For the first time in my adult life, I was going to be intentional about my people.

where you experience a sense of belonging.

“Energy is a great equalizer in life. It doesn’t matter what you do for a living or how much money you have—the energy you put out is the energy you get back. Negative energy breeds negative community. Positive energy breeds positive community. It’s that simple.”

Here they are from the bottom up: Basic Human Needs: Food, Water, Shelter, Belonging, Love, Positive Touch** Physical and Mental Well-Being: Physical Health, Consensual Sex, Job, Home, Security, Presence, Cultivation of Curiosity Purpose: Service Orientation, Finding Your Purpose on the Planet That Benefits Humankind (Parenting, Community) Joy:

Ultimately, my goal is to give you the blueprint to build and nurture your own community from scratch so that you find happiness, fulfillment, and success.

Another study found that having weak social ties is as harmful to our health as being an alcoholic and twice as harmful as obesity. Sit with that for a second: Having poor social connections is as bad as being an alcoholic and twice as bad as being obese.

Across all four levels of my updated hierarchy of needs is one unifying ingredient: community. Without a community supporting you at each level, it’s nearly impossible to move up the hierarchy. As psychologist Noam Shpancer wrote, “Human beings, fundamentally, are distinctly, spectacularly social. Lonely and isolated, we cannot survive, let alone

To be human is to belong. We were literally born in community, attached to someone else.

separates. Judgment disapproves. Perfectionism nitpicks. They are often responsible for our anxiety. They condition us to judge everything we think and do. They whisper to us . . .