Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
Okay, I have a question for you.
Why don't we have more fun?
I mean, remember the good old days?
Now I'm sounding like a grandparent, but you know what I mean.
Barbecues, weekend plans, movie nights with friends.
Why are we not doing more of that?
I really miss it.
Don't you?
So here's what I did.
I called in the expert on how to create real, meaningful connections with your friends and with your family to help you and me out.
Her name, Priya Parker.
Priya is going to teach you how to deepen your relationships with the people that you care about most, even if you don't get along with them.
And she's going to start the conversation by asking you a very specific question.
And this is a question that you're going to need to ask yourself anytime you're going to see your family, your friends.
You need to ask yourself this question before you even start a Zoom call.
You're going to love this because the truth is time is ticking.
If you're lucky for your parents or your siblings to be alive, you may only see them a handful of times every year, like I do, because we don't live near each other.
And when you do get together with family, there's so often this tension that you just wish wasn't there.
And guess what?
They wish it wasn't there either.
That's why this episode matters.
It's gonna help you make every moment you have with other people so much better, whether at work, whether around the dining room table, whether you're talking about your friends or your neighbors.
And don't we all deserve to have meaningful conversations, better connections and a whole lot more fun.
Of course we do.
And that's exactly what we're going to know how to do after our episode today.
Before we get started, I wanted to encourage you to stick around later in the episode to hear a special segment sponsored by Verizon, because I'm going to share with you how important it is to raise your standards.
So stick around.
You're going to love it.
Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
I am so excited that you're here.
I'm excited for this conversation.
I want to have more fun.
I know you do too.
It's an honor to be together, to spend this time with you, and I promise you we're going to have fun and you're going to love this.
And if you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this with you, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family.
Today, you and I are getting the secret to building community and connection with your family and friends from our incredible guest and expert today, Priya Parker.
Priya is considered the leading expert in the world on how to create meaningful connections whenever you get together with other people.
She has degrees from Harvard, MIT, and the University of Virginia.
Her bestselling book The Art of Gathering, is considered the most cited and renowned book on how to better come together with people around you.
She is also a conflict resolution facilitator who's helped lead global peace conversations in Asia and Africa, and for decades.
She has taught people just like you and me how to handle conflicts in our lives with the people we love.
So please help me welcome Priya Parker to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
Priya Parker, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really excited because I feel like I want to have more fun and see people more.
Fun is good for our families.
Fun is good for our health.
Fun is not only fun, it's actually crucial to our relationships and to our communal life.
Amazing.
Well, we all want to have it, but for some reason it seems kind of hard to be making fun and gathering and connecting with people.
And so I want to read to you from your bestselling book, The Art of Gathering, How We Meet and Why It Matters.
This is from the introduction.
We spend our lives gathering.
First in our families, then in neighborhoods and playgroups, schools and churches, and then in meetings weddings, town halls conferences, birthday parties, product launches, board meetings, class family reunions, dinner parties, trade fairs and funerals.
And we spend much of that time in uninspiring, underwhelming moments that fail to capture us, change us in any way or connect us to one another.
Any number of studies support a notion that's obvious to many of us.
Much of the time we spend in gatherings with other people disappoint us.
For the person who is nodding their head.
You've had that experience of being in a room full of people and you feel alone.
You force yourself to go out because you know it's good for you to get out of the house and you spend money eating at a restaurant you don't want to be at.
You have a boring conversation with people that are slightly annoying that you don't connect with.
And then you get home and you're like, why did I even do that?
Why do I even try?
Why do I even try?
I just spent $73 on a meal.
I put pants on.
Yes, I put pants on.
I put my makeup on.
Yes.
Why do I even try?
Yes.
There's almost nothing lonelier than being with other people. and feeling alone.
And so part of the opportunity we have is so much of modern life, and our thinking about hosting or gathering has always focused on the logistics.
Whether it's the food, whether it's the infrastructure, whether it's the table, whether it's the venue, and all of those things matter.
But we're basically told that you leave the rest to chance.
You hope for the best when it comes to people.
And I'm a convict resolution facilitator.
How do you help people connect without having to be the same?
And so much of what my peers and I are taught as facilitators isn't taught in modern culture.
And so we are taught, we're trained as a whole profession of how do you help people get off their scripts.
How do you create a dinner where people actually, instead of saying what they always say, pause for a second and think?
And then something new happens.
But so often because we assume we're just supposed to leave people to themselves, or it's awkward to impose, or who am I to try to steer the conversation?
We are leaving people less well off than if they had just stayed at home.
And I take it this also applies to family since even though y'all share DNA potentially.
Absolutely.
That you don't have the same belief system and that you are very different.
And maybe this is a dumb question, but what do you mean when you say gathering?
Because when you say the word gathering, I thought you meant throwing a party.
So I define a gathering as any time three or more people come together with a beginning, middle and end for a reason.
And so much of what I'm trying to work on as a facilitator is our country.
Our culture is awash in self-help.
And self-help is important.
Those tools have deeply helped me.
I am in therapy.
I have deeply benefited from many individual tools.
But when the lens is basically, how do I just improve myself?
How do I count my steps?
How do I take my sugar intake?
All of those things are important, but we actually also need group help.
How do we actually help the groups of our life?
And so many of our problems are shared problems.
They're not going to be solved by just the individual.
They have to be solved by the group.
And so it's an invitation to start getting interested in the group help business too.
Oh, I love that.
The group help business.
I think we all can agree we need some help with the groups, whether it's our group of friends, or the group that is the family, or the group that is the in-laws, or the group that is your neighbors, or the group that is your colleagues at work.
And that's what you're going to teach us today.
Absolutely.
How to have better connections in the groups we're in and how to create new groups of people and how to show up in groups.
And how to diagnose when something is off.
How do you have the tools and the confidence to do something, whether it's a high school or college reunion right?
So many people get onto an airplane to go to this reunion, sometimes across countries, and then you go and like nothing much happens.
And it's almost, it breaks your heart.
Everyone's here.
If we just put a little bit of structure in it, if we just thought of it in a different way, you can move this entire night from everyone feeling, sort of, you know, isolated and repeating high school over again to imagine having the best conversations of your life with the people that you grew up with 40 years ago.
Well, I also thought of another example.
How many times have you traveled to go see family and everybody sits inside?
Yeah.
And kind of catches up.
And then within... hours a day.
You're kind of irritated and bored, kind of like looking at our watches.
Traffic's going to be building up.
We should probably leave a little earlier than we thought.
And you've checked the box, but you actually didn't get anything.
You haven't watered the garden.
Well, that group needs help, let me tell you.
And we all have that particular family member's house that we're thinking about right now, where you know a small part of you goes to die and to show up and we all kind of hope it's going to be a little bit different.
But I'm starting to gather no pun intended that there are specific strategies that we can be using to in those situations, and those situations are all over our lives.
So you say there are three ways to spice up or have more fun in any gathering of people.
Make it more meaningful.
Let's talk about the first way.
So the biggest mistake we make when we gather is we skip defining the purpose.
What is the purpose of this gathering?
What is the purpose of this family reunion?
What is the purpose even of coming together for Thanksgiving or Shabbat or whatever category you have in your head?
The simplest way, if you remember nothing else from our conversation, is to first ask every single time what is the need here?
What are we craving?
And so often we skip defining the purpose that we go back into these old forms that are no longer serving anyone.
I would love to have you break down purpose and I know you have a physical prop to show us, and I will explain what this is.
She has yoga blocks, and Priya has just put up one that says purpose.
So The first step in thinking about how to have a meaningful gathering is to ask what is the purpose?
Why in this case that you're talking about, why am I coming to this?
Why am I visiting my parents?
Why do I do this?
And it may sound kind of wild to say, like, why am I visiting my parents?
But hear me out.
The reasons why you might visit your parents 20 years ago might actually be a different reason than you're visiting now.
And so 20 years ago, it might have been depending on your age or stage in life to get some help with your kids.
Right.
I'm visiting my parents so that they can bond with my kids.
And I'm willing to deal with everything else, because what is important to me is making sure that there's a connection there.
And 20 years later, your kids may be out of the house and you're still visiting your parents.
The need that I might have now might be different.
The purpose might be to start asking them about marriage, their lives, as I'm starting to think about their mortality.
I don't need to tell them that.
But there are a lot of ways to actually flip the script when you bring in new ways of being together.
So I'll give a simple example.
I was visiting my father.
He lives in Florida.
And I was taking my children and we sat down at a restaurant.
We don't live in the same state.
It's a rare moment, right?
We could talk about the weather.
We could talk about the beach we just went to.
And I knew inside of me like this is one of the few times of the year my children are going to be with my father.
And so I said to them, kids, you want to ask grandpa a magical question?
And a magical question and you all can use.
This is a question that everyone in the group would be interested in answering.
And everyone in the group would be interested in hearing each other's answers.
That part is important.
And my daughter looks up and her eyes are bright and sparkly.
And my father looks and says, what's that?
And she goes, I have one. what's the naughtiest thing you've ever done that was worth it?
And we all, my father, you know, his eyes gets bright.
And then she goes, before the age of 12.
And we were off to the races.
And I laughed and I shared something my kids had never heard.
They each kind of decided what they were going to confess in front of me.
I heard stories from my father I'd never heard before.
We were laughing.
Those were two completely different lunches.
And so part of thinking about what is my purpose when I'm about to enter into a room like that.
And for me it's to connect my children, and particularly to connect my father to the present version of my children.
And to connect my children to the complex being my father is and has been over his seven decades on this planet.
What I love about this, because it's so obvious once you hear it.
Not rocket science.
And deeply personal and profound.
I have this saying that I say a lot, which is, if you change nothing, nothing changes.
And we spend a lot of time anticipating and hoping to have fun and wishing that the connection will happen and fingers crossed that this lunch is somehow magically gonna be different than every lunch that we do three times a year, that we've done for the last decade.
And then somehow we're surprised and disappointed that it is not any different.
And it comes down to the opportunity that you're teaching us today, which is to wake up and realize that you have a lot of power here.
But if you change nothing, nothing changes.
And the first thing you need to change is just take a beat and be like, what's the purpose?
If I'm actually going to go, What is the purpose?
There is some need in my life that I can fill with this gathering.
That's the purpose.
I don't need to tell anybody else.
I'm not telling my dad.
I just need to figure out okay, what are some things that I could do so that I get that need filled.
Yes.
And I love that.
You also.
You know.
You said there are three different layers to the purpose, ways to think about it.
So the first is to think about the gathering being specific.
Meaning lies in specificity.
So one of the reasons often we're not sure how to gather is it either feels too complicated or there's like too much to do.
Your gathering, this is a real example, can literally be a woman I know, her basil plant bloomed.
Like she literally realized she had too many basil leaves in her little window basil plant.
And she decided to invite her friends over to help plant.
Her eat, her basil.
She had a margarita pizza party and basil mocktails.
That was it, right?
But it was specific.
You know, you just gave me an idea for gathering.
There you go.
Three years ago, I planted these bulbs for a foxtail lily, which grows like five feet tall.
And it's got this gorgeous, like feathery cone of a flower that goes from like orange to light yellow.
They're just so extraordinary.
And I remember reading on the package that they will be basically dormant and boring for three to four years.
This is a summer.
When I left for this studio, those suckers were coming up and they're starting to do this.
And I could throw a cocktail party.
A viewing party.
A viewing party for the Foxtail.
I have three of them.
Only three.
These were expensive bulbs.
It's enough.
And so, and I've waited three years for these suckers.
Oh, by the way, write this in the invitation.
Oh, it's all.
And so the invitation becomes this opening to this story, right?
I bought these three years ago.
There are only three.
They are expensive.
And on June 21st, they're going to bloom.
And won't you come witness this spectacle of beauty with me?
You could tell them to wear the colors of the flower, right?
But specificity allows us, particularly in modern life, to have meaning together.
What is the next piece of purpose?
Okay.
The next piece of purpose is unique.
So a good purpose for a gathering is specific, it's unique.
And part of a gathering is like, how is this gathering different than all other gatherings?
How is me turning 37 different than me turning 56?
What is it that uniquely I need or want in this moment of life?
And part of thinking about.
Even if it's that same family dinner every Sunday, right?
Or if it's visiting the parents, or even if it's a team meeting, people are different from week to week.
The needs that you actually have might be different from week to week.
I had a friend who was turning 50.
And he realized that what he wanted for his 50th birthday, he thought again, what is my purpose?
What is my need in this moment?
And he thought to himself, you know, he got kind of scared.
He's feeling sort of depressed.
And he realized, like, he doesn't usually get mopey around his birthday.
And so he started thinking about it.
He talked about it with his wife.
And he realized so many people in his life he saw once they turned 50 started taking less risks.
Yeah.
And he's a journalist and it really scared him.
And he said, I don't want to be somebody who starts contracting after I'm 50.
And so he decided to throw a birthday party and invite everybody in his life who represent adventure.
So that was a unique thing.
He didn't need that at 49.
He didn't need that at 51.
The third part of purpose...
I'm moving this block over here, is being disputable.
What do you mean disputable?
It's not for everyone.
It's people may disagree with it.
It's almost like having a point of view.
So years ago, when I wrote The Art of Gathering, a journalist called me up and she'd been assigned to Art of Gatheringify her dinner party.
And she said, Priya, can you art of gatheringify my dinner party?
And I said what is a need in your life that, by bringing together a specific group of people, you might be able to address?
And she paused and she was like, you know, I'm a journalist, but I'm also a working mom.
And I'm really worn out.
And the other day I was at a friend's house and she cut me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into triangles and fed me baby carrot sticks.
And I burst into tears.
And I said, why did you burst into tears?
And she said because I realized I'm a worn out mom and it's been a long time since someone has taken care of me.
What if I hosted a dinner party for my other worn out moms?
And I said, give it a name.
And she called it the worn out mom's hootenanny.
And then I said, give it a pop-up rule.
And she said, if you talk about your kids, you have to take a tequila shot.
And all of a sudden, like the blood started coming back into her face.
It moved from an obligation to something she actually wanted to do.
She sent out this invitation with the story, with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich story.
And all six women RSVP'd yes within the first 45 minutes.
And she hosted this amazing, hilarious, beautiful, disputable conversation. night.
One of the ways, as you're thinking about reimagining that family gathering or reimagining the way your friends hang out, it's not to do it in the room.
90% of the success of a gathering happens before anyone has entered.
You have to actually start with the purpose.
And then you got to almost like a like.
You're like you know your fishing rod.
You're like wheeling your guests in.
You have to prime them and give them a sense of like, are you up for this?
This is my need.
Do you share this need?
So the worn out mom's hootenanny is a disputable purpose. what if I want to talk about my kids?
Then you got to take a shot.
I'm being a little facetious here, but part of having a gathering that's about something is it's creating boundaries.
It's actually saying that for this night, this is what we're actually going to be doing.
And And also, if you're not up for it, that's okay.
Not everyone has to come to everything.
Not every gathering is for everyone.
And so part of modern life is we actually often over-include, in part because we haven't thought about what our purpose is.
And we back into it.
And then we think well, you know, we actually had a different conversation because they brought these other friends.
And so we weren't able to have the conversation we would normally have, because that would have excluded the guests who were here.
And so often we get kind of scrambled and convoluted in our gatherings because in trying to be nice and generous and the spirit of generosity we tend to actually kind of dilute our gatherings because we haven't thought about what is this for.
Our most precious thing we have is our time.
And so part of the invitation is to think more deeply ahead of time about what can you do with the people in it, and are they game for it?
And when you start with purpose, it changes everything.
Okay, I'm going to put these blocks to the side.
You know, I can almost hear the person who's with us right now nodding along and then thinking What is wrong with just hanging out?
Like I'm already exhausted.
I'm doing so much at work.
Cooking for all these people.
Like now I got to come up with a purpose and an intention and prop.
If the way you are spending time with your people is fulfilling you, keep going.
Keep going.
You are lucky if the way you're hanging out with your friends, if the way you're hanging out with your family, is nourishing for you and nurturing awesome.
Don't change anything.
But if you are feeling a sense of like, I
I'm feeling lonely.
Then to pause and to actually think about how you want to spend your time and invite the others, who also may be frustrated with how they're spending their time, to join you.
You'll have a much richer, connected, delightful, fun life.
Okay, let's put this to the test.
So this summer, I'm hosting a bunch of different people at our home in Vermont.
And one of the reasons why this is happening is it's our 30th wedding anniversary.
Wow.
And instead of, I know I'm surprised too.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Instead of throwing a party where I stopped and thought you know, let's throw a big party and a dance party.
I love a dance party.
And I thought, well, wait a minute.
I'm not going to talk to anybody.
So do I really want to have a big party to celebrate or do I want to celebrate in a different way?
And so we reached out to groups of friends that don't live near us, and then invited them to come over certain weekends.
And we have a bunch of my husband's college friends coming because there's a bluegrass festival nearby us.
And there'll probably be 20 people at our house.
And I said to everybody, bring tents and please leave your dogs at home.
But beyond that, I haven't thought about it.
I mean, you've already thought a lot about it.
That's beautiful.
So you have a purpose, right?
You have a need, which is to celebrate your 30th anniversary.
Would you say that's the need?
The need is really... I just... I think like everybody...
The years of 2020 through 2025 basically hit delete on almost all of our social lives.
Yeah, between hybrid work and people moving and empty nesting and job changing and just getting reclusive.
Yeah.
Because you're... at home on Zoom calls.
And, you know, who wants to drive into the city to see people?
Everyone's tired.
Everyone's exhausted.
And so I think the purpose is, that this is fulfilling is I miss seeing friends.
It's beautiful.
I miss these experiences.
I miss the things that Chris and I used to do when we had either little kids that we could drag everywhere.
You know the parties that you have when you're young adults and every kid's running around in diapers and you know it doesn't matter if you're sleeping on a couch.
We're all just kind of together.
That I want, I miss that in my life and I realize it's not going to fall out of the sky.
I need to create this.
It's beautiful.
It's a gift to them.
And you're also naming something.
There's so much.
I'm a conflict resolution facilitator and sort of conflict resolution 101 is name it.
Like name the thing, name the grief, name the loss, name it.
And so part of what's so beautiful about you naming this thing and saying wow, we haven't done this since 2019, is you're naming something that other people also experienced.
Yes.
And so you can almost feel like your throat sort of tightening in a good way.
That's saying yes, I have that too.
And so when you're bringing your people together, almost the excuse of your 30th anniversary, right?
Like this is a big moment.
Maybe I'll use this as an excuse to bring everyone together.
To be together in spectacle and joy and bluegrass and remembering that like we can be alive and we can be together.
That's enough.
It's so beautiful.
So another thing that I could use help with is we have family coming in from out of town.
And one of the patterns that I've noticed is that we tend to go to someone's house and And then hang.
And I notice that when we go on a trip somewhere where there are things to do, there's less conflict.
Definitely.
There is more fun.
Definitely.
That somehow going to people's houses and hanging becomes a cauldron for all kinds of short tempers and frustrations and criticism.
I mean, think about the difference between even just your body language describing your 30th anniversary of people are coming and we're pitching tents and I said no dogs and we're going to bluegrass.
And then you're like, versus this other thing, that you're going to go and you're going to sit in this couch and you're going to sink deeper and deeper into this couch.
Part of groups are groups.
And whether it's family or whether it's friends, people love adventure.
Right.
You're actually.
When you're going out on adventure, when you're in a city or you're in a new place, you actually have a third element to interact with.
And so talk is actually sometimes not good for connection.
Ooh, hold on.
Talk? is not good for connection.
My mentor, Hal Saunders, he created this process called sustained dialogue.
Like literally his entire profession was about helping people talk better to each other.
And what he would always tell us baby facilitators is dialogue is not always the right tool.
Sometimes people need to play a soccer game.
Sometimes people need a dance party.
Sometimes they need to go out and have an effing blast together.
Or go antiquing or go drive and- Go gardening. go on a walk.
Sometimes what people actually need is to talk less, because we get into these loops, we get into these same patterns.
And often there's a whole element of talk that actually creates much more distance.
And so, particularly with families, particularly with people that you spend a lot of time with, where you sort of get stuck in a role, even more important is that, the times of have fun, to go do something you wouldn't normally do.
I had a friend for Thanksgiving last year who was bringing together in-laws for the first time multiple uncles and aunts and she organized a collective sound bath for the entire group.
Like she literally created a sound bath.
They're not going to talk.
They're going to sit together in silence for 90 minutes.
That sounds amazing.
Right?
And so, even when you think about whether it's your family, what you think about is your friends coming for your 30th anniversary party.
One of the best ways to... lower your anxiety about hosting is to share the burden.
And what I mean by that is to in some way make everyone be a sub-host or a co-host in a way that would delight them.
Oh, so with your friends, there's just one example.
You don't have to do this.
If you say you have three days together.
Sometimes I do this with with friends, birthday parties, particularly for a big one.
People are traveling to invite everyone to bring some kind of gift or offering for the group.
And that could be, I've done this before at a 40th birthday party.
One person brought their favorite tiny little drops of a specific sunblock.
And their offering for the entire group was making sure that everyone didn't get a sunburn.
And someone else brought their favorite game from their childhood.
And they introduced this game for 20 minutes.
You know what I love about that?
Is that you gave people a specific assignment.
They can get creative and then you don't end up with 14 bagels that nobody ate and tubs of potato salad that people want to jam in your fridge.
Or tap dancing the entire time trying to entertain everyone.
Someone else brought beautiful little tiny bars of organic chocolate.
And just literally the act of going around to 35 other guests at some point over the course of the weekend.
It makes people look towards each other.
It gives them a tiny little sense of like, this is my gathering too.
And so part of thinking about spending time together is finding ways to help people have a shared experience without needing to be the same.
Another very simple thing is fun dress codes.
Fun dress codes meaning wear the single best thing in your closet.
No shopping.
Oh, I love the no shopping.
I once did this for a birthday party.
Three people showed up in their wedding dresses.
Oh, that's killer.
I know a woman who threw a no pants party in Chicago in her apartment.
It was July.
Her AC wasn't working.
I think it was from like a Simpsons episode.
People showed up in everything from bathing suits to skirts to dresses.
Her father showed up in overalls and a good-natured fight broke out about whether or not overalls are pants.
Like it was a total hit because there was shared context.
Priya, thank you.
I am so excited that you're here and I need to take a quick pause so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors.
But don't go anywhere.
Priya writes about this concept called unhealthy peace, that you have unhealthy peace in your life, in friendships with your family.
She's going to describe what that is and exactly what to do about it, because we do need to do something about it.
And we're going to get to that a little bit later.
Don't go anywhere.
We'll be right back.
Welcome back.
It's your friend, Mel Robbins.
Today, you and I are here with the bestselling author of The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker.
So Priya, one thing I want to circle back to, because I think it's advice that is going to profoundly change lives for the better gatherings with our family which is, I want you to really think about the some people don't want to talk.
They need to either go on a walk or go to a museum or play a soccer game.
Yes.
That, oftentimes it's not that deep.
And my husband and I tend to be deep people that want to talk.
And I can see how, when you try to engage somebody that does not like to talk, that does not want to discuss feelings or their plans for when they die or whatever, it is that my husband, the death doula, would like to really get deep into.
And that it creates tension, and how can you shift so that you can make them more comfortable?
And maybe let's keep moving.
Nothing to see here, okay.
Groups are like accordions and group gatherings are like accordions.
Sometimes you want a lot of density in the conversation and everyone having the shared experience.
And sometimes you need to kind of loosen it out and pull it back out.
So if you think about a family reunion or a friend's reunion for three days, actually some of the best gatherers I know are introverts.
Some of the best gatherers I know recharge alone.
And, in my research, so many of the gatherers that other people told me create amazing gatherings, self-identified as introverts, self-identified to often be on the outside of things.
And I asked one of them, why do you think this is?
And she said I am so uncomfortable at so many of the gatherings that I come to that I started designing gatherings I actually want to be at.
So what are some of the attributes of a gathering that introverts like?
So I'm walking in knowing.
So the first element is not relying on your personality and your tap dancing to be the person who's connecting everyone and being the person who's giving all the toast, and being the person who has to basically be the infrastructure of everyone else.
It's actually thinking about the thoughtful structure ahead of time that will allow people to connect with each other.
I was once at a birthday party that had a quiet corner and it literally said quiet corner and there's two hammocks and all day long.
Part of the thing is we all need breaks, right?
And so sometimes they're really good at saying, you know what?
And they put two people together in the family who don't necessarily know each other.
We all go out and just get some eggs.
We need some eggs.
Just shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo.
And they'll go and have a conversation in the car that they would never otherwise have.
Introverts think at least the ones that I've spent time with and that are really great gatherers they really think about shared context.
They think about meaning.
And they also have the empathy to know that there's many ways to connect, and it's not just through conversation.
Right.
That's great.
You say that another thing that a really good gathering requires is good controversy.
What the heck does that mean?
So, I mean, I should start by saying I am a conflict-averse conflict resolution facilitator.
So I am a conflict resolution facilitator, and I hate conflict.
My parents are divorced and when they first separated— I bet you have a lot to talk about with your therapist.
I have a lot to talk about with my husband.
You know what I'm saying?
Absolutely.
That was like a very interesting—.
So I mean basically, when my parents separated, everyone was shocked—.
Because they never fought.
Oh.
They never fought.
And so I learned from a young age that there's great loss and avoidance.
And that human connection can be as threatened by unhealthy peace as it is by unhealthy conflicts.
Unhealthy peace.
Oh, I just thought of about five marriages I know of.
And friendships.
Oh.
Right?
And work relationships.
Unhealthy peace.
And so part of like... Can we just talk about that for a minute?
Yes.
Give me some examples of unhealthy peace.
Unhealthy peace is...
Being hurt by somebody and holding onto it and choosing to not say something.
And then a story about them grows in our head.
And then eventually we're so scared to say something, we leave or we ghost or we exit, rather than trying to get to what I call healthy heat or healthy conflict.
Unhealthy peace is often in teams where everybody knows that it's a terrible idea to launch this product, but no one's willing to actually say it.
Unhealthy peace can be in a family, at a multi-generational family gathering and somebody uncle is sick, belligerent towards another cousin, maybe their own child, and everyone freezes and just looks down under the table.
You can have strategic avoidance, but unhealthy peace is choosing to not touch something you care about because you're afraid of loss and you're afraid of what might happen.
And our society oscillates within our friendships and our families.
We oscillate between unhealthy peace and unhealthy conflict.
We either avoid exit ghost or we burn the freaking house down.
And I know this because my house was burned down, metaphorically, through unhealthy peace.
Because your parents never fought, and then all of a sudden they got divorced.
My parents never fought.
They both came from conflict-averse families.
One is white American from Iowa, from the Midwest.
One is Indian.
Totally different cultures, but this inherited culture that conflict is dangerous.
I have such deep empathy for the people in the room who want to flee.
And I've learned that you can hold heat.
I've learned it's a learnable skill.
But we're not taught it.
So if you're listening right now and you're like, oh my God, my whole life is full of unhealthy peace,
There's all kinds of stuff at work.
I never say anything.
I am in a marriage where I feel like roommates.
I hold resentment toward friends that I never express.
I tolerate disrespect and other stuff from a parent.
What is the first step to do if you're recognizing that unhealthy peace is in your life?
So first is to know you're not alone.
This is very, very, very common.
And part of the reason so many of us, myself included, are like this is because we're taught that conflict is immoral.
We're taught that conflict is sin, metaphorically.
We're taught that conflict is dysfunctional.
We're taught that conflict is for people who are all messed up.
And so the first element is to pause and to actually be curious and invite the idea that conflict is actually necessary for connection.
Healthy communities hold healthy heat.
And so the first thing is just to just pause.
And if you are like me, which is I was raised where if any of the heat starts to rise, we all just stick our head in the sand like ostriches.
That It is not only OK to have conflict, that it is conflict is relevance.
Conflict is we don't fight about the things we don't care about.
Right.
And so when you're starting to get upset about something, you're starting to something rubs you the wrong way.
That means that it's getting to the things that you value.
It's the things that are actually give you life.
And so, as a conflict resolution, one of the things we often look for is what the what the relationship with the conflict resolution facilitator called say to Nair calls relational longing.
And relational longing as facilitators in any type of fight.
We're not brought in with people who hate each other because they just leave.
Right?
Facilitators work with people who still want to belong to each other.
And so part of the essence of getting into any type of relationship friendship, long-term community is finding the relational longing that still exists at the center of the fight and coming from there to begin to say hey, I'm going to speak this dangerous truth.
I'm going to say this thing that scares me.
In part two, because as an investment in you, because otherwise I may just leave.
What would your advice be for that moment when...
You are the one keeping the peace, but you're really scared to say anything or to try to shift the dynamic.
Get curious about what this conflict actually is and don't assume that it's going to end the relationship.
Conflict is actually quite intimate.
When you actually get into a conflict with someone else—
It's doing things like admitting that you're affected by the other person, admitting that you're vulnerable to the other person.
One of the reasons conflict is so scary is because it's admitting that we affect each other.
And so the first thing to think about is actually your own body.
And before you figure out what you're going to say, or when you're going to say it or how you're going to say it, I have a friend and facilitator, Princess Hemphill, who says the most powerful body we have is a relaxed body.
And so the first thing I'll tell you as a facilitator I actually write about this in The Art of Fighting that's coming out this fall is I break down what we, as facilitators, do to prepare for a fight we're going to hold.
And a huge amount before I enter a room to hold a fight I'm not even a part of is physical.
And we think of fights as physical, but actually the biggest physicality of a fight is in our own bodies.
And so to think first is to breathe, to literally put both feet on the ground.
I think about my own purpose and intention and coming in.
And then I'm still kind of shaky and my voice may still shake.
And then to say, hey.
Do you have a moment?
Can we talk about something?
Do you have a moment to chat?
I wanted to just share with you something that didn't sit well with me.
And part of modern life is we actually oscillate between again saying nothing and suing each other.
So in our cultural context, where we don't have a lot of healthy heat examples, sometimes people do freak out.
And so if you're listening and you're part of a team— you can actually start creating healthier cultures in your team for heat.
Simple example I had this manager do it is I said start your weekly meetings, your staff meetings, just for 10 minutes, no more, or you zip around and everybody does rose and thorn.
Oh, we do this in the family.
Exactly.
So best part of your week, worst part of your week.
And I said, just do that 10 weeks in a row.
Don't change anything else.
Just do that 10 weeks in a row.
And she came back and she said, you know, the first few weeks, some people were really into it.
Other people weren't.
Then week three, week four, they started realizing like, okay, we're really doing this.
For some people, what was risky was sharing stuff outside of work.
For some people, what was risky was sharing stuff inside of work.
But by the eighth week the rest of the meeting began to change because they started normalizing thorns.
And so part of thinking about the cultures that you're creating in your families, particularly if you're somebody with some amount of social power or authority, is whatever your relationship to conflict is is going to be the group's relationship to conflict.
Priya, I have so many things that I am going to put to use immediately already.
Don't go anywhere.
We're going to take a quick break so we can give our amazing sponsors a chance to share a few words.
But we have so much more to dig into when we return.
Stay with me.
Welcome back.
It's your friend Mel Robbins.
Today, you and I are here with Priya Parker, the bestselling author of The Art of Gathering.
So I want to go back to the moment that we've all had, where you are at a family gathering and you are sitting at the table and, And all of a sudden, somebody who we all know who the difficult person is in the extended family, they do their thing.
You know, like whatever they sound off about Paula and you are now in your unhealthy piece.
Yeah.
And you're thinking about Priya's art of gathering and the art of fighting, and you're starting to feel the heat.
And you're thinking I would rather be on the planet Mars than sitting at this dining room table right now.
How on earth does healthy heat or a little bit of conflict make the gathering better?
First of all, that moment is really scary.
Yes.
And it is, most of us go back into the roles that we've always played.
You know what I do?
I start busting the table.
Yeah, yeah.
And then I get a drink.
Yeah.
Which is not a way to handle healthy conflict, by the way.
So this may sound like a cop-out, but it actually isn't.
Which is?
These moments in time are actually few and far between.
And the best way to change them is before anyone enters the room.
Oh, okay.
I love that.
The best way to change the dynamic is before anyone enters the room.
Okay, what am I changing?
So first of all, if this is something that's happening at your dinner table once a year, over and over again, first find your allies.
Find your allies that also at every moment feel like, I hate that he does that.
I hate that they do that.
But I don't know what to do in that moment.
It feels so scary.
This is also a multi-generational family ritual.
Like, who are we to come in?
You know who those people are?
They're the ones that are looking at you across the table.
Exactly.
Find your allies.
Find your allies.
The second is sometimes the old structures actually no longer work.
Can I give a simple example?
Yeah, please.
So I had a family who there was a lot of conflict and often like about politics and it was just sort of over and over and over again.
I think that's all of us right now.
It's just like, oh my God.
It sort of felt like we all have to just like...
Suck it in and go do this thing.
And so what this family did was they.
There's two people in it and they're like okay, we still want to spend time as a family because it goes back to the purpose.
I may not agree with everything in this large extent of family, but this is also.
These are my people.
And what they ended up doing was they found their allies.
There's a few other siblings and cousins who were on board with changing just like everyone, basically drinking for three hours and then sitting at a table and drinking more.
And so they decided and they created a cooking championship program.
Where the next year at the family reunion, they put together teams ahead of time of different people, including the people who are like I don't know how to cook.
It's like, well, here's a spatula.
Right.
They put together the cooks and the non-cooks, and every different team was responsible for a different meal.
It took more time.
The prep time took more time.
Then everyone was excited about what everyone was eating.
They focused on the food rather than what.
You squeeze out the politics conversation by arguing about who made the best salsa.
Right.
And so one of the things I talk about is like fight, but about other stuff.
I love that.
The activity is such a great diversion.
Yes.
You know another thing.
This is particularly to change conversation.
Host a hot takes party where you argue about stuff that does not matter.
It's adding warmth to heat.
It's saying, I did this with my team years ago.
We hosted a hot takes party as our end of the year dinner.
And people come with their most controversial opinion that does not matter.
Give me an example.
There should be only one type of pasta.
Tuesday is the best day of the week.
Winter is the best season.
And you have to defend it to the end.
And what happens and I've seen this in teams is people start laughing and it gives them permission to be like how could you say there's only one type of pasta?
My Italian heritage is deeply offended, right?
But you're actually learning that you can argue there can be juice, there can be warmth, there can be banter.
And I've seen teams do this where you're starting to help people have warmth and humor and how they fight and realize that you can actually add juice.
You know water, the ground and realize again there's a lot of energy here, but fight about other stuff.
I freaking love that.
You're a genius.
You are.
So we've talked about purpose.
We've talked about a good controversy.
You're going to have your hot takes.
What is the third thing that can really create meaning in your next gathering?
Thinking about how you open and how you close.
Okay.
Give us some examples.
So I think about a gathering as the creation of a temporary alternative world.
And as a host, you're creating that world.
It could be a mosh pit.
It could be a rave.
It could be a picnic by the river.
But these are actually different worlds.
And so part of as a host is to think about how do you actually open?
The first 5% of a gathering deeply matters.
So, when you're hosting a gathering, really deeply thinking about how do you open and what are you doing in those first few moments when people are arriving, whether it's to the 30th anniversary, whether it's to a dinner party, because we actually are looking to see how do we behave in any of these moments.
And when a host comes and says hey, either introduces people to each other or brings people around and says hey, would you be our wine minister for the night?
Whenever you see a cup, would you mind just filling up our water minister?
Those first 5% is when people actually realize, oh, this is how I behave here.
Give us some fast ideas for those first few minutes when they're coming into your house.
Stand there.
Stand there.
Take a moment.
Have a greeting committee, meaning literally your two friends.
I had a friend who was having a birthday party years ago and she asked three friends who love doing this—this is important—to be the greeting committee.
I'm saying that in quotes, right?
All that meant was we stood by the door and as people came in there, we were like hi, welcome to so-and-so's birthday party.
We've heard so much about you.
And the way people respond, like, oh my gosh, you've heard so much about me?
How about a Zoom meeting?
Give us a bunch of fast ideas for the best way to open a Zoom call at work without it being cheeseball.
And also like pulling people in, like how you set that intention.
Yeah.
So Zoom is such a great context to learn from.
And one of the things that creates connection is informal activity.
And Zoom is like the enemy of informal relationships.
We're all in these squares.
You have to mute on, mute off.
You're not sure if you're supposed to talk.
You can't talk to someone else.
So you enter an in-person meeting.
You can go.
You can choose the seat you sit in.
You can be like, hey, can I get you a coffee?
There's all of this informal stitching that actually binds a group.
And so in these virtual contexts, that's taken from us.
And so the host needs to actually create that.
And so simple examples.
First is when you, if you are hosting this Zoom, be fully on.
Like once it's on, once the time has started, be on time and then be there.
It's almost like, I mean, I say this as a facilitator that does a lot of Zooms.
It's almost like you're a live sportscaster.
And so he's like, hey, how's it going?
You know what?
I'm just going to have a sip of this water.
And I'm curious, what are all you, what's your, you're all in different time zones.
Like just pop into the chat.
What are you drinking right now?
Oh, Earl Grey tea.
Oh, some, right.
You're actually warming up the group, but on Zoom, it's through your language.
It's not unlike a podcast host.
The second is to invite people to come on camera.
I work with a lot of leaders and managers who say like I don't know how to get my team on camera, but I can't actually read their faces.
So I had a leader who told me that one of the things he did was he told his team that they could be camera off if they sung a Neil Diamond song.
And like, I was with his team when they did and they all started laughing.
And it was like, it was this playful pop-up rule.
They all know he loves Neil Diamond.
And the reason he did that and it worked for the team is because he wanted to know that they were engaged right.
The reason they wanted the camera on is to know that they're not sitting there doing something else.
One of the things I often do with my team and my students is I have them ask a magical question in the chat while people are waiting.
What's the first concert you ever went to and who took you?
And people start populating in the chat.
It creates a completely different world.
It helps you understand sort of who's here and who's not here.
So I have a friend who runs a tutoring company.
Her name is Marcella and she started doing this.
She would ask a magical question every week, but at some point it's kind of like the boss is asking a magical question again.
And so she started rotating who everyone, each week.
Oh, you're assigned the magical question.
Yes.
Got it.
Each week, a different team member was assigned, coming up with a magical question and asking it in the first three minutes of the chat, and everyone answers it.
She's building leadership skills.
She's sharing the weight.
We actually are excited to hear what one another is gonna ask.
We can learn from that practice.
We start understanding and getting to know each other as a group.
And part of why this is important is particularly in virtual teams, when the going gets tough, when there's some mistake as there will be in every team The likelihood that I'll pick up the phone and be like hey Mel, I actually wanted to talk to you about something.
You're creating psychological community through knowing things about each other within appropriate boundaries, within that is relevant to the work.
But that actually helps people understand who each other are and has some cross stitching between the group.
You say that the endings matter.
Mm-hmm.
How do you end?
Most gatherings don't end.
They stop.
What's the difference?
You're at a conference.
You've had this, like, beautiful kind of arc of an experience, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh—
Thanks for coming.
Got to run.
Coats are in the back.
Okay.
Over and out.
Thanks, everybody.
And actually, as I said, every gathering is a temporary alternative world.
And the more different it is from everyday life, the more you also have a responsibility.
To close it.
I had an improv teacher called Dave Sawyer, actually here in Boston, and he would always say good actors, think about how they enter a stage.
Great actors also obsess about how they exit, how they leave.
And so thinking about, again, very simply, walk people out.
If somebody's coming to your home, right, walk people out.
It's so touching.
Sometimes people walk me out of their home and I'm like, thank you.
Right?
It's an extra piece of care.
Thank you for walking me out.
It can be, you know, and sometimes you need to get people out of your house.
Let me walk you out.
And so issuing, like in bars, you know the last call.
They ding the bar and they're like last call, last drink.
It's a way to actually prime people to start leaving.
And so thinking about what your last call is.
My husband and I argue a lot about this, and he comes to my house and was like you would never— signal to your guests that they should leave.
And I come from a family culture where you would never, as a guest, leave until your host releases you.
That's right.
So you have this like chicken game where everyone's like, do we leave now?
Is it over?
How do we close?
And so finding simple ways to allow people to exit.
One way is, if you're having people for dinner and you're not really sure if it's time to leave, you can say well, thank you all, so much for coming.
For some of you, it's a school night.
But for those of you who can stay and we really hope you will let's move to the living room for a nightcap.
So finding ways to sort of allow people to exit, whether it's a life of a conversation, whether it's a party.
You can kind of feel when it's sort of it's coming to an end.
And so part of it is like give it an honorable death.
Allow people to leave, whether it's a final song, whether it's a final dance, whether it's just simply as a facilitator.
Sometimes we do this in work.
It's like we're asking people like best moments of the night.
Okay, best jokes of the night.
Okay, who is the MVP?
And just finding ways to help people, meaning make together and then slowly be like what transpired here.
And in a work context, I do this with all of my Zooms.
What did you most learn over the last hour?
Summer camps do this really well.
Oh, because they have campfires.
I mean, come on.
They should do it really well.
They should do it really well.
But they think really deeply about closing and their closing day and the day before and closing ceremonies, right.
Tiny little ways to bring ritual back.
We're sort of a ritualist culture.
Hmm.
Not now, because you just taught us how to bring it back.
Now we are ritual full.
And part of modern life is realizing that we still need and want ritual.
And when our institutions are fraying and when more people can be part of many institutions, which is also a good thing for better or for the worse, we actually need to start inventing These rituals, and when rituals that no longer served us because they were either oppressive or because they no longer make any sense because the village has changed.
It doesn't mean you end all ritual.
It means you ask now, what now do we need and how might we together bring about something that allows us to break bread together, have meaning together and be alive in this precious time that we have?
So if you're the kind of person who doesn't really consider yourself to be a host, Or you are kind of like, you recognize you're waiting for the invite, but you don't typically think of yourself as the host.
What is your message?
Hosting is not an identity. it's an activity.
Groups end when people feel like they're not meaningfully contributing or it's not being meaningfully contributing back.
Basically a lack of reciprocity.
And so to not think about it as like this big archetypal thing of like I'm a host, but to actually think about it as effort, Thinking about also host something you would love to attend.
Host something that you want to do and invite one other person to join you.
Start small, start simple.
If it feels like an obligation, don't do it.
What are your recommendations for someone who is living in an apartment building or moved to a new neighborhood?
Doesn't really know the neighbors.
Just this week, I saw on Instagram a woman who posted that...
She hosted a chair and share in her neighborhood.
She didn't know any of her neighbors.
She sent out all analog invitations, flyers under her neighbors' doors.
And the invitation was to bring a chair and share your name.
Forty neighbors show up.
And they had a great time.
But again, it sounds silly.
A chair, it's actually a symbol.
It's specific.
I can bring a chair.
People are bringing lawn chairs.
Somebody brought their wheelie office chair.
It gives us something to sit on.
It's showing the initiative.
Also, a lot of people feel this way to find one or two other hosts. co-hosts, ideally, because it can be scary to do something alone.
You can also, using flyers, use the occasion of either of holidays, invented or not.
There are many public institutions that have lots of free programming that actually exist over and over and over again.
But the key is to keep going to the same event over and over again, because proximity and repetition creates safety and community.
You're at a gathering or you're at dinner with your friends.
Yeah.
And then you have caught up.
How's kids?
What's going on with work?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Your parents, are they still doing okay?
Awesome.
What are you doing this summer?
Yeah.
And now there's that pause.
Yeah.
And you're kind of thinking about and I realize you're going to tell me I should have thought about this before I'm there, but now that I'm there and we've done the small talk, what's a?
Fast trick to get us to go in a different direction.
To ask a magical question.
Okay.
And to, you can keep them in your pocket.
I have a subset called Group Life.
We have like more than 50 magical questions.
Like take it in your pocket.
Give me your top five magical questions.
What is something you own that you're pretty sure no one else in this group owns?
Oh, that's a good one.
Right?
A tractor.
Why do you have a tractor?
Because I live on a mountain and we have a field that needs stuff and a long driveway that needs to be plowed.
And I think my husband looks really sexy on it, honestly.
So what you just gave me there is like six different conversational doorknobs.
A couple other magical questions.
What's a movie, film, or TV show that you could never watch again?
Probably Jaws because that came out my like fifth grade summer or fourth grade summer.
And there was something so terrifying about that movie that just about every person that I know in their mid to late 50s had a terrorizing summer would not get in swimming pools.
That shot from below.
Oh my God.
I still to this day think about it.
Totally.
So do I. And so Jaws as a movie, then you can see all of this conversation.
What should film be?
Is that one of the greatest movies that have ever been created, or that terrorize an entire generation and change our relationship to the water?
Both.
Both.
All right, give me the other three.
What is an outfit you could have thrown away a long time ago, but you still keep?
And what does it mean to you?
If your life was a movie, what would the opening credits song be?
That's amazing.
What's another one?
What is your favorite way to eat a potato?
I like a potato baked potato that's double stuffed, where you've stirred in the cheese and the sour cream into the middle.
And then you packed it back in and we get fresh scallions on top and bacon on top, maybe a little horseradish too.
And then you cut it in half and you can eat it like a potato, you know, like taco, especially if that outside is super crispy.
And if I'm having a clam roll or a burger or a lobster roll, it's got to be shoestring fries.
I mean, right now I learned about your regional preferences.
I learned about your passionate beliefs about a potato.
I could hear that you have time in New England, but I also could hear maybe you had time in the Midwest.
I remembered my double stuffed potatoes from my childhood.
I had memories of my stepsister putting those things in, coming out.
There's so much context in that.
And who can forget it? tater tot.
I mean, come on now.
And in diverse groups and actually in global teams.
This question, this humble question, is beautiful because you think it's super simple and then all of a sudden, people have everything from samosas to Gnocchi.
Absolutely.
And what about you?
For me, it would be...
Aloo Puri, which is an Indian food.
And when I... Is that potatoes and peas?
It can be, but it's one of those recipes where it's like everyone has their own secret.
Aloo is usually... This is just... potato.
It's not just potato, but it's a potato kind of spiced.
And I'm half Indian.
My mother growing up, when I was growing up, would always take me to India for multiple weeks, sometimes multiple months, to spend time with my Indian family.
And my grandmother would be standing there in her nightcap and her long nightgown and she'd hear us come and she'd shuffle into the kitchen and she'd microwave the aloo puri that she had made for me and she'd make more warm puris on the stove.
And it'd be three in the morning and I would sit there and I'd eat her aloo puri and I was like all is well with the world.
You gave us so many great things.
And I also love the fact that it doesn't have to take a lot of effort for you to get a massive, massive return.
If the person listening takes just one thing away from all of the things that you have shared with us the tactics, the questions, the different ideas, the fun, the inspiration.
What do you think is the most important thing to do after you're done listening to this?
That will have your next gathering be very different.
To pause and ask.
What is the need?
What is the need that I have or what is the need I'm seeing in this community?
Why are we coming together?
Why?
And the purpose need not be serious.
In fact, probably better that it's not.
But to pause and ask, how do I want to spend my time?
And if this all feels overwhelming, just the next time you're in a gathering, the next, whether it's a meeting, whether it's a family reunion, whether it's a wedding, just start observing.
Just start observing.
Are people happy to be here?
Is there a thought behind this?
What are moments where people are starting to come alive?
How am I feeling in this moment?
Is there a way, is there a simple technique?
I may be at a wedding table that I've been sat at with strangers and we don't know each other.
Is there a tiny thing I could do, whether it's a person next to me or across, that might, for this one moment, make this more interesting?
And if this all feels overwhelming, start by being a really good guest.
Guests have a lot of power.
Well, since you said that endings really matter, I thought maybe we'd end in a different way.
Ooh.
How about you end by asking the person who was with us a magical question?
So if I was sitting here and I was deeply thinking about your community, I would ask something like
What is a specific moment or insight from a Mel Robbins podcast that changed your life?
And what action did you take in your life because of it?
But specifically, what action did you take and how to go?
That's the story part of it.
Oh, I'd love to hear the story.
And you can either put it in the review, or you can send it in at MelRobbinscom, or you can post about it on social
That's a great one.
Priya Parker.
Absolutely fantastic.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you so much for the work that you're doing.
The whole team has been so excited for you to come and we have a lot of fun around here, but we all could have more meaningful conversations and more intentional and purposeful connections in our lives.
And I'm super excited because the things that you suggested seem super simple and that they would make an enormous difference.
And I cannot wait.
I'm going to particularly use the piece about Sometimes people just need to go on a walk or to do soccer or to play badminton and not have a deep talk.
And sometimes we need to take ownership over changing the way we're doing things and finding allies.
And the entire section about the uncomfortable or the unhealthy piece.
Holy cow, that was incredible.
And I also want to thank you.
Thank you for listening to something that will truly change the way you are showing up with your family, the kind of fun you can have and connections that you can make with your friends, your neighbors, work.
There were so much here that I know I'm going to apply.
I truly hope you apply it.
And if you do, I guarantee you, you're going to have more fun and more meaningful connections.
And you deserve that.
And in case no one else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you, as your friend, that I love you and I believe in you.
And I believe in your ability to create a better life.
And you just heard Priya share with you that part of living a better life.
It requires a little bit of heat from you.
It requires you to change some things.
It requires you to think about what you actually want and need and then take responsibility for being the one that creates it, because you can.
And I really hope you do.
Alrighty, I'll see you in the very next episode.
I'm gonna welcome you in the moment you hit play.
So thinking about how you open.
I've already screwed that up because I'm realizing the opening few minutes when you arrive at my house is me swinging open the front door yelling at our two dogs.
Get over here.
Stop barking.
They're nice.
They're nice.
They're not going to bite you.
They just shout, get in here.
Who let these dogs out?
Oh, you live on a farm.
Oh, you have a thing.
No, I just pretend to.
I don't really actually live on a farm.
But we do have a lot of land and there's a lot of crap to move around and dead trees and that kind of stuff.
Ooh, okay.
What is something... Sorry.
I know a lot about you now.
You certainly do.
I know exactly what to make you if you're feeling sad.
It was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun.
These magical questions are incredible.
I cannot wait to think of them for our work meetings.
You all are beautiful hosts.
Oh.
You really are.
Well, thank you.
I feel very well held.
Oh, and one more thing.
And no, this is not a blooper.
This is the legal language.
You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you.
This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.
I'm just your friend.
I am not a licensed therapist.
And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional.
Got it?
Good.
I'll see you in the next episode.
I am so excited to bring you this segment, sponsored by our friends at Verizon, as we talk about honoring your personal standards and cutting out the things in life that we shouldn't tolerate, including your network.
Verizon's Better Deal policy is there to make sure you get the best network and a better deal for yourself, because that's what you deserve.
Head over to a Verizon store to find out how to get a better deal.
Even if you're an existing customer, which my family has been for 12 years, Verizon will make sure to get you a better deal that meets your personal standards.
You know, I read this quote the other day that really stuck with me.
Here it is.
I just don't want that for myself anymore is a valid enough reason to stop anything.
I want to say it again because I really want you to hear this.
I just don't want that for myself anymore is a valid enough reason to stop anything.
And as I've really sat with this quote, I kind of think the reason it hit me so hard is because it's so easy to just wait around for some big, dramatic reason to change.
And stop and think about that.
What exactly are you waiting for?
Are you waiting to change until you're completely burnt out?
Are you waiting until you have some reason that sounds important enough to everybody else?
Well, as your friend, I'm going to tell you something.
Do not hit that breaking point.
You are allowed to look at some aspect of your life and say, you know what?
I'm done with this.
And that's what raising your standards is all about.
It doesn't mean you're being difficult.
It doesn't mean you're ungrateful.
What it means is you're finally being honest with yourself, honest about what no longer works for you.
Maybe you used to tolerate this stuff because you were just trying to keep the peace, even though it was creating this war inside of you.
Or maybe you tolerated being the person who always says yes to everything and never learned that it's okay to say no.
Maybe it's friendships where you're the one putting in all the effort.
Or maybe it's actually something that you've been tolerating within yourself that you got to say no to.
The fact that you've constantly been putting yourself down.
So let's revisit this powerful quote.
I just don't want that for myself anymore, is a valid enough reason to stop anything.
You are allowed to throw away the negative things you used to tolerate.
You know what that's called?
Growth.
And it doesn't always look like some huge transformation.
Sometimes growth is just, I'm not available for this anymore.
I'm not pretending that this is fine when deep down, I know it's not.
We're simply saying, I just don't want this for myself anymore.
That last one is so powerful because it puts you back in touch with who you are and what you want and deserve.
You are allowed to want better.
You are allowed to change.
You don't have to spend the rest of your life as this version of yourself.
And what would it look like to raise your standards just one decision at a time?
You don't have to blow up your life.
You don't have to make big declarations to everybody.
Just one decision, one boundary that you're going to set for yourself, one honest sentence that you're going to say on repeat.
I just don't want this for myself anymore.
That's it.
That's enough.
That's where change starts and your next chapter begins.
Thank you again to Verizon for sponsoring this segment.
Verizon understands the importance of personal standards.
Whether you're a new or an existing customer like me, they're here to work with you.
Bring your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to Verizon for a better deal on the best network.
Must provide recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal.
Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply.
Best network based on RootMetrics.
Best overall mobile network performance.
U.S. second half 2025.
All rights reserved.
