Most People Who Bring People Together Aren’t Thinking About Where You Fit In

Transcript

So you went to an event. You went to some type of gathering or meetup. And it wasn't as great as you wanted it to be.

It's not like someone did anything wrong.

They tried.

You got a lot of interesting information.

Perhaps you had some small talk with people, but overall the experience didn't move you. The experience didn't allow you to connect with people like you might have been hoping for.

And so you come back home and you start to get in your head a bit like, was it me?

Let me tell you right now, it wasn't you.

I remember going to many events where after I purchased the ticket, I got my meal, and I sat down, it was clear that the person bringing us together, their vision for us, the audience, was to sit down, eat our food, and listen.

And those types of gatherings, I left feeling very depleted because I was thinking about all the interesting people in the room who I could be having deeper conversations with outside of like the beginning networking stage of an event, right?

Or the beginning of the gathering where everyone's kind of having small talk, or they see people that they haven't seen for a long time, and then everyone sits down for the main show.

I feel like that's an incredibly wasted opportunity because the audience is meant to be engaged with.

I'm meant to be engaged with.

You're meant to be engaged with.

And so I think that's missing a lot is people who bring people together aren't really thinking on a deeper level all the different ways that they can make their audience connect with each other and make it easier to have new conversations, to meet new people, to get out of their familiar grooves so that they're able to actually experience something new in a gathering.

An audience, no matter the size, has so much potential to engage. They are meant for so much more than just talking to.

~Cody McGraw