Transcript

Find Your Tribe · Wanzology

Find Your Tribe "That's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh uh-huh, that's the way uh-huh uh-huh, I like it!!! Hey, welcome to your Wednesday!! What's happening? What's going on with you? Welcome to another episode of WANZOLOGY! I am your host, The Wanz, and we are in the thick of it, are we not? It is officially summertime, even here in the Great Northwest! The summer for us doesn't really begin until July 5th. Everything before that is just a tease. But yeah, today is one of those days that we really try not to tell other people from other parts of the country about because they think it's like this a lot and it's not okay. So if you're thinking about moving here and you don't like the color gray, I'd stay where you are. All right. I don't know about you, but I had a fantastic weekend. I got to go to a huge, huge conference. What I discovered is how much I really appreciate my tribe, my collection of weird people who come from all walks of life. It was an international conference, and I can tell you. It was extremely overwhelming for me. I had no real idea how huge my tribe is. I mean, thousands upon thousands, easily 20 to 35,000 people, it seemed no matter where I would go, I would see my people. I would see them everywhere in groups by themselves, walking, taking the train. They were everywhere! My last night there, I went out to dinner and I was walking back to my hotel thinking about what does it really feel like to be a part of something that's way bigger than you? What does it feel like to be in a tribe? And if you're not in a tribe, what must that feel like? Well, I didn't have to go very far searching my memory banks because I grew up not thinking that I was part of a tribe. I didn't think that I had a circle, if you will, a squad. I didn't have a clique in school. I knew everybody, so I was kinda like in between cliques, because I could float to different ones and talk to different people inside of each clique, but I really wasn't part of any clique. Do you have a tribe? Do you have a group, a big group? Not like your homies that you hang out with? Not like you and two other people, or you and five other people, I mean, are you part of a gym, maybe a club? Bowling. or pickleball is really big right now. Are you part of a pickleball club? If you're of a certain age and you're on Facebook, what groups do you belong to? Are those your people? I'm a musician. I'm a songwriter, singer, performer, recording artist. I'm in several tribes, but I just put them all under the umbrella of music. I am a music person as long as I'm hanging out where there's music. I'm good. I'm with my people, so I try to go see as many live performances as possible and when I don't have a live performance to go see, like if I'm going for a walk or riding somewhere in the car, I had to drive three hours to get to this conference, you think I was like sitting in silence? You crazy. Music, music, music, music. I was getting funky all the way to the spot and all the way home. Normally I play audio books in the car because I can concentrate, but not this time, not this trip. I wanted to enjoy myself. I wanted to have a good time and keep myself open to spot opportunities for good times with my people. So, maybe thinking I don't have a tribe, I don't really hang out with other people and I don't really need to hang out with other people. Well, you may think that when somebody's in front of you, but when you're alone, do you think that as well, are you content being alone or do you have that dynamite combination of alone and lonely? Because that my friends, sucks alone and lonely sucks. Being lonely is one thing. Being alone is one thing, but man, when you put the two together, it's like being cold and wet. It's miserable for me at least. I don't know how you might feel about it, but I hate it. I hate it. I hate it, but I've learned how to handle it. I used to seek out, not danger, but just excitement. I had to go places and do things, so I wouldn't feel like that anymore, and usually when I went places and was looking for something to do, I was drinking, so I was getting loaded, which kind of changed my perception of things didn't lead to trouble, but I mean as I got along later in life, it became more and more cumbersome to figure out how my life was going to work and I'd be able to fit drinking into it. Between that and alcohol, taking me to a place I never wanted to ever go, it made me into a person that I didn't wanna be, and that only happened once. And when that happened, I quit because I didn't wanna be that person. But I digress. You are looking for a tribe! if you haven't found one yet, you are looking for one, you'd like to hang out with other people who like the things that you like. If you don't want to hang out with those people, why don't you want to hang out? Why don't you want to be more social, and I'm not saying introverted, I am talking about being social. Even the nerdiest of people, the most introverted of people have a collection of people. It may not be a huge group, but it is a group nonetheless. Book clubs, gaming clubs. There's a community out there for everybody. Everybody and every interest. But if you're not, why not? What's so good about not being social? I'm curious. Is it, well, you don't want to be responsible for anyone else? Is it you don't want anyone else to be responsible for you? Is it “Oh, I don't want to be judged by other people.”? Maybe it's, I just don't like being around other people, they make me nervous because I don't know them. It doesn't matter what it is I just wanna make sure that you understand it is and how does that affect the quality of your life? If you're listening to this podcast, there are certain assumptions that get made, and one of my assumptions is that you've been in more than a few social situations. You've gone through middle, junior high school, high school, maybe you've gone through college, you've worked someplace that's not a restaurant. It's a business of sorts where you've had to collaborate with other people, maybe other teams. Maybe it is a restaurant that's just another team. But you've had to be in situations where you are in the same place at the same time with other humans for a cause amongst you is common like a restaurant. You have a hostess, you have waitresses and waiters, and you have a cook, and you have a bus person, bartender, all these different roles, right, but they all work together under the umbrella of the restaurant. If you are postgraduate, it doesn't matter what discipline you're studying, you're not the only one. What do you have in common with these other people? You're studying the same thing those are your people. I tend to think the best groups ever are sports groups. Why? Sports groups are the best, and I'm not saying you have to go play sports even though you could, but just being a fan, being a fan of a sport, especially, uh, one of the big three, football, baseball, basketball. Don't have to have any of those in your town, but if you are a fan of a team in any of those three leagues, you have a tribe. Maybe you're a big fan of professional cornhole, maybe professional darts, pro bowling, golf. All of these places, situations, and people in them, nobody that I have ever met has nothing. Meaning nobody that I've ever met, doesn't have people to hang out with. It may feel like you don't have someone to hang out with ah, ah, you want to go hang out, you wanna go somewhere to not be by yourself, but you don't know where to go or who to go with or when to go. Is that it? Are those things contributing factors? Maybe. I get into a funk during the week, I already know what I'm gonna do on a Friday night. I'm gonna go and see this one band in town that plays and they play funk music, and they've been doing it every Friday for like 20 years. It is the ultimate mood changer for me. All I gotta do is just get in the door. More times than not, I don't know anybody except for the band, but I just get in and I close my eyes and I just let the music get into me, and then I start looking around at all the people and it's like, huh, you know, I may not know you, but I know that we have this in common. We like this situation, this place at this time with those guys playing, that's my tribe. Now for me, I can be anywhere. There's music, anywhere that somebody's playing or something is playing. But what about you? You don't have a sports team. You don't like sports? Great. That's fine. It's not a requirement. Who are your people? Who do you like to spend time with? Who do you bond with that has common interests? Fishing, boating, cycling, hiking, mountain climbing. There are tons. What if it's something as simple as I'd like to be part of a group, but I don't know how to find them? There was a time that I was pretty convinced that I didn't know how to write music anymore, I didn't know how to write songs. A family member suggested that I go to meetup.com. M-E-E-T-U P dot com, metup.com. And I liked music, so I put in music and there were some things, and then I put in songs, songwriting, and I found this group called Songwriters in Seattle. There were like eight members, and they met downstairs at this restaurant. I started going to meetings every week to listen to other people and how they went through their process of writing songs. I was always too scared to show 'em my own. That wasn't the point. For me, the point was, are these my people? And after about eight months, six, eight months, yeah, I brought songs to the table, I played, I asked questions about verses and how songs are put together because that's why we were there. We were songwriters in Seattle and it was great. Some of us have forged friendships outside of the meeting group, but I found that group on meetup.com. if you are spending an inordinate amount of time by yourself, so much so that you start to feel some kind of way about it AKA lonely, you don't have to stay there, you can do anything you want. You're grown. What do you have against fellow homo sapiens that you don't want to mix with them, especially if they like things that you like? Nobody I know really enjoys feeling lonely, and I don't think you do either. Think about the things that make you smile. It doesn't matter what they are. What is it that makes you smile? Comedy shows? Nature shows? You like animals? There are things that you take for granted you don't even notice anymore, they make you feel okay, if not good. You are not the only one. You are not unique, let alone terminally unique. I would encourage you look deep within yourself and remember what has always made you smile. There's gonna be a common denominator. It's your life and somewhere within your life, something has repeated itself, was it going to a carnival? A museum? Was it a sporting event? Was it a recital? Something's out there and with that, something comes other people. You can choose to sit and watch your life pass by, or you can go out and grab the things that are there for you to take. If you're honest with yourself, I think you'll find that those times that you actually went out and found or came across other people liking the same things that you liked, you forgot about being alone and lonely. Until whatever time you were there ended, and then you went back to your little cave and whatever it is you do. Life was not meant for you to just be sedentary, life is a verb, there are things you have to do first. You have to decide to do them and where to do them and how to do them. After that, it's easy if you have the courage to try. Go forth and find your tribe, okay? Good luck! Be good now, thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next week. Cheers.