154. The Power of Community
Do you have powerful relationships?
A decades-long Harvard study found that one of the most important indicators of health, longevity, and overall life satisfaction is not how much you exercise, how much you sleep, what you eat, etc.
It’s the quality of your relationships.
And yet, this seems to be an area where folks struggle.
I see posts all the time about how hard it is to make friends as an adult.
And even if you have relationships, it can be hard to sustain them, to keep showing up joyfully and honestly.
You might struggle in your relationships. Maybe you people please. Maybe you feel resentful towards your closest loved ones. Maybe you don’t know how to ask them for what you want or negotiate expectations that work for you both.
Whether the obstacle is geographical distance, finding time to see each other, navigating conflicts, or something else, you may be having a hard time building and maintaining relationships that delight you.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Relationships, like many things, require skills. And those skills can be learned.
In fact, those skills are some of the exact things we work on in my small group, Satisfied AF.
Because a HUGE part of satisfaction is having relationships that work for you and feel good to be in.
There are a myriad of benefits to being in community, and I want YOU to have them.
So come join the next round of Satisfied AF.
You’ll be joining a wonderful group, so you’ll get some added community right away. And you’ll learn everything you need to create new relationships and have a better experience of longstanding ones.
And even if you’re not sure if Satisfied AF is right for you, be sure to check out this week’s podcast to learn more about how to tap into the power of community in your own life.
If you’re hungry for deep and meaningful relationships in your life, this week’s podcast is perfect for you.
My small group coaching program, Satisfied AF, is officially open for enrollment! Click here to schedule a consult call for Satisfied AF and we can figure out what’s not working in your life and career as well as how to transform it into something that delights you.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
The impact community can have on your life satisfaction, health, and longevity.
Why it’s worth figuring out how to build, have, and sustain meaningful relationships.
What happens when we cultivate a sense of belonging.
Where people struggle when it comes to tapping into community.
How to take advantage of the power of community.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about the power of community.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hello, hello, hello, happy Wednesday. I hope you’re doing very well. I am about to go out of town. I’m going to Calistoga, California. We’re driving over there later today after work and we’re staying the next two nights there, so tonight and tomorrow night.
And we’re going because I’m going to be doing a VIP day there with my coach. VIP days are really incredible. It’s a chance to be with your coach all day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And this will be my second one I’m doing with my current coach, Susan Hyatt.
And the last one was really fun and really powerful. We created multiple documents that I’m now using in my coaching programs and for free calls. And I’m pretty excited for the one tomorrow. I think we’re going to do a lot of discussion and work that’s going to be impactful for the next quarter and probably also for setting up my 2024.
And I wanted to tell you about it because I’ve had such a powerful experience of doing these as a client, I’ve also decided I’m going to do them as a coach. My coach Susan calls them VIP days, I’m calling mine deep dive days because I love that with a whole day together, we can really deep dive into whatever it is that you want to work on.
We can build a side hustle and set up a plan for what you’re going to do in that side hustle and to support that side hustle for the next 90 days. We can dig really deeply into what’s working and what’s not working in your relationship with your significant other and set you up with habits, skills, and processes so you can have a more enjoyable experience of that relationship, so you can negotiate with your partner to create a version that works so much better for, hopefully, you both.
Other things we could do in deep dive days is we could make a plan for switching your career, hopping from one industry to another. We could make a friendship plan. I’ve been talking to and hearing from a lot of people recently about how difficult it is to make friends, like really good, yummy, satisfying friendships as an adult.
And it’s something I’ve personally been working on for the last few years since I moved to Sacramento. And I’ve had a lot of success with it, and I have a lot of learnings from what I’ve done. And so that’s something we could do in a deep dive together, we can make a friendship plan.
Let’s say you want to travel the world in 2024, we could spend the day mapping out what that’s going to look like, where you’re going to go, what you need to have in place to make it possible. Maybe you want to embrace a new hobby, maybe you want to take acting classes, maybe you want to do improv or standup comedy.
Whatever goal or dream or desire you have that you want to work on, and you want a big chunk of time so we can really work through the whole thing in one day, a deep dive coaching day is perfect for that.
And something that makes deep dive days really fun, is that we can pick a really wonderful place to spend that time together. I live in California. I’m a big fan of California. That’s why I did my first VIP day with Susan here and I’m doing my second one here as well. So I would love it if you wanted to come to California and deep dive with me, but there are also other locations that are an option.
So if you would like to hire me for a deep dive day, you can reach out via my website or just email hello@korilinn.com.
Okay, let’s dig into this week’s topic. This week, we’re talking about the power of community. This is something I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter about online lately. There’s this really famous Harvard longitudinal study, I think at this point this study is like 80 years old. So they’ve been studying data on this cohort of men, because when they started this study Harvard was only men.
And let’s just take a minute to say like, yes, data is super compelling, and yes, it’s also flawed. It probably is looking at a select group of people. They were in Harvard. Probably a lot of them had a lot of privilege. It’s not a perfect representation, but I think there is still interesting data we can glean.
So anytime you’re looking at the results of a study, I think it’s always important to think about what’s the value of what you can take away. And then what are the considerations you need to make about the way studies are designed and the way studies are implemented.
So basically, what I’m saying is studies can give us really meaningful information, but they’re not perfect reflections of information because when people have internalized bias, that can also show up in how studies are designed and performed.
But I still think, again, that there’s a lot of value in the results. And the results in this one are staggering. What they’ve found is that one of the most important indicators of health and of life satisfaction and of life longevity, right, how long you live or how long the participants lived, is not just your health markers, but the power and satisfaction of your relationships.
Specifically, one of the pieces of information that came out of this study was looking at people around the age of 50 and looking at how happy and satisfied they were in their relationships, and then also looking at their cholesterol level. And significantly, the people who had happy, healthy relationships in their 50s were also healthiest at 80, when they were measured again.
So it’s really neat when you have a very long study like this that you can really look at the impacts over a long length of time. And if I understand correctly, I believe that as the study went on, they began incorporating additional people into the study.
So the original cohort was all men and all, I think, sophomores at Harvard. But over time, I think they brought more people into the study so that they’d have a wider set of information to look at. But that wider set doesn’t have the 80 years necessarily of data.
Now, obviously, there are a lot of factors that can impact how happy your life is, how healthy you feel in your body, and how long you live. But for the purposes of this podcast, I really wanted to focus on community. I think this is especially timely considering that according to various sources, we are currently experiencing an epidemic of loneliness.
According to lifespan.org, even before Covid 19 and the pandemic, one out of two people in the United States reported experiencing loneliness. And I know that a lot of people have struggled even more through the pandemic.
And I’m personally of the opinion that the Covid pandemic is not over as we’re still experiencing surges. And I know a lot of people are back to normal. And I’m going to events and traveling, but I also know some people are not doing that, especially people who are immunocompromised.
And I think through the lockdown, and then through some people returning to pre-pandemic normal and some people not, I think a lot of people are experiencing loneliness. And I’ve also heard friends, this is more qualitative and colloquial, but I’ve also heard people talking about really struggling to be social after spending several years locked down and away from social settings.
So I think a lot of us are in a position where we’re hungry for relationships. And we’re also struggling with how do we make and have and build and sustain relationships? And for this podcast, what I really wanted to offer is the idea that that is worth figuring out.
That is worth solving. That is worth taking action on. That is a valuable thing to do with your time if it’s something that feels aligned for you. Because the impacts to your satisfaction and your delight can be really huge. Not to mention to your health and longevity as well.
I think that this topic is deeply impactful for general life purposes when it comes to building and maintaining friendships, when it comes to having a relationship with a significant other and investing in that relationship. And I also think this topic is really relevant for work and career.
One of the very best things I’ve gotten out of many of the places I’ve worked is the relationships I’ve had with other people who worked there, with my co-workers, my colleagues, and also sometimes with customers.
So a long, long time ago when I was in undergrad and for a few years after undergrad I worked in a coffee shop in North Carolina. And I’m still friends with one of the people I worked there with.
And another one of the people I worked there with, we weren’t in contact for several years, but when I started my coaching business, that person showed up, liked what I was teaching, hired me and radically changed their work life and their stress levels and stuff. And so that was so fun to have that continued relationship with this person I had known from an earlier phase of my life.
I also think when it comes to having a satisfying work life and achieving your goals, getting good results, things like that, having relationships at work is incredibly meaningful. Having connection with your co-workers, with your supervisors, with your supervisees, this makes it easier to get things done, to have trust and to have a nice time at work.
In the coaching industry, a lot of the things we talk about are things that you apply individually to yourself. We talk about the way you talk to yourself and shifting from negative self-talk to kind, supportive self-talk. We talk about setting and achieving goals. We talk about taking action towards the things that are important to you. And I’m here for all of that, but I think sometimes people also feel really siloed in doing that work. They feel lonely, right?
And so I think community can also be powerful in the way that you engage with things like coaching. And that’s why I have a small group coaching program, so that people can do the work of coaching in community. I think it’s just more fun to do the work in community. I think it’s really inspiring.
I know that when I’m in a small group, I really enjoy learning from the coaching that other people receive. I often feel inspired and then go start taking action in my own life or business because of whatever they’re getting coaching on. And it also just makes me feel this really wonderful sense of community and belonging.
And don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t always come easy. Sometimes that sense of community and belonging also is something I have to build on purpose. Like a lot of people, I can feel self-conscious, and I can feel like, what if other people don’t like me? Do I really fit in in this space?
And so it’s been something that I’ve worked on in the groups I belong in to choose to believe I belong there. And it’s something that really matters to me for the group that I run, to help cultivate a sense of belonging and to invite my clients to cultivate a sense of belonging with each other. And I think when we do that, then we get to tap into this power of relationships that is the main thing we’re talking about this week.
We get to tap into satisfaction. We get to tap into delight. We get to tap into connection. And we get to tap into a myriad of benefits of being in community, of being in relationship. And just like I have relationships that have outlasted the jobs that they started in, I have relationships that have outlasted the coaching programs that they started in.
One of my best friends in the world, not China bestie who lives in China, but another one of my really, really close friends, she was a peer in a coaching group that I did in 2018. So it’s been five years, and this is an incredible person, such a special friend to me, I can’t imagine my life without her. But if I hadn’t done that coaching program, it’s highly possible we would have never met each other.
I think it’s also important in this episode for us to touch on friendships and relationships are not just about beginning the friendship, or meeting people, or putting yourself in a space like going to a new work location and meeting the people there or going into a new coaching program or joining a swimming club or whatever. It’s also about how do we maintain relationships?
And I actually think, well, I think both are really challenging. I think for a lot of people who want more friends, putting themselves out there to meet more people can feel really fucking terrifying, quite frankly.
And I get that because every round I do on Bumble BFF, I do have some fear and some vulnerability. A sense of rejection if I swipe right on someone and then you know, we don’t match, which indicates that they either didn’t see my profile or didn’t swipe right on me. I realize that that can be painful. So I think that’s a place where people face blockers.
And then I think another place where people face blockers is, okay, I have this person in my life, we’ve connected, we’ve had coffee, we’ve worked together, we’ve been in a coaching program together. And then how do I continue the momentum of that? And then especially, what do I do if there’s a conflict? How do I navigate a conflict?
I think a lot of people, when conflict comes up, they just either step back and take time to themselves. And I know I’ve personally done that as well. Or they simply skip out on the relationship, I’ve also done that. I think it’s actually an incredibly difficult and rare skill for a lot of us to have actual meaningful conflict with friends, colleagues, et cetera.
A lot of people I know, the only person they actually have conflict with is their significant other, which I think is really interesting. And I think sometimes that just happens because it’s like that’s the person you kind of can’t escape having conflict with if you live together. I know that that’s been the case for me before.
And I’ve even said to Alex sometimes, I’m having a fight with you but you’re not even the person I want to be having the fight with. But can you talk this through with me because I’m, for whatever reason, don’t feel close enough, not ready, not willing at that point, to have the conversation with the other person.
But I think it’s such a meaningful thing to develop this skill, even if it can feel really scary. I just want you to know I have so much empathy for how scary it feels, because it feels scary to me too. But I think that when we are able to do this, that is when we get to take advantage of the power of community, of the power of relationships.
If we’re in relationships where we feel like we can’t express ourselves and we don’t actually share with other people and we’re not willing to have conflict, I wonder if we still get the benefit of the relationships because that can feel really terrible on the inside. It can feel like you’re kind of invisible. Your true self is kind of invisible because you’re not letting them see that version of you.
And I think that when we’re willing to actually be real with people, even though it can be massively uncomfortable, I would guess that’s where we get the most benefit from having relationships. Because even if there’s conflict, then we can be known, we can be seen. And I think sometimes, most importantly, we can repair.
Sometimes we get this idea in our head, that the best relationship is one with no conflict, and I just massively disagree with that. Also, to back me up, doctors John and Julie Gottman indicate that conflict is not negative, and conflict can actually create more intimacy. It can create more connection in relationships. Conflict is a way that we get known more deeply, it’s just an uncomfortable way.
And listen, I still think it’s uncomfortable. Alex and I do conflict fairly often because we have a great relationship, but our great relationship involves having conflict with each other and telling each other when we don’t like things and don’t agree. Like in some ways sometimes we have way more conflict than other relationships I’ve been in because I’m willing to have micro conflicts with her.
I think I’m like, oh, it’d be so much easier not to talk about this and it’s actually not a huge deal, it’s like not going to blow anything up. But I’m like, oh, but I plan to be with you for a super long time, so what if we talk this through instead? And then we can have this micro conflict that won’t even be that difficult, but then how much more joy and connection and also just like smoothness can we have later?
I’ve talked on the podcast before about the way we do our chore agreement. And that eliminates so much conflict right there, but we had to have the difficult conversation of how we were going to break up the chores before we were able to enjoy the smoothness and well-oiled machinery of having the agreement.
Okay, I’m a little on a tangent, as per usual. So let’s get back to the main event. So what I want you to think about is, do you have powerful relationships? Do you have powerful community? Do you have a sense of belonging? If yes, how can you continue to invest in that and continue to show up to that in ways that feel really yummy and juicy and delicious to you?
Also, can you celebrate the shit out of yourself for having that? Because I think a lot of people don’t. I’m guessing that of all my listeners, there’s only going to be a small percentage who are like, “Yes, I have a super powerful community. I have super powerful relationships. I’m all good in this area.”
If that’s you, fucking take a bow. Amazing work because, let’s be honest, that shit is not the easiest thing to do. If it’s not you, that’s okay. You’re still doing great and it’s totally available for you to have this too.
For all of us, there are things that we already have that are going well and there are things that come really easily to us. And they’re things that don’t. If building a powerful community and building powerful relationships isn’t something that’s already going well, that’s okay, we can build that. If it’s not something that comes easily to you, that’s okay, you can still have it.
That’s like at the heart of this podcast some of the main ideas is even if it doesn’t come easily to you, it can still be yours. And even if you don’t have it now, it doesn’t mean you can’t have it. And that’s as true for powerful community as it is for switching industries, writing your novel, finding a partner, or moving to Thailand. Whatever you want to work on, we can figure it out together.
So the key takeaways here are that, first of all, I think it’s just super fun and satisfying, to have community, to have relationships. Like in their own right, they’re delicious and also they have a delicious return on investment. So if it’s something you want, even if it’s kind of hard to create, I would offer that the data suggests it’s really valuable and that it can have a huge impact on your life in lots of amazing ways in addition to the simple delight of having it itself.
And there’s lots of different ways to create community and you can get started today. You can join me and get on Bumble BFF and swipe your way and start meeting up with local people in your area and build new friendships that way.
You can invite a work colleague to grab a drink after dinner and invest in the relationships there and build a deeper connection with the people you work with. You can set up a date night with your significant other. And if you don’t have a significant other, you can head back on over to the apps and go on some dates and start looking for one.
And another amazing way that you can build community is by joining a coaching group. And my small group, Satisfied As Fuck, is starting again in October, around the end of October, and I would love to have you be part of it.
If you are a woman or an assigned female at birth non-binary person who wants to work on satisfaction in any area. Maybe you want to write a book, maybe you want to start a business, maybe you want to get a raise, maybe you want to build your new community of friends. Satisfied As Fuck is a great place to work on all kinds of different goals in community with a bunch of amazing people where you’re going to be inspired and delighted and really just jazzed up to go out and take action to start making the changes you want to see in your own life.
And I think if you join us, you’ll find that you’re going to have an amazing time while you’re there. And you’re going to build relationships that last longer than the six months that the program is as well.
And if you’re looking for a little bit more of a one-on-one relationship, not ready for a group, I would invite you to consider signing up for a deep dive day and it can just be you and me building connection with each other and setting you up for success for the next 90 days.
All right, that’s what I have for y’all. Have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Hey, it’s Kori, I have one additional announcement for you. And that is, I am doing a campaign for RIP Medical Debt. RIP Medical Debt is an incredible nonprofit who is buying up bundled medical debt and forgiving it. So basically, because the medical debt is bundled together, it’s sold at a fraction of its original cost.
So when you make donations to RIP Medical Debt, your donation has like 100x impact, right? So if you donate $100, the impact is like $10,000 of medical debt, roughly, that is going to get forgiven. And I’ve been following this nonprofit for a while, I’ve been super inspired by them. And so I decided to do a campaign with them.
Also, if you donate $100 or more to my campaign and send me a picture of your donation receipt, you can get a free 30 minute one on one coaching call with me. And if you can’t donate $100, I totally get it. It’s a lot of money. And I would still love it if you would donate another amount. Or if you aren’t in a place for donating works, maybe you could share the campaign. You can head on over to my Instagram where the campaign is linked in my bio. Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We’ll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you’re feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hello, hello, hello, happy Wednesday. I hope you’re doing very well. I am about to go out of town. I’m going to Calistoga, California. We’re driving over there later today after work and we’re staying the next two nights there, so tonight and tomorrow night.
And we’re going because I’m going to be doing a VIP day there with my coach. VIP days are really incredible. It’s a chance to be with your coach all day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And this will be my second one I’m doing with my current coach, Susan Hyatt.
And the last one was really fun and really powerful. We created multiple documents that I’m now using in my coaching programs and for free calls. And I’m pretty excited for the one tomorrow. I think we’re going to do a lot of discussion and work that’s going to be impactful for the next quarter and probably also for setting up my 2024.
And I wanted to tell you about it because I’ve had such a powerful experience of doing these as a client, I’ve also decided I’m going to do them as a coach. My coach Susan calls them VIP days, I’m calling mine deep dive days because I love that with a whole day together, we can really deep dive into whatever it is that you want to work on.
We can build a side hustle and set up a plan for what you’re going to do in that side hustle and to support that side hustle for the next 90 days. We can dig really deeply into what’s working and what’s not working in your relationship with your significant other and set you up with habits, skills, and processes so you can have a more enjoyable experience of that relationship, so you can negotiate with your partner to create a version that works so much better for, hopefully, you both.
Other things we could do in deep dive days is we could make a plan for switching your career, hopping from one industry to another. We could make a friendship plan. I’ve been talking to and hearing from a lot of people recently about how difficult it is to make friends, like really good, yummy, satisfying friendships as an adult.
And it’s something I’ve personally been working on for the last few years since I moved to Sacramento. And I’ve had a lot of success with it, and I have a lot of learnings from what I’ve done. And so that’s something we could do in a deep dive together, we can make a friendship plan.
Let’s say you want to travel the world in 2024, we could spend the day mapping out what that’s going to look like, where you’re going to go, what you need to have in place to make it possible. Maybe you want to embrace a new hobby, maybe you want to take acting classes, maybe you want to do improv or standup comedy.
Whatever goal or dream or desire you have that you want to work on, and you want a big chunk of time so we can really work through the whole thing in one day, a deep dive coaching day is perfect for that.
And something that makes deep dive days really fun, is that we can pick a really wonderful place to spend that time together. I live in California. I’m a big fan of California. That’s why I did my first VIP day with Susan here and I’m doing my second one here as well. So I would love it if you wanted to come to California and deep dive with me, but there are also other locations that are an option.
So if you would like to hire me for a deep dive day, you can reach out via my website or just email hello@korilinn.com.
Okay, let’s dig into this week’s topic. This week, we’re talking about the power of community. This is something I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter about online lately. There’s this really famous Harvard longitudinal study, I think at this point this study is like 80 years old. So they’ve been studying data on this cohort of men, because when they started this study Harvard was only men.
And let’s just take a minute to say like, yes, data is super compelling, and yes, it’s also flawed. It probably is looking at a select group of people. They were in Harvard. Probably a lot of them had a lot of privilege. It’s not a perfect representation, but I think there is still interesting data we can glean.
So anytime you’re looking at the results of a study, I think it’s always important to think about what’s the value of what you can take away. And then what are the considerations you need to make about the way studies are designed and the way studies are implemented.
So basically, what I’m saying is studies can give us really meaningful information, but they’re not perfect reflections of information because when people have internalized bias, that can also show up in how studies are designed and performed.
But I still think, again, that there’s a lot of value in the results. And the results in this one are staggering. What they’ve found is that one of the most important indicators of health and of life satisfaction and of life longevity, right, how long you live or how long the participants lived, is not just your health markers, but the power and satisfaction of your relationships.
Specifically, one of the pieces of information that came out of this study was looking at people around the age of 50 and looking at how happy and satisfied they were in their relationships, and then also looking at their cholesterol level. And significantly, the people who had happy, healthy relationships in their 50s were also healthiest at 80, when they were measured again.
So it’s really neat when you have a very long study like this that you can really look at the impacts over a long length of time. And if I understand correctly, I believe that as the study went on, they began incorporating additional people into the study.
So the original cohort was all men and all, I think, sophomores at Harvard. But over time, I think they brought more people into the study so that they’d have a wider set of information to look at. But that wider set doesn’t have the 80 years necessarily of data.
Now, obviously, there are a lot of factors that can impact how happy your life is, how healthy you feel in your body, and how long you live. But for the purposes of this podcast, I really wanted to focus on community. I think this is especially timely considering that according to various sources, we are currently experiencing an epidemic of loneliness.
According to lifespan.org, even before Covid 19 and the pandemic, one out of two people in the United States reported experiencing loneliness. And I know that a lot of people have struggled even more through the pandemic.
And I’m personally of the opinion that the Covid pandemic is not over as we’re still experiencing surges. And I know a lot of people are back to normal. And I’m going to events and traveling, but I also know some people are not doing that, especially people who are immunocompromised.
And I think through the lockdown, and then through some people returning to pre-pandemic normal and some people not, I think a lot of people are experiencing loneliness. And I’ve also heard friends, this is more qualitative and colloquial, but I’ve also heard people talking about really struggling to be social after spending several years locked down and away from social settings.
So I think a lot of us are in a position where we’re hungry for relationships. And we’re also struggling with how do we make and have and build and sustain relationships? And for this podcast, what I really wanted to offer is the idea that that is worth figuring out.
That is worth solving. That is worth taking action on. That is a valuable thing to do with your time if it’s something that feels aligned for you. Because the impacts to your satisfaction and your delight can be really huge. Not to mention to your health and longevity as well.
I think that this topic is deeply impactful for general life purposes when it comes to building and maintaining friendships, when it comes to having a relationship with a significant other and investing in that relationship. And I also think this topic is really relevant for work and career.
One of the very best things I’ve gotten out of many of the places I’ve worked is the relationships I’ve had with other people who worked there, with my co-workers, my colleagues, and also sometimes with customers.
So a long, long time ago when I was in undergrad and for a few years after undergrad I worked in a coffee shop in North Carolina. And I’m still friends with one of the people I worked there with.
And another one of the people I worked there with, we weren’t in contact for several years, but when I started my coaching business, that person showed up, liked what I was teaching, hired me and radically changed their work life and their stress levels and stuff. And so that was so fun to have that continued relationship with this person I had known from an earlier phase of my life.
I also think when it comes to having a satisfying work life and achieving your goals, getting good results, things like that, having relationships at work is incredibly meaningful. Having connection with your co-workers, with your supervisors, with your supervisees, this makes it easier to get things done, to have trust and to have a nice time at work.
In the coaching industry, a lot of the things we talk about are things that you apply individually to yourself. We talk about the way you talk to yourself and shifting from negative self-talk to kind, supportive self-talk. We talk about setting and achieving goals. We talk about taking action towards the things that are important to you. And I’m here for all of that, but I think sometimes people also feel really siloed in doing that work. They feel lonely, right?
And so I think community can also be powerful in the way that you engage with things like coaching. And that’s why I have a small group coaching program, so that people can do the work of coaching in community. I think it’s just more fun to do the work in community. I think it’s really inspiring.
I know that when I’m in a small group, I really enjoy learning from the coaching that other people receive. I often feel inspired and then go start taking action in my own life or business because of whatever they’re getting coaching on. And it also just makes me feel this really wonderful sense of community and belonging.
And don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t always come easy. Sometimes that sense of community and belonging also is something I have to build on purpose. Like a lot of people, I can feel self-conscious, and I can feel like, what if other people don’t like me? Do I really fit in in this space?
And so it’s been something that I’ve worked on in the groups I belong in to choose to believe I belong there. And it’s something that really matters to me for the group that I run, to help cultivate a sense of belonging and to invite my clients to cultivate a sense of belonging with each other. And I think when we do that, then we get to tap into this power of relationships that is the main thing we’re talking about this week.
We get to tap into satisfaction. We get to tap into delight. We get to tap into connection. And we get to tap into a myriad of benefits of being in community, of being in relationship. And just like I have relationships that have outlasted the jobs that they started in, I have relationships that have outlasted the coaching programs that they started in.
One of my best friends in the world, not China bestie who lives in China, but another one of my really, really close friends, she was a peer in a coaching group that I did in 2018. So it’s been five years, and this is an incredible person, such a special friend to me, I can’t imagine my life without her. But if I hadn’t done that coaching program, it’s highly possible we would have never met each other.
I think it’s also important in this episode for us to touch on friendships and relationships are not just about beginning the friendship, or meeting people, or putting yourself in a space like going to a new work location and meeting the people there or going into a new coaching program or joining a swimming club or whatever. It’s also about how do we maintain relationships?
And I actually think, well, I think both are really challenging. I think for a lot of people who want more friends, putting themselves out there to meet more people can feel really fucking terrifying, quite frankly.
And I get that because every round I do on Bumble BFF, I do have some fear and some vulnerability. A sense of rejection if I swipe right on someone and then you know, we don’t match, which indicates that they either didn’t see my profile or didn’t swipe right on me. I realize that that can be painful. So I think that’s a place where people face blockers.
And then I think another place where people face blockers is, okay, I have this person in my life, we’ve connected, we’ve had coffee, we’ve worked together, we’ve been in a coaching program together. And then how do I continue the momentum of that? And then especially, what do I do if there’s a conflict? How do I navigate a conflict?
I think a lot of people, when conflict comes up, they just either step back and take time to themselves. And I know I’ve personally done that as well. Or they simply skip out on the relationship, I’ve also done that. I think it’s actually an incredibly difficult and rare skill for a lot of us to have actual meaningful conflict with friends, colleagues, et cetera.
A lot of people I know, the only person they actually have conflict with is their significant other, which I think is really interesting. And I think sometimes that just happens because it’s like that’s the person you kind of can’t escape having conflict with if you live together. I know that that’s been the case for me before.
And I’ve even said to Alex sometimes, I’m having a fight with you but you’re not even the person I want to be having the fight with. But can you talk this through with me because I’m, for whatever reason, don’t feel close enough, not ready, not willing at that point, to have the conversation with the other person.
But I think it’s such a meaningful thing to develop this skill, even if it can feel really scary. I just want you to know I have so much empathy for how scary it feels, because it feels scary to me too. But I think that when we are able to do this, that is when we get to take advantage of the power of community, of the power of relationships.
If we’re in relationships where we feel like we can’t express ourselves and we don’t actually share with other people and we’re not willing to have conflict, I wonder if we still get the benefit of the relationships because that can feel really terrible on the inside. It can feel like you’re kind of invisible. Your true self is kind of invisible because you’re not letting them see that version of you.
And I think that when we’re willing to actually be real with people, even though it can be massively uncomfortable, I would guess that’s where we get the most benefit from having relationships. Because even if there’s conflict, then we can be known, we can be seen. And I think sometimes, most importantly, we can repair.
Sometimes we get this idea in our head, that the best relationship is one with no conflict, and I just massively disagree with that. Also, to back me up, doctors John and Julie Gottman indicate that conflict is not negative, and conflict can actually create more intimacy. It can create more connection in relationships. Conflict is a way that we get known more deeply, it’s just an uncomfortable way.
And listen, I still think it’s uncomfortable. Alex and I do conflict fairly often because we have a great relationship, but our great relationship involves having conflict with each other and telling each other when we don’t like things and don’t agree. Like in some ways sometimes we have way more conflict than other relationships I’ve been in because I’m willing to have micro conflicts with her.
I think I’m like, oh, it’d be so much easier not to talk about this and it’s actually not a huge deal, it’s like not going to blow anything up. But I’m like, oh, but I plan to be with you for a super long time, so what if we talk this through instead? And then we can have this micro conflict that won’t even be that difficult, but then how much more joy and connection and also just like smoothness can we have later?
I’ve talked on the podcast before about the way we do our chore agreement. And that eliminates so much conflict right there, but we had to have the difficult conversation of how we were going to break up the chores before we were able to enjoy the smoothness and well-oiled machinery of having the agreement.
Okay, I’m a little on a tangent, as per usual. So let’s get back to the main event. So what I want you to think about is, do you have powerful relationships? Do you have powerful community? Do you have a sense of belonging? If yes, how can you continue to invest in that and continue to show up to that in ways that feel really yummy and juicy and delicious to you?
Also, can you celebrate the shit out of yourself for having that? Because I think a lot of people don’t. I’m guessing that of all my listeners, there’s only going to be a small percentage who are like, “Yes, I have a super powerful community. I have super powerful relationships. I’m all good in this area.”
If that’s you, fucking take a bow. Amazing work because, let’s be honest, that shit is not the easiest thing to do. If it’s not you, that’s okay. You’re still doing great and it’s totally available for you to have this too.
For all of us, there are things that we already have that are going well and there are things that come really easily to us. And they’re things that don’t. If building a powerful community and building powerful relationships isn’t something that’s already going well, that’s okay, we can build that. If it’s not something that comes easily to you, that’s okay, you can still have it.
That’s like at the heart of this podcast some of the main ideas is even if it doesn’t come easily to you, it can still be yours. And even if you don’t have it now, it doesn’t mean you can’t have it. And that’s as true for powerful community as it is for switching industries, writing your novel, finding a partner, or moving to Thailand. Whatever you want to work on, we can figure it out together.
So the key takeaways here are that, first of all, I think it’s just super fun and satisfying, to have community, to have relationships. Like in their own right, they’re delicious and also they have a delicious return on investment. So if it’s something you want, even if it’s kind of hard to create, I would offer that the data suggests it’s really valuable and that it can have a huge impact on your life in lots of amazing ways in addition to the simple delight of having it itself.
And there’s lots of different ways to create community and you can get started today. You can join me and get on Bumble BFF and swipe your way and start meeting up with local people in your area and build new friendships that way.
You can invite a work colleague to grab a drink after dinner and invest in the relationships there and build a deeper connection with the people you work with. You can set up a date night with your significant other. And if you don’t have a significant other, you can head back on over to the apps and go on some dates and start looking for one.
And another amazing way that you can build community is by joining a coaching group. And my small group, Satisfied As Fuck, is starting again in October, around the end of October, and I would love to have you be part of it.
If you are a woman or an assigned female at birth non-binary person who wants to work on satisfaction in any area. Maybe you want to write a book, maybe you want to start a business, maybe you want to get a raise, maybe you want to build your new community of friends. Satisfied As Fuck is a great place to work on all kinds of different goals in community with a bunch of amazing people where you’re going to be inspired and delighted and really just jazzed up to go out and take action to start making the changes you want to see in your own life.
And I think if you join us, you’ll find that you’re going to have an amazing time while you’re there. And you’re going to build relationships that last longer than the six months that the program is as well.
And if you’re looking for a little bit more of a one-on-one relationship, not ready for a group, I would invite you to consider signing up for a deep dive day and it can just be you and me building connection with each other and setting you up for success for the next 90 days.
All right, that’s what I have for y’all. Have a lovely week and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Hey, it’s Kori, I have one additional announcement for you. And that is, I am doing a campaign for RIP Medical Debt. RIP Medical Debt is an incredible nonprofit who is buying up bundled medical debt and forgiving it. So basically, because the medical debt is bundled together, it’s sold at a fraction of its original cost.
So when you make donations to RIP Medical Debt, your donation has like 100x impact, right? So if you donate $100, the impact is like $10,000 of medical debt, roughly, that is going to get forgiven. And I’ve been following this nonprofit for a while, I’ve been super inspired by them. And so I decided to do a campaign with them.
Also, if you donate $100 or more to my campaign and send me a picture of your donation receipt, you can get a free 30 minute one on one coaching call with me. And if you can’t donate $100, I totally get it. It’s a lot of money. And I would still love it if you would donate another amount. Or if you aren’t in a place for donating works, maybe you could share the campaign. You can head on over to my Instagram where the campaign is linked in my bio. Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We’ll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you’re feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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