Building Your Tribe: Advice from the Verse Network

What 40+ (!!) issues taught us about community.

The Verse was today issues old when we realized that our platform, too, has reached its prime. And that means we’ve had the chance to fan out over some incredible people so far—which brings us to a key “Into Them” learning: You’re nowhere without a community that shows up. Friends, friends of friends, even total strangers replied yes, they would gladly give some of their precd up along the way. So while we’re sticking to our story—that this verse is ours to write—that doesn’t mean we should try to go it alone. We’ve rounded up some of their wisdom to inspire you, because “self-made” just isn’t a thing.ious time to an interview. And in all of the stories and wisdom we downloaded, we began to see a throughline in a shared sense of gratitude for each individual’s own community that had stepped.

Marjorie Rodgers Cheshire

“I recently watched the biopic ‘Harriet,’ about the life of Harriet Tubman. She’s from my home state of Maryland, and I have always felt a tie to her. Seeing her life played out on screen reminded me we all have an obligation to take whatever freedom we have—physical, financial, emotional, spiritual—and ‘go back’ for someone who has not yet achieved that freedom.”

Ginny Brzezinski 

“Gather your friends/board/squad and go for a hike, grab dinner or coffee, and tell them you’re thinking of a career comeback or pivot. You’d be surprised at the conversation this can start—sometimes our friends see us from a different vantage and have ideas we may not have considered. I once got a group of working and non-working friends together for a party, asking each to bring a friend. After mingling, we sat and talked about past and current careers, and what we really wanted to do for the next couple of decades. The ideas and networks that came out of this one discussion were incredible.”

Alessandra Henderson

“Starting a company is hard: physically, mentally and emotionally. But it has also shown me how many amazing people I have in my life who show up in big and small ways. Over the past year, I’ve been humbled and deeply grateful for their time, love and support. The Elektra tribe is strong, and it is the best gift I could have ever asked for.”

Bruce Mentzer

“I had expected that the community would be happy with what we were doing—last year we grew and donated over two tons of healthy vegetables, and since January 1 of this year we have donated over 4,500 eggs from our pastured poultry operation. An estimated 22% of Sonoma County’s people are food insecure, including 18,500+ children. But I’ve been overwhelmed by the level of interest, involvement and financial generosity that they’ve embraced us with. Not only are we doing something we love, and helping the community be stronger, but we now get to hang out with all the folks who seem to understand the true meaning of community and life.”

Leslie Jordan

“People always wonder how actors deal with rejection. The best advice I ever heard is to show up and be of service. My industry has lots of different measures of success, but I always come back to this. I am always thinking of how to make a director more successful or allow someone to do their job. When I audition (no different from a job interview), I just want to show what I’d bring to the role and how it would serve them.”

Ursula Burns

“I had a wonderful counselor named Connie Costa and I participated in the Higher Education Opportunity Program, which provided support and resources for promising students. When we explored how I could apply my math skills as a practical matter, engineering naturally cropped up. The rest is history—I started as an intern at Xerox in 1980 and left as its CEO in 2016.”

Virginia Manuel

“These days, I try to put my kitchen skills to use in service of others. Food insecurity is a huge issue with me, so I volunteer at Feed More. It’s estimated that in Richmond, 30,000 children go to sleep not knowing where their next meal is coming from. When school is in session, they benefit from the school lunch program, but what about dinner? Feed More attempts to fill the gap by preparing nutritious meals that are brought daily to feeding centers (churches, Boys and Girls Clubs, etc.) so children can get dinner in the late afternoon. Feed More also prepares thousands of meals for clients of the Meals On Wheels program.”

Ellen Watson

“The Take Two Journal was born when the three of us—my co-authors and I, who all live in the same small town in Maine—happened to be getting divorced at the same time. It began with my friend, Kate, who is a natural with research and a perpetual student of personal development. As we were passing recommendations back and forth of podcasts, meditations, books to read—all in the name of moving forward after a difficult time—she wondered if we could compile the ideas into a book, a tool that might be self-healing. I jumped on board as the writer and then we enlisted our friend Kari, who is an incredible photographer and—poof!—the journal took flight.”

Erica Soto Lamb 

“Voting is but one way to create the change we seek in our communities and in our world—but democracy works best when we all participate, all the time. So I hope people will find a way to stay involved—by engaging locally or by focusing on issues, whether local, national or global, that matter to you most. Find the local chapter of an issue organization you care about, find someone you believe in running for local office—or run yourself, whether it’s for PTA or Congress. Give your time and/or whatever size donation you can. Show up in the streets and use your voice if that’s what you want to do; make calls to political leaders to demand the change you seek.”

Samantha Boardman

“Contributing to something beyond yourself. This doesn't mean you have to go off and join the Peace Corps—it’s just adding value somehow. Maybe it’s giving some advice or offering to pick up something for your neighbor. It's little ways to feel like your experience is adding to someone else's life. Sometimes with the self-care industrial complex, we feel we've got to be so me- focused and self-centered in some way; that can be a slippery slope into an excuse for narcissism.”

Arthur Brooks

“When I retired as CEO in 2019, I once again said to myself, ‘What are you going to do?’ And the answer turned out to be: I don't know how many years I'm going to have left, but I'm going to use all of my crystallized intelligence to the single-minded goal of lifting people up and bringing them together. And that's why I do what I do now. That's why I write for The Atlantic. That's why I teach at Harvard. That's why I do my podcast. I'm developing a television show. I'm doing a ton of public speaking. All of it is trying to lift people up and bring them together around their best lives.”