Practice With + A Third Place
The things you want to improve on, practice them.
The things you REALLY want to improve on, practice them with others.
When planning your 2023 goals, intentions, or resolutions, find a community that can help you fulfill them. Whether it is running, baking, entrepreneurship, or under water basket weaving This will be the difference to your success.
A big reason that we are creating the Empathy Athlete Community (EAC) is because we’ve learned that many people lack a space to be themselves and learn subject matter in a judgement free way. By creating and holding a safe space to be ourselves, converse, and learn from one another in a place that is not work and not home, we establish what Ray Oldenburg calls a third place. Churches, malls, clubs, libraries, meetups like Creative Mornings and the local Del Taco for me in high school constituted a third place. I could argue that my graduate school industrial design studio was also a third place. None-the-less, EL’s learnings over years of running empathy practices and coaching individuals brings us to this - the need for a third place for being empathetic and evolving humans.
A third place is described to have eight characteristics that allow you to relax, meet new people, and see old ones. The eight characteristics summarized by scholars of Olderburg’s book, The Great Good Place (1989) are as followed:
Neutral ground - little to no obligation to be there
Leveler - a place where people are equal and status outside doesn’t transfer
Conversation is the main activity - communication and story sharing is key
Accessibility and accommodation - open and readily accessible
The regulars - common people in the community that set the tone
Low profile - not extravagant and simple
Mood is playful - upbeat tone even during difficult conversations
A home away from home - a place to be themselves, spiritual regeneration
The EAC will strive to create space that meets these characteristics. Like other focused third places, EL will facilitate topical conversations and practices that follow the Empathy Decathlon framework. By following our framework for building me-empathy and we-empathy community members know why they are here, what they are getting, and the types of people they are likely to practice with.
EAC starts on January 1, 2023! More practice with details over here.
