Multiple studies confirm this—most of us like being helpful. It’s hard-wired into our DNA. We are social creatures, and helping one another is one of the things that makes us feel best. Kurt didn’t know his way around the sustainable architecture industry in Atlanta. You may not know your way around the nanotechnology community in Hong Kong, or the craft beer crowd in Wichita, or the emergency-room nursing union in Seattle. What do you do? You ask a local for directions. Getting referrals to people whose stories would be useful to hear is just the professional equivalent of asking directions. So go ahead—ask for directions. It’s. No. Big. Deal. “Network” is more noun than verb. The point isn’t to “do” network-ing; the goal is to participate in the network. Simply put, it just means to enter into a particular community that’s having a particular conversation (such as sustainable architecture). Every domain of human endeavor is held together by a web of relationships between people. Real people. That web is the fabric that undergirds, contains, and holds together that part of society. The Stanford “network” that we are a part of holds Stanford together. The Silicon Valley “network” is the loose community of West Coast folk that allows tech entrepreneurship to flourish. Most individuals have both a professional network (of colleagues) and a personal network (of friends and family).

11: Building a Team

“What we mean is that life design is intrinsically a communal effort. When you are wayfinding a step or two at a time to build (not solve) your way forward, the process has to rely on the contribution and participation of others. The ideas and opportunities you design are not just

presented to you or fetched for you by others on your behalf—they are co-created with you in collaboration with the whole community of players you engage with in life. Whether they think of it this way or not, all the people you meet, engage, prototype, or converse with along the way are in your design community.

1. Goal setting/intention.

Why are we meeting? What can this group uniquely accomplish? There are always a ton of relevant conversations that could happen, but there is usually a very small set of conversations that a particular group, at a particular moment in history, can have and move forward, given their capacity, resources, time, focus, and beliefs. The organizers should have this question at the center of their planning for the event…

The goal can be relationship building—this is often the most necessary piece of work in terms of strengthening a group’s resilience and capacity to move together. “Don’t thingify,” Taj offered me recently, when I was in a moment of pressure to produce “outcomes” at a large gathering. “Humanify! Shifting our way of being is our tangible outcome. Systems change comes from big groups making big shifts in being.” And remember, passion is a more valuable force for action and accountability than obligation, so let the goals be inspiring, uplifting what will inspire the most passionate conversation and participation.

Tools for Increasing Interdependence and Decentralization

Study Groups/Learning Community

This one seems so simple and old school, but having community to learn with is actually really crucial for human development. It means we learn to see ideas, not just through our own singular and limited perspectives, but to see how different experiences create different ways of thinking about things, of comprehending and applying ideas.

Loretta Ross teaches us that, “When people think the same idea and move in the same direction, that’s a cult. When people think many different ideas and move in one direction,

that’s a movement.”...

The more people who grow understanding and vision together, the more people who will feel at home in the resulting experiments. Right now we are living inside the results of other peoples’ imaginations—people who couldn’t imagine Black people being free, fat girls being sexy, disabled people being leaders. People who could only imagine their own power and dominance. When more people imagine together, and then step from imagining into thinking through the structures and protocols of a society together, then more needs are attended to. Responding to common text is a great way to do this. And it doesn’t have to be just a reading group—it can be a group that watches films, listens to music, or compares experiments in changing movement practices.

How do you move further along on your own path toward a good life? First, by recognizing that the good life is not a destination. It is the path itself, and the people who are walking it with you. As you walk, second by second you can decide to whom and to what you give your attention. Week by week you can prioritize your relationships and choose to be with the people who matter. Year by year you can find purpose and meaning through the lives that you enrich and the relationships that you cultivate. By developing your curiosity and reaching out to others—family, loved ones, coworkers, friends, acquaintances, even strangers—with one thoughtful question at a time, one moment of devoted, authentic attention at a time, you strengthen the foundation of a good life.