How to Host a Magical Gathering with Priya Parker
November 7, 2023
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. We are today talking about the most important thing in the world.
Abby Wambach:
Is that true?
Glennon Doyle:
I think so.
Abby Wambach:
Okay.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s good.
Priya Parker:
I’m ready for this.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, right. I mean, on this earth we have only a few resources and two of the most important are time and relationships. And yet it feels like we have not figured out how to use time to deepen or enliven, make ourselves closer to other people. We have figured out how to gather people together, spend some time and then leave, but not use the time to make our relationships better.
Glennon Doyle:
And today we have a friend and a world-renowned expert on how to do that and how to use our time and spaces to make our lives better by making our relationships better. And that is, of course, Priya Parker. Priya Parker is a conflict facilitator, strategic advisor, international speaker, and acclaimed author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters. And she’s also the host of the podcast Together Apart. She’s the creator and host of the Art of Gathering Digital Course about how to make meaning with and for our people. And all of you should know that Priya is actually going to give away 50 of those courses to Pod Squaders, so stay tuned. Priya lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two children.
Glennon Doyle:
Priya, thank you for coming on to talk about the most important thing in the world.
Priya Parker:
Thank you so much for having me. What an introduction. You’re already modeling incredible hosting, as you all do.
Abby Wambach:
Yes!
Glennon Doyle:
Really?
Priya Parker:
I think we can actually end right there.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay, that’s a wrap, folks
Priya Parker:
“It’s the most important thing in the world,” we’re good.
Glennon Doyle:
So a cool thing, Priya, is that the reason this podcast started, the ideation of it began when Allison, our business partner, creative director, friend, sister, started going on walks with her friends during the pandemic. And together, they realized that they were getting together but not talking about the most important things in their lives. So they made a pact that while they were socially distanced or whatever we were doing back then, they would each bring their hard thing and then they would walk and they would each discuss their hard thing and then the walk would be over and nobody would solve each other’s shit, but they would know each other better and feel less alone. Don’t you think that’s a good example?
Priya Parker:
It’s a perfect example of gathering coming out of an actual need, and the space and time, forced of the pandemic, but the space and time to actually be still enough to pause without judgment and ask, “What is it that I actually am yearning for? What am I longing for when I’m not in the autopilot manic day-to-day busyness of my life where I’ve already said yes to things three years ago that I don’t even remember I’ve said yes to? Because the pandemic paused all of that temporarily, there was this little nugget. “Oh, I long for my friends. Oh, which friends? I’m not longing for all of them.”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Priya Parker:
There’s some data here.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Priya Parker:
Right? This pandemic, as awful and terrifying as it was, was this forced space, a social forced space to actually ask how do I want to spend my time and with whom? And where is their desire and where is their obligation?
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Priya Parker:
And where is their obligation that I choose to recommit to? And where is there desire that I want to spark?
Priya Parker:
And part of what was so interesting in the pandemic was that because we could no longer have the default patterns of how we talk to our friends, you literally couldn’t walk together side by side. You couldn’t brush shoulders. I mean, maybe if you’re part of the same pod or in the same unit, yes. But what it basically did was it hit us over the heads with a jackhammer of, “The way you are doing things right now you can’t do.”
Priya Parker:
And so any major disruption in our life, we are normalists, we are slightly in panic. But also if you stay still enough, you pause. I love so many of your episodes in so many moments and so much of your conversation is around addiction. And the moment where pausing and listening to that knowing and blocking out all of the distractions that are trying to get you away from that knowing and realizing, “Oh, there’s a desire here.”
Priya Parker:
And what these friends did on this walk was, “Oh, I’m longing for other people. Which people? How, given the constraints of this moment, might we spend time together? Oh, just getting together may not feed me.” We can talk about all sorts of things. We can spend all of our times to either staying on the surface or just going through the same geographic territory of our conversations for the last 12 years.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Yes.
Priya Parker:
“I’m bored. How do we do this differently?”
Priya Parker:
And what they did was the first biggest step in transforming how you gather, which is they started with a need. They started with an intention. They started with a purpose. “Oh, I want to go walking with my friends and have depth. How do we do that?” And then they found some structure to do that and then it ended. This isn’t forever. We go part our ways afterwards.
Priya Parker:
So I love this example that this is the founding almost like brick of We Can Do Hard Things.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
It is!
Priya Parker:
Because it’s kind of the whole story of just slightly tilting how we gather away from these autopilot, rote, boring formats that someone else in another time created.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes!
Amanda Doyle:
Yes!
Priya Parker:
And we get to choose if we want to repeat it or throw it out or keep some of it and invent anew.
Glennon Doyle:
Priya Parker! Okay, wow, you are good at the Venn diagram of what you’re doing and what we’re doing.
Glennon Doyle:
So we are starting with desire. We are going inside. We are starting with desire. This is what I’m hearing you say, “I desire this and this and this from these people. Sometimes I need adventure, sometimes I need quiet.” What is the desire? And we are staying fluid because we are not creating a concrete pattern that then we have to keep forever. We’re staying in desire. Maybe what I need this month is different than next month. And we are doing things by design instead of default. We are not doing things outside in. Just because the pattern is that we’re all supposed to meet for dinner and drinks after 8:00 and that that’s not what we have to do anymore. We can start from the inside and decide what we need and what we want and then act from there.
Priya Parker:
And sometimes even before desire, as you all know, desire is kind of hard to get to.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it is.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Priya Parker:
So sometimes it just starts from curiosity.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, that’s good.
Priya Parker:
“Huh, what am I feeling here?”
Priya Parker:
Real example, a friend of mine who was turning 50 and he never had a problem with birthdays and he was just feeling uncomfortable, before, leading up to it. And there was kind of this obligation, or in his head it was like, “I should probably have a birthday party.” It starts with the form. And instead, his really paying attention partner said, “You seem a little off. What’s going on?” And he said, “You know what? This age is really bothering me.” And she said, “Why?”
Priya Parker:
And he said, “Because if I actually think about it, 50 is the age that when I see my peers, they stop expanding.
Amanda Doyle:
Wow.
Priya Parker:
“They’ve started to contract. They take the less scary job assignments and take the more cushy ones. They start kind of making sacrifices that wilt their energy, and I don’t want to do that.”
Priya Parker:
So what he decided to do, he named a desire and a fear and a need, and for his 50th birthday, he only invited the people in his life who embody expansion. And he didn’t announce this to them in advance. But in the moment, he had a dinner and at the beginning of the dinner, dung his glass, “Ding, ding, ding.”
Priya Parker:
One of the biggest mistakes we make when we gather is we under-host. We under-tell people what they mean to us. We under-contextualize, “Why are we here? Why have I invited you? Why do I see you and why have you said yes?”
Priya Parker:
And literally, it took 45 seconds and he changed the entire room, and he said exactly what I just told you. “This has been a really hard age for me. You all know me. I’m not somebody who usually gets thrown off by things. I realize I’m really afraid of contracting. And each of you, in different ways, are people who always expand. Each of you are people who when it could be easier to keep contracting, you go on that adventure, whatever that adventure might look like.”
Priya Parker:
And as he started to talk about it to each person in the room, “Paul, even though you’re 73, you take risks that I would be terrified to at 22. Gina, even though you haven’t turned 43 yet, you are somebody who when you make decisions the way you do, the way you chose to leave your partner, allows me to be more courageous.”
Priya Parker:
And in literally 45 seconds, he tells them why they’re there, he creates meaning, he creates a real and authentic need, he makes them feel of use rather than used. And he basically says, “For my 50th birthday, my only wish to you is for me for the next 50 years when I’m at any cross points, will you always blow courage my way?”
Abby Wambach:
Whoa!
Amanda Doyle:
And that is so beautiful because that isn’t just making that moment beautiful. It’s allowing each of those people to know him so well, to know what they need from him, to know if it’s six months from now and I’m thinking about doing that hike, you know who I should invite? Him, because I know that his intention for this year and beyond is to do precisely this thing.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes!
Priya Parker:
It literally changes the future.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, it changes the future. That’s right.
Priya Parker:
Right. “I am going to change who I think of because of this moment.” And not just for him. Wow, say I’m a guest at that party and I leave and two years later I’m debating whether to make a big decision, and I remember someone saw me as someone who takes risks.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Priya Parker:
Right? Gathering is culture-making. We think of gathering as this sweet thing that’s full of connection, and it is. But gathering is world creation.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Priya Parker:
Gathering is line drawing. Gathering is literally saying, “I want to create this temporary alternative world that is a mosh pit, that is a soccer match, that is a 95th birthday party on a fishing dock. Won’t you come in and be a guest in this temporary way?”
Priya Parker:
“I think this moment matters. I’m leaving my partner. I am honoring my daughter as she has her period in a world that is not modeling how it is to celebrate being a woman and I want to create a period party for her. Won’t you come?” And yes, men are invited, too, because they’re relationally related to this.
Priya Parker:
I’m making this up, but literally how we gather is what we create and make as normal, but it’s not rocket science.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes! It works backwards because it’s like what you just said about the leaving, I’ve left a marriage. We just gather sadly with that. What the hell is that?
Glennon Doyle:
I mean, sorry, this can be an unpopular opinion, but divorce almost 100% of the time is a decision that what was is not good enough to stay in, which means it’s a new beginning, which means it’s almost always hopeful, painful, but also a brave, bold step towards the future and towards more and towards bigger and towards life. But if we gather and cry about it just because that’s what we’ve always done, what if we had, like we have graduation parties, divorce is largely a graduation, why aren’t we having soulful, it doesn’t have to be frivolous, but shouldn’t we gather in a milestone honoring the courage of a divorce as a new beginning?
Priya Parker:
I wrote The Art of Gathering before the pandemic hit, and when I conducted my research for that book, I interviewed over a hundred different types of gatherers from all walks of life who other people credit with disproportionately creating transformative experiences.
Priya Parker:
And one of the things I saw again and again in my research was that traditional communities, so defined by you’re born and die on the same plot of earth, you pray to the same god or goddess, you eat the same food, you believe the same food as taboo, whatever it is, they have pretty beautiful, specific transformational rituals.
Priya Parker:
So in Indonesia, in a very specific Javanese village, when there’s a tooth filing ceremony of the three-year-old, everyone bursts into tears because they understand what the symbolism is. That has been a tradition that’s been passed down generation and generation.
Priya Parker:
South India, you go to a red thread tying ceremony and a red thread is tied around a specific wrist and everyone bursts into tears. Why? Because they understand the symbolism of the thread. They have images of their last five generations of ancestors doing the same thing and their progeny doing the same thing.
Priya Parker:
As we’ve modernized, as we’ve diversified, as we’ve married people who are different from us, a good thing I’m biracial, I’m bi-religious, I come from a family of divorce. I live these things very deeply. So much of basically what happens is we’ve thrown the old ways out and we’re in this kind of confused moment where we’ve thrown out the ritual because it has been oppressive or it has been patriarchal or it has been focused on only the eldest son or whatever it have you, and saying, “We don’t want that.”
Priya Parker:
But actually, we need ritual and ritual and gathering and saying, “This moment matters.” Rather than saying, “This is a tool that is bad,” it’s not bad, it’s a tool.
Priya Parker:
And so when you throw a divorce party, to take your example, it is actually pausing and asking, “What is the need now? What is the reality now? What is important to mark? What is taboo and shame and what is not?”
Priya Parker:
And so part of what you’re able to do when you gather is it’s actually literally changing what people think of as normal and of marking the transition.
Glennon Doyle:
And you can do a dinner. It doesn’t have to be a party. You could do a dinner and say, “Everyone at this table has made a hard choice that was the right kind of hard.” It can be a meaningful, deep celebration. We always give women who’ve done really hard things, these Joan of Arc-
Abby Wambach:
Medallions.
Glennon Doyle:
… medallions, that’s just like you went towards the fire.
Amanda Doyle:
I love what you said about the creation of culture. I don’t think that is very commonly appreciated.
Amanda Doyle:
But just your example in your own life about your baby shower, when you think about baby showers, a bunch of women who are around a woman who’s about to give birth and you get what that ritual is about: surrounding, giving, helping to defray the costs of bringing someone into the world, sharing wisdom, sharing tips, sharing this is what worked for me. And who’s there? Just women. So that is cultural creating the wisdom being passed down, the kind of planned obsolescence of the father in that format where he is not present, and how cultural shifting it would be to be like, “No, a father and a mother are sitting there to receive the wisdom,” as if it belongs to each of them equally, is the cultural formation moment.
Abby Wambach:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Priya Parker:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And so often we inherit these rituals, baby shower or bachelorette or graduation party, and we assume there’s a specific form, we have to do it this way. “Of course I would only invite women or of course I’m going to have a baby shower” or whatever. Or, “Of course I’m going to call it a baby shower.”
Priya Parker:
And yet, to take this example very specifically, I’ll give an example of a real couple. One of the things I kept hearing from people over and over again is like, “But how do I actually do this? Break it down for me. My partner and I, heterosexual couple, my husband and I are about to have a baby. We do not want to repeat the patterns of our parents. We want to parent in a way that we have not seen before, which is co-parenting, which is involving the husband as a co-equal partner. But the rituals that we have are surrounding only the mother and that’s around birth. But what about parenting?”
Priya Parker:
You mentioned earlier I just launched a digital course and over the last two years I’ve been working on this and they were one of our beta couples. And so they came in and they basically were like, “Okay, literally how do I do this? I don’t want to do pin-the-diaper-on-the-baby.” So they’re like, “What’s the alternative?”
Priya Parker:
And so they pause and ask the first lesson which is, “What is our actual need?” The biggest mistake we make when we gather is we assume the purpose is obvious and shared. “Oh, I know what a baby shower is. I know what to do there. I know how to make the onesie and put the glue art on.”
Priya Parker:
And they pause and she said, “I realized I’m terrified of birth and we want to have a community where it’s normal to co-parent.” And so they then said, “How do we do this?” And again, two different needs. They created two different gatherings. One was a birthing ceremony, and that was just with women. So part of the art of gathering is not inviting everybody.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes!
Priya Parker:
Right? It’s like not everybody should be at every thing. There’s a purpose, there’s a need. In that case it doesn’t make sense for people who haven’t been through birth to be giving advice about giving birth. It’s okay to draw a line.
Priya Parker:
So they created a small ritual for her to prepare her. And to your walk example of depth, instead of just coming and wishing her love, which in and of itself is helpful, they each were invited to share a story from her life in which she already embodied the value that will also serve her in birth.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh! Like, “You were so brave then when you did this thing”?
Priya Parker:
“You’re brave.” Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
And so they have stories from her past that she already had everything she needed inside her, like Dorothy?
Priya Parker:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh!
Priya Parker:
“And we see this in you.” And right, again, all of the other people, “Oh, these are qualities that are noticed. Oh, this is this other facet of my friend I haven’t seen.” It is life-giving to everyone there.
Glennon Doyle:
Beautiful.
Priya Parker:
She is a vessel, but she is also a vessel for all of us, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Priya Parker:
It’s like watering the garden of every guest. And then separately, they started to walk through, “Okay, what is the actual structure? We know a need is we don’t want to parent the way our parents parented, but okay, so how do I actually do this, Priya, like practical, practical, practical?”
Priya Parker:
So in this course, literally they break down what’s the structure? What is the infrastructure? What’s the coordinating mechanism? What’s the math and the poetry to coordinate this community to have something that they haven’t had before and explain to the men why they may be there. And they invited literally what you said, they had a dinner party and then they had a dance party.
Priya Parker:
And at the dinner party they invited six couples and they told them ahead of time, they didn’t spring it on them, “Please bring a story of one way you want to repeat and offer to our child and our family one way you or parented that you love and one way you were parented that stops with this generation.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Priya Parker:
And that was the dinner.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God.
Abby Wambach:
Okay, I just have to say this because I think that you said something early on around fear that I think is super interesting and something that I think a lot of us are probably thinking right now while listening. You have to have a sense of audacity to want to go against the norm of said party that you’re trying to plan and that fear and vulnerability of, “Will people like it.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
How do you work through that? I’m sure that this is a question you get a lot.
Priya Parker:
Totally.
Abby Wambach:
Because I’m thinking I don’t even like to celebrate my own birthday.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Or I’m scared to say, “Can you bring a dessert?”
Abby Wambach:
I don’t want people to bring anything.
Glennon Doyle:
And now I’ve got to say, “Can you bring a story about your parenting?
Priya Parker:
Same girl, same.
Abby Wambach:
How do we overcome that?
Priya Parker:
I’ll start with it this way. I’m a conflict resolution facilitator. You all know that about me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Priya Parker:
And people often say like, “What does conflict have to do with gathering?”
Glennon Doyle:
Everything.
Priya Parker:
It’s like, “Oh, honey, it has everything to do with gathering.”
Priya Parker:
And one of the things, one of the rules in conflict resolution is that 90% of what happens in an event, in a gathering, happens before anyone enters the room.
Abby Wambach:
Wow.
Priya Parker:
It’s the preparation. It’s the need. It’s the priming of your guests. It’s not like entering, say you come from a specific family that has always done baby showers in a certain way or always done the family reunion in a certain way, always done the Passover Seder in a certain way, always done the name, your favorite ritual, tradition in the same way, and then springing on at that moment, in this heightened moment where everyone is expecting a certain thing, be like, “I’m actually going to do something kind of different.”
Priya Parker:
It begins long before anyone enters the room, and it’s an organizing project. And so gathering doesn’t start when people enter. It starts at the moment of discovery in your guest’s mind and you’re hosting them all the way through.
Priya Parker:
So I’ll give another example. There was a journalist who called me up and she was saying, “I want to host a dinner party. Can you Art of Gatheringify my dinner party?” And I was like, “What do you think that means? Do you put the fish knife here? Do you put the wine glass here?” And she was starting with form. So many of us, we start with a form. Even in our work calls, even when you think about what is a court proceeding, you’d start with a form.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Priya Parker:
What is a board meeting? Start with a form. What is a family reunion? You start with a form in our head and that form is the beginning of the end because it may not be the right form.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes! Yes.
Priya Parker:
And so she paused and she was like, “I don’t know if this counts…” And I said, “Rather than starting with a form, what is a need in your life that by bringing together a specific group of people you might be able to address?”
Priya Parker:
And she paused and she was like, “I don’t know if this counts, but the thing that’s coming to mind is I’m a worn-out mom and the other day I was at a friend’s house and she cut me peanut butter and jelly sandwich into triangles and she fed me and I burst into tears.
Glennon Doyle:
Aw. Yeah.
Priya Parker:
And I was like, “Why did you burst into tears?” And she said, “Because it was the first time in a long time that I was taken care of.” And she said, “What if I threw a dinner party for my other worn-out moms?” And I said, “Great. Give it a name.” Abby, this gets to the audacity point. What I tell her in the next 30 seconds is coaching her not to be audacious. It’s giving her a bridge to help create a temporary world that other people want to be a part of.
Abby Wambach:
Okay. That’s right.
Priya Parker:
Give it a name. She called it the Worn-out Moms Hootenanny.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes!
Priya Parker:
Give it a rule. This involves alcohol, but if you talk about your children, you have to take a shot.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Priya Parker:
And she started getting excited. You could feel the blood came back into her face.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Priya Parker:
It was like, “Oh, oh, that’s a need. Yes! That’s a need.” What does it mean to be embodied? They ordered takeout. And so the audacity… If people had entered and they looked around and she was like, “You can’t talk about your children, otherwise you have to take a tequila shot,” it’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t sign up for this,” and they didn’t.
Priya Parker:
She was hosting them, so she sent out an email subject line: The Worn-out Moms Hootenanny. Names have titles. Names have social contracts within them. A meeting, it’s like a meeting can cover all matter of sins. Is it a workshop? Is it a hootenanny? Is it a brainstorming? How many times even in the workplace, you all probably work with exactly who you want to work with, but so many people enter Zooms these days in remote work and you back into the purpose. “I thought this was a brainstorming call. Why is legal here?”
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Priya Parker:
No offense to my lawyers.
Amanda Doyle:
Tell you what doesn’t do is brainstorming.
Priya Parker:
Exactly. Exactly. But so often because we don’t actually know what the purpose is, we kind of waste a lot of other people’s times figuring it out in the room.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Priya Parker:
And she sent this email, she told a story. The audacity, again, it’s not only, “Be brave,” it’s creating the invisible infrastructure and telling a story, inviting people in to consent to want to be part of that temporary world and follow a specific set of pop-up rules, not etiquette, that help us coordinate for the night, say yes, arrive. And it’s specific. Is this for everyone? No, it’s disputable. “What if I don’t want to take a tequila shot?” “Then don’t talk about your children”
Priya Parker:
I’m being a little facetious here, but the constraints create energy.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes!
Priya Parker:
It creates specificity and it allows people to realize that’s really fun. All six women RSVPed yes. They went off and did it, and she’s shifting the norms of her community.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Priya Parker:
She’s shifting what women who also happen to be mothers can talk about in an evening.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes!
Priya Parker:
She’s temporarily creating guardrails, geographic guardrails. It’s like your walks, the founding of this podcast, We Can Do Hard Things. “We can do hard things, like parent, but tonight we’re not going to talk about that. Tonight we’re going to talk about all of our other identities that are also complicated by being a parent and we’re going to have a little fun while doing it.”
Amanda Doyle:
I love that you just mentioned the specific purpose and how that is the place to start, not the, “I’m doing a wedding.” The purpose is not a wedding, that is the format, that is the function.
Priya Parker:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
And that it needs to be specific and disputable, which I love. Can you talk more about that? Because that is something I’d never heard of. It makes so much sense from a lens of being a decision making tool throughout the rest of the planning.
Priya Parker:
I love this question and we started with talking about intention and desire. And at some level, desire is also about choice. It’s about choosing it, and choosing is line drawing. It’s cutting something out in order to grow something else.
Priya Parker:
And gathering is like the sociological intellectual… Intellectual is the wrong word. But it’s the invisible patterning of our everyday life. And so to be specific and disputable, one of the reasons going back to the research, that gathering and ritual and meaningful moments for modern life and the messiness of modern life is not happening, everyone ends up in the living room chitchatting and then goes home, is because we haven’t actually paused to ask, “What is the need here?” And so often in trying to not impose and trying to not be specific, “Oh, this is how I grew up Jewish or this is how I grew up Indian, or this is how I grew up Southern Baptist, or this is how I grew up as a Yankee fan,” and assuming not everyone is a Yankee fan, we end up not-
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, safe assumption of here for you.
Priya Parker:
… Talking about baseball.
Amanda Doyle:
Safe assumption.
Priya Parker:
I figure we’ll turn up the heat as this conversation goes on.
Amanda Doyle:
That is very specific and highly disputable. Okay, Priya?
Priya Parker:
And so a specific disputable purpose. Let me give another example.
Priya Parker:
You talked about weddings. I’ve been working with a lot of couples who are kind of freaking out about their weddings and for a lot of different things. We have this kind of runaway wedding industry that is more and more events, more and more expensive, and all very much specific on form. And so it’s pausing and actually asking first not why you’re getting married, you should probably already have that conversation, but why are you having a wedding? Why not go to city hall? Why not elope? Why are you having a wedding? And people are usually like, “What do you mean? That’s what just people do.” And it’s like, “Okay, but why are you doing it?” and to pause.
Priya Parker:
The rule number one in conflict resolution is to name the thing. Why? So for some people, it is to honor the previous generation. This is reciprocity for all of the things that my parents and my grandparents have done and to almost repay those debts. And in other couples, the fundamental purpose is to unite a specific group, communities around two people and their specificity. And those are two very different purposes.
Priya Parker:
And when we don’t pause and say, “Why am I actually doing this?” particularly with your partner and then perhaps with your parents or whoever else may be decision makers, we back into proxy wars. The guest list is a proxy war around purpose. Who is this for first? Does the last invitation go to the mother’s colleague or to the college buddy?
Priya Parker:
And so a specific disputable purpose is basically saying, “This is what the need is in my or our life, or this is what the need is in the community.” Then at some level, like testing, going back to Abby’s audacity point to see if you’re right about the need. In a wedding, you have more power because it is fundamentally about you and this union between two people. But in a workplace or in an organization, you may misdiagnose the need.
Priya Parker:
But basically, a specific indisputable need also allows you to understand who your guests are. Often explosions happen at gatherings because people didn’t sign up for it because it was really vague. You go to a conference, you’re sitting there, panel after panel after panel, it’s like, “Why did I come to this?” Or you go to a party and you get cornered and you’re finding only the people and it’s like, “I would much rather be at home with my partner.” And so a specific disputable purpose, whether it’s a worn-out mom’s hootenanny or whether it’s what this wedding is actually about, allows you to make really helpful decisions and it helps you to generously exclude. We over-include because we don’t know why we’re gathering.
Glennon Doyle:
So one of the purposes is not just to have more meaning in the gathering and not just to get what we need from the gathering, but it helps us decide who to include and who not to include. Is this what you call exclusionary inclusion or inclusionary exclusion? Which one is it?
Priya Parker:
Yes. You all are all so beautifully prepared. The most beautiful nerds of them all.
Glennon Doyle:
We are. We are.
Priya Parker:
It makes my little nerd heart like pitter-patter. So I call it a couple of things. One is generous exclusion.
Priya Parker:
Part of what I’ve really been trying to do, if I kind of just scoot all the way back, it’s like, “Why am I spending my time doing this? Why am I spending time trying to shift how people are gathering?” And part of it’s because we’re lonely. We’re in serious crisis. But also because as we’re trying to birth a new world, we don’t have the rituals to match it, to make people feel safe and connected to that world.
Abby Wambach:
Yep.
Glennon Doyle:
Love it.
Priya Parker:
And some of the biggest mistakes we make, we’ve been designing this course for the last two years and we literally have been just watching what are people’s blockages? The book help change the mindset of, “Okay, you can gather meaningfully,” but then what’s the blockage? Why are people getting stuck?
Priya Parker:
One of them is a fear of imposing. “Who am I to do it in this way?”
Priya Parker:
One of them is not realizing they don’t know what their need is, creating and pausing the need.
Priya Parker:
And one of them is the fear of exclusion.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Right?
Priya Parker:
It’s easier to not do something than to get people mad at me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes!
Abby Wambach:
Yes!
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Priya Parker:
And part of gathering is, yes, it’s about love, but it’s also about power. And as a host, you have a role to realize.
Priya Parker:
Right now, you all are hosts of this gathering, the We Can Do Hard Things gathering. The guests may be listening to it at different moments. They may be going on walks, but at some level you are protecting them-
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Priya Parker:
… by choosing which guests you have on. You are protecting me by helping me feel safe, by honoring my work, by asking questions that are connecting you to me. You are modeling, yes, love, but also power and protection.
Priya Parker:
And so a good host practices, the first thing is generous authority, which is using your power as a host to connect your guests to each other, to protect your guests from each other, and to temporarily equalize.
Priya Parker:
And this is again, I said earlier, it’s not rocket science. Simple examples of what do I mean by protection. David Gergen was a advisor to many presidents and was one of the moderators of the Kennedy School Forum, which is at the Kennedy School in Massachusetts that has heads of state visit once a week to talk to students. You have 60 minutes. The head of state or whatever luminary is visiting to talk to 22 year olds. This is a very special thing. And maybe they’re interviewed for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and then there’s a Q&A. And at the beginning of every Q&A session, David Gergen says, “It’s now time to turn to our community,” and there’s a thousand people in the room. “A question ends with a question.”
Glennon Doyle:
Ah, that’s-
Priya Parker:
He’s protecting the guests. And people laugh and then always they’re like person three, person four, person five, and you can probably imagine who these people tend to be and who they tend to not be, will be like, “Well, before I want to ask something, I want to just tell you about an experience I had in 1972.” And David Gergen will use his authority as a host and say, “A question ends with a question mark.” He’ll cut them off. “A question ends with a question mark.” I’m really serious. People start laughing nervously, but it seems mean in the moment. He’s protecting the purpose.
Glennon Doyle:
Amen. Amen.
Priya Parker:
He’s protecting the gathering. It is sacred. Those 20 minutes are sacred. The head of state or whoever it is rarely gets to actually hear what young people think. Young people get to be treated seriously and sometimes ask questions that will shift a policy, potentially. He understands the larger purpose and he’s using his generous authority to protect it in the moment. But also, going back to Abby’s earlier point around audacity, he stated the rules upfront.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Priya Parker:
And so whether it’s the Kennedy School Forum or whether it’s a worn-out mom’s hootenanny, gatherings are temporary social constructs that if you choose to do, and again, anyone can do this…
Priya Parker:
You know how excited I’m about this digital course, I’m choosing to launch it on your show because we can do hard things, and what harder thing can we do than gather and gather differently and treat our time together as sacred and actually say, “This is what I think we should be spending our time in. Won’t you come in? And in order for us to be different, we’re going to put a few temporary rules that I’m going to enforce slightly. But you’ve already said yes and you are grateful for my generous hosting.”
Glennon Doyle:
So grateful. I think that I might suffer from this affliction more than the average bear, but assuming that everyone knows the same etiquette is not… I don’t like going into a million different spaces and not knowing what’s going to happen there and not knowing what’s expected of me and not… I mean, our most ridiculous example is somebody invited me to a potluck, Priya, and asked me to bring a dish and so I brought a dish, just a fucking dish. But they meant-
Abby Wambach:
No food.
Glennon Doyle:
“Put food on it.”
Abby Wambach:
No food on it.
Glennon Doyle:
Did I know that? No. Because they assumed some kind of common etiquette knowledge.
Priya Parker:
Correct. This is such a beautiful example. And I loved your episode on etiquette. You’re totally right, etiquette is a specific code.
Glennon Doyle:
Code.
Priya Parker:
And it’s a code that works if we are generous to it. It’s a code that works for monolithic cultures, when there is a way. Abby, I know you went to, I don’t know if it was cotillion or if it was manner school.
Priya Parker:
I went to the same thing. My mother’s an Indian immigrant. My dad’s from a small town in Iowa. It was like the thing in my high school in Virginia people were doing. And so every day I would wear the same vest and skirt because I owned one good outfit. I mean, good but I’m putting good in quotes. No one wants to see the white turtleneck and the Keds. And I would go and they’d wheel out the little trolley and they’re teaching a specific way to put the fork.
Abby Wambach:
Oh my God.
Priya Parker:
We’re not dancing the Harlem Shake. We’re learning the steps of the Foxtrot.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Priya Parker:
And again, there are millions of people who have gone to cotillion around this country, as I understand it, who actually, if you’re trying to enter a certain world, it actually helps people who didn’t grow up in certain worlds to know that when someone says, “Bring a dish,” you put food in it.
Priya Parker:
But we don’t live in that world. We are a browning country. We are going to soon be majority-minority. My husband, Anand Giridharadas, is a journalist and he says, “We are falling on our face right now as a country because we are jumping so high” because we are trying to be the first thing that has ever existed in the history of the world, which is a multiracial democracy.
Priya Parker:
And part of explaining, temporarily, “Hey, I’m having this party. This means, this is,” is it’s actually deeply inclusive.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes! That is so beautiful.
Priya Parker:
“This is how I want you to…”
Priya Parker:
And the last thing I’ll say is a lot of the people I interviewed in The Art of Gathering, and a lot of people starting to take this course and some of the best gatherers in the world are introverts. They’re self-described as often on the outside of things, as loners. This is their language, not mine. And I thought this was so interesting, and I finally asked one of the people I was interviewing, I said, “Why do you think this is?” And she said, “I don’t know about other people, but most gatherings I go to, I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know how to be. I don’t know what the codes are. I feel unheld. And so I create the gatherings I wish existed in the world.”
Glennon Doyle:
Love.
Priya Parker:
And they’re not relying on the fancy house, like their starlight personality. It’s thinking ahead of time, “What is this thing? If I hosted a picnic, what is the specific item everyone could bring? Bring your favorite tea mug. I’ll bring a thermos. Bring two mugs, your favorite tea mug for yourself and one you want to share with the group and tell the story as to why.” It costs $3 to have tea bags and a thermos.
Priya Parker:
But so often we don’t know how to have a specific disputable purpose, but meaning lies in specificity. And in a democracy, gathering in this way, learning how to actually think, “What is my need? Who needs to be there? And how do I explain this to them in a way they want to be part of it, they’re willing to give up some amount of their freedom?” “I’ll wear that silly hat for Glennon because I realized, she explained it to me in the invitation, this is how she used to party when she was nine years old and I love her and she’s trying to bring more silliness in her life,” versus stepping in and being like, “Here, wear the silly hat.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Priya Parker:
Gathering in this way is good for our democracy, but it’s just one little pebble at a time.
Amanda Doyle:
“Meaning lies in specificity. Meaning lies in specificity.” So you are not being specific because you’re a primadonna. You are not being specific because the thing that you’re hosting, you want it to be just so. You’re being specific in order to make sure that this gathering has meaning and the meaning matches the need.
Amanda Doyle:
And so this reminds me so much, we just did a couple episodes on dating… it’s a stretch, but dating and beige flags and the way that they were talking about beige flags, it’s like, “I want to be so approachable and accessible to everyone that I am going to exude such a generic mass appeal that I actually appeal to no one.” Because you actually don’t want your gathering to work for everyone on God’s green earth. You want your gathering to specifically work specifically for this group of people that you are gathering.
Priya Parker:
If everyone is invited, nobody is invited. If I’m willing to date everyone, I am willing to not date anyone, specifically. Closing the door, metaphorically and literally, creates the room. And it’s not forever.
Priya Parker:
So community is different than gathering. People start getting upset like, “You’re going to leave them out of this one time?” It’s like, “It depends on the purpose.” And in workplaces, people are invited to way too many meetings.
Glennon Doyle:
Agreed.
Priya Parker:
It’s like, “Give them their time back.” So often, we don’t know what we want to attend because there’s not specificity to it.
Priya Parker:
And you can be specific and be exclusive. You can definitely be specific and be a primadonna. Specificity is a tool. If someone suggests a dress code that costs $1,000 to meet, that’s a very specific form of connection.
Priya Parker:
But specificity, I’ll give another example. A friend’s boss received a Magnum of champagne from a client and he doesn’t drink. And the Magnum was from 2003. And the friend of mine said, “What do I do with this? This is a huge amount of alcohol. What do I do with this? Do I invite four people? Do I invite 12 people? Is everyone taking a sip?” And actually, size matters. Depending on the gathering, literally everyone has a thimble and it’s hilarious and you invite 70 people. It’s just this funny design constraint. And I said, “Invite 12 people and the cost of entry is you have to bring a story from your life in the year 2003.”
Priya Parker:
Specificity. It is like that moment of connection. There’s so many different things one can talk about. All of us have so many different identities.
Priya Parker:
One of the things I loved, Glennon, when you had a deep dive on Amanda, you said, “There are so many ways to tell the story. There’s so many lens I could give you to this beautiful person.” That is true of all of us.
Priya Parker:
And when we enter a room, I’m debating, “Am I showing you my biracial side? Am I emphasizing my conflict side? Am I am emphasizing my divorce side? Am I emphasizing my softball player side? My marching band side? Do I not want to tell you about my marching band side, no matter what? Who are these people? Whoops!”
Abby Wambach:
Whoops-a-daisy.
Priya Parker:
Please, marching band listeners, raise your hand.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, it’s so good.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so beautiful because in the beginning, you said this is about world creation, and it is. It’s also about identity creation.
Priya Parker:
It is.
Glennon Doyle:
As someone who’s slightly obsessed with, “Who the hell am I?,” we do so much of it alone and that’s why we’re so confused. I mean, I’m on fricking Buzzfeed trying to figure out if I’m a Harry Potter character when really what you’re saying is these gatherings are partly, “I brought you here because I see you as brave.” If someone did that, I would be like, “Oh, I’m brave.”
Priya Parker:
Yes, yes. That’s how I see… We see each other through each other.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes!
Priya Parker:
And not every gathering needs to be through conversation or through dialogue. It can also be a shared experience.
Priya Parker:
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a lot of conflicts and tension within families right now.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, geez.
Amanda Doyle:
No?
Abby Wambach:
Here we go.
Amanda Doyle:
You’ll have to send us a link on that.
Priya Parker:
Just going to tell you, just going to tell you.
Abby Wambach:
Let’s get into it.
Priya Parker:
So there’s a woman I know, again, specificity. So a woman I know, every example I share, I have permission to share. She was actually on one of our digital course office hours, and she was trying to figure out, real person, we’re testing, how does she actually shift from, “I want to gather this way, but I have a family reunion. Ah! What do I do?” And it was her father’s 70th birthday. There’s always drama when the collective family comes together. She didn’t want the focus to be a big, long meal because the more they talk, the more everything goes downhill. Sometimes talk is the solution. Sometimes talk is the problem.
Amanda Doyle:
Sure.
Priya Parker:
And so she was, again, if you go think back to the baby ritual example, what is the structure? What’s the coordinating mechanism to shift how we gather?
Priya Parker:
And so all she did, she realized that the math and poetry of her gathering was she invited her entire family, two weeks ahead of time, she’s hosting them before they arrive, to send three photos of Pops. It could be a photo with them, just three photos. And then the moment of focus, the peak of the gathering, was when all of the family members gathered in the living room on her phone, projected a TV, and then she invited them, “When you see your photo, tell us about why this reminds you of Pops.” And so there was an old photo from 50 years ago of he and his wife when there were 22 outside of a Just Sold sign, in the house that they’re all sitting in.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, wow.
Priya Parker:
And then there’s an image of a black pickup truck and the 4-year-old granddaughter starts jumping up and down, it’s an accessible coordinating mechanism, saying, “Every time I see a black truck, I start getting so excited because I think it might be Poppy!”
Priya Parker:
She found the right coordinating mechanism that was accessible, everyone had a few photos, that was ahead of time, that wasn’t too high a lift, that gave people a meaningful way to engage, that was equalizing —
Glennon Doyle:
Equalizing!
Priya Parker:
… that protected them… Equalizing,
Glennon Doyle:
Yes,
Priya Parker:
That protected them from each other-
Glennon Doyle:
From each other.
Priya Parker:
… and let them spend time together in a way that wasn’t going to be really painful.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Priya Parker:
And in that specific family, they still wanted to spend time together, but she realized, as this aspiring artful gatherer, that she needed to slightly tilt how they spend their time and bring their family along in almost like incognito form.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
The equalizing, too. I tend to feel so comfortable when there is a structure for time because I feel that lack of equalization if we just invite people into spaces, then there’s always a couple people who have the kind of personality that dominates conversation, that will talk the whole time, that every space is filled with their voice. And so if we don’t arrange different structures, there’s only three people ever talking. We don’t get to know 80% of the people. So it makes me feel so comfortable when there’s a structure that’s like, “Now that person has the floor, now this…” Now the four year old’s voice gets to come out because it’s her moment. That’s probably the most precious moment of the thing, and it never would’ve happened if there wasn’t a structure.
Priya Parker:
Exactly. And structures can be found in the moment.
Priya Parker:
So I’ll give a different example: retirement party. My father is a government civil servant, worked for the government for 30 years. This is a couple of years ago, he was retiring. I mentioned earlier, he’s from Iowa. So code for that was he didn’t want to make a fuss.
Priya Parker:
And one of his colleagues realized Ron’s retiring, sends an email around. And very well-intentioned beautiful instinct, “Let’s mark this.” My stepmother asks, “Oh, there’s a lunch?” And he’s kind of like, “I guess. Sort of.” “Can I come?” “Yeah? Yeah, sure.”
Priya Parker:
So she goes. She’d read my book. You’re like, “Make sure your parents read your book.” And she sat down and she was so excited. And there was a 17-person table at a Greek restaurant across the street. 10 minutes go by, 15 minutes go by. And then all of a sudden she’s starts getting really nervous and she’s like, “Is lunch just going to be lunch?”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Priya Parker:
“Is his retirement party after 30 years…” Like, “Whoa, what is happening here?” As she describes it to me, she kind of blacked out, dung her glass, stood up and was like, “Hi,” voice shaking, “I’m Renee. I’m Ron’s wife, and I am so happy to be here today. And I know home-Ron, but I don’t really know work-Ron.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh, this is good.
Priya Parker:
“Would you tell me something about him?” Silence. We can do hard things. And then out of the corner there’s a small, little ding, and it’s the intern.
Amanda Doyle:
Ah.
Abby Wambach:
God.
Priya Parker:
And he stands up and he says, “I’ve been working here for a few months and I learned very quickly, even though Ron is on the other side of the floor, if I have any question, I walk across the floor because no matter what he’s doing, he will put his papers down, stand up, and answer my question.”
Priya Parker:
Another one dings. “Ron is always the person at the end…” He’s created pesticide programs, “at the end of the program, when we’re all just done, it’s like, ‘Ship this thing out,’ he rallies the troops and he’s like, ‘We get to name the acronym!’ And his personal coup was when he named one after his daughter, the Pesticide Reduction Information Act, the PRIA.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God.
Priya Parker:
And all of a sudden, popcorn, popcorn, popcorn, popcorn, popcorn, people laughing, people talking, people sharing specific stories. She sits down. She models radical, audacious guesting.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And vulnerability.
Glennon Doyle:
And vulnerability.
Priya Parker:
And vulnerability.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s what it is. You have to be so vulnerable to be like, “I have a need that we get beyond surface level and that I have a place where I can share my squishy middle,” and so it’s vulnerable for me to host this thing where I’m asking for somebody else’s squishy middle. But that’s what it takes for people to be able to show up that way.
Priya Parker:
But for a purpose.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Priya Parker:
They’re not saying, “Share your childhood traumas,” and there are workplaces that are currently doing that and it’s inappropriate.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes!
Priya Parker:
It was vulnerability for a purpose. There was a legitimate purpose there, which is, “Let’s honor this guy.” She found the right coordinating mechanism. In this course, I call it the math and the poetry. She found the poetry and the math. What could they all do? What’s equalizing? They then choose their level of vulnerability.
Priya Parker:
But the last thing, going back to your first point, Amanda, is it changes things afterwards. When I say transformative, first of all, the story in my father’s head for the next however long he lives, God bless him, is, “My work mattered. People saw my moments of kindness.” But it also changed the guests. “Whoa, maybe I should stand up when the intern comes.”
Abby Wambach:
Yes, that’s good.
Priya Parker:
“Oh, that’s didn’t realize people noticed moments of joy. Whoa.” And so she got there in the moment and she took a big risk-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, bless her.
Priya Parker:
… and sometimes it can fall flat. But the amount of times we’re at a funeral or memorial or I was recently at a launch for a film at a big conference, hundreds of people there, people milling around. And you can feel that pregnant moment where it’s like, “Okay, is someone going to say something? What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing?” And no one said anything. And I went to the person who the ostensible host is, and I was like-
Glennon Doyle:
That person was like, “Oh, fuck. Priya Parker’s here. Shit.”
Amanda Doyle:
“Here’s your moment! Here’s your moment!”
Priya Parker:
… and he said to me, “I have my notes in my pocket, but I don’t want to kill the vibe.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Priya Parker:
And I don’t know if this is an American thing, I don’t know, our misplaced fear of imposing? It’s like, “No, no, no, no, you’re birthing the moment.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, yeah.
Priya Parker:
A moment of focus. One minute, two minutes, three minutes. But so often, we under-host because we’re not totally sure how to create that moment.
Priya Parker:
Tell a story. “Why are we here? Why are you here? How do we create this incredible film during a global pandemic with teams in 32 different spots? And the way that you, Clarissa,” I’m making this up, “shipped the tapes from the driveway and wiped them up with Clorox wipes and sent them to Eric. And then you took it on a donkey…” Clearly, I’m literally making this up now.
Glennon Doyle:
Damn.
Amanda Doyle:
Nailing it. Really nailing it.
Priya Parker:
It’s like all of this moments, moments of specificity and marking and allowing us to own the good…
Priya Parker:
I mean, Abby, you do… This is your… a Captain, it’s almost like let us steer the ship as a captain. These are people, they need to be loved, they need to be touched, but they need to be oriented. What are we doing here? And why are you all here? And why does that matter? I believe not knowing why they matter to something.
Glennon Doyle:
And it feels like such an opportunity. Listen, Pod Squaders, introverts, weirdos, this is our moment. This is our moment to be like, “No, what would we want?” When I say I don’t like parties, I don’t like being with other people, I don’t mean that.
Abby Wambach:
That’s not true. You’re right.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean, I don’t like the form and the way that it always is. I actually love being with other people. I just need intention and structure.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s what’s the truest, most beautiful gathering you can imagine.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like you actually do get to do that. And the beauty of that is then not only do you get to have it for yourself, but you are creating a culture that allows for other people to say, “Well, actually, this one’s my truest, most beautiful gathering of my imagination.”
Priya Parker:
Yes. It gives people permission. This is literally the tilt between, “I don’t like parties,” it’s like, I don’t think anyone likes those parties. But it starts with language. It starts with specificity. It’s like, “Were I to mark whatever it is in my life, what would this be?” It may be three people, but it’s a muscle. Practicing gathering, it’s a muscle, it’s an everyday practice. And if this feels overwhelming, then you can start as a guest. Really good hosts are really good guests.
Abby Wambach:
This sounds fun, too. It doesn’t feel like something-
Glennon Doyle:
It is, does sound fun.
Priya Parker:
It is fun.
Abby Wambach:
It sounds like a party I want to go to rather than one that I don’t.
Glennon Doyle:
That you’ve been to 7 trillion times.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And I also just want to put you on the spot and ask you for one more thing, and then I want to talk about the giveaway and how people are going to get this.
Glennon Doyle:
So we’ve created this space, but the problem with get togethers with people is people. So what I would love for you to do is to say, “Glennon, I’ll come back and I will talk to you about how to, when we gather, deal with, in loving, generous, but protective ways, with people who are difficult, period.”
Priya Parker:
It would be my honor.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. We could call it, We Can Do Hard People.
Priya Parker:
Gatherings are the Trojan horses of the conversations we have been avoiding to have.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, fuck.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Yes.
Priya Parker:
Because they’re these forcing mechanisms that actually ask, “Who do I want there and who do I not?” And the interesting part isn’t, “Who do I want there?” The interesting line is the ambivalence lines. It’s also not like, “Who doesn’t need to be there?” Who cares. It’s that ragged edge where there’s so much juice and where there’s an invitation to either have a facing conversation, “The purpose of this is this, and next time when there’s something else, there’s this, and you don’t mean that thing to me.”
Priya Parker:
I had a friend who had a 40th birthday party recently. He wanted to keep it relatively small. He’s part of a theater community. I wrote about this in my newsletter recently, and I put the theater community as an asterisk because as I understand, not being part of them, these people roll deep. You’ve been part of many shows. We have six friends, they have 200, real friends.
Priya Parker:
So he was having his 40th birthday party and he wanted to keep it relatively small, which this is why I’m joking, relatively small for him was 40.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Priya Parker:
But that was a tight line in an embedded community.
Glennon Doyle:
Tricky.
Priya Parker:
And still he wanted symbolically, he knew himself, he knew what he is like at 40 versus 200 so that was the line. And the line he chose for the purpose to protect it was, “If I am only going to invite the people who I’ve had a meaningful one-on-one conversation or experience with in the last year,” because that, to him, was a proxy for desire, active desire. So he did that.
Priya Parker:
A bunch of people weren’t invited. Some were mad and didn’t say anything. Some were mad and said something. And the transformative conversations were the ones who was like, “I thought we were close. Why didn’t you invite me?” He explains his line and then some people were like, “Well, that’s dumb.” And some people were like, “Oh my gosh, it’s been a year? I’m so sorry. I totally get that. I’m actually kind of embarrassed. I love you so much. Can I take you out for dinner?” It shifts the relationship.
Priya Parker:
And so if you want to, we can coach you through a gathering in all the steps. I will ride along with you and come back and talk about it. But this is why it’s so interesting, because the planning for the host can be transformative.
Glennon Doyle:
I see it. And it’s one of the reasons that I trust you in this work is because I don’t want anybody talking about gathering unless they’re also a conflict resolution expert.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like, “Who are we?”
Abby Wambach:
That’s what it takes.
Glennon Doyle:
“Who do we want to be now?”
Priya Parker:
Yeah.
Priya Parker:
Gathering is political, it’s small P political. It’s saying, “I think we should spend time in this way. I think these people should be here. I think for this moment, these people should not be here. I think this is how we should coordinate.” People may revolt, people may have a better idea, and they might, but it is actually choosing to engage with each other and putting something out there.
Glennon Doyle:
I love it. Sister, tell people how they can get this free giveaway, which is our first one.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh! Okay, this is-
Glennon Doyle:
I’m so excited for this.
Amanda Doyle:
… our first giveaway!
Glennon Doyle:
“And you get a course first, and you get a course, and you get a course.”
Amanda Doyle:
“And you get a course.”
Priya Parker:
“And you get a course.” Part of the reason I’m giving away these courses on your show, I’ve never done this before, is because what is harder than how we gather with our people in front of them being vulnerable, not just individually, not just with our partner, with our community? And where else to do this then with the people who most want to try to do things differently.
Glennon Doyle:
Yep.
Amanda Doyle:
Amen. Amen.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. This is the Art of Gathering Digital Course. This is the one that Priya has been talking about. She’s spent two years researching and building. It normally goes for $397. It’s a six-week self-guided course. She is generously gifting us with 50, that is five-zero registrations. So the first 50 Pod Squaders who go to priyaparker.com/hardthings, that’s priyaparker.com/hardthings and sign up on the landing page. You will get it, the course, for free and it is just thrilling and exciting.
Glennon Doyle:
Wonderful.
Amanda Doyle:
So come do this course.
Priya Parker:
And even if you aren’t the first 50, we have goodies for you there-
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, love some goodies.
Priya Parker:
… even if you’re not the first 50, because we know you all roll deep.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay, so they’ll go-
Glennon Doyle:
We do.
Abby Wambach:
We do! Roll deep.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re like a theater, “The first 50 million…”
Priya Parker:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
Priya Parker, we love you.
Priya Parker:
Thank you so much. Modeling artful gathering that protects people, that is authentic, that is based on the questions you actually have, that honors your guests, that creates safety, that creates vulnerability, that has differentiation between different episodes of when are you going deep on you, when are you mirrors, and when are you windows. You are modeling this and it’s like it’s a distributed gathering over time that’s a new form and so you’re modeling this in this fascinating new way. But you’re already walking the talk with your community. And, Glennon, we’ll see how you do this with your other community at some point soon.
Glennon Doyle:
IRL.
Priya Parker:
“Coming to a theater near you.”
Glennon Doyle:
Embodied community. It’s a new frontier, Priya.
Priya Parker:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
Our two friends are like, “Oh, this would fun.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, our two friends are like, “We’re going to have to come back over, aren’t we?”
Amanda Doyle:
“Looks like another pizza night at Doyle’s.” But the toppings are specific!
Glennon Doyle:
Specific, and they’re going to have to bring stories.
Amanda Doyle:
“In specificity, there is meaning.”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Priya Parker:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s why there’s mushrooms.
Glennon Doyle:
All right, Pod Squaders, we will gather here next time. Bye.
Amanda Doyle:
Hooray!
Priya Parker:
Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, I love that.
Glennon Doyle:
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on Follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence13 Studios.