167: Transform Your Approach to Community-Building with Gina Bianchini

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Welcome back Free Timers. I am so, so incredibly thrilled to be here today with Gina Bianchini. She is the CEO and founder of Mighty Networks and I will say a long time friend tour from afar because we've never met and yet I've learned so much and it's so inspired by her over the years. Mighty Networks is a place where creators, entrepreneurs and brands use cultural software to build digital communities. She's the creator of Community Design, a course that I took with Gina. A proven strategy framework for understanding and growing communities online and in the real world. Over 8,000 people have taken that course and today we're also talking about her brand new book, purpose Design a community and change your life. Gina, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. What did you call it?

A friend tour.

A friend tour. I think that is so cool.

It's the best one. It actually merges in real life like right now, in real time. But you know, you've been a little angel on my community building shoulder. I remember doing a podcast binge listening to your philosophy on all things community design a couple years ago. So today I finally get to say thank you in real time.

Well, that makes my day. So thank you.

Yay. Power to community and to everything you're creating. And I was even familiar with Nang back in the day, so love it in every way. Your philosophy, we're going to talk about social mishigast, but so much of your philosophy and what you're trying to create of genuine connection is very Refreshing. In a recent LinkedIn post, you said, I hate to say this, but it's true. Most online communities die because they are boring. So can we start there? What is a boring online community? Because I don't think people realize how hard it is to build a truly thriving, engaged community.

So I think it's hard, but I also think it's easier than most people assume it is. And it really just requires a shift in mindset more than hours and hours and hours of work. Well, certainly the reason why I said most online communities are boring is because they are. And they tend to be boring when they are set up to be very generic. My favorite example of this is the folks that use the term learn, share and grow. So it's like, oh, we're creating a community so we can learn, share and grow. And the challenge is that learn, share and grow has been so overused. And this is true for all language is once a word or a phrase starts to get overused and become generic, it doesn't mean anything to anybody. And so what happens in a lot of online communities is they start with this sort of generic approach of like, we're building a community to learn, share and grow together. But it's like, well, what does that mean? What's the culture here? How do I meet people? How do I make sure I look cool to people? You know, all these sort of base things that we want and we need. What I believe, and what I'm really focused on is how do we create interesting communities, thriving communities, communities that actually are really easy to get to be self organizing so that hosts of communities can really experience all of the benefits and all of the awesomeness and the energizing nature of community design and community building and members immediately know what they should do, how they should do it, and most importantly, what they are going to get for doing it. I wrote this in something that we're working on here at Mighty this morning, actually, which is fall in love with the expression so that we can. And so when you start to think about making a community self organizing, highly engaged, where members are really getting awesome stuff out of it, starting with this approach of not learn, share and grow, but replacing that with so that we can, whether that's get a better job, move forward with our careers together, redefine what it means to be an active parent or what kind of relationship we want to have to our health, our wellness, our spiritual practices and other important interests.

One of the most important things I learned from you and from the course is that the difference between a course and a community is that a course usually has learning objectives, whereas a community is. We are on a journey of transformation together. Yeah, that was such a powerful shift.

I think about a course as fitting into a community. So we always sort of think about. It's kind of a funky thing. Online courses have become this, like courses, it's about content and you go through it in a sequential order and. And then the community is kind of an afterthought. I have found, and at this point, tens of thousands of people across Mighty have found that actually if you think about everything you're doing as building a community and that courses can live within a community, because all courses are essentially doing is offering a beginning, a middle and an end, where a community people can drop in at any time and sort of figure out how they can progress in the results and transformation that they want to get in their lives.

You've also been such an advocate for true social networking compared to social media. And you put it so well in the new book where you say that Facebook had subtly shifted from calling it a social network to referring to it as social media. You said, well, to the outside world, this wasn't a major shift. I saw it as ominous. And for me too. I've been allergic for so many years. I made so many friends on Twitter in the early days. There was a lot to like when all of these companies were just starting up. Can you share with us, take us to that ominous feeling like, when was it for you? Because you were very early.

Don't we all sort of feel it today?

We do now, yes. But you saw it so early.

I don't know how to articulate it other than what is my purpose, what is my goal? My goal is how do we use technology to create and spark relationships that move people forward. That is very different than how do I get you to consume as much content as humanly possible in essentially these parasocial relationships? That has never been my goal. It continues to not be my goal. And what I think you can see in the difference between what is a community or a network and what is media is. Media is when I talk out at you, you talk back at me, and no one is talking to each other. There is no connection between audience members, whereas in a community or a network, you are building something as a facilitator or as a host that gets more valuable to every member with each new person who joins and contributes. Why? Because the value of what you're building with a community or a network is the relationships that are happening between members.

Sharing stories, sharing experiences, sharing ideas, being able to recognize patterns, being able to navigate rapid change and build new practices and new habits. And ultimately, the power of a community or a network is that you are, as a member or a host, able to achieve results and transformation in your life that you just simply can't get on your own without a tremendous amount of work. Now, compare that to being a member of an audience and we see this. If anything, I think it's more pronounced today than at any point before, which is you are consuming, in many cases, obvious content, because what actually goes viral is 21 things I wish I knew or that I know at 35 that I wish I knew at 20, that's content. And that your role is to consume that content. It's not to meet anybody who's in the comments section. It's not to figure out how you apply it to your interests, your passions, your goals. And it's really just in that moment to get your attention, to keep your attention for minutes, and that's it. So to me, there's a role for that to play, which is to get attention. But then what do you do with that attention? I think there has never been a better time, a more important time, or candidly, an easier time to build a community where we can not only belong, but to belong and to experiment and to play in ways that ultimately get us closer and closer to our goals and to these results in transformation that we simply can't get on our own.

I love what you said about each new member adding value as they join, because I remember at one point being worried. I mean, this would have been a champagne problem that I've never had. Worried that my community would grow too big, at least a private community, and that it wouldn't be intimate anymore. And maybe people would feel too shy, there were too many people. But it wasn't until you said that that I realized, oh, no, the best communities, each new person is bringing all their knowledge and experience. And you also said, speaking of experience, you've always given the advice, don't tell people what to do. Just share your experience, let's say within the walls of the community.

And here's the thing, the good news about a community growing too big is that certainly what we've built on, mighty it has personalization built in. It will always feel intimate. Always feel intimate to your members so that they are able to have the most relevant experience at the same point in time. The power of community is in bringing people together and having some density. That's a good thing. And So I think that it is a champagne problem, but certainly not one that can't be overcome.

We'll be right back just after this.

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You mentioned this transition or at least these two types of content. There's content to build an audience, maybe even to get attention. It's that one sided kind of parasocial relationship now for that person who does also want to build a community. So let's say they have some one to many content that goes out and they're building a community. It can be a tricky transition to then create a space where they're not the guru. Tara McMullen I know you've been on her show before. She always was so clear. I am not the guru here. This is an exchange of information among peers. But it still can be tricky. And I speak from experience too of yeah, well, the person launching the community is still kind of leading it. Like even the example you give in the book Yoga with Adrian, Adrian's still there. She's still a big draw. So what do you think the best community leaders and facilitators do to build in that we're a group of peers exchanging experience on a journey together versus everybody still looking to the leader and having the community be not that functional because they're just waiting to be directed. That makes sense.

First, I think there's something really interesting that I've noticed recently in terms of there's this assumption that you build an audience and then a community. I actually think there is more power in flipping those two things. So let's say you build a community first and you've got even just 30 people and you're able to build in. What is that value? What is that purpose? What's the motivation for people to join?

What?

What are we doing together? What are the Results and transformation that we're able to get from doing these things together. That is the sort of the core DNA of the culture that you are building. And culture is powerful. Then you have this really interesting and cool opportunity to, for all 30 people, including you, to be able to be ambassadors for the community. And thinking about it as community first starts to actually move away from this idea of it's about you as the guru. I love the term host because I think that that is what we do when we build community is we are facilitating interesting conversations, we're facilitating people sharing their stories, their experiences, their ideas, not advice. And so then when it comes to getting attention, you already have kind of the DNA of your community that is about the relationships between people and not about oh my gosh, I have to build a bunch of content. I don't know if that necessarily answers your question, but what I think is so important is being okay with the fact that you can play two different roles. The worst thing that I think creators can do is make membership about the relationship people are having with you. So a paid membership, for example, that it's about, oh, you get more time with the creator or special one on one coaching or anything like that. Certainly some people are doing that successfully. I think it's a bad idea. I think the much more powerful kind of way to think about what that value journey is to those higher and higher levels is around I'm going to facilitate you and the other members in whether it's a mastermind or whether it's other kinds of course or small group, how you're going to build the best, most valuable relationships with each other. And I think that starting from that place will always create, always create a more sustainable, clear expectations on the part of your members, more sustainable activities in a community, especially if you are managing and growing an audience elsewhere outside of the community. Really give your members a role with respect to being ambassadors for your community. And ultimately reinforcing the value is in the relationships and the culture that the community is building, not in the fame of the creator themselves.

That's so helpful and just that distinction, it's not higher and higher levels of access to you. Therefore again, reinforcing that guru mode, it's facilitating connection with each other.

At the end of the day, what do people really want? They want to meet cool people who make their life more interesting. Yes, this idea that, oh, what we all want is to watch another YouTube video if it's good, sure. But the day's pretty clear on this that what we yearn for as Human beings are those kinds of relationships that go deeper, that ladder up to something bigger than ourselves, that allow us to grow and stretch and take on new challenges together. And I believe the more time any of us are investing in, how are we hosting those kinds of challenges, those kinds of experiences, those kinds of collaborations. We talk about them at Mighty as quests, the more time you're facilitating people having those experiences. It certainly still has great brand value for you, but each of their opportunities to meet and build relationships with each other, that's the true value that any of us that have audiences and are building communities have to offer people.

I'd love to talk about your quest as an entrepreneur. Speaking of that great phrase. You have had such an interesting journey and like I said, I've admired it from afar. Building Ning, getting funding. You've co founded it with now very well known venture capitalist, then you pivoted to Mighty. You're building Mighty all the while these megalith monopolies consuming half the world. I'm just wondering, emotionally speaking, I used to say I felt like a little raft in the ocean while everyone else was in a cruise liner. That's like how my emotional makeup felt as a highly sensitive person. And I've looked at your journey as an entrepreneur and I had so much admiration for sticking to your values. Kind of reminds me of the base camp guys. But sticking to your values, building what you believe in, and yet you've had some turbulent waters that you've navigated, economically speaking, with competitors, quote, unquote. I don't even know how you see that phrase, competitor or not. I know what you're doing is unique, but I'd love for you to just take that wherever you want into your philosophy or how you stay resilient and such a epic journey that you've had as an entrepreneur.

First and foremost, I do not believe entrepreneurship is for everyone. This whole idea that like everyone should be an entrepreneur is kind of not true. There's some things about it that are not great. So I'll say that up front. And what are those things? The goal post always changes and the definitions of success are always, always changing and they tend to always get bigger where it seems like they get bigger. What I will say is if I could find something else that I believe in, would want to do with people that I would want to do it with, I probably should do something else. But I don't and I can't because I am absolutely obsessed with this fundamental question of how do we use technology to build real relationships and the technology is getting more and more interesting in terms of what we can offer and how we can orchestrate culture that is repeatable and scalable in ways that really takes into consideration psychology takes into consideration what brings us meaning and value, takes into consideration how we help more people achieve results and transformation in their lives in ways that are nearly impossible on our own, hard to do or impossible to do on our own. Whereas something in a community just gets so much easier to learn and to absorb and to apply in our lives when things get challenging. I know why I'm doing what I'm doing. I talk about it as purpose, you know, the clear and positive intention, my brief time, energy and focus here on Planet Earth. I can't imagine working on something that I didn't believe in. And also, I'm just comfortable at this point with the fact that there are going to be people that are wildly more successful than me, and there are people that are going to not even be able to get out of the gate, and no judgment on people that are dramatically more successful than me, and no judgment on the people that haven't been able to get out of the gate. We're all just trying to do the best that we can. And to me, that's just something that I have a life I love. I have a company and a mission that I love and is always changing and is super dynamic. And the trick for me has always been what do I have control over? What can I control? And working as hard as I can, or doing the best work that I can around the things that I can control and really just giving up and having a sense of humor about the things I don't and can't.

As a business owner, do you have a sweet spot for the size that Mighty grows as a company, or are you so committed to the vision that it's like, however big it could get, you're happy to grow with it?

The latter.

I had a feeling.

Yeah. I mean, I'm not here to do something small. It's great. But rather, I look at what we're doing as I want everybody to be able to find moments of true belonging, to find quests that they can go on in real life, not in fantasy, not in video games, not in worlds that we don't have here on Planet Earth. Rather, how do we take on bigger and bigger challenges together, in community with others, in learning and in challenges and in these quests. And to me, I get up every morning really excited about this.

I love that. It's so inspiring hearing you talk about your vision for this and just how committed you are. And I am so with you. Like, the tools that you've created, the tools that you're teaching are transformational and they are genuinely facilitating relationships. Whereas so much of what's happening on the Internet is for profit or growth at all costs. And I know that's not your vibe, so thank you for all that you've done.

Don't get me wrong, I love profit. I love growth. But I think you can do both. Yes, we talk about it within mighty as winning with honor.

I love that. Winning with honor. So, last question. If you could give fellow business owners, perhaps those building communities, permission to do something differently or drop something altogether, what would it be?

I'll go with do something differently. You do not have to produce a lot of content. Being able to flip the script from producing content to convening human beings towards a common goal is one of the most profound shifts any of us can make, not just in building communities, but in how we approach life, how we build relationships with each other, how we think about the relationship we have to social media. When I started seeing people refer to their documentation of things happening to them in life as their content, and like, oh, this will make good X kind of content or Y kind of content. I'm like, that's a thing. I don't think that's what we're supposed to be doing. I think that that would be the one thing I would give folks permission to do differently.

Beautifully said, Gina. Thank you so much. I've learned so much from you and listeners. Grab a copy of Purpose, Gina's new book on designing a community, changing your life. There's all kinds of practical nuggets in there, too. Like, specifically to make the content piece easy, structured, systematized, which you know we love here on the show, so you can focus on that convening aspect. Gina, is there anywhere else you want to send people to keep in touch? No.

Read the book. Yes, it's short. It's designed for people who want a short, fun, practical guide to finding your purpose and making it matter.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Tina. Thanks, everybody for listening.

If you've listened this far, you get a gold star.

Thank you.

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