Glen's Legacy and What we Can Learn From His Example!
Hey everyone! For those of you who haven't seen yet, @glenM who is the founder and ceo of 7 Cups has recently delivered a speech titled Creating Pathways To Better Mental Health in an Americares conference. For me, it really put into perspective a lot of things that have been going on lately here onsite, as well as offsite.
Watching his speech, I was able to get a better understanding of the kind of man Glen is. When faced with a problem he was able to turn to his spouse and get the compassion and support that he needed. After pondering on the experience later, he thought about how beneficial a simple listening ear was for him, and how helpful it was for him. He wished that every person- regardless of language, country, or financial situation would be able to access that support. After thinking further on the topic, the basic idea of the 7 Cups we know today started forming. Glen would then spend the next seven or so years building the community that so many of us all around the world now call home.
It takes a special kind of person to be faced with a problem and be supported on that- and one of the first thoughts after the matter is: how can I make it possible for everyone to be able to access the same support I have available to me? This simple selfless epiphany is what jump started the community that has now grown to reach 40 million people. That is absolutely incredible! 40 million people helped, 340 thousand listeners, 189 countries, 140 languages. The significance of that data is so often understated.
The kind of person who is faced with a problem, whose first response is how can I help other people who are not as fortunate as me to have support in place and then actually goes out and makes the connections, gathers the funding and carries out the vision of reaching every person on Earth is an incredible person and deserves way more credit then he is given.
I would like to extend a thank you to @GlenM for all of the work he has put into this site. I know I am not alone in saying that if it were not for this site, I don't know where I would be. But one thing I do know is that I would certainly loose a large part of me if I lost this community.
I have grown to befriend many people on this site, and have been able to gain experience and knowledge that I know I would not have been able to gain anywhere else. 7 Cups is truly a place like no other.
Glen and his partners in business have put in the work and persevered through the many obstacles they have been faced with, but now the torch has been passed onto us; all of us. If we are to make this work, we have to apply the same principles that Glen showed when he started 7 Cups. Empathy, compassion, kindness, selflessness, hard work, dedication, perseverance, problem solving, team work, learning from past mistakes, moving forward. Without these things, we are nothing. Without those things, Cups never would have survived the first year of launch.
It is so easy to fall into the trap of false security that we are no longer at risk of failure, especially considering we have helped 40 million people, have 340 thousand listeners, and are in 189 countries listening in 140 different languages. That sounds like a pretty secure community to me, and Im sure it does to many of you as well. But 7 Cups has only survived for so long because of the principles that have been applied to this site since the launch back in August 2013. If we start to lose those principles and core values, we lose this site.
It pains me to say this but the truth of it can no longer be hidden, nor denied. 7 Cups is losing the core values that Glen built the very backbone of this site on. We have users taking advantage of the beautiful community we have created who take advantage of vulnerable people and work to exploit them. We have individuals who are taking advantage of the people who have come to our site seeking refuge from the negativity of the world we live in today. They are working to infiltrate the safe haven we have built with the very negativity the members of our community have come here to escape. We also have listeners who use their position of authority to bully and harass other listeners. These problems are for the most part unavoidable. There will always be individuals who will work to tear down what others have worked so hard building up.
But just like when Glen was faced with the problem of a shortage of volunteers, he communicated and worked together with the community to gather ideas on how best to tackle this problem. And look where we are now! We now have 340 thousand listeners. We can apply communication and working together with the community to solve the problems the site faces today.
Just like when Glen struggled to find the finds to keep 7 Cups running, he again turned to the community to find solutions. He communicated with the volunteers and took into consideration their feedback. Because of this, we are now able to afford a staff of 33 (and growing) who work diligently each day to better our community.
We can learn many things from the history that we share.
- Feedback, communication, and putting into practice the feedback of the community is necessary to keep Cups running.
- Working together is necessary to keep Cups running. Not against each other.
- Teamwork is key in a community as large and diverse as ours.
Glen is such an amazing role model, someone we should all strive to be more like. The empathy to understanding other people's perspective and struggles, the humility needed to ask the community for help, the dedication, perseverance and hard work to keep 7 Cups running, the intelligence to know that the listeners who volunteer their time each and every day are the ones who see 7 cups at a perspective that is vitally needed. The bravery to admit mistakes and learn from them.
@Laura @Zammn @Heather225 @blaze @MayaRoseBird5656 @KarrotCake @jill7cups @Yendi @kanga @River @samar27 @power @arwaS @asthebeesays @blaze @7Cupscommunity @MusicalMagic
I just had the chance to watch this speech. Im not one for watching speeches, typically, so I was hesitant to take the time to watch it. However, this is one of the most incredible speeches I have listened to regarding mental health and overcoming struggles.
I dont think a lot of us truly realizes how much hard work, patience, time and the ability to grow through struggles that 7 Cups truly took to get where we are today. 7 Cups is truly a product of personal struggles benefiting the greater population.
Coming back to this site recently, I learned that 7 Cups knows how to grow. Through partnerships and volunteers, 7 Cups was shaped into such an incredible site. The purpose and its value have always remained the same but it has been pulled in so many incredible directions and has had amazing opportunities to reach more and more people, such as the LA Partnership.
Something that I really love that Glens speech touched and focused on, was communication and the key to success. We always stress that we need open communication to flourish on here and its clear to me, now, that this site has the ability to communicate more than we may in real life. Countless feedback and validation of any idea, regardless of how impossible it may seem, someone listens. Although we sometimes feel ignored by our community management team, this speech helps us reassure that they do listen and take it to grow themselves in the role and the site as a whole.
Once again, this speech was incredibly done and Im so excited to see where this site goes next! Through heartbreak, stress, disappointments, failures, and successes, I am glad the entire admin team can come together with the rest of the community and celebrate another day that 7 Cups was able to support others all because of the idea that everyone deserves a listening ear.
Thank you for sharing, Julia!
@neverendingmusic92 Thank you for sharing this post, especially the video. These just leave me speechless and in awe. 7cups never fails to amaze me, really. I've learned a lot from it, to be honest. I love how the video gives emphasis on what we're striving for, what our main goal is, what the elements we need in order to maintain this type of community. 💙
The main takeway for me is that we need to keep in mind that the problem is the path for us to move forward. I agree that struggling and going through the hardships is very uncomfortable. We always want to succeed but we never want to undergo the process of trying and experimenting because we're afraid to fail. We're shy to ask for help because we don't want to admit to ourselves that we need support.
This just reminds me of what I've read from Mark Manson's book, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck". He said, "the denial of failure is a failure. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires." He also talked about how happiness comes from problem solving. "Happiness is a constant work-in-progress because problems are always a work-in-progress -- the solutions to today's problem will lay the foundation of tomorrow's problems and so on." This is synonymous to what Glen mentioned in his video that problems are like levels in video games where you need to face the challenges in order to gain a new skill that will make you succeed in that level and move onto the next.
I'm happy to be a part of this community. I know that this isn't perfect and there were people who have had a not-so-good experience in here. I don't really think that they should be ignored just because they're being "negative". In fact, we have to acknowledge them, hear their thoughts, identify the risks, collaborate with them to think of ways how to solve the problem. Because this is how the community grows --- by facing the problem, asking for feedback and overcoming obstacles. And I know that's what our community management and admin team are trying to accomplish. It's not easy, it takes time but it's going to be worth it.
The admin team also deserves to be appreciated. They may not be the most intelligent, wealthy, skillful persons but they're the most passionate, hardworking and resilient people I know in trying to manage an online community. Often times they get questioned, doubted and attacked because the things they do are behind the scenes. I personally believe that we just need to trust them because they're doing their best to provide what the community needs.
I hope this makes sense and didn't go off on a tangent. I'm still insecure about my English xD I thought of just watching the video then read your post and left a comment. 😀 Thank you for bringing this up!
@Erato
The work that Glen has done for all of us is certainly underrated. 7 Cups has done so much for me and a lot and that is all thanks to Glen creating this site and bringing together this beautiful community.
I feel a lot of the values he has brought to 7 Cups have unfortunately been forgotten along the way though, or at least have less emphasis upon them. Including most apparently- communication between the admin and the rest of the site.
I recently wrote a post in which I listed a few suggestions for the admin, one of which being take into consideration the suggestions of the community, instead of simply acknowledging it (ex: thank you for your feedback!) to which @7Cupscommunity respond thank you for your feedback!
So can you see where I am coming from when I say that the admin perhaps needs to learn from Glens example of taking feedback from the community seriously when he asked for help from the community on several different occasions, which ended up saving the site?
@neverendingMusic92
Hi! My apologies if you don't want me chiming in here, but the admin team does hear your feedback (which is why they say "thank you for the feedback!"). I wrote about this a bit more here, but to quote the part I think is most relevant to my point:
"Situation 4: I gave constructive feedback but 7 cups didn
@MonBon @neverendingMusic92 @Jill7cups My apologies if you don't want me chiming in here, but in my opinion "Thank you for the feedback!" looks like it was posted by a bot. The unfortunate implication is that no human ever read the feedback. That might not (always) be true, but it's the implication.
A better response would reflect the feedback to demonstrate that a human at least read it and understood it. Reflection is Skill 1 in our listener training:
Reflecting back what the person is saying shows that you are paying attention to what they say.
The state of the art in responding to feedback is to track it in a public database so that anyone and everyone can see the decision-making process. When an idea is rejected anyone can see why, and see who takes responsibility for the decision. When an idea is accepted anyone can see who is responsible for implementing it.
I assume the Zendesk software that 7 Cups uses can achieve this level of transparency, so the problem isn't the technology. The problem is how to get from where we are today with this robotic "Thank you for the feedback!" to some kind of effective transparency that involves the community in decision making. Scary, I know. As @GlenM keeps saying in the video, the problem is the path. But Skill 1 reflection would be a start.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie
Thank you Charlie!
@Erato
Thanks Era, sometime ago, that book had caught my eye, considered investing it, but wasn't so sure if it would be a good read or not. If you enjoyed it, I imagine I may as well. Happy reading, happy learning!
@PhoenixArisen Please do read it! I loved it haha 😊 thanks!
@neverendingMusic92
Thank you for the feedback!
I really want to thank you for bringing this topic up. The idea, the thought upon which 7 Cups is built on is so pure and beautiful. I admire the speech so much. This site has been through thick and thin, through various development and changing phases and has always emerged improved. It's great that such community exists in this world. It's needed, it's very important. I love the emphasis on communication and how important it is for people to connect with each other. What I've wanted to say has already been said by Erica and Erato XD I have nothing but praise for the video though.
I'm always rooting for this site and I'm so proud of the admin team, the listeners and everyone on here. The effort they put and the work they do is much much appreciated especially the admins because they're fabulous.
@neverendingmusic92
@neverendingmusic92 what are your ideas to improve communication?
@Jill7cups
1) don't pick and choose what messages to respond to based on how easy they are to respond to. If anything the more difficult ones to respond to are more important. If you are hot able to get back right away (which is perfectly understandable!) then send a message along the lines of Hey! Just wanted to let you know I have received and read your message. I will gather some information and get back to you on that." And then actually gathering information and getting back to that person.
2) Hang out in the listener rooms more!
3) Host more town halls
4) Foster a culture of open conversation, not fear in speaking out.
5) Take into consideration the suggestions of the community, instead of simply acknowledging it. Ex: thank you for your feedback! (which @RarelyCharlie explained beautifully)
6) Fill out the currently blank wiki what does the community management staff do all day https://www.7cups.com/wiki/what-does-the-community-management-staff-do-all-day/
Thank you! I'll see if I can clarify some of these for you:
1) don't pick and choose what messages to respond to based on how easy they are to respond to. If anything the more difficult ones to respond to are more important. If you are hot able to get back right away (which is perfectly understandable!) then send a message along the lines of Hey! Just wanted to let you know I have received and read your message. I will gather some information and get back to you on that." And then actually gathering information and getting back to that person.
Part of our job is to create posts and interact in the community, so you will see us doing that even if we are also working on a bigger issue behind the scenes. Having said that we've heard the feedback about acknowledging that we are indeed working on the issues. We are trying to do this, but keep in mind we are not on site 24/7 or checking our PMs every hour of the day as we have many tasks to accomplish.
2) Hang out in the listener rooms more!
Again, we are trying! As you know we are severly short staffed right now which means we can't always spend the time in the community that we'd like to. Lately when I go into LSR it is empty. I personally enjoy hanging out in the rooms for what it is worth! I will try to swing by the rooms more when I have a few minutes!
3) Host more town halls
Do you mean more than once a month? I host a weekly meeting for SC leaders, as that is my role focus. Heather hosts several meetings as well.
4) Foster a culture of open conversation, not fear in speaking out.
I feel like we do? I have converstations with Listeners and Members every day about their concerns, they just need to reach out. We have reporting forms and systems in place, and a customer service team that responds to emails should you not feel comfortable coming directly to a CM. Also the forums are here and people use them to bring things up all the time, much like you just did. How else can we accomplish this, any ideas?
5) Take into consideration the suggestions of the community, instead of simply acknowledging it. Ex: thank you for your feedback! (which @RarelyCharlie explained beautifully)
All the feedback is logged and considered, the "thank you for your feedback" is to acknowledge we've seen the comment. Much to your point in #1. We may not have a response right away, or we may have already addressed it.
6) Fill out the currently blank wiki what does the community management staff do all day https://www.7cups.com/wiki/what-does-the-community-management-staff-do-all-day/
The wiki is not currently working 
I can tell you my day usually involves working on projects to help improve safety, training, and experience intermixed with collaborating with Ambassadors and team leaders, attending meetings about all the things, helping Members and Listeners that reach out, performing investigations into issues such as potential bugs or potential problematic accounts etc. I spend a lot of time working with volunteers. And then of course I get pulled into immediate situations throughout the day to help with safety and de-escalation.
I know this doesn't totally solve anything but I hope it helps!
@Jill7cups I also wanted to add that sometimes forum posts are answered quicker than PMs. Both are filled with concerns but some bigger ones are being shared in PMs and people feel those are the ones being missed the most. I love that the community account was revived but I also feel the need to say, with this account, comes more responsibility and I hope its not getting in the way of you guys answering PMs. I know you guys get tons of PMs and Im guilty of always adding onto the pile but I can also imagine you get tons of tags and notifications and those get replies super fast. Is there a particular reason forum posts get attention from a CM faster? Thank you for all your hardwork! :)
@Erica appreciate the point of view and feedback. We get tagged in most things so it can be hard to find the posts that would benefit from a prompt and informative reply.
@Erica I personally think that the reason why they prefer to respond to forums because forums are public and are easily accessible by anyone. So if someone made a thread asking about a certain matter then tagging the admins, the admins could leave a reply answering the question that can be seen by anyone who's subscribed to it. The thread can be shared to anyone who will have similar questions in the future and can be used as a reference. At least, that's how I perceive it.
@Erato Ahhh, thats a good perspective on it! I didnt even think of it like that. Im glad I asked because that makes sense as well.
@Erica
I dont know that I am replying to forum threads faster. But i can see how this would vary. I will add that forum posts have more of a broader reach.
Also, important to mention that communication and speed of communication is why we launched our @7cupscommunity acct. to be more present and share the duty of being present in the community! I know there is still more to do, but we are trying and always striving to be better.
@Jill7cups
I for one think this is a sad state of affairs. So today it seems as if admin. have to explain their role, daily chores and activiites, show and prove their value and worth in writing as if answering to their employer for a yearly evaluation in hopes of maintaining gainful employement. I do believe they have already filled out their applications, submitted resumes and have been deemed worthy to join 7 cups in a position of authority. What next must these admins. need to do for all of us? What is it that will make as all happy? Maybe turning over W-2's? Providing a home number for us to harrass them at? After they do that, then someone will be demanding pap smears? If you want to know what they are doing today, the proof is in the pudding my friends, answering questions like these.
@7cupscommunity
@PhoenixArisen we all know that the admins are busy and we truly respect that. People are always going to be curious what the Community Managers do during their working days/hours. Its interesting for people to learn because it gives them a new perspective on why stuff happens the way it does. No one is demanding them to tell us every single detail of their day. We just want to better understand what we can expect from them so we can grow too. How cool is it to learn about what a CM does? How cool is to know what our leaders do? How cool is it to get to know our leaders? By asking these questions, we get to know them more. They love answering questions of all sorts it seems and we shouldnt feel the need to not ask them because others dont like it. The more curious people are the more engagement you will see because they love getting answers and then finding something else to seek. For example, I barely knew Heather when I came back and through a series of chats, I was able to get to know her more and her role on here. If I was too shy to ask the questions, I never would have known. The Community Managers will answer questions if we ask. They will take feedback in if we tell. Asking questions should never be shamed on here as its the gateway to understanding.
@Erica
Thank you Erica and Phoenix. I really appreciate everyone's point of view here.
Maybe we CMs each could have a AMA forum post somewhere so you all could ask us stuff if you're too shy to ask in PMs?
Thanks for the thoughtful words, Erica!
@Heather225 I love the AMA idea! Sounds resourceful for us. Would love to see that become a thing :) Great idea!
@Erica @heather225
Ha ha oh dear! But I'm game.
@Jill7cups
@Erica
I agree with you Erica in that if you want to know, then of course, just ask! But I do believe there is a right way to go about things and there is a wrong way to go about things. I think the way that you have gone about it is quite lovely. You have chosen your words wisely and it is quite well phrased. Over the course of a month or longer, I have seen post after post bashing the admins.and perhaps you have not had the opportunity to see this. It's gone on for so very long, and in my opinion it is creating a hostile work evironment for them. These are our leaders. It is quite disrespetful. It has started up in this very thread, once again, and was only a thinly veiled attempt to "stir the pot" some more.
Do people behave this way in their personal lives offline? As maybe an employee or a member of some other volunteer community in their personal lives? Do they create inter office memos and spray them like buck shot all around the office? Do you think if this was done in the physical world this would be seen as negative, disruptive, and insubordination? Would it be seen as grounds for termination? Something tells me that indeed, someone would be handed their hat.
I think there is a lot to be said for "key board" courage around here and maybe there are times when people choose to forget that there is a real human being on the other side that is reading all of these negative words and making work life difficult for them. Don't these people get up in the morning, and put their boots on and go to work just as we do? As trained active listeners, have we not been instructed on the correct ways to behave on this site?
There may be times when we as listeners get frustrated about one thing or another. But deciding to find some common enemy and banding together against them is wrong. When you point a finger at someone, well you have three more pointing back at you (not meaning you specifically Erica-this is just a general post about all of this that you may have missed out in the last month or longer). Maybe it's time for everyone to put the pitch forks and torches away and just let these people do their jobs. They really are here to help us, support us, make 7 cups a great place to be! This is thier job, this is their role!
I find it odd that when Glen steps in, and posts..........things quiet down quite quickly now don't they. Were is your keyboard courage now all? Everyone runs next door to some other post, smiles in his face and sends him "beams". These admins. are an extension of Glen. These admins. are people that he has hand picked, hired, to help him in his efforts to bring all of his goals and dreams to fruition. They have been given the authority to speak and act on his behalf and in his abscence.
Lets all get back to Glen's orginal plan. Do you remember this? And please do not forget, being here is a priveledge, it is not your birth right. We all have choices to make. At the end of the day, if someone thinks they can do it better, then anyone is free to go and create "me cups" as appossed to 7-Cups.
@7Cupscommunity
@PhoenixArisen
Thank you for the feedback! You feel we are fulfilling our roles and engaging with the community.
@neverendingMusic92, thank you very much for your kind post! And thank you all for your warm and generous words. All of this means a lot to me.
One important theme I hear in all of this is: We Are All In This Together. And that is 100% true and something we cannot ever forget. We are 7 Cups. The state of our community is the state of 7 Cups. 7 Cups is in part a product or Website, but it is first and foremost a community. That is what makes it real, meaningful, and beautiful.
And for those of us that are plugged in and leading the charge - and that is thousands of us on this site - it is a day by day and minute by minute choice. And for those of you who listen to your better angels, especially when you are frustrated/tired/hurt, I want to give an enormous thank you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate you! And I am very, very, thankful for you!
@neverendingMusic92 I've been thinking about the observation you made: "7 Cups is losing the core values that Glen built the very backbone of this site on."
It is literally true that the Our Values page was rewritten and the original core values have been lost. Well, not completely lost—they are archived offsite here: Our Key Values
The top value, originally, was: "We treat one another with honor and respect." I think you have given some accurate examples of how the loss of that value has been affecting us.
Thank you for posting a link to the Americares video. It provides an interesting perspective on things.
The numbers given in the video, 40 million etc., are impressive, but unfortunately they seem pretty suspect when cross-checked against other sources. I'm disappointed by this. And some other information in the talk doesn't seem to check out either.
I agree with you that we can learn many things from the history that we share. A talk like this is a useful reminder of how we got to where we are now. Towards the end of the talk, when looking to the future, however, everything in this talk becomes very vague. For these reasons I thought the talk began strongly but ended weakly.
It turns out there's another video from the same event. It's an interview and it's much shorter. Towards the end the interviewer does ask about the future: The next six years
The future, apparently, is not this community at all. It's the plan to train community health workers in India to deliver mental health interventions. 7 Cups' role in the project will be only to provide the software. There's no mention of any online community at all: Building the Mental Health Workforce
In a third video from the event, a panel session, Glen does return to the original purpose of 7 Cups:
It's really on all of us to kind of figure this out, and we do have to really train lay folks to do a lot of this. That and technology, to me, is how we're going to make a dent in these challenges.
So the messages from this event are difficult to interpret, I think. When you say we can apply communication and working together with the community to solve the problems the site faces today, I again agree with you, but only in theory. In practice clear communication turns out to be one of the things that 7 Cups finds most difficult.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie thanks for watching the video and providing feedback. I put a lot of thought into the talk and actually practiced, but can see from your perspective while you feel that it finished strong and didn't end as strong. I'll continue to work on it! Any other feedback on the talk itself?
With regards to numbers, we quote Google Analytics. I'm not sure what sourcs you are referencing, but we are providing accurate numbers.
I talked about EMPOWER on the interview and it is indeed part of what we are going to do on 7 Cups. We announced it here in detail. Happy to answer any questions on this front.
And, yes, we can always continue to communicate better. We do work hard at it. And, as folks have mentioned earlier, if we struggle at times it certainly isn't because we do not want to communicate better. It is often because we are feeling a little overwhelmed and trying to be as effective as possible. We appreciate enouragement and helpful feedback and support as we continue to grow in this area.
Finally, yes, the original values were something I drafted way way way in the beginning. The second set emerged over several years as we grew as an organization. I believe there is a fair amount of overlap. I see them as maturing. I'd also recommend you check out the culture guide. The values are a distillation of what I drafted in that guide. You can find that here: https://www.7cups.com/about/culture.php