I had a great Twitter chat with the ever-gentle and wise Mark Silver from Heart of Business yesterday. It kicked off when I mentioned that I’d spoken to a book promoter and their advice was to write your book through your blog to grow your tribe before you approach a publisher – publishers just want to know how big your tribe is when they’re considering your book proposal. Mark commented on this and we got into a discussion about connection and creativity and the tension between individual and community that creators – and any leaders, I believe – must manage.

I asked Mark “Do u think highly introverted writers will become obsolete? There’s so much connection required to get your writing read…” and Mark took it deeper with: “I wonder if introversion is a reaction to the deep need for compassion and gentleness that is missing from our culture.” And then he asked me what I thought was going on with the whole introversion and individual/ community tension thing in the creative process. We had a great discussion, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts and take-aways on this with you, because balancing individual and community is something we’re all faced with as creators and leaders and it’s tricky. I know I sure find it tricky.