Tomorrow evening, Wednesday, September 3, at 8 p.m. Eastern, I’m going to go live with a very special guest, Priya Parker, a brilliant author and facilitator and teacher who happens to be my wife. Click here to RSVP and get a reminder email with a link to join on the day of the event, or watch the conversation using the Substack app or right here on our homepage. And subscribe to GROUP LIFE today.
A short time ago, I cross-posted the news of my wife Priya Parker’s brand-new Substack newsletter, GROUP LIFE, which launches…today. While the publication covers different territory, it is focused on finding solutions to some of the biggest problems we’ve covered at The Ink — building community, calling in, finding common cause with your friends and neighbors, and coming together to work for change. People power is the solution, and it doesn’t come from going it alone.
As Priya puts it:
We are living through a group life crisis. I hear the chatter everywhere: Why does no one host anymore? Why are guests so flaky? Can people with kids and without still be friends? Are young people foolish or brilliant to avoid the office? When did a little conflict between friends become a cue to bounce rather than bother? Why don’t Americans party anymore? Why is a pro-democracy movement struggling to galvanize people? Sadly, these questions themselves seem to push us farther apart, making us lonelier and more isolated, instead of bringing us together.
Let me offer my hot take on the problem. Our culture is obsessed with self-help. But self-help isn’t helping us with these questions of our shared life. We need group help.
We live in an age of personal optimization: apps and devices to track our habits, books on productivity and mindfulness, podcasts about hacking our bodies. But we have fewer tools for group help — how to strengthen the vitality of our teams, clubs, friend groups, extended families, and communities. We devote endless time to cultivating the self, but when it comes to our groups, we just hope and pray for the best. If you know me, you know that I reject leaving what happens among us to chance. I believe that to avoid the loneliness, fragmentation, and hyper-individualism all around us, we need to become more literate about the health of the groups we belong to. How do we build the skills, habits, and rituals to help our groups thrive?
Priya is an extraordinary teacher of all things group life. You may have read her book, THE ART OF GATHERING. You may have taken her course on becoming a better host of meetings, parties, movement events, and more. Now you can find her right here on Substack, and I’m so excited.
Want to learn more? Join my live conversation with Priya on Wednesday, September 3, at 8 p.m. Eastern. Just click on that link to RSVP and get a reminder email with a link to join on the day of. Or watch the conversation using the Substack app or right here on our homepage.
And subscribe to GROUP LIFE today — just click on the button below:
Photo: Ana Murphy
This post was originally published on The.Ink.