How do I set boundaries & avoid burnout as a community manager? With Taylor Harrington, Head of Community at Groove

Welcome to The Dear Bri Podcast, an advice column for community conundrums, fiascos, and drama. In this episode, we’re hearing from Frazzled Fairy-Marketing-Godmother. Our letter today comes from someone who clearly has a big heart for their online community, but is also really struggling to draw boundaries and recover from a very common mistake in community management (listen to find out which one).

To better help Frazzled Fairy-Marketing-Godmother, I invited Taylor Harrington —Head of Community at Dreamers & Doers— as my guest expert. I knew this letter would be perfect for Taylor because this is a topic we’ve discussed often behind the scenes as community builders.

So, tune in for a remarkable episode as we talk about making tough calls and standing by them, some awesome practical ideas for how to create boundaries to protect your time and energy as a community manager and creator, releasing the identity of the community leader who has to be everything for everyone, and much more.

In this episode:

(03:56) Taylor’s dicey sunset scenario

(11:41) Bri’s worst leadership failure

(15:31) The communitea: Frazzled Fairy-Marketing-Godmother’s letter

(18:25) Boundaries for ourselves, coworkers, and community members

(23:32) The cost of saying yes to something

(29:37) Shifting away from the identity of being the person who's there for everyone

(32:46) The importance of establishing boundaries upfront

(35:00) The “Yes, and/No, but” concept

(39:50) The secret ingredient for asserting boundaries

(42:19) Giving yourself grace and being willing to pivot

Expect: Community management best practices and lots of support for community builders and community managers.

Resources Mentioned:

🙌 Ready to start Grooving and building meaningful relationships from home? Use the code BRILEEVER for 30 days free on Groove.

❤️ Sign up for Heartbeat. Bri’s favorite all-in-one community platform.

💛 Join Ember. The place for go-getter community creators building community-powered businesses.

Noteworthy quotes:

“When you are someone who loves to run an experiment and try new things, and not commit to it being something that's going to happen forever, that means that you're going to fail. Things are going to flop. Things are going to be learning moments that you weren't expecting.“ - Taylor Harrington

“ In community work, going above and beyond… there are certain seasons for it, I will say, but as a practice, it's unsustainable.“ - Bri Leever

Taylor Harrington:

🖥️ Website

📱 Linkedin

Bri Leever:

🖥️ Website

📩 Newsletter

📹 Youtube

📱 Linkedin

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I always really enjoy my time with Taylor and conversations that we have. But this conversation was remarkable. And frankly, it's probably the number one episode I would pass on to the younger version of Brie. If you are a community builder early in their career and struggling to give yourself permission to draw boundaries around what you emphatically say yes and to and the things that you need to say no but to, this episode is for you. Sent with lots of love. Welcome to Deer Bree, an advice column for community conundrums, fiascos, and drama. This season of Deer Brie is sponsored by our friends over at Heartbeat. Heartbeat is an all-in-one community platform, and it's the one I chose to host my own community. Your members can finally have events, conversation, content, and even courses in one distraction-free, intimate, customized home. I chose Heartbeat for three reasons. First, Heartbeat is unparalleled in their events management features. Events are a core part of my community architecture, and their features make my life so much easier. Second is segmentation. It's super easy to break my community into smaller, more niche subgroups and create a more customized experience for that group in Heartbeat. And finally, their courses. Being able to host my educational materials and learning journey in a community-first platform makes my community that much more valuable and retention that much stickier. I'm an affiliate with Heartbeat, which means when you sign up through my link in the show notes, I get paid a small amount and no extra charge to you. Thank you for supporting my work in that way. And finally, I usually record this podcast from Hawaii Island. So a special thank you to the Kanakamali people on whose land I currently reside. Our letter today comes from someone who clearly has a huge heart for their community, but is also really struggling to draw boundaries. And I knew when I started this podcast that I would have our guest today on an episode, but I think this letter in particular is perfect for them and conversations that I know we've reflected on in their own journey. And I certainly relate in my journey with community and specifically with boundaries. So I'd love to welcome to the podcast Taylor Harrington. Taylor is a big fan of board games, bookstores, running, hosting gatherings, and finding new Airbnbs to visit. She lives in NYC and is the head of community at Groove, the online coworking community for people who work from home and whose work doesn't fit into a neat little box. I'm a big fan and also use it in my own solopreneur co-working. I met Taylor through the Heartbeat Customer Community. And this is, I don't know if you remember this, Taylor. This was back even before they technically had a customer community. It was like an informal mastermind happening. And that's actually where we initially met each other, even though we had a ton of overlap in the community space. And Taylor, I've always admired your work, but I think it only continues to grow the more I see the community that you build and the way you think about community and show up in the world as such a generous connector. So thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I am so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to dig into this letter. I think this is such a great way to approach a conversation around solving challenges, thinking thoughtfully about how we can tie in our work to our personal lives. So very excited for this episode.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Absolutely. And before we dive into the letter, this is a podcast about community conundrums, fiascos, and other dramas. Do you have a story from your own experience that you would be willing to share with us? I have way too many.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Where do we begin? I think as someone who we both have talked about this extensively, we are people who love to run experiments. And when you are someone who loves to run an experiment and try new things and not commit to it being something that's going to happen forever, that means that you're going to fail. Things are going to flop. Things are going to be learning moments that you weren't expecting. So I have so, so many examples of that happening. I also think as a community builder, there are things that you learn along the way where you recognize, hmm, the right answer here is that I don't know. And you're trying to figure out do I be honest about that? You know, how do I approach that? So yeah, okay, fiasco that comes to mind. I guess one that comes to mind is when we had to sunset something that I just simply could not continue doing at the level that I was doing as we grew. So one thing I talk about a lot is scaling intimacy. So we have this a groove community that is quite intimate. We're still under 500 paying customers at this point. And for three years now, I've run this beta community and we transitioned into outside of beta and into a paid community this past January 2024. And in the process, there were things that we were doing along the way that I absolutely adored doing because they were fun. They made someone feel warm and fuzzy. But at some point, we have to sunset some of those types of things. And so one of the things that we sadly had to sunset was as we were doing these milestone projects. So when people would hit a groove milestone, like hitting their 50th groove, 100th groove, 500th groove, 1000th groove, 2000th groove, we have users that are on their 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 grooves, which is just so crazy to think about how much time someone has spent co-working and building these relationships and changing their lives and relationship with time and all that good stuff. And at some point I realized I really needed to focus on those early groovers and making sure that I was getting them to activate to get into that groove of, okay, I am going to spend time here and I'm going to be a part of this community. And then also retaining them over time. So getting them to that 10th groove and then also that 50th groove was just so, so important. By the time someone's at 500 grooves, getting them to the 1000th groove doesn't take much energy on my part. They're really in their flow, they're loving it. They've got support that's not just me, but inside of the community. And so one of the things that we were doing along the way was at some of those different milestones, we were sending out swag to celebrate them in a really thoughtful way, whether it was handwritten notes, whether it was some sort of a groove sweatshirt or a groove t-shirt or something like that. And I absolutely adored doing those things, like I said. But it got to a point where it was like, in order to actually help grooves succeed in the long run, I need to rethink where is it best for me to be spending my time and resources in order for this community to last. And so one of the things that we had to make, I had to make the hard decision on was I needed to sunset sending out that swag at some of those different milestones. So right now we only send it out at 50 grooves and in order to really celebrate that. So yeah, it was interesting because when we did that, we got several messages. It was really hard because it just broke my heart. I wanted to be able to afford to do that forever, time-wise and money-wise. And also recognizing that it really meant something to some people to get to that 1000th group and be working towards that thing that their friends had gotten in the mail to get that handwritten letter for someone to recognize, hey, I did that thing. So, anyways, that's a conundrum that comes to mind when you think about scaling a community is like, how do you respond? Do you go back on what you had already said you were going to sunset? Is there something here that like I need to double down and say, oh, did I make the right decision? One of the things that I've been doing in place of that is when I notice people hitting those milestones, about every two weeks I check in on who that list is and I send them an audio message via email where I say, Ray, congratulations on hitting 1000 grooves, and then a sweet message about why that matters, and that I see them and that I hear them, and that I'm glad that they're a part of this. And I even sometimes share stats of you've met X number of people inside of the community. And it's so cool to see that the people you groove with the most are these three people. And again, like a free way to celebrate them, but also a thoughtful way. So that's a conundrum that I've gone through the arc with.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

And it sounds like a bit of drama too, of people being like, Where's my damn sweatshirt?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

A little bit of drama, but it was also hard because it's oh that I guess it took me a moment to be like, oh, that really mattered to someone. I didn't realize like this sweatshirt and that pride of wearing the groove logo meant so much to that person. And I got a few emails of can you make an exception? I've gotten to this point. And I think exceptions are a really hard thing in community because when you make one exception, it can lead to a domino effect and it can lead to favoritism and those blurry boundaries. So I didn't make any exceptions. I only went back and I gave it to anyone who had hit it in the that last week. And I think the way that I had done it, now that I'm thinking back to it, I think I'd announce that we were going to do that and let people know if you hit it within the next time frame.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, I was gonna say, because I resonate with this type of community drama a lot in that it's like kind of the best possible outcome you could ask for. Like people really care and they find a lot of meaning and significance and like value in these like incentive structures that you set up in whatever form they take. Like I think swag is even like kind of one of the almost, well, it can't, it's not always super incentivizing unless it represents something that is deeply meaningful to the person. So that is that's the goal, right? Is that there is that level of care and significance. It really creates a lot of challenges when you need to make changes or pivots to the system, especially to the incentive structure. I think what you did with the runway is really super helpful to help mitigate some of that change management risk. And it sounds like regardless of how much time you might give somebody, it's still gonna be a tough transition, which it is. And sometimes we just have to embrace it and acknowledge that's the work of community.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah, and I think it's interesting, like bringing transparency into things too. It's well, there's like a million reasons why I had to stop this. One of them being that I work on a four-person team and it's me and three co-founders. And so, as a one-woman community show, it really isn't because it's all four of us working together, but it's not like I have extra support in that way. That like, yes, there were other reasons why I had to stop it. And it's a lot on one person to do this as our community grows, and more and more people are hitting that milestone. Yeah. So, yeah. So it's always interesting, like also sharing. Okay, there are let's say five different reasons for why I have to stop this. Am I gonna share all five? Or in this message, am I going to share zero, or am I gonna share two or one? So communication and being thoughtful about those boundaries and why we're making the decisions we're making with our members.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Absolutely. I'll share like a really quick fiasco from my own days studying community because it reminds me a lot of this scenario, but mine was like handled in the worst possible way by me, by yours truly. So we were doing these leadership spotlight at this at our like big in-person conference. And so we had an old definition of and standard for who was considered a leader in this planning process. All the people who fell under that old definition, it was the group of people who I reached out to their like friends and family and created this like compilation video to show at the conference. So a month before the the conference, we like changed the definition of who gets to be considered a leader. Which and none of these people like knew that we were doing this because I was like reaching out to their friends and family like on the side. So we like changed the definition, and I was like, oh, and there was one person who now would not be considered a leader under this new definition, unquote, honored at our conference. And the actual transition of the title and the standards that had to be met was like tricky, but but not like a horrible transition. It was like very clearly communicated. But we got to this in-person conference, and this person's partner had told them about the video, and when their video wasn't played, like sobbing. Oh no, like in the back room, and I feel awful. It was the worst case possible scenario where and it's there's a part of you that's this was very meaningful to this person, and like Brie Lever, this was your job to protect your community and make sure that like communication was clear and to honor the people who are showing up in your community. So that was like a really tough one for me, but maybe an example of uh not handling it with quite as much grace as you.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

There's a million of those too, and this is bringing up, I'm even thinking back to when we moved to the paid membership for groove. Gosh, there was so much learning through that. Depending on how many grooves you had done, we had given different amounts of discounts to those previous members so that they could get like an annual membership for 50% off if they had done a certain amount of grooves and stuff. And it also had to do with how long they had been a member, which was all it was so hard to decide who fits into what category and how do we do that cutoff. But eventually, like I made the decision. And there was one person in particular who there were a couple of people, but there was one person in particular who I didn't move to a deeper discount category, and she called me out on it and was like, I don't know how I wasn't put in that category. And I realized as I was reading her email, like, shit, I made a mistake. She should have been in that. And I feel, but at this point, I'm like, do I make an exception? Because then if she knows that by reaching, so it's just so hard. I didn't end up making an exception. And I explained why I was making the exception for her and her only. But God, yeah, communication is like a huge part of what we do and making calls, you have to make a call and you have to stand by it. And it's really hard when you go back on it because it's it puts you in a vulnerable position. And like I said at the start of this, sometimes we don't know. Like we're not gonna have the right answer. And so you're making a call when you're like, I'm still not 100% that this is it, but here we go. And I'm gonna have to stand by that decision.

unknown 15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Oh my gosh. I feel like we could keep going down this rabbit hole. But this was really good. I appreciate your insights on it. And for both of us, acknowledging when sometimes we just mess up and we have to keep moving forward. Are you ready for the letter I have prepared for you?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I absolutely am 110% ready.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

All right. Dear Brie, for context, I'm no longer in the job role in this story, but I think about my role a lot and how I might have handled it differently and how I can set better boundaries if I'm in a similar situation someday. As a marketing manager on a small headquartered team that served hundreds of community members, I often got roped into doing way more than my actual job description entailed. While some of my colleagues had roles that outlined how and what their role in the community was, my community leadership was a lot more fluid. Because of this, it felt like community leadership expected that I give whatever time and skill I possibly could to support the members. Happy community members equals thriving company. For example, in addition to planning sessions and being present, on my first weekend retreat with the company, I was also filming every activity and stayed up all night to edit video footage and upload photos in real time to folders so that members could have access for their own social media. Even then, I would get questions about why my content wasn't available immediately. In addition to the marketing content output, I gave advice both on panels or one-on-one to community members. I think they began to see me as their free marketing and styling consultant and would email me directly and even message me on my own personal social media with specific questions. It was so hard to set boundaries because I was always able to see ways that I really could help them and offer advice. And if I'm honest, I really liked this reputation for being this sort of magical marketing superstar. My sleep habits may have suffered, but my ego was thrilled by the way they spoke about me. Once I quit that job after completely burning myself out beyond recognition, the community members continued to reach out for advice, sometimes even about new business endeavors outside of the company. My warm personality gave them the impression that we had a friendship outside of my job, and I felt awful letting them down as I stopped replying to the messages eventually. How would you advise navigating leadership in a community culture that is really warm, sisterhoody feeling while still being clear to both the members and company management that this is my job and that I can't be expected to give every part of myself, even if every part of myself has something valuable to offer? Signed, frazzled, fairy marketing godmother.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Oh my gosh, I feel this like in my core, in my heart.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Are there any pieces that resonated with you?

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Boundaries are something I think about a lot. So I'm sure we'll get into that. I think communication with teammates around those boundaries and what's actually my job versus what's not, and with members is that hits home. I think that part at the end of I know I have a lot of value to give. I think there was a part of me related to the part of I definitely am quite a fixer. That's how I like to help and support and reminding myself of actually I don't need to go that deep into helping and supporting someone, and they didn't necessarily ask for that, is something that I'm actively working on and have had many experiences with. Yeah, there's a lot in there. I think one thing is like also the figuring out that rest. I feel like I got a really good visual of them being on that retreat. And I'm curious, can you go back to the letter? What was the language around? Was it like I felt like my company expected? It felt like it wasn't totally clear. Did they expect that or did they feel?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

For example, in addition to planning sessions and being present on my first weekend retreat with the company, I was also filming every activity and stayed up all night to edit video footage and upload photos in real time so that members could have access for their own social media. Even then, I would get questions about why my content wasn't available immediately. So it sounds like there's definitely this underlying lack of clarity around what exactly this person's role is, respect to community. Yeah. And sort of this expectation that anything that can and could be done for the community members should be done.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Right. Okay, here I see the line. It's because of this, it felt like company leadership expected that I give whatever time and scope possibly could to support the members. It's an interesting line, though, because it's I think there's a miscommunication there with the team, which is why they're asking the question at the end. So it's a tough situation.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

This podcast is sponsored by Ember Consulting, where I'm the founder and head community creator. At Ember, we help people who are familiar with running their business on content, coaching, or consulting become community powered. As you hear in this podcast, creating a community is really tough, and managing it can be even harder. So don't do it alone. Whether you're looking to launch a new community or pivot your strategy, our one-on-one consulting helps you skip the learning curve and do it right the first time. And when you're ready to belong to a space just for community creators learning, testing, and growing their communities together, check out the Ember community. Now, back to the episode. Maybe as a starting point, what are some of the questions that you would ask to our frazzled fairy marketing godmother? Because we only really get so much in the letter. What questions would you have for this person to dig in a little bit deeper?

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah, well, it's interesting that they quit the job. I guess I'll share a story that this reminds me of because I think it'll add some color from my own community experience and then might lead to a question that I would have. So I went to an adult summer camp a couple of years ago. I've been twice now. First time I went on my own, and it was actually before I joined the groove team that I said yes to going and had found it and whatever. So it was something to look forward to while I was looking for a job. I was like, I'm going to summer camp this summer. And then the second year I couldn't shut up about it because I had such a great experience. So I ended up going with a bunch of members of my community, groovers. And it was really interesting because something I learned about boundaries in that was I had previously had this experience of being there and showing up for myself and wanting this summer camp experience. And then I felt like on the second time I went because it suddenly had this professional element to it. And it was interesting because at the end of the camp, the leader of the camp ended up sending out like a contact form of, hey, everyone who was at camp, here's everyone's information. It had like our social medias, it had a little bio about us, things like that. And it had our phone numbers. And immediately I see this email go out and I'm like, uh oh, my phone number has not been given to Groovers. And there was like a panic in my mind of that just crossed a boundary. So I just I really relate and I ended up reaching out right away and he took it down and was like, I totally understand. No problem. I'll take your number out. But I'm just relating to this like boundaries of, ooh, when are people communicating? I've definitely had many LinkedIn messages and trying to figure out like which ones am I responding to? Because something is in my groove inbox, am I then supposed to respond to this, even though it's like a heavy ask? So yeah, I guess like one of the questions I would be asking our frazzled fairy godmother is I'm curious when they were onboarded, what the kind of communication was around work hours and work boundaries, and if those were established at all at the beginning of the role versus and then being crossed, or if it was just something that like wasn't really established. Like for me, I think I I really I don't know, it's interesting. I I think about like work hours and those expectations. Like one thing that comes up for me is like the cost of saying yes to something. So as a community leader, when we are faced with a decision, for example, okay, if I'm saying yes to editing these videos and editing these photos and getting it live for everyone to be a part of this, that's coming at a cost. That's coming at the cost of me sleeping that night. That's coming at the cost of me having to be on at 9 a.m. to welcome people into the next session and having no sleep in me. So when talking to a team about that type of thing, it's again, I'm removed from the situation. I would be proposing that. Hey, team, if you want me to say yes to this, know that it's gonna come at the cost of me not sleeping that night. And that means I'm not gonna be ready at 9 a.m. to do that. And so someone else is gonna have to lead that session if that was a scenario.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Yeah, I love that line. And that's one that I have also used in the past, especially when I think in this scenario they're talking about like an in-person event. And I think that's where the boundaries become really real because sometimes online things can be a little bit fuzzier or difficult to acknowledge the true cost. And I've been in scenarios where the culture is, well, sleep when you're dead. The priority is to make this event the best it possibly can be. And I think over time I was able to use that same language of well, okay, so what is the top priority here? The session that I'm leading tomorrow, or is it that I'm available to go to karaoke with our community members tonight and 1 a.m.? Which if karaoke is the priority, that's great. The cost is that I will not be able to my session tomorrow. The priority is my session tomorrow, then I really do have to. Here are the boundaries and what I need to be the best I possibly can at that priority.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Yeah, absolutely. That's such a fantastic example, too, because it goes karaoke is such a good example in the sense that sometimes we have these options that are like, are they truly optional or are they not? Oh, that sounds like fun and shiny. And in my heart of heart, I want to go to karaoke. So I think that's also part of it sometimes, is one of the tasks that we need to do is also energizing for us, or we want to support a member. And we're like, oh, well, that's just fun for us to do. I'm gonna dedicate this time to do it. One thing that I got to a point where I was like, I can't keep doing this, is I had members asking about, like, hey, can we have a chat about what it's like to have a role in community? I'm really interested in a community role. Or like, how did you get into the industry? What was your story? How did you go from marketing to community? And I'm like, oh my gosh, I would love to be able to dedicate 30 minutes, an hour to have these conversations, but I can't possibly like I get too many of those requests, which is a very sweet space to be in. And also I need to figure out what are my boundaries around that, especially with members, because it's my job to take that call because they're a member of our community and I want to support them in their career. Or is this like an outside of Taylor head of community request? And one of the things that I've done as a boundary setting thing when getting those requests, seem like similar to our frazzled friend here, like getting those requests of whether it's like, oh, how do I make my LinkedIn posts better and more effective? How do I update my profile? How do I send a great newsletter? All of those types of requests, for me, anytime I get like more than two or three of those, I make a LinkedIn post about it. Because then I know that I can always point to it in a moment of need. So then it's like not the same emotional labor of needing to tell someone like, hey, actually, I can't get on that 30-minute call and this is why. But instead, here's a post I wrote. And if there's anything that you have that are questions outside of this post that you think I could add to make it a better resource to send to people, please let me know. Or on the flip side, if I haven't done that yet, if I haven't written the post, I'll say, Hey, I've actually gotten a couple of requests about this recently. I'm thinking about writing something about it. Would you mind sending me the questions that you would ask on that call? And I'd love to include my answers to them in that post. So those are a couple of ways, and then it's a resource that I could be sharing with others. And in other situations, I've used an async voice note to also help that person, like in whatever way I can, in let's say 90 seconds. So if someone again requests for time or asks a question where I'm like, oof, that would take a lot of time for me to sit with them and really unpack that. Can you send me the one question that you would love for me to reflect on? And I'll send you a voice note back. And so that's another like boundary setting, but it took a while to get there. I think I'm curious if our Frazzle friend would agree in what you would say. I find that a lot of times when members are asking for support and it feels like a heavy lift for me or something that's gonna take up a lot of time, typically what they're really asking for is for someone to like be there with them and listen. And I've had to come to terms with like, as much as I want to be that person, I can't be that person for them. And that I think was a really big moment for me to say, like, it's not my job to listen about this really hard transition that they're going through in their role or the struggle that they're going through in their personal life. I'm not the person for that. I'm not the person to sit with them on a 30-minute call for that. And so, how can I support them in a way that's more bite-sized, in a way that I know how to show up in a really good way and make them feel warm and fuzzy? Maybe it's reaching back out two weeks later to check in with them, like that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

So, so many good nuggets there. I think one of the things I want to reflect back to you that I heard was a shift in identity from being like, quote, the person who's there for everyone, which I think is a really easy role for community managers to fall into and quickly get burnt out by.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

When I, since I very young girl, have been someone who goes above and beyond. Like that is very much in my identity.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Yeah. Yep. In community work, going above and beyond, like there's certain seasons for it, I will say, but as a practice, it's unsustainable.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

Absolutely. And so those shifts and like becoming more confident and saying, hey, this is my boundary, or this is something I don't do, is something that is coming from like a place of pain of I don't want to have to say this, but I know that I can't be the best version of myself when I say yes to all of these things. And I really relate to our frazzled friend here, too, at the end, where they mentioned that piece of this that is wrapped up in their identity of who they are. This work is I'm Taylor. Yes, I'm Taylor from Groove, and I'm also Taylor, the friend that loves hosting parties and the one that loves playing board games. Like, I'm still Taylor, and it's hard to shut off, and it's hard to shut off at five o'clock. And I think it comes from a place of caring so much about other people and about this work and wanting this community to exist for more people to have it in their life. And so when we have that level of care, no, it doesn't shut off because it's something that's core to who we are, and something that I think that's why it's important to be in conversations like this and have friends that get it. Our facled friend is definitely not alone in having those moments of feeling like, oh, and I think it's the thing of I'm in it right now, and I know this is a boundary I should probably have. And also I'm letting it slide by. Like that, I know that feeling very well of I think this is crossing a line, but I haven't actually taken the time to reflect on why I need the line to exist there in the first place. So I'm letting it go by.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Yeah, it's so good. I don't know about you, Taylor, but for me, one of the clearest signs that like a line has been crossed and routinely crossed, and it's time for me to reevaluate, is the like anger and bitterness that pops up. And because what starts to happen when I'm not able to articulate and honor my boundaries, instead of reflecting on what I can do differently, I start to get angry and upset that people are asking. Like at any time, someone should have the freedom to ask for what they need. And I can tell you if I can give that to you. It's like a two-way street. And so I've found when someone's asking for what they need, and I feel like I've positioned myself so that I cannot say no or I cannot articulate that I'm not the person to meet that need. That's just a recipe for bitterness and burnout eventually for myself.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Yeah, I relate to that big time. And I think like what's funny, I had a conversation with a community leader in person a couple of weeks ago. They were visiting from out of town. And one of the things that has helped me with boundaries, and I'm really grateful for, but it's something that I guess I didn't acknowledge how maybe unique it is in my role, is that my team is very open to me not having work stuff on my phone. When I started this role, I was very clear oh, my phone is a personal device. Yes, I run a community that's on a mobile app. Every single night, I delete Groove from my phone. Seriously. Sounds extreme, but it is really important to me that my phone is a personal device that I can't be reached on outside of when I've locked out of work hours. And so it is a signal for me when I delete Groove that like work is done. I can't check messages, I can't be notified, it's done. I'm not logged into any Groove social media on my phone. I'm not logged onto my work email. Slack isn't downloaded on my phone. And as I was talking to this other community leader, she just couldn't believe that. She was like, What? You don't have your work email? Your team doesn't expect that. And that's why it's interesting for someone listening to this who is about to start a new role. I think it's an interesting thing to make that something that's really important to you and express it up front when you start a role. Like, oh, if like that's something that's really important to me and expressing why. And I think it's really hard, like our frazzled friend here, it's hard to go back and establish that when it hasn't been established in the past and to create those types of boundaries. And so sometimes it takes a clean slate of quitting a role, like our friend did, and saying, All right, I'm gonna start something new and I'm never gonna do that again. I'm gonna be a little bit more clear about what my boundaries are there, or I'm gonna ask these types of questions to understand what are the expectations. So I do feel really grateful that I'm able to have those boundaries with with my device. That I guess until I was having this conversation with this other community leader, I guess I didn't realize just how much she wished she had that and felt like she couldn't.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Absolutely. I completely agree. And a concept popped into my mind. I'm a big fan of the yes and, especially when you're on a team. And I think a lot of times boundaries feel like contradictory to that. And I struggle with how to show up as a team player in my yes and posture alongside the no, but because what I heard was when people reach out and are like, oh, we have a call to talk about this, and your response was like, no, but here's a post, here's a 90-second, like something that is bite-sized, it has a little bit more structure around it, so that you can say yes and to the things that really do matter right now.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

What a great way to frame that. And an example that I'm experiencing this week in my community work is I am dialing up what I'm up to on LinkedIn. So, one of the things that I find fascinating about the groove community and growing this thing and retaining members and people building these friendships is meaningful connection on LinkedIn because the word connect is literally how you become a friend with someone on LinkedIn. And yet that really isn't very true. Like it's not meaningful connection. So, how do we have meaningful connection on LinkedIn and make it fun and make it something that's adding value to our lives and whatnot? So I could go off on that. But one thing that's been very interesting is I have a lot of conversations with members in my LinkedIn DMs. And I'm trying to figure out do I need to be doing that? Because it's actually a funny place to bring them into. So when I friend someone that's a part of the community and I'm establishing that relationship on LinkedIn so that I can be like, oh my gosh, I'm cheering you on that you're writing this book and you just finished your first chapter and wrote about it on LinkedIn. I want to have that connection in the comments, but I don't really want to hang out in our DMs. And so I was having a conversation with Josh on my team, who's groove CEO and co-founder. And I was like, what do you think about that? How would you suggest I establish more boundaries on that? And also, are you okay with that if I redirect people to come to my inbox or something like that? And in big letters at the top of our notion doc, he wrote, let it go. Like the people who really need to reach you will email you. So I set up on LinkedIn Premium, you can put in an out of office away message. And I just set that up to go ongoing. So it says something along the lines of in order to stay focused, I don't spend my time in my LinkedIn DMs, but I am on LinkedIn all the time and love commenting. And that's how I love hanging out. So I would love to see you in the comments of your post or mine. If you do need to reach me, here's my email. Catch you soon. Like that type of a message. And it's now set as an autoresponder for everyone. I literally started this four days ago. And it is so freeing to not feel like a gem of a message is waiting inside of my LinkedIn DMs because if it really is a gem of a message, someone is going to email it to me because they now know that I'm not there. And I think to have Josh validate, I don't need to feel guilty that I'm not looking at those messages. Let it go. The right people that really need to reach you will reach out to you. I was like, thank you. I felt like a deep breath.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

You're like, and I can see my sanity in sight once again. It changed so much.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

There's like guilt that's associated with if so, what if someone needs me there? Yeah. And to say, actually, I don't need to feel that anymore. Like I can set up boundaries, and people respect the hell out of boundaries. I have a no plans on Monday rule in my personal life. Professional, I don't have plans on Monday. That's Taylor 24-7. And I was so nervous to establish that role and was met with so many people who have said, I respect the hell out of that, and I'm gonna start that. That is such a great idea to set yourself yourself up for a great week. And I think so often as community leaders, there's like nervousness of at least I've experienced this nervousness of when I establish a boundary, what are people gonna think? What are they gonna think when they read that auto response on LinkedIn?

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Usually very empowered. What does that feel like to have a nice boundary?

SPEAKER_00 39:27

Well, I think to myself, when I see that, there's several groovers that have great autoresponders that are very warm, very thoughtful, very clear when they're gonna respond to me and what type of emails they respond to. And every time, like there's a guy named Matthew on groove who you've probably groove with. Every time I get Matthew's autoresponder, I think, good for him. That is a great practice and response.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Yeah. And you had the secret ingredient there too, which you snuck in, which is I think for those who are a little bit nervous about asserting boundaries or maybe making some of those changes, a really helpful tool is to just make it time-bound. So you said, hey, Mondays, I have no planning. Another example being like, hey, I'm in a season where I'm not reading my LinkedIn DMs. Like, I'll circle back in three months and maybe something will have changed. But putting just a time-bound nature on that boundary, maybe for you to test it out and maybe to say, like, I want to try this on and see how it feels, maybe you do it and you realize, oh yeah, there were like a lot of really good stuff coming to LinkedIn because it was easy to access me and it was easy to converse. And so maybe I do want to change that. But that is a really helpful way to just start enacting some of those boundaries, even if you don't quite feel confident in them yet.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Absolutely. And I think when you're giving that alternative path of, hey, even going back to even yeah, the no butt. I think as the example that I gave before of if someone's asking for advice of like, how do I break into the community industry? One of my favorite things to do is to recommend community communities that have a bunch of community leaders in them. Because even if I'm in a season right now where I'm not taking those one-on-one calls, I've been in seasons where I'm absolutely loving taking those calls. And it's like a huge piece of things I'm learning from, things I'm interested in. I love meeting other humans. And so I recognize that some people are in that season and want to say hell yes to those calls. So like that redirect to a community and to other humans is also sometimes helpful because it allows those people to find the people that are excited about those types of conversations right now. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

So many good nuggets. I'm definitely walking away with one, I think some really practical, awesome ideas for how to create boundaries or start creating boundaries. I'm also walking away with a renewed motivation to release the identity as a community person that we need to be everything for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

And let's like inhale and inhale the that.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Right. And challenging myself to articulate like what my top priorities and focus is on the things that I am saying yes, and therefore the things that at least in this season, maybe indefinitely, I am therefore required to say no to.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

And I think there's a bit of grace we need to give ourselves that we're gonna mess this up. We're gonna recognize, oh shoot, I should have put a boundary there and want to go in reverse and try and fix that. I had that experience a couple days ago where I was supposed to jump on a call with a groover and they asked, Hey, actually, can we have a phone call instead of a Zoom call? And I thought, oh, I don't want to do that, but I really need an answer from this person. So because they were out and about, I was like, sure, here's my number. Like, I'll call you. And afterwards, they sent me a text message following up on something.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Biggest pet peeve. Oh, I've been in that exact scenario, and I'm like, ah, you tricked me.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

I'm like, why did I do that to myself? I was so in that moment, I was like, I know better. I have been so good about that clear boundary about my phone. What was I thinking? I should have said, let's hop on a Zoom audio and just do an audio call. And I thought to myself, though, you know what? I knew better. And I also own that I did not communicate that that was a boundary to this groover. So I quickly responded to the message within, I don't know, reasonable amount of time, let's say 30 minutes, an hour, and said, Hey, I should have mentioned this on the call, but I keep my phone super like non-groove related. Like I don't have any chats about groove on my phone. I just sent you an email responding to what you texted me. And so I redirected it to an email. It was already in their inbox. So if they want to go straight there, and again, her response was, I respect the hell out of that. So gracefully handled. Yeah. So yeah, I think it's like that respect of I see you and I. Respect that you need that in order to be the best version of you is something that I admire in others when I receive it. And I need to remind myself that it's okay to backpedal and reshare a boundary when it was never communicated and also give that person grace. I don't blame them. I never communicated it.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Yeah. What's not okay is just texting back and just like secretly resenting that person for years and years and then so it all blows up. So absolutely redrawing those lines, being willing to pivot as you need to, honoring your own limitations and boundaries. It's all such good stuff. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you so much. This was great. Awesome. Well, so to wrap things up, Taylor, thank you so much for joining us on this episode. Thank you for the light and curiosity and boundaries that give us all permission to say yes to the things that matter. Thank you for doing that in the community space and everywhere else. Everyone, follow along Taylor's work, and hopefully you can join her for a groove when you're in their app. And we'll see you all next time. Thanks, Brie. Bye. Thank you so much for sharing some space with me on this episode. Please like and review wherever you find your podcasts. To submit your own community conundrum, fiasco, or other drama, go to the link in the show notes. Aloha and catch you next time.