These two gatherings are such great evidence of this!

I’ve worried sometimes that the term ‘system changers’ is quite individualistic, a bit super hero-ey. Clearly no one is capable of changing and transforming systems alone, it’s just not possible. At risk of stating the obvious, we need each other (communities/tribes/teams/movements) to create systemic change. Many would argue that the cult of the individual is responsible for many of the challenges we currently face in the world.

Leading change can also get pretty lonely. System-changing work is, by it’s very nature, counter-cultural. System changers work at the margins and you’re often in the minority. You spend a lot of time with sceptics/scepticism which can feel quite isolating. Polarisation can make meaningful conversations about change quite difficult across all areas of your life.

Community building is an essential skill and ongoing task for system changers, affecting both the scale of impact you can make and your wellbeing whilst making it.

You need strong communities, relationships and connection outside of work too. Research shows that the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. This is a common theme in my work with clients who are often so dedicated to the cause they’re working on that they’ve neglected their relationships and community-building outside of work.

So, here are two questions to help us reflect on community building.

What communities do I have in my life that I’m really grateful for?

What communities are missing in my life? How could I invest in building them?

If anyone has any relevant resources they’d recommend, please share!