What People Join Isn’t Always Why They Stay

Many founders, creators and community builders put effort into naming what they are making. It’s important because people need a signal and a way in. 

People need to understand what they are stepping towards. 

You create the words, hopefully not always guided via ChatGPT/Claude. You decide what the work stands for and you try to give people a reason to pay attention.

I am realising that if the work lasts long enough, it’s the people who stand alongside you who begin to show you what the meaning really is.

You start by giving people an identity. Then, if you are paying attention, they start to give one back.

Over the years YATM has been continually moving. Many tweaks have been made with the intention of making it clear for what it represents. 

For the past two years, YATM leaned into the term ‘professional misfits.’

Many people in YATM do not feel at home in the usual business spaces. They do not want another room built around status, selling, posturing or pretending they have everything figured out.

The idea was that people don’t have to fit in with how industries or businesses expect them to behave. They could be themselves. If you’re a quieter person, there is room for you here. If you are louder, the door is always open for you.

It worked because it created a sense of difference for people. Lunch Clubs carried that spirit, as we don’t do the usual business event format.

We’ll attempt to break world records, we won’t have presentations, we’ll build themes and topics around questions people are really navigating as they create, promote and grow their work.

After Creator Day ’26, I started to realise that YATM wasn’t really about living on the edges or for people who see themselves as outliers. It was becoming a place where people knew others were on their side. It didn’t need a tag that says ‘you are this.’

I started to recognise that being seen as a ‘misfit’ wasn’t an encouraging association for people. Nevertheless, we leaned even more into ‘professional misfits.’

Then I asked the community if they saw themselves as misfits? The response wasn’t as resounding as I expected.

What I learned was that whilst people might privately recognise the feeling of being a misfit, it did not mean they wanted to be publicly called one. 

If you are building a space for people, you have to show what they are moving towards, not what people are moving away from.

By putting emphasis on the misfit type of person, the identity represented a separation. It helped people say, “I don’t belong over there.” That can be useful at the start, because many people need to see that there is an alternative. Identity also has to be hopeful and point somewhere.

The more time I spent with people, the more I could see that YATM is about support, friendship, trust, rumble buddies  (I like that term from Brene Brown), being carried and helping each other achieve more together. 

The word ‘more together’ matters.

Not everyone is trying to scale as fast as possible. Not everyone wants to become internet famous. Not everyone is looking for a bigger platform or a louder voice.

A lot of people are trying to keep going with more courage, more clarity and better people around them.

That is a very different identity from “professional misfits.” The older phrase answered one question, “Where don’t I belong?”

The identity being revealed now answers a different one, “Who do I belong with?” The first question can attract people. The second question is what helps people stay.

If you are spending time building a space for people to feel part of, this is the biggest lesson I am taking from the process.

A founder’s job is not to force an identity on people that has to stick forever. It is important to pay attention when people reveal what the future could look like.

Identity is something that emerges and shapes over time. The first draft does not have to determine the whole path. It gives you somewhere to start, but it should not become a cage.

With my marketing hat on, brand identity is not simply created by a person or a department and pushed outward. It is shaped by people, over time.

That is easy to say, but harder to accept when you have invested time, energy and belief into a particular phrase or position.

The labels you create are useful tools, but they are not always the whole truth. They help people understand enough to step closer, but the deeper meaning is revealed by what people repeatedly do for one another.

People show you what they value and they show you why they come back. That is where the real identity lives.

You can spend time choosing a name, deciding what the work stands for and give people a way to understand what they are stepping into. You need to give people a reason to care.

If you want the work to last, the identity stops being what you said, but what people shared.

People often unite around what they’re not, such as, “I have never felt corporate” or “I never fitted in within a traditional environment.” To build something with depth, there has to be more than standing apart. There has to be something people can stand together for.

When you put in time, ask questions and figure out with people around you, you paint a different picture. People didn’t say they weren’t misfits, but they felt more comfortable helping others, celebrating progress, making friendships, sharing ideas and encouraging each other.

The temptation is to defend the original idea because it was what you put a lot of effort into. Good stewardship means accepting that the community may become better than the first version you imagined. It doesn’t mean abandoning your vision, but paying attention to the people around you.

A founder can start the sentence, but the people help finish it.

Through this process, YATM now answers, “Who do I belong with?”

I am figuring out that the identity being revealed is not about standing apart from other people. It is about attachment. 

It is about support, friendship, trust and having people around you who help you continue.

When you are creating something, building something or trying to grow a business in your own way, you need more than information.

Identity is not revealed by what you say from the front. It is revealed by what people repeatedly do for one another. 

At first, you think you are giving people an identity, then one day you realise they have quietly given one back.

The greatest compliment a community can give its founder is not that it repeats their words. It’s that it grows into something the founder couldn’t have fully imagined alone. 

Not as a strapline, but as the identity the community has been revealing all along.

YATM is not about gathering people under a label. It is about helping people learn more together, do more together, shape more together and keep going with others on their side.

YATM is more together. That is different from ‘professional misfits.’

It is not about standing at the edge. It is about finding the people who help you move forward.

Identity is not what you call people. It is what people experience when they feel they belong.

Sometimes you start with a word that helps people find you. If you keep listening, the people will show you the words that explain why they stay.

This is what YATM represents today for people. I hope it explains in a simple way for you and you’d like to join in at some point….Mark