Why You Feel Lonely in a Crowded City - And How to Fix It | Nini Fritz

Why does so many people feel lonely, even though we've never been more connected? Welcome to the Lonely Chapter, a podcast for people who are doing okay on the surface, but quietly unsure how to live well. Today's episode is with Ninny Fritz, a connection and wellbeing facilitator exploring one of the quiet tensions of modern life, the gap between being seen online and being known in real life. In this conversation, we talk about the big city loneliness, the dopamine loop of social media and why having lots of interactions isn't the same as having real connection. We also explore what actually helps people rebuild community again, from intentional office spaces to learning how to be more at home with yourself. This conversation is about attention, belonging and what it really means to feel connected. If this resonates, please do follow or subscribe where you're listening. It helps these conversations reach the people who might need them. Let's get into it. Ninny, considering that this podcast is called the Lonely Chapter, where better place to start, why do you think people are feeling so lonely in this world? That is a very good question. I wish I had a solution for it, but at least I do think I have an answer. Based on my assumption and research in the field, it's because of the rise of social media. We're so connected in the online world that we have thousands of Instagram followers, LinkedIn connections, YouTube subscribers, which makes us think that we're super connected. Once we have that reality check in, it's 3am friends, who would you call when you actually have a problem, the numbers significantly drops. For males, even more than for females, but the amount of actual strong real life friends is significantly low and it's like this perceived misconception of what we think we have available in our lives in terms of relationships compared to the shocking reality of what's actually left under the bottom line makes us feel extremely lonely. Plus also, all these online connections are rather superficial instead of actually feeling our need for depth and meaning. It's quantity of equality and it actually doesn't leave us as fulfilled, as a handful of good friends. It's interesting for something that's so, like I say, you're connected in a way to these thousands, sometimes more people and people can still feel so lonely with that and just disconnected. I suppose comparison comes into it too, which we'll get into in a moment, but can an online connection ever be like a true connection, do you think? I generally think it can for sure. I think the beauty of these online connection is that sometimes when, let's say we live in a small town and we have a very neat specific interest, then we can't really find like-minded people in our local community. The online world opens like a whole new world for us to actually connect with the people that we truly want to connect with in terms of shared interests and not just closest proximity, but I think deep down it just comes back to intention. Like what is the main reason you're reaching out to people online? Is it for validation? Is it for likes and followers? Or is it for genuine connections and shared interests? And I think that makes a difference. I suppose, yes, it's the intention exactly that is how you connect with that person. Are you just looking at them, checking that they're liking all your stuff and not really talking to them? Or are you jumping on a video call every week because they're the other side of the world? And that's the only way you can keep up with what they're doing. Yeah, because like consumption and engagement doesn't necessarily form connection. It's like you can like someone's story or you can watch someone's story, but then it's not like an exchange. It's just like an acknowledgement of each other's existence. So you know that person's been there seeing that and like in a mildest way is interacting with your life, but it's not an exchange. It's not like a two-dimensional street or conversation. It's just a one-sided acknowledgement, which gives our brain like a signal of like dopamine and like I'm being validated. I met her, but it's just not the same as a real-life hug or a smile or a genuine compliment. Yeah. We've like been tricked to chase that dopamine in the engagement and the number of likes and it's an umber of views going up. It's an umber of light's going up and almost been tricked into trying to use that to replace connection. Surely in the sake of all these people liking my stuff, then I must matter, then I must be important. And it actually is also like neuroscientifically proven that every single like and social media, every single you know push notification, someone engaging with our content sends out the same amount of dopamine and end of the end of the end of our brain as someone smiling at us. So it basically known just under the bottom line tells us that we're craving connection, we're craving this validation and being seen by others and because we just have like this quicker access to it in terms of quantity, once we put a picture out there and like a hundred people liking it. Honestly, we generate like how much time does it take to generate like a hundred genuine smiles from strangers on the street, probably forever. So a brain is just trying to go like the easy way to dopamine and those feel good hormones. So we're gravitating towards the online world for this quicker rush, but it's just not as fulfilling. It's kind of like going for junk food instead of this nourishing soulful because we're just hungry. We got to get something in our system that feels a correct need, but it's not necessarily like this sustainable like long term, um nourishing healing that we deeply deeply crave. Hmm, we're going for that quick fix rather than the the long the right. The right. The right. Humans are still being humans. And let's talk about the real world. So when we look at big cities, so I know London, you're the other side of the world, but when we look at these big cities, what is big city loneliness? I've seen you speak about that. Yeah, yeah, big city loneliness is in itself almost like a what's the word like a contradiction in itself because you know, we're surrounded by millions of people. So you would think it's much easier to connect with a lot of people, but it's almost becoming like, oh well, you're exposed to so much stimulation to like hundreds of people when you're rushing to work in the metro, in a rush hour at work, wherever you are that you're actually not going for depth, like you just have a lot of like weak ties and, um, you know, like under us connections, but they're not actually meaningful connections like there's a lack of eye contact, um, there's a lack of like warm the section actually knowing your neighbor is that recently heard that apparently only like 5% in big cities actually know their neighbors that we don't know their faces, we don't know their names, um, because it's often like very fast paced, especially in this very globalized world, like living in big cities, like you tend to to live in a global mounting part, but just also means people might just be there for like a short time, not like a long time, it just come for great work opportunities, but they're not necessarily here to settle. So it's more like short term connections, um, because you work in close proximity or you go to the same gym, but, um, yeah, people are so busy as young professionals living in big cities, and then the quantity of people on your environment doesn't necessarily make up for the quality, and then it's quite a similar effect than the social media that we think we have all these connections available, and then we actually end up feeling lonely, because we look around trying to lock eyes and we don't need a single pair of eyes to connect deeper, um, and then we again feel this gap between perceived connections around us, and actual absolute connections in our lives. It's so interesting because like you say it sounds like it shouldn't be possible because we're surrounded by these people, and you go to, especially in the UK, you go to like the rural areas, you won't pass to anyone, and it's eye contact and a hello and a smile, and as a Londoner you go like, this is strange, but then when they come to London, it's like everyone's head down in their phones, on their way to the next meeting, like don't look at me, if you look at me, I'm gonna think you're weird, that's what it's like. Yeah, it's like you're trying to avoid it not to be perceived as a creed. Yeah. I think as a woman, it's probably easier to get away with it, but as a man, especially like when you're, you know, not in your 20s anymore, let's put it out way, like might come across the wrong way, if you're just trying to make like genuine human connection and a share of moment of eye contact with someone. And I do think a not effector in cities like London or here in Sydney as well is that the costs of living are so extremely high that people actually live in one better, it's like very small apartments. So even if you want to nurture a connection or relationship, just inviting people over to your home, which is like a fast route to create, like this deeper connection and like deepening a relationship by inviting someone into your home, into your place, like into your private setting, that's a, you know, it's a fast track to connecting deeper. And because people actually don't have the capacity of no, like the financial means to to afford like big apartments, that is another component that we don't get to act on really. So you either like meeting outside in restaurants, which adds up. So people definitely save money on eating out, or maybe just for like an afterwork with your colleagues, but you're pretty much seeing them all day. And that doesn't mean you're connecting because they actually like each other, it might just be because it's convenient not to schedule anything extra instead of traveling halfway across the city to catch up with that one friend that you actually share a good conversation with. How do we start to fix this then? So we've spoken about the social media aspect, the online world, which we're talking about the real world and especially cities, but also there will be people not in cities who do feel lonely as well. What's the answer? There's obviously not one simple answer as we've done it, but luckily I do feel like there's a movement at the moment that's coming towards us. I feel like every high is followed by like a craving for less. You climb up high and high and high as like more social media, bigger cities, like more fast pace and eventually you just want to slow down and it's like take me back to the roots. So there's actually a bunch of initiatives popping up, like the offline club for instance started in Amsterdam, which was like a huge initiative to create like more intentional and fun offline events that bring people together by actually locking their phones at the entrance. So they're not allowed to use phones and they have different setups. They can do like silent reading nights, but then also no connection games, sport games, anything that you know just gets people to get either connect with themselves or with each other and that actually had created a very positive ripple effect into other cities as well. They're now having community managers and I think in London and Munich and Lisbon. That's definitely one thing. Then there's also, it's massive in Sydney, but I do think it's also pretty popular in other cities. Rum clubs at a new night clubs. Last year or so they popped up everywhere. Yeah, like honestly like people here are joking that nightlife is dead and like people especially like Jen said, they don't go out anymore like strawberry matchas are now the vodka, vodka soda and 20 gems. And that's like a great way for people to mingle organically, like with that fresh just broken up NAD before you give your all at work and then you know you come home after work and you're just being a bit depleted and you only have let's say 20% left in the tank. The idea is really to socialize before work when you have like your freshest NAD ideally after coffee. So there's lots of like intentional community events that actually drift away from drinking. So I do feel like alcohol is a little less popular than it used to be and more genuine organic connections, morning raves, anything that gets people to connect before they even go to work. It's definitely a big thing to bring people together in the real world. And then there's also great initiatives that actually use the perks of social media or the online world to get people together in real life. Like one of them for instance is time left. So there's a great initiative where basically you sign up to the app or to a platform and you feel like a sort of personality test and then they match you with a group of I think it's five strangers on a Wednesday evening. This then you location for a restaurant and then five strangers meet up in a restaurant and you have a vague schedule or agenda of like game to play topics to talk about. So it's not like awkward silence. But yeah using the power of social media and you know it's not black or white. It's just the matter of like how are we using it to then actually bring people together that otherwise would not have met and mean same counts for online dating. There's nothing wrong about it. But if you just go for quantity instead of actually going for quality and generally meeting someone it's it's losing its purpose. But yeah definitely like great initiatives of using the power of social media and getting people together in the offline world and yeah creating more communities. I think really community and intention especially in big cities. It's that's what makes the major difference. I think in person communities is something that's going to be more and more popular in the next few years. Everything says I agree with. I think there's a slight step away from being online as much and people want to try and be more purposeful and it comes back to that word that you said earlier in tension. It's how you're using it. So what mindset are you using when you go into that social media app? Are you going to find someone and chat to them? Are you just going to scroll for an hour and waste time that you kind of remember what video you watched two minutes ago? Yeah. So yeah I definitely think that's a good thing and hopefully with yourself and the more people who are speaking about it it will become more and more popular. If someone is feeling lonely right now you've obviously said a couple with like the run clubs and stuff like that and a couple of those apps. What are some of the easiest ways for people to go out and meet people? That's a good question because I think it's very subjective. There's no one fits all solution. I do think we're all unique in our own colorful and wonderful ways. So I think it's definitely different approach for extroverts compared to introverts. Like extroverts, they supercharge their energy by surrounding their self in a social environment and introverts actually they meet their me time to or like very intentional time with very few like-minded people. So they definitely have a different approach than the extroverts who just want to go out and meet everyone. But yeah it depends on the city I would say meetup is still a big thing so that's an online community where you can basically find communities for literally everything. If you want to go hiking, if you want to do a pop crawl, if you want to do yoga night, like people, share those events and then everyone can just tag along. So be proactive, I think that's one of the things. Like look out for the local community platform and then yeah just be well aware. Like I I speak of my own experience. I would say I'm definitely much more of an extrovert but when I move back to Sydney last year after being out for five years, honestly it's tough being a new one. Like it does require a lot of activation energy to have a lot of day ones with people and it can be very like frustrating especially if you're new to a city you just want to go back to your comforts zones. Like you're always you just move to a new place it's like you're probably always just one click away from booking a flight or booking a train ticket back to your comfort zone where like people know your name you don't have to crack the same jokes or bring over again. Like you have your standing like you walk in and they just you know you share history with people but don't let it hold you back from showing up like connections have to be nurtured. Like I think we live in this fast pays one click instant gratification society that we expect it everything is available in the snap of a finger like we want something online we buy it on Amazon we want to watch a movie we don't have to go to blockbuster like we can just you know click on it on Netflix like we just have to instant gratification around us and it works in so many different ways in our digital environment but it does not work for deep connections and relationships in our lives that they have to be nurtured and we have to consistently show up and and nurture them and I think you move to a new city it always comes a bit with like like a sorting out phase back in the beginning it's about quantity like you just show up to as many different community events of whatever vaguely takes the box like anything that sounds interesting like can be a surf club can be a meditation group can be a business group like anything that vaguely resonates with one part of your personality bubbles and then you go and then you figure it out after if you enjoy that if you want to go back or you don't but you have to go to figure it out and then sometimes it's not like an instant hell yes you maybe have to go again and then you have to go a third time and eventually you get your foot in the door you become like a familiar face and people let you in but don't underestimate how challenging that could be so that's definitely one thing like don't give up too early because no it's um yeah it takes a little bit of time to crack through the wall but once you're in you're in and then you're so grateful and you're going to be so proud of yourself that you didn't give up and that you consistently showed up because there is going to be a turning point and also depends whether it's like whether a winter or summer like literally people change their personalities community life is a whole different life people are out and about if the weather is sunny and warm and people just want to hang out in the pack like this much more going on so invest in those relationships and yeah don't don't give up truly people think they have to fit into whatever everyone else is doing as well so like if it is a drinking culture place I've got to go to the pub I don't really like drinking but I sort of do it maybe I'll meet someone and then maybe they'll like what I like so we're actually now in a place where if you've got a very niche thing and you like warhammer or you like whatever else is you're really into reading specific books yeah whatever it is you can go online and find people if you like chests you go to a chess club you can go to these places where your passion is everyone else's passion and you're finding all these people with this shares like the thing that you love and especially for introverts when you speak to an introvert or someone who maybe struggles to communicate as easily as some other people they are quite quiet and reserved until you find that one thing that they love and then they just talk and they love it so I think if you can if you can use that as an introvert find whatever you love and try and go and meet other people that love that as well like find your spark yeah I also think honestly it's like a beautiful way to reconnect with yourself like if you move to new city or even if you just want to reinvent yourself in a place you've always been living in um yeah I feel like the more you move with the more you change your environments like you sooner or later you're gonna come to the realization that everywhere you go there you are like you can't change the settings and environments but in the end you always hang out with yourself so if you want it or not sooner or later you're gonna be forced to actually work on that relationship with yourself because you are all you ever have you know if you live in Australia, Bali or Europe you're the only constant in your life so I think it's a beautiful way to make sure that you know at least that one person you're in control of and you're always gonna hang out with make sure it's a great relationship like make sure that you even enjoy your own company and if you find yourself in communities or adventures like I'm not vibing with anyone here make sure your own best friend is like at least I got myself to hang out with and then create like intentional meet time moments I do genuinely think that magic happens when you choose yourself like you can meet the greatest people completely unintentionally by just doing something purely for the joy of it like if you go to a museum because you're interested in that but you don't have any friends who you know who share the same interest you might make great friends there like it's it's not that you you always have to have your body to do things with like if you don't have anyone do yourself and trust the magic of life that eventually you know by being in your most authentic and aligned energy you're gonna attract like-minded and like vibing people who share the same interest who see you're in your your brightest light and feel like natically drawn to that and they might become your people. Yeah that's that's a really important point definitely like definitely any one thing I've noticed from moving countries a few times and the other thing that I also find in a way like fascinating and beautiful is like for me personally was like a move in my 30s I just turned like 31 when I moved back to Sydney and yeah it's definitely like a whole different thing to you know building your life from scratch if you're like a young professional working compared to being in the mid 20s or being a backpacker and you just meet people by chance like in a hostel or in a pub crawl you work in a cafe it's like it's a whole different lifestyle but people connect in a different way when they're lies are busier like you don't just like you know to throw your energy around and your time because you have so much of it you definitely become much more selective who you invest in who you spend your time with and who you give your energy to so it goes both ways so I think it's a it's a beautiful way to set your life up intentionally like to really design your life based on who you are today if you move to a new city and like do more things that align with that version of who you are at this point of your life compared to just doing the things that you've always been doing because you know that's the restaurant I've always been going to like that's the gym I've always been going to you just do it by default but you you don't really question if that's still serving you like the world around you keeps on changing I guess that really still the best pizza or of course that if you have a connection with the people working there or it's like you know it's like a second living room who cares as if like the place next door like as a migraita pizza it's just like 2% better like that doesn't matter but in the sense of like you know reinvent yourself never stop exploring and build your life intentionally in a way that feels very true to yourself and I think then you also feel less lonely because you're feeling more fulfilled from the inside you said about um a comfort zone you mentioned about if you move to somewhere maybe it's very tempting to run back to that comfort zone that you know that that previous life almost yeah and whether you've moved to a new city or you're trying to reinvent yourself in the current one it can be very scary to put yourself out into those new situations of course yeah what is the importance of stepping outside of that comfort zone and embracing it? Mm very good I love that question that's a very good one because it's too easy not to do it I think it's ingrained in our human nature that our brain is lazy by default like we're just you know primed to save as much brain capacity and energy as we possibly can and anything stretching our comfort zone feels like effort and our brain doesn't have like effort but there's definitely a beauty in this wibli wobbly in between zones so it's not necessarily grow get out of your comfort zone and then you know you get there and you learn something new they're actually like four stages so it's this first stage after a comfort zone is where you most likely to go back because like well you know you feel like very insecure and you still have the opportunity like you just one foot out but like you can still go back you know it's like you just um you just started driving like moving away from your city but you may be like 50 kilometers away so you could still turn the car around it's like I'm not that far away yeah um but eventually you go further and further and then you realize like oh now that's the very awkward zone you're facing all these new challenges like you too far away from turning around but you're also kind of not quite there yet to build up that new life and that's like the most unpleasant stage to be in it's like you feel overwhelmed um like lots of new things to learn like you feel like you're juggling like so many balls at the same time and you can't barely keep one ball up in the air um but eventually it's like that's just rowing your capacity and I feel like you then rise to the occasion like there's there's this thing it's like you don't know how strong you are until you have to be and I think that's really what stretching our comfort zone does to us that we're like forced to question things the way we've always been doing that and we've been like pushed into the cold water and we have to figure it out like it's too late to turn around and then we're surprised ourselves but like how much power we have how much you know drive and energy we have to make things happen but we need that little push outside our comfort zone and it doesn't happen by convenience like just think about how many people reinvented themselves after they've been fired from a job it's like they would have never quit but because they were forced to do it they suddenly had to take action because it's like you can no longer keep on keep on doing things the way you've been doing them before so you're forced to take action or people after a break up might sound like the worst thing that has ever happened to them but what happens most of your time at some point you're going to look back and be like that's the best thing that could have happened to me because you'd grow from it's like you're reenacting yourself and you just activate this strength inside of you that's dormant that's laying inside you always have it like you always have the capacity it's always inside of you but it's not being activated if you don't need it. Yeah yes it's the name of this podcast is alone chapter it's what you've described there essentially is that that as you start to go on this journey of self-development or stepping outside your comfort zone is discomfort and you want to turn around you really want to just go back to that daily life you know and you know what's going to happen at this time and then it's going to be then I go meet that person and then I just chill for the evening or watch Netflix that's fine but yeah it's so interesting and as you step out of that comfort zone your comfort zone grows to meet you as well it's not like you're eternally in that discomfort you step into that discomfort until it's comfortable yeah and your comfort zone expands that little bit there and then you can take the next step okay what's the next step of discomfort and you grow and then you look back at that comfort zone now and how far it's come yeah just have that look behind you it's like yeah I've done all those things and and this is gradually increased like in the beginning it seems like a mission impossible and then like slowly but surely you stretch it by just like 1% or 2% and then gradually you look back and you're like whoa I've actually done that and it doesn't seem big in the moment because you're just taking like one more step but if you look back on like the broader picture like whoa I've really come a long way and I've also definitely noticed that the more often you do it it's like training a muscle at the gym it's like you just catch yourself coming back to like a similar stage maybe in a whole different situation but then you're like oh I've been in that awkward stage before where I was just felt like I'm overwhelmed I don't know what to do and then you just kind of brown yourself back into that feeling of like it's just a phase like life is dynamic it won't stay like that forever and then it's still not pleasant in the moment but it feels like less overwhelming to know that eventually you're going to get out like it's okay that sometimes you don't know the path yeah but this is quote from Rumi saying like the path will reveal itself as you walk the path and that's been one of the at least like for my my 2025 last year it's been one of the most guiding principles that I think humans just crave this certainty and we always want to know the next step and then we put in our destination at Google Maps in like a thousand kilometers we want to know each and every single turn along the way yeah but if we drive a kind of dog we only need to see the next 200 meters it's perfectly fine if you don't know you know the whole route ahead of us like just trust that eventually you're gonna get to the destination and you'll figure out the next turn as you get there but you don't need to know step 10 as you're just doing step number three and that's okay but that takes a fair share of life experience and stretching that comfort zone to get comfortable and this is comforts and then you get even to the next stage we're too concerned that you're not stressed out about something that would have stressed you out a lot when you worry that that stage yet is like come on is this like a stressful situation and you find yourself just being so calm and you get concerned about your comments because suddenly that's out of your comfort zone now to like not stress about it so humans are yeah funny breed yeah absolutely how is some COVID changed this is it's obviously changed how we work a lot we work online from home a lot so people aren't going to the offices often they're not in those even those banal conversations by the water cooler or whatever it is yeah yeah it's still human interaction that we're missing out on yeah so how has that changed it and do we need to change anything back do you think I think it's not like a proper like and why I'd like I think we're circling back to what we said earlier it still comes back to intention you know there's different ways of working remotely so you can sit alone in your cave or in your basement at home and just have no human connection at all like throughout the whole day or week and then of course it becomes very lonely and isolated and human beings are social creatures by nature that we actually do need that otherwise like we die from isolation but then also this whole flexibility with remote work actually allows us to choose our co-workers like you can just meet up with your friends for a co-working day like I used to do a lot like vacations with friends but we go to like Spain or at friends like coming visit me in Bali and we just sit in a co-working space together or sit at the kitchen table together and you actually consciously choose so you want to surround yourself with as long as we're both getting the work done and then you share your lunch break together you share coffee break together and yeah I think if the culture company culture is set up intentionally for remote first company it can actually make you feel more connected because they proactively doing something to make their people feel connected and they don't just expect it to happen organically like in a normal office setting sometimes people don't do enough for culture because they think like a you know coffee kitchen and a ping pong table is enough to create culture it's like it would just happen because people work together but then how often do people actually use the ping pong table and you know how often do your coffee break times actually overlap not all the time so yeah then it might just never happen but if you set that up intentionally you have like weekly check-ins weekly like happy hours we talk we talk about everything but work if you have like non-work related slack channels for instance where people are free like to you know share everything they they do analyze like their pet their hobby their micro winds off the day their non-work related it can actually boost the level of connection compared to just expecting it to happen because also you then can connect with someone who might not be in your department or like not working on your floor because everyone's online everyone's on the slack channel but not everyone necessarily crosses path like face to face or you would never know that Susie from accounting is like also into whatever do it by writing because that conversation just wouldn't come out everyone's working in their silos in their own little boxes and departments and the other world actually allows you to connect based on shared interest because it's a bit more transparent but it comes back to you know what the company culture actually does to to nurture that side and I think in a non-work related context there's certainly a lot of like mental health issues and like you know like not so happy things coming out of COVID but I also do think that it actually could have also helped us dependent on how we're using it to really deepen a connections with the people in analyze because suddenly you don't just hang out because you go to the pub you have to make you have to make a proactive effort to call someone and like check in how they're doing or sometimes you will only allow to see like one person so you have a lot of like one-on-one connections and not just like well while watching football in the pub together but we're not actually talking like oh suddenly you go for walk in nature or you do it like very earthy like very grounding things not those big flashy entertaining things that actually distract you from the connection is like you're the only reason you're meeting up is to connect like to have a conversation to do something. Yeah it's forced us to reintroduce that one-on-one time in that recognition yeah. Yeah and I'd like invite someone to your home because you cannot necessarily hang out in public places so it was very grounding in the sense of taking away like the flashiness and you know there's like extravagant luxurious life like going to fancy restaurants or exciting travels it's like really like coming back to default settings like walk in nature a cup of coffee at home baking bread. Well I also had a question the other day I was speaking to a friend about all those people who were baking bread and covid how many of them still are yeah I suppose off the back of that is yes covid reintroduce those things for us but I wonder how many people are actually continuing to do those and how many of sort of fall and back into the status quo of life. Do you have a number for that? I'm curious. No I don't know how we find it. Shout out to our listeners who's still baking bread at 2026. And you tell me about your personal mission and about why connection is so important to you so you're sharing this message of humans need to connect. Why isn't it so important? I've always been a people's person honestly I just love humans I really do and yeah I think the quality of connections in our lives is actually the number one indicator of how happy and fulfilled we are and that's the only thing that truly matters in life is like how much have you loved and how much have you been loved in your life and I think that's something that we almost get to forget and this completely overly digital digitalized world you have like eye contact good conversations meaning for connections like 3am friends it's a term 3am friends that you can call anytime when you need someone to get you out of jail like you know come pick you up in a hospital and that's what truly truly matters so yeah I intentionally wrote my Massachusetts on that topic is about fobbing that's phone snubbing when touchscreen make us lose touch was the cheesy tech line about hanging on our phones instead of actually having meaningful connections with each other and looking each other in the eye and then no surprise I figured that it's way more harmful to our human connection than we would expect like it's it's it's the norm that we basically put a phone on a table at a dinner conversation but every time it lights up we're being distracted from the conversation we're having and it's almost like there's always like a third person with us in the room and you feel like you never really have someone's fullest attention which then makes us less likely to open up to trust someone to to go deeper so that kind of frustrated me it's like I do like a lot of things about this online world but I don't want it to take away that human connection which I think is the most precious thing there is so in the beginning I started raising awareness and giving talks about fobbing and I was like stop the thought but then it's not really in my nature to just talk about the problem without actually providing a solution I'm an enthusiast by nature I love to look at the bright side so it's just trying to figure out like what can I do to make real humans a real human connection more interesting than social media like what can I invent that gets people off their phones and I was forget they have a phone because they just get so excited about this whole fleshy human thing right in front of them so yeah I thought everyone enjoys a good conversation but not everyone has the right questions or is like a good conversationalist like some people don't like small talk out of people like feel nervous or stuck or don't come up with the right words so I'm not hmm maybe it just have to create some some sparky like sparking conversation starters to get people out of this challenge to get excited about having a great conversation which is igniting the spark and giving them a little like starting support to get the conversation going so yeah that's how I came up with the idea of inventing iConnect which is a digital detox game that is a set of 180 colorful questions to get people off their phones and reconnect with each other and not just a game but actually creating events with it around the world that connect people from offline dinners to speed dating events to yeah even use it like for family family dinners um road trips anything where people get together and yeah just connect them in a meaningful way because even if you just meet a stranger for five minutes but the second you know their favorite ice cream flavor it's instantly gonna make you feel so much more connected than knowing a job there and there's like like what they don't have a spark in their eyes I think that's an indicator of like how connected you are like people are scared to have those conversations because you go in and you know they're gonna ask what your job is you know and i mean the same conversation I had with that person over there i'm asking them the same questions because I can't think of anything else in the spot yeah and that's draining yeah it is it's like that's why people avoid networking events and community events because like oh i can't be bothered having an out of small talk a conversation like and depending on what phase you're in honestly like sometimes it's like please don't ask me about my visa you know that's like something that is like i'm not doing anything illegal but it was more like oh it's like already consuming so much brain capacity for me to figure it out like please let's not talk about this what i'm just here to to mingle and chat like a person asked a wrong question or question that clearly like to range your energy instead of getting you more energy like can we say to a vibe killer so i connect is is this and is it through like an app or something or is it a i said box cards yeah so it's a physical card game yeah nice like different colors yeah like six different colors and they all have like a wifi bar in the back of the car so to hide a wifi bar to deepest the level of the question and the strongest a connection so you saw them by level as you rolled a diet yeah it's like there's many ways to play it i did create like an instruction card to give it a bit of a a game if i character that you roll the dice and then the number and the dice defides the connection level but honestly in the end it's just about getting people to have a chat to talk with each other it's just more talk so as long as you play the cards like this there's no way to win or lose let's put it out yeah i think it's a really important thing to do and it looks great i have a problem looking at it and find find out where i can get them but um i can i game.com i can get a game to become cool well i'll link that below and make sure anyone listening now wants to scroll down but yeah i've spoken to people on this podcast too i spoke to a guy very early on in the podcast called Chris who was doing a similar thing and he he was working on more family connections and close friends getting them to go to events where they would sit down one and one and it be led by him or someone else yeah to have conversations around a certain topic and to ask questions because how often do we some some families are closer than others some families don't know their parent stories or their grand stories so just to sit down with that person and ask them what life was like for them growing up yeah um and to hear some of that it just deepens that connection so i think yeah it's it's a really good idea um one of the other things that you also work to bring to people is the tgim yeah mine said can you explain that yeah tgim is uh you slag for the corporate world so it's basically thank god it's monday um and yeah just be inventing uh hopefully reinventing or revolutionizing might be a better word for it um the way that people show up to work instead of seeing it as like that training thing there's like i'm dragging myself to work it's about intentionally i feel like honestly that's my word of the podcast just intentionally but it really comes back to intention um creating more um yeah just more like uplifting and positive work environments but people get excited to go to work and actually feel like more scene and recognize not just for what they do but actually for who they are and then based on that by feeling seen like more holistically and being seen as like human being not just the human doing that work they actually become more energetic more radian they show up as their best cell because they don't feel like they have to hide any parts of themselves and therefore they have way more space and energy and capacity to be creative to come up with like creative problem solutions to have more energy to be less likely to be burned out a demo enthusiastic and sales calls like demo connected to their team and therefore of course they're very much less likely to book for another job or work for another team so there's so many benefits that come out of um you know looking after your people and making sure that they're holistically and power to be their best cells at work and that's just measured by performance but actually understand that in the end it's like happy people who make happy profits and not in the sense of like toxic positivity or you know like fake happiness that people just run around with fake smiles and pretending they live in a fluffy furry unicorn wonderland that's that's not the point but in like really creating ways to make people see more foodie and back a nice for their individual strength and nurture that so then why would you leave a company that actually is not like supports not just your job but your overall life and you spend two-thirds of your waking hours at your job like isn't that the best thing you can do to work for a company who generally cares and wants to see you win in life like when you want to give your best and you're all but at company to make sure like you're the best possible employee that they have because yeah connection and relationship again is a two-way two-way street if they take care of you you want to show up as a best version of yourself and you know support them and happily put in those extra hours yeah changing that culture of work like you say if you're there a lot of the time of your life you're working and so many people don't enjoy the work they do or they don't and it goes back to those conversations the most common question we ask when we meet someone new and what do you do yeah and if it's not something you enjoy that's a draining question in itself yeah absolutely yeah so you're yeah you're just feeling that as well yeah and I also wanted to add to that it's like not about it's not always about you know doing that one job that takes every box and you feel like oh it's so aligned with my passion and and who I am but it's more about how you're being treated at work you know how you being appreciated are you being in my like you're celebrated for your wins are you being praised like there's so much more and eventually the job that you're doing becomes secondary no accounting might still not be the most exciting thing in the world but if you have like cool ERG groups where you feel like oh we're connecting I'm like like my nid interest or you know like subcommunities but then your company is like it just becomes a side of that you're still getting your job done and like hopefully you get it you're doing it well but then it becomes less about the actual job and more about the culture and the environment you're doing it in yeah yeah what are they are they making it fun are they making it different are they making it yeah so sure and yeah enjoyable for you to be there essentially yeah absolutely yeah tell me about the three core pillars that you use yeah so when you're bringing sort of holistic wellbeing to these teams or workplaces what are the three core pillars yeah so it's basically like an equation for holistic happiness and life so one is about living fuller that it's about intentionally designing your life based on like different areas and really finding out like what ignites your spark what fulfills you and then second one basically covers the whole first part of our conversation is connecting deeper because again my connections and quality relationships in our lives are such an important indicator not performance and our overall happiness in life and how you know can we create can we connect better how can we connect on a deeper level with ourselves and with the people around us of course and then the third pillar is be happier so I do generally believe and know that we have to hold toolkit inside of us and sometimes it's just about tweaking a few things or shifting a few like mindsets where we're standing in our own way to realize that potential that we have inside of us to see things from a more like positive perspective or you know see challenges as opportunities or basically just changed a way we look at things and then things basically change that makes sense so these are like just for three core pillars to like more holistic fulfillment in that sense I feel like happiness is always associated with like everything has to go well and everything has to go has to be great but it's more like the journey to get there and the like the intrinsic fulfillment like they can still be things happening in your life they don't make you happy you but you can still feel fulfilled in that sets like for instance grieve when when you lose someone like this always a flip side to it of no feeling a sense of either belonging or togetherness or like the chair grid makes you feel more connected to the people around you or strengthens like the family bonds and stuff so yeah and then it's the it's a difficult question to answer isn't it like what what is happiness and I was speaking to Dakota Maya who's a medallivant recipient in the US last week and he was saying that we've mistaken happiness for an emotion when it's a choice yeah so he said whatever's happening obviously there's going to be times that stuff is sad but yeah you also have that choice in a lot of situations and you mentioned mindset there as well yeah so I think a lot of it is how we the story we tell ourselves in our mind is so much more important than what's actually happening big time yeah if you can look at what's happening logically and try and work out exactly what's causing you it's like with anger we say that person made me angry it's like yeah did they or did your perception of their actions make you angry yeah exactly it's a really interesting like just take that extra step back and go yeah the words we use and the way we think about things are really interesting absolutely and even like anger is that of course not like a happy emotion that sense but it's an energizing emotion like how often one of the most you know it's like when we're angry it's like we get so much shurang but like we run faster or like like occasionally go to boxing classes and you just like you feel more empowered to let something out of you sit not just to use it in a violent way that's not what I mean but like it's it's energizing in that sense like you're furious but then you you feel energized and if you repurpose that energy to something it's good you know like put that energy in a business or like after a break I was like you're hitting the gym and you work out how because you're feeling all that anger and then eventually you know it's like you you're changing your body you're feeling more confident then that anger is like used in a way that it's serving you but road rage so it's no purpose and like getting on strangers on the street is like no one's benefiting from that and in the end like I think negativity is like a gift that nobody wants it just comes back to you like you're trying to give it away but like nobody wants it and in the end you stuck with it and you feel actually worries about yourself and not to say you should press that but like step out and just like zoom out of the emotion and try to figure out if there's not like a better way you could use that energy yeah big on like energy management and I just don't like the idea of like it's the most precious currency we have I'm like let it go to waste if there's something you could potentially do about it in a way that still feels authentic to yourself I'm like don't suppress it that's the worst thing you could do but just looking at anger I think it's something that we're taught to avoid or it's a bad feeling to have it's a really useful thing because hey it's telling you that something might be wrong someone might have done something so you can sort of investigate that and work out is it useful and like you say it gives you that energy so it's how you channel that afterwards and nothing can lot of people think that anger is beating someone up on the spot or whatever it is it's like well maybe that's one way but yeah you can channel it way better yeah so it's it's all about what happens after the moment yeah sometimes it can also help you to understand what you actually want like and if you get jealous and that makes you angry it's like oh apparently I really care about this person and it's just my not to act on your anger and it's like I don't know beat someone up who's hitting on the girl that you like or got it you like but more and like oh maybe zoom out and figure out like why is that triggering me like well you know where can I change the narrative that kind of like domino um domino blocks and it's like where do I have to put up that domino stone in in a chain to like reverse that effect like why is that triggering me and once you find it change the narrative and then you change like it holds to trajectory that the word trajectory yeah of the of the process yeah just touch on uh traveling so you've spoken about being a new city quite a lot and obviously you've done quite a lot traveling yourself for someone maybe listening who hasn't traveled that much or just goes on a summer holiday every now and then and then sits on a beach what are the benefits that you found personally from traveling I think yeah one of the things definitely is what I said it before in a podcast but you really truly get to know yourself because places and change and and faces they're constantly changing around you so you have no constant like there's no stability around you so in the end you basically left with building that stability inside of you to make sure that you built this beautiful inner garden that's your home that you can always come back to even you know if the landscape around you changes I think that's the the most beautiful and the craziest thing that sometimes you know you have to travel all the way to the other end of the world just to find yourself and as I whoa it really took me like all these plain slides to just come home to myself and then finally I've had a lot of friends who then moved back to their hometowns like a ride I've seen it all had it off now I'm gravitating back towards where I left off but then it's also the people you need like I think that's that's the beauty you get exposed to so many different cultures like different food different like traditions of like how people are doing live you holidays like I left in global melting pots from Amsterdam Sydney and Bali is like I basically I feel like I celebrated every holiday on the the moon Chinese New Year Mexican Independence Day Swedish midsummer I don't know like you just you know so many international friends I was like oh Canadian Thanksgiving I like anything you just find a reason to you to celebrate and yeah I think number three is that community mindset about like the power of like really you know building those little communities and actually realizing that building in your life or traveling around the world like you you gravitate towards similar patterns like you find like similar archetypes of people in every world every world like you built like similar routines um of having like that one coffee place that you always go to or like you you just build like new little morning or evening routines based on the environments you live in plus like also the fact that you just have friends for a lifetime that's major major prerogative traveling a lot like you're gonna spend you're gonna save like a lifetime of hotel costs because you have like places uh like friends all over the world that you you know can call home and then of course also if you live like an attractive part of the world and people gonna come and visit you and that really rapidly strengthens the bond because that's what I wanted to say your friends become your family so when you're far away from home like it really is like a super glue for connection um yeah to celebrate Christmas with your friends or you know important milestones that you normally celebrate with your family is like you your friends just become so much more important so yeah so many perks of going out and exploring the world and also that was it that was the last thing I wanted to say is like realizing how much is nature and how much is nurture like why some of the things you you've been doing all of your life because everyone around you was doing it but once you travel and you just expand your horizon then you're like oh but do you actually enjoy doing it or is it just because you know everyone around me is doing it like I don't know if you grow up in a in a vegan town and no one is eating any dairy products you think you might not like that but then you go out into the world and it's like oh actually like people in Nepal eat meat and then really like this meat or and not even for different values like you know like coming from a western world money and status and you know your job title um always seem to matter so much because I come from like I'm more like yeah academic and materialistic not say upbringing but it's just a German culture we're efficient and then the first time I left abroad was in Mexico and in the beginning is like I didn't understand how people could generally be happy selling tacos like on the side of the street and like not make a fortune and like you know just just make enough to sustain like support our families and stuff I'm like surely you can't be happy because you don't make a lot of money and I'm like oh but maybe you know that's not the one thing the only indicator for happiness how much money you make and like that's something I just clicked and like oh so you can't be happy without all that money yes like that was definitely just a yeah a lot of lessons to be learned absolutely yeah now yeah and you recently you spoke about um your write-up at university and sort of phones and touch friends and being out of touch you recently went full circle didn't you or I say recently maybe last year you went back to your old university and you gave a lecture on what you'd sort of spoken about yeah what was that like for you very very awesome moment honestly yeah um I think most importantly because I genuinely love to inspire people to like live their life in in authentic and unique way so I've done like a mix of workshops like digital detox but then also blend it with the bucketless workshop um and yeah it is basically being the lecturer that I wish I had when I was at uni that it's okay to live an unconventional lifestyle that it's not just is one blueprint and success path to happiness or like path to success but you can really define success on your own terms and yeah it was just very very like validating and whole wholesome to feel like that that's been acknowledged by like a major state university um to have that as a guest lecturer and inspiring a speaker to teach something to their students um that is not like the classic you know work for one of the top five consulting firm companies um so yeah I was just very reassuring that it's perfectly fine to live a life through to yourself um and yeah just use that to inspire others to to find what what's their unique spot there's again like doesn't mean everyone has to travel or like move away from the country they're born in but if that's something that makes you curious if that's like you know the silent whisper inside of you and at one point which becomes louder and louder and it turns into a ron you just cannot ignore that it's like act on it like don't suppress it just because no one around you is doing that it's like sometimes you need that little weirdo or alien from the other side of the world telling you that it's okay to live a life that others do not understand and it doesn't mean you fail it's just that you chose a non-conventional way but it's nothing like right or wrong about it as long as you feel like that's very neat you know and like you still you know like yeah food on the table and a room for your hair yeah I think it's great I think um yeah I've taken a lot away from the conversation that that word intention has been running through out it but yeah that was a drinking game would be drunk by now later in gear we're talking about the intention yeah the the importance of it throughout all of the stuff that you do and yeah everything you step into whether it's online in real life um the importance of connection it's been really interesting I've learned so much so the way that I finish my interviews is I ask you to leave a question for the listener so if the listener now was to go away and start their own conversation with someone else whether that's a um family member friend stranger I suppose with your game you've got plenty of options for this fella what question would you ask them or would you have them ask all right I do have an answer for that and of course where am I to invent a conversation sparking game and not use one of those questions so the answer to the question that is the question I have is if you had if you had a law that everyone in the world needed to follow what would it be so you're not answering that for the next guest in your podcast on the answer that yeah so they can go away and ask it sometimes I do go back and answer some of them as episodes so maybe you hear me answer it in the future but I have to have a think about it if I had to say something off the spot yeah I'm actually you're in the spot I'd say they'd have to it be something to do with mindset something I was spoken on today yeah something they have to have a more positive outlook than negative so if you split it down the middle 50% they have to be in the one side more or something like that I don't know yeah yeah and like that yeah definitely something mindset it's a good idea yeah or everyone has to get out into nature once a week we set and do a nature reset yeah yeah yeah there's a lot of different differences it says a lot about you and what need value I think that's why I love this question so much now it's like basically creating a world where people more like you so I think I probably say something about like complement a stranger like say and a nice thing to a stranger once a day like be kinder something like that and more follow your dreams you know if everyone was forced by law to go for their dreams I mean surely we probably won't have anyone working on a conveyor belt like maintenance just but overall I think that would be very interesting to see how the world would look like if people actually acted on what they really wanted to do and follow their spark instead of you know giving up on that or being afraid of failure because they're forced to do it yeah absolutely then he thanked so much for joining me today if people want to keep up to date with what you're doing messages that you're trying to spread where can they find you yeah I would say find your LinkedIn it's mini frets that's your best shot and then my homepage is there work happinessproject.com I'm sure you can put that in the show notes as well yeah or you may and may always have me to hear if whatever I share it today you resonate it with you on some level so yeah just go out there create ripples of positivity and you just never know who's like you're gonna touch absolutely awesome yeah I'll link it all below so anyone listening can just scroll down and but from me to the listener if you have enjoyed this episode please do share it with someone you think finds some value from it if you haven't already wherever you're listening or watching please do follow or subscribe to the show as it really helps the show grow and on Instagram you can tag us in the conversation at LonelyChapter podcast but lastly for me thank you for listening stay curious and I will see you in the next one