Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 2: On the bright side, we're talking about building community and connection.
Speaker 2: We have the brilliant author Pria Parker here to teach
Speaker 2: us how to gather meaningfully.
Speaker 3: She completely changed the gathering game for me.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, March twenty sixth.
Speaker 3: I'm Danielle Robe and I'm Simone Boyce and this is
Speaker 3: the bright side from Hello, Sunshine, Vitamin D. We are
Speaker 3: in the world. The bright side is real, people are listening.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I figured out your nickname because you keep calling me
Speaker 2: Sonny D or Vitamin D. Yeah, and you know what
Speaker 2: rhyme's Simone B, Simone B.
Speaker 3: I like it, Cinny B, Simmy. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'll work on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe we need to workshop that one a little bit.
Speaker 1: Simone is such a hot girl name. It's hard for
Speaker 1: me to nickname you.
Speaker 3: It's one of those names that is unnicknameable. It is
Speaker 3: very hard to break down.
Speaker 1: Your mom really did a good job with that one.
Speaker 3: She did. I grew into my name. I like it.
Speaker 2: Okay, how do you feel we birthed a podcast, baby, we.
Speaker 3: Birthed the podcast, baby. I'm feeling good. You know. I
Speaker 3: got a really sweet message from someone this morning who
Speaker 3: was like I totally related to your comments on motherhood.
Speaker 3: I get it. I'm right there in the trenches with you.
Speaker 3: That kind of solidarity, that's the kind of community that
Speaker 3: we want to build with this show.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's really cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how about you? How you feeling?
Speaker 1: I feel the same.
Speaker 2: I got a lot of really nice messages from people
Speaker 2: saying that it made them happy, which is really the
Speaker 2: goal of the show. What made me happy is my
Speaker 2: mom sent me a text message saying the show was phenomenal.
Speaker 2: And you know, she's my toughest critic, so she's now
Speaker 2: our toughest critic.
Speaker 3: She is because she's now following me on Instagram. We
Speaker 3: are following each other.
Speaker 1: So but she gave us two thumbs up.
Speaker 4: Yay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks Deanna, Thank you girl.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess let's jump into our show today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, We've got a big show today, all right.
Speaker 3: We got to start with a story that has been
Speaker 3: weighing heavily on a lot of our minds right now,
Speaker 3: and that is Kate Middle's health. So for those who
Speaker 3: haven't kept up with everything that's been going on, we're
Speaker 3: going to give you a quick recap. So there have
Speaker 3: been months of speculation regarding Kate's whereabouts from media outlets,
Speaker 3: TV shows, celebrities, and online blogs, and that started just
Speaker 3: after December twenty fifth, because that was her last public
Speaker 3: appearance before a planned abdominal surgery in January, and.
Speaker 2: Then in February, a Palace source told people that Kate
Speaker 2: Middleton was quote doing well in recovery.
Speaker 1: But that's when the conspiracy theories began.
Speaker 3: Yeah somewhere about the status of her marriage with Prince William,
Speaker 3: others about botched plastic surgeries or medical procedures, but perhaps
Speaker 3: the most wild conspiracy theories of all were that she's
Speaker 3: no longer alive and photos and videos of her are
Speaker 3: actually deep fakes. Now that, of course, was not helped
Speaker 3: by a photoshopped photo of Princess Kate with her three
Speaker 3: children and then almost immediately taken down after the associated
Speaker 3: press questioned its authenticity. Kate later admitted to altering the
Speaker 3: photo herself, and then at the beginning of March, Kate
Speaker 3: was spotted for the first time since her surgery.
Speaker 2: And on Friday, the Princess of Wales announced in a
Speaker 2: video message that she'd been diagnosed with cancer and is
Speaker 2: currently undergoing preventive chemotherapy. So I think the overarching feeling
Speaker 2: most people had when they watched this was sadness. This
Speaker 2: was so sad, and I think there's some confusion for
Speaker 2: people too, because they don't know what to expect from
Speaker 2: her because she's a public servant and a public person.
Speaker 2: She's a figurehead, she's a celebrity. She mentioned the difficulty
Speaker 2: of having to process the news as well as explaining
Speaker 2: her condition to her three young children. That was the
Speaker 2: hardest part for me to hear. I know you said
Speaker 2: you felt really sad watching this too.
Speaker 3: I feel so sad. My chest feels so heavy watching
Speaker 3: all of this, because I'm just putting myself in her shoes.
Speaker 3: It's already a lot to be a public figure in
Speaker 3: her capacity, dealing with constant speculation, but then when you
Speaker 3: have this huge news, this major life change where your
Speaker 3: health is impacted, She's probably fearful about her her future.
Speaker 3: She's trying to just explain that to her kids. Her
Speaker 3: first priority is probably protecting her kids and her family,
Speaker 3: and she can't even do that because we're all breathing
Speaker 3: down her neck wanting answers. She doesn't owe us anything.
Speaker 3: I guess you could argue that she does owe us
Speaker 3: some sort of answer because of her position. But I
Speaker 3: think what happened in the aftermath was completely inappropriate and
Speaker 3: out of bounds.
Speaker 2: It was hard to watch. The media was in a flurry.
Speaker 2: Here's my personal perspective on it. I think that it's
Speaker 2: best to share from the scar, not the wound. It's
Speaker 2: really difficult to share a story while you're processing it,
Speaker 2: and so in that respect, I'm totally with you. It
Speaker 2: felt gut wrenching to watch that video. She didn't seem okay.
Speaker 2: I think that people feel like she was bullied into
Speaker 2: a statement because the conspiracy theories in the gossip was
Speaker 2: a worst case scenario. On the flip side, she's a celebrity.
Speaker 2: I covered celebrity news for years, and any crisis PR
Speaker 2: expert will tell you that the MOO move every single
Speaker 2: time is to get in front of it. They always say,
Speaker 2: don't let someone else tell your story or spin the narrative.
Speaker 1: You have to own your story.
Speaker 2: Our first episode was literally write your own story. My
Speaker 2: personal opinion is I think this could have been avoided.
Speaker 2: I don't like what transpired, but I do think it
Speaker 2: could have been avoided. I think that they could have
Speaker 2: put out a statement saying we'll update you as we
Speaker 2: know more and please respect our privacy. And instead, I
Speaker 2: think they let the media and people on the internet
Speaker 2: makeup and speculate what was going on, and it all
Speaker 2: got really weird.
Speaker 3: I love what you said about it's better to speak
Speaker 3: from the scar and not the wound. Is that get
Speaker 3: that right? That's yeah, that's beautiful and I think that's
Speaker 3: so accurate. I take issue with people seemingly gleefully speculating
Speaker 3: about what was going on.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of that.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of that, just like taking pleasure
Speaker 3: in this woman's pain right now and ooh, let's figure
Speaker 3: out what is the next you know, crazy conspiracy theory
Speaker 3: that we can drum up around her whereabouts. That to
Speaker 3: me is sickening. Okay, we want to just add a
Speaker 3: little bright side button here. While the response to Kate's
Speaker 3: health has been extremely disappointing, the news of Kate's cancer
Speaker 3: diagnosis actually drove record traffic to McMillan Cancer Support, which
Speaker 3: is a leading UK cancer charity. So we love to
Speaker 3: see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a bright side for sure, Okay, Simone, Yes, Simmy,
Speaker 2: b I.
Speaker 3: Don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: We need to workshop it hot Girl, Simone. Do you
Speaker 1: consider yourself a happy woman?
Speaker 3: I do consider myself a happy woman.
Speaker 2: If you were to rate one through ten on the
Speaker 2: happiness scale, where are you?
Speaker 1: Woo?
Speaker 3: That's hard.
Speaker 1: I mean you can't say seven.
Speaker 3: Why is seven?
Speaker 2: Because it's like a middle ground answer and it's it's
Speaker 2: a cop out.
Speaker 3: I would I would say, I would say today maybe
Speaker 3: an eight.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
Speaker 3: That's pretty good for today. How about you? Do you
Speaker 3: consider yourself a happy woman?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 2: I wake up. I'm like an eternally optimistic person. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my happiness fluctuates, but and the job doesn't. Yeah. I
Speaker 2: think we were both hired because we're optimistic. But I
Speaker 2: recently saw an article on the every Girl and they
Speaker 2: say there are five traits that the happiest women in
Speaker 2: the world all have in common. So I want to
Speaker 2: go through them with you and see how we both rank. Okay,
Speaker 2: the first is they say no to things that don't
Speaker 2: bring them joy.
Speaker 3: Yes, which is hard for us. A lot of us
Speaker 3: have been conditioned to do the opposite.
Speaker 1: So I'm from Chicago in the Midwest.
Speaker 2: You just say yes all the time, Like do you
Speaker 2: want to drive someone to the airport? Even though it's
Speaker 2: during rush hour traffic. Yeah, of course you do.
Speaker 1: So I had to unlearn this a lot.
Speaker 2: The only caveat I have to this is I think
Speaker 2: that our world in a lot of ways had like
Speaker 2: the Internet at least. The discourse is do only things
Speaker 2: that bring you joy? And I don't believe in that
Speaker 2: because there's like short term joy and long term joy. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, do I want to go to another bridal shower?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: In the short term, absolutely not. Do I value that friendship?
Speaker 2: Does that bring me joy?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good distinction.
Speaker 1: Okay. Number two, They prioritize their health.
Speaker 3: Yeah, got to health is wealth, Health is happiness.
Speaker 1: Well, what do you do to prioritize your health?
Speaker 3: Oh? My gosh. I work out probably like four to
Speaker 3: five times a week. I pretty good. I try to
Speaker 3: be mindful of what I'm eating. I try to have
Speaker 3: balanced meals. I get a lot of protein in I'm
Speaker 3: kind of like, I'm a wellness girl. I'm a wellness junkie.
Speaker 1: So are Yeah, you dive deep into it too.
Speaker 3: I do. I love me some wellness science.
Speaker 2: I'm a sleepy girl, and if I don't get my sleep,
Speaker 2: I am useless to everybody, including myself. So for me,
Speaker 2: that is the number one thing on the health radar,
Speaker 2: and I am my word for the I do a
Speaker 2: word every single year. At New Year's my word for
Speaker 2: the year was discipline. And I was really undisciplined with
Speaker 2: my workouts last year and it decreased my happiness. So
Speaker 2: now I'm trying to work out three to five times
Speaker 2: a week and be a disciplined wellness girl.
Speaker 3: Nice. How's it going.
Speaker 1: I'm getting three in. That's good, I'm not getting five.
Speaker 3: Well. Here's the thing about wellness. I think we tend
Speaker 3: to think of it as an all or nothing game,
Speaker 3: like a zero sum game, but there's so much there's
Speaker 3: so many benefits in the in between. If you get
Speaker 3: twenty minutes in as opposed to zero minutes in, you're
Speaker 3: way better off.
Speaker 2: Okay, number three they don't take things personally? Do you
Speaker 2: take things personally?
Speaker 3: Sometimes it depends no.
Speaker 1: One can see you. But you really had to think
Speaker 1: about that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, I don't know that that one's
Speaker 3: for me?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 3: You know what's interesting. I think of myself as a
Speaker 3: resilient person, but I do still take some things personally.
Speaker 1: So that's only natural.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm only human people.
Speaker 1: It's natural to take things personally.
Speaker 3: How about you? Do you take things personally?
Speaker 2: This one I'm pretty good at. And it's this changed
Speaker 2: my life. My friend in college said this to me
Speaker 2: because I lived with four other girls and we had
Speaker 2: this one roommate who would always like try on outfits
Speaker 2: and then she'd be like, oh, I can't wear this,
Speaker 2: So because I wore this last Thursday, and my friend,
Speaker 2: my friend Julia from college would always be like, nobody
Speaker 2: remembers what you wore last Thursday because they're all obsessed
Speaker 2: with what they wore last Thursday.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so the idea of like everybody is so obsessed
Speaker 2: with themselves they're not thinking about you, yes, really helps.
Speaker 1: Me not take things personally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: Number four they confront their problems.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think you have to confront your problems in
Speaker 3: order to change. And action is the path out of despair.
Speaker 3: So you have to take action.
Speaker 2: I feel like you can run, but you eventually run
Speaker 2: into yourself again, so you got.
Speaker 3: To face them totally.
Speaker 2: And number five is they don't compete with anyone but themselves.
Speaker 3: That's a good one. Yeah. I had to make that
Speaker 3: mindset shift in my career, I would say that I
Speaker 3: made that shift, probably not until I turned thirty. I
Speaker 3: think it took me a long time.
Speaker 1: What happened at thirty, I.
Speaker 3: Think I became women. According to the research, women gain
Speaker 3: more confidence as we get older, but for men, their
Speaker 3: confidence declines no way they get older. Yeah, so I
Speaker 3: think it just starts to come more naturally, Like you
Speaker 3: become more confident, you become more aware of your strengths
Speaker 3: and and also you lean into those and you lean
Speaker 3: into the factors that differentiate you from your perceived competition.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the best way to think about it.
Speaker 2: I love that staff because women do get better as
Speaker 2: they get older, and the cultural perception, like the they're
Speaker 2: always telling us we don't, except for we really do,
Speaker 2: which is so great.
Speaker 3: Totally. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and
Speaker 3: when we get back, author Mediator and reigning authority on gatherings,
Speaker 3: Priya Parker stops by to talk about the power of
Speaker 3: a really good gathering. We're back, y'all. I'm Simone Boyce. Listen,
Speaker 3: Brightside besties. We're a new show here. Okay, we're just
Speaker 3: getting started. And as Danielle and I begin our journey.
Speaker 3: As hosts, we want to make sure we're creating a
Speaker 3: meaningful and intentional space for our listeners and guests on
Speaker 3: the show. And lucky for us, today's guest is an
Speaker 3: ex bert in just.
Speaker 2: That, we're talking with Priya Parker. She's an expert in
Speaker 2: gathering and creating community, and she's the author of the
Speaker 2: book The Art of Gathering, How We Meet and Why
Speaker 2: It Matters.
Speaker 3: Pria is here to show us how to make every
Speaker 3: gathering transformative, whether it's a big birthday party or just
Speaker 3: a small zoom call. She's nothing short of magical people,
Speaker 3: and she is here to share her wisdom with us.
Speaker 2: That's right, Pria Parker, welcome to the bright Side. We're
Speaker 2: so excited to have you here.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: So we want to take a page out of your book,
Speaker 2: The Art of Gathering. We're both big Prea Parker fans Ouche.
Speaker 2: We've read the book and we want to name our
Speaker 2: intention for the conversation today. So we were thinking that
Speaker 2: our intention is to learn how to build community for
Speaker 2: a podcast in a meaningful and joyful way.
Speaker 1: Ooh, I like the class, Kay, we.
Speaker 3: Got some applause right side Bessies.
Speaker 2: Can you please share with us why setting an intention
Speaker 2: before gathering is so important.
Speaker 5: The biggest mistake we make when we gather is we
Speaker 5: assume that the purpose is obvious and shared. Oh, I
Speaker 5: know what a podcast is, I know what a wedding is,
Speaker 5: I know what a funeral is, I know what a
Speaker 5: staff meeting is. And when we don't actually pause to
Speaker 5: ask why are we doing this?
Speaker 4: What is the purpose? What does the purpose of this podcast?
Speaker 5: With all of the million of podcasts in the world,
Speaker 5: what is it that we are uniquely trying to do?
Speaker 5: We tend to then replicate forms that may not make
Speaker 5: sense for this community or for these hosts. And so
Speaker 5: setting an attention and actually thinking well ahead of the gathering,
Speaker 5: why am I doing this? What is the need? How
Speaker 5: do I want to spend this time? Allows you to
Speaker 5: then make decisions and be imaginative about what that time
Speaker 5: actually looks like and feels like, and helps you make
Speaker 5: practical decisions to.
Speaker 4: Get you there.
Speaker 3: So in your book you write that the first five
Speaker 3: minutes of any gathering are critical, and there's actually a
Speaker 3: lot of research that backs that up, and I love
Speaker 3: what you wrote about it. You say your opening needs
Speaker 3: to be a kind of pleasant shock therapy. It should
Speaker 3: grab people, and in grabbing them, it should both awe
Speaker 3: the guests and honor them. So how do we create
Speaker 3: significant openings? And why are opening so important?
Speaker 4: We are all part.
Speaker 5: Of different communities, and I think of a gathering as
Speaker 5: a temporary alternative world, whether that is a mosh pit
Speaker 5: or a rave, or a bagel brunch or a protest.
Speaker 5: And in order to create that temporary world and invite
Speaker 5: people into it, you need to prepare them so they
Speaker 5: know what they're signing up for and they can be
Speaker 5: successful in that world. But you need to also usher
Speaker 5: them into that world. And very specifically, all of these
Speaker 5: studies show that the first five percent of an experience
Speaker 5: kind of set the pathway for everything else. And so literally,
Speaker 5: whether it's in person or virtual, if everybody's entering that
Speaker 5: space and asking do I belong here?
Speaker 4: Are these people?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: Did I wear the right thing?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Can I show my tattoos?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: You know, do I need to get a tattoo?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: Who are these people?
Speaker 5: And the best gatherers, the best hosts, understand that you're
Speaker 5: hosting from that moment of entry, and they do a
Speaker 5: really good job of welcoming people of literally saying hello.
Speaker 5: And the way in which people choose to share what
Speaker 5: risks they take is fundamentally related to whether or not
Speaker 5: they feel like they belong there and that they're wanted there.
Speaker 4: And it is not rocket science, but it is intentional.
Speaker 3: So that social anxiety that you mentioned is so real.
Speaker 3: We've all felt that where you walk into a party
Speaker 3: you don't know too many people. What's a practical tip
Speaker 3: that we can use in order to kind of massage
Speaker 3: some of that social anxiety that happens whenever you step
Speaker 3: into a gathering as a host.
Speaker 4: What can we do so in the art of gathering?
Speaker 5: I interviewed over one hundred different types of gatherers from
Speaker 5: all walks of life. Choir conductors, hockey coaches, party planners,
Speaker 5: professors that students love every year and ask, you know,
Speaker 5: what is it that they're doing that is so transformative?
Speaker 5: And one of the people I interviewed is a guy
Speaker 5: named Anthony Rocco and he is an underground party planner
Speaker 5: and he would create these secret events for new members
Speaker 5: to get to know each other. And this is one
Speaker 5: of the things he would do in order to design
Speaker 5: a welcoming space Basically he had people enter and he'd
Speaker 5: welcome them and he'd say, you know, make yourself at home.
Speaker 5: Drinks are in the back. There's only one rule. You
Speaker 5: can't serve yourself a drink. You can serve anyone else
Speaker 5: a drink, but you can't serve yourself a drink. That's
Speaker 5: so fun and by literally just slightly shifting the norms
Speaker 5: the rules, how do you basically help people feel like
Speaker 5: this is something.
Speaker 4: That they want to be a part of.
Speaker 5: And the last thing I'll say is you can help
Speaker 5: people really feel that way, actually not only at the
Speaker 5: moment they entered the room with a zoom, but actually
Speaker 5: an invitation. The invitation is the first moment to create
Speaker 5: a sense of belonging, of comfort, of ease, and we
Speaker 5: tend to just think that they're carrier's logistics.
Speaker 3: Priya, you have completely changed the way that I host
Speaker 3: Now whenever I'm throwing a party, I try to preify it.
Speaker 3: I try to think what would Pria do? So I
Speaker 3: tried your method recently when I hosted a dinner party
Speaker 3: and I opened it with a short speech about what
Speaker 3: my friends mean to me. We answered these table questions
Speaker 3: that facilitated a really vulnerable and candid and funny discussion.
Speaker 3: And at the end of the night, everyone was just beaming.
Speaker 3: You could just feel the energy in the magic in
Speaker 3: the room. And this is one of the texts that
Speaker 3: I got. My friend said, my soul really needed that.
Speaker 3: So all that to say, your method is truly transformative.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. That means so much to me.
Speaker 5: And I think that's some level what you're learning to do,
Speaker 5: you is make the implicit explicit.
Speaker 4: You're turning up the meaning dial right, You're you're.
Speaker 5: Sort of we tend to assume like, oh, people know
Speaker 5: that I love them, right right, they know, And actually
Speaker 5: so many of us are parched. It is so beautiful
Speaker 5: to be able to water each other's gardens and in
Speaker 5: these tiny ways to say this is what I see
Speaker 5: in you, this is how I appreciate you, and then
Speaker 5: to have that come back it's literally nourishing.
Speaker 4: Oh I matter. Oh this is what they see me.
Speaker 5: Oh, maybe I'll take a risk if they see me
Speaker 5: that way, Maybe I will take this risk.
Speaker 4: Maybe I will actually quit this job.
Speaker 5: Maybe I will, you know, call my parents, who haven't
Speaker 5: talked to it a long time. Wow, they see something
Speaker 5: in me. It's and in modern life. We have to
Speaker 5: invent these moments of tiny ritual.
Speaker 2: Priya, I'm still a little bit unsure about how to
Speaker 2: start from scratch and invent those moments ourselves. This is
Speaker 2: just week one of our podcasts, and you're an expert,
Speaker 2: especially in creating community online. How do we build our
Speaker 2: community and have everybody feel invited and connected?
Speaker 5: I think so often in our in our in person gatherings,
Speaker 5: the role of the host, there's so much physicality that's
Speaker 5: helping you.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: People are going under doorways, they're walking through hallways, they're
Speaker 5: perhaps taking off their jacket, which is actually a moment
Speaker 5: of transition, they're getting settled. And in a virtual gathering,
Speaker 5: whether that's a zoom or whether it's a podcast, people
Speaker 5: are doing all sorts of different things, and you actually
Speaker 5: have to the role of the host is to create
Speaker 5: a psychological togetherness.
Speaker 4: And so what does that mean?
Speaker 5: My advice to you would be to start with an
Speaker 5: opening or beginning that feels authentic to you both. You're
Speaker 5: kind of beginning this podcast both this week but also
Speaker 5: in every single episode by gathering yourself, gathering your guest,
Speaker 5: gathering your producers, which your listeners may not even hear
Speaker 5: but they're part of this gathering and then gathering and
Speaker 5: what welcoming your listeners. But the element to create a
Speaker 5: shared experience is if you invite your guests to be
Speaker 5: part of the same.
Speaker 4: Ritual, and it should be.
Speaker 5: It could be as simple as like three deep breaths
Speaker 5: and you're just all taking it together and they can
Speaker 5: do that and know where they want and so having
Speaker 5: some opening ritual that allows each person to kind of
Speaker 5: mark the day and say, I'm here even if I'm
Speaker 5: walking in the park with my dog or i am
Speaker 5: biking to work, I'm having a shared experience with you both.
Speaker 1: Okay, besties, you heard Priya.
Speaker 2: What could we all of us do together as an
Speaker 2: opening ritual?
Speaker 1: Send us your wildest ideas. I'm talking wild anything.
Speaker 2: And everything at Hello at the bright sidepodcast dot com
Speaker 2: and we might just try them out on air.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break.
Speaker 2: How not to be like me the chill host with
Speaker 2: the not so chill gatherings.
Speaker 3: Pria, I want to talk about your background a little bit.
Speaker 3: So you actually have a background in conflict resolution and
Speaker 3: as a facilitator around race relations conversations on college campuses.
Speaker 3: So how did your work in conflict resolution teach you
Speaker 3: more about how to host more meaningful gatherings.
Speaker 4: It's core.
Speaker 5: I'm biracial. I grew up in two households. My mother
Speaker 5: is Indian, my father's white American. And I'll maybe just
Speaker 5: go back to the story a little bit because it
Speaker 5: actually deeply informs my convict resolution.
Speaker 4: I grew up in these two households.
Speaker 5: They divorced, and then they each remarried other people, and
Speaker 5: they had joint custody, and so I went back and
Speaker 5: forth between these two homes every two weeks. And that
Speaker 5: meant leaving my mother and stepfather's home, which was this Indian,
Speaker 5: British Buddhist, vegetarian, incense filled progressive household, and then travel
Speaker 5: one point four miles to my father and stepmother's home,
Speaker 5: which was and still is a white American, Evangelical, Christian, conservative,
Speaker 5: Republican household, meat eating, you know, softball playing household. And
Speaker 5: my husband often jokes it doesn't take a shrink to
Speaker 5: explain how pre I got into the field of conflict resolution.
Speaker 5: And so there's part of me that has always been
Speaker 5: very interested in many ways of being. And when I
Speaker 5: went to the University of Virginia and learned about this
Speaker 5: process called sustained dialogue. There, the first question I was
Speaker 5: asked as a student was always what are you? And
Speaker 5: I learned very quickly and meant racially like what's my background?
Speaker 5: And long story short as a student, I started this
Speaker 5: program with other students and friends at the University of
Speaker 5: Virginia more than twenty years ago, and I learned from
Speaker 5: this guy named Hal Sanders a process called sustained dialogue,
Speaker 5: and as facilitators, we were taught to hold conversations and
Speaker 5: create space for conversations that we didn't fully know how
Speaker 5: to have that often happened behind closed doors, that build trust.
Speaker 5: We learned how to create moments of risk and safety
Speaker 5: and connection, like how do you set up a room
Speaker 5: so that people rip up the notes in their pocket
Speaker 5: and say, you know what, I'm not going to say
Speaker 5: my prepared marks because I was really.
Speaker 4: Touched by what you said.
Speaker 5: And instead of giving their stump speech right like a
Speaker 5: PR PR publicist, they give a sprout speech with their
Speaker 5: voices shaking, and they say something that they're not even
Speaker 5: fully sure themselves they haven't spoken out before.
Speaker 4: And so the core of my.
Speaker 5: Work as a dialogue facilitator is actually helping people have
Speaker 5: the right conversations, the right groups, have the right conversations
Speaker 5: and ask the right questions. To go back to your
Speaker 5: comment on questions, but contract resolution at some level is
Speaker 5: the deep training to help people hold healthy heat and
Speaker 5: relevance and bring themselves to a conversation while still being
Speaker 5: curious to others.
Speaker 3: I am also a biracial woman, and so everything you're
Speaker 3: saying about that need for belonging and what it feels
Speaker 3: like to straddle to worlds that so deeply resonates with me.
Speaker 3: How do you think gatherings can help us build bridges
Speaker 3: between worlds?
Speaker 5: You know, when I researched for the art of gathering,
Speaker 5: one of the things I realized was, and maybe it's obvious,
Speaker 5: but it wasn't a ha to me, which is traditional communities,
Speaker 5: ancient communities, tribal communities in which people were born on
Speaker 5: the same plot of earth, they prayed to the same god,
Speaker 5: they followed the same dietary restrictions, they had inherited ways
Speaker 5: of being.
Speaker 4: They know how to gather, they have shared.
Speaker 5: Ritual and in our modern life, in a diverse life
Speaker 5: where people like you and I and so many are
Speaker 5: biracial and bicultural and by religious where norms are breaking
Speaker 5: and shifting around who gets to wed and who is
Speaker 5: out in the workplace and what and we get to
Speaker 5: choose our friends and our faith and our God or
Speaker 5: are not God. Basically, we no longer have shared ways,
Speaker 5: shared assumed ways of making ritual together, and in trying
Speaker 5: to not offend one another, we end up doing nothing.
Speaker 5: And so modern gathering at the deepest level, it's not
Speaker 5: gathering around kin or belief. It's gathering around shared need
Speaker 5: and finding creative ways, innovative ways, life giving ways that
Speaker 5: help people create meaningful connection without all having to be
Speaker 5: the same, but still getting to temporarily have a shared experience.
Speaker 5: And it takes thought and it takes coordination, but it
Speaker 5: is absolutely possible.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So, ho is a huge part of gathering and our
Speaker 2: title now is quite literally podcast host. So can you
Speaker 2: describe what the role of a host is?
Speaker 4: I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 5: A host is someone who should practice what I call
Speaker 5: generous authority. Generous authority is using your power for the
Speaker 5: good of the group, to help it achieve its purpose.
Speaker 5: And a good host has three roles. The first to
Speaker 5: connect your guests to each other in appropriate ways that
Speaker 5: are relevant to the purpose. The second is to protect
Speaker 5: your guests from each other.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: And if you're at a volunteer training and all of
Speaker 5: a sudden, one person is taking over the whole thing,
Speaker 5: it's the role of the host to make sure that
Speaker 5: that person is not dominating the entire meeting.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: If you're hosting a party and there's one guest that's
Speaker 5: cornering all of your friends, it's the role.
Speaker 4: The hosts to protect your guests.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: So we tend to think the only way to bring
Speaker 5: people together is to connect them, but there's also a
Speaker 5: lot of problems that happen when people come together, and
Speaker 5: so the role of.
Speaker 4: The host is how do you protect them?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: And then finally to temporarily equalize your guests so that
Speaker 5: they feel like they belong here. Mmmm.
Speaker 2: You know, when I read your book, I realized I
Speaker 2: was the chill host.
Speaker 1: I was the worst host you could possibly have.
Speaker 2: For everybody who hasn't read the book yet, it's the
Speaker 2: host who doesn't put out place cards or name cards.
Speaker 2: It's the host who doesn't say you should wear this
Speaker 2: or that, just come in whatever. And I thought that
Speaker 2: I was relinquishing power because I was like, who cares
Speaker 2: just come as you are, but you actually say that
Speaker 2: you need rules, you need boundaries.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 5: What I mean by that is we tend in many
Speaker 5: places to think by letting our guests be, we're giving
Speaker 5: them a good time. And that is certainly sometimes the case.
Speaker 5: If you're listening to this and you have a group
Speaker 5: of friends and you love the way you hang out,
Speaker 5: keep doing that. You're lucky, right if you feel like, oh,
Speaker 5: I love my people and we are good like God bless.
Speaker 4: This is really about for those.
Speaker 5: Moments where you're wanting to really up the ante, up
Speaker 5: the meaning factor, up the sense of connection.
Speaker 4: And also particularly when people don't know.
Speaker 5: Each other, because basically gathering is about connection, but it's
Speaker 5: also about power. And if you don't give some kind
Speaker 5: of guidance as to either what is this for, or
Speaker 5: give some kind of common shared context, someone else's kind
Speaker 5: of come up and do it for you.
Speaker 4: People just need a little bit of shared.
Speaker 5: Context to connect to banter, to have a way into
Speaker 5: each other. And the really good host finds just enough structure.
Speaker 5: It doesn't need to be place cars necessarily, but just
Speaker 5: enough structure and no more to help the group take off.
Speaker 3: Kria, you have left us with so many incredible insights
Speaker 3: about gathering. We talked about some of the mistakes people
Speaker 3: commonly make, so not setting a clear intention, not having
Speaker 3: enough structure, not using generous authority. Is there one more
Speaker 3: major faux pas that we tend to do with hosting
Speaker 3: and gathering that you want to leave us with today?
Speaker 5: I might reframe the faux pas in part because part
Speaker 5: of what this work is is it's a realization that
Speaker 5: we don't really know how to do this anymore. We're
Speaker 5: writing our own rules, and if anything, the invitation is
Speaker 5: to think deeply to ask how do I want to
Speaker 5: spend my time? And like host gatherings that you're like,
Speaker 5: oh my gosh, I want to go to that? Yeah, right,
Speaker 5: I want to go. If you're dreading something that's data,
Speaker 5: you think about, okay, so what is it that I
Speaker 5: want to do? And so instead of thinking about there's
Speaker 5: like a wrong or a right way to do, this
Speaker 5: is just literally is an invitation to start paying more attention.
Speaker 5: And if this all feels totally overwhelming, my deepest advice
Speaker 5: to you is to start thinking about how to be
Speaker 5: a better guest. Guests have a lot of power and
Speaker 5: gatherings they can shift.
Speaker 4: You can feel when people are disengaged.
Speaker 5: You can feel, you know, like you send out an
Speaker 5: email and like the one friend right, Sonjay is.
Speaker 3: Like I'll be there.
Speaker 4: I can't wait. How can I help? And you're like,
Speaker 4: thank you, Sonjay?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Yes, right, be either an.
Speaker 5: Enthusiastic yes or a connected no. Thank you so much
Speaker 5: for the invitation. I can't make it. I love that
Speaker 5: you're doing this. I'm so grateful that you thought of me.
Speaker 2: It's like the person at the wedding who like is
Speaker 2: the first to the dance floor.
Speaker 1: The people that are getting married are like, thank you.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 5: How do you practice being a generous guest? How do
Speaker 5: you help people? And then how you be intentional about
Speaker 5: what you would attend when we choose, how we spend
Speaker 5: our time also, and when we choose, and that doesn't
Speaker 5: mean not to have any obligation, we also come in
Speaker 5: with a lot more energy.
Speaker 3: That is the perfect note to end our conversation with
Speaker 3: you today, Pria. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Pria, you add so much to people's lives.
Speaker 2: When we were thinking about who could sort of christen
Speaker 2: our first week, we were all hoping that you would
Speaker 2: say yes. So thank you for sharing your time with us.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for
Speaker 5: modeling beautiful hosting. You're already hosts that are paying attention
Speaker 5: to honoring the guests that you're bringing in and bringing
Speaker 5: yourselves to it and making it relevant to your listeners.
Speaker 5: And it's such a pleasure and privilege to be part
Speaker 5: of the opening parts of your journey.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for saying that.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Pria. What a joy it was to speak
Speaker 3: with Pria. She has completely transformed how I think about
Speaker 3: bringing people together. And with that in mind, here's your
Speaker 3: spark of the day.
Speaker 2: We're going to end on a quote from Pria, reverse
Speaker 2: engineer and outcome. Think of what you want to be
Speaker 2: different because you gathered and work backward from that outcome.
Speaker 2: So with all that, we're going to gather intentionally, meaningfully
Speaker 2: and build beautiful community. If you want to improve your
Speaker 2: gathering skills, Pria has a free workbook for all of
Speaker 2: our bright Side besties. It's called The New Rules of Gathering.
Speaker 2: You can find it at Priaparker dot com, slash the bright.
Speaker 3: Side And remember, we want to hear from you. What
Speaker 3: opening rituals do you love? Which should we try? Right here?
Speaker 3: Together on the bright Side. Send a voice memo to
Speaker 3: Hello at the bridsidepodcast dot com.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow on the show, We're looking to the Stars with
Speaker 2: the Queen of Astrology herself, Channy Nicholas.
Speaker 3: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can
Speaker 3: find me Simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok at Simone
Speaker 3: Voice and I'm.
Speaker 2: At Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3: We'll be back tomorrow with a brand new episode, same time,
Speaker 3: same place,