Circle Three: the seventh
Tribalism. Bricklaying. Distance.
Welcome back to Circle Three!
And welcome to 2021! I had some great time to recharge over the last few days and made time to reflect and project. January is one of my favorite months of the year, not just because it’s the first, but because there is a general sense of possibility and hope.
This week find a Big Idea about distance, links about talking, bricklaying, and Airpods, and my thoughts on Tribal Mentality.
Cheers!
-Dan
One Big Idea
"Let us love this distance, which is thoroughly woven with friendship, since those who do not love each other are not separated." - Simone Weil, from “A Field Guide to Getting Lost”
In a year filled with separation, I’ve learned to appreciate that a feeling of distance only comes out of real connections and longing. Without deeper ties, the distance wouldn’t be recognized. What distance — physical or otherwise — have you learned to appreciate?
Circles of Thought
This article covers “How to Talk to Anyone.” Doctors, dates, strangers, children, bosses. You name it. A cheat sheet from professionals, founders, and authors.
Optical guidance system for augmented bricklaying…aka amazing science behind laying an intricately designed (and visually stunning) brick wall. Scroll to the bottom for a 2-minute video.
Make Divergent Thinking a bedtime habit in 2021. Start with Sir Ken Robinson’s paperclip challenge and see if you could work on metacognition this year.
With the release of Apple’s new Airpod Max, take some time to read this thought-provoking article from The Atlantic about Airpods changing the social fabric. “They will become invisible as they become ubiquitous.”
“When we’re faced with abundance, it breaks our mental framework for how to manage that resource, and we go bonkers.” This designer’s elements of a perfect calendar could be what you need this year.
Inner Circle: Tribal Mentality
The importance of knowledge and community
Belonging. People feel a need to belong.
This need to belong brings me back to a behavioral ice-breaker activity from years ago in which each person received a sticker of an unknown color on his or her forehead, and all participants were instructed to organize into groups by sticker color. No words could be spoken.
The catch: one person was unknowingly the sole member of his color group. Someone had a unique sticker color.
“Only once,” said the organizer after the activity, “has a member of a group torn his own sticker in half and offered the other half to the lone individual. They became a group of two.” This person recognized the need to be included in a tribe.
We join families, religions, and clubs. We have teammates, blood-brothers, partnerships, and associates. Everywhere we look, ideas both visible and invisible connect people to make tribes.
The idea of the tribe bubbles at the front of my mind as we start a year many are looking forward to. Seth Godin names three components of a tribe: a group of people, a common cause, and at least one leader. This year, my personal tribes have ebbed and flowed. Incredible tribes have been created that were not on the horizon a year ago. Some key groups have been lost.
Joining together behind a shared interest connects us. Ideas are pushed, special interests are promoted, proposals are questioned.
This has occurred since the earliest days of humanity in hunter-gatherer tribes when information was passed on from elders. Now we have megacities and the Invisible City, where there are thousands of mini-tribes, interests, and social norms that have never existed. (This very post being part of the Invisible City.)
Communities from this year, from online groups and zoom calls to the altMBA, have wisdom that can’t necessarily be studied in school or learned in a textbook. Specialized knowledge exists within these tribes. It must be passed on from the experienced ‘elders’.
The entertainment industry served as a close-knit tribe at work, where I was a newcomer. Thinking back to two years ago starting my job, those first weeks were spent training and executing tasks that eventually built up to designing my own work. Becoming part of a tight-knit tribe to launch my career provided a perfect opportunity to learn the language of the industry and contribute to something larger than myself.
The inner workings of a tribe take time to learn, and more time to improve. The knowledge of a tribe is learned by doing. Ask questions. Push boundaries. Dedicate yourself to long time horizons.
“We do not live in isolation; we are called to participate in the common good, to seek a balance between ourselves and others, in which our good becomes part of a larger goodness.” This quote from Notre Dame Magazine offers a calling to work for more than ourselves. We work for our tribe.
Thanks for being a part of the tribe of Circle Three this year. I invite you to pass it along or reply to the email to chat with me. Here’s to tribes new and old in 2021.
State of the Circle
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