Chad Silverstein joined the Built to Lead band after 14 years as a client and selling his companies. A band member told him "you belong" during a moment of doubt, showing how community shapes who you become. He asks: are your groups healthy, and who are the five people influencing you most?
Chapters
There's something really interesting about day nine in regards to, you know, belonging and the feeling of wanting to be accepted, this inner desire of all of us to want to be accepted and our fear of the outsider. And also, as you become whoever it is that you're becoming, as you age and you enter into new networks and new groups and new circles and new opportunities again, you have this innate feeling of wanting to belong. I recently had an experience with the Built to Lead band. So I've been a client for 14 years, and I sold my companies, and now I'm joining as one of the coaches. And the Built to Lead band practices every Friday morning. And I'm very close with the founder, Chet. He's the one who coached me, and I went into the band and there was some resistance on both ends because they have a process, and I'm expected to follow that process if I'm in the band. But yet I've been through this build to lead process, and I'm very distinct, and I kind of challenge things. And so on both sides, it was a little rocky. And it's something that is a reality that we all deal with when we're new to any group or to any new anything. And I had a really great opportunity in the past couple weeks to hear from someone in the band that I belong. He looked me right in the eye and he said, you belong. You belong here with us. And despite the rocky start, which is sometimes always to be expected, it's never, never perfect. That made me feel incredibly, incredibly good about being part of something really special that I care deeply about. And you're blessed if you have something that you're part of. If you're part of this community, you've got that. It may not feel like it always, especially because it's an online community, but you definitely have that. There is a connection that we have within our community that if you haven't tasted yet, you will if you show up to practice. And it's special and it's unique, and you shouldn't take it for granted. And you should mind for it in other areas of your life, whether that's your team at work, people you sit around at work, the people you go to lunch with, your friends, family, whatever it is, any group that you're part of and, you know, belonging and becoming. And I talked about in one of the previous days about you changing. And when you change, your. Your groups probably change because you see your values may adjust and you may see that you're not feeling very united with the group that you're in and that may cause you to have to disconnect and then maybe go to another group. There's a lot of scenarios I can give on that personally that I've gone through, but I'll save that for practice if you want to hear more. And I'll bring that my own experiences to, to help you get some insights on things that you've experienced as well that you know you have to work through and sometimes talking it through and, and having to go through the hard moments in life where you have to leave a group of people that are friends that you've been friends with for a very long time is not an easy thing to do. And most people won't. But if you want to be strong, core centered and be distinct and duplic connected, sometimes you got to make tough decisions. And sometimes it means cutting certain relationships off that aren't healthy for you anymore and moving towards healthier relationships that will help you become more of who you want to become. And that's what this day is all about. So maybe put some pen to paper and think about who you belong to, what groups you belong to. Are they healthy? Are there groups that are not so healthy? Are there groups that you can think of that you want to be part of? You know, they say that you're as successful as the five people that you hang around with the most, the average of them. And there's truth to that. And that's why athletes want to play with athletes who are better so they can get better. You know, if you have a track star running against others who aren't so fast, that's not making the track star any better. And the same goes for you. So where do you belong and who are you becoming? That's what Day 9's melody line is all about.
