Creating Communities

This one of my highlights of 2024. I co-created a community event for 40 people and it greatly exceeded anything I could have imagined. We gathered to talk about something that many of us are passionate about and some were curious to learn more about.

But the focus of the meeting isn’t what really matters in me sharing this with you. What matters to me is sharing about creating community. Since moving to Portugal, I have been able to co-create a few communities and it feels meaningful. Even with all the amazing tech that connects our world, life can feel quite disconnected.

Our world needs more authentic, in-person connection and there’s no better way to do this than to gather with people who share a common interest. I’ve come to realize that it really doesn’t matter what the topic is, it’s more about the common values that brings people together.

For this particular community, what unites us is Bitcoin, a technology that many of us see having the potential to transform our world for the better by fixing our broken money system (I’ll share more on another post). I had been interested in Bitcoin since 2020, but it was mostly something I was exploring on my own as there was a lot of FUD around it.

So back in February, after attending my first bitcoin conference and feeling the positive energy of all the people there, I felt called to create a local community to continue to explore this topic with others. 

So I made a simple post in a local expat WhatsApp group to see if anyone was interested joining a meet up group. I had some trepidation about putting this invite out there and I wasn’t sure if anyone would respond but to my pleasant surprise a few did. Over the course of 2024, our little group grew to more than 60 people.

Some of us would meet-up monthly and share info in the WhatsApp group And yesterday was our biggest gathering so far. We created a mini-conference followed by a social mixer and the energy and feedback was super positive. And the best part was since it was co-created and just came together with little effort.  

I’m already excited for our next one.

So what are you passionate or curious about? You definitely don’t need to be an expert on the topic…just genuinely interested. Be courageous and put out the invitation and you’ll be surprised who shows up.

A new community is waiting for you!