Transcript

The 3 Rules That Make EVERY Gathering Better | Priya Parker (Art of Gathering)

From Ryan Hawk · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 5 min · 12,089 words · 139 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The 3 Rules That Make EVERY Gathering Better | Priya Parker (Art of Gathering)", an episode of Ryan Hawk published November 22, 2025 (1 h 5 min, about 12,089 words). It mentions 38 people, works and ideas, including Facilitation, Group Life, Magical Questions, Priya Parker, Power (in groups).

What this episode is about

The discussion revolves around the importance of gatherings in fostering connection and facilitating meaningful conversations, emphasizing the role of thoughtful questions and the understanding of power dynamics in group settings. Priya Parker shares insights from her background and experience as a conflict resolution facilitator, highlighting how her upbringing influenced her approach to creating environments that encourage open dialogue and enrich community relationships.

Key takeaways

  • First questions in communities reveal core values; power dynamics and identities shine through curiosity.
  • Facilitation dances with power and grace, connecting people across cultural chasms without missing a beat.
  • Life across divergent households crafted a conflict whisperer; diverse roots breed dynamic peacemakers.
  • Magic lies in asking questions that unlock worlds, connecting and challenging assumptions effortlessly.
  • One diplomat's shuttle diplomacy vision: Peace is inked by governments, but lived between citizens.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Facilitation, Hal Saunders, Goldman Sachs, Group Health
  2. – 20:00: Facilitation, Elizabeth Stewart, Heb Hub LA, Michelle Kern
  3. – 30:00: Social Contract, Group Life, Learning Leader, Learning Leader Circle
  4. – 40:00: Group Life, Instagram, Li Lyall Parker, Magical Questions
  5. – 50:00: Magical Questions, Facilitation, Group Life, Instagram
  6. – 1:00:00: maternal mortality, Facilitation, Jason Gennard, moo.com
  7. – 1:04:48: Group Life, Learning Leader, Ratatouille

Notable quotes from "The 3 Rules That Make EVERY Gathering Better | Priya Parker (Art of Gathering)"

  • A healthy relationship to an understanding of power. So much of facilitation is actually figuring out connection despite obstacles.
    about Facilitation · at
  • Pria, this one has been a long time coming. Thank you so much for being here on the Learning Leader Show.
    about Learning Leader · at
  • Hal Saunders. Am I pronouncing that right? Dr. House Saunders.
    about Hal Saunders · at
  • Lucky to be one of the people Hal Saunders took on to sort of train me as a young person in the skills of group life. facilitation is such an interesting thing. So, I do a good bit of it within my profession now and I never had.
    about Group Life · at
  • I'll just sort of break down what it is you're doing. So every gathering is a social contract, right? Right. So, your listeners may be listening right now and be Ugh, he's…
    about Social Contract · at
  • Be focused? So another very simple tool I talk about this a lot on my Instagram and if you all can go to Pria Parker on Instagram and there's a whole circle there about this idea, but it's called magical questions.
    about Instagram · at
  • Sudden you see this like waterfall of answers. Bonnie Ra, Madonna, Michael Jackson, New Kids on the Block, Nicki Minaj, a and Bob Dylan, and you and so a couple of things are happening. First, everyone is super.
    about New Kids on the Block · at
  • It was interns. It was residents. And the purpose of the meeting was to analyze a meta data set of maternal mortality rates. Okay, this is quite heady stuff, but basically…
    about maternal mortality · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Priya Parker — Person · 6 mentions
  • Hal Saunders — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Rhonda Sleim — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And another one of my mentors is a woman named Rhonda Sleim. She was Houseandre's colleague for many years. She's she's an incredible practitioner. And one of the things she said to me, she's a Lebanese American.
  • Michelle Kern — Person · 1 mention · first at
    The fly here, but it feels like military leaders are really good at setting mission objectives. I remember Michelle Kern who's a fighter pilot that was they're just really good…
  • Elizabeth Stewart — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Networking organization. It was called Heb Hub LA. Her name was Elizabeth Stewart. it still is Elizabeth Stewart.
  • Li Lyall Parker — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I grew up this is a true story. I grew up my paternal grandparents Ruth and Li Lyall Parker were simple working-class people who lived in Waterl, Iowa. And whenever I would go and visit them, they would make me BLTs. And they made like my.
  • Pria Parker — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Be focused? So another very simple tool I talk about this a lot on my Instagram and if you all can go to Pria Parker on Instagram and there's a whole circle there about this idea, but it's called magical questions.
  • Jason Gennard — Person · 1 mention · first at
    The second part is I had I created a box again got this from Jason Gennard. He runs mastermind talk so he hosts events.
  • Ruth Parker — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

  • Instagram — Company · 3 mentions · first at
  • New Kids on the Block — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • priaparker.substack.com — Company · 2 mentions
  • The Learning Leader Show — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Pria, this one has been a long time coming. Thank you so much for being here on the Learning Leader Show.
  • Goldman Sachs — Company · 1 mention · first at
    And I learned deeply. Facilitation is a weird field. It's there's no like Goldman Sachs of facilitation. It's like a it's an apprentice-based field. It's very fragmented. It…
  • Heb Hub LA — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Community hub. It was sort of a startup networking organization. It was called Heb Hub LA. Her name was Elizabeth Stewart. it still is Elizabeth Stewart.
  • Learning Leader Circle — Company · 1 mention · first at
    About one of the events I host, the primary event I host every year. It's for my learning leader circle members and it's usually in May. We go to a cool location like…
  • preaparker.com — Company · 1 mention · first at
    People take it at as teams. You can go on my website, check it out, preaparker.com.
  • moo.com — Company · 1 mention · first at
    So anyway, you get a box of cards and you hand make these cards. You can use moo.com or whatever. And they're colored actually intentionally.

Products & tech

  • Art of Gathering (digital course) — Product · 1 mention · first at
    So I have a digital course art of gathering digital course. is a six-week course. It's pre-recorded. You can people take it at as teams. You can go on my website, check it out,.

Concepts & topics

  • Facilitation — Concept · 8 mentions · first at
  • Group Life — Concept · 8 mentions · first at
  • Magical Questions — Concept · 7 mentions · first at
    How do you come up with magical questions?
  • Power (in groups) — Concept · 5 mentions
  • Social Contract — Concept · 4 mentions · first at
  • Learning Leader — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
  • maternal mortality — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
  • meta-analysis / metadata set — Concept · 2 mentions
  • Group Health — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Powerful question to be asking. As much as we have tools for self-help, it is time to begin to really elevate group health.
  • Shuttle Diplomacy — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    David Accords, brokering peace between Israel and Egypt and was part of the what was then called shuttle diplomacy.
  • Track Two Diplomacy — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Left government, he became part of the longestrunn dialogue sort of what's called track two diplomacy of working with citizens on the ground after wars in postconlict states.…
  • Student Self-Governance — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    UVA. And the University of Virginia, to its deep credit, has a strong sense of what they call student self-governance.
  • Sustained Dialogue — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    By such a person of so much power and wisdom and experience. And he trained us in sustained dialogue. We launched it September 10th 2001 and then of course 911 happened the next day.
  • Temporary Constitution — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    12-year-old. Yeah. But because you are basically creating a temporary constitution, right? I'm using I'm trained in political and social theory, so excuse the nerdiness, but…
  • psychological togetherness — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Most important tool that I have learned as a facilitator of virtual groups is to create psychological togetherness. H how do you create psychological togetherness when people…
  • Ratatouille — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Of the art of gathering. It's like anyone can gather. It's like that movie Ratatouille. Anyone can cook. Anyone can gather. And one of the things I learned in interviewing the…

Places & events

  • Zimbabwe — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Time in your life. Your parents, they met in Iowa, they fell in love, they got married, they had you in Zimbabwe, they worked in fishing villages across Africa and Asia. Then…
  • Waterloo, Iowa — Place · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

The first questions people ask you in a community or culture signify what they value.

What makes up a worldclass facilitator? A healthy relationship to an understanding of power. So much of facilitation is actually figuring out connection despite obstacles.

How do you come up with magical questions? No one has ever asked me that. Such a great question. Figure out the question that helps the group have the right conversation. Questions are a sequence of words that if you ask them in a specific way, it can open up the world. Gathering is about connection, but it's also about power. I create the gatherings I wish existed in the world. And people are now asking that question, and that's a powerful question to be asking. As much as we have tools for self-help, it is time to begin to really elevate group health.

Pria, this one has been a long time coming. Thank you so much for uh being here on the Learning Leader Show.

Thank you for having me. So, I want to start with an interesting time in your life. Your parents, they met in Iowa, they fell in love, they got married, they had you in Zimbabwe, they worked in fishing villages across Africa and Asia. Then they fell out of love, got divorced in Virginia, went their separate ways. After the divorce, you moved. This seems wild to me. You moved every two weeks between their households. One, a vegetarian, liberal, incensefilled, Buddhist, Hindu, new age universe. The other a meat eating conservative twice a week church-going evangelical Christian realm. Whoa. Okay.

So, that comes directly from your book. How did that type of upbringing shape you?

It made me a conflict resolution facilitator. Tell me more about that. Um, you know, I my day job still is a dialogue facilitator for groups to help them have the conversations they have been avoiding but are crucial for them to figure out their next formation. and so much of how I was raised in part I mean to break it down a little bit first of all across two very very different cultures and when you know I was uh in my teenage years so probably like 12 to 18 before college when I would go back and forth toggling between these two homes but part of being part of two different cultures was it wasn't these two vague ideas it was like deeply specific and they were very different so everything from the quote unquote right way or obvious way to like start a dinner. At one home, you would never put food in your mouth before saying grace, right? At the other, the word God wasn't mentioned ever,

right? There was a completely different way to start, but they both began a meal in a way that honored the table,

right? or the games that we would play or what would be considered like what you do when you're bored. You know, I'm sort of putting my fingers in quotes in go growing up. I also would um spend a lot of summers in New Delhi. My mother is a researcher and she would often take me to India and I and she would go and conduct her research and I would stay with my relatives. And so much of like the time we spend together often in English called dine boss like the way you pass your time is literally just like playing cards on the bed or like everybody is like on the shared family bed or playing carum and when I would go visit my you know grandparents in Iowa that was like no one knew what carum was and so at some deep deep level I've always been interested in when and why and how people come together

how they spend that time what they think of as normal. normal, how people can create and invent and change cultures and then also because of my life how they come apart. And so I've been deeply deeply interested in groups and in how they form and then how they break and then how they come together again. And so much of that is because of how I was raised.

Let's progress a little bit further along in your story. You go to college and once there I believe you met uh Dr. Hal Saunders. Am I pronouncing that right? Dr. House Saunders.

Yes. You've done your research. What uh what type of influence or how did Dr. House Saunders influence you and how has his work helped you today?

I uh Dr. Saunders passed um gosh maybe almost a decade ago and I still think of him and what he taught me probably daily. And he was an American diplomat. Um he was he he went to Princeton under undergrad I think in the ' 40s. He was on the National Security Council. He eventually became a top diplomat in the State Department. Uh and he served five different presidential administrations and uh when he he was part of the Camp David Accords, brokering peace between Israel and Egypt and was part of the the what was then called shuttle diplomacy.

And he basically realized that through that work at the highest level of of state craft, governments can create peace treaties. But on the ground, people's perceptions of each other still hasn't necessarily changed. And after he left government, he became part of the longestrunn dialogue sort of what's called track two diplomacy of working with citizens on the ground after wars in in postconlict states. And so much of what he saw in those days was what the power of what the government can do and the use of what the government can do and then also the power of what citizens and civics and culture and and institutions can do.

And I met him. I was very frustrated with race relations. I'm biracial as you as you as you laid out. And I went to the University of Virginia and one of the first questions people would ask me is what are you? And I was like I I didn't understand what it meant. I thought they meant like a first year or and I learned very quickly it meant racial in that context. And I learned in part probably because my mother's an anthropologist that the the questions the first questions people ask you in a community or culture signify what they value,

right? So I was like, okay, race is really important here. You know, I grew up in all these different cultures. I grew up in these different countries. I was like, okay, good to know. And I was very frustrated with race relations at UVA. And the University of Virginia, to its deep credit, has a strong sense of what they call student self-governance. which means if you see a problem, don't complain, do something about it. And I was talking to my mother, actually, she's clearly a large part of this narrative, and uh told her how frustrated I was, and she knew about this this man um called Hal Saunders, and she said, "You should email him." Um and I emailed him as a freshman, and I I learned that he was interested in working with American students on college campuses on race relations. And I said, "Will you come train us?" And he had been working with Princeton students as a trustee there. And he came and he

trained like 12, 19 year olds in a classroom, you know, at 2 p.m. with like, you know, bad lighting. And he basically was this deeply deeply curious human being

who even in his 70s, even in his 80s, always believed that he had something to learn. And I as a as a teenager and then as a person in my 20s had never been taken so seriously by such a person of so much power and wisdom and experience. And he trained us in sustained dialogue. We launched it September 10th uh uh 2001 and then of course 911 happened the next day.

Wow. And so it was one of these things where we were at the right place at the right time where we had this container which by the way can get into our gathering conversation like all sustained dialogue was was the name of the program. It was an invitation. When I say I I we launched it September 10th 2001 that means we sent an an a letter out to the university announcing we were doing this thing to bring together students behind closed doors to have conversations about race that they rarely get to have with people who are unlike them.

And I Hal Saunders became my mentor and then my boss for the next eight years. And I learned deeply. Facilitation is a weird field. It's there's no like Goldman Sachs of facilitation. It's like a it's an apprentice-based field. It's very fragmented. It particularly if you're no if you're not going to work at the State Department. And I was very lucky to be one of the people Hal Saunders took on to to sort of train me as a young person in the skills of group life. facilitation is such an interesting thing. So, I do a good bit of it within my my profession now and I never had anticipated that and I feel like I was just thinking leading up to this conversation like what makes a good facilitator, you know? I mean, Priya was a perfect person to talk to, but I was thinking it through and I just love to riff on this if you're cool with it because of of what I've learned over the years. And I think it's like this this

weird combination of being deeply curious slash fascinated by people and their stories and wait what what it is about them that makes them unique and different and wanting to learn from their life experiences combined with being a fantastic listener, asking even better follow-up questions than initial questions, good body language, and then just a high level of emotional intelligence and a knack of a feel for the room both Zoom and in person. Knowing when to speak, when to add on, when to ask a question as opposed to give your point of view, when to teach, when to shut up. Like there's just a million different thing.

I could go on and on and on. So, I'm speaking with probably maybe the best in the world or one of the best in the world at it. That's you. when I ask you that question like what makes up a worldclass facilitator, the floor is yours. I I'm deeply curious what what is it?

You did very well. You did very well. I I think that a facilitator unlike a mediator, the first thing I would say is when I think of a facilitator, I really think of somebody who is interested in the life of a group. M

so I'm not when I when I think of a facilitator at least the way I was sort of raised as a baby facilitator is it's really people who are interested in the infrastructure of three or more people who need to come together and ideally are changed for the better by what transpires between them. M

and a facilitator is somebody who thinks deeply about how to set up the conditions in order to increase the likelihood that that happens. And so a facilitator is somebody who thinks about uh well is somebody who both has a very high quality of listening but I would add to your definition is also obsessed with and very good at language.

So there's listening to kind of you know make you make the person feel like you are really hearing them. But then I think the difference one of the differences between uh greener facilitators and more seasoned facilitators is an obsession and an ability to hear recall play with language. Um a second is as you said deep curiosity but I would also say that a really good facilitator and the difference between sort of se green and more seasoned is a healthy relationship to an understanding of power. And so even as you were saying earlier, you know, you know when to shut up, you know when to pull people out, you know when to push back people in. A a big part of that underneath is actually understanding power, right? How are decisions being made here? Who is talking more than others? What is when do you actually allow for that? What is my own relationship to an ability to hold the group? Um a third element is

our own relationship to conflict and heat. So I am a conflict averse conflict resolution facilitator. Right. I I I I'm biracial as I said earlier, but what you may not know about me is that I'm also a third generation ostrich, which means that on both sides of my families, when like when conflict arises, we're really good at sticking our head in the sand. You're like, we're just there's like nothing to see here, folks. Like hopefully it'll just pass if no one says anything. And so a huge part of what I have tried to cultivate myself and I think one of the reasons when I'm effective I I what it what really helps me is counterintuitively I have deep empathy for the people in the room who want to flee. M

so when I you know and even now when like the heat rises if I'm facilitating a wrecking reckoning on Zoom or if I'm facilitating a conflict and and and you know voices rise or or we start getting approaching like the core of it my palms still get sweaty

I [clears throat] can feel my heart racing I can feel like you know the blood rushing to my cheeks and I've learned how to hold heat and so so much of facilitation Some people are like deeply have, you know, naturally skilled at some of the elements that are important, but it's also a deeply learnable skill.

Wow. Okay. Let's say somebody is a lot less experienced than you and they work at a they're a VP of whatever at a Fortune 500 company and one of the things they have coming up is they're going to they're going to be in charge of like a leadership offsite, let's say. Um, so it's a it's a gathering

and they're going to run a half half day of it and it's a variety of things, but basically they're going to be up in front of the room. They might they may not be called a facilitator by the big boss, but essentially that's that's a that's a part of their role. So that this is facilitation 101. They haven't really done it, not that experienced, maybe hasn't haven't had enough repetitions to be as to be that good at it yet. What are some of the ways that person like some of the foundational things they should think of and maybe even practice to get good at it faster than if they just kind of showed up and and and were winging it.

So, first of all, don't wing it. Yes, 100%. Um, and another one of my mentors is a woman named Rhonda Sleim. She was uh Houseandre's colleague for many many years. She's she's an incredible practitioner. And one of the things she said to me, she's a Lebanese American woman, is 90% of the success of what happens in the room and as a facilitator happens before anybody arrives.

And so you're a VP. You've been assigned. You've been volunttoled this leadership retreat. The first most important thing to do before anything else is to determine and clarify what the purpose is. What is the purpose of this leadership retreat? A leadership retreat is just a word. It's a frame. Anything can happen in a leadership retreat. What is the deepest need? And to to become a precise and effective facilitator in the room, you it's it's almost like you're building a house and but the construction of the house happens before anyone gets there. So what's the foundation? What does this team need?

Who actually needs to be in the room? What is are the right guests the ones who have been invited? Do we need to actually think about more deeply what is the right conversation for this group to have? What is the right conversation for this group to have is a simple and also a very complex question. And the conversation that particularly if it's a leadership retreat that your direct reports get to have in person when there's or on you know virtually but in person at the same time at the same place is your highest real estate.

and wasting your time kind of like figuring out what to say or do in the room is actually going to make you waste a lot of time. And so a huge part of preparing for that meeting is to figure out what is the right conversation for this group to have and how do I equip them to have it well. It it feels kind of like um I've had a number of military leaders here and I'll I'll I'll try to weave this together on the fly here, but it feels like military leaders are really good at setting mission objectives. I remember Michelle Kern who's a fighter pilot that was they're just really good at the pre-m mission brief and the postm mission brief the the debrief and that's that's so they basically always knew this is the goal. this is what we are striving to do on this mission and then afterwards they would debrief and learn so they could do better the next mission. It feels to me, Pria, if I wo that together, that that's kind of what

you're talking about is you've got to have the pre-meating brief slash additional than practice, which is a separate thing. But you you got to know what are we doing here? What's the purpose? Why are we meeting? What are our goals? What do we hope to get out of this? And and I think this probably doesn't apply just for a leadership retreat. This applies for hosting a dinner at your house with with with friends and family, right? So maybe maybe you could talk more about like getting really really clear on the objective and the purpose of the meeting.

So the biggest mistake we make when we gather and this is true for board meetings, this is true for protests, this is true for birthday parties, is we skip defining the purpose.

And the more obvious seeming the purpose, the more likely we are to skip it. Oh, I know what a board meeting is. I know what a wedding is. I know what a Zoom is. And when we don't pause to ask what the purpose is, we end up replicating old outdated forms and often the wrong people are in the room. So the first thing to do absolutely is to is to actually and I wouldn't even call it a premeating is to is to deeply deeply ask and figure out what is the desired outcome. You have six hours or two hours or 12 hours and eight people or 40 people. There is absolutely a sequence of things you can do in that room that fundamentally transforms their relationships to each other.

It's your job to figure out sometimes with them what that sequence of steps is. So, for example, there was a um woman I knew uh who ran a community hub. It was sort of a startup networking organization. It was called Heb Hub LA. Her name was Elizabeth Stewart. it still is Elizabeth Stewart. And um she really wanted to create a community for startup founders and uh also have it to be a place where it was truly a community and not just a place not like a Shark Tank or a you know place for sales pitches. And she would host these social occasions and think about okay what is my deepest purpose of these evenings? and she would invite investors and she her and she got really clear her deepest purpose for that evening was not to get as many startup funders as possible found uh funded.

It was to build trust and long lasting relationships between and across a network of people trying to start businesses and the people in the region who are wanting to support them. M

and so she created a pop-up rule in order to protect from what happens often in a room where there's funders and VCs and startups which is people pitch each other and then the investors feel like they just have like dollar signs on their head and just want to you know flee is she said you can't talk about what you're selling no pitches right super counterintuitive rule for a networking night but it created and it signified what it was she was trying to create. And so so much of how you think about like running a meeting or running anything that is high stakes is this is a precise surgical design that we get to decide given all these different people coming from different norms and different ways of doing things. It is your job to think about what is the purpose and then how do I set people up so that they understand what the rules are. I'm protecting them.

I'm connecting them. I'm temporarily equalizing them so that we can actually coordinate. Group group life and gathering is a coordination problem.

Wow. Okay. So, this this makes me think about one of the events I host, the primary event I host um every year. It's for my learning leader circle members and it's usually in May. We go to a cool location like Scottsdale so we can hike and do other things. And one of the first things I say to the group when we meet is I just put a big slide that says A+ on it. And then I say this is what an A+ meeting is. This is what we're here to do. This is the purpose of our time together. And then I'll usually say two or three things, not like 10 things that you can't remember, but two or three.

And so usually there's something along the lines of transformational learning. So that means learning that you intrinsically take in and then you apply. And then usually the the first and most important one is that you become lifelong friends or this is the beginning of a lifelong friendship with two or three people. Now there are roughly 40 to 45 people there. It's not realistic to become lifelong friends with 40 people but it is realistic to become the beginnings of a lifelong friendship relationship with two or three people. So that it's very very clearly stated that's why you're going to sit next to the same people both today during the day and at dinner.

We're going to sit you on the bus next to them when we drive to the mountain to hike and hopefully you walk side by side with them. So that it's not about becoming surface level with 40. It's becoming deep with a few because I think that could be that can transform your life. My point of oversharing there Pria is clearly defining what an A+ is and then executing on that so that they know oh this was all intentionally done. So when I share all of that, I would love for you again as maybe the best in the world at this to say, "Yeah, that that's good, but maybe you should think about this or I I would just be curious to get your thoughts on that kind of experiential design goal setting and then trying to execute on that.

It's such a great example and I I first I'll just sort of break down what it is you're doing. So every gathering is a social contract,

right? Right. So, your listeners may be listening right now and be like, "Ugh, he's putting people ne I have to sit next to the same person on the bus every day. Like, who is he that may tell me where I'm going to sit? I'm not a 12-year-old." Yeah. But

because you are basically creating a temporary constitution, right? I'm using I'm trained in political and social theory, so excuse excuse the nerdiness, but this is basically what it is. Every gathering is a temporary constitution. It's a dinner party. Bring a bottle of wine, right? or if it's implicit, people find out that they've broken the constitution by like the wow, they didn't even bring a housewarming gift, right? We have all of these implicit norms. And often in diverse groups, which is every leadership circle, right?

Is every and I'm not even meaning racially diverse or ethnically diverse. I'm just saying we come from different assumptions of how a meeting is run.

Yep. Right. So, what you have done here as the leader of this offsite is first you've laid out your expectations. you are using the language of A+ that may or may not resonate with them. That's your job as a leader to figure out what feels aspirational and what feels, you know, um is no longer working language- wise. And then you are using your power, right? So, a huge part of hosting is using your power, realizing you have power, but using it for the good of the group to achieve its purpose. So, you then explain the design. Hey, part of A+ is transformational learning. In my mind, Ryan, that's your job. You're almost like I don't know as a guest how to be transformed by the learning. I just know that I'm supposed to maybe listen or engage in a way that like it increases the likelihood. But the part where you're signaling to me as a guest of what my role is is I is two to three lifelong friends. Okay. Right. Okay.

Interesting. There's 40 people here. You are literally kind of giving me like a navigation map. It's like okay. So I have six hours here. This is really helpful. My leader whom assuming I'm think is legitimate which is the question right is saying okay so success here is over the next few okay I don't have to spend my time distributing everyone equally 38 I am purposely going to try to focus on two or three people got it right that changes my orientation but the second thing is lifelong I talked earlier about facilitators are really listening to language lifelong is an interesting assumption right it's also saying I don't need to tell them everything from that get-go or may be like, "Wow, lifelong friendship. That means after I leave this place, we're still supposed to be friends." That changes my assumption of the conversations I have on that hike. So, so much of what you're doing there is

you're clo you're you're tightening and clarifying what the social contract is. And that is really helpful. And the last thing I'll just say is people might like stage a coup, right? They may say, "This is not what we're here for. We're not supposed to be lifelong friends. I don't want to share everything. I think it's inappropriate for work." But that's data. And so so much like leadership so much is basically creating and setting a social contract, inviting and seeing who is absolutely up for it and then watching the data in and out and creating a relational model where people are wanting to give up some amount of power to be able to be part of something greater than themselves and they trust you to help run it. Hm. So, part of what we do as well is we go and work with like leadership teams, me, me and a couple of of of my teammates, my coaches, and we like to start those by letting them know what we're going to do

and why we're going to do it by the end of that day. And sometimes it's just the beginning of a relationship where it starts in person, then we're going to meet whatever we meet uh throughout the course of the year on Zoom, in person, whatever. I'm just curious, is there ever a time where you shouldn't do that? where you should say like no let's just go and do what we do or is laying out clearly the purpose and the why or like do they need to know all of that like this is a real kind of like I'm not really sure question this is what we do I I like I personally when I went to college I did better than what I did in in high school because as weird as this sounds they give you a syllabus in college on the first day of class and on that syllabus I see everything we're going to do I see due dates I can work ahead if I want to. I love knowing what we were going to do. I love seeing the schedule. I love seeing what we're

learning, the topics. I love seeing if I could work ahead, right? As a student athlete, so I knew I was time crunched at time. Hey, I got a little extra time. Let's work ahead. Right? So, I've learned from that and try to implement into that the work when I'm working with people is like I think people enjoy knowing where we're headed. Let's just tell them. But, but again, you're the master. This is what What do you think about that? Uh it depends on the context.

Okay. And there are moments for uh surprise. There are moments for um whimsy and delight. There are moments where again it depends on what the purpose is. If the purpose [clears throat] if a team is so stuck and in a say a 50-year-old institution, they've always done it the exact same way and if they don't change they're going to die institutionally. And what you actually need them to do is build and expand their own skills for discomfort and change.

If that's the purpose, right, very specifically, then perhaps one of the practices you're doing as a team, which again, maybe you tell them, maybe you don't, is helping them do exercises over the course of a three-day retreat in which they don't know what the path is. because that the purpose is to expand their ability to navigate uncertainty.

Ah good call. Yeah. So, so in you know particularly in diverse learning environments and so many of your questions are also at some level about pedagogy and you know education specialists would be an amazing addition to this conversation but so much of it so much of what you're doing is what you're talking about making it explicit ex laying out one's expectations there are showing the road map that is deeply beneficial to particularly to to people with less power and knowledge in the room.

Gosh, it is people who for newer people who don't know how things work, right? It's it's true for people who might have other obligations, whether it's tending to an elderly parent or whether it's being a student athlete and having very fixed you had less less flexibility, I imagine, than people who weren't student athletes. And so therefore, it's actually equalizing to people who have, you know, uh student work, right? Say I work at the library five times a week and I can't I have to plan my schedule ahead of time. So so much of what you're talking about all of these are design choices but there's certain design choices that help particularly when it's transparent and clear equalize the room but that may not always be your purpose.

Gotcha. Okay. Let's get practical from a personal perspective. And I'm fascinated by how you run these things. So let's say you and your spouse want to host a dinner and drinks party. kind of basic wherever could happen anywhere and you're gonna have over five couples. Okay? Uh maybe you'll tell me that's too many or too little, whatever. Okay? Five couples. You all know each other already. Maybe some are closer than others like most social groups, but for the most part, you all know each other. And the goal of the night is we want to laugh. We want to have a good time. We want to create memories. We want to get closer together. That's the goal because everyone's crazy busy with kids and sports and life and before you know it if you don't plan these things they just don't happen right so that's what we want to do okay and this is real life for me right this is my life so from the again from you

you're like a asking for a friend I'm asking for myself okay what what what's the what are the keys from the very start of the invitation till the last person leaves the house and whatever happens afterwards what are the keys to hosting like an amazing dinner party with a handful of couples that you you don't intentionally spend enough time you don't you don't do a good enough job intentionally spending time together outside of all your kids stuff.

Okay. So, I'm going to pause and say first and I always say this which is first ask what is the purpose and what is our need and what is we what is it that we most want even before the structure of the dinner party as annoying as that might seem. And one of the things I heard you say is like I really these are people who you kind of see you they all know each other

right and um and and we really want to have a great time and laugh hysterically.

I if that's the goal a dinner party may not be the best form. Okay. A dinner party and then we'll go to the dinner party. But a dinner party is like you're often set sat in the se seated down. You're often like it's really really depends on the conversation. It really depends on like if also in some ways it's almost easier to have a beautiful conversation with strangers than it is with f people who have known each other for a long time. People have known [clears throat] each other for a long time also like aren't willing to like oh here's Ryan's like magical question again like you know like they like dunk on each other versus like someone being like yeah absolutely I'll answer you know a question about from my childhood or you know whatever it is.

So, the first thing I'd say is if if the goal is to like revive a friendship group, like really think about like it might actually make more sense to play a kickball game in the park.

H it might actually makes more sense to go and like like book out a pickle ball court for two hours and stage a madeup pickle ball championship like and teach and and have everyone and like put people in a teams of two. If you if it's like fun and laughter and doing something different and having some people deeply remember it, it might be going to like a morning rave and go like go to daybreaker in your city and say like this is what I want to do. It's will be done before break. So the first thing I would just really say and I sound like a broken record and whether you think about work or or pleasure is really pausing before forum and saying what is our deepest need and then pausing and saying what is it that like gives me energy? I I recently launched a substack called group life and we do these group help sessions every two weeks where I get on Zoom live um with whoever with group lifers and the first

the second session we did was called throw a gathering how to host a gathering you actually want to attend.

So the first question I would ask you Ryan is do you want to throw a dinner party? I don't know,

like you know, right? It's like we're so boxed into thinking about like how adults and couples must hang out.

Yeah, that's a great that's a great point. And so the first thing I would just think about is like do you want to actually go bowling or do you want again because I'm listening to what you said, which is fun and laughter and joy. Do you want to go for a dance party? Do you want to

go and have like tea in your grandmother's china on the on a blanket in the river?

Yeah. But one of the most recent ones we did in this kind of realm was Party Bus concert. And man, it was

amazing, right? It hit all it checked all those boxes. There was no there's no real dinner. Maybe some snacks, but like it was it was it was it was some beverages and a bus and a good driver and music and Yeah. And and so

and so similarly so so so that so or or with a dinner party again if you this is why I'm saying really and like anyone listening to this like really pause and ask like what is it that I most need or what is it that the group most needs and like that's a leadership skill that's discernment.

Yes. and then ask. Okay. Or and if it's like what I most want is to become a great dinner party host, then throw a dinner party, right? There's nothing wrong with dinner parties, but it's just one of many forms of connection.

Do you like hosting dinner parties? I do like hosting dinner parties. And I like it because my husband is a great cook. So,

so when you host dinner parties, do you guys cook normally? Yes, we cook. And I will say my husband uh I'm I'm very fortunate does most of the cooking. I think about the meaning and he thinks about the like the nourishment. Okay. Okay.

So, so for a dinner party, you know, the the quick and dirty is I think like keep it keep it relatively simple. And so I mean some of the things we've seen is often like people will enjoy we're Indian Indian-American like people some of our most successful dinner parties is literally like a big vat of biryani like chicken biryani one dish with like yogurt on the side and then like just like a night of like stories and laughter and you you know continue maybe you have some desserts versus like you know 12 dishes and so so on a dinner party really think about what's the menu and what's the menu you know I I'll tell you from my lens because I really do I'm not thinking about the food. I'm very the food matters. But what I what like what to come to me with is the meaning making. So the first is when you think about the food and what you want to serve, think about something that tells a story. Think about something that you

can relatively easily accomplish. So it could be again like when you increase the meaning dial, it decreases the pressure on the quality of the food. So, for example, if you I could say um I'm trying to think of an example like I uh I grew up this is a true story. I grew up um my my my paternal grandparents Ruth and Li Lyall Parker were uh simple working-class people who lived in Waterl, Iowa. And whenever I would go and visit them, they would make me BLTs. And they made like my grandmother made the perfect BLT tea and she she like they had a garden in their backyard and it wasn't just like a small garden. It was like rows and rows and rows of cabbage and tomatoes and corn and not corn and I was like that that was not happening. And um I grew up and I had this like I have this deep visceral memory of her BLTs, right? And if I am hosting and I don't and my husband's not going to cook, I can send an invitation.

Come enjoy my best attempts at Ruth's BLTs. The invitation matters, right? I tell the story in the email. I narrow the expectations. Right? You This is for BLTs. If you don't eat BLTs, maybe this is not the party for you. I will have You can take out the bacon if you're vegetarian, right? But like this is it's also it's a social contract, right? No, I No, please don't bring your mushroom penet, right? No, please don't in this context. And so so much of what ends up happening is again you want to increase the dial menu and you're um and all I ask you to bring if you're asking if you think about what to bring bring a story of a dish that takes you back to childhood.

It creates the whole night. It's done. [clears throat] It's a play that plays itself.

Yeah. The little I mean that sounds like such a little thing but it's actually a pretty big thing. bring bring a dish that because then you know you're probably going to get an amazing story and you get a room full of those and that creates a lot of connection some vulnerability probably you're priming them you're helping them think about their own social anxiety okay that's all

stuff like they don't talk about that much yes and particularly for a group that knows each other well actually particularly for adult friends like so much of the patterns of communication end up being about like what is happening in current life. Yeah. And so one very simple way to refresh a friend group is to find ways that to tell stories that people have never heard of before. Um and again, if you want to have a dinner party and just like come and hang, do that. But so much of what I think of is like how do you meaningfully focus a group in a way that they want to be focused? So another very simple tool I I talk about this a lot on my Instagram and if you all can go to Pria Parker on Instagram and there's a whole circle there about this idea, but it's called magical questions.

So, a magical question is this is how what I think of as a magical question. It's for a group. Um, it's a it's a question that everyone in the group is interested in answering and everyone in the group would be interested in hearing each other's answers, right? It's a it's a magical equation and it's subjective. It's relative, right? So, I have a I have a daughter. Uh, I my poor children know this practice very well. You know, I I the other day I was um t parenting, solo parenting, my husband was traveling. I was solo parenting my kids and their nephews. So, it was me and three kids.

And they started like it was dinner. It was a Saturday night. And they started just like arguing about what movie they were going to watch that night. And I was thinking like, "This is not my Saturday night. This is not going to be my Saturday night." And so I paused and I'm like, "Okay, let's ask a magical question." And they know what a magical question is. And my daughter, 7 years old, she goes, she thought and she goes, I have one. What's the naughtiest thing you ever you've ever done that was worth it? Right. And like we ended up, we laughed and we talked and we shared and we were there for two hours and I heard stories that they had done and they had stories that I had done. Recently, we went to visit my father. Again, so much of facilitation is actually figuring out connection despite [clears throat] obstacles, right? Figuring out connection despite obstacles. One obstacle in many groups

and particularly in families is inter is age intergenerational connection. I recently visited my elderly father in Florida and again table. I was with my children. I was like let's ask a magical question. This time my son said, I have one, what's the meanest thing you ever did to anybody?

Wow. Before the age of 15, right? And I'm and I'm like I have literally never heard this question before. Like there this is why it's a learnable skill. You can teach this to your teams. You can teach this to your teenagers. And and I heard and we all heard stories of one another. And what was so interesting is he caved it by saying before the age of 15 which actually temporarily equalized the group. So the 78-year-old, right, and the 40some year old and the, you know, the under 10-year-old were relatively equalized and we all shared a memory from when we were kids.

And so part of thinking about connection whether it's at a dinner party or anything else is how do you when the when the when the mechanism for connection is conversation which is not always you can go dancing you can play soccer game you can there's so many ways to connect but when it's conversation asking a magical question is a very powerful tool.

What are some of your other favorite magical questions? one that I love to ask um and I actually do this virtually uh on Zoom a lot. I you know as a facilitator a huge part of my growth maybe ironically was during the pandemic and so much of all of the groups I used to facilitate right the reckonings the organizational complicated conversations it would always be in person and the pandemic hit and everything moved on to Zoom and as you know there were a lot of reckonings on Zoom and I was a facilitator who was brought in along with my peers to to facilitate those and all of a sudden I realized that my skill my job as a facilitator I no longer had the tools that I had to chase to run after somebody leaving a room, right? To chase them into the bathroom and knock on the door and convince them to come back out to use my body to signal that it's like time to start quieting down. Like I was like in a little green square, right?

And and so so much of the the single most important tool that I have learned as a facilitator of virtual groups is to create psychological togetherness. H

how do you create psychological togetherness when people aren't in the same room and actually in group life my substack uh I am doing a my next session is literally on this my single most important skill as a facilitator is creating virtual togetherness psychological togetherness in a zoom and one of my biggest tools is magical questions I I promise I'm answering your question and my favorite question to ask of any group and I do this all the time I do this in organizations I do this when I'm speaking for a speaking engagement to a company I'm doing it for conferences is 3,000 people, 50 people.

As I ask in the chat, I say, "Open up the chat." And I just want to get a sense. You often can't see everybody, right? But it's like, it's like an imaginative community. I just want to get a sense of who's here. Okay. So, open up the chat. Let's warm up our chat. And uh I want you to tell me, think a moment. What was the first concert you ever went to, and who took you? And people pause and then all of a sudden you see this like waterfall of answers. Bonnie Ra, Madonna, Michael Jackson, New Kids on the Block, Nicki Minaj, you know, a and and and Bob Dylan, and you and so a couple of things are happening. First, everyone is super interested in seeing everyone else's answers, but there's so much data and context. Who's here? Wow, I didn't realize they were that old. Or, oh my gosh, their first concert or it was my first concert. You also realize everyone has someone behind them. My sister, my

mother, my dad, my older brother, my college girlfriend, right? All of a sudden it expands your notion of who's there. But finally, particularly if you ask this at the opening and openings really matter of how you actually create a a community or a group, you're also increasing the likelihood that everyone else is realizing, oh, these are real people here and there's real context. And by the way, when the going gets tough, when there's some miscommunication on the team, as there is in everyone, I'm more likely to pick up the phone and call them because how bad could they be? Their first concert was a New Kids on the Block concert, right? So all of this is like you're stitching together a community to if not be lifelong friends to be resilient in the trenches people who know enough data about each other that make them real and human that's appropriate for a work context that helps people realize, hey,

I know something about this person. I can pick up the phone. Wow. Uh Tom Petty, seventh grade, my dad. It was awesome. I was kind of like in shock actually of how cool it was that I didn't really know what to do. He probably thought I wasn't having fun, but I actually was blown away. Anyway, uh how do you come up with magical questions? What's your process? Do you just come up with a ton of questions and then throw out the bad ones like a lot of creativity works or what is your process? Because not not I don't want to just give people the questions. I want to help people create the muscle so that they can come up with magical questions.

I do too. you know, no one has ever asked me that. Um, it's such a great question. So, I would say I do it in a couple of different ways. The first is I um I practice like I test a lot out and I test a lot out on my own team, right? And in part because they have the shared purpose of figuring out magical questions that we then share online. So um the first is I I test and I practice and I really think about again it's not rocket science but I think I every single time I think and I'll be sitting there feeling hostess heat at a dinner party and being like okay okay how do I ask a question right and again I was like what is a question this entire room this unique group like my best friend from college but also our neighbor but also my husband's sister would all be interested in answering right that's like social arithmetic what that it means. What do they have in common? What don't they have in common? What's the

right level of vulnerability? And that they would all be interested in answering,

right? And so I really I just ask that question over and over and over again. It's a it's a muscle. Um and then I also ask my community. So on group life on Substack, we have I actually on the chat recently, I asked what's a magical question that you love and people people um share all sorts of magical questions that they love. on Instagram. I asked people to send me magical questions and they my DMs are full of magical questions and then we put them together. And when somebody recently I'm gonna see if I can find it. Somebody recently um sent me a DM from Brazil and he said, "I've tried this magical question. Let me see if I can find it. I've tried this magical question in my group and uh it leads to very heated debates." Hold on, let me see if I can find it.

You're creating some tension here with a little bit of delay. Let's find it. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I found it. I found it and you can judge if this is magical or not. So again, this is for this is from his

um for his group, Brazilian guy. I got one magical question that has been around my friend group since high school. Are you ready for it?

I am. Would you rather spend 10 minutes on the moon or one year traveling through Europe?

It [clears throat] is a it is a closeended question, but it inspires heated debates. Right. And so I know I'm like they literally made that up for that group. It might be super interesting for for for me questions that I So I love the concert question. A question that recently different mediums are good for different questions. So a question that did really well on Instagram like went totally viral in this way that I'm like what the heck. So this is why I keep saying like test be curious. It was um what's the strangest thing you ever found in your pocket?

And people are like really like I'm kind of drawing a people are like like everything from like um like the little retainer screw like a child's retrainer screw. Any any parents who have children or if you ever have like an expander to like I don't know like guitar pick to um like glitter from a concert. But it just did really well. If that would that do well in a room, I don't know. I'll just say one more thing which is this this this leadership ability to begin to deeply I mean one of the core skills of facilitation and it's a muscular skill is once you know what the need or the purpose of the group is is to figure out the question that helps the group have the right conversation.

So I I have a digital course art of gathering digital course. is a six-week course. It's pre-recorded. You can people take it at as teams. You can go on my website, check it out, preaparker.com. And one of the uh practices we have in that digital course is how do you open how do you connect a group across power dynamics and this is an example from that course. It was a um healthc care conf. It was a healthcare meeting and in the room was a massive hierarchy. It was the CEO of the healthcare company. It was researchers.

It was nurses. It was anesthesiologists. It was interns. It was residents. And the purpose of the meeting was to uh analyze a a meta data set of maternal mortality rates. Okay, this is this is quite heady stuff, but basically maternal mortality rates. I want to actually show you the sophistication of like why this is such muscular work as a facilitator. So in this room is a massive hierarchy and they needed to literally look read data about maternal mortality and make meaning of it and figure out what they wanted to do across all of these stakeholders and the facilitator had the task in the first hour to equalize the group. So in my course I say okay this is like lesson five four take a moment and write down if you were the facilitator in the room you had an hour and you had to ask one question that would help pe that would everyone would answer that would temporally equalize the group what would it be

okay do you want to try Ryan or should I tell you what they [snorts] Go ahead, tell me.

Okay, so this is the question they asked. What is something about your mother or mother figure that you couldn't tell by looking at her?

Right? This is a brilliant question for the need of the group. Why? Because first of all, it's remind it's temporarily equalizing. Everyone in that room, including the CEO, is a child of somebody has a mother or mother figure, right? It's temporally equalizing. Second, they're looking at metadata, right? Which means a lot of micro data has been kind of uh summarized. So when you're looking at a data set, part of what they're doing is priming that what is something about your mother that you couldn't tell by looking at her, right?

It's expanding their own context. And so they ran this question and it completely transformed the group, but it wasn't um it wasn't gratuitous. It fundamentally served the desired outcome of the room which is to use all of these stakeholders who come from many different places to look at each other with respect to look at the context the data with context and to be able to have a high enough trust to have a complex conversation with care.

So good. Uh can I run one by you? A magical question that I ask every year. Okay. So let me set the stage of how this uh our dinners go when we're at this growth summit. Um, again with 40-ish people, we go out to a nice usually like a steakhouse type place and we get a private room and in between the main course and the dessert, I tell the people this ahead of time, the uh the the host and the restaurant so they know what's going on. In between those two courses, I get up and give like a very mini talk and then I say, "Here's what we're going to do." I have this box of cards and each card is a question and you're each going to answer two questions and I have them all stand up and and and do this and I go person to person and like usually make a little comment about the person or something.

Not too long but and then they have they all answer one question which is the same. This is the champagne question. I'm curious if this is one you use. I got it from Jason Gayard by the way. Everything I've gotten I've learned from somebody else. None of it's really original. So anyway, I ask him all the champagne question and I give them a card and sometimes I'll just pick randomly from the box. But anyway, the champagne question is Pria, we're meeting exactly one year from today and we are popping bottles.

Beautiful. Popping bottles, right? Champagne going crazy. Celebrating. What are we celebrating?

That's a beautiful question, right? Champagne question. So, or grape juice doesn't whatever. Like it just goes better if you say champagne. So,

yeah. So then they have to sit there and think about like what does a successful year look like? What's a big goal? What's something they want to accomp? I want to publish a book, you know, like whatever. Okay. And then the card questions. So they answer, they all answer that. And

can I say one of the reasons why that's so good? It's not only because it's both future oriented and again for the group it's thinking about goals, but why are you popping champagne? That's a visceral thing, right? You you pop it's an emotional reaction. It's a it's a it's a it's a nonobligatory reaction, right? And you could say like what is your you know

goal in a year. Yeah, it's boring, right? Versus and so part of part of the power of it is it's almost like a sumatic, right? It's like a physical question that helps people get closer again back to like

you can feel it. You can feel it. You can say like you're also like not gonna pop champagne about something that's boring.

Correct. So it's a great question. Okay, keep going. forces you to think big, right? Yeah. You don't you like some of them the last time they popped a bottle of champagne maybe have been like their wedding and that and for some that have been like a decade or more.

The second part is I had I created a box again got this from Jason Gennard. He runs mastermind talk so he hosts events. I learned it from him a decade ago and he's he's remained a friend and I've gone to like five or six of his events. So anyway, you get a box of cards and you you you hand make these cards. You can use moo.com or whatever. And they're colored actually intentionally. So the lighter shaded cards are kind of light, loose, no big deal questions like basic that it it's not a lot of vulnerability, but the cards get progressively darker. And the darker the shade of the card, the more vulnerability it will force you to answer. And so this gives me flexibility as the host to know I don't know if this group we should go that deep right now. Like let's stay lighter. And I have like a hundred of them. So I don't I don't use all of the cards. And so sometimes if maybe it's a smaller group or it's a group where we

know each other better or we feel like, yeah, we can go there. I'll go a little bit darker, right? I'll get a little bit darker. So you have again this there's a lot of planning, there's a lot of help, there's a lot of intentionality, but the the questions on the cards then they read it and a lot of times they've never answered that question before. So they and they also never answer the champagne question. So they're answering two questions. They have to think on their feet a little bit and sometimes what they say surprises themselves, let alone everybody in the room. And so again, heavy facilitation, a lot of intentionality, a lot of planning.

Nobody till this year understood the shady the shades of the colors of the cards. I just told them and they're like, "Oh wow, there really is a lot of thought put in this." I go, "Yes, there is." And so sometimes when they go back, they're like, "Oh, I got a darker card. he must like trust me or something even more. So, it's interesting to see what people put into it when when you when you tell them about like, yeah, this is why we do this. And I think people really really

appreciate it and they do like they they feel like a sense of togetherness after we leave that dinner after going through that that that kind of uh moment where we all answer questions together.

It Yeah, it's very it's very effective. And I think part of again the responsibility gathering is about connection, but it's also about power

and particularly in a work context using your role as a host to also protect your guests and making sure that the questions you ask are related to the purpose of the convening,

right? And so you can ask questions that are too vulnerable for a work context. You can ask questions that aren't related to or shouldn't be, you know, shouldn't be asked. It's that would be a much better question for you know a group of friends and when you are skilled at deeply thinking about you know what is the purpose like even asking something as simple as particularly for groups that have been together for a long time you know what's a what's a memory what's a core experience from your early life that you think connects to why you do the work you do today

right again it's like it helps people understand people's motivation but You're not saying like what's telling me any experience from your early childhood. No, no, no, no. It's like connecting like why are you an activist at this organization or why are you an accountant or what is it that you why are you a ballet instructor? Right? what what and and and so so much of I mean we're sort of ending where we began which is questions are are

I mean questions are a sequence of words that if you ask them in a specific way it can open up the world.

Yeah. Yeah. Being genuinely curious and fascinated about people and their stories and their life experiences will change your life.

Yes. Full stop. Absolutely. will change your life. Well, I I got to ask you I meant to ask you this earlier, Priier. This is a little bit of a departure to end, but but I'm curious. You write The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters. Again, a life-changing transformational book that went mega viral.

Thank you. H how did it change your life? Like what happened as a when that came out and all of a sudden like millions of people are talking about it, are reading it, are implementing it, it's changing their lives. like what did that do for you in your life?

You know what was interesting is before uh before the book came out so much of what I felt like I did as a facilitator and would also like be so frustrated with in rooms when I could just see like oh if they would just all the ingredients are here if they would just protect their guests or all the ingredients are here if they would just like ask this question or if they just raise a toast and tell people why they're here it would be so good. Writing a book is like like you you get to write what like deeply frustrates you and like con try to convince other people it should frustrate them too.

And so one of the things that writing this book and having it having it really take was that like [clears throat] I grew people's frustration in mediocre gatherings and that was that I grew people's lens to see like this this could be so much better. Our time is so short and precious. And by the way, like I can do this. Like I say this in the beginning of the art of gathering. It's like anyone can gather. It's like that movie Ratatouille. Anyone can cook. Anyone can gather. And one of the things I learned in interviewing the hundred gatherers Io I interviewed was like many of them identified

as introverts. These are gatherers other people credit with creating transformational gatherings consistently. So many of them identify themselves as loners. Their language often on the outside of things. introverts having social anxiety and they often one as one person said to me, I create the gatherings I wish existed in the world

and other people seem to like it. And so what has been so beautiful for me and kind of honestly like a relief is that people are starting to get fed up with and expect better of how the the most precious thing we have is how do we spend our time together and to realize and to give the radical permission that we can change it with some thought with some timmerity with some bumping around uh in relationship in conversation and that has been that has been beautiful and the last thing I'll say is strangely the pandemic made the book even more relevant because the art of gathering the paperback came out April 2020. Uh super awkward. The gathering was banned.

It was illegal. And part of what happened with the pandemic is that by taking gathering from us, we began to see it. We began to see that this thing that we took for granted shapes our lives, right? How do we wed now? How do we fight battles in court now? How do we host funerals? How do we host a gala? What is this thing? And so part of what has been very interesting is I and and very very helpful is it's and I'll as a conflict resolution facilitator I I know that first groups things begin to change when you can get a group or a community to go back to first order questions which is when and where and why should we meet and who decides and people are now asking that question and that's a powerful question to be asking.

Wow. Uh, this is awesome. Where can we go to learn more about you online, Pria?

Um, thank you so much for for asking me. Thank you for having me. Um, you can go to uh group life. Um, actually, sorry, that's not the right website. Um, you can go to www.priaarker.substack.com. So, I have a Substack. It's called group life and we've actually created a special page for you all. Um it's priaparker.substack.comarningleer.

Let's go. And we're offering your audience a 15% discount code. So learning leader and and group life is really my attempt to um is I just started it. It's a Substack and I started it because we are a wash in self-help. We have so many for decades. We have tools for self-help. We have apps. We can count our steps. We can count the amount of sugar we intake. We don't have a lot of tools for group help.

And we have a crisis of group life. And so group life is my attempt as a Substack uh to begin to demystify and be part of what I call a group life and group help revolution. So as much as we have tools for self-help, it is time to begin to really elevate group help. And part of what I do on the substack is every two weeks, it's the first time I've ever offered this to the public, is I teach, I do live sessions based on questions from the audience on Zoom. If you become a group lifer, you can come and we get to go deep on many of these juicy questions together. So, thank you so much for having me, Ryan. It's been you're you're a wonderful host. Thank you for modeling so many of these so many of these principles.

Well, thank you and I would uh love to continue our dialogue as we both progress. Priya,

thank you so much. I would too.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The 3 Rules That Make EVERY Gathering Better | Priya Parker (Art of Gathering)"?

Ryan Hawk (Host), Priya Parker (Guest), Hal Saunders (Guest), Rhonda Sleim (Guest), Elizabeth Stewart (Guest), Jason Gennard (Guest), Michelle Kern (Guest).

What is "The 3 Rules That Make EVERY Gathering Better | Priya Parker (Art of Gathering)" about?

The discussion revolves around the importance of gatherings in fostering connection and facilitating meaningful conversations, emphasizing the role of thoughtful questions and the understanding of power dynamics in group settings. Priya Parker shares insights from her background and experience as a conflict resolution facilitator, highlighting how her upbringing influenced her approach to…

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

38 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Facilitation, Group Life, Magical Questions, Priya Parker, Power (in groups), Social Contract. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The 3 Rules That Make EVERY Gathering Better | Priya Parker (Art of Gathering)"?

The episode runs 1 h 5 min; the transcript is about 12,089 words in 139 timestamped sections.

More from Ryan Hawk

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.