Rethinking Success | Mia Birdsong

Radical advice on rethinking success, individualism, and the American dream. Mia Birdsong https://www.miabirdsong.com/ is a pathfinder, culture change visionary, and futurist. She is the founding Executive Director of Next River http://nextriver.org/, a think tank and culture change lab for interconnected freedom. In her book How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community https://www.miabirdsong.com/how-we-show-up, Mia maps swaths of community life, and points us toward the promise of our collective vitality. In this episode we talk about: How to build community What it looks like in her own life Mutuality vs reciprocity How to work with resentment and rejection The etymological connection between friendship and freedom The transformative power of asking for help And why she thinks the idea of bootstrapping—or going it alone—is a kind of self-hatred This episode originally aired on May 22nd, 2024. Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris Thanks to our sponsor: Huel: Get 15% off your first order at huel.com https://huel.com with code HAPPIER. Minimum $75 purchase.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, registered mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code PODCAST for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply.

• 0:34Dan Harris?

  This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, everybody. How we doing? Something I've been thinking about and writing about a lot lately is how to define success. A shrink, a therapist I was seeing once, observed that I was, psychologically speaking, the apex of Western man. I believe that was the phrase he used, and I also believe he did not mean this as a compliment. He observed that because of my conditioning in this individualistic culture, I had come to view success in a limited way, really just in terms of money and power.

• 1:19Dan Harris?

  And the skills that I had honed in this regard were what the psychologist called I skills, meaning they were all about myself, you know, how to work hard, how to hone my craft, how to stick up for myself. And I was lacking, according to the shrink, you skills, you know, skills that involved other people like communication, collaboration, compassion. And I want to add here that this is not gooey or gauzy stuff, you skills. As the Wharton organizational psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant has often argued, these days in the workplace, character skills, in other words, you skills, are more important than cognitive skills, I skills. Anyway, I bring all this up because it was in this spirit that I got interested in the work of a writer named Mia Birdsong, who is my guest today.

• 2:04Dan Harris?

  Mia has some provocative ideas about rethinking success, independence, individualism, and the American dream. For her, the real keys are relationships and community, i.e. you skills. I want to say just early and often here, I'm aware that words like relationships and community can come off as soft or cliched or anodyne or meaningless. That's the way they came off for me for many, many years. But there is a growing body of research and thought that strongly suggests that these are actually the critical skills for health, for happiness, and as I mentioned before, for success. So in this conversation, we talk about how to build community, what it looks like in

• 2:46Dan Harris?

  Mia's life, community, mutuality as a concept versus reciprocity, how to work with resentment and rejection in community, the etymological connection between friendship and freedom. I find that fascinating. The transformative power of asking for help, something many of us struggle with. Why she thinks the idea of bootstrapping or going it alone is a kind of self-hatred. It's a provocative idea. And much more. Just a little bit more about Mia Birdsong before we dive in. She's the founding executive director of a think tank called Next River and the author of a book called How We Show Up. This interview was originally recorded and aired in the spring of 2024, but we're reposting it as we approach a new year because we feel it could provoke a radical rethink for you.

• 3:31Dan Harris?

  And this is the time of year to be doing that kind of work. Before we dive in, I want to do a quick plug here for the new 10% app. So cool to be able to say those words. The app has just gone live. We will be doing a free New Year's meditation challenge in early January, seven days with Joseph Goldstein, the great meditation teacher. He has cooked up something incredibly cool for you. It's a kind of masterclass and extraordinary and accessible on-ramp to Buddhist meditation. This seven-day course that he's crafted is good for beginners. It's also good for experienced meditators. I was in the room meditating right alongside him as he recorded these sessions, and I've

• 4:13Dan Harris?

  been hanging out with him for years, and I still got a ton out of these meditations. In fact, I'm going to be doing them again right alongside you from January 5th through the 11th. If you want to do this free challenge, you can sign up at danharris.com. Not only is the challenge free, there's also a 30-day free trial for the app if you want to try before you buy. One last note, I promise this is the last thing I'm going to say before we toss the break and get to the conversation, but one last note, we will not be holding our weekly live meditation on Tuesday, December 30th, since I and many of you will be on vacation. I will however, be live and with you three times during the New Year's challenge, the regular live meditation and Q and A session at four o'clock on Tuesday, the 6th of January,

• 4:56Dan Harris?

  but we'll do those again at four Eastern on the 8th and the 11th. Okay, we'll get started with Mia Bertscham right after this.

• 5:05Dan Harris?

  If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity and an insane world, there are a few quick, easy and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit and not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds and they really do help. You will

• 5:47Dan Harris?

  be supporting me and my team and our mission and I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity and an insane world, there are a few quick, easy and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That

• 6:28Dan Harris?

  really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit and not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission and I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. Mia Birdsong, welcome to the show.

• 6:59Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.

• 7:03Dan Harris?

  Glad to have you here. I'm just curious, why did you get so interested in this subject of community? What was going on for you?

• 7:11Speaker 02

  So I think it's that I was noticing that the more, and I'm putting "successful," I'm putting that in quotes, I was becoming, the less connected I felt and the harder it was to be in community. And I was curious about what that was about, because it's not how I grew up. And I was also doing economic justice work that was really grounded in understanding the ways in which social capital can mitigate people's experience of poverty. And was, you know, giving talks

• 7:55Speaker 02

  and presentations on all of that and would often have, like at the end, you know, you give a talk and then at the end, like, some people come up and they want to ask you questions or whatever. And like, an unsettling number of times during that period, there would be somebody kind of standing off to the side, clearly waiting for everybody to be done. Most often, that person was a white man. And after everybody kind of left, they would come up to me and, in an almost confessional way, say, "I don't have that kind of community in my life." And they would just kind of say it. And I was like, there was no question,

• 8:40Speaker 02

  there was just this, like, admission. And at some point, like, the time that I most remember, this young man said it. And he asked me, he was like, "What do I do about that?" And I gave him some, you know, bullshit advice. I don't even remember what I said. And it stuck with me. And I was kind of uncomfortable with what I had said and with, clearly, this, like, series of questions that I was being asked. And I think that kind of in combination with what I was experiencing myself made me just feel like there was something going on that I needed to understand for myself. And something that felt like antithetical to who I thought of myself as and what I

• 9:24Speaker 02

  wanted for myself, for my children, for my friends. So I just, I felt like I needed to understand all of that more.

• 9:33Dan Harris?

  What did you learn?

• 9:35Speaker 02

  So.

• 9:37Dan Harris?

  I can imagine you're thinking asshole, I wrote a whole book about this. How can you ask me that question?

• 9:41Speaker 02

  No, I'm not thinking that. I'm thinking like, what are, I mean, I learned a lot of things. And the book that I wrote was really my own process and journey, right? I wasn't writing it, you know, I think sometimes people write a book because they've done a bunch of research and they have a perspective and they're going to bestow this wisdom on you. And for me, it was really that I had a bunch of questions and I was struggling with something. And I wanted to share the perspectives and answers and information that I was getting as I was struggling. So I learned a lot of things. I learned that, you know, kind of unsurprisingly, the American ideal of what success is, is a very isolating

• 10:20Speaker 02

  one. You know, we really uphold the idea of independence as a measure of success, which is kind of fundamentally antithetical to what it means to be a person. We are not independent. We're not, you know, we're not turtles where our mom like lays a bunch of eggs on the beach and then is like, you know, peace out, good luck with the seagulls. We don't raise ourselves. We don't care for ourselves. We don't acquire the things we need to live, like food and shelter and, you know, water on our own. We are inherently

• 11:01Speaker 02

  interdependent animals. Like biologically, that's who we are. And that is in opposition with the kind of ideal that America puts forward in terms of what success looks like. So it made sense to me that part of what I was experiencing as I achieved this version of success was isolation.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  We are a society that is like allergic to asking for help because we see that as a sign of weakness. But of course, all of us need help and support. And not only do we need it, but we and the people who are offering it benefit from it. I learned that the best models we have for how to be in relationship with each other, with how to build friendships and families and communities, the best examples of those are happening in the most marginalized communities. I think largely because the systems of success and support that we have,

• 12:07Speaker 02

  you know, either kind of exclude those folks or harm them. And people have had to, for survival reasons, figure out how to take care of each other outside of those systems. And I don't want to romanticize like the experience of being, you know, oppressed as like a black person, or a queer person, or an unhoused person. And certainly not, that's not a universal experience for people who are marginalized. But the examples that I kept finding as I was interviewing people and as I was researching, these ideas were among, you know, black folks, queer folks, unhoused people, sex workers, groups of people who have really had to figure out how to survive in hostile environments.

• 12:52Dan Harris?

  So how did your life change as a result of learning all of this?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:57Dan Harris?

  Is that another overly broad question?

• 12:59Speaker 02

  No, but I mean, the, I feel like, you know, it was not just kind of trying to objectively research something. I was practicing. I was learning from the people who I was interviewing and from the kind of desktop research. I was building better community. And I think part of it is that it sharpened the critique I already had of, you know, kind of American capitalism and our ideas of success. It clarified for me why.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Community and connection and friendship and family outside of kind of conventional definitions of those things, but really expansive ideas of those things that clarified for me why those things are important and why our survival is dependent on having those relationships. And I found so much joy and like evolution of myself in building those relationships. And I will say that, you know, I did the research from like 2018, 2019, the book came out in June of 2020, so during the pandemic. And I got to experience kind of the fruits of, you know, this collective labor.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  You know, I think for a lot of people, the first three years of the pandemic was a very isolating experience. And then I think there were people for whom it was a time of uncertainty and anxiety and fear, but there was also a lot of kind of solidifying of connection. There were ways in which the groups of people that I am in a relationship with solidified and strengthened our bonds with each other. We were providing each other with resources. We were providing each other with information. We were providing each other with a lot of emotional support. We were checking in on each other. If somebody got sick, we were taking care of them. So it was really beautiful to kind of have had this, you know, couple of years of doing

• 14:58Speaker 02

  this research and practice and then have this opportunity to see, you know, in crisis, what that looks like.

• 15:07Dan Harris?

  I'm just curious, on a nuts and bolts, practical level, once you learned, oh yeah, there's something missing from my and our understanding of success and the good life. And that thing that's missing is community, interdependence, interbeing, as it's sometimes called. What does your life look like on a day-to-day basis now as opposed to before you started this quest?

• 15:39Speaker 02

  I mean, the honest answer is that I still struggle with it. And this is the other thing that I think I learned since in, in kind of the book coming out and then having conversations with people about it as they tried to put into practice ways of being in relationship that were deeper than what they had before. And I mean, I, I still feel like I have an amazing, you know, community and I feel more connected to people. But I'm also very clear that this is not a like, you know, we can't bootstrap our way into community either. We live in a society where the conditions do not actually support our relationships with each other.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  The conditions make it very difficult for us to have time, energy, knowledge and like reinforcing experience of being in connected relationship with each other. So one of the things that I say so much more to people now is like, if this is hard, even though this is who we are, right? We do not, it's like, we are air breathing creatures. If we had to survive in the ocean, like, it would be hard. Right? So even though this is who we are, we struggle with it and that we have to recognize that so that we don't feel like, you know, we're failing at something that we should be good at. We have to give ourselves and each other a lot of grace.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  And relationship and connection requires tending, but the circumstances that we're tending in are very hard, which means that we have to be really vigilant about it, which means it's exhausting. Right? Sometimes it's very exhausting to try to like maintain connection and relationship. So now I think that I'm just more aware of when it's working and when it's not for me and both giving myself kind of permission to be shitty at it, but, and also noticing and checking in with myself to see if there are things that I can do to shift that. And sometimes there aren't. Sometimes I just go through a little period of feeling like I'm not as connected to my folks as I'd like to be.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  You know, as problematic as some of our technology is, I'm so grateful that I can, you know, text a whole bunch of people at once as opposed to having to like, I don't know, phone, call them on the phone or visit them individually to just say like, I'm thinking about you. Sorry if I've been absent, like. I noticed you've been absent, like whatever that is, to just kind of maintain a little bit of the noticing of what's not working, if I can't actually make it work.

• 18:13Dan Harris?

  Personally, I think it's very helpful, actually, to point out that this is hard, that the structure of modern society militates against having a community.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  Totally. I wish I'd written that more into the book because I think that,

• 18:29Speaker 02

  you know, we often have like lists of stuff that we are trying to do and habits we're trying to change to make ourselves better people. And that can just become kind of a burdensome, like, list of ways in which you're fucking up. And that's just not helpful. Like, then we just feel like shit about ourselves. And I feel like it's okay for us to not get it right when it comes to relationship. But I think it is helpful to be explicit about that with ourselves and with our people, right? That we're like, we're all struggling to do all these things. And we're not always going to get it right. And if we can notice when we're screwing it up, or when it's a struggle because of the circumstances we live in, I think even that's helpful in terms of the context of our relationships as well.

• 19:13Dan Harris?

  Yeah, and I actually would broaden it out personally, as somebody who talks to audiences a lot about behavior change. I often talk about the sort of seven or eight or nine pantheon of no brainers when it comes to, you know, doing life better, sleep, exercise, meditations, nature, psychotherapy, medication, if you need it, having a healthy diet without getting crazy about it. And the one I always end on is the importance of relationships because we have all of this data that shows us it's the number one lever to pull if you want to live a happy and long life. But one of the things I often point out to people is that habit formation is very hard. And I don't say that to be discouraging. I say

• 19:55Dan Harris?

  it for just the opposite reason, that if you can have these pantheon, these no brainers in your mind, as sort of directionally appropriate as North Stars, but give yourself a break as you're doing your best to pursue these, then, then I actually think that's the best probably that you're gonna do.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think that part of it is, again, in the context of capitalism, we have to

• 20:25Speaker 02

  Provide labor in order to earn this made up thing called money so that we can get our basic needs met, so we can literally stay alive, right? We can, we have food and shelter and, you know, ideally some form of healthcare and education. And that just that takes up so much of our time and energy that all of those other things, which we absolutely need to live a life of well-being, like, we can't actually, like, we're not failing ourselves if we can't hit those things, right? It is that our culture is actually failing us, that we live in a culture that is designed to impede us from being well people. And because of trying to extract from us our labor.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  And I think it's really important, especially for folks who are struggling with any of those things, to recognize that, you know, we live in a society where work is the sun around which the universe of our lives revolves, which means that it dictates our time and we're meant to organize everything else in our lives around that. And some of us absolutely, like, and myself included, have the privilege of being able to dictate some of that. But nonetheless, if I don't work, I don't eat. If I don't work, my family does not have a place to live. So there's a prioritization there that has to happen.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  And that means that exercise, nutrition, therapy, nature, right? All those things that you named end up being like the second thing that I do. Like, the work piece has to come first or I die, right? Or we end up on the street or whatever. And part of the leap of faith I think we need to take around the relationship piece is that When it's working, it brings ease to all of those other things, right? There's a way in which I need to like pay more attention to time in nature, or meditation, or nutrition, or exercise if I'm super disconnected from my people.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Because my body, right, my system, my spirit, my mental health is not as supported if I'm not connected to other people. So there are all these levers to push and pull. There's no actual like stasis of balance that we get to, which can be like really discouraging, right? Like to say that things are systems and you can't actually change those things, right? And the one hand, I think, is important to know, like, it's not your fault, right? It's not your fault that you're struggling with these things. And it also can feel too big to actually do anything about. And that's a place that I really like to sit in, that tension, right? Of like the potential for just feeling hopeless and despondent about it all

• 23:14Speaker 02

  versus the ways in which we can kind of create our own micro infrastructures of support. The ways in which we can organize to change those systems. The ways in which we can recognize that we have a, like, no matter who your people are, right? You have, there's some history of your ancestors having to struggle with some of these same things and figuring out how to stand in a long arc that is not just about like, what is it that you experienced in your lifetime? But what did your ancestors pass on to you? And what are you passing on to your descendants? So that it's not just, we live in this fucked up system

• 23:59Speaker 02

  and it is preventing me from realizing the best possible version of myself, but knowing that is actually generational work that needs to happen. And figuring out what is yours to do in that arc. And I feel like that's where my hope kind of stays, is that, yes, like, I'm not going to live in a society that is actually as supportive of its, all of its living beings as it should be. But I can do my part while I'm here to make sure that my descendants are a little closer to whatever that is.

• 24:43Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I heard the Dalai Lama say something once that I found to be reassuring, even though I don't actually know if I buy the metaphysics of his assertion, which I'm about to relate to you, which is that I believe he was saying this to a bunch of activists, that you need to think about this work over the course of multiple lifetimes. And whether you believe in rebirth or not, it's, you know, it's a, it kind of puts it in perspective and calms you down. But let me just go back to capitalism for a second because I'm curious how deep your critique of capitalism goes. You talked about how we were in an extractive system and we need to work and that can prevent us from doing the things that we need to do to be happy and highly functioning. But, you know, I've spent time living with indigenous

• 25:27Dan Harris?

  communities and from what I could tell, they were all working too, raising children, attending the fields, hunting. I don't know of many societies where outside of the upper crust, people weren't working. So maybe you're saying that, yes, work is part of life, but we're not providing a social safety net that allows people to have enough extra time so that they can do the things that the human animal needs to do to thrive.

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I think there is like separating the idea that work is capitalism, right? Of course, human beings have to do things in order to access the things we need to survive. Those things don't just like come to us. It's that we live in a system where we have to participate in the kind of grind of being productive in order to earn money. And that if we do not do that, we starve, right? Or don't receive medical care, or we can't have a house. In a well society, everyone is able to participate.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  To the best of their own abilities. And because it's a collective, right? There is a sense of responsibility for everyone who's in that collective. So, you know, we are, people who are taking care of children are participating in some way. And we make sure that they have food and shelter and water and care and rest and all the things that they need. People with disabilities, right? They exist. So we don't say like, you know, you don't, you're not participating and you're not being productive. So you don't get to eat. We have elders, right? Who have, you know, less energy, less physical capacity, whatever.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  And we still make sure that those folks are taken care of. One of the analogies that I sometimes use is there's this, I think it's a trust game, maybe. I don't remember what it is exactly, but you have a group of people and they're all standing in a circle with like their right shoulder facing in. And they're all kind of tightly together and everybody sits down. So everyone is being held and everyone is holding. And, you know, a, someone who's much smaller than me can hold, can, I can be sitting in their lap because the strength of the group is actually supporting them and holding me. And I feel like that is just a beautiful analogy of what the alchemy and like physics of a well community looks like.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  Everyone is being held, everyone is holding and everybody is contributing to whatever their capacity is. And, you know, over the course of our lifetimes or over the course of a week, like our capacity changes. But we, in our, in, in our society, people are expected to show up to work, often for a wage that doesn't actually allow them to access the things that they need to live. And they're expected to do that regardless of what their capacity is that day. So people show up to work sick, they show up to work when they have people to take care of. They show up to work and when like transportation systems aren't working. And if they don't, they get fired.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  And that is the reality for a huge number of people in our society. And we're just, we're not taking care of people and we're not providing them with the things they need. We are extracting from them. And it's almost as if people are being held hostage to this system because if they don't participate, they'll die. Or they'll be on the street or they'll be malnourished and they certainly will not be well emotionally.

• 29:09Dan Harris?

  Do you believe the system can be fixed, you know, within the current system, that we could legislate our way to a well-society through the current paradigm, or that it needs to be sort of overturned wholly?

• 29:25Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't see capitalism as a system that is meant to support us. So it doesn't make sense to me to try to fix it. I'm much more interested in returning to slash creating new systems that prioritize our well-being as opposed to profit. And as I say that, you know, I myself have an internal voice that's like, that's unrealistic. And, you know, all the things.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  And what I say to that voice and what I ask people who think that's ridiculous or unachievable is, I mean, one, we don't know unless we try.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  And we've also done a lot of hard things. I mean, the thing that I always go back to for myself when I think about what it means to end awful systems is I think about, and this is where I go back to generational work, right? I think about my ancestors in like, I don't know, the 1700s and know that there were folks who were enslaved, who were like, we really, we just need to make like, less shitty slavery, right? Like, we need to create some laws and some regulations so that this system is less harmful to us because they couldn't imagine it not existing because it had existed for generations

• 31:04Speaker 02

  and would go on to exist for generations after they were dead. And then there were other folks who were like, no, like, this system is just like fundamentally morally wrong and corrupt and it needs to not exist. And those folks were like, we need to abolish it. We need to get rid of it. And they never saw the end of it. But they believed that it was not enough to just kind of tinker around the edges of something that should not exist. So I try to put myself, when I think about capitalism, I try to put myself in the mindset of being like, you know, it's all I've ever known. It's all generations of us have ever known, but it has not existed forever. Right?

• 31:48Speaker 02

  It's not the only way to do things. And I think that we as human beings are like infinitely creative and have such capacity for imagining and building new things. And I'm like, let's try something different. And I don't know how we get there. Like, let's be clear. I don't know, like, what, I don't have like a plan or a strategy for that. And there are people who absolutely have thought about these things. That's not my lane. That's not the role that I hold. But I see the ways in which capitalism is harmful, not just to us, but I mean, we're, it's literally destroying the planet that we live on. It

• 32:30Speaker 02

  is harmful to like, all life on the planet. And I'm like, I don't want to just keep a system because it's really big and seems hard to get rid of if it's actually gonna end up getting rid of us.

• 32:41Dan Harris?

  I appreciate you letting me take you on this. I don't know if it's a tangent, but just down this road.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  It's not a tangent. I feel like this is so fundamental to the work. Because again, like we were talking about community and the ways in which the system we live in makes it challenging, right? Are there not the conditions for us to connect with each other? I mean, if only because we don't have enough fucking time to do it, right? Like, if you're at work 40 hours, which we say is like, full time, but many of us, of course, work over full time, like, whatever that is. You think about the, you know, sleep, right? Gas sleep. And then all the things you need to do to run an adult life, right? Whether it's raising children or caretaking for other people, you know, paying your bills,

• 33:30Speaker 02

  grocery shopping, like, all the stuff. You don't actually have a lot of time to be in relationship with people. And relationships require time. So it is right in here. Like, it feels like it is fundamental to what we're talking about.

• 33:47Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I think for this show, we don't often talk about.

• 33:53Dan Harris?

  Sometimes we do. It's not verboten by any stretch, but it's a where we usually dwell in the space of like how an individual can improve their own lives and the lives of the people around them. And so I think it's I think it's totally fascinating. And I'm glad we discussed it. And I want to also just get back to some of the things we were talking about earlier, but like how your life looks differently, things you you've implemented into your life in order to to get this community that you so convincingly argue we need in order to thrive. And I believe one of the things you've done in order to sort of get this community going in your life is to involve other people in raising your children.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Neither of my husband or I grew up in families where our parents were the only people raising us. I was raised by my mom. My father was absolutely a part of my life, but I lived with my mother full time. And she, as a single working person, figured out fairly early on that that was like, not a thing you do by yourself. And she had friends who were basically my aunties and helped raise me. And then I think there was also just that my, my kind of school community of folks, my friends and I helped raise each other. My friends' parents helped raise me. So that was a context that I grew

• 35:15Speaker 02

  up in where there was just like lots of caring adults around me, supporting me in whatever it was I was doing. And then my husband grew up in a kind of like, the opposite kind of context where he lived with his parents. He's one of seven. And they lived in a commune sounds too culty, but like a very tight knit rural community. So there were just groups of kids running around all the all the time. There were lots and lots and lots of adults who were doing caretaking of children, helping to raise kids. We like, I am now part of

• 35:55Speaker 02

  that community. So there are all these folks who my husband and his siblings grew up with, who are people that my children have now grown up with. So we both grew up in that context. And, you know, part of what we were talking about earlier is Why I wrote the book that I wrote. And what I saw is that for us, right? Like, we live in a city, we own our own home, we both, at the time, were essentially running our own businesses. And there was a way in which it was super easy to kind of isolate and feel like everything that needed to happen for our children was going to be up to us.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  And there was a point after my son was born, when I was just like, this is, this is some bullshit. Like, at the very least, I need to have some dates with my husband. And I was thinking about how occasionally we would like pay for a babysitter and go out to eat. And I was like, that's, you know, I like a fancy cocktail, like that becomes very expensive. So I thought, you know, there are other families who are struggling with the same thing. And I talked to two other families that my daughter, the kids all went to school together. And we started this thing called Kid Fun. And that was our like, marketing for the kids. We didn't call it Date Night.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  And every other Saturday, for like, four hours, all the kids would go to one family's house. And then the other two couples could go do whatever, go have dates. Sometimes for us, that meant we could go and have sex, like, when it was light out still, in our house. Like, we would stay home and like, you know, get takeout, have sex, and like, watch a movie. So there was, certainly the intended result was like, that I got to spend this time with my husband, where we were not, you know, caretaking, we were not talking about logistics, we could just like, hang out and enjoy each other's company. But there ended up being all of these other benefits that thrilled me.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  And part of it was about the kids and their relationships with each other. And that they, you know, had this regular time when they would spend time together in each other's homes. They got to be in different households and adapt to like, whatever the rules in that household are. And that, I feel like, is just such a good skill for people to have, right? I also found that when we had the kids in our house, like, they were entertaining themselves. They were like, you know, playing, they were watching whatever. And I still got to have kitchen date with my husband. We would be in the kitchen. The kids would be eating pizza, we'd take our pizza and a glass of wine and like, be in the kitchen, and the kids would be in the living room. So we still got to like, spend time with each other, which was amazing. And then the other thing was about the

• 38:41Speaker 02

  the relationships that the kids had with the adults who weren't their parents. And the ways in which I myself got close to children who were not my children, the ways in which I saw my kids develop relationships with adults who were not their parents, and the love and care that those relationships provided for them was just really beautiful. And that was just like, it was so easy to structure and put together. Everybody was excited about it. You know, we stopped doing it when our kids could start being at home by themselves. But I think during those early years, when you're just kind of consumed with the relentlessness of taking care of little people who can't,

• 39:26Speaker 02

  you know, make their own dinner, or obviously be trusted to be home by themselves, it was such a relief for us. But also, there were all these other benefits that ended up happening, which was amazing.

• 39:39Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Mia Birdsong talks about some practical tips for building community in your own life, mutuality versus reciprocity, and some tips on working with an inevitable part of interacting with other people, resentment and rejection.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  Your joints help you keep doing what you love. Give them daily support with Ancient Nutrition Multi-Collagen Protein. Two scoops deliver 20 grams of collagen from 10 types, including clinically studied eggshell membrane. Plus, vitamin C and probiotics to support skin, hair, nails, and joint health. Visit ancientnutrition.com/protein and use code PROTEIN for $15 off. That's ancientnutrition.com code PROTEIN.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 41:00Dan Harris?

  When you're in community with others, like in the example you just gave with other families, how important is like equivalence of help? Like, does everybody have to be giving and taking the same amount?

• 41:17Speaker 02

  I mean, in this context, we did because we just kind of rotated. But I think of other contexts where, again, if there are enough people, that it's not about reciprocation, right? It is about mutuality. And for me, that distinction is reciprocation is I do this thing for you that's worth this amount of time or money, or there's some like calculation that happens. And then with the understanding that at some point, you will do that thing for me, right? Or something equivalent for me. Whereas mutuality feels much more, it's less about a one-on-one relationship. It feels like it's about a group. And it is that everybody contributes like to their capability. And that we, we understand that

• 42:02Speaker 02

  the folks who, you know, in the moment or consistently can contribute less, that them getting what they need benefits us, right? So it's not like, we're all doing more to take care of this person. And it's completely like altruistic, but it's actually this understanding that, that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of the people in our community. And that, you know, like, all of us contribute in the ways that we can. It's looking at the complexity of contribution as well, right? Like, I had a friend who had to move recently.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  And I had my husband come over because I was like, he's, he'll just kind of like come and like, he's my farmhand at home, right? If I need like bales of hay, or whatever moved. And it's not because he's actually stronger than me. It's because my contribution tends to be more of the like, management organizing of things, right? Like, I don't clean the house, he does. I want the bales of hay moved, like, he'll do that for me. So I had him come over to help move stuff with us. And to be clear, this was my Pilates instructor. There were a whole lot of very strong people there. But I was like, he should come and bring some energy that is like, he will just do whatever we tell him to do, as opposed to being trying to manage it. Because there were a lot of us in the management role.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  And he did it not because he don't take Pilates with her, but he knows that her well being benefits me, right? And she is part of our community. And there was a way in which I feel like that that knowing, right, that like we we do things for somebody in our community because we know that they deserve whatever that is. And we recognize that they have a role in our community that is facilitated, right, by our supporting them. I mean, I keep going back to the word alchemy because it feels very like somebody could probably do the math, but you don't need to because you just it's there's a kind of like pragmatic faith that you have to have in that context that I find is in

• 44:10Speaker 02

  and of itself, a nourishing thing, right? When I can show up for people that I love, when it is me giving freely of my time, energy, commitment, whatever, there's a way in which I am nourished by that, right? That I'm nourished by supporting other people.

• 44:30Dan Harris?

  I like that pragmatic faith. While we're on a practical tip here, one of the things you write about is rejection. And I'm going to read you back to you. You say, when people say no, it's information about them, not rejection, not about you. This realization helps us process, helps us distinguish between what's ours to deal with and what is somebody else's.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yes, I mean, that totally. What's your question? I don't know. I mean, I think that we and this is not to say like, if you take something, if it feels hurtful, that you shouldn't feel hurt, like feel hurt, but understand that there's something about receiving other people's boundary, right? That I have tried to find gratitude in.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  And like, one of the things I often say, if I ask a friend for something or to do something for me, right, and they say no, because they're busy or don't have the capacities for it, whatever, is I say, thank you, because I don't want my folks to extend themselves in ways that are crossing their own boundaries, right, that are beyond what is a like, healthy limitation for them. And rarely am I in a position where there's only one person, right, who can do a thing for me, or where the thing is life or death. And if it is life or death, people will say yes. And that, and so when I receive the no, right, it's not about rejection

• 46:05Speaker 02

  of me, right, it is about them caring for themselves. And since I care about them, and I want them to be well, I feel like I want to receive their no with some gratitude and some thanks. And then the other thing I think is that people often have a hard time saying no. So saying thank you, when people say no, relieves some of that social pressure that we often feel to say yes. And I want my folks to know that, like, I care about them, and I want them to feel like they can say no to me, when they can't give freely of whatever is that I'm asking for.

• 46:38Dan Harris?

  What do you do if you've got a person who's consistently saying no, and also asking for a lot?

• 46:45Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't have that. But I think that what I would do is have a conversation. So one of the things my therapist said to me and my husband, very early, when we were in couples therapy with her, is she said, resentment is information for you, that a boundary has been crossed. And I was so mad about that, because I was like, isn't resentment, when I get to be like, self righteous about somebody else, like fucking up or not doing enough? So if I'm asking something of somebody and they're consistently saying no, and I'm doing a lot for them and I'm feeling resentful, that's information for me

• 47:29Speaker 02

  that I maybe shouldn't be providing as much in that relationship. And part of it depends on what it is, right? Like if it's somebody who like can't do that, like I'm not gonna, like there's a match that you have to act, have to kind of like have with what it is you're asking for and somebody's capacity. And if I'm consistently asking them for something they don't have the capacity for, that means I need to understand more about what their capacity is. But I feel like you're asking for a question about contexts in which people often, like they're in relationships with people who are a little selfish, right? And are often asking for things but not giving. And then I'm like, yeah, so for me, a balanced relationship, right?

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Is I don't want to be giving things to people who are selfish and are not willing to give of themselves. So for me, the answer would be, I mean, I'd want to have the conversation, but it's also like, then I need to provide less, right? I need to, I'm no longer giving freely if I'm feeling resentful. So I need to set my own boundary around what it is I'm going to do for that person. Now there, I definitely have people in my life for whom I do more for them than they do for me, and I'm fine with it. It doesn't feel, it like is an easy thing for me to do and there's nothing I actually want from them. And that feels fine to me. And again, it's because I'm not thinking that the relationship needs to be reciprocal, that there needs to be balance, because human beings aren't that way, right?

• 48:52Speaker 02

  We all have different capacities and abilities and people got shit going on in their lives, right? So if I'm not feeling resentful, then that's fine. But if I am, then I need to like reassess what's going on in that relationship for me.

• 49:07Dan Harris?

  Yeah, that makes sense. I, I think I have friends where it's not strictly equal, but. It doesn't really matter. I have so much going for me in terms of luck vis a vis, you know, like the womb I came out of and all the opportunities that have been showered down upon me in my life. And so other people may not have that, but I want them in my life. And so if it's not entirely a one way street, but you know, most of the traffic is going in one direction, that's fine. It's worth it. But, okay, so I know, I know you get this question a lot, and I know you didn't write a how to book. But I can imagine there are a lot of people listening saying, oh, well, we hear in every fucking TED Talk that we need to have social connection in order to be happy. And you, Dan Harris, are telling

• 49:51Dan Harris?

  this all, us this all the time on this show. So like, what do we do about it? I'm an introvert, or I don't know that many people. I just moved to a new city. You know, what are the practical steps I could take?

• 50:02Speaker 02

  So the first thing that, yes, I get asked this question all the time. And I always say, I don't know. But this is the question, this is the thing I feel like we need to ask ourselves, right? There's some internal questioning that I feel like I need to do about what kind of connection I'm looking for. And why? Like, I really want to understand what is the space in myself that I have for relationship? What are the things that I need from relationship? And like, what kinds of relationships can I get that from? So one of the things that just came up for me is I'm thinking about like, you know, Mia in her twenties was often

• 50:45Speaker 02

  looking for romantic relationships to fill some hole in myself. And that is not a hole that's ever going to be filled by a romantic relationship. And at some point, I got to a place where I realized that, and I got to take care of myself around that thing. And it allowed for romantic relationships that, that function in a very different way, and that were not problematic for me. So I think knowing, are these things that I need to get from myself, or these things that I need to get from other people is really important.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  And then I think that there's a, I mean, you kind of brought up a bunch of different scenarios, right? So when I think about the introvert, I think about how many introverts know an extrovert and can like pair up with that person. And like, a lot of this requires that we tell on ourselves, right? That we actually say to the people in our lives, this is a thing that I feel like I need to work on. This is something I want more of in my life. Can we talk about how to do that with each other? Or can we talk about how to do that in our community? Or can you tell me how you did that here, right? In this particular context? So that's one thing. It's just like, you know, I mean, one of the things people often talk about is getting to know their neighbors. And I'm like,

• 51:56Speaker 02

  there's no magic like skill you need to get to know your neighbors. I've told people to like, especially if they're introverts, I'm like, pair up with the one, you know, extroverted neighbor you know, or another introverted neighbor. So y'all can just support each other. Like, you know, when I get a new neighbor to my neighborhood, we have a bakery that's real close. So I buy some cupcakes or whatever. I write a note and I welcome them to the neighborhood. I give them my cellphone number and my husband's cellphone number and I leave it on their doorstep, right? And inevitably, I get a text, you know, that day saying, thank you. And then if there's a relationship to build beyond, can you just pick up a package for me? That's when that starts. And my, on my neighborhood,

• 52:38Speaker 02

  like we have, there's a group text with a handful of us who we watch each other's animals. I never worry if I'm like out of lemons or onions or soy sauce or whatever. I know somebody else is gonna have it and I can, you know, get it. We make the kids do the like running across the street to get whatever the thing is. And that like, that's like the beginning of those relationships, right? And then, you know, you don't need to be best friends with your neighbors, but y'all should definitely know your neighbors. I feel like that's a piece of advice that I will, I'll like die on that hill. You should know who your neighbors are. The other thing I think is especially for folks who are like, you know, have just moved. Is that you don't, we don't build these relationships in a day, right? Relationships take time to build. You have to find your people.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  It is certainly more challenging when you're not a child in school or in college anymore to build those kinds of relationships. So like, part of what we, we assume is going to happen in the context of school is that we're going to meet people who are going to be friends with. Sometimes you meet those people in your workplace and that's great if that happens. And sometimes it just takes time and you have to like be out in the world. And it has been really hard for folks to be out in the world for the last several years, because out in the world has been a dangerous place. But there's just some like spaciousness we need to give ourselves as we begin to find the places where our people are going to be. And then I do think there is this process of like actually having conversations

• 54:04Speaker 02

  with people who you're already in relationship about like what kind of relationship you want. And to see if they want something that can be more close or reliable or like, you know, kind of take it to whatever the next level would be in terms of that friendship or relationship.

• 54:22Dan Harris?

  You see what you just did there, which is you said, I don't know. When I asked you a question about how do we do this thing? And then you listed a bunch of actual actionable tips.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Yes. So I have lots, there are lots and lots of things. I think that often when people ask the question of how, they're looking for an answer, right? Like, and part of it is that I, I think that there is this way in which we actually need to ask ourselves and remind ourselves that being in relationship is who we are. And we actually know how to do it. We just have to give ourselves permission to do it because it can feel really fucking awkward. We can feel like we're out of practice. And again, I feel like that is because of the system that we live inside of, right? That doesn't encourage connection. It encourages us to get the things we need through transaction, right?

• 55:14Speaker 02

  One of the hallmarks of American success is that you've hoarded enough resources so that you can get everything you need through transaction. And you don't actually need to like rely on anybody else because you can't trust other people to show up for you. So this is like a reclaiming of what it means to be a person. And many of us are out of practice with that, right? We feel like if we ask somebody for help, then we owe them. Right? Because we think of help as something that you usually pay for or get or as some kind of like reciprocal transactional thing. And this is something that is much more organic. This is something that is much more human.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  And we have a lot of kind of detress to remove from our assumptions about who we are, our assumptions about what other, who other people are and what we all want in order to return to this thing that we actually do know how to do, which is build and be in relationship with each other.

• 56:13Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Mia talks about the etymological connection between the words friendship and freedom and the transformative power of asking for help.

• 56:30Speaker 04

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star Trust Pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 57:04Dan Harris?

  I've committed a bit of journalistic malpractice, which is I'm only asking you now about a thing you often say that I like so much. In fact, was the reason why I wanted to have you on because I'd heard you say this elsewhere. You talk about the etymological connection between friendship and freedom.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 57:25Dan Harris?

  Can you lay that on us, please?

• 57:28Speaker 02

  This is like one of my favorite things and partly because this research that I came across is actually what I'm doing now. So when I was doing research for my book, I came across in a couple of different places, actually. So this information about freedom that just like. Resonated with me I had never heard before and I just like I could not let go of it. So one is that the etymological root of the word friendship and the word freedom is a Sanskrit word that means beloved and just that in and of itself. I was like, oh, friendship and freedom, they used to like sit together, right? They like came from the same womb. And I was just like, I don't know how to think about that, but yes, like my spirit

• 58:10Speaker 02

  just said yes to that information. And then the other piece was that pre 1500s, right? In a like very different Western context from the one we have right now, someone who was enslaved was understood as being unfree, partly because they were in bondage, but also because they had been separated from their people. So that to be free was to be in connected community. And again, this like totally resonated with me and it just made sense to me because of what I know about human biology and who we are as people, right? Like we be in the tribe, right? Like that's just like our state of being is with the

• 58:52Speaker 02

  collective. And I went down like three different rabbit holes in my mind when I read these pieces of information. So the first piece was it recast for me my understanding of Black people's experience in America. And if we think about your people as not just being, you know, the human beings that you like are in proximity to, but your ancestors, the land that you're on, your relationships with other living things, right? So that when Black folks were kidnapped and trafficked from African continent across the ocean, we were obviously we bring separated like deeply from our people. And then if you look

• 59:37Speaker 02

  at the way that slavery was practiced in America, like there was this intrinsic piece of it that was about the constant threat of being sold away from your people. And then obviously for many people, the experience of being sold away from your people. If you look at the, you know, kind of post reconstruction, white supremacist terrorism in the South that created a refugee crisis that we call the Great Migration, right? Again, Black folks being driven away from land and family. Through to the prison industrial complex, to child protective services, there's been this American project of trying to make Black people unfree by separating us

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  from each other. And we see this too with Indigenous folks and boarding schools with practices at the US border with Mexico, people being separated from each other as a way of making them unfree. And then, of course, anytime you're perpetrating any kind of oppression on people, there's always the resistance to it, right? So Black folks jumping overboard slave ships, being like, I'm gonna get back to my people one way or another. People, obviously, rebelling, running away from, resisting, being away from their folks on plantation. After emancipation, there were thousands of advertisements placed by Black folks who

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  were trying to find loved ones who they hadn't seen in decades. They're archived, you can find them online. They're beautiful and utterly heartbreaking. And then I think about a lot of the resistance movements that exist being about like, how are we making sure that we can be with each other? And then, like, I can't tell you how many Black folks I know who found out, like, when they were grownups, that, you know, their Uncle Bobby is not actually their father's brother, but is their father's, like, best friend from, you know, grade school. So there's this way in which we also just, like, make family with each other. So there was that rabbit hole of just, like, understanding this American project to try to make Black people unfree and our resistance to that kind of unfreedom.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  The other rabbit hole I went down was thinking about what I had learned and what kind of gets promoted as freedom in America. And that it is deeply about independence. It is about, again, like, getting enough resources so that you can get everything you need through transaction and not relationship. A hallmark of American freedom is that you can do whatever the fuck you want and not be responsible for or accountable to anybody. And as I thought about that, I was like, oh, that's like, actually the opposite of freedom. We've

• 1:02:23Speaker 02

  been told, there's been this, like, hundreds-year grift that America has been pulling on all of us, telling us that freedom is a thing that's actually the opposite of freedom. And then I thought about-

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  What would this country be like if we believed that to be free was to be in connected community? What would our economy look like? What would our school system look like? What would our healthcare system look like? What would our neighborhoods be like? How would we think about designing, right? Like cities? How would it change the way that we, what we expect from each other and what we expect from, you know, government or other institutions? And I was like, well, that's the world I want to live in. I want that one. The one where we believe, as Thaddeus Loehmer said, right? Nobody's free unless everybody's free. Where we recognize, right?

• 1:03:20Speaker 02

  That like, my well-being actually is dependent on the well-being of my neighbors. And that when I, um, you know, in the example I gave of that cantilevered, everybody sitting on each other's laps thing, right? When I hold you, everybody else is holding me. That's the world that I want to live in.

• 1:03:41Dan Harris?

  Last question from me. You say freedom is a practice. What does that mean?

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  So if being free is about being in connected community, right? That's not a thing that you just step into and then it's there. It actually is a thing that we need to practice. It is a thing we need to work on both kind of our own, like noticing the places that we have where we don't believe it, either because we don't trust that we can have it or something in us is resisting it. You know, like, one of the things that I absolutely struggle with is asking for help, right? Is like, not kind of doing whatever it is myself. I feel like the, our audience can, is absolutely familiar with this.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  But if I believe that freedom is a collective practice, then my asking for help, right? My well-being is something that the people who love me actually are invested in. And people want to help me. Because part of the reason we don't ask for help is because we believe that it makes us weak. But the other thing is that we don't think people will actually help us. I would go so far as to say it's a kind of self-hatred. To be independent. So I feel like I need to push myself to ask for help when I feel myself being resistant to it because I'm uncomfortable with it. In the summer of 2021, I was diagnosed with colon cancer.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  And I remember making an explicit decision to not be a strong person through it, to not be like, I'mma kick cancer's ass, like, I'mma do, you know, all of that, to like, perform a kind of, you know, strong black woman. And I wrote emails to, well, first, there was like, a group of folks who like, anointed themselves my care squad. And I wrote an email to my community and I was like, this is what's happening. I want all of you to help me.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  There are things that only I can do, right? Nobody else can go through chemo for me. Nobody else can go through surgery and recover. Nobody else can hydrate me. Like, there are things that I have to do myself, but I was like, everything else that can be done by another person, I'm asking you all to do that. And my community showed up in the most gorgeous, beautiful, powerful way. And I will also say, because we were talking about the conditions that allow us to be in community earlier, this was this period of the pandemic, which, for my folks, things

• 1:06:42Speaker 02

  had slowed down a lot, right? People were not working as much. There was a lot of spaciousness. And I know that folks would have shown up for me before and they would show up for me now, but I think that there was a way in which the conditions that we were existing in allowed for a level of joy and creativity in the way that people showed up for me. So like, me and my family being fed, that was a given. That was like, the low bar. There were spreadsheets. There was a walk crew of folks who would come to my house and make sure I was going for walks. There was an errand crew that like if I needed anything, the captain of the errand crew would like text everybody and somebody would go

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  get whatever it was. When I was in the hospital, getting part of my colon removed, there was a group of people on the lawn of the hospital singing for me. My folks created a joy fund for me that was like a pot of money for me to just spend on something that brought me joy. I bought art supplies because I could be in bed and do art. And that, asking for help, that decision transformed certainly my experience of going through surgery and

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  chemotherapy. And just to be clear, I'm like totally fine now. It supported my family, right? Because it's COVID and I have no immune system. No one can come in our house, right? So my husband's doing a lot of the caretaking inside, but there was a whole bunch of people outside making sure that whatever we needed for that care to happen was available. But the thing that I kept hearing over and over again was how beautiful and nurturing it was for the people who were able to help me to be in the, in a community of folks who were supporting me, right? Like it did something for them. And I hope that this is a lesson that I never forget. Because one, it was, I mean, it was uncomfortable

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  sometimes to be asking, right? And to know that like, I'm not, I'm just sitting here being sick and feeling like shit. Like I'm not doing anything for anybody. So it was uncomfortable. But I could see, and people told me over and over again, how much beauty and joy it brought them to be able to support me in that way, but also to be doing it with this group of people, right? There were hundreds of people involved and they didn't all know each other. But there was a way in which they could see. Like how other people were supporting me. It felt like people felt like they were alive. People felt, and especially in this moment when we were going through this pandemic, it brought people a sense of purpose and capacity and a belief that like we can do

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  these things for each other.

• 1:09:36Dan Harris?

  It's a great story and I'm glad you're as healthy as you look.

• 1:09:40Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:09:40Dan Harris?

  And I really agree with you about the thing we often overlook that giving people a chance to be decent, to be helpful, to be generous, actually is a kind of a gift. And that's a great point that you make. I'm really grateful to you for coming on the show. Before I let you go, could you please shamelessly plug your book, your new organization, anything else you want to plug, your favorite TV show, whatever it is?

• 1:10:10Speaker 02

  Someday I will have a TV show. So the book is called How We Show Up: Reclaiming Friendship, Family and Community, or Family, Friendship and Community, I don't remember, but How We Show Up. And my organization is called Next River. It's an institute for practicing the future. We are doing this big project right now called Freedom's Revival, which has been, started what we've done so far is the research on the kind of conditions that are necessary for collective freedom. In mid to late September, we'll be releasing the research that we've put together. It'll be on our website, which is nextriver.org. I think it'll be really amazing to read. That's all I got so far.

• 1:10:50Dan Harris?

  Awesome. Keep up the good work and thank you again for coming on the show, Mia Birdsong.

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:11:04Dan Harris?

  Thanks again to Mia Birdsong. Awesome to talk to her. Don't forget to go sign up at danharris.com if you want to participate in our free New Year's Meditation Challenge, which will be running from January 5th through the 11th. Joseph Goldstein will be our teacher. He has crafted an amazing series of seven guided meditations that really are a kind of masterclass and on-ramp. To Buddhist meditation, great for beginners, great for people who've been meditating for a long time. If you join us, I'll be doing the challenge right alongside you. I'll be doing a bunch of live sessions to complement the challenge. Video sessions where you can come meditate a little bit more with me and then ask me some questions. It's going to be amazing and it will be run through our new 10% app,

• 1:11:49Dan Harris?

  which I can't believe I get to say, I can't believe I get to have an app again. If you want to sign up for the challenge and for the app, go to danharris.com. The challenge is totally free and there's also a free 30 day trial for the app if you want to try it before you buy it. Yeah, super excited about this. Finally, thank you to everybody who worked so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

• 1:12:31Speaker 04

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star Trust Pilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.