Emily Esfahani Smith

in the kind of cultures and organizations that we're a part of to cultivate belonging.

I talk about cultures of meaning in my book, The Power of Meaning, and it's, your family could be a culture of meaning, your school, your organization, whatever communities that you're involved with, you can turn it into a culture of meaning by creating the conditions that facilitate belonging.

So, for example, I remember,

I know years ago I was at a dinner, you know, a group of 15 people.

None of us knew each other or some of us did, but we were not close.

It was, you know, very much on the professional level.

And the person hosting the dinner

had us go around and talk about something that feels really challenging right now and something that we're really hopeful for, and also the best moment of our life, something like that.

So we all went around and did that as an icebreaker, and it really made the group feel connected.

So what's the takeaway from that?

I think creating spaces where we can have genuine, meaningful conversations with one another, it can be a way to cultivate belonging.

And maybe if there's that person who doesn't want to engage, maybe one way to get them to engage is to ask them about their own life.

What are they hopeful for?

What is challenging right now?

And then that can be a portal to belonging.

Well, I think that, you know, even though things feel like they're, you know, falling apart and they're all, you know, all these existential threats and whatnot, you know, if you do take the long view of history, it's, you know, things are improving.

You know, people are living longer.

People live in societies, you know, living with more freedom.

You know, things are getting better overall.

And I think that that gives me a sense of hope.