I caught myself thinking about something this morning. It's very easy to have a busy week as a community builder. You can write posts. Tweak your About page. Create another resource. Check your numbers. Rearrange your classroom... again. 😂 And at the end of the week, feel like you've done a LOT. But here's the question I've been thinking most about... How much of it brought you closer to the people you're building for? Not closer to a better-looking community. Not closer to another metric. Closer to the people. Did you have a conversation that helped you understand someone a little better? Did you notice a question that keeps coming up? Did someone say something that made you think, "Ohhh... I hadn't thought about it that way"? Did you simply listen? Sometimes we can get so busy building the community that we forget to spend time with the people we're building it for. And I have a feeling some of our best clues are hiding right there. So no homework today. No challenge. Just one question to ponder... What did you do this week that brought you closer to the people you're building for? And if your answer is "not much," that's okay, too. You noticed. And noticing is where better building begins. ❤️ Happy Sunday, friends.

Another one of our Skoolology community members out there building. @Marama Elizabeth is growing Eaborn Living Academy, a community centered around reconnecting with nature through herbalism, permaculture, botanical remedies, and ancestral skills. And I have to give her a shout-out for this... 180 members and growing. 🌱 Love seeing what our members are creating beyond the walls of Skoolology. Keep growing, Marama. 🔎

Look who I spotted building inside FLOURISH Biz Club. @Monna Tang is creating a space for women entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses with a little more calm and a lot less pressure. And this caught my eye... “Build with more calm.” Simple. Clear. And you immediately get a feel for the kind of community she’s creating. Love seeing our Skoolology community members out there building their own way. Keep going, Monna. 🔎

A few of you answered yesterday, and something turned up in the answers that nobody planned. One of you described a person who needs to go from safe to brave. Another described a woman who wants certainty that growing again will not cost her what the last level cost. A third had several people in mind, and we talked it through in the comments, and where she landed was a teacher with a deaf student arriving in the fall who has no idea how to do right by that child. Different people, different fields, nothing in common on the surface. Here is what none of them said. Nobody said their person needs to learn more. Not one. Every answer was about someone afraid of what moving would cost them, not someone missing information. That changes what any of us could usefully build, because you cannot fix a fear by explaining something to it. Now, a few answers are not a finding, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Your person may be nothing like these. Some people really are one piece of information away from what they need, and if that is yours, say so, because that is the more interesting case this week. But if something is in your person's way, here is today's question, and it is not the obvious one. 💡Do not tell me what they are afraid of. 💡Tell me what they are protecting. Those are not the same thing. Fear looks irrational from the outside. Protection almost never does. The woman guarding her peace and her family has good reason to guard them. The teacher worried about getting it wrong is protecting a child, not herself. Once you name the thing being protected, the hesitation stops looking like a flaw and starts looking like a choice that makes sense. That matters for what we build next week. Whatever you design has to leave the protected thing alone. If a first step asks someone to risk the very thing they are trying to keep, they will not take it, and honestly, they should not. So, in the comments: 💡What is your person protecting? And if the honest answer is nothing, if they are just stuck and need a piece of knowledge or a pair of hands, say that instead.

Yesterday I asked you to choose one person you could genuinely help. Someone real, someone you can picture. Before I ask anything else this week, I should probably answer it myself. I am going to walk through mine, and then I am going to ask you for yours. So read this with your person already in mind. I chose B. She is a teacher. B. has wanted to build something online for a long time, and she has not started. Here is what she says the obstacle is... She needs another degree first. She is looking at spending thousands of dollars and a couple of years on it. What I keep wondering is whether the degree is the thing standing between her and starting, or whether it is something she reached for because starting is hard. I ask that gently, because I have done my own version of it more than once. A credential is expensive and slow, but it is safe. Nothing you sign up for in September can fail publicly in October. (or the learning process that we often deem as failure) When I have been afraid of something, I have not usually noticed it as fear. It arrived looking like a reasonable plan. We have talked about smaller things she could do. She gets excited. Then the doubt catches up, and she is back where she started. So, what I think I could actually move is not her confidence, and it is not talking her out of anything. It is the timing. She needs one small piece of real evidence, from real people, to arrive before the doubt does. Evidence is the only thing that has ever beaten that voice, and it has to get there first. That is the honest version of what I could do for her. Here is the part I do not know. I am not certain help is what she is looking for. There is a difference between wanting to build something and wanting to talk about building something, and I cannot yet tell which it is. So, I am holding the whole thing a little loosely. Now yours. Your person has a degree, too. It is not a degree, but they have one. The thing they have decided they need before they can move.