One of our primal instincts is to be seen, heard, and accepted by the tribe. Tribe acceptance equates more safety and more resources.

The de-centralized tribe today

Today, our tribe can be scattered across the globe, in person or virtually, with people who share our core beliefs but have never shared a meal with us. Our globalized, inter-connected lives confuse that instinct, and can cause us to seek general, mass appeal. Acceptance from everyone.

Actually, tribe members focus just on their immediate tribe. They don't worry about far-off tribes full of strangers.

There might not be such a thing as general appeal anymore. Each of us contains multitudes and can be part of many distinct, separate tribes or communities around the world.

Not everyone needs to love your work; not everyone even needs to like it. In fact, that just won't happen. But there will be quite a few people who do, who get what you're trying to put out into the world. Those are the people that matter.

Work for those people, and trust that everyone else will be served by someone else's work.