Meetups failed until I stopped treating them like spreadsheets. Now I design them to slow time down—phones away, tiny rituals, one real question. People stay longer and feel it.
The story
Before I started treating meetups like living organisms, I treated them like… spreadsheets.
Room booked? Check. RSVPs? Check. Pizza? Double check. People came, nodded, left. Time felt fast and flat. No real community, just overlapping calendars.
After 20 years nerding out on empathy [see: EmpathyBot.net, and my book “A Practical EmPath: Rewire Your Mind”], I run them very differently.
Now I start with one clear line: “[Topic] for people who want [specific outcome].”
Then I design the event to *slow time down*:
– Phones away, eyes up. – Short, clear agreements: respect, no interruptions, start/end on time. – Tiny rituals of presence: 60 seconds to notice how you feel, a paired share, one question that actually matters.
Result? People leave saying, “That felt longer than an hour… in a good way.”
In Chapter 24 of “A Practical EmPath,” I unpack this “slowing down time” effect: how focused attention + empathy stretch our experience of a moment.
If you’re starting a meetup, don’t just plan events. Build a lab for presence.
Run your next gathering as an experiment in slowing time—and watch a group turn into a community.
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