How to Build a Community That Markets for You

Kris: [00:00:00] I am very thrilled to introduce you to David Homan today. He is the founder of Orchestrated Connecting. And David's out of New York City, so we're on opposite sides of the country, and he's all about how to build community and how to make the world a better place. I can't wait to get into this episode. David, welcome.

David: [00:00:25] Thank you, Kris. It's such a pleasure to be here.

Kris: [00:00:28] So tell us a little bit about what you do.

David: [00:00:31] So I do one thing really well in life. I figure out how to get out of the way so two people that should trust each other begin a relationship, and I watch the ripple effect that comes from it, not only for those people to each other, but to all the trusted people in their life. And that's what I built from my community, which is a private network of connectors.

Kris: [00:00:54] And how did you end up here? Did-- Do you have a background in orchestra? Is that part of where the name came from?

David: [00:01:02] I'm a classical composer and pianist, and since most people have never met a living composer, maybe you could say you've met one as of today. but if somebody goes on, says to Alexa, "Play the music of David Homan," I have hours and hours of music you can listen to. And as I was in my late twenties and trying to figure out what my world was from running a large arts foundation, but being an executive and a business leader as well, I realized that the same way I was trying to compose a piece of music to find the right, quote, "resonance" for people was the same thing when I make an introduction and figure out that wavelength that people should be on together.

Kris: [00:01:41] That's why you've got the wavelength in the background of your-

David: [00:01:45] Exactly. Yeah. It took forty different cover designs for my friend Jason to finally come up with one that we thought worked. Um, and then of course, a close friend was like: "Listen, but it looks like it's just going straight in one ear and out the other." And I said, "Well, I can't change that now."

Kris: [00:02:01] I love it. So essentially, two people that are vibrating at the same frequency. And if you're listening, David has kind of a, a waveform graphic behind his head. So if, somebody plays a piano key on one side of the room, that same note on the other side of the room of the piano will start to vibrate. Is that true?

David: [00:02:25] yes. Um, everything in the acoustics of music is the same way for people who aren't musical. Think about when you throw a rock in a pond, and it starts to ripple. And think about if you throw two rocks at different parts of that pond, and the ripples go to each other, and as they hit each other, they actually speed up. It's like your heart starts to flutter when you meet somebody that you feel more of the same energy with. And so eventually it smooths itself out. But as a connector, what you try to do is you try to put two people who are really in parallel paths in front of each other When you do it right, I mean, that's where the, the gimmicky line that AI told me to do years ago, which is make your life a symphony, came from. Yeah. But it's this idea that we are all on these parallel paths, and the thing we have no control over, but full control, is who we spend time with. Yeah. And therefore, the more you can get people to spend time with people that you trust, you could find a sacred way to transfer that trust person to person, a lot comes out of it. So just as an example, a good friend of mine, his name is Jeff. He's an exceptional coach. He's a four-time best-selling author. He's taught billionaires and Olympians. He himself was an Olympian, as well. And one day he said to me, "You know, I, I coach so many people that have done such incredible work, but I haven't actually coached people who are aspiring to be great athletes into them, what they'll be as leaders." And I said, "Okay." And he's thinking, "Who's this guy who's a musician in New York connecting me to people?" And I go, "Listen, a huge amount of my network are current NFL, MLB, hockey, whatever it might be, but they have all the people they mentor to be athletes, but not to become from an athlete into a business owner. Let me connect you with a few players." Sparks flew. these guys, the two that I introduced Jeff to, my friend, have been back and forth for years now supporting each other because it didn't need me. They had similar asks 'cause my friend on the other side said, "I have all these incredible athletes, but once they're done with their career, they wanna be like me, but I'm the only one that I ever played pro ball with that became a successful businessman. Why isn't there more, why aren't there more coaches to help with that transition?"

Kris: [00:04:45] And

David: [00:04:45] so these two notes are actually two asks that are complementary to each other. To get somebody to actually say what they need is incredibly hard, and I know this because I have hundreds of coaches in my private community, and they are so incredible saying, "David, here's what you do. Here's how I'd refine it." And I go, "That's great, Kris. What do you need?" And there's silence. They can't do it for themselves the way they do it for others. So the whole point of my network was to get everyone comfortable with making an impact ask.

David: [00:05:15] Your passion, how it's amplified, and then the connections you need. And where people fail is the specificity. Like I had to get Jeff to, just to finish this somewhat long-winded analogy, which I wanna recognize. But Jeff didn't just say to me he needed what he-- that type of person. He said he, he stumbled through it, and I helped him hone it till he finally asked for what I shared, and then instantly there was a connection waiting for him, and that's the work we have to do individually and, and all the groups we're in to be more clear about not just how we would convey our ask, but how somebody would convey it for us.

Kris: [00:05:53] I love that. I talk a lot in my work about the bottle effect, which is this idea that we're all just so close to our, our own self and our own brilliance, that no matter how hard we try, it can be hard to find the right words to talk about what we do, or in your case, what we need. it's really tricky, and it does take somebody to come in. Like we're so close to it, it's like we're inside the bottle trying to read the label that can only be read from the outside. And so-

David: [00:06:24] Exactly ...

Kris: [00:06:25] what you're talking about is a community member or a friend or someone else other than you can come in and read the label of your bottle clearly and hone it, right? Or like get the nuggets of what you're getting at and then really bring clarity to it, and then refine it, repackage it in a way that will resonate with other people in the community who are vibrating at that frequency.

David: [00:06:52] All correct. But can I add an and to that?

Kris: [00:06:54] Yes.

David: [00:06:55] And when you're not in the room.

Kris: [00:06:57] Ah.

David: [00:06:58] So if you can transform the people around you to think, oh, Kris has a podcast, she's a coach, she has a community of coaches, all the rest of what you do, and think, okay, well, no one's gonna narrow you down to who you need to meet in Oregon. That's a small enough place and a small enough town. You need a global network for your type of work and the community that you're in.

Kris: [00:07:16] Yeah.

David: [00:07:17] And so a lot of times people fail to understand that the best advocates for themselves aren't the person itself. What it really is are the people who are in another world, another community, another group, and somebody says something, whether they're eloquent or not, and then your friend says, "You know what, what? I know the right coach for you," or, "I know the right coach for your friend." Because when you do this right, you can create a ripple effect so that people are your champions. And that's why you have to be first clear on your ask, but then you have to be abundantly clear on the type of people you want to meet I'm doing this myself as an exercise for my startup called SorConnect. I've raised two rounds. I'm doing a bridge round. People ask me what type of investors I wanna meet, and the, the question-- the answer you wanna give them all the time is, "People who will invest in me." But what I'm actually saying is, "I'm looking for people who've been at that intersection." They go to a conference, they do a keynote, they meet thousands of people. Their business relies on introductions. And without their admin, without their virtual agent, without their CRM, th-they don't... They know the system doesn't work 'cause somebody doesn't-- they don't connect through LinkedIn. They don't remember the person they met two years ago at a TED conference. There's nothing to capture that. I want people where that's their problem, and they've been trying to find a solution to invest

Kris: [00:08:38] in. And

David: [00:08:38] once you start giving the idea of a specificity, it's actually more freeing than being broad and general.

Kris: [00:08:45] Totally. '

David: [00:08:45] Cause I'm gonna talk to a hundred investors, and a hundred investors are gonna say no. But if I am introduced to one investor who wanted the conversation with me, I know they'll say yes if what I'm offering is what they've been asking for. I need somebody that I don't know in the middle to pull that out of them and connect them to somebody who trusts me, who then puts me in touch through three links with them.

Kris: [00:09:10] So how did you initially build the community that you've built? And I ask that because I'm genuinely curious, but also I don't have my own community. It's something that I've thought about, and I've also felt like it would be too hard. I just feel like it would complicate my life in a way, and my business. And so I'm literally in the thick of kind of grappling with that idea 'cause I've got this book coming out in the fall, and I wanna be able to serve more people, reach more people, and, um... And so I'm literally teetering on this balance beam of should I jump this way or that way? And so tell me all the things.

David: [00:09:56] Okay. So the things that will make you feel less stressed about this. One, you already have a community. It's whether you wanna take that and make it more intentional and purposeful. That's the task. You have listeners to this podcast. You have people who love and trust you in your life, correct?

Kris: [00:10:15] Mm-hmm.

David: [00:10:16] So you, like anyone listening, you already have it. And so the difference is when you start to understand that the people you trust most around you are your primary community, do you have the time or do you spend it to ask them what they need? Do you help their kids when their kid needs an introduction? Do you sit with somebody who was a former podcast guest and introduce them to somebody else who was a podcast guest? Because all those actions of putting people in front of each other, that's what a community is and should do. People will tell me they don't have a community, but they have a book club that they join every Friday night. I have a friend who started a divorced women's running group, says she doesn't have a community, but in that group are fifty of the most powerful women athletically and literally, but they've joined as divorced women to run together. So what I need to do is help you or anyone else understand that the frame isn't you have to start from scratch. It's what you do to get there. So my community mostly was formed through mistakes and lots of wasted time. I was fundraising for a nonprofit. Bernie Madoff happened during the housing bubble recession, and we'd lost almost all of our money, and we had to survive. And what I taught, what I'd been taught was traditional networking didn't work. Everyone that I talked to told me no. We're talking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people.

Kris: [00:11:42] And what was your ask? Like, "Do you want to be in my community?"

David: [00:11:46] No. In this case, 'cause I was running a charity, it's, "Do you want to support Israeli arts and culture?" Music, theater, dance, art, design. We have an eighty-year history. we were caught up in a financial disaster, and we're trying to find new donors. And when you're fundraising, everyone tells you no. So I flipped it. The person would say, "No, like I, I really love what you're doing, but this isn't my focus." And instead of saying, "Thank you, I'm gonna go somewhere else now," I would sit with somebody and be like, "Well, well how can I help you?" And this woman said to me, um, "I'm-- I lost my sister and my mother to breast cancer. I've been trying to find the right people to invest in who are trying to solve this massive problem for women." And I just sit with that 'cause I didn't know the right answer. Then three months later, somebody also tells me no, and I tell them, "What are you passionate about?" And they say, "Well, I, I've been funding research into oncology and breast cancer." And I go, "You should meet Lisa." And I just connect them. I don't ask anything. I don't take a cut. 'Cause when people tell you what they actually want, then they tell you what they want. It's the thing that most marketing people want on this planet is what do people want? When somebody tells you no, if they feel obliged or they like you, they'll tell you why. So for five years I did that, and then what I realized is that every room I walked into and everyone I talked to, it was a type of person, which is, who's-- they're now called a connector, but fifteen years ago we didn't use that term. And I looked back at what I'd been doing for five years. I'd mostly been connecting connectors to each other. And the mistake was I assumed they all knew each other So I started with an event, and I, again, I'm a systems thinker, and I go to-- In New York, I go to thousands of events, so I hate how most events work. I hate how most communities work because I don't want a community or an event to feel like I'm in middle school again. I don't wanna walk in and have nobody dancing in the middle of the floor, and me standing on one side, but not with the jocks, and sort of near the theater and music geeks, and all the girls are on the other side in their cliques, and no one feels like they're mingling. I wanted a community where everyone comes in and goes, "Kris, it's great to meet you. How can I help you?" And so I've built a community with an intention of when you come in, you're put in small groups, to my events, virtual or in person. You're a certain psyche, meaning I didn't define for my business community that I wanted my whole network in. My term was I wanted action-oriented natural givers that I would leave my children with.

David: [00:14:16] And when people think about that, and they think of who's the top connector in their world, I get two, maybe three, sometimes five people, but they're high integrity, they're super busy, they're givers, and they have that same mindset as the community I wanted to form. So if you're forming a community of coaches, you're forming a community of authors, you're forming a community of whatever it might be, it does not matter. I mean, I'd rather it isn't, like, a group of neo-Nazis or white supremacists. But the community structure, the focus is: how do you get people to come together to amplify each other? And if you have a reason for people to join that isn't just about you or about them, but something bigger, that's how you start. But you have to understand, you already have a community. What is your why around writing this book that by people responding to it, they will add to it, and collectively you will all be better?

David: [00:15:12] That's the question to answer. And then once you answer that, you have your purpose.

David: [00:15:16] So how can you not build a stronger, more intentional network from that?

Kris: [00:15:20] Right. hearing you talk is very-- It's such a better way to look at and think about community. And when I think about what I would want from my community and what I, what I watch, which is so much fun for me when I have office hours with my clients. So on Fridays, I have office hours. My clients come on there, and usually there's only a handful of people. But typically, I'll get a question or somebody will, will want my feedback, and it's open to everybody. So I'll give my feedback, and then a different client will chime in, "Hey, can I give you my thoughts on that?" And then this dialogue happens between my clients because ultimately It does come down to that bottle effect again and the, the challenge of trying to read that label. And it doesn't matter if it's me or somebody else, it's like anyone outside the bottle can read your label better than you can. And so it would be fun for me to build a community just on that. Like, let's read each other's bottles and bring clarity to our lives. And ultimately, I think the bigger, the bigger purpose is to just keep life as simple as it can possibly be as an entrepreneur or business owner.

David: [00:16:45] So, you know, you take this and you build the Red Door community, and you say, you know, "This is for people to join who are always great at helping others to find their purpose, but struggling with it themselves." We gather together every other Friday for two hours. We come and we feature new members and current members who are struggling with a pivot, with a transition, whether they need a coach or not, and they're gonna tell everyone in five minutes what they think is on their label, and we're gonna spend fifteen minutes responding and helping them think about how they come across to us. And you do that on repeat, which is what I've done now for hundreds of events, and eventually everyone gets the idea, and it's a controlled environment wherein as long as you just keep encouraging, that this is about positive feedback to see yourself the way others see you. And everyone who joins is joining for that express purpose to help other people, which is a part of it. Everyone there knows they cannot be critical and say, "Well, you, you suck. You shouldn't do what you're doing," 'cause it's about positive feedback. But then if you have a cause and effect, which is then everyone who presents a month later has to come back, has to, to stay in the community, to then present how or why this feedback has helped them transform or start the process, then everyone joins to transform how they can see themselves bigger than themselves. They join to help others 'cause they were helped. And since no one is good at it, I'm not good at it for myself. I've had multiple people tear apart everything I do, and I'm a bestselling author, global leader with a startup who just take notes, and half the time I'm like, "Well, why didn't I think of that?" Totally. For instance, playing piano at an event I did not think of. And then I did it, and we filmed it. It became my homepage video. A composer who speaks professionally and convenes people didn't think I should put my music in an event for eight years.

Kris: [00:18:48] You're in the bottle.

David: [00:18:50] Exactly.

Kris: [00:18:51] Yeah. I watched that video, by the way, and if you're listening, you should really check it out 'cause it's beautiful, beautiful music, and then you've got that gorgeous piano as the background behind you.

David: [00:19:04] Thank you.

Kris: [00:19:05] Yeah. my mind is being jostled out of, a way of thinking about this in the best way. I love it. I love this, this way of thinking about community. I'm curious what you think about- community platforms and, whether it be like Kajabi or Mighty Networks what have you found for your community that having a more structured A kind of like an event, a consistent event is, the way to do it to k-kind of keep guardrails on it, or do you like the kind of the digital chatting back and forth ability too?

David: [00:19:47] The reason I'm building my own startup is because I've not found a tech that works for what I need. Now, people who built Mighty Networks and Circle and a lot of these others did an incredible job with community tech. There are elements of Facebook groups and LinkedIn and the rest that all work, but that's if, I believe, and this is my own opinion, if you have a singular focus. And my network also has a lot of people in it for which access to them is not something you want to just advertise. So I've found very rarely that you can have anonymity and connections because, like, in my tech, like, one of our jokes is w- it says it's an ask-based system. How many degrees am I away from Kevin Bacon? And then the system returns back the fact that I know six people who know him. So it means I'm one degree, not six degrees. Um, but two of those people are Hollywood producers. They're not people you just walk around going, "Oh, I know this person who did this major movie," and they can get me to Kevin Bacon, because there are always the people in the community that want to work through you. So my tech, which is a conversation for another day, is different. But if you're trying to start out, what matters is one thing: the structure by which you can get people to connect, whether it's virtually or in person. I pioneered a technique for Zoom events, which m- they ear- earned me the slogan during CO-COVID by my friends, "Finally, a Zoom event that doesn't suck." And my in-person events, and I have people who run major conferences, most people say my in-person events are also the best they've ever attended. And all of that social psychology is I want to do the opposite of how I felt in middle school. I want people to feel warm, accepted, greeted well. And the one thing you do when you're supposed to come to events is to meet somebody new. Most people hate that. But in my virtual events and my in-person events, the entire theory is, "I'm gonna put you in a room. It's the people I think you should meet or deepen a relationship with." In every event, the outcome is people met because I told them to. People were grateful that they met new people. In any community, if that is your foundation, getting members to support, to meet each other, everything else, whether you're using Mighty Networks or another technology, will be better from that.

Kris: [00:22:05] How do you structure those Zoom events to make that happen?

David: [00:22:10] So part of it is behavioral psychology, which is if you have everyone introduce themselves, the event's now over. I have a few people introduce why I put people in curated Zoom rooms, but I literally study everyone coming. My events are between thirty to sixty people on average, and I put them in rooms of three to five people for fifteen minutes. And so, and I put you and my friend Chuck and my friend Jeff and two other friends in the room, and then I do not tell you why And then you have to answer questions, not easy questions. Like, would you rather have control over your life or what happens with your reactions to what happens in your life? People will try to mull it over, and they'll be like, "Well, do I wanna control everything, or do I wanna control how I react? If I control how I react, then I'm having a whole bunch of crap happen in my life. But if I'm controlling everything, then nothing happens that's spontaneous." And suddenly you're talking to four other strangers. You know their names. You're into this. Somebody's like, "Oh, yes. Well, when I was coaching Lance," and they don't say who, and then it turns out that's my friend Jeff who coached Lance Armstrong. And then somebody else is like, "You know, when I was, writing my first book," and you're thinking, "First book? How many books have they written?" But all you're focused on is that you like the core of their answer. And in this case, for my Zoom events, which are an hour, fifteen minutes pass, I've whet your appetite like an amuse-bouche at a restaurant, which is only designed to get you to have an appetizer and an entrée. That's the point. It's not we like the restaurant, now we'll order the lamb. It's that we, oh, we like that, now we're gonna get the bisque and then the lamb and spend thirty dollars more. So my event, once that happens, you've been... Everyone's been talking. Four people in a room for fifteen minutes, you can't be silent, Kris. You have to be intentional. You got to share with something, and now you want more, which means post-event, now you have time spent with somebody else in my network or maybe everyone.

Kris: [00:24:09] Yeah.

David: [00:24:10] And that's the point is that it's just the leapfrogging of in-person makes you wanna meet more, virtually or in person. Then you meet them outside, and then you're at another event and you go, "You know what? Linda would like this network." Then Linda joins, and then Linda helps the person you met the first time, but that was eight months ago. And so everything is the design around just giving people a reason to be real, to be authentic. In some cases, they're not, and they don't get to come back. 'Cause somebody just wrote me about one of my virtual events and said that this one member just basically took a call and then basically pitched them on their business. And I heard this from five other people, and now I'm gonna remove that person from my network.

David: [00:24:50] Because those people didn't take a call to be pitched on a business not relevant for them. Right. But my network trusts that I curate it, so therefore, I trust them to curate people out. And that's the other part of community building that's People don't have any risk involved. Like Kumbaya, we're all gonna join a group and help, read each other's bottles. Okay. But what happens if like person number four is an asshole?

Kris: [00:25:13] Mm-hmm.

David: [00:25:14] And they make me cry when I talk about my bottle. Like, you want that person to come back again? Suddenly, your entire event has been hijacked by a person with no tact or poise. So sometimes it happens in my events that people know I purge

Kris: [00:25:29] them. '

David: [00:25:29] Cause I said you can create, positively, If you're not positive, therefore you're gonna make somebody go cry, then you don't get to come back, and everyone else is more protected from

Kris: [00:25:41] it.

David: [00:25:41] That make sense?

Kris: [00:25:43] Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's so cool. I love it. You have just been very intentional about every little detail at these events, and because you've been doing this a long time. So what happens after the initial 15-minute kind of-

David: [00:26:00] So I'll give you the entire format with the ask. Everyone who wants to take this and steal it, please do, 'cause I am so tired of every virtual event being horrible. Okay. And, and I don't wanna join online to look at a Brady Bunch of people and have somebody talk at me. I could've watched a video about them or met them in real life or signed off because they're boring. Just 'cause you give somebody a mic doesn't make them entertaining. Right. So my events are a simple format. It's a musical form- format. It's call and response. So I put you in a group for 15 minutes with several other people, and then all the groups are back in a Brady Bunch thing, and I ask people to share their group's experience. I make sure it's no more men than women. And oftentimes in groups, 'cause we live in this society, the two first volunteers are men, and then the third volunteer, I was like, "Andrew, you don't get to talk. Kris has to talk now." And everyone's a little shocked, and I was like, "And after Kris talks, Linda has to talk." And they're like, Andrew will be like, "But I had a great comment." I was like, "Yes, but two white men spoke first, and I believe in gender equality, so too bad." Andrew goes, "I hear you." And so again, I'm rigorous with this because it... Women don't speak first. It's stupid. Women are usually way more brilliant and introspective than men from group settings and understanding it. It's just part of a different psychology. And so four to five people share their experience, and even if you don't share, you realize you all shared in an experience even though it was private and curated for a few people. And then I throw up two more questions, put people in new groups, and I repeat the thing. And then the same groups share. Suddenly everyone's met three to eight people that they like or at least a few that they wanna follow up with.

Kris: [00:27:44] Yeah.

David: [00:27:45] And then I conclude about how to honor the network, and we're done in an hour on time every time. Everyone the next day gets a list of who attended with their name, email, and LinkedIn or website. And the only ask in my network, which is the five minutes I spend at the end, is an insistence that everyone has to honor the chain of connection So let's say somebody listening to this starts to form their own community 'cause they decide to buy my book, which is still somehow being bought even though it came out last August and every friend I had already bought it or five. And let's say they form a community, and that community starts off and it becomes a mastermind group, and one day they say, "You know, I, I, I owe this all to David Holman. I read his book." And they write me about it, and I'm gonna go, "Well, how'd you hear about me?" And they're gonna forget they heard about me from you 'cause it's two years ago now. And I'm gonna say, "That's not an honorable way to thank me. You have to thank Kris because she's the one who put me on her podcast for you to learn about my book." And what people have to realize is we are that catalyst person introducing or giving somebody a platform like you're giving me, and we are not thanked, which means the connector is the most overlooked person even though we are the initiator, the catalyst of most of the outcomes that happens for people. That's why my network resonates for connectors 'cause there's no one protecting us. But that's how a virtual event works. Once I remind people of that sacred bond, you better be sure I get feedback, tons of feedback from every event. Who met whom? What happened? Mostly what's good, sometimes what's bad. 'Cause when you form a community, all you want is to know if it means something to somebody.

David: [00:29:26] I get five to 30 responses from every event I do on average, sometimes more, with gratitude and an action that came from

Kris: [00:29:36] Wow. Tell me... Like, tell me some of the actions that you hear about.

David: [00:29:40] I mean, there's so many meaningful ones, but my friend Brianna and my friend Greg, they met in a Zoom room six years ago. Greg wrote the book, The Book of Questions, which is part of the catalyst in my community starting to ask deeper questions. And now existing on this planet, and you can get it anywhere, is a book called The Book of Questions for Chronic Illness. And this is for anyone who has a chronic illness but doesn't know how to get people to talk about it because a chronic illness is mostly invisible. Now, there's an entire playbook for what is about a third of our population to be able to say, well, here, here's what it's-- here's what my life is like. Here's how you can start these conversations." So two people met in a Zoom room. Now they're both published, successful authors with this book together. people in my network have co-invested with each other. Their family offices have started funds together. there was one woman who was focused on foster care, and one of my network got her to a top-tier billionaire who became her anchor for her philanthropy. when I say I have tens of thousands, when you have a network where people have to honor the chain, I know every time. So when my friend Bob, who's a coach, comes to one of my events, and then another friend I won't mention because it would disclose who he's working with says, "What's Bob like for you?" And I was like, "Here's what Bob's like for me." They hired him with a significant fee, sight unseen. They met him once for twenty minutes in a small group because I could vouch for him. So direct tangible, you attend my event, and this is a promise to every coach who wants to be part of it, but then you get a client without, with no lead time because the trust was how you entered the room.

Kris: [00:31:26] Mm-hmm.

David: [00:31:27] And this is every myriad of things from, mergers and acquisitions and investments to getting TEDx talks to meeting people to support philanthropy. I had one woman who left her Dallas network to move to Phoenix, where I'd never been. I connected her with somebody there who became her best friend, and they started a book club together. Cause one was an aspiring author, and the other ran a publishing group, but they actually hit it off because their kids were the same age, which is how I thought to connect them. Cause what mom, when they move with their kids, doesn't want to have their kids make friends right away? It wasn't the outcome, but the outcome came because the ask was about a parent moving to another state. And did I know somebody there?

Kris: [00:32:11] Wow, that's so beautiful. So I wanna rewind here for a minute. You had mentioned gender equality and how you make sure that there's balance with the sharing in the group. and before we hit record today, you mentioned that you love to talk about the divine feminine. Tell me more.

David: [00:32:31] Okay, so I wanna qualify for all the women in my life who love and trust me, I am not attempting to mansplain the divine feminine. I wanna talk about two parts of it, one that is humorous and one that is true. The oth- the humorous one's also true, but I'll save that for a second. So when you look at structural harmony in music, you look at the golden ratio, which is six, four, 60, 40. Everything that makes the composite of that is overlapping circles. This is how DNA is structured. Everything in our world is structured with overlapping cells, every part of it. So when you look at individuals, each as their own circle, as we overlap with others, that's where we gain the c- most common strength. It's never one-to-one. It takes three, four, five to make it strong. For anyone who has kids, when you turn that into a science experiment, it's called a cog vector. It's when you go into a science museum and your kid starts turning a gear, then they put another gear next to it, another gear, and one gear can turn the third, but one gear can turn the fifth. So if all of those are circles, then my theory around community building was connect the ecosystems to each other. And the ecosystems have somebody at the center of it, but when somebody runs a community that's intentional, they're at the center of a circle. The way that our world currently works is a lot different. It is, and this is the humorous part, and forgive me for being crass, but it's basically a bunch of swinging dicks. And sometimes people get smacked around, and sometimes there's a benefit, but it's not actually structural. It all falls apart. Most of harmony is built on these concentric circles, so my theory of change and community building was connect the ecosystem builders. And when they do it right, they sit at the center of the community, but they're not the center of it. They're the conduit for it. And so when I think about divine feminine in that context, it's this idea that if everyone in it is in a place where they've mastered their circle, then the benefits they have of connecting to each other's circles with the right intention is what actually moves something forward because three circles, five circles, 30 circles, then you have a movement.

Kris: [00:34:49] Then you, then you have a change that is greater than one person could do, which is the theory of my group to connect connectors to each other so we can amplify each other's networks. Which at its core, like as a connector, that work is relatively effortless, right? Your own circle is spinning and you're affecting all of these other circles around you, but you're kind of just doing what's natural for you. Would you agree with that?

David: [00:35:20] It's... Yes. It's so easy. I mean, the problem being a connector is you meet thousands of people. It's hard to keep it in your head. But all the time, all the top of my network are like, "You won't believe what happened the other day." They're like, "What?" They're like, "Somebody said they needed to meet an NFL player doing sports tech in Jacksonville." And I was like, "Did you connect them to Naji?" And they're like, "Yeah, that's the guy." And I was like, "Well, why'd they ask that?" They're like, "Well, they were..." It's like, forget the context, but the point is we're sitting on things that are in parallel. Connectors merge them together. But what sits in this is also the problem. So I took a call today. This guy I had been introduced to a year and a half ago, and somehow the text got lost, the email, and he blew me off and never followed up. Then I randomly met his brother at a conference two weeks ago. And his brother, I love both of them, but his brother was finally had something on his older brother who always follows up with everyone except for me I'm not gonna mention the family 'cause it's a very big family office in this case. But as I jump on the phone with this guy this morning, he tells me about the movie he's doing, which is the reason we were connected. As he starts telling me about it, I was like, "This sounds really familiar. My friend Zach is doing the same thing." And he goes, " Zach's my friend. Zach's doing the movie with me." So somebody I'd known for eight years as a close friend in my LA network who's hosted events with me has told me about a movie I'm trying to help him with. A separate friend connected me to his close friend who's doing the same movie, who accidentally blew me off, and only 'cause I'm randomly at a breakfast meeting with this guy's brother am I able to put the two together. So it's effortless, but the problem is no one knew to ask me on both sides. But when you have a community, it doesn't have to be a community of connectors. Then if somebody can't be helped, they're trying to be helpful. And if you have a bunch of people trying to be helpful to everyone else they've built relationships with through virtual events, through in-person events, at some point the structure's gonna work. So person B meets person F and sparks fly. And the person who ran the community, and you might think of it as effort, but it's more efficient to have a bunch of people working on behalf of each other than it is to have you working on behalf of everyone else around you and have those people not know each other.

Kris: [00:37:47] Right. Much more to be orchestrating it all rather than allowing everything to kind of mingle together and, sharing the load basically in some ways. Wow. So, tell us about your book

David: [00:38:03] Well, you've heard a lot about it through all the anecdotes. But the book I wrote, what's interesting is when you said office hours before, because my friend Jamil, years ago during COVID, introduced me to my co-author, Noah Askin, 'cause Noah, who was a professor of teaching at INSEAD in Paris, decided he'd just throw office hours for everyone he worked with or he knew to jump in on a Friday and just take a slot. And because Noah was open as a giver, Jamil thought David should meet Noah. Noah, who's become a close friend, we ended up writing a book together because I put Noah, who was at this amazing academic, Harvard-trained, network strategist who's also a, a closet musician. I put him in touch with fifty people in my network, and he was blown away. He'd never seen both. I said to fifty people, "Please take a call." Fifty people took the call. He goes, "That doesn't happen." And then they all took the call, and they all wanted to help him. And he's like, "Well, I'm here to interview you about Orchestrate." And they're like, "Well, what do you need? What do you need?" And he'd never seen that.

Kris: [00:39:07] Wow.

David: [00:39:07] And then when asked why they were a natural giver, forty-nine of the fifty people cited childhood trauma as the reason why they were givers to help other people. And he's like, "Well, there's-- Data science doesn't have a uniform answer." That's not how... And I was like, " Well, I did something different. I'm the preacher, I'm Jewish, but preacher, like throwing this gospel out there, and now you're telling me there's an academic rigor to it. Um, let's write a book together." And he's like, "I'm not interested in writing a book." And he's like, "I thought about it, but it's not where I need to go." And eventually, he was like, "We have to write this book." So the book is a playbook. It's a guidebook for everything I've been talking about. it, it's intended to show both the value and the beauty of my network and to dig into principles that are singly great for people to practice: curiosity, vulnerability, diversity, generosity, and gratitude. And to argue why you have to have a system of all five to be both a better well-rounded person and have a better well-rounded community. Our chapter eleven, so to speak, is the playbook on how to build a community, which means anyone who reads it can simply go follow these steps, answer these questions at the end of it. Now you have a mandate of how to build a community easily. Not saying it's easy work, but w-- I wanna take away the psychology, like you had said, that it's hard to do because our whole book is based on the premise we all need this. We all need more intention and purpose in our lives, and if we insist upon that from those around us to hold to the same standards that we've asked them to hold us to, then our society actually improves, and we have a better outcome. And if people wanna understand how that works, I grew up with-- as a professor's kid with no network. My dad taught Cisco's sister, Walt Ebert. He taught Lin Figgin of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. He taught Malcolm Getz of Carolina in the City. He taught people who became NFL stars, and I never met a single one of them 'cause my dad didn't think of this as networking. I built an entire network that has now spanned working with Ray Dalio and getting tapped on the shoulder by Steven Spielberg, who's a donor to a board that I chair, or my friend Candace Parker, who's a WNBA star Olympian, sending me flowers when my father passed last year because she knew I needed something I wasn't ready to ask for. I've now built a network of the, "Oh my God, you know those people," and my answer is, "I don't know them. They trust me." And I built that trust through what this book is about.

Kris: [00:41:50] And I think people are beginning to realize that trust is literally everything. I've been hearing a lot, we're in a trust recession. And the clients that I get on calls with, I, I can see that. They're like, they've been burned. They've been burned out of a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of energy and, the antidote to that is how do we authentically build trust? And it's through these connections with people.

David: [00:42:23] Yes, but you're onto something even if you're not sure you were. So the addendum to my book, we go into two types of people, the eight archetypes of connectors. And on our book site, we have a free test people can take to identify the types you are. There's actually 17 now. All the takers, the horrible people who get away with things in this world, some seem innocuous and some don't, but I'll give you two examples just so you understand, because I wanted to name this, okay?

David: [00:42:54] So, um, I'll just be direct, 'cause why not? It makes the end of this episode more interesting, right? I am certain based on looking at you right now that you have been to a conference where a man said they wanted to do business with you, and they wanted to do more than just business with you. That person is a taker called the dick, and my kids love that so much because they saw me recording the videos. My son has a little inflatable basketball, and it's called the dick. So my nine-year-old and my 12-year-old are aware of this human being. It's mostly a man who leads a woman on for what they need professionally but really wants to get in her pants.

David: [00:43:29] And women have no social setting to go, "Hey, Larry's an asshole. Larry gave me his hotel key and his business card." And we think that that behavior is normal and accepted, and every woman has to deal with it. But when one woman in my network told me about a dick she had met at a conference who was invited to one of my events, I called him up and I said, "I'm sorry, but you can't come." One. I met another three women, each who have had the same issue with somebody who is a billionaire, and I called up five of the family office conferences I go to and I said, "If that person speaks or comes, I will no longer come and do a keynote or run an event for you." So we live in a society where we don't protect people 'cause currently our reputation isn't at stake. And when we transform to be more intentional, then all those takers, those people who have burned the people you've worked with or that, they can't do it 'cause right now it is private. But when you're an intentional community, you better be sure because at every family office conference my friend Lisa and I go to, she comes up to me, and she is very close friends with my partner Rebecca. And there are certain times where Lisa will just link arms with me to protect herself from that guy. But I don't let that stop 'cause I don't believe that you should sit in apathy in between it. If that person is really inappropriate, that's where I go to the people who had invited me to keynote or speak, and I go, "I have a problem." And I will take the repu- my reputation to protect my friend. And then that person has a choice to be honorable or dishonorable, to protect a taker or to protect a giver. And in one case, somebody protected the taker, and I never went back at what they did. And I tell my entire network not to go back there. And my network, as people get to know me, I have a crazy powerful network. And so in my network, my friend Nick is like, "Hey, well, should we try to get one of your friends to your London event?" And I'm like, "Listen, I'm trying, but Malala and her husband might delay their trip to Tanzania to come to my event. But it's, but if they're not, it's 'cause she celebrates her birthday in Tanzania every year. But she and her, her husband, Astor, has promised me they're gonna make it." And so, like, I have a network of that type of people, so you better be sure if I were to warn people like that about somebody, now that threat is real If you're intentional and you draw the lines, then you're not seen as a nasty or hard person for saying somebody crossed those lines. And if you insist upon it with the trusted people that are in your network, that's what makes it intentional. If they start to do the same, then those people that are the really, the bad, bad apples, they have fewer and fewer places to go. So if you do this work, maybe the way that I'm suggesting, then it's much easier once you build trust to be like, "David, actually, I'm gonna send you a text after this. There's one guy who's in that family office world. I used to be his... He used to be my client. Run. I would not leave your kids with him." You don't have to say anything else, but that's why I built that line. Because I wanted a def-definitive line in the sand that unless I leave my kids with you, you're out. You can interpret what actions would de-denote that. That's a pretty sacred bond of who I'd leave my kids with. I mean, now my daughter has an Apple Watch and money on it and can leave and take the subway on her own. But you better be sure when my kids were young, I wanted certainty. So I don't know if that's what you intended when you asked me that, but I want-- But there's a reason why I do this. And a reason why I know when we do this with intention, we can protect each other better.

Kris: [00:47:08] I get that. Thank you for putting words to that. And I think culturally, like, we are needing, craving this and needing it, and it's lovely to hear that you have built a roadmap. you're living this, but you're also helping others create it for themselves, so thank you.

David: [00:47:29] I wish everyone did this, not my way. I wish they found their own way to be more purposeful with it. It re- makes us less lonely, makes us uncover things from people that we need to be, because unless you're curious, you're missing out. Unless you're vulnerable, you don't give somebody the other, on the other side the opportunity to do the same. And if you look for a network that looks like you and talks like you, you're gonna fail 'cause, 'cause a, a yes group, a choir doesn't, doesn't help you. You have to have diversity of all types. And unless you lead a life where you're openly generous to start and honorable back, then people will take advantage of you.

Kris: [00:48:08] Yeah, I think that this idea of really curating the group, not just more is more type of environment, but truly curating the group, weeding out the bad apples, and creating this environment for where people do really feel safe and genuinely have that heart to help is just the quickest way to make the world a better place.

David: [00:48:32] And so I referred to you earlier as having a community 'cause I believe you already do. You can't have a podcast community and a practice like you've had, especially living where you live, which is all community-oriented, and not already have it. Turning the lights on for it is a different thing, but everyone thinks they have to start from scratch it's not. If you say to people, "I'm coming out with my book, it's a big deal. It helps with my brand. I think I've come onto something. I've helped so many people, but I just don't know how to get enough people together, like, in the Pacific Northwest to do this," they'll go, "Oh, well, my sister's best friend from college owns the most famous bookstore in Seattle. Would you like to go to this famous place?" And you'd be like, "Of course I would." But somebody wouldn't think of it unless you shared vulnerably what it's like to be an author and needing bookstores to actually have you come as an author.

Kris: [00:49:27] Well, David, thank you so much for all of this beautiful wisdom and sharing the work that you do. It's been really eye-opening and, dare I say, kind of mind-blowing to hear you talk and really look under the hood of the work that you're doing. So thank you for sharing with us today. I'd love to know where my listeners can find you.

David: [00:49:51] So I finally put everything back to where it started, which is with my name. So David Homan, HOMAN.com, um, has everything there. It has my community, my startup, my advisory firm, where I do work with people one-on-one. I'm more of a connector and a strategist than a coach, but I do have a practice that's a combo of all three. Most people want me to figure out how to get access they couldn't dream of otherwise to scale their business or themselves. If I don't know who, I'll find the right who. but the book is there. You can click on that link, not just to buy it, but see the test. I put it all there. Plus, access to some of my music. But for my music, people can just ask Alexa And then it will, it will just play. That's what my daughter always reminds people every time they, they've never heard my music.

Kris: [00:50:41] And I would love to have you on again, David, to go into the eight archetypes of connectors. I'm very curious about that, and I'm definitely gonna be getting your book, and we'll put that in the show notes as well.

David: [00:50:55] I'd love to do that. Maybe what we could do is you could take that connector test, and perhaps let's say the 10 listeners who also take that test and let you know, we can talk about them in terms of the combo of archetypes, so it can be specific to people- Oh, nice ... as opposed to just a general, "This woman's a shepherdess," which is the person who stands behind the man and is the reason every event happens and every community is built, but there's always that woman. And there is a shepherd version, but it's mostly a shepherdess- ... where they don't take the spotlight, but they're the reason something exists, business, community, whatever it might be. And that psychology is an incredible connector, but no one sees them. So just, that's a tidbit. Yeah. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of people who are that-

Kris: [00:51:42] and

David: [00:51:42] they don't see it as a power, but unless they call 30 people, 30 people don't show up.

Kris: [00:51:48] it's so part of who they are that they don't even recognize their power.

David: [00:51:53] And everyone walks up to usually the tall white man and goes, "Tim, what an incredible event. I cannot believe you got all these people here." And Tim goes, "Yes, it's incredible. I did it all." Thank you.

Kris: [00:52:04] Thank

David: [00:52:04] you. Thank you. And everyone's like, "Did you meet Mary?" And, like, Mary waves from the corner 'cause she has a clipboard, but everyone knows Mary got everyone in the room. Like, this is what I tried to study 'cause then once you name it, somebody goes, "Oh, that's a superpower. now I need to take the mic, or I need to define my role better because otherwise I'm being taken advantage of."

Kris: [00:52:23] And one final question, um, before we end today. So I am a connector. I've known that about myself for many years. Like, when I make a connection and it works, for example, I had a friend who I've known since kindergarten. She had a little boy. He was maybe five or six at the time. He was very gifted at singing, really had a great voice, and she wanted to find a voice teacher for her kid that was also a, a male, and just somebody good really is what she was looking for. And I had known, also had grown up with this guy who lived in LA, was a musician back in, the grunge era, had a kind of a big well-known band, moved up to Portland and had to let go of that part of his life. And, I had this idea, well, Andrew can teach my friend's son how to sing. he was in a band, and so I made this connection. They ended up working together, he and this kid, for, a decade. That opened up for Andrew, the voice teacher, who became a voice teacher. That opened up in him this whole business. And now I follow him on social media, and it's always him with his students at their performances, and he'll go to, the high school play or musical, and he'll take a selfie with the lead or his student. And it's been a while since I've even thought about that. But the charge, the energy, like, the high that I get from making a connection like that that actually works is why I do it. I'm wanting to help people, but it's also, it's the best feeling. Why is that?

David: [00:54:22] It is. So well- You, in this case, you changed two lives with one introduction. But to analyze that quickly, right? Your friend's why for her son, right? Male teacher that you trust, right? As a five-year-old. Like, that's a special age to start singing and trust a stranger with your kid. But what's Andrew's why, Well-respected musician in a certain era, left that world. but Andrew's why, You heard him or you heard things he wasn't asking, which is he didn't give that up. He had to transition out of that scene, but it still was a passion for him. So what you awakened as a connector was something very and special. You awakened in him a way to still be part of that joy that he had as a youth into a success by empowering others with it. That's a gift you gave him, and you gave your friend to be the first one. And what connectors do is they, they read between the lines. They hear what's not being said. They hear a why. They match two sides of the same ask. That's what you did. And the joy from it is that you didn't ask anything of it. But now everyone listening goes, "Oh, well, if I have a friend whose son," it could be daughter, "but son is, is in Oregon and really could be an incredible singer, but is having a hard time understanding youth and navigating the business, I can call up Kris and say, 'Hey, that friend Andrew, would he take that call?'" And you'd go, "That's what he does every day. Go look at his website." But they would know coming from you if they were trusted to you- that he'll take that call even if you haven't been in touch because you were the catalyst for him.

Kris: [00:56:05] So much fun. All right, David, thank you for coming today and sharing your brilliance, and, um, very excited to continue the conversation.

David: [00:56:15] Same. Thank you for the time, and thank you everyone for listening.