So the “How to Engage Your Tribe Online by Building Trust & Providing Value” entry of the blog challenge I’m doing comes up and what I think of first is how I’ve already mucked it up. Last night I was out at a crowded bar filled with friends of mine and one of the nicest girls I know, smiles, comes over, gives me a hug, and then tells me that she has an issue with my last blog post.
She was on the squad I talk about and referred to as the “all star” team in that post. She was curious about my use of quotation marks and wondered if I’d been mocking them. Because she knows me, she gave me the benefit of the doubt and assumed the best. I’m glad for that trust as I indeed didn’t mean to run her team down at all. I used the quotes because I was keeping the name of their team secret for some reason.
They were called “Rainbows and Butterflies”, they’re friends and, they were and are great.
Another thing she wanted me to know that she had an issue with, was implying that the “B level” was more fun. She wanted to make clear that there are various forms of fun and that competing as hard as you can in an attempt to win is in fact fun and rewarding.
I agreed 100%.
Life Athletics is about YOU determining what level you want to play at in every area of your life and going for it with as much zeal as you want.
A friend of mine who used to play for the Carleton Ravens, and won 4 national titles while at University, said that one of the things he was looking forward to as he faced the end of his basketball career was the chance to no longer maintain his fitness at an elite level.
It’s not that he wanted to become fat and lazy, he’s not built that way, he’s going to be active his whole life. He’ll also be the fittest guy in almost every room he’s in but, he’ll be a step or two down from his peak... and that made him very happy. The effort needed to push from a high level to an elite one was more than he wanted to give. It was also more “fitness” than he needed to live a full life and stepping back would allow him to enjoy more of his life. That was his choice and it made him happy.
I knew what my level was for the tournament I was playing in... not my potential level, but the level I was willing to play at and so did the players in the “A” bracket.
On the sunday of the tournament, I went to the field earlier than my team’s games were scheduled, because my girlfriend at the time was volunteering as a scorekeeper, and I wanted her to feel supported.
What I saw there, long before any games started, were the top players at the tournament warming up, doing sprints, throwing and just generally preparing themselves.
Half of my team arrived hungover as the party Saturday night had been fantastic. They had had a great time, played as hard as they could and were happy with their choices. Knowing what your kind of fun is at any particular time makes it more likely to happen.
The point is that this discussion happened because my friend in the bar last night trusted and respected me enough to come over and have a discussion with me about my blog post.
What I want to do now is have more and more people have discussions like that on the actual site or on the Facebook page.
This interaction happened because my friend is a Life Athlete and the article spoke to her.
Now... maybe it spoke to her because she was in the events that I was talking about but hers is not the only feed back I’ve been getting recently from people reading the blog. Messages, texts, emails, and phone calls have been coming in from around the globe (considering that I’m on the other side of the planet from a lot of my friends, this isn’t quite the feat it sounds like it is) telling me that they’re enjoying what I’ve been doing with the blog lately.
The thanks goes in large part to Natalie Sisson at the Suitcase Entrepreneur for putting together an outstanding blog challenge and to Brene Brown, whose work on shame resilience and wholeheartedness has contributed to me just being me on here now.
Being consistent is going a long ways to generating interest in the site and it’s something I’m going to keep going after these 30 days are through. It’s letting people know that Life Athletics is going to be around and so it’s letting them get as excited as I am about it.
Being vulnerable is another thing I plan on continuing on here and in my life. I resisted having the site be about me for a long time but what I’m finding is that the more I drop the pretense about it being about anyone else, the more other people have access to themselves. It’s like when I look at them, they just want to know more about me but when I’m open about me, it allows you to be open about you.
Giving value and showing how life can be lived and improved by knowing what you want and training yourself to a level where you can get it is key to the growth of Life Athletics as well.
My friend was equally as enthusiastic in telling me that she’d shared the video from that last blog on the league’s captain’s page and a discussion was generated about the best ways to build team culture. I was so thankful for that discussion and I can’t wait for many, many more. I love my “tribe” because they’re people, and people are great.