Built to Belong

CHAPTER ONE

BUILT FOR BELONGING

You don’t belong.

You are not enough.

You’re broken and alone.

They’re not your friend—they are a threat.

They don’t care about the struggles you face.

Their lives are perfect and yours is a mess.

You are falling behind and falling short.

You don’t have anything to offer.

Truthfully: writing those sentences above feels uncomfortable. Honestly, it hurts to read those words, let alone write them.

Why? Because these aren’t hypothetical phrases or a made-up list of potential narratives floating around in some theoretical person’s mind—these are actual thoughts that I’ve painfully navigated in my darkest moments.

We need to belong in the same way that we need oxygen—our physical bodies require it. It’s knitted into the very fabric of our being. Humans are wired to live alongside others, and not just in some sort of parallel landscape of coexistence.

We belong to one another before we are even born.

Through the blending of genetic blueprints, through the weaving together of two other human lives, our own being takes shape. We cannot exist without the existence of others. There is no me without you.

From that initial spark of life, that first biological blending of our inherited genealogy, we travel into the space that we call home for our first nine months. Nestled deep within our mother’s womb, we are connected to her through a lifeline that nurtures our every need. A cord that connects us in the darkness. A cord that remains with us until we meet the light.

Babies are a beautiful illustration of our biological interdependence.

However, connection doesn’t begin and end in our earliest moments. Belonging remains critical in every season of our lives. It is a part of each stepping-stone along our journey of becoming.

In childhood we create friendships in school, and as adults we search for relationships in the workplace. The groups that we are a part of change as we ourselves evolve and grow. People walk in and out of our lives—and some remain for the long haul. Belonging builds us and breaks us. It molds and shapes us. It transforms our understanding of ourselves and others. It is the foundation of the human experience.

Like tiles in a mosaic or musical notes in a symphony—we are separate parts of a collective masterpiece.

We are individual beings existing as a part of a group: a delicate dichotomy between our desire to be autonomous and our inextricable need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Within social groups, both humans and other animals battle with the delicate balance between cooperation and competition. The ability to operate as a group is critical to the survival of the species. However, the individual also has a vested interest in being the one to survive and pass on their genetics to the next generation.

Cooperation and competition are a delicate balancing act wired directly into our genetic code. We are built to belong, and yet we are also created to compete. We are constantly at war with ourselves, and it doesn’t take much for the balance of power to shift.

When I started my photography business, I dreamed of becoming the best photographer in my city. Years were spent honing my craft, building my brand, and nurturing a client base. I was a solopreneur competing at the top of my game; however, I wasn’t doing it alone.

My success was propelled by the success of others. I relied on other photographers to shoot alongside me at weddings. We also shared business opportunities, referring out new clients when one of us was booked. As the photography industry evolved—developing new shooting styles, editing techniques, and marketing strategies—knowledge was also shared, and the collective benefited too.

All photographers compete against one another for business. However, they also deeply rely upon one another. The balancing act between community and competition is a tightrope walk that we must navigate every day.

I have spent years unpacking the significance of this duality—the craving we have to compete and the calling we have for community. This book is my way of sharing what I have learned and elevating the stories of others who demonstrate that we truly can rise together in a competitive world.

For years I struggled to strike the proper balance myself. I wanted to achieve. I wanted my business to flourish. I also wanted to belong to a community whose members truly supported one another.

And I’m not talking about a shallow, superficial type of friendship.… I wanted the real thing. I longed for deeply authentic and selfless camaraderie. I yearned for radical kindness—people caring for other people without expecting anything in return. No hidden agendas, no tearing others down, no comparison monsters knocking on the door… I desperately wanted something different.

Yet there I was sitting in the darkness of my office alone—competing, comparing, and scrolling deeper into the void.

There was no single moment that brought me to my breaking point in my battle against loneliness. It was the culmination of smaller moments—times when I felt left out, less than, and unworthy that I carried with me on my shoulders until they brought me to my knees.

Can you relate? Have you ever done the midnight scroll and been left feeling depleted?

Have you ever struggled with comparison or felt like someone else’s accomplishments were simply evidence that you were falling behind or not measuring up? Has someone else’s prosperity ever caused you pain?

We have been told that in order to be successful, in order to live a life that makes an impact, we must prove ourselves and be the best at what we do. In our pursuit of being the best, we lose sight of being our best. Slowly we trade interdependence for independence, we choose personal successes over the collective good, and we begin to believe the narrative that it is us versus them.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

LONELINESS EPIDEMIC

Loneliness is like a virus. Under the right conditions, a single molecule of loneliness can replicate, spread, and quickly threaten to destroy us.

A virus? How is loneliness a virus?

It is contagious—spreading through social groups from person to person. Its negative effects reach as far as three degrees of separation from the source. The topography of loneliness can be traced through communities, spreading in clusters and wreaking havoc.¹

Greater sociability enhances brain health and the lack thereof threatens it. Increased rates of depression, cognitive decline, and dementia have been found among adults who are isolated.² Researchers estimate that lacking human connection carries a risk that is comparable to smoking up to fifteen cigarettes per day.³ And many of the studies being done on social isolation are explicitly examining disease-related mortality and thus are not taking into account deaths due to suicide… which is also on the rise.⁴

Atul Gawande, a public-health researcher and contributor to the New Yorker, reports that long-distance solo sailors, who commit themselves to months at sea, endure an onslaught of terrors, including raging storms, soaring waves, leaks on board, and physical illness. Yet many recount that the single most overwhelming difficulty they experience is the absence of human connection. It is the unrelenting solitude that threatens to swallow them whole… not just the sea that surrounds them.⁵

Likewise, it is also well noted in scientific literature that the absence of human connection will drive a person to the psychological brink of insanity.

Psychologists have studied this at length by examining the effects of incarceration. In June of 2012, Craig Haney, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee in a hearing on solitary confinement. With more than thirty years of research under his belt, he condemned this form of incarceration, stating that “solitary confinement precipitates a descent into madness.”

In his testimony, he noted that prisoners subjected to long-term solitary confinement endure psychological breakdowns from the lack of human contact. For many, this leads to irrevocable damage, including psychosis, mutilations, and—in severe cases—suicide.⁶

The late Senator John McCain shared about his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam—with more than two of those years spent in complete isolation in a windowless ten-foot-by-ten-foot cell. McCain endured repeated torture at the hands of his captors, was denied medical treatment, and suffered from physical trauma ranging from broken bones to horrific bouts of dysentery.⁷

In an interview with Richard Kozar, McCain recounted: “It’s an awful thing, solitary.”

McCain went on: “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment. Having no one else to rely on, to share confidences with, to seek counsel from, you begin to doubt your judgement and your courage.”⁸

Numerous accounts from prisoners like McCain and others illuminate the horrific damage that occurs to the human psyche in extended periods of complete solitude. Void of any social interaction, we destruct from within.

The sustained stress of extreme isolation damages the part of the brain responsible for learning, memory, and spatial awareness called the hippocampus and leads to a decrease in the formation of new neurons. It also leads to increased activity in the amygdala—the area of the brain that mediates fear and anxiety.⁹

The absence of connection condemns the human mind to a fate that is the antithesis of our very existence. A life of solitude is a psychological path of destruction. We cannot thrive without one another.

We must value connection as though our life depends on it… because it does.

When we are emotionally isolated, lonely, and alienated from the world, we are at risk of losing everything. Social disconnection and perceived isolation is a pervasive problem. The battle for belonging is one waged within each of us, and we are in the fight of our lives.

As you already know, I’m not immune to struggling with this myself. If loneliness is an epidemic, then I am certainly one of the infected. I struggled for years with feeling completely alienated, unwanted, and unsure of how to connect.

Feelings of alienation and unworthiness tormented me… so I dedicated myself to solving this problem. I pivoted out of a successful small business and started building communities across the globe.

In trying to cure my own loneliness and cultivate community, I discovered why I had struggled with this from such a young age. Because the barrier that kept me from truly connecting, the obstacle that prevented me from engaging in meaningful relationships, the real reason I rarely felt seen in this world, was my own deeply rooted perception that I didn’t deserve to belong.

I felt alienated because I didn’t believe that I was worthy of connection. I felt alone because I didn’t feel deserving of friendship. So I went out looking for evidence of these painful perceptions, and I didn’t quit until I found it.

Solving loneliness in our lives isn’t as simple as joining a community. To truly solve it, we need to first change the way that we think about ourselves and our relationships with others, while truly believing that we are capable and worthy of belonging.

Loneliness isn’t merely an isolation problem; it is also a worthiness problem. We must truly believe that we are deserving of love and built for belonging before we are able to receive it.

So how do we get there? I told you that it isn’t as simple as building community, so what exactly is the solution?

We must challenge our culture of competition, the societal frameworks and narratives that pit us against one another. We need to stop mindlessly scrolling and start intentionally connecting, leveraging our devices to bring us closer together rather than driving us farther apart. We have to rewrite the relationship rule book together—one page at a time.

COMMUNITY > COMPETITION

There is a better way. And you don’t have to do it alone. You can kick comparison to the curb, cultivate a deep sense of belonging, and grow a genuine community of dynamic human beings online and in person.

I’ve done it, and I’m going to show you how you can do it too.

I want you to finish this book feeling vastly different from the person who opened it. I want you to thrive in a community where you are deeply connected to yourself, others, and the opportunities that exist all around you.

You can carve out a path for your life unlike any other—one brimming with joy, connection, and wholeness. You can fight for others to experience that too.

You are welcome here. You are built for belonging. You are created for connection.

You don’t need to spend hours and days and months and years skillfully assembling your mask—creating facades to impress, hiding your scars, camouflaging your exceptionality, and blending in. These modern masks look like virtually curated feeds and perfectly crafted captions. They read like meticulously polished résumés that leave no room for uniqueness—only palatable homogeny in the pursuit of blending in. They are our shields against insecurity and our weapons against letting anyone get too close.

You don’t have to hustle, struggle, and strive in stifling isolation. You don’t have to carry the weight of the entire world on your shoulders without anyone to help you.

I am certain that this reality exists because I’ve lived it and witnessed it countless times. Over and over again, through loss, through illness, through uncertainty, I have been carried by my community. My life is a testament to what happens when we set aside our culture of cutthroat competition to seek a better way.

Now, I’m not going to say that this road is easy. Committing to changing your mindset and the way you operate is going to be hard. Raising your hand to live a life that puts people first and champions camaraderie means rowing against the current.

However, in order to truly change the way things are, we need to make waves. This doesn’t mean that we should eradicate our natural desire to strive for success, but rather ensure that we never seek the destruction of others in the process.

When you walk through the valleys of your life, it can be easy to lose sight of the outstretched arms around you. It can be hard to trust, to believe, to see the impact that investing in community can have when you’ve grown used to the isolation.

Something powerful happens when you open your heart to the pursuit of doing life with others. Suddenly those struggles that you face are a little less daunting. The weight on your shoulders becomes divided across the shoulders of your friends. They carry the burden alongside you, helping you to make it through each day.

For years and years, I couldn’t see the beauty of the relationships that awaited me on the other side of isolation and loneliness. I couldn’t hear the voices of thousands of others longing for connection in the chaos. I didn’t know that I would one day cofound the Rising Tide Society, a community of entrepreneurs who, just like me, were craving a better, more connected way to live. I didn’t know that our hashtag #communityovercompetition would turn into an international movement.…

This book is the evolution of six years spent cultivating communities around the globe. We’ve grown from a hashtag on social media to a community that is inspiring people around the world to reject narratives that pull us farther apart in favor of rising together.

All those years ago, I didn’t know how to overcome my insecurities and kick comparison to the curb. I felt alone. I felt unworthy… and it was destroying me.

I know that at some point you have felt that way too.

This book is my entire heart spilled out onto the page. My learnings from friendships and hardships, from beauty and brokenness. It’s a quest filled with vulnerability and a long lesson in embracing my imperfections in order to live a more deeply rooted life with others.

As you experience this book, I’m inviting you to change the way things are. I’m asking you to challenge how you feel about yourself and others. I want you to discover that you too were built for belonging. I want you to walk into a room knowing that you are welcome and feeling empowered to create spaces for others to feel welcome too.

Are you with me?

⁹