Have you ever been part of a long conversation with a group of people that was so good that, by the end, you felt like you had created new meaning together, and that everyone felt seen and heard?  

In my experience, such conversations are difficult to achieve without having an assigned facilitator. That’s why I believe for lengthy group discussions, someone should assume the facilitator role to invite everyone to contribute and to identify and summarize themes. 

Understanding what needs to happen to create good self-facilitated conversations eluded me. 

That is, until I recently discovered long-form improv at Lumora, a nonprofit  theater space founded by my friend Heath Hollensbee. 

“Improv” is short for improvisation and it refers to an unscripted style of theater. Because there is no director, or designated facilitator, I liken it to a self-facilitated conversation. Many people are more familiar with short form improv, in which 2 to 5 min scenes are created based on audience prompts. Actors listen just enough to deliver quick punchy jokes. 

In long form improv, an ensemble of actors gets their prompt from a single source at the beginning of a 20 to 45 min set.  During the set, a few actors at a time take turns at center stage 

to perform scenes that are developed in real time. 

Over the course of time, all of the actors listen carefully for what is said and not said, even when it isn’t their turn to act. This allows them to reference earlier scenes in a way that contributes to the overall story. At Lumora, I got to watch and compare two different long form improv ensembles. The first group was good. The second was great. I got the impression the second ensemble listened to each other better. As a result, their scenes felt more connected and the overall story, by the end of the set, was more cohesive. 

Back to how this relates to lengthy self-facilitated group conversations. I realized the reason so many of these conversations fall flat is that people don’t listen to each other deeply. They are too busy thinking about what they want to say. While having a conversation facilitator can improve the chances of a good conversation, long form improv has convinced me it’s deep listening, intense curiosity, and active reflection by everyone involved that can transform a conversation into something memorable and unique. 

For your next group conversation, pay special attention to how much people are listening and reflecting on what others are saying, instead of just focusing on what they will say when it’s their turn to speak.

I’d love to hear what you notice. And please consider sharing this email with anyone who wants to have more effective group discussions. 

Best, 

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On June 18, I got to participate in an attempt to break a Guinness World Record for the most number of people gathered to eat dim sum. We succeeded, and set a new record with 830 eaters, beating the one set by Australia in 2019, by 66 people.

What started as a free marketing tool used in pubs for Guinness beers in 1955, has become the primary source for verifying records of individual and institutional achievements.  As a child, I grew up reading the Guinness Book of World Records.  We had the book at home and I would look through the grainy black and white photos of oddities like the person with “the most limbs” and “the longest fingernails” with awe. It wasn’t until I participated in this record breaking attempt, that I heard so many other people claiming the same childhood experience. This is a company that has learned how to evolve and reinvent itself.  It’s a testament to the Guinness World Records brand.

Nowadays, Guinness World Records makes the bulk of their money from aspiring record breakers who pay sizable fees to organize events for publicity. What the organizers of this dim sum event, Seattle’s Chinatown International District Business Improvement Area, paid to Guinness seems nominal compared to all the media coverage and word-of-mouth buzz the event drew. Within a week of registration opening, 1000 people registered for the event and an additional 700 opted to waitlist. 

Some criticize Guinness for making money by leveraging its brand this way. I see it as an example of a company being inventive when its book sale revenue, its primary source, dried up. Reinvention takes a lot of curiosity. I understand this personally because my family publishes a Vietnamese newspaper. We, along with many other small print newspapers, are in major decline because we haven’t been able to reinvent ourselves. 

Moreover, Guinness is meeting a genuine need for event-based marketing that engages real people. I am extremely proud to claim I helped break a world record and that I, and the 829 other participants, were in this together.

By finding ways to stay relevant, Guinness World Records has been able to stay in business, despite technology changes, while staying true to who they are at their core. 

What stories of reinvention at the institutional or individual level have you heard of? 

Please consider sharing this email with anyone who could benefit from a reinvention story.

Best,

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Summer means outdoor gatherings, sometimes with many people who don’t know each other. Whether you’re hosting or attending such a party, I have a tool to reduce awkwardness among guests: name tags. 

I first learned this from organizing formal networking events where name tags are essential to helping people keep track of everyone they meet. I also use them in my workshops for my clients. I bring tags so I can address participants by their name.

While some people like printed out name tags with pins or magnetic backings, I prefer the simple blank sticker so people can hand write their own name (and whatever other details they want to share). Sticker tags adhere to any surface. They’re also inexpensive and easy. As a  result, I always have blank sticker name tags and Sharpie pens on hand.

After seeing the benefits of name tags for work events, I started providing them for my personal social gatherings and my guests really appreciate them.  

While some think name tags feel “too formal,”  I consider them to be an accessibility aid to support those who have less than perfect memory or hearing. For those with difficult to pronounce names, they can even write the phonetic version of their name.

I even bring my own name tag to social gatherings with unfamiliar groups. The most common response when other guests see my name tag is, “Hey, where are the name tags?” Then I tell them I brought my own. If my partner accompanies me as my guest, I bring one for him, too. To help others place him, he usually writes underneath his name, “I’m with Julie”. 

During some events, I’ve had distant acquaintances come up to me and call me by my name.  I’m sure they wouldn’t have been confident in remembering who I am if not for my name tag. One person I met at a mutual friend’s birthday party found me on LinkedIn afterwards and messaged me to say, “I’ve been telling people about your name tag.” 

This past summer, I’ve been invited to birthday parties where I don’t know many of the other guests. I started offering to the host to bring blank sticker name tags for the other guests. The hosts love it because it makes it easier for guests to introduce themselves to each other, lightening the host’s load.  

Social gatherings with strangers can be awkward. Name tags are my trick. What tips do you have to make socializing easier? 

Please consider sharing this email with anyone you know who wants to make socializing easier for themselves or for their guests. 

Best, 

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The word “vacation” often evokes images of exotic, or at least faraway, places. Last month, my partner and I decided to travel to a nearby regional city for our annual summer vacation. 

Even though Tacoma is only 35 miles south of where I live in Seattle, it feels quite different. I love its low-key, chill vibe. It has a quarter of Seattle’s population, half its density, and 70 percent of its median household income.

To experience local living, we rented an AirBnB in a residential neighborhood instead of staying downtown. We visited the city’s history and art museums, parks, and waterfront for the first time. Just as I would when I travel to places a lot farther away, I paid special attention to what looks different from home. 

• There were a lot fewer people walking on the streets. 
• I didn’t see any homeless encampments, open drug use, or black markets anywhere – not even downtown or near freeway entrances.
• The cars people drove are generally much older, gasoline models, rather than electric powered vehicles.
• There were more families with young children. 
• There were fewer people of Asian heritage

Here are my two big takeaways: 1) I don’t have to travel far to experience cultural differences, and 2) what I notice says a lot about what I consider to be normal: busy streets; homelessness and open drug use; newer, electric vehicles (Seattle has the third most Tesla owners in the US); more dogs than young children; and a 20% Asian population. 

Practicing curiosity can make any destination feel more exotic. As summer winds down, you may consider “vacationing” nearby. If you do, please share what you notice and what it reveals about what you consider normal. I’d love to hear from you. 

Also, please consider sharing this email with anyone you know who is about to travel near or far. 

Best,

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I recently reconnected with my friend, “Colleen,” and was so inspired with how she initiated a major life transition that I asked if I could share her story here.

Colleen spent most of her life building a family and running a business with her husband. Then, about eight years ago, they divorced and ended their business together. After employing sizable teams for years, she had to get a job at a small start-up that shut down shortly thereafter. She went to another company that also had massive layoffs, then another one. After each layoff, it became harder and harder to get the next job. For another 18 months, she tried to find employment with no success. As a woman in her early sixties, she suspected she was dealing with ageism in an expensive city dominated by young professionals. 

Colleen was withering. She was living on her dwindling savings. She began questioning her self-worth. Her kids were grown and didn’t seem to need her anymore, either. The continual rejection exhausted her. 

Earlier this spring, she realized she needed to change her environment, even though it meant leaving behind everything that she knew. So, Colleen rented out her little house, packed her car with a few belongings and moved to a small tourist town in another state where there were more people her age. If it didn’t work out there, she reasoned at least it was a change from stagnating where she was. It was the first time in her life she prioritized her own needs. 

Within a week in the new town, she found a part-time retail job and a one-bedroom apartment. 

Within two months, she secured a good job that made use of leadership experience.

When Colleen recounted her story, what surprised me was her lack of bitterness. “(Seattle) was good to me for a long time. I still love it,” she said. “But it’s not the place for me any more. I had to admit that and move on.” 

I am a big fan of finding the “lessons learned” from bad experiences. But, I realized that focusing on the bad may reduce these experiences to being useful only for what they teach us not to do. Colleen reminded me to acknowledge how many of those same experiences were also once sources of joy.

Honoring the good times doesn’t mean downplaying the bad times. We can accept that our experiences are made up of both “bitter” and “sweet” parts, hence the word “bittersweet.”

The way Colleen uprooted her life and started over in a new environment reminded me of a friend’s once healthy plant that got crowded out by other plants and became sick. Sometimes we also get crowded out and have to transplant ourselves to a place that gives us more space to grow. Many of us will find that we have to re-root ourselves in new environments, workplaces, relationships to continue to thrive. 

When have you had to “re-plant” yourself so that you could thrive again? Have you acknowledged both the bitter and sweet of the former experiences?

I’d love to hear what these reflections brought up for you.

Best,