Try This: A Resource Party

You know that thing you’ve been wanting to do? Climb Mt. Everest? Clean out your attic? Tailor those pants? Launch that project? Volunteer at the food shelter?

I think you should do it this summer.

(I know, I know. The kids are home. You’ve got that road trip planned. Work’s insane right now. The calendar’s full: reunions, weddings, getaways, family dentist appointments. Check, check, check, check. I get it. )

So don’t do it alone, that’s all.

Throw yourself a resource party.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Gather 3-5 of your closest friends, and ask that they bring a few of their closest friends. You’ll end up with a circle of trusted folks you can squeeze into a living room, but I’ve had just as much success with a hotel lobby full of strangers.
  2. Everyone: write your thing on an index card. The dream, the project, the plan, whatever. Get specific.*
  3. Read it out loud to the room. Watch friends and strangers raise their hands to share the many ways, big and small, they can help. You want to run that marathon? A hand will raise: I can offer childcare while you train. Another: I have a discount code for running shoes. Another: I’m training, too, if you need an accountability partner.
  4. Exchange info. Say thank you.
  5. Go forth and raise your hand for others.

Soon enough, you’ll have a room full of dreamers who have all-the-sudden become doers, with the help of nothing but Sharpies and each other.

It’s no small thing, sharing our big things. Asking for help. Saying it all out loud.
You’ll see.

 

*The more specific, the better. I once threw a resource party where a woman wrote, and I am not kidding here, “I want to feed a penguin.” And OF COURSE the man standing across the room from her was the brother-in-law of the HR director for a local zoo, and OF COURSE he asked a favor, and the HR director made a request to a friend in PR, who checked with guest relations and so on and so forth until this random stranger with an index card and a dream was offering Coco the penguin her afternoon krill.

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