Try it For 1 Week: Small Ways to Make Your Life Fun & Exciting Again

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 any time.

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, they're 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 going to help you make every moment you have with other people so much better. Whether it 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.”

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 has 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 playgroup 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, changes 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 boring conversation with people that are slightly annoying that you don't connect with.

Why do I even try? Why do I even try? I just spend $73 of a man's on. Yes, I put my man's on. I put my makeup on.

Yes. Why do I even try? Yes. You know, there's almost nothing lonelyer than being with other people and feeling alone. And so part of the opportunity we have is so much of modern life and are thinking about

“hosting or gathering has always focused on the logistics, right?”

There is 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, right? 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.

It's a whole profession of how do you help people get off their scripts?

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're very different. And maybe it's 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 a wash 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 and take all 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 is an invitation to start getting interested in the group help business too. Well, 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 end 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 on to 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.

It's thought of in a different way. You can move this entire night from everyone feeling sort of 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 members 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 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. Oh, 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? And the simplest way, if you remember nothing else from our conversation, is to first ask every single time.

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 are talking about why am I coming to this? Why am I visiting my parents? Why do I do this? And I may sound kind of wild, like why am I visiting my parents? But hear me out.

The reason 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. 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 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. So we, 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 nottiest thing you've ever done? That was worth it. [laughs] And we all, my father looking at what the eyes get bright, and then she goes before the age of 12.

And we were off to the races.

And I share, I laughed, and I shared something, my kids never heard.

They each kind of decided what they were going to confess in front of me. I heard stories to 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. 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 going to be different. Yes. Then 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. Yes. 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 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 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 basal plant bloomed. Like she literally realized she had too many basal leaves. And her little window basal plant. And she decided to invite her friends over to help her eat her basal. She had a margarita, pizza party, and basal 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 fox tailily, which grows like five feet tall.

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 grow a cocktail party, a viewing party. But for the fox tail, I have three of them. Only three like these expensive bulbs. And so, and I've waited three years. Yeah, I'll by the way, write this in the invitation. Right. Also 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 the spectacle of beauty with me. Where you can 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 we two week. The needs that you actually have might be different from we two 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 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.

And he's a journalist and it really scared him and he said, I don't want to be somebody who starts contracting after him 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 and moving this block over here is being disputable.

What do we need to struggle? 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 gathering a five her dinner party.

“And she said, Priya, can you art of gathering a five my dinner party?”

And I said, what does a need in your life that by bringing together a specific group of people you might be able to address? 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? 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 moms hoot and Annie. 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 RSVPDS within the first 45 minutes. And she hosted this amazing hilarious, beautiful, disputable 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've got to almost like you're like, you know, you're 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 moms hoot and Annie is a disputable purpose. What if I want to talk about my kids, then you've 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 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 bought 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 are 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,

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. Noting along and then thinking, what is wrong with just hanging out? Like I'm already exhausted. I'm doing so much at work.

I'm 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 you're 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'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 dust. 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. Congratulations. Thank you. Instead of throwing a party where I stopped and thought, you know,

let's throw a big party in a dance party, love a dance party. And I thought, wait a minute. I'm not going to talk to anybody.

“Hmm. 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.

That's amazing. And they'll probably be 20 people at our house and I've 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. Is that, is that, would you say that's the need? The need is really, I just, I think like everybody.

Years of 20, through 20, 25, 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 exhausted. And so I think the purpose that this is fulfilling is I miss seeing friends. 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 ever kids run around in diapers.

Yeah. You know, it's a matter of 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. Yeah. 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 as 2019 is you're naming something that other people also experienced.

Yes. And so there's almost, you can almost feel like, you know, your throat sort of tightening in a good way that saying, yes, I have that too. And so when you're bringing your 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 and 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 out of town. And one of the patterns that I've noticed is that we tend to go to someone's house and then hang.

And I notice that when we go on a trip somewhere where there are things to do. Yes. 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 tens. 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 think deeper and deeper into this couch.

“Part of your 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, you know, talk is actually sometimes not good for connection. Hold on. It's not good for connection.

My mentor, house onters, 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 F and blast together or go anti-king or go drive and go bargaining. Go 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 time to have fun to go to 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.

She organized a collective soundbath for the entire group, like she literally created a soundbath. They're not going to talk. They're going to sit together in silence for 90 minutes. That sounds amazing. And so even when you think about whether it's your family, what you think about is your friends coming for 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 subhost or a co-host in a way that would delight them. 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 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 introduce 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 where the single best thing in your closet. No shopping. We're love the no shopping. I once did this for birthday party three people showed up and they're wedding dresses.

Oh, that's killer. I know a woman who threw a no pants party in Chicago. And her apartment was it was July. She didn't her AC wasn't working.

“I think it was from like a Simpsons like episode.”

People showed up and everything from bathing suits to skirts to dresses. Her father showed up in overalls and a and a and a good natured fight broke out about whether or not overalls are pants. Like it was a total hit because they were 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 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.

One thing I want to circle back to because I think it's advice that is going to profoundly change 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 duolo would like to really get deep into it. That it creates tension and how can you shift so that you can make them more comfortable and, you know, maybe let's keep moving nothing to see here. Okay, groups are like accordions and a 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 friends reunion for three days, you know, actually some of the best gathers I know are introverts. Some of the best gathers I know recharge alone and in my research.

So many of the gathers that other people told me create amazing gathering self identified as introverts self identified and 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 structure. So I'm walking and knowing so the first element is not relying on your like personality and your tap dancing to like 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 there's two and literally said quiet corner and there's two hammocks and all day long part of the thing is we all need breaks.”

Yes right and so there's 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, you need some eggs, just shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot 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 gathers 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. 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 was 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 my husband.

So I mean basically when my parents separated, everyone was shocked because they never fought.

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 five marriages I know of. And friendships.

And work relationships unhealthy peace. And so part of like we just talk about that for a minute. Yes. Give me some examples. 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 teens 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 at a multi-generational family gathering. And somebody.

Beligerant towards another cousin maybe their own child and everyone freezes and just looks down under the table. And 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 so and I know this because my house was burned down.

Unhealthy metaphorically through unhealthy peace because your parents never fought.

And then all of a sudden my parents never fought. They both came from conflict diverse 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.

“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 it's 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 were like me, which is I was raised where if any of the heat starts to rise, but I'll just hit you. Stick our head in the sand like ostriches that it is not only okay 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 rubbed 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 relationship with the conflict resolution facilitator called say through nair calls relational longing. And relational longing when 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 piece, 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. But 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 you're 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 hemp pill who says the most powerful body we have is a relaxed body.

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.

I think about my own purpose and intention in 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 example sometimes people do freak out and so if you're 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 ten minutes no more.

Or you zip around and everybody does rose and foreign. So we're here in the family apparently exactly so best part of your week worst part of your week and I said just do that ten weeks in a row don't change anything else just do that ten weeks in a row and she came back and she said near the first few weeks some people really into it other people weren't.

“Then week three week four they started realizing like okay we're we're really doing this for some people what was risky was sharing stuff outside of work for some people 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 it's going to be the groups relationship to conflict. We have so many things that I'm 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 pre-aparca the best selling 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 all of a sudden somebody who we all know who the difficult person is in the extended family they do their thing. Like whatever they sound off about Paul in you are now in your unhealthy piece yeah and you're thinking about pre is 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.

So 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 serve bushing the table yeah yeah and then I get a drink yeah I get up which is not a way to handle healthy conflict. I 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 I am 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 that moment it feels so scary this is also a multigenerational family ritual like who are we to come in. You know with those people are the ones that are looking at your cross 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 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.

You know it's sort of you know we all have we all have to just like suck it in and go to this thing and know yeah and so what this family did was they there's two people and I'm feel 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 who were on board with changeings just like everyone basically drinking for three hours and then sitting at a table and drinking more.

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 a 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 is 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 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 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 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 genius you are and 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 as a host.

So 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.

Would you be our one minister for the night whenever you see a cup would you mind just filling up our water minister right those first 5% is when people actually realize oh like this is how I behave here give us some fast ideas for those first few minutes when they're coming into your house. Stay in there stay in 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.

In that in quotes right all that meant was he stood by the door and as people came in they're we're like hi welcome to someone'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 better zoom meeting. Give us a bunch of fast ideas for the best way to open a zoom call at work without it being cheese ball 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 right we're all in these squares.

You have to mute on mute off you're not sure if you're supposed to talk right that you can't talk to someone else so you enter. In person meeting you can go you can choose the seat you sit on you can be like hey can I get you a coffee right there's all of this informal stitching that actually binds a group. Yeah and so in these virtual context 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 is start beyond time and then be there it's almost like I mean I say this is a facilitator that does a lot of zooms it's almost like your live sportscaster.

Right and so he's like hey how's it going you know what I'm just going to I'm going to have a sip of this water.

Great tea oh some right you're actually warming up the group but on zoom it's through your language is not unlike a podcast host. The second is to invite people to come on camera. I work with a lot of leaders who and managers who say like I don't know how to get my team and camera but I can't actually read their faces. And it's kind of 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 didn't they also are 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.

The reason he wanted to camera on is to know that they're not sitting there doing something else. One of the things I often do with my 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 touring company. My name is Marcela and she started doing this yet 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 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 going to 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 that is relevant to the work. But that actually helps people understand who each other are and has some cross stitching with team the group. You say that the endings matter. 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.

You know, coach got a run, coach run the back. Okay. Overall, 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 responsibility to close it. I had a improv teacher called Dave Sawyer actually here in Boston and he would often 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. Just 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.”

And so issuing, you're like in bars, you know, the last call. They ding, they there's a, there's the ding, the bum, 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 from a house 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. 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 for to leave. You can say, well, you know, thank you all so much for coming for some from you. It's a school night, but for those of you can stay and we really hope you will, like, let's move to the living room for a night cap. 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. So 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 is like we're asking people like best moments of the night.

“Okay, best jokes of the night. Okay, who is the MVP? Who are you finding ways to help people meaning make together?”

And then slowly, like, what what transpired here? And in a work context, I do this with all of my students. What did you most learn over the last hour? Some are camps do this really well because they have campfires. I mean, they've campfire to do it really well.

Not now, because you just taught us not even now. Now we are now we are ritual full and part of modern life is realizing that we still need and want ritual.

And when our institutions are freeing 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 and 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, right, or you are kind of like, you know, you recognize you're waiting for the invite, but you don't typically think of yourself as the host, what is your message?”

The interesting is not an identity. It's an activity groups and 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.

That you 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 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 neighbor's doors and the invitation was to bring a chair and share your name 40 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 for people bringing long long chairs somebody brought like they're like really really office chair. It gives us something to sit on and 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, you're parents. They're doing okay. They're still doing okay. Awesome. What are you doing the 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 on a different direction to ask a magical question. 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.”

There are so what you just gave me there is like six different conversational door knobs. 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, 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 rules that shot from below. Oh my god.

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 the another one? What is your favorite way to eat a potato?”

I like a 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 horse radish too. And you cut it in half and you can eat it like a potato pack, eat a 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 shoe string 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 step sister putting those things in coming out right there's so much context on that. I forgot a tater dot who can come on 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 semosas to absolutely what about you for me it would be

“Allu puri which is a which is an Indian food and when I I'm potatoes and peace it can be but this is sort of this one of those recipes was like everyone has their own secret.”

Malu is usually this is just potato it's not just potato but it's a potato kind of spiced and my I'm half in dn 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 night cap and her long night gown and she'd hear us come and she'd shuffle into the kitchen and she'd microwave the alu puri that she'd had made for me and she'd make more warm pouries on the stove and it'd be three in the morning and I would sit there and eat her alu puri and I was like all is well with the world.

You gave us so many great things that we can do 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.

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 what is a need that I have or what is a need I'm seeing in this community why are we coming together why and and then and the purpose need not be serious in fact probably better that it's not. But to pause and ask what 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. Are people happy to be here is there 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 haven't necessarily don't know each other.

“I think I could do whether it's a person next to me or cross that might for this one moment make this more interesting and if this overall 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. Oh, 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 or I'd love to hear the story.

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 and more intentional and purposeful connections in our lives. And I'm super excited because the things that you suggested seems 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 uncomfort 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 in 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. All right, I'll see you in the very next episode. I'm going to welcome you in the moment hit play.

So thinking about how you open and 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 it over here. Stop barking. They're nice. They're nice. They're not going to buy you. They just shot get in here. Pull up these dogs out. Oh, you live in a farm. Oh, you have a thing. No, I just pretend to. Really actually. But I do have a lot of land and there's a lot of crap to move around and dead trees and that kind of stuff.

Okay. What is something. Sorry. I know a lot about you now. He said, 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. And that way to think of them for work meetings.

You all are beautiful. Oh, you really are. Well, thank you. It's 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. Series XM podcasts. 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. Keep in mind that this applies to everything, 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 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 some. 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 piece, even though it was created in 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 or 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.

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