Good Life Project - Kat Vellos ⎮ Cultivating Better Friendships

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

Question, when was the last time you made a really good new friend, as a grown-up? Like the kind that actually knows you, not just online, but the real you? Turns out, it’s not actually so easy to create those kinds of friendships. But it is critically important to our ability to live good lives, especially during challenging times.My guest today, Kat Vellos, is here to help, She earns her living as a UX designer, which means Kat figures out how to make experiences as easy and organic as humanly possible to step into. She’s applied her unique genius to everything from giant apps, platforms and technology like Slack and Pandora on a mass-scale, to local, face-to-face gatherings, community-building, and most recently to examining and tackling the quest to form deep friendships as a design problem. She goes deep into her journey of discovery in her wonderful book, We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships, which I loved and learned so much from.Kat has been featured in Forbes and FastCompany for her work as the founder of Bay Area Black Designers which is a professional development community for Black designers and UX researchers. And over the last twenty years she’s created, run, and mentored a variety of communities focused on everything from spoken word poetry to photography to digital design to authentic connection and friendship. Her most recent are Better than Small Talk and Connection Club, which helps her readers build community with each other as they also foster stronger friendships through the art of letter writing. I wanted to go deeper into Kat’s lens, ideas, and processes and also explore them both in the context of making real, deep friendships as adults, and also cultivating relationships, community, maybe even rising to that level of chosen family both with people who see and move through the world in similar ways, but also with people who are not like us and to embrace how important that is in this day and age. You can find Kat Vellos at:Website: https://weshouldgettogether.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katvellos_author/-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So I got a question for you. When was the last time you made a really good new friend, you know, as a grownup, like the kind that actually knows you, not just online, the real you? Well, it turns out it's actually not so easy to create those kinds of friendships, but it's also really important in our ability to live good lives, especially during challenging times. So my guest today, Kat Velas, she's here to help. She earns her living as a UX designer, and that means Kat figures out how to make experiences

as easy and organic as humanly possible to step into. And she applied her unique genius to everything from giant apps, platforms, and technology, things like Slack and Pandora on a mass scale, all the way to local face-to-face gatherings, community building, and most recently to examining and tackling the quest to form deep friendships, approaching it as a design problem. So she goes deep into her journey of discovery in her really wonderful new book, We Should Get Together, The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships, which I loved and learned so much from. And Kat has been featured in Forbes and Fast Company for her work as the founder of Bay Area Black Designers, which is a professional development community for black designers and UX researchers. And over the years, really over the decades, she's created, run, and mentored a variety of communities focused on everything from spoken word poetry to photography to digital design to authentic connection and friendship. Her most recent are Better Than Small Talk and Connection Club, which helps people really

build community with each other as they also foster stronger friendships through the art of letter writing, which is super cool. I wanted to go deeper into Kat's, her lens, her ideas and processes, and also explore them both in the context of making real deep friendships as adults and cultivating relationships and community, maybe even rising to that level of chosen family, both with people who see and move through the world in similar ways to us, but also with people who are not like us and exploring how to embrace those relationships and build deep bonds of trust and friendship, especially in this day and age.

So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. There's a jumping off point that I think is um fascinating that i absolutely have to know because i can't imagine there are many other people with your name but it sounds like you came out with a hip-hop math cd called music in 2008. And I have to know about this. That was me. Yeah, it was a project from deep in the ice ages there. Because at that time, so I had left a job as an art director and graphic designer, working for a news magazine. And I left because I wanted to make a bigger difference in the world. And one of the ways I did that was by quitting my job and joining AmeriCorps and working in communities, doing national service. And one of my assignments was working in an elementary school, helping and they really just struggled with math. Like they could not

learn their times tables. It was really, really hard. Yet they knew every single lyric to every Beyonce song that they heard. And I was like, clearly they're capable of memorizing things. And I tried to find music for them. And I tried to find like, all I could find was like schoolhouse rock stuff from the seventies. And they were like, Miss Kat, what? And so I had many years experience as a spoken word poet and a lot of friends who were musicians and DJs. And one of them had previously been a kindergarten art teacher. And together, we made an album of times tables just to make music that could help kids memorize this very important life skill that would feel like cool and fun. And so that is why that came out. I worked with my kids using it

and I loved sharing that as a resource for other people who wanted to make math less intimidating for kids. And that's also really close to my heart because when I was a kid, I was that kid who struggled with math and felt really intimidated by it. And so it was a project. I was really thrilled about it. It was also like something aside from my day job. It was not something I like talked to a lot of people about, but it had a really beautiful reception when we released it. And I'm really happy that I was able to help

a lot of kids enjoy math in the process. I love that. And I've always wondered, you know, I'm a kid who grew up of, you know, I'm that age where multiplication rock and all of that stuff, schoolhouse rock was actually part of my upbringing and I loved it. And as soon as I saw that you had done that, I'm like, why is there not more of this right

now? I mean, because I'm 55 and I can remember the lyric to every song that I knew when I was a teenager, you know, not because I was forced to learn it, but just because it was presented in a way where it just got into my neural grooves and never left. And that was what Schoolhouse Rock did originally. But they're really, I mean, at least not to my knowledge, you're probably more up on it than me. I don't think there's been a meaningful, sort of newer version of something like that for for kids really. I mean, other than Musiplication from the great Cat Villas. Oh, well, thank you.

There are other things that are really cool. Like in the process, I heard about these two guys who were making kind of like history and like social studies stuff. And then lately I found out about another woman. I think her name is Raven, the science maven. And she talks about science and she does like hip hop and it's really fun and super cool. And I think I'm a big nerd. And so I think things like this are super cool. And so there's like things out there and it makes me happy that there are more adults who are trying to make this stuff more relevant and

contemporary for kids today. Yeah, no, I love that too. You mentioned that you were heavily into the spoken word world also. Was that something that kind of emerged in the college years or tell me more about this. It was right around the end of college. And then for a few years after that, I was living in a town that had a really cool arts community in terms of like visual art, certainly music, but there wasn't anything for the literary community. And I was driving about an hour a week, one way to go to different poetry readings and spoken word events that were happening in Jacksonville, which was an hour away. I was in St. Augustine at the time. And I, you know, really enjoyed it. I love the community. I love that as a type of expression at that time in my life. I was just like, like my dreams, my thoughts, my like grocery lists were all like in poetry

form. And so I created, yeah, a spoken word community there in my town. And it was something I held every other week for four years. And it was just my primary mode of creative expression. And we pulled together a beautiful community. And it was just something really special to me at that time in my life in my 20s. And it was something I look back on fondly, even though it's not necessarily something that's really present in my life today. Yeah, I mean, it's the way that you just, I mean, I can see your face as you're saying that.

And there is almost a sense of forlawning as you just sort of like shared that last part that is not really all that present in your life today? Yeah, for me today, when I do write poems, which is much less frequently, they're more quiet and introspective and shorter, and they're not performative. There was always a little bit of a tension for me with spoken word community because while it is both this incredibly engaging, rhythmic, active form of communication and dialogue with an audience. There was also a part of it that would get complicated for me around the performative aspect. So very near to that was slam poetry, where it's judged and ranked and someone tries to win. And I did not like that aspect. I did not like the creative judging, performing, winning when it came to expression. So that was the part of it where I was like, I'm not in it for that kind of thing. And so I would just kind of hover on the edge of it and

stay on the side where it's like, it's about encouraging each other. It's about supporting each other and being in creative community together. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's, I'm a huge fan of spoken word. And there've been times where I sort of see and I've become friends with, and we've actually had a number of sort of like leading voices on the show over the years. And I'm absolutely mesmerized when it is done really beautifully. It just kind of like, it bypasses all the defenses and all the shields and it just goes straight into your heart. But I've also been really, I've become aware of this. I feel like sometimes there's this tension between, I guess what you were describing as the performative aspect of it and the substance underneath it. The depth of the lyrics and the storytelling versus the performative side. And I wonder sometimes whether that's actually a tension that exists within the entire community. higher community? I don't know. I mean, some people really, really did seem drawn to like the heavily performative, in some ways it was formulaic, you know, and I would feel this tension

about like, oh, I don't just want to like do something that's formulaic, but other people really like thrived in that and like would, you know, test the boundaries of it and experiment with it in different ways. And there was also like on a personal level, there was a part of it where it, I questioned how much I wanted to keep doing it when I could feel the change in my pen when I was writing for myself versus when I was writing for an audience. Yeah. I mean, but I wonder if that's limited to spoken word or if that is limited to anything where you feel just intrinsically called to develop a craft and to creative expression

where it also is something that can be valued and sometimes even paid for on a career standpoint from others. There's always that dynamic, right? It's sort of like, I think that's why so many people in the world of entertainment end up doing, you know, with the, the one for me, one for the studio model at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. That's the way to keep it clean, you know, keep it balanced.

Yeah. As you were speaking, what popped into my head really quickly too, is in a very past life, I was a yoga teacher for seven years. And I remember in my very early days, I was on retreat with this leading voice and doing this intensive training. And there were a hundred something of us in a room and he would just start to call on any of us to just step out and teach the group of a hundred in any random time. And he called on me to step out. And I was actually the first one he called on. And I went out and I did my three-minute shtick. And I stepped back in with the rest of the class and he just looked at me. He's like, let's show. And immediately I got what he was saying because I'm an introvert and I stepped almost into another personality and said, let me just put on a show so I kind of don't really have to be personally present. And he was like, no, that's not what it's about.

Wow. Yeah. How did that change the way that you taught? Did you ever step back into that personality or did you always, were you able to stay centered with yourself? It landed first as somewhat offensive, but also at the same time, true. You know, I was like offensive only because I was in a room of a hundred something largely strangers and I just felt like, wow. But also I

knew he was right, you know? And it did, it really changed not just the way I taught you over for the next seven years, but the way I carry myself, I think through the world and build relationships. It, you know, this is, this is almost two decades later. Now we're having this conversation and it's still in my mind. So it stayed with me. So this was all happening around, say, in Augustine where I know you went to school, that's where you got your degree in design. When you step out into the world as sort of like, quote, newly back then, what was the drive behind that? Because it seemed like all the kids who wanted to do this sexy stuff were doing the non-UX

stuff. They wanted to be on the flash side and the visual and graphic side of things, whereas the user experience side, which is really about how do we navigate this in a way that is easeful and useful and valuable. So important, so powerful. But I think now it's sort of like finding its day in the sun, but it wasn't back then when you said, this is what I want to do. Well, it was. So in terms of like the chronology in my journey, it was, you know, graphic design first. And then, like I said, I took a couple of years off and did AmeriCorps. I wanted to be of service to the world, like 100% every single day, all day long. And in that journey, I ended up working for a couple of nonprofits thereafter where I was doing facilitation work and designing for in real life

experiences, designing for, you know, transformation, growth, like personal development, social change, and bringing people in for experiences, whether they were an hour long or 10 days long, that we're going to deliver on that. And so when I came back to wanting to do, you know, quote unquote design after that, it was with all of that experience and perspective around designing for people and designing for the world. And so user experience design was just really a blend of the experience that I developed like as a facilitator and as a designer of real life experiences, along with the background in graphic design.

So it was really that combination that felt like the marriage of my skill levels and my passions and the things that the world was needing. And so, yeah, that's how those came together. Yeah. And I realized that I just made a mistake that I'm so aware of. It's okay. So many people, I think, look at design as, quote, graphic design. I'm somebody who has been fascinated with design thinking and human-centered design, which is a much more zoomed out lens, which is really what you're talking about, which is the notion of looking at the world

as a series of design challenges effectively, you know, like anything that involves a human being having to navigate the world. Designers largely are involved, whether you call yourself a designer or not, in helping to figure out what that experience looks like. And it sounds like that's really where your heart ended up focusing. Yeah. So when you step back into that world and you start to really explore things, also, somewhere along the way here, you end up making a move over to the Bay Area, which can be this incredibly buzzy place with lots of people and so much creativity. But I guess you had this really interesting sort of experience of a lot of

excitement, a lot of opportunity, and also not necessarily the easiest place to really find deep friends and build community. It was surprising to me because I've moved around a number of times in my adulthood. And even though I'm an introvert, I'm not shy. And so I never really had a hard time making friends before. And when I came to the Bay Area, I was always meeting cool people at lots of events and meetups and gatherings and things of that nature. But meeting people is different than actually forming deep, meaningful friendships. And as an introvert, it's actually quite exhausting to be constantly meeting new people and not getting to a deeper place with them.

And so it was confusing, honestly, and it was surprising. And even though it was challenging as well, it ended up being the spark for this whole journey that I'm on now and that I've been on for the last several years. And it's actually been the source of really beautiful transformation. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like also there are, on the one hand, there were some really unique circumstances that exist in the Bay Area, but also when you really start to dive into it, a lot of those things just exist in everyday life for a lot of people. But especially there, because it's known as being a really transient area. So a lot of people go there for work-based reasons and they stay for a relatively short amount of times, right? What were some of the other sort of qualities that made that experience

sort of like uniquely challenging in terms of just really finding true friends and community? Well, definitely the transiency is a big thing. A lot of folks, as you mentioned, they come here for a specific reason. They have a couple of years of that thing, and then they're out and they leave either because the cost of living or they never intended to stay here or there's other places they want to go, as well as this is a place that is marked by having a very high concentration of people who are focused on their careers. And because of that, you know, whatever sort of like workaholism or hustle culture or whatever the things are that, you know, around the country people experience, it's like on steroids in the Bay Area. And so people's focus on, you know, climbing the ladder,

building their profession, building their, you know, accomplishments in the world, it creates a lot of innovation, obviously, like so many amazing things come out of here. And it means that a lot of people don't have their focus on necessarily cultivating community or like friendships because they're like, oh, I got to go to work. Oh, I got to do this thing. Oh, I'm over here. I'm always on the run. I'm busy. I'm booked 10 weeks out. And so people are less available for the quieter moments or the spontaneous moments and the things that ultimately help foster closeness and intimacy. And along with that, I have to say that because there is such a high concentration of really interesting people and amazing projects

and art and creativity and innovation, that there's almost like a glut of cool things. So there's this glut of distraction that makes, if you have shiny object syndrome, like you're going to be all over the place here and probably similarly in New York City or like other big cities that have a lot of really amazing things going on. And when people's attention is constantly being pulled this way and that way and this way and that way, it's like, if you're just like a new friend in town and you're like, hey, remember me? We met at that potluck three weeks ago. Like, do you want to get coffee? It's to get the attention and the focus of someone is much more difficult. Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. It also seems that that particular area of the

country draws a lot of people who are sort of like hyper-creative professionals and also probably much more comfortable spending more time in their internal lives. Yes. Which I have to imagine also just kind of like compounds the issue to a certain extent. Yes. One of the more interesting things I found in the research for my first book had to do with an amazing data analysis project that Richard Florida and a whole bunch of data analysts did where they looked at psychology's big five personality traits and looked at the clusters of where they land in the country. And introversion, as you're describing, is also clustered here in this place as well. So people are more focused and can spend a lot of time on their own and in a creative space or in a reflective space and feel completely fine

for a long time that way, as opposed to like a more extroverted community or cluster personalities. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like people move to different places without necessarily thinking, oh, this is the place where introverts are safe and valued. And I can just be me. But I think we don't... I'm saying we now because that's me. We don't think it through that way. We just go because something feels more easeful about it. But it also, some of those things that allow it to feel more easeful also probably simultaneously foster a sense of, you know, solitude on the positive, but isolation in the negative, which can lead to a lot of unhappiness. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him.

We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. You use this term platonic longing that I thought was fascinating. Tell me more about it. So this came out of a lot of the research and interviews I had with people about their friendships. Because like I said, I got kind of fascinated with the topic of friendship when I started having difficulty with it here. And being a curious person, I would ask other people,

like, what is your experience of community like? What is your experience of friendship like? And over and over, there was this very nuanced description that people were giving for what they were experiencing and feeling. And it wasn't always loneliness, even though we're in a loneliness epidemic. There's a lot of that in our community in America. But people didn't always feel lonely because they had, say, coworkers that they got along with, or they had a roommate that they got along with, or they were in a relationship. But when they were craving for a really intimate friendship, feeling safe, feeling heard and seen, feeling comfortable sharing

anything, whether it's a happy day or an angry day, and knowing that they would be accepted and still loved and held by that friend, or feeling cared about in a time of need. Like this was a very, very specific ache. This was an unmet need and a hunger for a specific type of connection that was missing. And it was the friendship connection, which is why I call it platonic longing. So it's different than, you know, we know unrequited longing, which is always just given a romantic frame, this, you know, this longing for a partner or a lover or whatever. And what was here was this longing for a really, really deep friendship love. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting you use the word friendship love. I remember a couple of years

back doing some research on love and seeing it sort of deconstructed into these four types of love. There was compassionate love, which is the one that sort of allows you to feel empathy and very often inspires altruism. There was romantic love, which is what most of us think about when we talk about love. There was attachment love, which is simply just this really long-term dynamic. And then there was companionate love. But I don't think most people think about that companionate slash friendship as love. But it really isn't. And it seems like when I hear platonic longing, what I hear is almost like the precursor is that we haven't quite accepted the fact

that real friendship is about love rather than just like kind of hanging out and doing fun things and shared interests. And it's that deeper, genuine love that we're really longing for, because I think so many of us don't actually acknowledge that that is in fact a quality of genuine friendship, because it's a little bit scary, I think. Yeah. I mean, when we look at the culture that we're in, there's so much emphasis and validation for wanting, say, a romantic love or wanting to have a partnership. And there's almost this shame or embarrassment about wanting

a best friend or admitting that you don't have the kind of intimate friendships or close friendships that you really want. And I think that's really telling. There's something there that I think needs healing in our society and that I sincerely hope we can transform so that people can feel just as comfortable saying like, yeah, I'm looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend as they're saying like, yeah, I'm looking for my bestie or I'm looking for a close friend, you know, and to understand that just as much as we crave that love to come from another and we have that love to give to another, that the same is true in friendship and that it should be safe and acceptable and comfortable to admit that that is

an extremely, extremely valuable source of love in our lives. Yeah, so agree. We had Mia Bertong on the podcast last year who wrote so beautifully about the notion of family and really focusing on the idea of chosen family, which I think is really similar to what we're talking about, right? And how for many generations, it was actually a pretty normal thing that you're, quote, chosen family. You didn't call it chosen family. It's a fairly modern term. But the people you felt as family, as deep friendship, love slash family, went way beyond your biological family. And it was just a part of your life and your community. And yet we've so pulled away from that, that it feels like it really is, there's a moment for a reclamation of that notion that I think a

lot of people are starting to really re-examine it and hopefully step into to a certain extent. I hope so. I hope so. Because the more access we have to different types of relationship for that kind of connection, the less fragile our lives are and the less fragile our society is as well. And we need less fragility right now as we are smack in the middle of a classic anti-fragile moment. I mean, it's interesting because you also, so this starts as a personal issue for you. This is like, okay, so what's happening with me? Your design mind, like human centered, it's sort of like zooms, it sounds like zooms the lens out and says, huh, this can't just be about me. Let me like really dive into this and start to see like what's going on. I want to talk about some of the things that you discovered. But also, I guess part of your research project revealed that this,

in fact, is not just about you. Like the statistics on adult friendship and loneliness, especially in the US, are kind of horrifying right now. Yeah, they really, really are. And even in the short time that I was working on my book and researching this topic so deeply, it was shocking to me how quickly I would see the stats changed in the process of writing the book. I had to go back and update the stats because they were getting worse. And I was like, what is happening? This is not okay. Or how many people feel like nobody understands them? How many people feel like they have no one to turn to in a time of need? How many people feel like they don't have the number of friends that they want in their life? Or how many people haven't made a new friend in however many years? And it was really moving and really motivating as well. And when I started out that project,

one of the things I've learned as a user researcher and someone who's just generally curious about people all the time is that whenever one person's having a problem, they're usually not the only one. You know, when I have a friend who describes like, oh, I can never figure out how to use this website or this thing always confuses me. What's wrong with me? And I'm like, there's nothing wrong with you. It has to do with the way that thing was designed. And you're probably not the only one. And I've seen this over and over again. And so as I followed that thread of curiosity to what does this mean? What does friendship look like for people? What does connection look like for people?

And the more I heard people saying over and over that it was not say meeting their satisfaction level or exceeding their satisfaction level. To me, it was just like any other usability issue where it's like, can we think about how to design more closeness? How can we think about how to design better relationships and friendships? And not from a place of like design, like, oh, I'm like manipulating this thing and like forcing it to be a certain way, but it's like with intentionality, because that's what I believe design is, is the art of intentionality and bringing that purpose and intention to creating a certain desired outcome. When we're kids, maybe our friendships just happen. But in adulthood,

there's way too many distractions and responsibilities and challenges. And if you don't bring any intention, it's not just going to magically happen. And so that's where my curiosity led me. And what I'm hoping to draw people into is understanding that like there actually is some control that you have here. There is a way to be intentional in how you create it and what you bring into your life and what you bring into your friendships in that way. Yeah. I love that. I mean, it's interesting when you compare it to how we formed friendships when we were kids, you know, because the first thing is while you like just kind of happens, but when you really, I guess, think about it, there are playpens and guardrails and rules of the playground and things that are constructed

largely just to have you interacting and co-creating. But when we're kids, we generally don't create those. We're sort of put into them and maybe we take it for advantage that those are really, really, really, really important in our ability to create those friendships. You know, like private organizations or the Rotary Club or bowling leagues or, you know, like barbecues or whatever it may be. So many of those things are going away. The structures that would allow us to step into that dynamic. It makes sense that, you know, we would have to do something intentionally to recreate those later in life. But that intentional part doesn't necessarily come easily. No, it doesn't. And as you were describing, you know, the childhood playpen or like you show up

in this place and you just do it this way. What I was thinking of in that moment was like social media. It's like, that's the adult playpen where there are certain rules of engagement and there are certain guardrails that are like, oh, we want you to do it this way and interact that way. Whereas like, is that actually designed for the best of human connection and potential? I'm not anti-social media. There's a lot of good things about it, but wow, what if we considered that that was actually the adult playpen or like the playground or like that's where you spend your time with your quote unquote friends? Yeah. It's on the one hand fascinating, the other hand terrifying. Because when we think about, you know, well, who is designing the playpen here and what are their

goals? You know, like their goals are some of the smartest people in the world and the goals fundamentally to keep you consuming for as long as humanly possible. And is that goal aligned or directly in conflict with the goals of friendship, like trust and vulnerability and safety and disclosure. Because a lot of times, I feel like when people feel like that's the place for them to do it, then they get punished really quickly. Yeah. We're not really taught how to do these things in adulthood. Growing up, unless you're lucky enough to go to a super progressive Montessori school or something, there's no education about how to navigate these things. How do you build trust? How do you demonstrate commitment? How do you handle conflict resolution? Knowing that things are not going to go perfect all the time.

People will disappoint us. We are going to disappoint people. Sometimes our communication will be great. And other times it's going to be real crappy, but how do we fix these problems and how do we create real durable friendships and relationships? It's not something that we're taught. And unless somebody gets inspired to go to therapy or read a bunch of self-help books or is lucky enough to have people in their life who are incredibly skilled demonstrators of these skills and can role model that for them. A lot of people are just stuck, you know, figuring it out on their

own or just feeling confused about like, how do we do this? And how do I bring this up in a room full of other people when I don't know how they feel about it? Or will I look like the weirdo, you know, if I say the thing and people like, uh, whatever. So it's so important that we make it acceptable to talk about and make it a shame-free experience to bring up and to express and to say like, I'm learning and growing and I'm messing up. And how are you guys doing? And can we work on this together and let that be okay? Yeah. and let that be okay. Yeah, I feel like it's, I so agree. And I feel like so often we look at people

who seem to just make friends everywhere they go. And we're kind of like, they're the haves and the have-nots. Like they're the people that just, you either know how to do it and everyone gravitates you or you don't. It's not a skill. It's not something that you create.

Whereas in fact, it's not true at all. You have this interesting other kind of fascinating concept, which kind of speaks to what we're talking about, the notion of hydroponic friendship, with these elements of compatibility and frequency and commitment and proximity. And I think these are sort of like some of those skills or some of the conditions. Tell me more about those. So I'm a gardener. And for many years, as I've trained and learned more about plants, it's really taken over my metaphors that I use to process life. And one of the things that was apparent to me when I was coming across some of the research about how many hours it takes to make a close friend.

One of the studies was saying it takes 200 hours to make a friend, to go from a stranger to really feel like a close friend. And the study was done with college students who had access to each other on a much more frequent basis than most typical working adults. And I was like, wow, I was like, how am I going to share this without anybody feeling completely demotivated or like deflated when they hear that? Because they're like, where am I going to get 200 hours from? came to my mind was around hydroponics because, you know, we know now that you can grow a plant in water without soil. But when that thought was first introduced, you know, it was like laughable. People were like, how on earth could you grow a plant without soil? That's crazy. Like you should never say that again. That's bananas. Nobody will ever do that. But of course it's true and it works. And the way it works is because you give the plant the nutrients that it might have otherwise absorbed from the soil. You just put it in the water and then it grows.

And you give it light and of course, the other things it needs. And so the metaphor in my mind was in the absence of abundant time, which is what most adults feel like they're lacking to put into their friendships. And that 200 hours is going to be kind of freaky and scary for them. In the absence of that much time, what could we do to create a close friendship instead? And hydroponic friendship is the notion that if you're short on time, you can amp up or feed your plant, right, these nutrients that it needs instead. And so those are experiences of vulnerability and intimacy and like shared experiences and

the things that are also shown in research to help people bond and feel a sense of belonging with each other. And if you purposely increase those things in a condensed amount of time, people can get closer quicker. And I've seen it happen. I've seen it as a facilitator at summer camps. I've seen it as a facilitator at adult programs where when you're in a containerized space, that's like, hey, this is our social contract. This is how we're going to be together for this amount of time. This is how

we'll share. This is how we'll accept, you know, communicate, et cetera. People can, they get a lot closer, a lot quicker. And it's always this kind of like time warp, like mind bending experience to be in a situation like that, where you're talking to somebody and you're like, wow, after a few hours, you feel like you've known them for 10 years. And I've seen this happen, facilitating spaces again in facilitated spaces, this is why I believe that it's possible in friendship as well, if people bring that same intention and mutual agreement around how we will contribute to each other in this thing we're doing together and then build a friendship more quickly. Yeah, we've seen this happen also.

I got really fascinated, I don't know, five, six, seven years ago, there was a modern love piece in the New York Times that exploded, went massively viral by Mandy Lynn, where she discovered these, what are now known as the 36 questions. So researcher Arthur Ahrens out of Stony Brook University wanted to see if he could cultivate real intense intimacy between perfect strangers in a remarkably short period of time. So he manufactures these 36 questions that are designed in three sets of 12 that kind of progressively step you into vulnerability and revealing more. And then at the end of it, you gaze into each other's eyes. I think it was for four minutes. And I at the end of it, you gaze into each other's eyes. I

think it was for four minutes. And I was fascinated because the research showed, as soon as I read the story, then I went and actually looked up all the research and I read all the studies. And it showed that people who had done that, college students who were total strangers before, felt after like an hour with this person that they knew them or they knew each other more deeply and had stronger friendships than people they had known for years. That's after an hour with just the right conditions and the right prompts, which is kind of mind blowing when you really think about it. It says a lot about the power inherent in purposeful interaction. Yeah. I am being a geek and a human designer myself. I wanted to see if this would actually

help us with some of the projects that we were working on, similar to what you've done with all the community and the facilitation building. We used to take people on retreats or like a five-day retreat in Costa Rica. And what we did, we split them into groups and then we would feed them variants of those questions at night where they were just sitting around a circle around a fire. And the speed and the depth of connection was stunning. And then for five years, we ran this summer camp at Neo Camp GLP, an adult summer camp. And I think we really understood by then that so many adults are so awkward and uncomfortable around the idea of stepping into a new setting and not having, as you described, sort of like being given the skills of this is how I make a new friend as a grownup that we created a whole bunch of experiences. You know, we created the container and the ethos and the safety. And then we said, within that, we're going to give you experiences to do from the moment that you get here that give you permission to approach strangers and ask them a set of questions.

And it really is, I think, not only is it amazing how quickly that can happen, but to see what happens to people when it does as adults is really breathtaking. A facilitator, one of the warm-up activities we used to do was a micro version of what you're describing there called milling, where people just walk around a space and you pair them periodically to answer questions that increase in intimacy and self-disclosure. From very light to something a little bit more meaningful than something that's kind of close to the heart. And it's like a 15-minute activity that seriously, in the same way, people would come in as strangers. And then like, before you're even halfway into a program, they feel like they've made a new friend that they can't wait to hang out with again. They want to trade phone numbers. And then I built out from there, like this experience called Better Than Small Talk, because I struggle with small talk. As an introvert, I don't like it. And so creating like an evening experience based on that kind of interaction was one of the other experiments I

did when I came to the Bay Area because I was like, I'm not sure I'm not the only one who doesn't like small talk. So if that's you, raise your hand, come in this room and know that here you are free from that and you'll be provided with hundreds of alternatives and a willing set of people who are also bought in to saying like, let's be together in a different way. Like let's have a different kind of conversation. And when you create a gathering with that kind of purpose and that mutual intention and a set of tools to help, right? So the questions, the guides, the invitation, magic can happen. It really can. I've seen it over and over again. And people self-select, right? If you're really clear about the intention

and the quote rules of the game or rules of engagement and you offer the prompts, by the time people show up to participate in that, they've already opted in to a certain extent to being uncomfortable. And just saying, I don't really know how to do this. And I also, but I think what's even more stunning to me is they're also kind of saying, I don't know, I don't really know how to do this. And I also, but I think what's even more stunning to me is they're also kind of saying, I'm lonely. Because it's, I have to imagine it's part of why you're showing up, which is a profound act of vulnerability to do that before you even know who else is going to be there. And it's also this act of, I think, hope, you know, of believing that like, even if you feel lonely or even if you've lived here for two, three years and don't feel like you have your people yet or your friends yet, it's an act of hope to say, you know, I haven't given up yet. I'm still going to put myself out there and I'm still going to try. And I find that

incredibly just inspiring and really motivating to keep doing the work and to keep creating opportunities for people to step into when they say they're willing to step out. Yeah. I love the whole part of that because it is, I think there's this sense, I think after a while to just drop into a sense of futility, Like, oh, this is just what it's like to be a grownup. We don't get to have that level of friendship or that level of community, that level of chosen family. As adults, it was great while it was there as a kid, but that's not what being a grownup is about. But in fact, it is. And that sense of hope, that possibility, right? That, well, maybe this can sustain for life. Maybe I can recreate it in all its different

versions as I move through all the different stages of my own life. Yeah, that is an act of profound hope. I hope that it'll be true in my life. I hope that I'll continue to make deep friendships over the decades and we'll continue to experience new things with really different kinds of people and to be surprised and to be challenged and to be pushed to grow and to continually evolve, you know, and to say, you know, the best years of our life are not in the past. The best friendships of our life don't exist in some like sepia tone photo from the past, you know, like they can still be created today and they can still be created tomorrow. Yeah. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. I'm curious now, when you put together the very first Better Than Small Talk gathering, where you had done a ton of facilitation and worked in community before that,

but when you did this one thing with this intention and it was this expressed vision, that first night, that first day, whatever it was, what was that very first experience like for you and those who came? It was really joyful, honestly. I love experiments and I love social experiments and just the opportunity to be in a space where you can be surprised or where you don't know exactly what's going to happen. Like even if you have a plan, it's like in pencil, you know, it's not chiseled in stone. And so there's something really delightful to me about creating spaces for people to come into where they also feel that sense of surprise and where they also have that curiosity and that sense of play and experimentation. And so on a certain level, because of the experience I've had as a facilitator and convener of spaces, I have a certain sense of trust in how it will go.

And also a sense of trust that, you know, if something unexpected happens or kind of goes sideways, like I can probably like figure this out, you know, it'll be okay. And I remember like in the room, like putting up the cards and hanging the questions and hanging the quotes from people and writing the essay that was going to serve as the jumping off point for the group discussion we were going to have. And going through the list of the people who applied to come and reading each and every one of their hopes for coming and why they wanted to be there. And just envisioning what it would be like when they met each other. You know, to me, it was just a joyful experience and a beautiful, really fulfilling one that after that, I just wanted to do another one and another one. If people could only see your smile right now, it was like, it was like you were back in the room with this absolutely giant smile

as you were sort of like retelling that moment. That smile is what everyone needs to feel right now. And I think especially now, you know, like it's, it's because it was hard before. And I think it's harder right now. You know, we're, we're moving through this bizarre aberrant window of time right now where we're all stuck inside. As we're having this conversation where you are, you've literally just gone back into almost a full lockdown. And if we're having trouble creating these moments and experiences and relationships and

understanding what are the prompts, what are the questions, and when that happens now, where we're forced into trying to make this all happen in more of a virtual domain, that also really changes things. I mean, it was interesting. You came out with We Should Get Together. I guess it was the beginning of this year. January, yeah. Right. Which was like, okay, so this is the guidebook. This is the blueprint, the master plan for all of us adults who can't figure it out.

I'm going to walk you through it all. And then 2020 hits. And then you kind of came out with this second thing, like, hey, wait, things are weird. We're in this crazy upside down world. Here's more guidance. I'm curious about that. Yeah. I had a number of people reach out to me when We Should Get Together came out and they were like, Kat, I need help with friendship. But to be honest, I don't read books. Can you just tell me what to do? Just tell me. I believe that you did the research.

I trust you. But just give me things to do. And I thought that was kind of funny. I was like, OK. And there was also the additional constraint of we can't meet up. And as a designer, and any designer knows this, like constraints are where creativity comes from. Like, sure, you can be creative with like, just like no constraints, like you can do anything. But it's actually much more creative and interesting when you have a very unusual constraint. And that's the thing that has fascinated me the most about this year is like the constraint of like, how do we maintain our relationships and connections when we can't see each other and it's not safe to be indoors together and we have to do it from afar. And so the addendum connected from afar was kind of born out of those two sets of things. So one, the constraints and two people being like,

just give me things to do. Oh my God, I've already baked 900 loaves of sourdough bread. Just, I need a different thing to do. And I want to feel close to my friends. So that's really what that is from is to say like, what if we took away the excuse of like, I don't know what to do and I'm out of ideas. And it's like, actually here's six months of weekly ideas that will help you feel closer to your people. Even if you cannot see them face to face. Now you kind of have no excuses. I like to challenge people as a coach and as a facilitator. I'm like, I would like you to step a little bit outside of your comfort zone and actually try this thing that is within your capacity.

And if you don't like that one, taking the things that are the best at cultivating connection, whether it's expressions of intimacy, vulnerability, appreciation, basically all the things in the five love languages. It's like whether it's quality time or words of affirmation, like there's different, all of that's kind of sprinkled in there. And to say like, these are things that you can do from literally any distance with someone that you care about if you want to feel closer to them. Yeah. And it makes so much sense. I mean, because I think a lot of people struggle and maybe also don't believe that you can get the same thing when you are not geographically in the same place together, when you're not in the same room together.

I've experienced this in an interesting way with the podcast. For six years, we recorded only in person in the studio in New York City. Because my firm belief was that we could never recreate the safe space, the container, the intimacy, the trust in the virtual space. And very quickly, I had to make a decision. Either we shut down or we try. There was a new constraint. There was a whole new set of constraints. And so we did a lot of experimentation. And what I learned was really, really surprising, which is, yeah, I still don't how do we function differently with this new set of not just constraints, but also possibilities. And I think that that is, as you described it, the design side of this, which is to say, okay, so instead of, well, this sucks, everything is shut down. What if the reframe is, okay, here's a new set of constraints. Constraints breed creativity. What can we create under this new paradigm? That's really the opportunity of this

moment. It really is. It's to say how, not just like, oh, cliche, how can we make the best of it, but actually what can we do now that we thought we couldn't do before? And that it can actually give us a different sense of appreciation and perspective that wasn't possible to have before without this constraint. Yeah. So you have created a number of communities all the way back from AmeriCorps through so many different, through Better Than Small Talk, Bay Area Black black designers, all with different intentions in different communities. More recently, you've taken all of these lessons and sort of like looked at this moment in time and created this thing called Connection Club, which our producer, Lindsay, is a member of and just loves, loves, loves

participating in this, has grown and learned and had such a joyful experience. Tell me more about this. Where does it come from and what's the intention behind it? So Connection Club came from, again, it was one of the creations born out of how do I design for connection in a time where people cannot get together. They cannot see each other. And we're also experiencing a certain level of digital overload, honestly. We're all attached to our devices all day long and our Zooms and our screens. And so Connection Club is a chance to, while we do meet over Zoom, is a chance to temper that with an analog sense of creativity and play and fostering a friendship or relationship in your life with intention and purpose. And also saying, you know, if you are needing more connection in your life or you want to make more new friends or have meaningful conversations and you don't know where to go, this is also a place to get it.

So the first half hour of the time that we meet, we're actually, after we say hello, and then we turn off our cameras and we spend that time in the practice of writing. And that writing time is a chance to be like, push your computer away, get a piece of paper, get your pens or get your art supplies, and use that to write a letter on a piece of paper that you will send in the mail to someone that you care about and that you want to foster a closer relationship with. And using the ritual of writing to, whether it's the same person or different people, to nurture those connections in a way that doesn't require us to be tethered to our devices. Some people also use it to make that time for journaling or for making art or for doing the things that we all say we want to do, but we never have time to do it. There's accountability here in the fact that we meet at these times and we agree to do at this time, the thing that we say

is important to us. And then in the second half hour, if you want to meet more people, you want to have close connections. You want to build a sense of friendship with other people who you know value connection to, like here they are all in a room together and everyone's really sweet and openhearted. And so that is what Connection Club is. It has truly been one of the bombs for this stressful time that we're all in. It is sweet. It is relaxing. It is like super low key and a really beautiful moment to experience a lightweight, very low key, easy access to connection and to feel supported and also nurturing your own friendships in your own life at the same time. Yeah.

I love that. I love the way that you structured it also in that the generative introverted time comes first. Yes. And then the extroverted connection time is sort of like the optional second half. Yes. Because if you think about almost every other experience that we move into, it's the opposite, right? You have to kind of like,

especially if you're more introverted, you have to kind of endure the opening extroverted onslaught long enough so you kind of get to like the more generative fun activities or whatever it may be. That's on purpose. The designer, I kind of figured that was very much intentional. And I also love that a lot of this really generative, introverted, creative work that you do in the beginning is also connected in some meaningful way to acts of connection or acts of writing a letter to someone else, if that's what you're up to. Sort of like, it's checking a lot to someone else, if that's what you're up to. It's checking a lot of boxes. It's a beautiful design.

Thank you. Thank you. And as an introvert who has endured thousands of hours of extrovert-focused gatherings, I purposely wanted to make a space that says, you know, introverts come first this time. Sometimes we need a little ramp on. It takes a little time to warm up before we're ready to talk. Yeah. And I'm raising my hand right there beside you with all of that. I mean, you write about what you describe as sort of like the four challenges of friendship, hypermobility, busyness, sort of blending with family and kind of like surface level conversation. And I think what we're going through now

kind of allows us to revisit those things because everybody is having to remap those things, right? So it's sort of like, okay, so how can I remap those in a way which supports deeper relationships? Because it's all getting broken no matter what. I didn't ask for this, but I have to break all of the structures that created these things. So how do I want to reassemble the pieces in a way which, at least for the time being, allows me to maybe flourish maybe even more than I did before? And then in quote, after times, how can I maybe sustain this? Or does that lead to even deeper relationships when we can actually port some of this back to face-to-face?

But then maybe some things I don't want to port back to the way. It's not about getting back to the way things were. It's like, how do we recreate a new future that takes what we've learned now and keeps building and making things better, right? That's what we have this opportunity to do right now is to say, what can be new right now? How can we let go and adapt and experiment and try this? And then really then in that after time, whenever it comes, whether it's six months or a year or two years, who knows, how can we then take everything that we've learned in this process and that we've assumed was the only quote unquote normal way to be from before and actually have

something better, more fulfilling tomorrow? Yeah, that is the aspiration. So one of the things that's happened this year that's really turned the world upside down is the pandemic. I think the other thing that's happened in the US at least is a rapidly growing awareness of inequity, especially around race this year. There's been inequity, gender, sexual orientation, race, ageism, ableism for generations and generations. But I feel like this year, inequity around race and racism and systems of oppression has really come to the fore. And I feel like this conversation also is deeply relevant to that, right? Because a big part of, I think, you know, we're together yet alone. We're so sort of broken into isolated communities that exist in the same geographic

area, yet don't often interrelate in ways where we can actually really know people, let alone know ourselves and understand our roles in community. And part of this, I think, is also, do we have friendships with people who aren't like us? And do we have a depth of friendships with people who aren't like us that would allow us to actually really know them and really know their lives and really know their fears and concerns and struggles and hopes and aspirations. So I think a lot of what we're talking about here, it's valuable in the context of, well, it makes all of our lives richer, but it's also, I think there's another layer to it in this moment too, which is a call to action, right? To move beyond just trying to build new friendships with people who look like

us and believe like us and feel like us and take a next step, which may be uncomfortable for a lot of people, but so important, especially now. And there are a lot of people, myself included, who don't necessarily think that the best of times were in the past. As a Black queer woman in America, I would love a lot of things to change. And there are a lot of things that can be so much better than they have been in this country when it comes to inequity. And so would be delighted to say, no, America, like, let's not go back to that. This is actually the chance to make it a hell of a lot better. And like, can we do that now? Now that everybody gets it or most people get it or a lot more people get it, can we please work on that, you know, instead of going back?

Because there's a lot of us who don't necessarily want to go back to that sleep mode where there's just been too much suffering for too long. There's actually a chance to like change that. Yeah. I mean, right. When sort of like the bigger structures get broken in a really big public way. Yeah. Then assembling those pieces differently.

And I think also where you have a whole lot of people who have benefited from the way that it was for a really long time awakening to their own benefit. You know, it's interesting too, that process when we think about like within the context of the conversation around adult friendships and adult sort of like friendship love, it's almost like when we think about how to step into relation now with people who don't look like me, who don't see the world like me. Part of that, part of knowing them requires me to also know me better, right? Because in relation, we know ourselves. We know not just others better, but ourselves better. And that can be scary because it may mean that I have to own parts of myself

that are dark and that I'm not happy with. And I wonder if sometimes that's what stops people from doing that work is because a mirror gets held up really quickly to the parts of yourself that you don't like and that really are calling out for change. And people just don't want to deal with that. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't. Yeah, there's no healing on the outside without healing on the inside too. And if you move forward in the world wanting to create that healing externally or to create that relationship externally, there has to be that mutual reflection, that mutual work on the inside to say you're going to have that relationship with you, who you are. You're going to have that healing if you need it or that self-acceptance if you learn something about yourself and you're like, wow, that's really challenging. Do I like that? Do I want that? Will I keep that? Will I transform that? And how can I love that at the same time, even if I'm changing it or even if I'm keeping it, even if it's not perfect,

but it has to happen on the inside and the outside at the same time. It really does. And being a friend to yourself is just as vital and more important than just saying you want to be a friend to other people. Otherwise, at some point, like the strings are going to start to unravel if you don't take that time to look inside and also to be there with who you are on the inside, too. Yeah. I mean, coming full circle to the notion of a design thing or human-centered design, it always starts with empathy. And sometimes we have to take that empathic skill and look not only at the outside world and those around us, but we have to turn it inside and really understand. Because I think so often we're fiercely disconnected from our own sense of self and our own sense of feeling and our own sense of beliefs and values that, yeah yeah if we want to not just redesign a world from you know like the outside in but um from the

inside out first we have to do that work of knowing our inside have to have to yeah feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well so hanging out here in this container of a good life project if i offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To me, living a good life means feeling completely capable, able, and ready to create what you want to see in the world and to be who you want to be in the world. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool

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whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday,

mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hit man. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.