Priya Parker, THE ART OF GATHERING
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[1:28]Priya Parker is a master facilitator, strategic advisor, and the host and executive producer of the New York Times podcast together apart.
[1:37]Trained in the field of conflict resolution, Priya has worked on race relations on American college campuses and on peace processes in the Arab world, Southern Africa and India.
[1:46]Priya is also the acclaimed author of The Art of Gathering, How We Meet and Why It Matters, which shows us how to approach gatherings in a way that will help us create meaningful and memorable experiences.
[1:57]The book has been hailed as a best business book of the year by Amazon, Esquire, NPR, Bloomberg, just to name a few.
[2:03]Priya's work has also been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Oprah.com, Forbes.com, and The Today Show. Her TEDx talk on purpose has been viewed over 1 million times.
[2:14]Listen to us chat here. I had such a good time getting to know her.
[2:17]Welcome Priya. Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books.
[2:21]Thank you for having me. The Art of Gathering. You might think this is a bad time for this book to come out,
[2:26]but it's actually the most important time ever for this book to come out when every gathering is
[2:31]sort of imbued with extra meaning and navigating how together becomes like the most important
[2:37]thing when you can't actually see anyone. So I don't know. What do you think about the timing of this release?
[2:42]It's ironic. And it's also, it's a fascinating moment to have the Art of Gathering particularly come
[2:51]I mean, the paperback came out in the midst of the pandemic. And at a moment where
[3:00]the word gathering was in every headline, perhaps in a way that it's never been before, the CDC
[3:05]bans gatherings, right, California, yeah, Washington state bans gatherings of 10 or more people,
[3:11]Andrew Cuomo, bans gatherings. And in a sense, the word gathering, and I chose it very intentionally,
[3:19]like before COVID hit was a source of meaning and inspiration and beauty and kind of within three
[3:25]weeks, the context of the entire word flipped. And it was a source of danger and a source of death.
[3:35]And I think part of what has been beautiful and powerful and complicated and painful in this moment
[3:44]is that we still have our grappling with and struggling with how to be together when we can't
[3:52]in the same old ways. How do we create meaning together despite significant obstacles?
[3:59]And I'm a convict resolution facilitator. So my core, like day job craft is not an events planner
[4:08]or a florist or a lighting expert, or somebody whose profession is reliant on the things,
[4:14]right, the kutramonts of a gathering. It's really about like a facilitator's trained on how do you
[4:21]create meaningful connection despite significant obstacles. And a huge part of the Art of Gathering
[4:27]well before COVID when I was writing it, you know, over the last many years is about how do we
[4:31]actually stop our obsession on form and on things and on the fish knives and the flowers and the
[4:38]AV equipment? How do we actually think about creating meaning not through things but through people?
[4:44]And right now we can't make meaning through things. And so it's become actually this like
[4:50]turned up volume on how do we actually create psychological togetherness and not over rely on the
[4:56]physical togetherness. So how do you do it? I mean, I mean, I like you, like everybody, I'm
[5:04]completely reliant on dooms and face times and, you know, trying to make time for that in life,
[5:09]but it's not the same, you know, it's just there's something very much missing.
[5:13]Oh, absolutely. And I mean, you know, I hope and pray as much as everyone else at this that this
[5:19]period passes as fast as possible. And I think the way you do it is as actually in some ways,
[5:26]the same way you do it, whether you're physical or virtual, which is you start with the need in
[5:31]front of you. You start with the purpose. And so in some ways, the same way, if you're thinking
[5:38]about a birthday party, I would say you don't start with the cake and the candles in a zoom
[5:43]meeting or in a zoom staff meeting or in a zoom birthday party, you don't start with zoom,
[5:49]like zoom is a tool. It's not the host. And so, you know, I'll give a specific example. I have a
[5:55]friend who was turning 50 and he thought about like not what kind of party do I want, but like,
[6:04]what does my need right now? And he was feeling like tender about turning 50 and he'd never felt like
[6:12]he'd never really cared about birthdays. He wasn't one to like worry about getting older,
[6:16]but he felt like a niggle. I knew enough as that's right word. He felt this thing about
[6:21]turning 50 and he got kind of got clear on him and he said, you know, in my life, I have always
[6:26]been attracted to and I've always sought out adventure and risk and just he was a foreign correspondent.
[6:32]And he and he realized that in his life, there are many people who once they turned 50,
[6:38]they began to contract. They took less risks. They started taking less of the scary jobs. And he
[6:45]was really worried that would happen to him. And so he decided for his 50th, he would invite the
[6:49]people in his life that most continued to take risks. And he brought them together and it was around
[6:55]a table that you could do this on zoom. And then the first five minutes he raises class and he said,
[7:00]you know, as I and he told the story and he said, what I most want is to continue to take risks
[7:05]and to expand. I don't want to be somebody who contracts slowly and incrementally over the next
[7:10]20 years. I want to keep expanding. And you are people who have always kept expanding despite obstacles.
[7:18]And I want to thank you for that. And I want you to blow that energy to me when I begin to contract
[7:23]and remind me of tonight. I love that. And even like in your book when you talked about the dinner
[7:29]party and something as simple as like having a few couples for dinner and oh, I'm having this
[7:34]couple. So I guess I should have this couple and did it, you know, what do you want to get out of a
[7:38]dinner party? Like why are you going to do this? What do you want to talk about? Maybe you should
[7:41]talk about something really interesting. Maybe invite this other couple. You hadn't even thought
[7:44]about it and give it a whole new purpose. And everything just shifts. I mean, I think one of the
[7:49]biggest things is like we so often have meetings or events or whatever. And because we have them,
[7:55]they just are what they are. And your book and your home message really is just like, no, no,
[8:00]like we all have to stop. Yes, gathering is a part of life, but it doesn't have to be so
[8:05]like rote, but namas, right? Yeah. And like part of this is people, I think about first
[8:12]principle, like, oh, God, that's just so exhausting. And like, no, you know, it's exhausting
[8:16]going through life on autopilot and like focusing on all the logistics and having everything to be
[8:20]perfect because you're trying to replicate somebody else's form. That's exhausting.
[8:25]You know, it's life giving, having a real need and looking at yourself and saying, what is it that I
[8:29]need right now and who might be able to help me with this? What is it that this community needs
[8:33]right now? And how might we actually design for that? You know, I'll give an example. I, one of the
[8:38]characters in the book, Ida Benedetto, she, I called her up recently. She's the one, I don't know
[8:43]if you remember, she creates these kind of extreme experiences to help people navigate risk with
[8:50]care. So she does these like fake conventions at the wall door for story where people show up in
[8:55]black tie and have to do things like there's a wedding on the third floor, crash it and give a toast
[9:00]to the bride, like things that just, you know, make your palms sweat. And I called her up and I said,
[9:07]how are you thinking about the holidays? Like, I always like, when I, when I kind of just need a
[9:11]different way of thinking, I call her. And she said, you know, if I could give any advice, I would say,
[9:18]don't think about a holiday party. How can you shift from a party to an adventure? And the
[9:24]difference between a party and an adventure is two things. Motion and mission. And I was like,
[9:31]okay, what does that mean? She said, when I was, when I, I threw my 30th birthday party years ago
[9:36]and my, and many friends often say to me, it's like one of the best nights of their life. And I'm
[9:40]like, why? It was so simple. And she said, basically, she had a friend, a friend who has a photographer
[9:46]who was like taking pictures of beautiful like keyholes, like on doors in the city. And she
[9:53]brought together like 12 friends. And they all had to bring their camera. She explained their
[9:57]mission. The mission was to find the most beautiful keyholes.
[10:00]in the city in two hours.
[10:01]And then they just went.
[10:03]And she said, what if during like the holidays
[10:05]rather than trying to all like climb or into Zoom?
[10:09]And there's ways to make Zoom also meaningful.
[10:11]What if instead with your team
[10:12]or with your family, you created an adventure,
[10:15]you created where you can be outside, it's cold,
[10:17]but when you're in motion, it's not so cold.
[10:19]When you have a mission and it allows you to move,
[10:21]like how do we actually think about being together
[10:25]in ways that are new experiences
[10:27]and don't have to look like what we think a party looks like?
[10:31]It's like my kids going on field trips, right?
[10:34]It's like you get out of your,
[10:35]you have to get out of the classroom every so often
[10:37]and you have to go into the world
[10:39]and you kind of like roll your eyes
[10:40]and you're like, really, I have to like
[10:41]schlep to the Queen's Museum or something like that.
[10:44]And then you end up realizing that that's when
[10:45]you have the most memorable thing from the whole class, right?
[10:48]Totally.
[10:48]And you just have to push yourself to get out there
[10:50]because learning often doesn't happen the way you expect
[10:52]and neither does any of the rest.
[10:54]And like that the dynamics with my classroom,
[10:56]like all of us for good reasons,
[10:59]play specific roles to have some amount of order
[11:02]that whether it's assigned seats
[11:03]or whether Sally always sits by Sanjay
[11:05]and Sanjay always sits by Layla
[11:07]and then on that sleepover,
[11:09]like everyone could pull their sleeping bags
[11:11]in the museum like on different parts of the floor
[11:13]and all of a sudden these new friendships were born.
[11:15]Like when we shift our spaces,
[11:18]psychologically or virtually,
[11:19]we're also shifting our norms of like who is labeled as what, right?
[11:24]But they're always the introvert
[11:25]or like they don't usually sing.
[11:27]And each of us have many parts.
[11:29]And so gatherings, you know,
[11:30]I define a gathering as any time three or more people
[11:33]come together for a purpose with a beginning, middle, or end.
[11:36]Like we're gathering all the time.
[11:39]But we're often gathering in ways
[11:41]that we're on autopilot.
[11:42]And it's not serving anybody.
[11:45]Yeah.
[11:46]I mean, I think about this all the time.
[11:47]So I was like particularly,
[11:49]I feel like receptive to your message and your mission
[11:52]because I'm always like analyzing time
[11:54]and how we're spending time and like is this worth it?
[11:57]And even my own time, right?
[11:59]Like is this group Zoom worth it?
[12:02]Like what is my purpose?
[12:03]Should I be doing my emails at the same time during this one
[12:07]or that one or like how do you maximize everything
[12:09]and why are we even doing it?
[12:11]Right? Like what are we even, what is the point?
[12:13]Yes. Why are we doing it?
[12:15]And before I used to do it with meetings,
[12:16]like what are we all just sitting around?
[12:18]Why do I go to board meetings?
[12:19]Like what are we doing here?
[12:21]And at some level when it becomes performative,
[12:24]like, oh, I'd like to be on that board
[12:26]or will I like that company's mission
[12:28]or will I, you know, whatever reason we each join boards
[12:31]or you join a board?
[12:32]And then at some level, like you don't want to,
[12:34]no one really wants to be this like performative sitting duck.
[12:38]I'll give an example of woman came up to me,
[12:40]pre-COVID at a book event.
[12:42]And she said, I'm an executive director.
[12:44]I read the art of gathering
[12:45]and it helped me figure out why my board meetings suck.
[12:48]I realized that they are rubber stamps.
[12:51]And we all as a staff work to make sure
[12:54]we make our most beautiful presentations
[12:56]and we go like a horse, like a dog and pony show
[12:58]and we show all the wonderful things that are happening.
[13:00]And everyone like like, you know, politely claps and leaves.
[13:04]And she said, but these people on my board are brilliant.
[13:07]And I want to use them.
[13:08]And so I flipped my board purpose
[13:12]from being a dog and pony show
[13:14]to being bringing them our scariest problems, right?
[13:17]I love that.
[13:18]And everything changed.
[13:19]And it was specific and disputable.
[13:22]Some of her staff were like,
[13:23]I don't know if that's such a good idea.
[13:24]I really want to tell them what the problems are.
[13:26]But all of a sudden, like you could see the blood come back
[13:28]into the board member's face.
[13:29]They were actually needed.
[13:31]Like we should be gathering because we need each other.
[13:35]Not out of obligation.
[13:37]And like shifting it, every community has needs
[13:40]that benefit by people coming together.
[13:42]We're just not often gathering around what those needs are.
[13:44]And we shouldn't judge what those needs are.
[13:46]Like the needs can be hilarious.
[13:48]They can be released.
[13:49]They can be like, I need to have a night
[13:51]where I can talk with other mothers
[13:52]and we don't talk about our kids, right?
[13:54]I need to remember that I can be many things.
[13:56]Yes.
[13:57]I feel like I need to like try to put in motion.
[14:00]I'm on the board of like a major medical institution.
[14:03]I don't know how receptive they'd be if I'm like,
[14:05]okay, like, but then you think like,
[14:07]gosh, look at all the people sitting around this table.
[14:08]If we were all just talking to each other,
[14:10]how interesting would that be versus listening?
[14:13]Because I also feel like that's some way
[14:15]that we've all saved time.
[14:16]Like I do feel like one perk of this pandemic
[14:19]it's not that there are any
[14:20]and not that I wouldn't trade it, you know, obviously.
[14:23]But for times when you just need to listen
[14:26]and process, why go anywhere?
[14:29]Like why run around town and go from here to there
[14:32]to there just to sit and listen
[14:33]if you can do it from your computer?
[14:35]But if you wanna be with people
[14:36]and like bring yourself in your feelings,
[14:39]I mean, I'm sorry, I'm like preaching to the choir here,
[14:41]but I totally agree.
[14:44]And I often say to my clients people I work with,
[14:48]there's even in like in all types of institutions
[14:51]as a sense, like we should have a retreat
[14:53]or we should have a, whatever, like a three day gathering.
[14:58]And I always say like, why are you doing this?
[15:02]Why do you wanna have a conference?
[15:03]What is your purpose?
[15:04]And then I say, if you wanna invite all of these people,
[15:07]I want you to figure out like what the agenda is
[15:11]so that they would cancel other stuff to attend this.
[15:15]Like that is the most important.
[15:17]And that usually like there has to be something
[15:20]they're getting out of it.
[15:21]Absolutely.
[15:22]You have to look at it as like marketing.
[15:24]Like I have this anthology coming out
[15:26]and like we're trying to plan a tour.
[15:27]And I'm like, I've been on so many calls about books, right?
[15:31]Like there has to be something that you're offering.
[15:33]Otherwise why would anybody just sit and listen?
[15:36]Like what can I give?
[15:37]And I don't know if I even have an answer to that.
[15:39]But I'm like, you know, what can I give that like
[15:42]people might leave and be like,
[15:43]oh, I'm so glad because now in my life
[15:46]I can do X, Y, or Z better or something
[15:48]where it's not just like, and not just receiving.
[15:50]So I think one like practical way to think about
[15:53]almost like I think about time as like real estate.
[15:56]So here like 60 minutes on a Zoom call,
[15:59]59 minutes of those shouldn't be a presentation.
[16:02]Unless it's literally the most fascinating presentation
[16:06]in the world that people are like, you know,
[16:08]yes, tearing walls down to get this data.
[16:10]That's not most people.
[16:11]Like maybe it's the presidential's daily briefing,
[16:14]but it's maybe that.
[16:16]And so how do you begin to shrink the presentation time
[16:20]to 30 minutes or meaning over the hour or 10 minutes
[16:23]and create time for people to interact meaningfully?
[16:25]And on Zoom, that might mean breakout groups.
[16:28]It might be putting people into groups of three.
[16:29]Like it's not rocket science,
[16:31]but it's having the courage to not fill time.
[16:34]You know what, like presentation also is the risk, right?
[16:38]I know schools that are navigating enormous conflict,
[16:41]whether around COVID or teachers or just such a fraught time.
[16:46]And when like administrators come in and finally do a Zoom call
[16:50]and use a new login and it's a 59 and a half minute presentation.
[16:54]Like they're not doing anything.
[16:55]They're perpetuating a problem
[16:56]because they're not actually shipping the relationship
[16:58]and listening to what people have to say.
[17:00]So how do you actually not just give people something,
[17:04]but how do you create a contract
[17:07]where the gathering is changed
[17:09]because of who the participants are
[17:11]and how they actually engage there?
[17:13]Like you can't create something new
[17:15]if it's just a stagnant like webinar.
[17:18]Totally.
[17:19]You should just send the presentation ahead of time.
[17:21]Let me skim through it.
[17:23]I will digest the whole thing
[17:24]and I will come back to you in the meeting and then I will have
[17:28]my questions already thought through
[17:29]and so will everyone else.
[17:30]Exactly.
[17:31]That's like the beauty of like the brainstorm, right?
[17:34]You really do get lots more ideas
[17:36]when you all come together.
[17:37]But like if you're gonna waste time just listening,
[17:40]it's, there's a facilitator named Misha Gluberman
[17:44]and he wrote about called the chairs
[17:46]or where the people go with Sheila Hetty like a few years ago.
[17:50]And I think it was in April.
[17:52]He wrote this sort of nerdy little medium piece
[17:56]that I love and it's nerdy
[17:59]because it shows you how to host a cocktail party on Zoom
[18:04]but like through all of the technicalities.
[18:08]And he recently did, I have a newsletter community
[18:11]that like every two or three weeks we send out
[18:13]like a story of what somebody's like
[18:16]how they're creating togetherness virtually
[18:18]and every now and then we do an experience
[18:20]and we brought Misha in and he showed us on Zoom
[18:24]how you can create basically an on conference
[18:27]like with 100 other people.
[18:28]And now Zoom has, when he wrote this piece in April,
[18:33]it was like kind of complicated
[18:34]but now the latest version of Zoom has a technology,
[18:37]a feature where you can make everybody the host.
[18:39]So everybody 100 people can be a co-host.
[18:42]And so this is an example like 300 people
[18:45]or 30 people or 20 people, people are interested.
[18:47]They know what their problems are.
[18:48]They know what their needs are.
[18:50]And so we created a Google doc where you can,
[18:52]he just said, do you have something,
[18:54]do you have a conversation you would like to host
[18:55]in this group?
[18:56]Do you have a burning question you're trying to figure out?
[18:59]Some people are like how do you fight online?
[19:01]Like how do you have conflicts safely virtually
[19:04]with your team?
[19:05]Other people were like how do you create intimacy?
[19:07]Like all these different questions.
[19:08]And then everybody becomes a co-host on Zoom
[19:11]and you can actually just, you see all the rooms,
[19:14]you see who's hosting the conversation,
[19:15]you see who the topic is on Google Docs
[19:17]and you can literally like portal yourself,
[19:20]like the exit west, you can go through the portal
[19:23]and like find yourself in another room.
[19:25]And it's a way of actually decentralizing power.
[19:29]It's putting the agenda into everybody's hands
[19:32]and letting people choose where they want to go.
[19:35]And it's not rocket science.
[19:38]It's actually helping people determine what the needs are
[19:42]and choose where they want to go.
[19:44]And people are now doing this virtually.
[19:46]Wow, that's really neat.
[19:47]All right, so there's hope,
[19:48]there's hope for the Zoom models.
[19:50]Thank you for that.
[19:52]How did you know you wanted to be a conflict resolution expert?
[19:56]How does that happen?
[19:57]I mean, I assume like your pod.
[20:00]past you are like trying to sort out your own life
[20:02]through this podcast.
[20:04]What, what makes you say that?
[20:07]So I told you, you're up to that conclusion.
[20:10]I'm offended.
[20:13]So like same girl.
[20:16]So I'm, I'm biracial and bicultural.
[20:19]I grew up in a family that two parents were married
[20:23]and then divorced.
[20:25]And my mother's Indian, my father's white American
[20:28]and that each remarried people who are in a lot of ways
[20:30]kind of polar opposite of the family that they had created
[20:33]together.
[20:34]And they had joined custody and I was part of both homes.
[20:37]And so every two weeks I go back and forth
[20:39]between these two homes.
[20:41]And it was like split screen or split reality.
[20:44]So one home was this Indian, British, Buddhist,
[20:49]meditating, incense filled, dream interpreting,
[20:53]like world banking, landmark for me home.
[20:57]And then I would travel 1.4 miles to my father
[21:00]and set mother's home.
[21:01]And it was and still is a white American,
[21:04]evangelical Christian, conservative, Republican,
[21:08]like meat eating, softball playing, dogs,
[21:12]like just just culturally a different place.
[21:15]And that was also my home.
[21:18]And, and so every two weeks I'd go back and forth
[21:21]between these two split screens.
[21:23]And, and like in many ways,
[21:25]the things that each of those cultures,
[21:28]those family cultures began to think of as the other
[21:31]was actually my other two weeks.
[21:34]And so I've always been interested in like when
[21:38]and why and how we come together
[21:40]and how we create our realities
[21:43]and how we create group identity.
[21:46]And how can you create a group and an experience
[21:50]in a community where people feel something in common,
[21:53]feel connected to each other,
[21:54]but don't have to all be the same
[21:56]where you're not stamping out people's differences
[21:58]in order to belong.
[22:00]In part because there's communities that I feel like
[22:04]I can belong and be complicated in
[22:06]and there's communities where I don't feel like
[22:08]I can be belong and be complicated in.
[22:10]And I'm really interested in the communities
[22:12]where you can belong and still have many paradoxes
[22:16]within you.
[22:17]But I'm also interested.
[22:19]I also don't think every community is for everybody.
[22:21]So like a big idea and art of gathering is exclusion.
[22:25]Like you shouldn't invite everybody to everything.
[22:27]One, it makes everything the same,
[22:29]but also like it doesn't make sense for the purpose.
[22:32]So I'm a huge advocate in excluding people with care
[22:37]and not because of the personality
[22:39]or because of the politics, but because of the purpose.
[22:41]So like, you know, I often talk about this gathering
[22:44]that a journalist hosted called the worn out mom's boot nanny.
[22:47]And she was trying to create this dinner party.
[22:49]She felt obligated to do it.
[22:51]It was actually in the sign that she had.
[22:53]And then she shifted and she said,
[22:55]you know what, I'm gonna need I have is I'm worn out.
[22:58]I'm a mom.
[22:59]I'm gonna, what if I hosted dinner party
[23:00]from my other worn out moms.
[23:01]She called it a worn out mom's boot nanny.
[23:04]If they talked about the kids, they had to take a shot.
[23:07]And like the six women who were invited
[23:10]and like went were so excited to be seen as worn out
[23:14]to be seen as like a real need.
[23:16]And some of their partners were like,
[23:17]why can't dads come?
[23:19]And part of it is because that's not the need tonight.
[23:22]Right?
[23:23]And it begins to shims like if you want,
[23:24]like if you want to have worn out dads,
[23:26]boot nanny, you better be a little bit more worn out.
[23:29]Yeah, right?
[23:29]Or like it just starts to create specificity.
[23:33]That actually has an opportunity to shift norms.
[23:36]Very true.
[23:37]I know when I was reading about your childhood
[23:39]and the with last you must have had going back and forth.
[23:42]I'm a child of divorce too.
[23:44]And you know, my parents lived very close together
[23:47]and they're not quite, they're not as different
[23:48]as yours, but it's still like any child of divorce
[23:52]who has to navigate constantly like having themselves
[23:56]in these two different environments
[23:57]and, you know, having to adapt
[23:59]and also having to deal with parents in that situation.
[24:02]I feel like the conflict resolution like schools
[24:06]or whatever, however you get ready to just like
[24:09]should pair up with the divorce lawyers, you know,
[24:11]and you can just like have a theater, you know,
[24:14]complete organizations.
[24:15]It's like a piece of piano.
[24:17]Yeah, boot camp.
[24:18]Absolutely.
[24:20]So for you personally, like what now you have this book out,
[24:24]you're talking all the time on all these like shows
[24:26]and podcasts, you just talked to Bernay Brown
[24:28]and my gosh, I started listening,
[24:29]but now I have to finish after this.
[24:31]I was like, oh my gosh, you guys are amazing.
[24:33]So like what is it you still wanna do?
[24:35]Like what are you like super fired up to do next?
[24:38]And like what now?
[24:41]So I, you know, I look at the people
[24:45]who I think have had some amount of like success,
[24:49]whatever you wanted to find that as,
[24:51]who are like in their 60s and 70s and 80s,
[24:53]and who are still happy and vibrant
[24:55]and seeing grounded and not like jerks.
[24:57]And like what I see them doing
[25:01]and having in common whether they're a comedian
[25:03]or whether they're like a therapist,
[25:06]is that they all are still connected
[25:08]to their source work, right?
[25:10]It's the therapist who still sees clients three days a week.
[25:13]It's like Jerry Seinfeld still writes jokes every day.
[25:16]He still goes to like Podunk pre-COVID
[25:19]and hopefully post-COVID.
[25:20]Like stand up hall to try out new material
[25:23]in those most famous comedian in the world.
[25:24]Not because he's pursuing mastery
[25:28]because he's pursuing his closest source work.
[25:31]So for me, like for the rest of my life,
[25:34]I think I'm a facilitator.
[25:36]My craft and my source, like it's to be close to the work.
[25:40]And so in a sense, like I see writing as like this outcome
[25:45]of the questions I'm pursuing through groups.
[25:49]And then I think the second thing that has really helped me
[25:51]is years ago, David Brooks made a speech
[25:54]that resonated with me.
[25:56]He said something like,
[25:57]no question worthy of pursuit is answerable in a lifetime.
[26:01]And so how do we come together
[26:04]in ways that are meaningful and have a common agreed purpose
[26:07]and not have to all be exactly the same?
[26:10]Like that's a thousand year question.
[26:12]That's true.
[26:13]All right, so you get your work cut out.
[26:16]And I think for each of us,
[26:17]like rather than thinking about the form, again,
[26:19]it's like how do you say close to your source work?
[26:21]Whatever that is.
[26:22]How do you continue to pursue mastery,
[26:24]whatever that may be in, right?
[26:26]It's like I'm so brine brown.
[26:28]Like she has one of the best podcasts,
[26:31]like one of the best and most like whatever,
[26:33]number one podcasts, she's relatively new at it.
[26:37]And she tweeted the other day,
[26:38]like enjoyed so much listening to Dax Shepard
[26:41]and Tim Ferriss geek out on Hot A Podcast.
[26:43]Like she's a student, right?
[26:46]She's not sitting on her laurels.
[26:48]She's like, when she interviewed me,
[26:50]I was so moved.
[26:51]I wasn't intimidated by the interview,
[26:53]like going in, like, oh gosh, what am I gonna say?
[26:55]And she more than anybody else,
[26:57]I read the entire interview as text-based.
[27:00]She had her book and the art of gathering,
[27:03]it was like dog-eared and posted all around
[27:05]and like a student.
[27:07]And a student, like with a capital S, she was studying.
[27:12]And it just reminded me, like,
[27:14]we all may have a mastery in one specific thing,
[27:17]but like to continue to pursue a question is life-giving,
[27:21]not just to everyone else, but for yourself.
[27:23]By the way, that does not make subsequent
[27:25]interiors feel any good about what they're doing.
[27:27]I was reading this before I talked to you,
[27:29]and I was like, oh gosh, I've already failed this interview.
[27:31]Like, I've already, I already can't measure up.
[27:34]I, you know, I don't know.
[27:36]But I think part of the reason why even interviews
[27:38]for me are fun is because each one is an opportunity
[27:40]to have your brain collide with somebody else's brain, right?
[27:44]And so part of what's beautiful about your podcast
[27:46]is that it's like, it's your specific questions,
[27:50]it's your curiosity, it's not just for your audience,
[27:52]but for each offer that comes on, that's unique
[27:54]and makes it, like, moms don't have the time
[27:57]to read booksie in, or zibbean, or, you know,
[27:59]it's like it's a very specific DNA.
[28:02]This is just my literally, my opportunity
[28:05]to ask people what I wanna know.
[28:06]It's delighted, anybody else wants to listen,
[28:08]but this is completely self-serving, so.
[28:10]Exactly, that's why it's relevant.
[28:12]It's like you have a real need, you have a real,
[28:15]like you're spending time, you've found a way
[28:17]to spend time despite obstacles,
[28:20]which is I imagine being a mom and the things
[28:22]that like may come along with that.
[28:25]And there's a lot of other people
[28:27]who have the same problem.
[28:28]And so they get them right along side you.
[28:31]Sure, why not?
[28:32]Do you have any parting advice to aspiring authors?
[28:37]To authors, one is think about a question
[28:42]that you don't know the answer to when you're writing a book.
[28:46]You may have an instinct around,
[28:47]you may think you have something to say,
[28:48]but you're really desperately curious
[28:51]to find out the answer to.
[28:52]That's one.
[28:53]Number two, don't write a book, write 12 chapters.
[28:56]Like, when I was thinking about a book,
[28:58]I was like, oh my, this is so overwhelming,
[29:00]but and my husband told me this.
[29:02]He's like, write down the 12 things you know are true
[29:04]that are counterintuitive, that you believe might be
[29:07]like and then go test them.
[29:09]And it was like, and my original yellow,
[29:12]like yellow edge sheet of like 12 ideas,
[29:16]I think six of them became chapter titles.
[29:18]And six of them didn't and new things came in.
[29:21]But write chapters, don't write a book.
[29:23]Make sure the chapters have an arc,
[29:24]but think about chapters.
[29:27]And then I think the third is like different authors
[29:29]and writers have different parts of the process
[29:31]that they love and that they hate.
[29:33]I love the research.
[29:34]I love the conversations.
[29:36]I love the meaning making.
[29:38]I hate the writing.
[29:40]And I find it very difficult.
[29:42]I'm a much better speaker than I am writer.
[29:44]So I would often like take voice memos
[29:48]of myself talking out loud
[29:49]and then transcribe myself onto the page.
[29:51]Like, you find ways to lean into what you love
[29:55]and then to hack through what you don't.
[29:57]Excellent.
[29:57]Sounds like your husband
[29:58]could maybe be a writing coach on the side.
[30:00]You guys need a little side hustle situation.
[30:03]Yeah, exactly.
[30:04]He's very good.
[30:05]Well, I would say, let's meet up some time, but of course I can.
[30:09]So if we ever have a common goal that we need to sort out,
[30:11]we should maybe intentionally try to do that face-to-face at some point in the 10 years or something.
[30:17]I look forward to that.
[30:18]I look forward to that.
[30:19]And I think I get so many of my examples.
[30:22]I mean, as you can hear from this conversation,
[30:24]from other people doing real stuff in the world.
[30:27]And so, you know, send me your examples.
[30:29]Like, we are often on Instagram,
[30:31]we're often having lively conversations about what people's holiday plans are,
[30:35]what Thanksgiving plans are, like, what a virtual party looks like.
[30:39]And you can follow me on a pre-aparker,
[30:41]sign up for our newsletter.
[30:43]The art of gathering is like a call to look at your own life
[30:47]and ask what the need is and then gather around it.
[30:50]And it's a courageous thing to do,
[30:52]but it's also a contagious thing to do.
[30:54]And so, a big part of the art of gathering is it's like a norm-spreading,
[30:58]permission-giving book.
[31:00]Love it. Well, well done.
[31:03]Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
[31:05]And for a project that you're pursuing that's, you know,
[31:08]that other people get to benefit from.
[31:10]No problem.
[31:11]Thanks for sharing.
[31:13]Thanks so much, Debbie.
[31:14]Be very well.
[31:14]All right. Have a great day.
[31:15]Bye.
[31:17]Thanks again to Tim Tebow and his book Bronco and Friends,
[31:20]a party to remember for sponsoring today's episode.
[31:23]Go check it out at Tim Tebow.com slash Bronco and Friends.
[31:27]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[31:31]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens
[31:34]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[31:36]Also, sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com
[31:39]and sign up for my virtual book club
[31:40]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[31:43]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[31:47]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[31:49]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.