How to Cultivate Genuine Connections at Work with Kat Vellos

Kat Vellos: 0:00

purely from a pragmatic standpoint, you are going to spend the bulk of your time in adulthood with your co workers, even at different jobs, different careers, however it changes, this is still going to be the collection of people that you're going to spend the most of your time with. And so with that, being merely a fact of life as a working person, it would behoove you to think about how to make meaningful friendships there, because that's going to be the group of people you have the most access to, and the easiest access to because you're probably going to see them multiple days a week.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 0:35

So to find out more about friendships in the workplace, I invited Pat Bella's on to be a guest, and Kat is a trusted expert on the power of cultivating meaningful friendships. She's a speaker and author of the great book called We should get together the secret of cultivating better friendships. But she's also the creator of better than small talk conversation cards, which I have and highly recommend, and also the better conversations calendar. In a former career, she was a UX designer, and researcher, and she made software for more user friendly at large companies that you've probably heard of. But she said, she's a lot happier now helping people bring more friendships to the lives in their workplaces, cats writing is read in over 100 countries. And she's been interviewed by the New York Times, NPR, The Good Life project, and many more. So you can imagine how excited slightly overwhelmed I have to have her as a guest on unsaid at work super cool. And in our conversation, we're really focusing on adult friendships and in the workplace. So we talked about the concept of what we mean by the word friend, because it has a there's a lot of heavy lifting, as you'll find out, we talked about the importance of balancing work and personal boundaries, as you navigate different kinds of friendships at work that could be explored the impact of time proximity and friendships and how to make that work for you gets got some of the key concepts in her book. And she elaborates on that for us here as well. And really left leaves you with a lot of strategies to how to create long lasting friendships at work. This was such a fun episode. Sometimes the conversations we talked about here are are challenging and uncertain work, whatever he needs are of the podcast. But this was one of the more fun and invigorating conversations, delighted to have capital as guests. So let's get on and drop into this conversation. The caps Welcome to unset. It works. I have been super excited about having this conversation with you about friendship.

Kat Vellos: 2:26

Thank you so much for having me. I'm super delighted to be here. And I'm happy that you're hosting this conversation, and then I can be a part of it.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 2:33

Thank you. I think one of your superpowers is conversation starters. I mean, it's part of your core business. And in going through your book, project a wave generously at the screen, you've got all the wonderful conversation starters at the end. So I thought a fun way of starting would be to use one of those as a way of saying hello to each other because we actually have never met before. So I chose this one, what's something you love about where you live? And something you change? And I'll answer it as well. You go first.

Kat Vellos: 3:02

Yeah, yeah. So for those who if this is our first time meeting, my name is Kat bellows. I'm here in the Bay Area, particularly the East Bay, right on the edge of Oakland and Berkeley. And something I love about where I live is that there is a wide variety of nature around so there's water and there's like hills and mountains. And there's, I can drive 20 minutes east. And I'll be in like a really hot climate, but here a bit by the edge of the water. It's very cool and Mediterranean. And so there just feels like a lot of different ways to be in nature in different climates, even to experience. And with that being said, one thing I do wish was a little bit different about the exact spot where I am, is that I do wish it was a bit warmer. I think one of the things that people love about the Bay Area and that people think about when they think of San Francisco is like the fog and how cool and like it's never hot here. And many people think of that as a benefit. I personally love to be quite hot. So although I don't wish for climate change, I do wish it was about 15 degrees warmer. Maybe. But like I said, it's not that far away, like even going through the tunnel on the other side of the hills here. It's like a completely different. cold all the time here in the Bay Area.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:15

That's a good reason for me never to move there. Because I'd been told to. Yeah, you're right. The pictures for San Francisco pictures are often the moody that looks very dramatic. And yeah. But yeah, I can see the downside of living with that. So let me do this as an exchange. So I live where I live. So I'm in pretty rural southern England and rural the US have two different versions of rural. There's always a post office in a pub about five miles from wherever you are in England. I'm a South African. So when I moved here 20 years ago and what I've, what I love about England, and where I live now is the right to Rome. So we have it's 1000s and 1000s of miles of right to Rome as distant as a normal city. Isn't that goes back like four or 500 years in this country is baked into how we live. So you just get a map and you just wonder the whole array around the country. It's magnificent. So coming from South Africa, where land was an issue and privately owned and all that kind of stuff is feels to free. It's a real gift. Either pass, or do you have just like roam across? Like,

Kat Vellos: 5:21

is it just openly?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 5:23

It can be overland, it can be forest can be agricultural, and they're always a little like little sign personal wouldn't sign posts with private roadways, as far as railways is where you can take horses where you can walk, we can only take a bicycle. But yeah, you can go all around the outside of England. There's half a dozen of them. Yeah, it's a fantastic gift that I think the English and the estimate, we can they estimate. And if I could change, what would I change? I feel like I'm a big time girl wanting to live in a small town because I want something more via via one more deck dance classes and rock climbing. And she can't get all of that in a small little rural village like this trade off. Yeah, so yeah, we should swap we should have swapped for a month. And I know that's so funny. That would be so fun. Yeah. Little plays through someone else's eyes. That's so much fun. So we're gonna talk about making friends at work. And a lot of your work is around your body workers are making friends. And this is particularly but at work. And what got me really interested because I had a client that I was working with who had quite an introvert and he went and made a friend at work, and then turned out he broke up with a girlfriend. And then he threw a hit on her. And although very awkward, and it really made me aware of the sort of them the fragility, I think of work friendships, and perhaps we don't know enough about how to navigate them. I think we treat them as it was like second order was something like that. So and even as I talk about friends, when I say I have a friend, friend than I have a work friend, and then I have a best friend like why do we even need to get into that qualification?

Kat Vellos: 7:04

Well, I think there's an interesting thing about friendship. And I've noticed it here, I'm curious to know if you notice it on your side of the pond as well, is that we rely on the word friend to do to mean many different things to us, right? We don't have enough vocabulary, honestly, for the different nuances, which is why we ended up adding on these qualifiers like this is my work friend, or this is my yoga friends. And this is my friend from college or whatnot. And it's because we're just using the word friend over and over and all these different settings, often in varying levels of intimacy. So someone who's like a little more than an acquaintance we call a friend, or someone we've hung out with once we call a friend. But we also refer to someone that for 20 years as a friend, right? Best friend, they're probably if they're super, super close with you. And so the qualifiers that we add, I think are because the word friend itself, as lovely as it is, it's having to carry a lot of different family has to wear a lot of different hats carry a lot of different jobs. And that's unfortunately, the effort that we make the word friend do the word friend has like seven different jobs. And so because of that, we have these qualifiers. And I think also in our society, we expect perhaps that friends we make in certain contexts, it means something different, right? So when you talk about work, friends, it's not just friendship, friendship, but there's also a business aspect to professional relationship, a colleague ship and I've been really encouraging people to use the word colleague ship if particularly if they have boundaries around like, do they make friends at work or not make friends at work? And it's like, Okay, fine. These are your colleagues, you can refer to your colleague ships and how you want them to be healthy, the same way you would want your friendships to be healthy, and what are the behaviors that lead to that?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 8:48

Love that colleague show? Because I do feel there's a hierarchy of that I've been making the word friend do deals of intimacy, some sort of Yeah. Continuum of what's implied, and it's but it's not a shared language. So I trip out from colleague and I used to know quite well, and it's a messy way, but I like colleagues. It gives us a down category of what we can put into that, and your book shocked me. And as a result, everyone else reads it about the number of hours it takes to make a friend, you refer to a study of 90 to 200 hours to make a friend. Yes, I

Kat Vellos: 9:26

do want to say that. Yeah, I can say that. Yeah. So this comes from the work of Dr. Jeffery Hall, who is based at the University of Kansas here in the US. And this study was looking at going from zero going from total strangers. How long does it take for people to become friends and they looked at becoming casual friends becoming good friends becoming best friends, because often what we find in adulthood as adults say, Well, I don't know how to make a best friend. And it's not just like a magical condition that suddenly materializes overnight. There's actually things that tend like tangible, tangible We conditionally happened that make that transition apparent. And one of the things they noticed in this study was that, let's say a whole class of fresh first year college students arrive at the university at the dorms and their total strangers, the amount of time it took them to say that somebody was their best friend was 90 to 200 hours to become a casual friend, like an okay friend was like about 35 hours of time spent together. And the thing that they noticed with that is that it wasn't just that that 35 or 90 or 200 hours could happen over the course of the next four years of college, it needed to happen within the first few months of meeting each other preferably weeks of meeting each other. In a college setting, where students are living in the dorms and going to classes together all day and eating their meals together at the dining hall and doing their study studying together, it is quite easy to rack up that number of hours together because you your life is so strongly integrated, that you spend so much of your day and night and weekend together. And very quickly, those friendships formed, which is often why adults look back with all this nostalgia, and say, Oh, it was just so easy. When I was in college, I don't know why it was just so easy. And it's like, well, because you spent your day and your night and your weekends together. And you did all of these different parts of your life. And so in adulthood, where we typically don't, although some people do, but usually people don't live with the same people that they spend all day with at work. And then they hang out all night during the weekdays and then all weekend long, like that, I think would be considered quite unusual for typical working adults to spend their time with their friends, colleagues, workmates that way. But if you really wanted to make a friend very quickly, that is very likely what he would do is find ways to integrate your lives together so tightly that within a few weeks of meeting each other, you spent a really high amount of time together. For most adults, they balk at that idea, they're like it is impossible to find that amount of time to see my friends, because even finding a few hours to go to the pub or to take a class together, it feels laborious. And there's a number of things I talked about in the book around like how you use your time and how you perhaps trick yourself into thinking you have less time than you really do. And then there's also a concept that I introduced in the book called hydroponic friendship, which comes from my work with plants and I got certified as Master Gardener. So a lot of my metaphors are based in the plant world. And one of the things that we know about working with plants is that you can plant seeds in the soil and water the soil and they will grow hopefully, and it will take however long it takes. But one of the things that we also know is that you can grow plants without soil, you can grow them in water. And if you don't have soil or very nutritious soil, you can grow with highly nutritious water. And the man who came up with the idea of hydroponics was essentially almost laughed out of his profession when he suggested that you can grow a plant in water. But as you know now, plants that are grown hydroponically with such nutritious water often grow much more robustly than plants that are just left to their own devices in the soil. And so in that way, so well if you don't have abundant time, which would be the soil? How could you hydroponically grow your friendship, ways to do that would be to increase the experiences you have of vulnerability, of closeness of self disclosure of shared memories? And how can you create a concentrated experience of that just like you would put a lot of plant nutrients in the water to give your plants How can you do that for

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 13:30

your friendship in a very intentional, purposeful way so that you can grow friendship more easily in adulthood. That made me feel somewhat comforted thinking about university friends and adult friends and doing the dots for me and like why it was so hard. Yeah. And I was at a 10 year reunion two weekends ago in Barcelona with a bunch of people I did a year long leadership program with Yeah, so 24 Strangers thrown in for for one week, 24 hour, intense living together in experience for four weeks every year. We are bonded like we bonded in university. So completely in your explanation, of course completely explains that the intensity and the experience. We have a shared way of things have happened and things that people did things or it was a because of leadership development. It's very excavating and personal stuff that everyone's going through.

Kat Vellos: 14:27

Yeah, and what you're describing, I've seen happen so many times, Catherine, when I have facilitated, like, say a week long retreat, used to also facilitate camps with our intergenerational camps. So students from 13 all the way to adults up to like in their 80s. And in those kinds of settings where people are in a retreat setting where there is a lot of personal growth conversations. There's a lot of deep conversations about the things we don't typically get to talk about. We're eating meals together. We're singing together, we're cleaning up together, we're hanging out going on nature walks and all of those things can I I've seen it happen over and over again is people would leave at the end of seven or 10 day retreat and say, oh my gosh, these are my best friends now. And people would then stay in touch for many years to come. And so if you can make a best friend in a week, in that kind of setting, how else can we integrate that then in to say, well, not everybody can go away to retreat. But how can you bring that retreat experience into your day to day life so that you do get these more rich, deep bonding experiences that then feel like they can last a really long time like, like the friendships you made in college?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 15:30

Because it feels like once that's once you bonded like that, you then find the time and you will mostly let's see mostly, that call myself out on that one. We'll get into all that stuff. All this the nonsense we tell ourselves. But you talked about seeds a connection, which I think you're referring to here, building on your planting, by the way, I got loads of plywood sanctify? I think you and I, it's another form of connection. Yes to plant. I'm like I'm jealous. I want to be a most blonde.

Kat Vellos: 16:00

It's just a course you go get sir I do. But two hours and your volunteer bunch. It's cool.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:06

I've nominated myself as head of horticulture at my pottery studio. It's a little community. And they keep ignoring the plants. And so I've adopted the plants because I can't bear seeing them get overheated. And so that's the point you'll see the connection. So if we're talking, say you can't do a week long more trees, like, what is it, it was through the essence of a sort of four seeds that you

Kat Vellos: 16:29

suggest? Right. So the time I spent studying friendship, particularly the friendships that people have that are thriving compared to the ones that are suffering, right, just like some plants are thriving, some plants are suffering. And it's like, well, what's different about how they're getting along, and what's making the ones thrive. And the things that I found that led most frequently to people having thriving friendships were these four qualities. So one was compatibility, which is obviously a bit up to chance, not everyone is compatible with everybody else. But if you have it, then the things to add on our commitment, frequency, and proximity. And the more that somebody had in each of these four things, in high doses, the more likely they were to have friendships that felt like they were thriving. And the less of those that they had, the more likely they were to have friendships that felt like they were suffering. And it doesn't mean that you need all four of them at 100%. To make a friendship thrive. As many of us know, in adulthood. One thing that happens very commonly, as our friends move away, or we move away, and then we leave our friends behind. And so our friendships may then suffer from a lack of proximity in terms of geographic proximity. But then we can do things to increase our frequency or to reaffirm our commitment to build upon the things that we are compatible about, to continue to maintain that friendship, and then to take special times where we will be in close proximity again, with each other to re nurture that on. So those are the four seeds of connection. And in the book, I go into each one in its own separate subsection to talk about ways to better understand it and ways to actually take action, if you feel like that is the part of your friendships that is suffering. So for example, in the proximity section, I have proximity assessment, where you think about and you make a list of like, where are your friends in distance from where you live, whether it's 15 minutes, an hour, or a flight away, right? And if that's the case, where do you actually want more friends? Is it that you want friends that you can walk to? And what are the action steps that you then take if you need to make friends in your near proximity? Or maybe you actually want to do more traveling? Maybe you want to make friends who live farther away? And what are some ways that you can do that, so that you can have friends who have homes and other places, right that you might feel welcomed? So there's definitely any of these challenges that we talk about in the book, I don't just talk about like, Oh, these are the challenges. Boohoo. It's so sad. It's like, okay, let's get real about what the challenge is. And then here's all the steps and strategies that you can take to solve this.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 18:51

For them, and there's loads of tips in the book, the one that really stood out for me was the Oh, she was a few but the commitment assessment, like if you look at your map, or your friends, and then you go well, but who am I really committed to nurturing intending to have 1000 plants in my house, I don't really have space for 1000 plants if I was to keep 10. And I really love which are they and therefore what would I do after that? I find that being a computer scientist and as a background I'd like and I know you're a UX designer, I like them the methodical approach. I've never thought about friendship in a more structured kind of way and it's not cold at all and sort of deeply pragmatic. The other the one I liked was a platonic love letter. There's a friend of mine he does this to me he these little notes going, how lovely. Just want to say you have a great day and I love you lots by voice notes. And he's one of the few people who do it and I'm like, I love I don't know, were attached to nothing. Makes me feel so good. And I'm like that's he's doing that thing. He's doing little platonic listeners. This has really inspired me to do that as well. Yeah, the book is low as Turb

Kat Vellos: 20:01

Thank you, thanks for sharing that story. I love it. And I love that you have this like sweet love letter exchanged with your friend. Yes. And it can be voice notes, it could be cards in the mail, it could be something you leave outside of their front door, it could be any way to communicate that. And often, the steps that someone takes like you're describing to affirm that commitment, like when this friend reaches, haven't tells you, I'm thinking of you, I think you're lovely hope you have a lovely day. Like, they're affirming that you matter to them. Yeah. And they're affirming that they're thinking of you and they're affirming that they still feel committed to you and your friendship, in this really sweet, positive way. And often doing something like that, even if it feels vulnerable. I've never heard of a single person being like, I didn't know like that. I didn't want that. I didn't want to be told by this person that I am important to them as a friend, like nobody's gonna

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 20:55

know, requires a sort of the vulnerability on our side to dare to do it if it's not part of the friendship already. Right. Right. Right. In your seeds, a connection that strikes me the two of them correct proximity and frequency are available at fault in work friendships. Absolutely, yeah. Like I'm gonna see you off. And I might be maybe I'm working in office and we see each other physically, maybe we're on lots of zoom meetings together, whatever. But those two are, it's more than a tech with Yeah, I wonder if you could speak a bit more to how we could leverage proximity and frequency as a seeds for a work friendship.

Kat Vellos: 21:32

Absolutely. And I'm glad you brought this up, because there's a really sobering chart that you can look at if you want to put this into perspective, by an organization called our world in data. And they do all kinds of different surveys to understand the world in the form of data. And one that they did is a time Youth Survey where they asked adults to mark how much time they spent with their friends over a span of decades. And what the chart shows is that, when adults say how much time they spend with their friends, the chart typically goes up and it peaks around like between 18 to 20 years old, and then the chart drops until they hit their like mid 20s. And then it stays low, actually, until the end of life, like the amount of time you spend with our friends in early adulthood is so vital, because that's often like the highest it'll be for life, it stays quite low. And then you look at the chart for how much time we spent with coworkers. And it's the reverse is like the chart goes up, but then it peaks around like mid 20s. And then it stays really high, cozy and have like 65 years old, and then it drops then most people retire well till the end of life. And so purely from a pragmatic standpoint, you are going to spend the bulk of your time in adulthood, with your co workers, even at different jobs, different careers, however it changes, this is still going to be the collection of people that you're going to spend the most of your time with. And so with that being merely a fact of life as a working person, it would behoove you to think about how to make meaningful friendships there. Because that's going to be the group of people you have the most access to, and the easiest access to because you're probably going to see them multiple days a week or on Zoom or in person, whatever it might be. So this is the best way to actually look for friends. And most adults say that they do make their friends through some kind of work or volunteering, like something that they have a commitment to. And they're showing up again, and again, the same group of people, you already have things in common with the people you work with, you've at least chosen to work in the same field or the same job or company. And often the things that got you to where you are the things that might also make you compatible as friends outside of work as well. So you've described having a background in computers, I also have a background with computers, and learning and technology and things of that nature. And so it's possible that the things that the skills that we had to develop in order to get good at those jobs might also be things that make us compatible outside of work. Interesting, how can we explore that? Tell me more about what you do in your free time? Or what were the other paths you would have taken if it wasn't this one. And I'll tell you about mine. And then let's see what's there. And so it's a really wonderful opportunity to really make the most of the fact that your coworkers are likely to be highly compatible people in close proximity that you're going to have a high frequency with. So look for the ones you want to make a commitment to. And those are all for the same

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 24:31

thing thinking there's something a little maybe it's me, maybe it's limited, but there's a sort of a squeamishness about claiming someone as a friend at work, I think maybe comes down to boundaries. It's like I mean, this is pervasive a lot I didn't buy into this idea of professional home stays at home and it works at work. And I think that in this conversation it's clear about the data says if you want friends, you need to look for work. That's a truth we have to face. I suppose the next question is how do I go about doing that? Consciously? So it starts with a commitment. Like I look at people that I might feel a natural affinity to. I decide. Canton product development looks really cool. What to do next movie?

Kat Vellos: 25:20

Well, there's so one thing I want to clarify. And this goes back to what we're saying at the beginning about what kind of friendship Do you want? Right? Like, what kind of friendship is it going to be since there's we use the word friend to describe many different things in this setting? If this was you, and we're, if I was coaching you through this, because I do work with folks in coaching around connection, then this way? I would say, Well, is this a friend that you want in a professional setting? Or is this a friend that you want to bring into your personal life? And the actions you might take are actually different, depending on what that boundary is with that preferences and where you're trying to swap this person into your life? So if you said, Well, I want to be friends with this person, the other department, and I think I actually just want to be professional friends with her. Okay, fine. Then you might think about inviting this person to a recurring work coffee or recurring lunch together, maybe it's a monthly lunch or a biweekly lunch. Or I say fortnightly, so people know what I really mean, for two weeks, not twice a week, I'd say, hey, you know, I'd love to get to know you better. I really enjoyed working with you in the last project. Do you want to be work buddies? Would you like to have a monthly lunch together with me on the last Friday of the month, and then we get together, and we can get closer to each other while still talking about work? So I might ask you some of the interesting questions from my conversation starter decks, which might be things like, could you tell me about a project that you're really proud of that you don't get to talk about very often? Or what were some of the past jobs you've had, that you really loved? And that you think about fondly? And in your memories are also like? What are things that you've learned from things that didn't go well at a job in the past? And how does that affect who you are today, so we're getting to know who each other are how our characters develop the things that matter to us in our life, but we're keeping it strictly professional, just talking about work. And meeting in a work context, if I wanted to bring you into my personal life, the things I would do would be very different. So I might say, Catherine, I really loved working with you together on the last project are really great. And one of the goals I have for this year is I'm trying to build up more friendships in my life. And you're someone who seems really cool and who would love to hang out with you outside of work. If you're ever open to it. We're going to be having a potluck at my house on Saturday. If you'd like to swing by Please come, don't feel pressured to bring anything I just want to hang out with you and get to know you feel free. So no pressure, but letting them know the opportunity is there to participate and get close outside of the workplace. I'd love to talk about in that setting is different to Yeah.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 27:42

You helpfully categorize the different questions as well, in your conversation starters. I like the explicit nature of it. Like it's fairly above the board. Maybe it's a cultural thing. I think some people the sudden pond would find that awkward, but I hope get inspired by the, our conversation to be explicit in. I'd love to develop a friendship with you. That's a starting point. I think I've done it once in my life. And 15 years later, we're still friends. And she still talks about it. She said, You grabbed me as your friend. I'm like, Yeah, but I could have done it more often. I think just the intentionality. And the other thing I'm from I want to underline in what you're saying, for deep for listeners is the kind of questions that you are asking, are designed for authentic connection. It's not how was your day? Or what did you think of the company announcement like the next level? Because you can have the conversation with anyone, right?

Kat Vellos: 28:37

Those questions really are getting to understand the person in front of you in a way that you wouldn't otherwise know in the context that you're in. Yeah. And often people ask, they either ask, how do you make small talk or how to make something that's not small talk. And the thing is, like, while a lot of the conversation starters I've created in the better than small talk deck and the better conversations calendar, are really about helping you get away from small talk or replace the typical small talk, but something a little more refreshing. The fact is that most people need to warm up with something that's like, easy and like doesn't require your brain very much. So that's why we often default to like so are you how are you how's the weather, which company meeting, et cetera. And then once someone has like relaxing, like, okay, this person is not a serial killer, I can actually relax. Like, I could just like sit here and be myself, then you can go to something else. But the key is to eventually move from the on ramp to the freeway and this small talk is the on ramp, then get on the freeway and then start having the real conversation.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 29:36

It's a good reminder for me, as a coach, I tend to go for like powerful questions all the time and friends and I love it. And I have my first cup of coffee. Okay, sorry. You're right. There's like four for everyone else in the world, like onramp is perfectly acceptable to have an on ramp into a deep conversation.

Kat Vellos: 29:56

I know Yeah. It's really different. If you get a bunch of coaches in the room together. That's really bad. We just say dive right? Oh, yeah.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 30:03

And you're sharing like deep secrets? I think my fine coaches can go very deep, quite quickly because they're quite very comfortable. Yeah, we have had a lot of positive experiences with that. So yeah. What about when it gets awkward? Like, how do you know what? So you have it, you've made a friend at work. And now for whatever reason. I mean, it's any different than navigating an awkwardness in a non work friendship? Well, it's definitely different because

Kat Vellos: 30:33

you're in the workplace. And so there's often like, different relationships or different professional performances people feel like they have to do in an office setting. And I think their response to what do you do if it gets awkward? It really depends on like, what kind of awkwardness are we talking about here? Like what happened? Well,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 30:52

let's take one example of you think your friends or someone, he's broken up with his girlfriend, and now he's looks, and you think you might have done it for you.

Kat Vellos: 31:02

Oh, now, spicy drama, the life story from a client of mine. Okay, so they were colleagues, and then he broke up with the girlfriend. And then now he wants to hit the work colleague.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 31:16

Well, he hasn't explicitly said, It's implied,

Kat Vellos: 31:20

oh, it's implied and broke up with her for you,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 31:23

you should come and live in the UK for a while, like there's layers of unsaid that you have. As a South African, I get in trouble because I'm too direct. It's to my advantage. Now, as I said, entrepreneur, but in a workplace, I would like it to be stamping over things that will apply. So you are in the gray area of maybe possibly could be and then everyone's behaving as if that's a fact.

Kat Vellos: 31:53

That is really different from six months. So

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 31:55

you get a whole new book,

Kat Vellos: 32:00

as somebody who's pretty direct, that's really interesting to navigate. Well, in, okay, let me back up for a second. In this case, I'm putting myself in the shoes of the co worker who has suddenly surmised that this person broke up with their partner to try to date them. And it sounds like maybe she wasn't interested, correct? Well, I would, my typical advice would be the conversation needs to happen here. And she has every right to assert her boundaries with this person, who seems to think that he's entitled to date her simply because he wanted to. And that is not true. And if he has made an assumption that he needs to be relieved of, then the best way to do that is very clearly and soon, with a very clear boundary setting conversation from her. Even if this is disappointing to him, it's too bad, he has made some assumptions that she was going to be available to date him and a, even if they were not in the workplace setting, that is generally not the wisest assumption to make, unless you have checked with someone first, that they are interested in you, right. So even if they were just friends at the pub, that would be an interesting set of assumptions that perhaps need to be resolved and diminished and just set out to rest now. So yeah, a conversation and some clarity from her around those boundaries would be the easiest way to resolve that.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 33:34

I did throw probably the most complicated, awkward version of the story I have at this point.

Kat Vellos: 33:41

Because the thing is, like, even if they were both single, most people know that getting into a romance at work is already a dicey proposition, and in many places is grounds for dismissal. Like some, some workplaces don't even allow employees to date whatsoever, even if they are on the same level. And not there's no hierarchy involved, just because of the complication and drama that it can invite into the workplace. So that in and of itself, even if they were both single is your state and around there. So, but it's especially problematic with this particular additional level. So what did you suggest to her that said?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 34:17

I said, Derek, I mean, there's elephant in the room. Yeah. Say there's elephant the room and talk it out. And I think that's the there's a set of rules. I seem to notice that people treat colleagues, slightly different from French, like, it's almost like it has different rules. Like I'll just I just won't have that conversation because it's awkward, and it's a word. Well, I if it was it was gonna be awkward, even if you don't have Yeah, I would hope if it was a pub friend or a dance school friend or whatever, you'd have the conversation so the same rules apply. Can we acknowledge the great loss when you're worth bestie leaves those to another firm? It's like an endless swimming. Like that's an end of something. Yeah.

Kat Vellos: 35:00

Yeah, that is so real. In general, we don't do enough in our society to acknowledge the grieving that comes with the loss of a friendship for any reason. But especially in this example, where we're talking about the workplace, we lose a work friend, because they've gone to another firm, as you mentioned, there's really two options, there's the option to say, Oh, well, I guess it's over, I guess we're not going to be friends anymore, since we're not working together in the same place and the same teams anymore. Or it can be the beginning of a new chapter for your friendship that takes on different dimension, because it's no longer tied to the workplace, and the fact that you're on the same teams working together anymore. Some friendships are very capable of making that leap from the workplace into life, let's call them life friendships, instead of work friendships. And in that way, friendships can be taken so much more depth, and meaning because you're no longer limited by the bounds of the workplace, or the workplace rules around what you can talk about or not talk about what you can do together, what you can share together, it might actually feel so much more freeing, and so much more of a big opening for that next chapter of your friendship. And sometimes what we learn when a friend a work friend leaves is that your friendship really was entirely based on the business partnership, honestly, that you had at being collaborators, co creators, co producers of the things that you were making together. And that is a really beautiful thing in and of itself. And it's okay to say, Well, that was a friendship for that season. And that was tied to a very specific reason. And now that is over, and that is okay. And you get to maybe make a new co collaborator, co conspirator co producer and work with whoever replaces them or another friend that you turn your attention to in the workplace.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 36:48

I think I remember hearing on a podcast interview, but too much friendships in exactly that certain tense entity of things ending. I think maybe you had a roommate in Santa Fe or something. And I think the venture was quite short, but it was very intentional. I think she moved on, I was struck by the story, your stories that you were sharing of, as opposed to allowing himself to drift off, and then have some regrets several years there to realize that the season of this friendship has ended or it's changed to a different season. Man, I really like the intentionality around this thing called friendship that forms part of how we feel about ourselves and our sense of belonging and connection.

Kat Vellos: 37:31

And the other thing to realize, too, is that as much as it can feel challenging and painful when a friendship ends, or it seems to be fading away, it is quite normal and natural for friendships to like not every friend we make, will last forever. So it is quite normal and natural for friendship, to be in our life for a while, and then be out of our life or to be very present. And then to be very absent, the average adult loses one to two friends a year. And it's typically not because there's a big argument, and then they have a blowout and it ends very dramatically. Typically, it's simply due to fading away, either through lack of attention, or it becomes more difficult to stay in contact because we move and then it's harder to maintain those relationships, or our attention gets dominated by something new that's taken our attention in our life. And so then we give less attention to the friendship and then it fizzles. And so this is very normal and natural. And this stat comes from the work of Dr. Robin Dunbar, who has been studying humans and relationships for decades, and has found that this is natural. So if you have felt like wow, I felt like I lost a friend this year, or the friendship I had last year has totally faded away, you are normal, this is natural. And this also means that the practice of cultivating new friendships is a lifelong skill that you need to develop. Because every single year, there will be some people coming into your life and some people going out of your life. And that is the flow of things.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 38:56

I needed to hear that. This was cultivating projects that I turned 50 to 110 52 this year, and I there's something about this decade where you're evaluating there's less time in front of you than there is behind and so there's a sense of evaluating where am i Who's with me, he's traveling with me who did I lose along the way? And there's a story I've been telling myself about, I seem to have less friends and that trajectory was just only getting one way. And what I've always loved what I love about your work in the book is this third year if you have if you're intentional about it you can cultivate these friendships and doesn't have to be a proximity because again living in a small English town my close friends are all over the world. So that that's not a problem. That's okay. That's there's a different there's different tools for that. I feel this leads us into the connection club. Yeah, have you to talk about that?

Kat Vellos: 39:54

Yeah, thanks for asking. So connection Club is a membership group that I run for adults who want to To cultivate more connection in their lives. So yes. If you want to join a very like meta Club, where like, it's a club about connection where you cultivate connection, and we all help each other cultivate connection by being in community with each other. That's what it is. There are folks in the club who have a pretty wide variety of goals, some folks are there, because they are hoping to start new friendships like making new friends and like, what am I began like, not sure what to do. Some folks are there because they want to create a friendship group or a sense of community, like really something that's not just one on one, individual friendships are really getting groups going. Some folks are there because they want to be better at hosting and gathering people together. Some folks are there because they want to actually kind of bigger scale, get like run workshops, or facilitate or be more like, significant in the community, community building leader kind of folks, there's really a wide variety of goals in the cloud. And I'm there, as well as the other members are there to support each person in making their vision a reality, like saying like, what is it? What is the goal that you have? What are the resources that are available to you, and then each month, like what are different experiments and goals that you can set for yourself that you can take steps on, to continue to make progress on that goal. And so it's been really fun. So I started connection club a few years ago, and it's each I've run it three different times. And each time, the way it looks is a little bit different. But this is the current iteration. And it's been really fun experiment, we've been doing this one, since April is continuing for anybody who wants to join right now they can sign up at my site, I facilitate a monthly gathering that includes discussion time, small group time, big group conversation time, include many workshops that folks in the club may request a special topic or a special session on and I'm happy to lead any specific special session workshop. But folks who join and start anytime, stop anytime it's 55 bucks a month. And I'm here to support you as well, in between the live calls with any kinds of one on one check ins or group conversations in our forum. And it's a really beautiful space, we're super positive people are really encouraging. And it's delightful to pick up the momentum of other people who are making progress and feeling sense of success around cultivating the connection they really want in their life. And then they help you do the same thing.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 42:18

Yeah, it's the perfect representation of community, the successful community, and you're getting the energy and the inspiration from that held with your, your kindness and your big heart. It feels like again, your user experience design background, it's just really coming in with the third iteration. We're just gonna keep experimenting. Iterating. I love that as well. It's like, Yeah, I

Kat Vellos: 42:41

mean, I could do that. But we'll have that mindset. In my own business. Most of all that didn't work will do 180 degree pivot, or the world changes, like the first iteration was during lockdown when everyone felt completely disconnected from their friends. And so the first iteration was a letter writing community. And it was like, Okay, we're gonna get together. Regularly, we're gonna write letters together to the faraway friends that we cannot see. Because we're all in quarantine, and lockdown, then we're also going to make friends in the club here. And so that was the iteration that matched what the world needed in 2020. And now we're in a different part of town. So now we're doing something different, right?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 43:19

Yeah, of course. Yeah. I love that. Cat. This has been a complete delight. I'm gonna go and sign every connection for myself, I could do growing my superpower of cultivating friendships. Absolutely. I live on my own. So friends really are important part of my connection and my sense of belonging. So thank you for your inspiration, your time and your work in the world.

Kat Vellos: 43:42

Thank you so much for having me here. Thanks for what you do to help other people think about their connection, their experiences at work, how to make the most of their lives. And thank you for having me for this conversation. If anybody who's listening wants to keep in touch. And my website, as Catherine has already mentioned is we should get together.com My book is we should get together the secret to cultivating better friendships. And I also have a free newsletter for anybody who wants to get ongoing friendship advice a few times a month in your inbox, you can hop on to the newsletter at my website, you'll find out about upcoming events, invitations, resources that will help you build friendships and community. And I'm always here to help. And of course, I'm on Instagram capitalise, of course, and LinkedIn, LinkedIn.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 44:25

I'll put all those links in the show notes. Ken, thank you so much.

Kat Vellos: 44:28

Thanks so much. Katherine. Have a great day.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 44:34

Be grateful for Katra spending time with us today. I did go look up the details of her connection club because I think it's such an exciting concept. And I'm really up learning her make new adult friends. But because our audience is currently primarily US based the calls are late afternoon West Coast time, so that's not going to work for me, but maybe it'll work for you depending on where you are in the world. And my conversation with her today really inspired me to do better with my current work friends. by that I'm even more intentional to really nurture the friendships that I do have and to feel more confidence that I can build new adult friendships starting today and how to go about that like when you want the strategies you know how to apply the strategies that he talks about it to make sure that there's chance to those friendships have a chance of flourishing so I hope you feel inspired as well to reach out to your work best in many want to share this episode with them, and so them with a little appreciation for the role they play in your life and work and that you end this episode knowing that time invested in work friendships is really important for you and your friend and your health. This is your wingwoman signing off for another week.