Episode #11: Outrageous Authenticity with Dinelle Lucchesi – Full Transcription2018-02-15T02:31:08-07:00

Lisa: 00:34 Hello my lovelies. Welcome to today's Super Power U Podcast.

Lisa: 00:41 My guest today is Dinelle Lucchesi, who is an old friend. I met early in the days of the development of the Health Extension Salon when she decided that she was going to be an important player in building out the community, which in fact she was. I was chatting with her on Facebook a few days ago and it suddenly occurred to me that, while I think I'm pretty good in terms of community building and making connections but Dinelle takes it up a whole other level. So I asked her to please come on the show so she and I together could brainstorm on Lisa and Dinelle's Top Tips for Community Building. She agreed. We chatted and it was a blast. Dinelle is a strategic community builders. She has experience in event planning and has arranged all kinds of super cool, interesting collaborative events including dinner parties, conversation salons, and more strategic partnerships. She's strong in content curation, fundraising, journalism, and has awesome marketing communication skills.

Lisa: 01:37 She's passionate and driven to improve the user experience of human life through science technology and bringing people together and what we didn't get to our Dinelle superpowers and I just want to highlight a couple of them. Dinelle is authenticity personified. We talk a little bit in the interview about how she really does aim for authenticity, but Dinelle lives it. She breathes it, and I think that's part of her charm as a person and part of her skill as a networker and a connector.  She's very disarming. She immediately puts people at ease through her authenticity and also through her playfulness. I had a lot of fun. You can't help but have fun when you're with Dinelle, so I hope you enjoy my conversation with denial as much as I did. Here we go. Let's jump in to now.

Lisa: 01:37 Welcome to the Super Power U Podcast, Dinelle!

Dinelle: 02:27 I'm super excited to be here. This is my first podcast appearance. I'm feeling super famous.

Lisa: 02:34 The famous, you know, in fact, before when I was thinking about today, I meant to ask you how you pronounce your last name because I never know how to say it. How do you pronounce it? Lucchesi. OK, good. Now, I'm glad I'm educated on that. I will never ever again say it wrong.

Dinelle: 02:50 Yeah, well it's a, it's a mafia last name, which is why I'm so good at organization building I think.

Lisa: 02:57 OK. So let's just jump right into that. Have you always been a social connector? What's your history personally in terms of making connections between people and friends and that kind of thing?

Dinelle: 03:05 Yeah. It's so funny because since you asked me to talk about it I was thinking about it. I mean, it's been pointed out to me before, like wow, I, I organized a lot of events, dinners. … bring a lot of people together and I've been doing it for a long time and yeah, I mean when I was a little kid I organized really like well organized birthday parties starting from the time I was like four or five. I had ideas about how I wanted to bring my friends together and stuff we were going to do together at my birthday parties. I was always like trying to get my girlfriends to dress up and put on shows and directing them and getting people excited to participate with me and like everybody was having a good time. But then in terms of actually recognizing myself as a social organizer with like really strong talents, I don't think I really discover that until I was in my mid twenties.

Lisa: 03:54 One thing I've noticed in myself and other people is that the things that are the most natural to us, the things that come easiest to us, we actually don't really recognize because they just kind of like water. They just… it takes other people to say, wow, you're really good at that, for us to sometimes recognize them in ourselves.

Dinelle: 04:10 Yeah and it was also when I was discovering myself as an entrepreneur and realizing that I have desires to be an entrepreneur and work for myself and create my own projects and businesses and that I really started to think about what my really strong skills were and that I understood that my ability to bring people together was relatively special.

Lisa: 04:30 So I want to go back to the birthday parties for a second because I'm in the process… I'm a terrible birthday party planner. I love bringing people together and I'm OK at making events happened, but I don't know, something about birthday parties I'm not really great at. So that's kind of amused about the idea that you, um, started planning your parties for yourself when you were four or five years old. That's hilarious. And I can completely see it.

Dinelle: 04:52 Well, I also just wanted to say that I find it really ironic that you would say that about yourself because I've attended your birthday party, which was an incredible birthday party because it was so community-oriented. People were dancing, doing what you loved, and you did one of the most noteworthy things I've ever seen, which was you went around the room of, what was that? Like 75 people or something ridiculous and you said about every single person in the room, what you loved about them and like how they were a part of your life, which was amazing.

Lisa: 05:25 That's so funny. I'm thinking about my kids' birthday parties and I completely forgot about my 50th birthday party, which yes, it was super awesome and I'm really glad I did it. I spent that time saying things about every single person and honestly it was my favorite part of my birthday party, but it was also kind of the most vulnerable because I definitely felt while I was doing it like, wow, am I taking up too much time? Is this boring to people? But you know, I did it anyway.

Dinelle: 05:50 I was feeling like there's a tip about how to be an effective social organizer and I feel like there's like a kernel of truth about recognizing the strengths in your friends that you obviously could do that and you wanted to shine light on that for other people, but that's a really big piece of the puzzle is to like really see people look at them and get to understand what's wonderful about them and what you love about them and to tell them that because actually a lot of people in the world don't recognize strengths in others and don't share what they love and value, but other people, and I definitely do know about myself, that that's something that is unusual about me. Like people have commented that I compliment people a lot and they're genuine compliments. Like if I tell somebody I liked something that they've done or about them, I mean it and oftentimes I guess I have really thought about what I like and value about people that back to them.

Lisa: 06:51 That is definitely an example of one of those things. I always want to find the part or the skill set or the mindset or the the technique that is generalizable, that other people could use and I think there is definitely so much space in our world and so much opportunity and benefit when we all take the approach of what do I appreciate about other people and am I willing to say it. And I think for some reason sometimes people, like I said, I guess maybe it's a bit vulnerable to put yourself out there and to really say, wow, I really appreciate, you know, this particular trade or this skill or this, this part of you.

Dinelle: 07:25 That was amazing. I thought it was like so beautiful and so inspiring and I want to do something like that.

Lisa: 07:34 You and Silke happened to be in the corner and I didn't see you and I missed you. So I'm actually gonna. Consider this, this interview as my recognition of some of the superpowers of Dinelle, Lucchesi and appreciation of the fact. Talk about more public appreciation for the fact that you are such a connector, that you are such a authentic person. And one of the things I really most appreciate you, I think, is that authenticity, that willingness to no matter what, get up there in front of a group of people or individual one-on-one and just be totally yourself, which is why you're also funny so much at the time.

Dinelle: 08:09 Yeah. So I was just thinking of a quote somebody once told me, I think it was allegedly Nietzsche, but who knows, it could have been misattribute or attributed whatever it is. Also, I'm drinking a Lacroix water, so if they want to sponsor this show,

Lisa: 08:09 LaCroix, please. 

Dinelle: 08:27 Oh my god, that would be perfect for you. I didn't even make the connection. I didn't think  about it. OK, well I see it in the cards. Um, but that I think of the quote is like, the more you let yourself go, the less others let you go.

Lisa: 08:42 Meaning the more you be free.

New Speaker: 08:45 Yeah, the more free you are with yourself, the more people are going to want to have you around. Um, being yourself, just being true to yourself is something that…I don't know. I was just about to say you can't be a hundred percent true to yourself all the time, but I actually don't know if. I think that's true. I think I strive to be true to myself all the time and I do think that that's allowed me, yeah…I don't know…I feel like, can you probably feel this too? I think that when you're secure and comfortable in yourself, you have the ability to see other people's shining.

Dinelle: 09:13 The more you can allow yourself to be free and to fully show up and keep on…not that it's always easy, like you're pointing out. Sometimes we have self doubt and sometimes we do question ourselves and sometimes we do, you know, stop ourselves. But the more we can practice being transparent and bringing ourselves forward, I, I think you're right. I think it's, uh, it makes, it, makes for an authentic connection between other people, which once you have those connections, then you can actually, you know, amplify them, celebrate them and use them to help other people.

Dinelle: 09:40 Yeah. I think that, it's interesting. A lot is said about a team building in the context of building money-making organization so it's like really straight forward, right when you're talking about organizations and design thinking and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah relationships, personality tests. There is a ton of budget and energy and power thrown behind building effective organizations to build effective, profitable companies but not that kind of energy goes into building effective communities. You know a.k.a. villages, which as I hate to make this like a gender thing, but I do think that in reality it is a bit of a gender work thing that it's historically and still, I'm looking around in my community which is one of the most or communities are some of the most progressive allegedly communities in the world and it's still women who do the majority of social organizing or effective social organizing. 

Lisa: 10:39 Oh my gosh. You know, I so celebrate what you were saying. It's so upright now because I'm having many conversations even just in the last day or two, about the fact that the role that women play and how sometimes they're the voices who are actually not the ones up on the stage being the experts, but they're the ones who are most likely having been together to create the community itself, and in fact, that's how we met, which is really interesting.

Dinelle: 11:08 And I mean that's why not to get like super emo, but I mean why I think it was such a turning point, met Joe your husband, who yeah…to get, Yeah, to cheesy. I think he recognizes the value of that kind of work because he's seen you do it and he knows that it's special kind of genius that he totally doesn't have. Even though he is a genius in his own right in his own realm. I think through you he like learned to admire that and then felt it was really important for the organization that he was building to have those kinds of skills.

Lisa: 11:39 To elaborate on that a little bit because not everyone will know what we're talking about. Um, we met originally right at the beginning of his building, the Health Extension Organization and he recognized in you the possibility or I think actually you even said, hey, I want to be involved in helping you build out this organization.

Dinelle: 12:01 Yeah, I was living in LA and I was doing that pop-up restaurant and we came up to visit you guys to attend like the first salon. Then we did a retreat in Santa Cruz, speaking of pop-ups, everything was so ad hoc, like let's just bring people together. And it really did turn into something, even though that exact iteration of the health extensions loans doesn't exist. I know that a lot of meaningful relationships, collaborations were forged as a result of those events happening.

Lisa: 12:27 Well actually Health Extension Salon does still exist. In fact, the last one I went to was at Playground a couple of months ago and it was very well attended and super scientific and and it was a pretty thriving community and people were clearly happy to be there connecting on how do we increase human healthy lifespan.

Dinelle: 12:53 I think actually, it's a great example of a really specific community with intention around ia passionate commonality and its maintained a really strong reputation because it never watered itself down to become something commercial.  But it's still, it is what it began as which is people getting together to talk about groundbreaking anti-aging science. Right. And that's a very specific thing and we're living in a place where actually a lot of people actively working on it together. So anyways, that's a whole other tangent we could go on.

Lisa: 13:23 Yeah, for sure. But you know what, I'm going to come back for a second to…you said, well, I don't want to make it too much about gender, but you know, I actually kind of do want to make it about gender. The fact that I believe that feminine models of leadership focused on connectivity and community- building and relationships and I think that that's been not recognized, appreciated, are compensated in the past and I think it's starting to change.

Dinelle: 13:48 There's a lot of money now going into community building within business, within the context of “how can we use in leverage community to increase our profits and our sales”, et cetera. Like that's definitely something that the business world has come to understand, which is why there's community directors in most of the companies here in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, there's, you know, the community manager became a real job. But in the context of trying to push a certain product or a certain business or profits, et Cetera, what I see are women in the community outside of business, the work that is done around organizing children, organizing holiday events, organizing philanthropy, all this stuff which is a lot of organizing and it's a lot of events. But the whole idea of bringing people together, I still see that it's women to do that. Um, it's kind of like a, it's such a big benefit to the entire community to create space to bring people together and to create filters about which kinds of people are going to come together. So they're more likely to meet people that they have synergy with. The curation and the production, the location, the setting of the container and all of that stuff that an organizer does. I think that if you think about any event that you go to food and drinks are at the center,

Lisa: 15:05 there's this sort of idea, you know, the idea of breaking bread together that food is a way of connection because what I think is, I mean food is great and get that it's important, but I'm guessing that really what's underneath the importance of food is that connectivity.

Dinelle: 15:20 What I see as a problem is that people are trying to commodify and make profit off of building community. And I think that much like the way that healthcare and education and other things that are essentially, you know, necessary for a healthy community, making it privatized, making it too much about profit, is just going to water it down and I don't know if you're creating anything, you know, quote unquote authentic and to be honest, I mean and I'm actually fine at this point of being really open with some of my thoughts I have about Summit, which is like one of the most famous community organizations out there right now and I have to say that there's definitely elements of the Summit community that I think are really amazing and their events in Utah that are more intimate and people actually have time to get to know each other. Really awesome, but now they have these big conferences or they they have had on the boat and then they just did this big thing in La and it's more like a conference, but in their marketing they're saying we're the most authentic community and the world like that's literally in their marketing. It doesn't, it doesn't feel that way to me anymore. A $5,000 ticket to go to a conference doesn't really feel like the most authentic community building possible in the world. You know?

Lisa: 16:41 It's really interesting. I mean, I think that there's really some intention between privileged and I'm expensive and elite and you know, curation, so I mean the thing is curation we already mentioned is really important and I think sometimes the big events like Ted and Summit at Sea and do some curation by inviting within already-connected networks and I don't know, it's a tough one and I know a lot of people have talked about tad and having sort of ambivalence towards had because of that, that tension.

Dinelle: 17:12 Yeah. The exclusivity piece I think is really a dangerous one. Ted is a community for some people. I'm sure that there are a lot of people who've met like-minded doers and dreamers out there as a result of especially organizing TedX conferences. So maybe like Ted, ted is very like who's who of the intelligentsia and business community these days, but I think TedX events which are more community-run room-for-everybody type events. I'm sure that there is a lot of benefit to a lot of people from those

Lisa: 17:42 And I think that's why events like Bill, have you been to a Bill before?

Dinelle: 17:45 Yeah, definitely. And I met a lot of really cool people that way. Um, it Kinda just goes to show you that you can, um, Oh God, now inevitably I'm going to say the words Burning Man, which was definitely totally going to come up in this conversation about community building, but yeah, but like, it's, it just shows you that you can inspire people to do a lot of things because Bill, to give context is a all-hands on deck unconference that the attendees design and produced and execute themselves and it's a pay-what-you-can model. And a lot of people really love it and it's still going today and growing rather steadily. And I know a lot of people look to it as a very central part of their year, like going to a Bill conference gives them a chance to give a talk that they wanted to give. And I also want to say, um, because we're talking a lot about big conferences and I just mentioned Burning Man and I feel like that's all really big grandiose ideas. But I think that community building can be as simple as intentionally deciding that there's two or three friends that you really like that you think would get along really well and haven't met each other. 

Dinelle: 18:54 You know, Elle, Annie and Josephine, I think you guys all have, you know, you're all strong creative business women in San Francisco who like Yoga and you're all my friends and why don't we all like get yoga and get happy hour after or something. So that's not a reasonable time line… you wouldn't go to yoga and then happy hour, but you know what I mean. Unless you go to yoga at like 3:00 PM and have like a super luxurious schedule like I do, but see I'm just trying to keep myself honest, Lisa in everything I say. Just so everybody knows that afternoon yoga, happy hour is not a real idea unless… Yes, I could. And if anybody wants to go to yoga and happier with me, that's fabulous. They should get in touch.

Lisa: 19:35 No, I'm really glad you brought it from the big event down to the, to the micro level. Because the small things are often the place where biggest change happens when you can make some important connection between two people, even if it's just two individual people I think can really influence. I know there's a couple of connections I've made between people or friends that have gone really strong directions, but I feel super happy about it. It's kind of like something, some investment in some pride in and happiness,

Dinelle: 20:03 Oh, a hundred percent. Anytime you can be a positive influence on another person's life and really have that reflect back at you, you know, tangible results are something that you can see such as like I always thought about it must feel amazing to introduce somebody to their spouse or you know, I've definitely connected some of my friends to jobs, like put my friends in touch with people who are looking for people. That's another thing, by the way, that I think is really interesting as a social connector that I've thought about. I've given a lot of people like recommendations and connects with people when they're looking to hire people or people are looking for jobs and once you become known as like a social connector, I realized that it's interesting people coming in asking you like, Hey, do you know anybody who's like a developer that does x, Y and z? Or I'm looking for somebody that does this, x, y, and Z.

Lisa: 20:49 Yeah. Luckily it makes me happy to do that because it's not something at least immediately that it get recognized for compensated for not only does it feel good and is it fulfilling and important to make that kind of positive difference in the world. But I actually do think like, I think you're kind of implying that it actually does come back around to you. Givers gain, across the board.

Dinelle: 21:15 100% agree. I'm more using it as a way to point out that  having the ability to make connections between people is a super duper valuable skill. Whether it be introducing people to their spouses, which again, you know, matchmakers can make tens of thousands if not more dollars, but obviously you're not looking for a fee if you introduce two of your friends to get married. Um, but like, and same thing with helping your friend get employed. Like of course you don't want to be paid a commission for hooking your friend up with a job. But it is just really interesting that, um, I don't know to be because I guess I'm saying it because when you asked me to talk about this, I started thinking about it as a skill and I started thinking about it as a skill like in life and then in my professional life.

Dinelle: 22:01 And um, you know, how kind of blurred those worlds are now in this entrepreneurial universe that we're living in. What's interesting is my network is really, really strong and you asked me what am I proud of and I'm like, well, I'm proud of a lot of things, but I would also say I've actually really proud of the people that surround me in my life and that I've had in my life for years. A lot of, um, you know, yourself included. That's like if I can build relationships with these really wonderful, intelligent, deep loving people then I think that that's like the best thing on the planet.

Lisa: 22:01 And I value that network so much. It's kind of a long game when you're a person who thinks about giving and connecting and just valuing other people, it's not like it's a direct pay off in terms of money or like a salary or something like that or a fee. It's just that it enriches your life and it does make you more effective in all elements of business and entrepreneurship.

Dinelle: 23:22 A hundred percent and as you know, by the time I was thirty, I'd lost both of my parents and I found myself in this really shocking, talk about vulnerable situation that I totally didn't imagine for myself, which is that I was thirty and single and I became responsible for my institutionalized mentally ill brother and managing my family's entire state, which I had no preparation for and I didn't know what to do. There were a lot of things that I didn't know very much about in regards to financial things, real estate, mental health care, the mental health system, all kinds of stuff that I didn't know anything about and back to being vulnerable and authentic thing, how I learned how to manage all of those things has been by reaching out to people in my community who I thought knew more about that thing that I did and asking them questions, telling them my situation and asking for their help and guidance and if I hadn't had this very diverse community that yeah, that I had been cultivating for years, not knowing that I was going to need that resource if I hadn't had that, I don't know how I would've made it through honestly.

Lisa: 24:30 As you're pointing out, it really underlines that authenticity piece and that willingness to be vulnerable. And I think also the fact that in our world the way it is right now, we almost don't separate business and effectiveness in the world and realness and personal connections. It's like on some level it's all connected.

Dinelle: 24:48 Oh yeah. It's definitely all connected. And one thing that I think is also important is to realize that for me my community is dotted or if not filled with a lot of successful and accomplished entrepreneurs, artists, writers, et Cetera. Um, which I'm really proud of them and all that they've done. But I also think that something I seek in relationships, and maybe this can be on our list, you know, choose your connections for who the people really are. So like, yes, I have a lot of really talented friends, a lot of whom have had a lot of success in some really cool businesses or do a lot of really cool things. But at the end of the day, it's totally about who the person is underneath all of that. It's interesting because there is a lot, especially in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, which we're now famous for being the place in the world that the first question people ask you is “what do you do?” And I, when somebody pointed that out to me that it was weird that that was the first thing that we ask people. I thought it was weird that they were telling me that it was weird. You know what I mean? That's how, that's how ingrained it is in me that that's the normal first question that you would ask somebody.

Lisa: 25:59 I don't believe it's the first person. The first question that you ask people, I just don't don't. It's not the first question, is it!?

Dinelle: 26:05 It's not the first question I asked people, but I mean it's the first question that you're going to get asked a lot in the bay area and that the bay area is famous… I saw this little meme that was like in San Francisco. It's what do you do in New York? It's, where are you from? The rest of the world is like, hey, how's your day? I do think that we're living in a particular place geographically that does really emphasize accomplishments and achievements.

Lisa: 26:33 Um, and I guess what you just spoke with, I, by the way think was brilliant and true and wise, is that really you need to be choosing your network for who you actually like and who you value as a person, not based on what people's accomplishments are. And I just underlined that big time

Dinelle: 26:49 Yeah and who's going to be there when you need something? Like who your friends. What's interesting is I think, I guess I also, I want to say something because you know, you prompted with saying that you wanted to touch upon something like what do you want to see more of in the world? Um, and something that I definitely lament when… I feel like I'm kind of like complaining about a lot of things. One of the things that I definitely lament that I see in the world is a, what can only be described as social climbing and people who are trying to ascend well in their mind, but I see that they're trying to approach, um, society and community in a way that it's something that you can, um, climb up a hierarchy in. That you've somehow become a community leader by association or that you're going to get some level of status. Like people who want to be powerful by association and they do like a lot of name-dropping or they want to be seen at certain places. I definitely see that people's behavior with the way they post on social media. It's definitely an immature feeling thing. But I do think that we have a lot of it in our society these days because I actually think that a lot of people in our society are really emotionally immature and that they get a lot of validation from who they're associated with.

Lisa: 28:05 That could be my experiences that in that along with the increased transparency that is valued in our world and I believe social media brings about, because I kind of have this theory that you can look at your Facebook feed and it'll tell you a lot about yourself. You're saying, wow, my Facebook feed or you know, it could be another social media platform for me, that's the one I use, but it's when people say, “Oh wow, there's so much bragging in my Facebook feed, or there's so much disconnection or there's so much, whatever there”. I'm like, really? That's not in my Facebook feed. I see amazing wise connectivity and so the point that I'm trying to make is that as our world gets more and more transparent, I feel like what you're describing people who are purely social climbers, it actually doesn't work because people ultimately don't care. They're going to be going for the true connections for the real people, for the people who are actually generous and compelling and connected. You know?

Dinelle: 28:55 I totally agree with wanting to give a tip I would say value community building for authenticity over what you think people are going to be able to do for you one day.

Lisa: 29:06 Absolutely, go for authentic connections with people you really like.

Dinelle: 29:14 Not try to forge connections with people that you think have resources that would be useful for you.

Lisa: 29:19 Absolutely. So I want to go back to something you said before about the tendency that we have in our culture to ask people what do you do as a starting point and how that's probably not the most effective for getting to know authentically who someone is. But I'm kind of always curious about what are good questions for connection.

Dinelle: 29:39 What kind of questions? Good to initiate conversation or like how to break the ice. Something as practical as that?

Lisa: 29:51 What do you, how do you initiate conversation? Like you're an extrovert, right? So imagine someone listening to us talk and who feels like, well I can't. I don't necessarily have skills to build connections or to be a strong networker or to be a community builder because I'm an introvert. What kind of questions? I'm like asking a lot of things all at the same time, but I'm kind of interested in the idea of inquiry and questions.

Dinelle: 30:11 So actually I can recommend a practical one on that…is the thirty six questions that lead to love that was posted in the New York Times that was like kind of all the rage. Do you remember that? This is like a main one is. It'll probably come up the first thing you google. Maybe we can include a link to it, but it's like the thirty six questions that lead to love and I don't even think you need to do them in order, but it's a great list of questions to ask people and also Proust questionnaires are really good to check out there with Marcel Proust questions that he asks to facilitate good conversations and I have found both of those lists would be really helpful in kind of jogging my ideas and I've even been like, hey, when I've been chatting with someone, I mean this is after you already know them, “Do you want to do these questions? This is kind of a fun little thing.”

Lisa: 30:58 Oh, you actually do it explicitly with people?

Dinelle: 31:01 Yeah, if feel like they might be down? Do you have you heard of the roust questionnaire? And they were like, no, and then you pull it up and then you do it and that's like a good way to get something going. People are usually down for it. I mean, I think that people are always appreciative of little like fun and playfulness and conversation and that's just something kind of mild you can do. Um, 36 questions that lead to love or a little bit more like deep. I mean, I love getting deep and I think that, uh, that leads to the best conversations and what I kind of like, you know, being weird and I guess, well, I don't know that I'm being weird, but apparently it's weird to want to talk about super deep things with strangers, but I find those conversations to be fascinating.

Lisa: 31:45 I'm so with you on that. Yeah. But you're right, people do sometimes find it weird, but you know what? I find that when I asked people that I don't know deep questions about themselves, they might be a little bit taken aback at first, but they're actually pretty thrilled and they are pretty open. Very few people are like, “why are you asking me that?” Most people are like, Whoa, that's really interesting. You're asking me that, but they're kind of thrown by it and they kind of liked the connection that comes from it.

Dinelle: 32:09 I felt like what I want to say because for some reason I'm reluctant to give really specific questions because I think it totally depends on the context and the personalities of the people and what their interests are, but I think people should ask the questions that pop into their mind and pay attention to their curiosity that they have it, but other people. Because my belief is that people have a lot of questions that they don't ask or observations that they don't make and so I guess people should ask the questions that come from their curiosity and state the observations they have about the situation. If you're at an event and you're observed something going on, share your commentary with other people about it because that will open a conversation or if you have, if a question pops into your head about somebody, have the courage to ask them about it because people like to talk. People will be complimented. I mean, I think most people are…i's a compliment when somebody takes an interest in you and wants to know more about something. People can always say, no, I don't want to answer that. Yeah. Which could be an interesting conversation in and of itself because it's like, “Whoa, why is that a taboo?” That could be an interesting conversation. Or maybe then that interaction is going to be a conversation piece of somebody that you meet later.

Lisa: 33:21 Yeah. I love that. I love that. For sure. Um, it's really interesting how you came up with the idea of lists and explicitly say, Hey, let's pull up this list and ask each other questions from it. Because I had the impression, and I'm sure many other people would, that you're very fine within the moment coming up with things spontaneously, but I think it's really great point to make that for you. For me, for anybody, that there's nothing wrong with explicitly saying, hey, let's, let's ask each other questions.

Dinelle: 33:53 Yeah. It's so funny because now that you're asking me this, I actually do have some other tips. So I was on a hike in Peru with this English guy. So cool. And he was like such a great conversationalist. So by no means did we have not have things to talk about, but there was a point in which he said to me, do you want to play the Ultimate Sandwich? And I was like, yeah, OK, what's that? And he's like, it's when we describe in great detail what the ultimate sandwich of our lives would be. And I was like, OK, that's a great game for the hike and Bro, you know, just making fun conversation. And it was really fun to describe in great detail what your ultimate sandwich was and then you can kind of go back and forth and you can banter about the sandwich.

Lisa: 34:35 What do you mean the ultimate sandwich? Not like literal sandwich.

Dinelle: 34:41 Yeah, like the literal sandwich like you describe in great detail exactly what your ultimate sandwich would be for your life. Just starting with the bread, where, where would it come from? What kind of spreads would you put on it?

Lisa: 34:52 Like literally you're talking literally.

Dinelle: 34:55 So this is not a deep question by the way, because I do think that it's not always appropriate or the right vibe or the point in the wave when you're going to be having like a really deep convo with somebody, but maybe you don't know what to talk about. Um, and uh, do you want to play the ultimate sandwich is a great conversation starter.

Lisa: 35:18 That's a great one for me because it's not the kind of thing I would think of. I'm really…I'll go right to, “so what are the values you live your life by?”

Dinelle: 35:26 Which actually I think can be off putting for some people so it's better sometimes to ease in and so maybe you need this tip, Lisa, it's how to not be overly deep with everybody.

Lisa: 35:38 That would be a choice for me to decide, I need some time to have alternatives to going deep with people. What I default to most of the time in my life is, you know, be like, ah, that's me. Oh, well I will attract people who are, who are game, you know.

Dinelle: 35:52 You know what though. Actually the ultimate sandwich is a, maybe this isn't relevant to community building. Well it is because it's about connection. The Ultimate Sandwich, which is a great game to play with people you already know. For instance, maybe it's even more relevant to people that you already know most of the answers to, but maybe you don't know what the sandwich of their dreams is in great detail. And you could find out.

Lisa: 36:11 OK then, because I always believe in stretching our, um, you know, building our range and stretching ourselves in directions that aren't natural, as an ending instead of ending on something deep, which is what I usually want to do, let's end on the Ultimate Sandwich.

Dinelle: 36:24 Oh my God. That was so natural and impromptu. I, it's almost like we planned it, but we totally. I love it. Beautiful.

Lisa: 36:24 Ok, you first.

Dinelle: 36:36 Um, yeah. So I've played the Ultimate Sandwich a lot of times because I do use it as a conversation tool with people when I don't know what to talk about. So I think my ultimate sandwich is, and I should get more specific about exactly where the bread is, but it would be like a toasted Chiabatta probably like herbs, garlic. I mean, like a lot of flavor. I'm with probably Pesto that I've made myself spread on both sides. And then grilled Portabella mushrooms and grilled egg plants, roasted tomatoes, and like insanely delicious, melted cheese of some kind. Not Mozzarella. Probably more of like a Fontina or something, I don't know. Exotic and Italian.

Lisa: 37:16 You have played this before. You know your Sandwich.

Dinelle: 37:20 Yeah, that's my Sandwich, for sure. And it's hot and then probably a glass of red wine to go with it or maybe really good ice tea. I don't know. All right. What about yours?

Lisa: 37:30 I guess, mine definitely there's going to be hot peppers. Maybe even both Jalapenos and pepper and cheese or something for sure. And I'm going to say melted cheese also. I like toasted bread. I like sourdough bread, so let's call it sourdough bread with melted cheese with like roasted red peppers. I haven't played this so I have to give us a bit more thought.

Dinelle: 37:52 I like this though. I'm already seeing like an amazing open-face appetizer coming out of the discussion.

Lisa: 37:57 That's funny because I was imagining it to be open face, but I didn't actually say that. So we must be like really tuned into each other.

Dinelle: 38:02 Oh my God, this is so full circle because it's um, back to the food thing and that good organizers I think understand the importance of food and you know, like I'm totally seeing this as party food. It's a baguette. Your slicing up the sour dough and you put the peppers on and then you put the cheese on top and then you put it all in the oven and they're like, these toasties.

Lisa: 38:26 Like how good is that? What a great wrap-up. I think we're going to end up having to do this again because this is way too much fun.

Dinelle: 38:30 Yeah, obviously way too much. I mean we have so many things to talk about.

Lisa: 38:35 OK. So we'll definitely put everything in the show notes. All the links, all the things we've talked about, all the tips and then maybe we will build out a Top Tips list from what we started with here and anything else we think of after.

Dinelle: 38:46 Yeah. OK, awesome. Thank you so much. I feel like we did a great job.

Lisa: 38:51 Absolutely. Hey, one more thing. If people did want to know more about what you're doing, are you follow-able on social media to the general population or do you keep it pretty close?

Dinelle: 38:51 Yeah, I keep it pretty close.

Lisa: 39:04 Ok, you'll be the mystery guests that, uh, people will have to hope they run into at a party somewhere, and if they do that, it's like, that's amazing.

Dinelle: 39:11 And then once you're in, you're in, you know. OK, well I love you Lisa. I'll talk to you soon. OK, thanks. OK, bye.