Results are born from action
Discover how Darnell Brown's action-oriented approach led to a Platinum Community in just 7 months
I admire a “can’t stop, won’t stop” attitude. After all, succeeding in business means cozying up to discomfort and being fearless!
And as someone a little bit prone to overthinking, I also admire someone who sets their mind to a task and bravely gets it done in a VERY short timeframe. About a year ago, Darnell Brown decided he wanted to launch a community to support students in his course. He jumped in feet-first and had Forge up and running in just 14 days.
“I made a pledge to myself in mid-May to sign up for a two-week trial of Circle, and design the community space before my card was charged,” he shared with me. “On June 30, Forge was born just as I paid Circle $199.”
Darnell joined me last fall for a group coaching program and has been a valuable member of The Hive ever since the doors opened.
On Wednesday, he’ll lead a workshop, “How to Sell and Launch Your Course Before You Create It,” inside The Hive. I hope you’ll join us!
Forge was named a Circle Platinum Community just 7 months after opening the doors. Three keys to the community’s rapid growth and success are Darnell’s fearlessness, his willingness to experiment, and his focus on co-creation.
“It’s like I choose a blank wall on the side of a building and I put some paint strokes down,” he explained. “And every person that comes in adds their own paint strokes to it. And at the end of this experiment, we step back and we look at the mural we created.”
As Forge took shape, Darnell was surprised to see his initial focus – educational support to people who had gone through his course – was not the cornerstone he thought it would be.
“Forge was a very personal thing I was doing for me. Then these universal things just resonated, and it turned out to be for other people, too,” he said. “The courses and workshops turned out to be the least interesting thing to them.”
Darnell likens community co-creation to running a pizzeria with 45 varieties of pizza, but where almost every customer wants spinach and mushrooms. You can keep trying to steer them toward the varieties you want to make, or you can listen to them and come up with ways to feature and enhance the spinach and mushroom offerings.
“If you really care about people, if you’re genuinely curious, the people in your community will change you, and not always in the ways you thought you would be changed,” he said.
Darnell is definitely not an overthinker. He favors experimentation and action, and he encourages his members to experiment as well. One section of the community, “Tests & Digests,” is dedicated to members sharing their experiments and results, so everyone learns together.
That is one of the most beautiful parts about a community. It’s not a course or a class imparting knowledge one-to-one, it’s a living collective of human experiences. As founders, it’s our role to create a safe container for our members to share those experiences so everyone can grow and bloom.
Here's to inspiring fearless action,
P.S. You’re invited to see Darnell in action Wednesday.
He’ll be sharing his secrets to selling a course before you create it!