Going Alone, Going Together, Growing Together- Ask Nathan by How to be Second

Nathan is asked about the journey of figuring everything out yourself, to learning how to invite others in, to building relationships where everyone grows together. From the trap of doing “90% of the group project” to why simply joining a team isn’t the same as growing with one, he talks about the mindset shifts that make collaboration actually work. 

Hey, this is Nathan Young, founder and author of How to be Second, and this is Ask Nathan, where I answer questions about being and growing as a second in command + a Second by identity, and tear apart myths around those ideas and other concepts. I’m practicing communicating the value of Seconds so you can do so for yourself and others, with even more clarity.

Transcript

Nathan Young 0:00

Hey, this is Nathan Young. Founder and author of How to Be Second, and this is Ask Nathan where I answer questions about being and growing as a second in command and a second by identity and tear apart myths around those ideas and other concepts. I'm practicing communicating the value of seconds, so you can do so for yourself and others with even more clarity. If you're curious and wanna know more, listen on. If you know you're ready to invest in yourself and go together, connect with us.

0:30

All right, Nathan, I have a question for you. Talk to me about the process of going from going alone to going together to growing together I mean, that's the process. All right, so- There you- Let me ask an actual question. I don't think I asked an actual question. What the heck do you mean when you say going alone, leads to going together leads to growing together? Yep. Yep. With an inflection of a question at the end of that. Yeah. No, I got you. I do think that I spent enough time phrasing it that I tried to make it as self-explanatory as possible, right? When you say it out loud, it's like, oh. But Growing alone, Seconds especially, our figure out muscles are gigantic. They are so big they cause us to be blind, right? And what's in our blind spots is help, is support from other people, is, the reality that, you know, there's an old saying, it takes a village, right? And so everybody else seems to have this figured out, and we suck at it. Well, because the village complicates things. Yes. Yeah, that's right. But if we bring along the village, then we have to make our plan and not my plan, but my plan is good. Plus every time I bring the village along, we just always end up me being 90% of the group project anyway, so like why does it even matter? And I would say that as we mature, one, we're taking on projects that you just can't do alone. But two I have learned this personally. A lot of the, "I did 90% of the group project," comes from my inability to go together. Like, I have not matured enough to understand what it actually means, and how to do that, and how to bring people along or make space for others or whatever. So there is a certain amount of growing alone that we might need to do or that we are apt to do. At some point, you will feel the call to do something bigger or different or just stop being alone. At which point, going together is its own whole process. Like, you might finally be stuck at something at work and be like, "I need help. I need to reach out to a teammate. I might need a coach. I might need a friend," whatever, and that's going together. Going together can be hard. You might need to get a coach, but you might have to cycle through three or four coaches that you discover suck. It's not just instant. And so going together, it's its own whole process. And then there's actually the growing together part, which is now that you're all together, instead of 90% of group projects sits on one person, you know, 10% sits on one other person, and then eight people do nothing. Which is my life, and sorry if that's a sore spot. There's an aspect of now we have to grow together. I think in the EOS community, this is actually structured really well. Because they talk to visionaries who are growing alone, and they let them know you need to go together. First, you need to go together with an integrator. You also need to go together with an implementer, sometimes not in that order. But an implementer is very aware of where their role is. They sit outside the team, and they're a guide. And then you have the team who is growing together. So you go together with the implementer. They help you potentially go together with an integrator. They might help you grow alone for a little while. They want you to go together, though. And then they want you to grow together as a team, and they will help guide you along that trajectory. I see so many people screw this up. So many people are like... I don't even know what the deal is. Implementers are not that expensive, in the scope of whatever. But integrators constantly, back to Seconds, will be like, "Oh, well, I can do it myself." And I'm like, "No, you're just choosing to go alone again." You haven't actually done the work of going together and growing together. You're not growing together. You're doing 90% of the group project while a whole bunch of people... You need to be on the team to grow together. You need to be with everyone to grow together, and there has to be an intention in that growth together. It's like if you're in a marriage and you grow together, maybe you have a coach or a counselor or a whatever, or you're paying attention to outside stuff, or you're having conversations all the time, like there is a consistent growth together. Just because you're together does not mean that you're done. And I think it's cyclical, right? Like maybe you get that successfully in one company, then you leave that company, and maybe you need to spend some time growing alone before you're ready for the next going together. Like you're in transition. Now you're alone. Maybe you need to go together with one of our POD groups, and now you're growing together in a POD group, but what you're trying to do is find a new role. Then you're growing together in that POD group, but then you go together with a CEO, a first in command. Now you're first and second in command. Are you gonna go and then grow together as that pair, or are you gonna leave behind this idea? So anyway, I think it's very cyclical. I don't think it's all a single shot. I don't think you have it figured out when you get it one time. It's more of a methodology and a belief about how this cyclical nature and what we actually need. But the going together, the growing together part is constantly the mountaintop. Growing together is the mountaintop. I think the How To Be Second meetup is an interesting example of all three of these possibilities. Yeah. Because you can sign up for the meetup- and get the pre-meetup video, Yeah and then not go to the actual meetup. Yep. And that's going alone. But then you could get to that point and still show up to the meetup. And that's going together. Yeah. And then if you wanna grow together, You have to show up to the actual little rooms. ...you have to stay to the breakout rooms for the last 30 minutes. Yep. And we are people who show up to the meetup all the time. The number of people who sign up for the meetup versus show up to the meetup is staggering. Yeah. And then the amount of people who stay for the last 30 minutes to do one-on-one time with two other people is staggering. Yeah. And so it's kind of one of those, like, micro instances of this work in action, and how few people say yes to the growing together. And so all that to say, like the opportunities are there, in particular in the How To Be Second community. But you have to say yes to the invitation because no one can force you into that work. 1,000%. We try to make this, this way in every offering that we have. So like you just described the meetup. Matchmaking is the exact same way. We have to have you do the homework to get on the list. You have to grow alone a little bit, right? You have to do the work of self to a certain degree. Then you have to actually do the connection meetings to go together. You have to choose to go together, to advocate for yourself to a certain degree, to actually go to the meeting to do whatever. And then you have to grow together, and thankfully, we literally sell the idea that you have coaching to the CEO. Who we have had never say no to that, interestingly. We've always had every CEO be like, "And then you'll coach afterwards? OMG, yes." There have been seconds that have initially said no to the coaching- Yeah and then called in a panic- Yep a couple months into it and utilized the coaching then. Yep. Yep. Well, know thyself. Everything we do, even the Guide System Yes. The Guide System, like you show up as a Second, you show up to the How To Be Second community, you get assigned a guide, the guide tries to reach out. We know that you're alone, and you're looking for something. The guide tries to reach out to go together. 10% or less response rate to the Guide System I mean, it's free. It's just another human being who's trying to be like, "Hey, we can connect you. We can have a conversation. We can find resources for you." So again, everything that we do is centered around this idea of these three stages. And again, we believe growing together is the mountaintop. I'll send it right there.

Nathan Young 8:58

Hey, it's Nathan again. If you made it to the end, that's awesome. If you have a question, shoot it over to contact @howtobesecond.com if you're glad this work exists and want it to continue existing, you can support how to be second at howtobesecond.com /support Thanks again, i'm looking forward to your next question.