The Real Reason Why Introverts Have It Rough

100 Things #029 - Build a Community

Photo by Clayton Caldwell on Unsplash

I heard some advice once upon a time that to be good at something, (pretty much anything,) you had to do some “hanging around the hoop.”

And I’m not going to lie, my initial response was to recoil into my little introvert cave and hiss. I knew what the advice entailed, and socializing (let alone networking) was not exactly something I kept very high on my priority list.

But it’s really quite difficult to argue that it isn’t good advice. I mean, even me, a notoriously socially anxious person, still wrote the tip down in my “Writing To Do” note on my phone.

Some context…

Essentially, for the uninitiated, “hanging around the hoop” is a saying typically touted by a notoriously guru-esque type of person that refers to the benefits one can gain from spending time near the place where the action is happening in one form or another.

This might mean any number of different things when applied to real-world contexts, such as choosing to study near the teacher’s lounge in school, or spending time trying to rub elbows with those a few social rungs higher than yourself in just about any corporate setting.

But, in all honesty, the discomfort of having to fake it, put on a smile, and play the social butterfly game was never really all that worth the effort to me. I know that might say something about the way that I approach my professional life, but hey, that’s just my experience.

The thing is, to me, hanging around the hoop can look a little different depending on the shape and scope of your aspirations.

For creatives, it might look like simply spending time engaging with those developing works that inspire you. If someone naturally functions as a battery for your creative machine, why not shimmy a little closer to them?

For athletes, maybe it looks like actually spending some time near the hoop? Like the real hoop. Or the track? Or whatever other area you do your sports thing in? With so much technique and specificity in athletics, why not learn from others around you? It will likely only help your overall experience and performance.

For me, though, hanging around the hoop has come to look a little something like aspirations of being a part of a community. I think of the hoop as a sort of beacon, and I, a moth to its flame.

The only picture I had of a moth in my phone - enjoy!

Now, by no means am I saying that, in order to feel like I’ve successfully hung around the hoop, I have to be the one to create the community. I feel like there is so much to be gained from joining an existing community, or helping work towards the construction of one yourself. Being at the center of anything remotely of that scope sounds like a bit of a stress-induced nightmare.

But I do think it’s interesting that this conversation is happening in a newsletter made possible by Substack – a platform that thrives on individuals creating small communities for themselves and strategically drawing people in through the quality of their work.

Those who choose to work on Substack are inherently community builders. Some of us do a little better when, and might even prefer to keep that community on the smaller, more tight-knit side of things, but it’s still a community nonetheless.

For me, I’m simply happy to feel like I get to take part in something larger than myself. And in my experience, that does entail some amount of taking part in the building of the community. I think that drive speaks to some aspect of me and who I am that I haven’t entirely parsed apart myself yet. But maybe that’s a journey for another day.

In any case, getting to participate in brilliant conversations like the one that happened in the thread under this note here felt like that. Like a community building exercise gone right, where some very cool people got to hang around the hoop together for a couple days, and come out on the other side of it with some brilliant new connections.

So how did an introvert like me find his way onto Substack, a platform that asks its users to become little community-building, marketing worker bees?

I’m still not entirely sure of that myself, but I’m truly happy to be along for the ride.

I’ll leave you here with a few journaling prompts for those who want to do a bit of guided thinking around this topic:

• What are your initial thoughts on the idea of "hanging around the hoop"? Do you find it intimidating or appealing?

• As a creative or professional, who or what inspires you the most? How can you spend more time engaging with these sources of inspiration?

• Can you recall a time when social anxiety held you back from pursuing an opportunity? How did you feel about it then, and how do you feel about it now?

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Reply of the week:

(Because this is a thing we do here now! Yay new segments!)

This comment was in response to last week’s 100 Things #028 - Embarrass Yourself.

Really just appreciated the candid response. It was a fun topic, and it was great to see the conversation happening in the comments. Thanks for responding

RIVER

! And thanks to everyone else who responded as well. The responses were really great to see.

I’d love to do this again next week, so keep the conversation going in the comments below the post! (If you’d prefer to remain anonymous but would still like to participate, send me an email instead and let me know, I’d be more than happy to consider those replies as well!)

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For now, have a great rest of the week. Talk soon!