Why some communities become collaborative while others turn territorial, and what that reveals about belonging.
Some communities feel expansive. People share resources freely, celebrate each other’s wins, and welcome newcomers like there is enough room for everyone. Other spaces feel guarded. Information gets hoarded, collaboration feels performative, and every new voice quietly registers as competition.
In this episode of Find Your Freaks, Tonya Kubo explores why that difference is rarely about whether people are “good” or “bad.” More often, it comes down to structure. The systems inside a community quietly teach people whether they are supposed to collaborate, compete, share, protect themselves, or stay quiet.
Drawing on examples from fiction writing communities, nonfiction publishing, online business spaces, and personal development ecosystems, Tonya unpacks the emotional architecture behind belonging. Why do some spaces naturally create generosity while others create defensiveness? Why does scarcity change how people treat each other? And what happens when a community rewards visibility, curiosity, and shared discovery instead of exclusivity?
At its core, this episode is not really about publishing. It is about what happens to people when they feel safe enough to connect instead of protect themselves.
Episode Highlights
- [01:15] The difference between communities that feel like potlucks versus cage matches
- [03:40] Why fiction ecosystems naturally encourage collaboration
- [07:10] How nonfiction spaces tie trust to authority and identity
- [10:45] Why self-help and business communities often become more territorial
- [14:20] The role scarcity plays in shaping community behavior
- [17:05] Why plagiarism fears feel more personal in nonfiction spaces
- [20:10] How communities teach members what behaviors are rewarded
- [23:15] The connection between psychological safety and generosity
- [26:00] Why belonging grows when people stop treating each other like threats
- [28:05] The question every community leader should ask about their space
Communities Teach People How to Behave
One of the biggest ideas in this episode is that communities are constantly training people, whether leaders realize it or not.
People pay attention to what gets rewarded. They notice who receives praise, whose voices are amplified, and what kinds of behavior seem safest in the space. Over time, that creates culture. Not through mission statements or community guidelines, but through repetition.
Tonya points out that some communities naturally encourage openness. People share resources freely, celebrate each other’s wins, and act like someone else succeeding expands the room for everybody. Other spaces quietly reward scarcity. Information becomes currency. Visibility feels risky. Collaboration starts to feel performative instead of genuine.
The important thing is that neither outcome happens by accident. Communities shape behavior through what they consistently reinforce.
“Communities teach people how to behave by what they reward.” Share on X
Why Fiction Communities Often Feel More Collaborative
One of the more interesting observations in this episode is the difference between fiction and nonfiction spaces.
In fiction communities, success tends to be additive. Readers rarely commit themselves to only one mystery writer, one fantasy author, or one romance series forever. Loving one story usually leads readers to discover more stories, more writers, and more worlds. One author succeeding often benefits the genre as a whole.
But nonfiction operates differently, especially in business and self-help spaces. Those books are often tied directly to the author’s methodology, expertise, or lived experience. The framework itself becomes the product. That creates a very different emotional dynamic because success can start to feel mutually exclusive.
When people feel like there can only be one trusted expert, collaboration naturally becomes harder.
Tonya explores how this difference changes not only business strategy, but community culture itself. Fiction communities often become bridges between creators. Nonfiction spaces can become much more territorial because identity, credibility, and income are all tied together.
“When success feels additive, communities collaborate. When success feels exclusive, communities compete.” Share on XScarcity Changes the Way People Relate to Each Other
A recurring thread throughout this episode is the way scarcity reshapes human behavior.
When people believe there is not enough room, enough recognition, enough opportunity, or enough safety, they stop focusing on connection and start focusing on protection. Knowledge gets hoarded. Other people’s success begins to feel threatening. Collaboration becomes cautious and transactional.
Tonya is careful not to frame this as a character flaw. In many cases, scarcity is being reinforced by the structure of the industry itself. Business communities, online creator spaces, and personal development ecosystems often encourage people to position themselves as the one trusted authority. That pressure changes how people show up.
And when fear becomes the emotional baseline of a community, generosity becomes much harder to sustain.
What makes this conversation compelling is that it is not really about authors or publishing at all. It is about recognizing how quickly humans adapt to environments that feel unsafe.
“Scarcity turns connection into self-protection.” Share on X
Safety Creates Generosity
Tonya spends a significant portion of the episode talking about psychological safety, though not in the corporate buzzword sense people often use online.
She is talking about the feeling that you can let your guard down. The sense that you do not need to constantly protect your status, defend your expertise, or calculate what sharing might cost you.
When people feel safe, they become more generous. They recommend resources. They celebrate each other openly. They contribute because they genuinely want the space to thrive, not because they are trying to secure their own position within it.
That shift matters because it changes the emotional temperature of the community entirely. Instead of people feeling like they need to compete for visibility, they start acting like collaborators.
And according to Tonya, that transformation almost always begins with structure. Communities become more collaborative when leaders intentionally reward contribution, curiosity, and shared success.
“Belonging grows when people stop treating each other like threats.” Share on X
The Question Every Community Leader Should Ask
Toward the end of the episode, Tonya leaves listeners with a deceptively simple question: What behaviors does your community reward?
Not what behaviors the guidelines claim to value. Not what the welcome email says. What behaviors are actually reinforced every day?
Does the space reward generosity or exclusivity? Shared discovery or gatekeeping? Participation or perfectionism? Are people encouraged to help each other, or are they subtly taught to protect their position?
Because communities are always teaching people how to behave.
And if a space consistently rewards fear, performance, or scarcity, people eventually stop bringing their full selves into the room.
What Tonya ultimately argues is that belonging is not built through clever engagement strategies. It grows when people feel safe enough to stop treating each other like threats.
“If your community doesn’t reward generosity, curiosity, or shared enthusiasm, it may not be creating belonging at all.” Share on X
Three Questions I’m Sitting With
- What behaviors are being rewarded in the communities I participate in most?
- Where have I mistaken scarcity for leadership?
- What would change if collaboration felt safer than competition?
Meet Your Host
Tonya Kubo is a community strategist, writer, and rebel with a cause: helping people find the place where they truly belong. She’s spent nearly two decades building online spaces that feel more like chosen family than comment sections, and she’s not afraid to call out the fluff in favor of real connection. As the founder of Find Your Freaks, Tonya brings together unconventional thinkers, builders, and bridge-makers who believe that “normal” was never the point. When she’s not hosting the show, she’s raising two daughters, leading client communities, and making meaning out of the mess.
Episode Transcript
Get the full transcript from Episode 25.
Resources & Mentions
- Episode 024 – Interview with Michelle Chouinard
- Clutter-Free Academy by Kathi Lipp
- The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
Support the Show
If Find Your Freaks matters to you, help us keep it ad-free by sharing the episode, leaving a review, or sending it to someone who has been searching for their people.
Let’s Stay Freaky
What’s Next
Next time, Tonya Kubo sits down with Dr. Catrina Mitchum to explore why accessibility is not just a compliance issue — it’s the foundation of belonging. Together, they unpack what it really means to create online spaces where people can fully participate, connect, and thrive.
0 Comments