UNDERSTANDING YOUR TRIBE AND THE FIVE CIRCLES OF INFLUENCE AND IMPACT
It has been said that your network is your net worth, that your relationships are your riches, and it is not about what you know, but who you know. These timeless cliches describe the power and importance of your tribe and what it can mean for you. A pathway to living your best life now, achieving your highest aims, and making your greatest contribution to society.
I want to propose that the things you want in life are realized from your foundational ways of being, or successful ways of being, and through the mastery of conscious interaction with people, places, and things, your tribe. I have spent over a decade unearthing the TribeUp framework to give people the language, structure, definitions, and distinctions to form their personal operating system more consciously and to engage their tribe in ways that produce the highest and best outcomes.
If I were to put a percentage to the people that are in the practice of engaging others consciously, efficiently, and effectively vs those that aren’t, I would say it is probably less than 10%, and most likely less than 5% of the population. That means we have a lot of room for improvement and there is likely something we can really stand to learn. To engage your tribe to cause the highest and best requires more than just kindness or being friendly. It requires conscious stewardship and investment of more time, money, and energy into the right people, places, and things, and less into the wrong ones. It is an art form to do this well and we call this art form, tribal consciousness.
Tribal consciousness begins with understanding the who, what, and where of your tribe. The moment you started reading this article, you began developing tribal consciousness and as you continue to read more of this article and others, you will further develop it. This is not some mystical or spiritual thing, although I believe it aligns with most genuine spirituality. It is a perspective and philosophy, along with the principles and practices to operate in conscious causal ways to live your best life and support your tribe in living their best life as well. Your tribe is a wholistic ecology, culture, and economy in which conscious interaction contributes to the betterment of all.
THE STRUCTURE OF YOUR TRIBE
In the TribeUp framework, when we refer to your tribe, we are referring to the people, places, and things that you frequently interact with as opposed to those outside of your tribe that you do not frequently or continuously interact with. Your interactions in your tribe are typically your most causal and contributive to your life. Although one event outside of your tribe can be life changing, in general, it is your frequent interactions inside your tribe that are the most contributive to your life by design, thus making conscious interaction paramount to achieving it.
Your tribe and your frequent interactions with people, places, and things exist inside five concentric circles of influence and impact and ten main people categories. These circles and categories will help you understand who is where in your tribe, and what they are to you. Knowing this helps you invest more wisely in the right people and less in the wrong ones. You only have so much time, money, and energy to steward and invest to bring about your greatest returns in life. Further developing your tribal consciousness will help you do it more efficiently and effectively, while also making your greatest contribution to your tribe.
There are many factors in knowing who is in what circle in your tribe and as you continue to learn and further develop tribal consciousness, you will begin to discover and assess this more accurately. This article will give you a basic understanding but many report back that even a basic understanding has helped them navigate their relations better. To learn more and dive deeper, consider visiting thetribeconversation.com and attending the onboarding with Allison Anker as a great starting point.
The TribeUp framework focuses mostly on ten main people categories that appear to typically be the most contributive to our lives. Just because someone is in a category, such as family, it doesn’t automatically mean they are in your RELATIONSHIP circle. Often, family sits on the outer fringes of a person’s tribe and even outside of their tribe at times. The idea that blood relation means family can be confusing. Many people are estranged from their blood relations while they have deep intimate family type relations with non-blood related people. You can view it however you wish but it all has consequence and reward.
Immediate Family
Extended Family
Family by Design
Friends
Partners
Colleagues
Clients/Customers
Acquaintances
Providers
Mentors
People enter your tribe through the 5th circle-PING. This is where we touch or contact people, maybe for the first time, or for the first time in a long time, and you discover and assess the importance they have in your life by design. It is wise to note that whether you deem someone important or not, we recommend practicing dignity, respect, and uncommon courtesy with all. Whether we are doing it consciously or unconsciously, we are always assessing and interacting according to the importance we have deemed someone to be. People remain in the PING circle if we begin to interact consistently, but we haven’t become intentional to nurture them yet.
If we deem someone important to our life by design, we mentally move them into the 4th circle-INTENTION. If you have been invited to the TribeUp app, the Tribe Relation Manager, or TRM, is a personal CRM that will allow you to physically move a contact into any of the five circles of influence and impact so that you can efficiently and effectively engage, manage, and nurture them according to their circle. In the case of the 4th circle, you should move someone here if you plan to continuously engage and nurture them with some frequency. The TribeUp app will suggest a default, but depending on the contact, you may override it with a custom frequency. This circle is a sacred circle. Moving someone here means you are committed to nurturing them for their highest and best and ultimately yours. If you aren’t willing to do this, you should leave them in the 5th circle.
If you nurture someone and you are effective, you should establish influence with that person. Once you recognize you have influence with them, meaning they listen and act on what you say when it is accurate for them, then you move them to the 3rd circle-CONNECTION. This circle is for all the people that you don’t quite have a relationship with, based on our definition of relationship, but you do have influence and therefore can get things done with cooperation and collaboration.
The 2nd circle-RELATIONSHIP is the start of your core tribe. It will typically fit a maximum of 150 people including those in the 1st circle. RELATION-SHIP means we are on this ship together and we will either sail or sink together. We consider someone a relationship when the interactions are mutually beneficial and reciprocal over extended periods of time. The 2nd circle and 1st circle are your most important and most causal relationships in your life. Choose wisely.
The most inward circle, the 1st circle-INNER CIRCLE is your one true mastermind. These are your closest, most important, and most causal relationships. A strong INNER CIRCLE comes from you having successful ways of being. This circle has less than 20 people and for most people it is less than 5. With mature tribal consciousness, high achievers will typically have more than 5 but it takes mastery. Many people have a very dysfunctional INNER CIRCLE, and their life reflects it. It takes conscious work and practice to have a thriving INNER CIRCLE.
As I already stated, this is just the beginning of understanding the five circles of influence and impact. You can browse the rest of the site or engage the tribe conversation to learn more. Tribe Well!
