Transcription
Today we're talking about how to build a village if you're 35 with kids. The reason I'm speaking to young families today is they are the number one type of of people who reach out to me through this channel asking how do we re-tribalize? How do we build sovereign systems and sovereign community? And I do think, you know, young families are are kind of screwed in the economic and just broader environment in which they exist within.
Just before we get to the framework here, you know, let me just kind of describe this archetype and what they're up against. Is number one, housing is unaffordable, okay? Like basically they can't afford homes and if they do or if they're renting, now all of a sudden, you know, they have to have a two-income household just to pay for childcare, for pay for rent. Like everything is getting unaffordable for them. But the the deeper problem here is they exist without community around them. Usually the modern parent is trying to do the job of 20 people with two. They are disconnected and dislocated from broader community of, you know, grandparents, aunts, older cousins, neighbors, a a a high-trust network of individuals who are raising or helping to raise the children together. And it's basically just two parents in a house alone. It's every man or and women for themselves against the world.
And on top of this, they exist within a context where the institutions that we once relied on are collapsing. They're they're they're corrupt. Things like, you know, the food system. A lot of parents are concerned like they want to start growing their own food because, you know, they don't trust what the schools feed their kids. Furthermore, they don't share the values of the schools. The education system is is creating, you know, robots who are going to be replaced by AI or at least that's the frame of a lot of these parents, right? They [snorts] want like they they feel like they have less and less control of their lives. The the broken bureaucracies, the education system, food system, healthcare system. All of it's working against them within a a society, you know, of of individualism. And this is so hard for parents.
So, what what do we do about this? Like, how do we actually create something that can help parents flourish, that can help for the flourishing of families? This has been on my mind a lot because like me personally, I want I want kids. I want to have a great family, but I don't want to have to sacrifice my soul and all of all of my life, you know, just to survive. So, what it seems like the only two paths available to me are number one is to become a very successful entrepreneur or number two is to build a village, to build a new tribe, you know, for the raising of kids and for the pursuing of higher ideals and higher dreams together, right? And I'm going to try to do both. But, I do think for most people just building a village, like actually building a a new type of tribe is going to be is going to give a foundation for a much more flourishing life uh in general. This is how we're supposed to live. I mean, for all of human history, you we we organized into tribes because they're the most resilient and powerful evolutionary strategy. As a tribe, you can, you know, go hunt together. You build houses together. You raise kids together. You pursue a a myth and a dream together, right? Like the tribe, you know, is the most worthy support system there is and the tribe has died. Now, it's, you know, the atomized individual basically reliant on mega corporations and a dying state.
Let me explain the problem and how we got here before I get to the framework. Basically, what's happened recently is all of the naturals in human life have been replaced by artificial and economic inferiors. I want to make this very clear. You know, un un until recently, most people met their their wife, they met their husband through church or through their community, through friends and family. Now, we meet our husband or wife, maybe through Tinder. Right? Instagram. It's an artificial inferior that you have to pay for. The same thing happened to daycare, to childcare, to elder care, to so like the commons to everything, right? Now, you have to pay to go to a common area. Now, you have to pay for childcare because you don't have a village around you. You have to pay for elder care cuz you don't have a village around you. Everyone's living a much more atomized life where the entire weight of the entire world is on their shoulders and it is every man and woman for themselves. This is the end product of hyperindividualism, right? And hypercapitalism.
Now, both those things alone, like I don't mind. We can have much more nuanced conversations around the philosophy of individuality versus, you know, uh like tribe mentality, all these different things. But, what I am saying is that basically since the 1950s, the dream sold to Americans, to the West, is to become very successful within society, right? To have your own house with a flourishing family, uh in the context of a broader community where you can take multiple vacations per year. Maybe you're on a lake or a river, you can recreate a lot, and you can have this good life. The issue is is the broader social context has evaporated. The church went away, the community went away. Like everything is atomizing and globalizing faster and faster and faster. >> [snorts] >> So, the thing that existed, that once existed, between you and mega corporations and you and the state is gone. That thing used to be society. The church, the guild, the village, the brotherhood, the sisterhood, the community, the cohesion, social cohesion. So, this used to be this intermediary layer layer between you as a person, right? And daddy state and mega corporations. Now, this intermediary layer layer doesn't exist, right? It's only you and Tinder, you know, uh Google and uh Apple, and then like Cisco. And then it's you and the state, right? And right because this broader social context has fallen away, people are like basically becoming extremely dependent on very fragile and broken systems in my opinion. Like [snorts] our healthcare system, education system, food system. So many of these things are actually toxic to human beings.
So this is really problematic and a lot of people when they get to this position, they're like, what do we do about it? Well, there's only one solution and it's not through mass sweeping legislation to try to fix our broken institutions. It's also not trying to fix these corporations. They're just trying to provide value which often goes awry in some ways. The solution is to building this intermediary layer of society, of the village, of the tribe once more, right? And this is where like building a high trust network, that high trust village, that thing makes life absolutely flourishing. So let's get into doing that, right?
So now when it does come to theory, a lot of people dream. How do we build new types of communities? Whatever your vision for that is. Almost no one knows where to start. Okay? And this is like what I often just preach on this channel is like the starting point is alignment and proximity. The number one mistake you can make when it comes to tribe building or village building is buying land. Like it's the number one mistake you can make and that's because almost everyone I talked to who bought land, bought land too far away from a city where no one else can come join them. And the reason it's such a big mistake is because families have low risk tolerance, okay? So families generally need jobs. They need their kids have schools. They need grocery stores. Very few families have enough trust to rapport with you to move away from their only support networks into the wilderness to start this very precarious dream with you. And this is why everyone is doing it alone, okay?
So, the most important thing before buying land is building a team, a round table of five aligned families who want to go do it with you, and making it very, very, very, very, very easy for them to get into proximity with you, to get them the house next door, to move within walking distance, so that you can start building real trust, real cohesion, real alignment before taking on the biggest project of your life. It'd be like going to a like it it's basically asking people to start something that's bigger than a company with you. If you want to go start a real land project that's successful. And most land projects are half funded, they're half finished, they're led by one person or one family that takes the weight of the world on their shoulders, and all of a sudden they're responsible for food, for workaway people, for an Airbnb, for the land, for the cultivation, they're low on finances, no one's actually coming to join them, very few buy into the vision, it's a disaster. It's an absolute disaster in this whole space. So, what we need to do is focus on alignment and proximity.
Now, if you already bought land and you own land, that's okay because we have so many people coming into the network through our app who maybe want to move there. So, if you already own land, the most important thing you can do is really triple 100% down on building online communities or joining our online community where you can start creating real philosophical buy-in and shared vision with the most aligned people in the world. And when you do this from the internet and you already have space, you can filter the internet into your space. Uh if you don't have space, focus on filtering the internet into locations, into neighborhoods, into proximity, so you can build the team before going to buy space. Why this is a better approach is if you already own land, it's actually very hard to give stake, to give ownership to people that you meet later on. This is one of the greatest problems is if you build the team before buying land, everyone goes in together, so there's a real sense of ownership into the future. And long-term thinking, long-term commitments come from deep sense of ownership in a project. So, if you already own lounge, you have to start thinking about how can families earn stake in this project long-term, even if they weren't here yet. So, how can you have, you know, a a year-long kind of trial period, residency, co-living? How can you make it easy for families to get there? How can they get jobs next door in the city? Right? There's a lot of questions when it comes to families. And this is why this path I'm about to share with you is so freaking powerful. This is just my thoughts of if I was 35 with kids, this is exactly what I would do, okay? Right here.
So, number one, number one, the easiest big move, right, is go to where it's already happening. It's happening in Austin, my friends. Move to Austin if you can, okay? Like Austin and a handful of other towns, I I can't even tell you how many families are trying to start homesteading projects, cafe tribe projects, villages, new towns. I'm talking to many new people who start trying to start family towns that outside of Austin. Like Austin's where it's happening. And maybe there's other cities I'm less familiar with. I think like Houston uh is also happening, Dallas-Fort Worth. Um like Texas seems to be happening. Um I I'm sure like Northern California, maybe around Tennessee as well as things are happening. But like move to where it's already happening. It makes your life way easier because there's already families in alignment with you. Um and if you're trying to find those families, like like again, come join our app, retribalize.ai. You can just start matching and meeting families before you move anywhere, right? The other thing to do is go where it's already happening. There's places like Aks decentralized real estate. Um they do done-for-you family compounds. They They buy thousand-acre plots. They subdivide it into like 150 family compounds. And then you just buy a family compound with others who share your values. Now, Aks is more towards like the homesteading Christian vibe. So, if you don't share those values, it's like maybe go start your own with your own values. Here's how you do that, right?
So, number one for everyone is join an online community or build one. The fundamental innovation of the modern world is that tribes form online before real life. I have met both of my co-founders, all three of my co-founders. I have met my best friends. I have met, you know, the woman I am dating. I have met uh everyone who's traveling with me, all of them, through my YouTube channels, through my Instagram. Why? Cuz it's a better filter for the entire world. Like I have I'm extremely social person. If I live in a city, I will go out to an event every day. I will meet people. Rarely do I meet someone with the level of alignment that I meet on the internet. It's absolutely absurd the power that we have today. People are sleeping on this. So, like come join the Re-Tribalize Academy. Join the app. Start using social media right. Joining these online communities, building these interactions. I you not, literally one group call a week, one group call a week, and one call with a random aligned stranger from our app, those two things, if you do that for 1 year, just 50 calls, you'll you will meet partners, families, and friends of better quality and better alignment than almost anything you can find in the real life. And if you just find one of those, just one partner, like that's more important than almost everything else you do this year. Because for me, like when I found out like a business partner like Brennan Olson, an app got built, right? When I found a business partner like like like Stephen Olson, these co-living spaces got built. It's just insane like what happens when you find one partner who's like let's go let's go on the grand quest together. Like go find your grand quest buddies. Like it's very important, all right?
And then, how do you create proximity with the grand quest buddies? This is the village playbook, okay? And this is especially for families who have the low risk tolerance. So, number one, one recurring event, okay? This There's many steps here, okay? This is what you This is what you came for. One recurring event, pick a day. I like the institution of a dinner table, right? How can you a dinner table every Saturday night? Like 10 or 15 spots, you know, and invite people. You could also do patios and thought experiments. My friend Nicole, who's going to be helping and facilitating in the in the in the retribalized academy, has a family in Austin. She started patios and thought experiments and you know, a few months ago. Her last one had like 700 RSVPs or something crazy of people who want to to get together for real life events. So, start an event. You can do a park day with kids, you can do comedy, music, dance, whatever you're passionate about, set a date, do it weekly, and get better and better and better at bringing people together. Like community is proximity. That's all it is. And whether that's proximity is living next door or seeing each other once a week, you have to start somewhere to start building community. If you want to build a village, become a community leader first. And this means getting good at cultivating spaces, right?
Number two is use the kids as protocol, okay? Saturday park meetups, a shared babysitter, a birthday party, right? Like this is This is pretty obvious. People have been doing this forever. Like Little League, sports games. Like you you don't need to recruit parents, you just entangle the kids, right? And parents follow. Now, are you going to share the values of those parents, X, Y, and Z? Probably not for most of them. This is why we need these out We need to expand the outer circle through these cons consistent meetups and online events and in real life events. Now, this might sound like a lot, but this is literally only 3 hours a week. 1 and 1/2 hours for the in-person event, 1 and 1/2 hours for an online event. That's it. Do those every week. I think it's very important.
Number three is plug into an anchor institution. This is exceptionally easy if you if you are a Christian, for instance, right? Like go to church. If you want to home school, join a homeschooling co-op, right? If you're into, you know, raising your kids athletically, I'm sure there's some kind of like raising your kids athletically group in Austin or wherever you want to move, right? Go where aligned families already cluster. It's doing the filtering for you. That's pretty obvious one.
Number four though is what I really want to encourage young families to do is become the hub, okay? Basically, instead of having these grand far out there visions for the land or the village or whatever, it's like how can you become the house with the open door, the trampoline, the the snacks, the standing invitation? How do you become the hub and then start inviting all of your good friends and everyone who's very aligned with you on the internet to just move within walking distance of you. This is crazy. Like this is the real way, right? Because if you become the hub and you invite people to move within walking distance, you start to create a campus of families. And if you can do this renting and then you find 10 families to go buy with, you'll get the villages is it'll be done this year. Like it's just way faster to do it this way. So, step one is invite friends to move within walking distance of you. So, get the house next door, the tiny home in the backyard, rent the whole damn street if you can, right? I would suggest positioning yourself next to an affordable apartment complex, start taking over the entire building. This is what I would do if I was a young family. It's I'd move to the outskirts of like Duluth or Austin, right? I'd find a place where there's many homes for rent or there's an apartment building that just went up next door or something, right? I'd ground myself there. I'd develop the tiny I'd put a tiny home in the backyard. I'd have two extra rooms for like young people who want to come through who I'm aligned with and I'd make sure that I'm scoping out houses so that when people when one goes up, I have this online community of 100 people where I'm like, "Hey guys, who wants to come rent here?" Or maybe come rent here even for a month. Maybe there's an Airbnb next door. What what we must do, right? >> [snorts] >> Is like make it stupidly easy for the next aligned family to move in. If you can master space and then connections, so global networking and local networking, if you can master those two things through ongoing events, and then you have your spouse or you is just keeping an eye out for how do I expand into space through renting, through owning, through building, whatever you have to do. How do you create extra space? So at the moment you meet someone who's aligned and like you hit it off and have a rapport, you're like, "Hey, come out for a week. Hey, come out for a month. If it works out, we can get you the house next door." Right? If you can make it stupidly easy for aligned people and friends to start moving towards you, it's not going to happen fast. But if you keep putting out the signal of, "Hey guys, move within this circle on the map. Like just move within the circle on the map so we can all be within walking distance." And you keep putting out that sim that signal, you're going to create a hub. And eventually you could just take over the whole freaking neighborhood. You could take over the apartment complex, right? And [snorts] in this way, you let proximity do the sorting. Okay? This is This is the This is really important. Okay? You let proximity do the sorting.
So, what I mean by alignment and proximity as the foundational steps is you align and you invite. You live next to each other. And over a month, 3 months, it usually takes me about 3 months to let the proximity like sort people out is it shakes out who could you actually build with? Who do you trust? Who could go the distance with you? Who could be the godfather of your children? Who could be the god godmother of your children? Right? You find those people. Those are the people we are always looking to find. It's the ones we have really deep connection and rapport with. Those are the people who will build the village with you. You find just three of them, five of them, eight of them, then you expand operations. Then you go buy big houses. You go buy the land, right? You start businesses together. You start creating tribal infrastructure. And this is nothing new. Like literally everything I'm saying right now, the Hasidic Jews in Chabad already do it, right? Like the Mennonites already do this. So many different religious organizations have already done this, and that's because they already have a deep ethos. Therefore, their alignment problem is already solved. They have it They have a tradition and an ethos. Alignment solved, right? And then what What do they focus on? Proximity. How do they get the whole freaking neighborhood? They look at Hasidic Jews. Look at Chabad. They'll go like get a new house in Nevada and send out like 15 people to just live there together, right? Starting like huge families. They quickly expand, right? Like this is how you do it. You just filter for alignment and ethos. You build a shared ethos, and then you just triple down on proximity. And if you do this, and like you were a bit of an entrepreneur, and you start like shared businesses together, this is how you just expand the will to power of your entire tribe. You actually get land. You You get resources, and you and you can build the flourishing life in which you see you can build your dream, right? If you don't focus on alignment and proximity, if you don't focus on people, you're destined to do it alone.
So, that's that's my case there. Um that's how to build a village if you're 35 with kids. And again, let's go back to the beginning. One event per week that you run or you co-host in your area. Co-hosting entrepreneurship, I didn't talk about it. Very important cuz there's so many amazing leaders already doing these things. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Like come join. If you don't want to build your own online like community and become an influencer, like just come join mine. Like most of my co-founders and co-leaders and people are like, "Hey, I just want to do great things with you." Great. Like come join mine. Come do great things, and this is how we can become partners or something, right? Um [snorts] so, online community, 1 and 1/2 hour event every week. Real life community, 1 and 1/2 hour event every week. You have a deeper proximity space that you're cultivating in some way through rentals, ownership, or building, right? And then you're doing these kinds of like weekly rituals, proximity, just living your normal life next to aligned people. Find your tribe, build your wolf pack, make a dent in the universe.
So, if you're ready to come do this with me and meet the other tribe builders, we have a we have a really awesome network growing in the Re-Tribalize Academy. There's a link below. That's our paid online community. I run calls in there every single week, and that's also how you get access to our ongoing events. I'll see you there. Link below, and you can click here to watch part one for families. Peace.