Accelerating community connections
Battling loneliness one connection at a time
When I sit down to write to you, I do my best to picture you.
Yep, you, sitting there in your chair, reading this.
I like to think of each message as a gateway to a new friendship. And sometimes, when I’m very lucky, those friendships leap off the screen and into real life.
I first met Hansen Hunt last January. I was wrapping up enrollment for The Hive when he emailed me. It turns out he’d been reading my newsletters for some time, but we hadn’t interacted.
That email was the start of a wonderful online friendship. And last month, I was tickled pink when I got to meet Hansen in real life. He was visiting UNC Chapel Hill in my corner of the world, and we took the opportunity to have coffee and wander a local bookstore together along with his partner, Sara Schairer.
Hansen is a marvelous community builder. He’s Head of Community at Covve where he leads the Connection Crew, a group of connection professionals on a mission to flatten the loneliness epidemic curve. He also founded B-Side Racing Team, an inclusive competitive running community, and he serves as a mentor supporting men to do their inner work in The Jungle, a ManKind Project circle.
Hansen’s mission: co-creating a deeply connected and loving world by bringing people together.
During the pandemic, when so many people were struggling with isolation and loneliness, Hansen became deeply involved in community mentorship. Through his men’s group, he began developing a new skill he calls “accelerated intimacy.”
“We have the skills and the processes and the culture in the group to help a new member drop in and be vulnerable the very first time they show up,” he said. “That leads to that support system everyone needs in their life – who do you go to for help? In an emergency, who do you call?”
With a healthy core in place, community leaders can scale intimacy. (Hansen is quick to credit Jenny Sauer-Klein for this term and for all of her work as the founder and CEO of the Scaling Intimacy School of Experience Design.) Your community might bring people together to learn information or master a skill, but members can and should develop deep, genuine friendships there.
To scale intimacy in your community, Hansen suggests giving people opportunities to know each other more deeply. In the Connection Crew events rather than mixing up breakout rooms every round, Hansen gives attendees three chances to be in a breakout room with the same person.
The first time, the discussion topic is an icebreaker question. The second round goes a little deeper, letting participants dip their toe in the water of vulnerability. The third one offers an opportunity to go all in with a vulnerable personal story.
“You leave this event like, ‘Wow, I shared so much with this person,’” he said. “And you find you really want to hang out with that person again.”
Our society is more connected than ever, but the detached, impersonal nature of those connections has left many people flailing in a sea of loneliness.
Community is the cure.
Whatever mission drives you, by taking the community route, you’ve made creating a sense of belonging an integral part of it.
As you build your community, be careful not to become so caught up in the tactics and the metrics of success that you lose sight of the humanity.
When you talk to your community, do your best to picture one person.
Talk to that person. Inspire them. Make them feel understood. Make them feel they belong.
Your community enriches members’ lives. If you let them, they’ll enrich your life as well.
You belong,
P.S. Want to experience scaled intimacy for yourself? Hansen’s community The Connection Crew by Covve is hosting a Joyful Masterclass event for connection professionals May 30 at 9 a.m. PT. See the details and RSVP here!
Ready to build a thriving community without feeling lost, overwhelmed, or alone? The Hive is a space where community founders support one another as they build and scale profitable communities.