How to Build Community with Peter Block

Podcast Intro:

Building a community could be a tough job. Everyone inside the community must have similar interests so you could have a strong relationship with one another. Inside your community, you can engage and help one another and bring impact. 

The world can be simplified into two groups: the group that follows their desire and follows the people who know about something they want and the group that doesn’t.

Always remember, being with other people helps you grow faster. Being in a community is better than evolving individually.

What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• How to build and transform your community?
• How does a community evolve faster than individuals?
• How does goodwill brings the opportunity to make a difference
• How do you bring your experiences into your family or friendship?
• How do you stay vulnerable?
• What are the symptoms of isolation?

Links/CTA:

• Our FREE Workshops >> Click here
• Join Yogidetox by Cate Stillman
• www.designedlearning.com
• Common Good Collective
• www.peterblock.com
• Book: Community: The Structure of Belonging Paperback by Peter Block

Highlights:

• Cate learned in collaborative leadership to let the structure around the community bear the weight, rather than the weight on her as the leader.
• Cate shares what she noticed how people have the desire to learn more and be with someone who knows best about something that they want.
• Cate discovered in her work that communities evolve faster than individuals.
• Cate noticed that wellness pros have a hard time-making Group Dynamic or Community Dynamic
• Cate emphasizes how in today’s culture, people have given up on how their life matters.

Timestamps:

• [00:43] Introduction
• [02:33] Transforming Community
• [06:05] Collaborative Leadership
• [09:31] Spiritual Influences
• [10:34] There’s Nothing Wrong with You
• [12:17] The Shift in You
• [16:10] Community Evolves Faster than Individuals
• [23:24] How do you bring your experiences into your family or friendship?
• [24:24] Assumptions about Identity
• [29:47] Where can your goodwill make a difference?
• [39:27] Distinction between Problem Solving and Possibility.
• [42:53] Scale of Evolution
• [44:06] Wormholes in Time
• [46:49] Symptoms of Isolation
• [49:26] Attention Economy
• [50:16] The Need for Support Groups
• [51:11] Closing

Quotes:

• Most of us get trapped in working on ourselves for a long period of time and then when we go out into the world, we go out as individuals - evolved individuals
• Consensus forces people to lie.
• Speed is an escape from everything you stand for.
• Everybody thinks “oh, the world is more complex.” It’s not complex, it's just, that you're alive now and so you magnify his difficulty.
• There are good things called existential guilt. I've chosen life and a path and I will live with the consequences.
• You don't have to earn your right to be here. All you have to do is show up.
• You can get everything you need and walk in the distance
• Once you've discovered that you're not crazy, you're not alone and there's nothing about you that needs fixing, then the habits become a nightmare and possible change.

Guest Bio: Peter Block

Peter Block is an author and citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops designed to build the skills outlined in his books. His books include Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Answer to How Is Yes, Community, The Abundant Community, and The Other Kingdom. Peter is a founder of the Common Good Collective, is part of the Economics of Compassion Initiative of Greater Cincinnati, and is a member of his local neighborhood council. He serves on the board of LivePerson, a provider of online engagement solutions. His work is in the restoration of the common good and creating a world that reclaims our humanity from the onslaught of modernism.

Co-owner, The Transforming Community - 

Peter Block is an expert on community. He discovered that you need to pay attention to what you really give a shit about. On the give a shit question he asks, where can your goodwill make a real difference?1 That is where you belong next. So, ask yourself the question.

Then, understanding belong has a second meaning:

The second meaning of the word belong has to do with being an owner: Something belongs to me. To belong to a community is to act as a creator and co-owner of that community. What I consider mine I will build and nurture.2

So to belong you commit to being part where you can make a real difference, and you take ownership of your actions and your collectives’ actions. Block continues:

The communal possibility rotates on the question “What can we create together?” This emerges from the social space we create when we’re together. It’s shaped by the nature of the culture within which we operate but isn’t controlled by it. This question of what we can create together is at the intersection of possibility and accountability.3

Possibility to design the future together; accountability for what happens. 

Your regenerative habits become a pull for your core people to reverse the tide of chronic inflammation. The people in your circles have a lifesaver in you. Live the smarter way and you are leading the journey. The wild habits align to life, to enthalpy, to potentia.

1. Block, Peter.Community. San Francisco : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, ©2008
2. Block, Peter.Community. San Francisco : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, ©2008
3. Block, Peter.Community. San Francisco : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, ©2008