Group Life by Priya Parker

P.S. Join me and Nadia Bolz-Weber tomorrow, September 2nd at 12 pm ET for her series Keeping It Together. We’ll talk about what I learned writing my second book and what’s getting me through this season. Join us here.

P.P.S. Join me and Lupita Nyong’o on Friday, September 4th. If you preorder The Art of Fighting before then, you’re invited to a live conversation where Lupita and I will be taking your questions about conflict in your own life. Preorder and register here. This is limited to US-based orders. (Sorry, it’s the tech and publishing rules!)

P.P.P.S. For the launch of The Art of Fighting, I’m going on a two-week book tour! I’ll be stopping in Washington, DC on Sept 8, Brooklyn on Sept 9, Boston on Sept 10, going virtual with the Family Action Network on Sept 11, then Summerland on Sept 13, Los Angeles on Sept 14, Dallas on Sept 15, Seattle on Sept 18, Bainbridge Island on Sept 19, Bentonville on Sept 21, Huntsville on Sept 22, and Miami on Sept 23. Come say hi if I’m in your city!

You’re Invited! Our GROUP LIFE September lineup is here 🎂

Priya Parker — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 11:03:40 GMT

Last week, I visited one of the country’s oldest forums for open, public discussion: the Chautauqua Institute. I’d heard about Chautauqua since I was a child, as my mother’s college roommate had been part of the community for generations. (Fun fact: Shari’s father officiated the wedding of my parents in Waterloo, Iowa.) Anyhow, I was there to kick off their ninth and final week of summer. They had chosen “gather” as the week’s theme, and I had been invited to address the community. It was a beautiful experience getting to sit together in their storied amphitheater, and after my talk I got to meet some folks. And a woman came up to me grinning from ear to ear and said, “Priya! I’m a GROUP LIFER!” Out in the wild! We found each other! It was a thrill. (Thank you for coming, Tova and Heather!)

Group Lifers IRL! Thank you, Tova and your mother, for coming to see me!

One year ago this week, I launched GROUP LIFE to get closer to this community. Instead of putting out a newsletter once a month, I also wanted to teach and be in actual r(Z)ooms together.

This past year has been so rich for me and my team. We hosted 23 webinars. We started the BREAKDOWN series, and got to pull back the curtain with a campaign manager and a theatre director and a bookshop owner and so many creative people thinking about how to bring people together in exciting and meaningful ways.

A toast on a Group Help Lab with Group Lifers

Thank you to everyone who’s read a newsletter this year or listened to a voice memo debrief or joined a co-working session or asked a question in a GROUP HELP Lab. It’s been an honor to hear your gathering stories and build these muscles with you. And thank you especially to Group Lifers who, through your investing in this little project, help us run experiments, keep our little team going, and give us forward motion and spirit!

Wish us well. And come see us this fall!

It’s also a big month in my life and in my family’s life. After eight years, I am coming to the world with my next book. The Art of Fighting hits the shelves on Tuesday, September 8th. I will be hitting the road for a book tour. If you live in New York, please come to the book launch in Brooklyn on September 9th! And, believe it or not, my husband, the writer Anand Giridharadas, is also coming out with a (brilliant!) new book this September. Please pray for us. (I’m two years late and he’s right on time lol.) His book is called Man in the Mirror, and Sarah McNally recently called it “the best New York book since The Power Broker.” And his public launch is at the end of the month, on Wednesday, September 30th at the 92nd Street Y. It will be electric. You can get tickets here. I’ll be there with bells on. You can bookend your September with us. 🤣 (And if you don’t live in New York, we will each be on tour in September and October. Come say hi to me on the road. Come say hi to Anand on the road.)

And finally, if you’d like to join for a very special pre-publication virtual celebration for The Art of Fighting on September 4th (this week!), it’s not too late to sign up.

Thank you for being with me on this ride, for your well wishes, your smiling faces, and, more recently, for sharing with me all of your wonderful fights. ;)

Without further ado, our September lineup.

Group Help Labs:

These GROUP HELP Labs are usually for paid subscribers (aka GROUP LIFERS), but because GROUP LIFE turns one, we’re celebrating and opening this Lab to everyone, not just GROUP LIFERS.

GROUP HELP Lab | One Year of GROUP LIFE: An AMA with Priya Parker

When: Wednesday, September 2 at 1 pm ET

Where: Zoom

We're celebrating a year of GROUP LIFE the way we do best: together, and with your questions. This is an Ask Me Anything. Bring what you've been sitting on or a question from a Lab that never got answered or the gathering that went sideways or a conflict within a group chat that you don’t know how to navigate. I'll be live on Zoom answering as many as we can, and celebrating a year of building this with you.

These labs take place on Zoom. RSVP above. We’ll email the Zoom link the day before. On the day of the session, click on the Zoom link to join—no additional registration required. If you arrive early, you’ll enter the waiting room, and we’ll begin at 12 pm ET. You’re welcome to join or leave at any point during the hour. If you can’t attend live, we’ll send the replay to all Group Lifers the following Sunday.

Substack Lives:

These live conversations are open to ALL as they’re happening. The replays will be available only to paid subscribers. Thank you for supporting this work. You can become a GROUP LIFER here.

Substack Live with Azita Ardakani and Anand Giridharadas | A Bedtime Story: OCEAN OF STARS

When: Tuesday, September 1 at 8 pm ET

Where: Substack

Azita Ardakani’s new book, Ocean of Stars, is a cosmic bedtime story, illustrated by Rebecca Rebouché, about how the world came to be. It’s part poem, part lullaby, and we’re going to celebrate its launch by reading together, out loud, at bedtime.

Substack Live with Nadia Bolz-Weber | Keeping it together

When: Wednesday, September 2, at 12 pm ET

Where: Substack

I’m joining Nadia Bolz-Weber for her series Keeping It Together. I’ll talk about what I’ve learned writing my second book and what’s getting me through this season.

Substack Live with Anand Giridharadas | MAN IN THE MIRROR Launch Party

When: Monday, September 28, at 12 pm ET

Where: Substack

It's launch week for Anand Giridharadas’s new book, Man in the Mirror, and I couldn't be more excited. Anand spent the last three years reporting deeply on the incident on the subway between Jordan Neely and Daniel Penny, and on the city and its many characters around them, and what it means to belong to New York, and who this city is for. The result is a gripping, gorgeous narrative nonfiction, one of the best books I've read in years. I'll sit down live with Anand on Substack to talk about it. (We may even get some surprise visitors. 😉)

To join, click the link above to RSVP and add the event to your calendar. On Wednesday at 12 pm ET, when it begins, Substack will also send an email with a button to join. It will take you directly to the live video on Substack, either in the Substack app or in your web browser. If you can’t find the email, go to priyaparker.substack.com at 12 pm ET, and you’ll see the video streaming at the top of the page. If you miss it, we’ll email the replay to all Group Lifers after the conversation. You can become a GROUP LIFER here.

The Art of Fighting is almost here!

My second book, The Art of Fighting, comes out September 8th, and I want you there for it!

Pre-Order Event with Lupita Nyong’o

When: Friday, September 4

Where: Zoom

To celebrate The Art of Fighting and thank you all for your generous support and pre-ordering the book, I’m sitting down with Lupita Nyong’o for a conversation answering your questions about conflict. To join, pre-order The Art of Fighting from any US retailer, then register here.

Preorder & register here

The Art of Fighting Book Tour

For the launch, I’m headed on a two-week book tour! I’ll be stopping in Washington, DC on Sept 8, Brooklyn on Sept 9, Boston on Sept 10, going virtual with the Family Action Network on Sept 11, then Summerland on Sept 13, Los Angeles on Sept 14, Dallas on Sept 15, Seattle on Sept 18, Bainbridge Island on Sept 19, Bentonville on Sept 21, Huntsville on Sept 22, and Miami on Sept 23. Come say hi if I’m in your city!

Full tour schedule

One year down, and hopefully many more to come! Join me in celebrating, ask me anything, and let’s keep building this together.

As always,

Priya

Heat is relevance (and other things I've learned about healthy heat)

Priya Parker — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 11:03:17 GMT

I’m a conflict-averse conflict facilitator. When the heat rises and things start getting tense, my palms sweat and my heart palpitates and I just want to flee.

I tell you this because it’s how I know that holding heat is a learnable skill. I did not come to this work with a natural talent for it. And in twenty-five years as a conflict dialogue facilitator, I’ve learned something deeply counterintuitive: long-term communities need love, and they also need conflict.

The relationships that last aren’t the ones that never fight. They’re the ones that learn how to fight well.

And yet, when disagreement enters the room, many groups reach for one of two options. There is unhealthy peace: ghosting, smoothing over, quiet resentment, a breezy “No worries!” while privately seething. And there is unhealthy conflict: humiliation, domination, takedowns, cancellation, sabotage, public shaming.

We ricochet between silence and explosion. Neither is helping our groups become stronger, clearer, or more connected. Groups can be as threatened by unhealthy peace as they are by unhealthy conflict.

But the good news is — there is another possibility. I call it healthy heat.

Healthy heat is the willingness and ability to hold tension, with care, long enough for it to become clarifying and generative. Heat is energy. It is information. It tells us that something, or someone, matters.

I’ve been thinking about this idea for more than a decade, and writing my new book about it for over eight years, and on Wednesday, I taught it out loud for the first time.

Group Lifers can watch the full replay below. And if you’re not yet a Group Lifer, you can join us here for the cost of a sandwich a month. 😉

Bring your fights to Lupita Nyong’o and me

Priya Parker — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:02:35 GMT

Natalie is going to her grandmother’s 85th birthday. The family is split down the middle politically. Everyone wants the day to be about Grandma, and they do all love each other and have fun when they’re together. But politics always finds its way to the table, and Natalie has no plan for when it does.

Mateo is caught in a seven-person friend group where two members are in an on-again, off-again relationship. They bicker in front of everyone, and the tension is affecting the whole group.

Jordan is stuck on a team led by a boss with a bad case of toxic positivity. Every problem gets met with “Oh, it’s fine,” and every meeting ends with more frustration than it started with, and nothing actually gets addressed.

Every one of us is navigating some version of this. As I like to say, welcome to the mess.

And so as I gear up to bring The Art of Fighting into the world, I want to invite YOU, dear GROUP LIFE community, to something unique:

On Friday, September 4th at 12 pm ET, please join Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o and me for a special virtual conversation celebrating The Art of Fighting, as a THANK YOU to anyone who has pre-ordered the book. (If you’ve never pre-ordered a book, all it means is that you order it ahead of time and then it’s on your doorstep on publication day!)

Here’s how to be there: Preorder The Art of Fighting from any U.S. retailer, then fill out the form below to register. For a special signed copy, you can pre-order from Books Are Magic here. Already ordered your copy? You don’t need to buy it again; any U.S. preorder placed at any time in 2026 counts. Just grab your transaction or purchase order number from your confirmation email and use it when you register below.

Preorder & Register Here

And guess what? We are asking YOU to submit your real-life dilemmas and conflicts with the people in your life, and work through them together. It’s going to be fun and juicy, and hopefully it will build our courage and wisdom to be more connected to the people in our lives.

If you’re interested, submit your conflict here by Thursday, August 27th to be considered.

(Not to worry, if you pre-order the book and can’t join us live, you can still register and will have access to the replay later.)

I cannot wait to be in this conversation with Lupita, live, with you. Bring your mess. And we’ll figure it out together.

And thank you for your love and enthusiasm, and thank you for pre-ordering. (Pre-orders apparently really matter because they signal to booksellers that people want this book.) And also, if you can’t or aren’t ready yet, no worries AT ALL. I feel your love.

Warmest,

Priya

Preorder & Register Here

Learn to fight better (Zoom link inside)

Priya Parker — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 11:02:36 GMT

I’ve spent twenty years in rooms with people trying not to fight. And let me tell you, the quietest rooms are often the ones in the most trouble. Nobody raises their voice, everybody agrees, and underneath it all, something the group actually needs to decide or face just drags on, not getting decided, sometimes for years.

We’ve been taught that a group without conflict is a healthy group, but I’ve come to believe close to the opposite. Long-term communities need love, and they also need conflict. The communities that last aren’t the ones that don’t fight; they’re the ones that fight well. The same is true of relationships, and it’s true of teams. The teams that have breakthroughs aren’t the ones that never argue. They’re the ones who can get into it so they can get out of it.

But in many of the groups I work with, when the possibility for disagreement shows up, we oscillate between avoidance and escalation – between what I call unhealthy peace and unhealthy conflict. We either say nothing at all or we burn the house down.

In my new book, THE ART OF FIGHTING, I explore something between unhealthy peace and unhealthy conflict: healthy heat. It’s an in-between place – where you can hold the tension long enough, with care, for it to be generative and clarifying.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, August 19, at 12 pm ET, we’re diving into healthy heat in our next GROUP HELP Lab. I’ll teach you what healthy heat is and how to recognize it, why heat is really just a sign that something relevant is in the room, and how to start mapping what your own groups care enough about to fight over. Come with one group or relationship in mind — a team, a family, a friend group, a board — and we’ll work on it together.

If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll find the Zoom link below. If you’re not yet a GROUP LIFER, become one today. For the cost of a sandwich a month, you’ll get to join this lab, plus every past replay and all future labs.

And if you want to get a sense of Group Help labs, I’ve made The #1 secret to thriving group life — and how to harness it and How to host a gathering you actually want to attend, free and open to all. Come join us!

Can’t wait to practice with you.

As always,

Priya

P.S. ICYMI, I sat down with Samin Nosrat, author of SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT and GOOD THINGS, for a Substack Live yesterday. We talked about the weekly Monday dinner that saved her after her biggest success left her feeling more alone than ever, and what it actually takes to build a ritual that sticks. Watch the replay here. And get her new free guide on how to host your own Monday night dinners here.

How to build a weekly ritual with your people

Priya Parker — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 20:58:10 GMT

Today I sat down with Samin Nosrat, author of SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT and GOOD THINGS, for a Substack Live. We talked about the weekly Monday dinner that saved her after her biggest success left her feeling more alone than ever, and what it actually takes to build a ritual that sticks.

You can watch the replay above by clicking on the arrow button on the video.

And get her new free guide on how to host your own Monday night dinners here.

I’m curious… has there been a ritual in your own life that started by accident and became something you couldn’t imagine your week without?

As always,

Priya

How to stay together when shit gets real

Priya Parker — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 11:03:20 GMT

It was the summer of 2020, and everything was falling apart.

As the COVID-19 pandemic and a racial reckoning waged on, institutions of all kinds were imploding. We all saw this play out in the news, of course, but it was also happening in my private DMs, email inbox, and within the context of my consulting work.

I’ll be honest: as a trained conflict facilitator, 2020 was a boom time. I was being brought into organizations of all kinds to help C-suites, teams, religious leadership, inter-generational families, and others work through these group reckonings — and to understand what needed to happen for the group to come through stronger.

Interestingly, two years earlier, thanks to the success of my first book, The Art of Gathering, I had become known as the gathering lady. Outside of my work with clients, my public-facing work was providing inspiration and guidance for how to bring people together to create the kinds of meaningful moments that build sturdy communities. Then, bizarrely, the pandemic’s lockdowns catapulted gathering (and yes, The Art of Gathering) into the center of people’s longings.

And yet here I was, spending my days elbow-deep in conflict, speaking to people who would, probably by their own admission, prefer to be doing anything else. All of us, sitting tensely in our little Zoom rectangles, were not exactly an advertisement for joyful gatherings.

I was also noticing something else in the broader culture, both online and off. Alongside our uptick in loneliness was a simultaneous rise in ghosting, excuses, canceling, abruptly ending friendships, and exiting groups. Thanks to the reception of my first book, I knew how much we deeply craved gathering and belonging — but we were all acting in a way that was bringing about the opposite reality.

Sometime in late summer 2020, a thread started to emerge for me. If my first book was about how to come together, I realized that perhaps my next book needed to be about how to stay together when shit gets real.

The Art of Gathering was about how to live well with others. The Art of Fighting, I was realizing, needed to be about what to do when you inevitably don’t.

The shift from the gathering lady to the conflict lady is not so big a jump as it might seem. First, gatherings are full of conflict. Ask anyone who’s planned a big wedding or a 35th anniversary for a firm — a seating chart is not just a seating chart. It’s a schematic of intimacy, power, belonging, trust, and relational priorities. Which is precisely why it brings up so much.

And second, gathering and conflict are both tools central to group life. To build healthy, connected groups and communities, some people need to know how to hold great gatherings — places where people can talk, eat, dance, share, and commune. Simultaneously, some people need to be skilled in conflict. Conflict is part of every thriving group that lasts, and if no one knows or has the skills or rituals to hold it, your group is going to suffer.

There are many extraordinary books on conflict resolution. Many of them inform my work and career. But, much of the existing advice takes a one-on-one lens — not a group lens. They help us navigate conflict between pairs: spouses, bosses, business partners. We have far fewer tools to help with our group needs. What do you do when a group needs to have a complex conversation? What happens when the group chat implodes? How do you handle a raging town hall with real differences? What are rituals that help in times of group tension?

It is a massive hindrance when the primary formal tools we have to hold collective conflict are limited to courtrooms and union negotiations. In absence of a wider range of options to hold and face conflict— which traditional cultures have — we oscillate between two extremes: pretending everything is fine one day, and slapping each other with a lawsuit the next.

There is so much space between those two extremes, and that is precisely where The Art of Fighting comes in. It’s about how to notice the early signs of conflict and feel confident in what to do next. It’s full of the kind of gathering design and group infrastructure that informed The Art of Gathering, but it’s geared towards a deepening and strengthening of our bonds, rather than the initial formation of them.

Preorder The Art of Fighting

When writing my first book, I remember grappling with what it was I was putting out in the world. While it was instructional and practical, it wasn’t exactly “self-help.” It was advice on how to help the group.

The Art of Fighting is my next offering to the growing genre I’ve come to think of not as self-help, but group help. It’s a section I hope gets a much larger display in every bookstore and library. And it’s what all of my work — my books, this newsletter, and my private client work — is ultimately about: elevating and popularizing the skills needed to tackle the questions of our shared life. I want to make group help as aspirational and accessible as self-help.

But group life isn’t just a me thing — it’s an all-hands-on-deck thing. The joy of building this newsletter over the last year has been finding a community of readers who also want to strengthen the skills, habits, and rituals that help groups thrive. To find the kind of people who want to turn towards each other — including (especially!) in the hard moments — as an act of resistance against the loneliness and individualism that pervades so much of modern life.

I wrote this book for you — for us — in the hope that it will help us keep building deeper, thicker, more resilient, and frankly more fun group life. So let’s dig in.

Warmest,

Priya

A special pre-order event with Lupita Nyong’o

Join me and my friend, Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o, for a virtual conversation celebrating the launch of The Art of Fighting. I could not be more excited about this! We’ll be talking about all things conflict and tackling real-life dilemmas submitted by you, live on Zoom, on Friday, September 4 at 12 pm ET. This conversation is a THANK YOU from me to you for anyone who has pre-ordered the book by September 4th.

Here’s how it works:

Preorder the book from any U.S. retailer, then fill out the form below to register. Already ordered? Just grab your transaction or purchase order number from your confirmation email and use it to register, no need to buy again.

You can also submit a conflict you’re navigating within a group, friendship, or community for a chance to have Lupita and me talk it through live. Submit by Thursday, August 27th to be considered. This is an optional step and is not required to receive your official invite.

I can’t wait to see you there!

Preorder & Register here

Save the date(s). I’m coming to see you! 🤗

Priya Parker — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 11:03:55 GMT

When I first wrote The Art of Gathering, and it was time to launch the book, I was terrified. Would anyone come to the launch? My publisher was stoked that The Strand, the iconic New York City bookstore, was taking a chance on a first-time author and hosting my launch in its storied Rare Book Room. I was too. And then it dawned on me that we would need actual people to come.

As I was fretting (and, if we’re being honest, hiding), my wise husband, Anand, told me that I needed to clear my day and make a bunch of phone calls. Phone calls??? As in, pick up the phone? Yes, pick up the phone, he said. Call ten friends or people you know who love you (or at least don’t mind you), and who you think would be interested in the actual book. And say what?? I thought. And ask them to be your ambassadors and bring 10 people with them to The Strand, he counseled.

I listened to his advice. I picked up the phone and called friends who had done Sustained Dialogue with me, choreographed hip-hop dances with me, been in facilitation workshops, and sung karaoke together into the wee hours of the morning in a mediocre hotel with me. People who believed in gathering. And I asked them to help me. It took me weeks. But in so doing, I got to explain aloud why I wrote this book, why I needed their help, and then, gulp, ask for it.

On Thursday, May 16, 2018, I stepped out onto the floor, with my pal Melissa Bell by my side as my interlocutor, into a room full of my friends, and my mother, and my in-laws, and my work colleagues, and my editor and publishing team, and my neighbors — and all of their friends, too. It was like one giant hug.

And I realized that night that ideas spread through people and in community.

And now here I am, eight years later, once again.

In a little over a month (September 8th), The Art of Fighting will be out in the world. And so, this is me now, inviting YOU, my Group Life community, to come to a book launch and hang out with me in person! this September. Bring your people. Make a night of it. And, please, come say hi.

I will be hitting the road, visiting 11 cities to celebrate the launch of the book. So without further ado, here is the tour. Find your city, grab a ticket, and bring someone you love to fight with. 👹

(And if you find yourself in Seattle or Bainbridge Island, my mother has been known to show up behind the decks as DJ Deep Dive, and I am not confirming or denying anything, but I would not skip those two if you’re local 😉.)

Warmest, warmest, warmest,

Priya

WASHINGTON, DC

When: Tuesday, September 8 at 7:00 PM EST

Where: POLITICS & PROSE at 5015 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008

In Conversation with Clint Smith

NEW YORK, NY

When: Wednesday, September 9 at 6:00 PM EST

Where: BOOKS ARE MAGIC @ First Unitarian Church at 119 Pierrepont St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

In Conversation with America Ferrera

BOSTON, MA

When: Thursday, September 10 at 6:30 PM EST

Where: WBUR CITYSPACE at 890 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215

In Conversation with WBUR’s Tiziana Dearing

VIRTUAL EVENT

When: Friday, September 11 at 12:00 PM CST

Where: FAMILY ACTION NETWORK VIRTUAL EVENT

In Conversation with Daniel Pink

*Event Link To Come

SUMMERLAND, CA

When: Sunday, September 13 at 6:00 PM PST

Where: GODMOTHERS at 2280 Lillie Ave, Summerland, CA 93067

In Conversation with Jennifer Rudolph Walsh

LOS ANGELES, CA

When: Monday, September 14 at 7:00 PM PST

Where: REPARATIONS CLUB @ Thayer Hall at 200 S. Grand Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012

In Conversation with Elaine Welteroth

DALLAS, TX

When: Tuesday, September 15 at 7:00 PM CST

Where: WHOSE BOOKS @ Kalita Humphreys Theater at 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd, Dallas, TX 75219

In Conversation with Claudia Vega

SEATTLE, WA

When: Friday, September 18 at 7:30 PM PST

Where: ELLIOTT BAY BOOK COMPANY @ Town Hall Seattle at 1119 8th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101

In Conversation with Aaron Hurst

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, WA

When: Saturday, September 19 at 11:00 AM PST

Where: EAGLE HARBOR BOOK CO. @ Bainbridge Public Library at 1270 Madison Ave N, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110

In Conversation with Deepa Narayan

BENTONVILLE, AK

When: Monday, September 21 at 8:30 AM CST

Where: TWO FRIENDS BOOKSTORE @ Bentonville Area Chamber of Commerce at 125 W Central Ave #200, Bentonville, AR 72712

In Conversation with Denise Thomas

When: Monday, September 21 at 6:00 PM CST

Where: TWO FRIENDS BOOKSTORE @ BlakeSt House at 301 NE Blake St, Bentonville, AR 72712

In Conversation with Rachel Stuckey Slaton

*Open to BlakeSt House members only // Event link to come

HUNTSVILLE, AL

When: Tuesday, September 22 at 7:00 PM CST

Where: THE SNAIL ON THE WALL @ Randolph School, Thurber Arts Center at 4915 Garth Rd, Huntsville, AL 35802

In Conversation with Christie Finley

MIAMI, FL

When: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 - 7:00 PM EST

Where: BOOKS & BOOKS with MOSAIC MIAMI at Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ at 3010 De Soto Boulevard, Coral Gables, FL 33134

Add to your calendar here

You’re Invited! Our GROUP LIFE August lineup is here 🔥⚽️

Priya Parker — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 11:01:42 GMT

Can you believe it’s August? My family and I have been savoring summer. I read Megha Majumdar’s A Guardian and A Thief, which I could not recommend more. I watched the World Cup final with a Brazilian friend heavily rooting for Spain. Anand and I saw the dazzling Kerry Washington in a piercing revival of Whoopi Goldberg’s The Whoopi Monologues, which felt as fresh and relevant as ever 40 years later. I read Lena Dunham’s Famesick, and remembered why she really is a voice of a generation. I jumped into multiple bodies of water. I watched my kids on a Slip ‘N Slide (I did not join). I played rounds of my current favorite game, Priorities. I made BLTs with my kids. I picked up my flute and jammed with my son. And I finished, for the third time, reading the mesmerizing final draft of my husband’s brilliant new book (not out yet but can finally pre-order!), Man in the Mirror.

I also recorded my audiobook, which, though that may not sound like slowing down, hear me out. Every day I drove to this little cottage in Upstate New York, where a delightful and beloved audio engineer named Robert helped me into a glass-box studio, where I got to hear my words aloud rather than just on the page. We’d take lunch breaks, sit in the garden, and talk about life. (He let me rest my voice and told me the secrets of a perfect PB&J sandwich. Hint: it involves Teddie’s All Natural Super Chunky Peanut Butter and potato bread.)

And I tucked in with my friends and family and rested, so that I could begin to prepare for the launch of The Art of Fighting. A launch is a weird thing. But at its core, it’s actually many, many, many people choosing to spend their headspace and talents and love helping you get an idea out into the world. Like most things worth doing, it’s basically organizing and gathering and organizing and gathering. And tomorrow, we have a fun book launch-related announcement about how we can meet IRL, so keep your eyes peeled. 👀

Without further ado, here’s this month’s lineup.

GROUP HELP Labs: My highest and best teaching, one hang at a time

This GROUP HELP Lab is for paid subscribers (aka GROUP LIFERS). If you want to join us (and please do!), become a GROUP LIFER here. It’s the price of a sandwich per month, and my accessible offering to individuals.

Note: We’re only doing one lab this month because of summer travel. I hope you enjoy your time off.

GROUP HELP Lab | Intro to Healthy Heat: Learning to Fight Well WITH PRIYA PARKER

When: Wednesday, August 19 at pm ET

Where: Zoom

The communities and groups that last aren’t the ones that never fight; they’re the ones that fight well. In my new book, The Art of Fighting, I call this ability “healthy heat.” And for the first time, I’m teaching this core concept in a workshop. Healthy heat is the ability to hold relevant, tense conversations with care long enough to be generative and clarifying. In many groups and organizations, when conflict rises, we oscillate between avoidance and burning the house down. However, the groups that grow and thrive (and, frankly, last) are the ones that allow healthy heat. This month, we’ll unpack the components of healthy heat and practice how to recognize it in yourself, your relationships, and your teams.

Add to your calendar

These labs take place on Zoom. RSVP above. We’ll email the Zoom link to paid subscribers the day before. On the day of the session, click on the Zoom link to join—no additional registration required. If you arrive early, you’ll enter the waiting room, and we’ll begin at 12 pm ET. You’re welcome to join or leave at any point during the hour. If you can’t attend live, we’ll send the replay to all Group Lifers the following Sunday. You can become a GROUP LIFER here.

Substack Lives: Free and open to all! 🥳

These LIVE conversations are free and open to all!! The replays, however, are a benefit of a paid subscription. Thank you for supporting this work and our team. You can become a GROUP LIFER here.

Good Things x The Art of Gathering with Samin Nosrat

When: Monday, August 17 at 12 pm ET

Where: Substack

Y’all, if you don’t know the work of Samin Nosrat, you’re in for a massive treat. Her book, Salt Fat Acid Heat, is a staple in our home. And she’s now out with her new Good Things Cookbook Club Kit. Come hang out with us as we dive into her work (hint: it’s about food as a medium to connection). We’ll get into her Monday dinners, a weekly meal that turned into a ritual, then a community, then one of the most meaningful parts of her life. And how something as ordinary as a weekly dinner can become sacred just by showing up for it again and again, and how simple it is to create that kind of community through repetition.

The Breakdown: Hosting The World Cup in NYC, with Ellyn Canfield, Executive Director of NYC World Cup Operations, and Maryam Mudrick, Director of NYC World Cup Activations

When: Tuesday, August 25, 12 pm ET

Where: Substack

What does it take for a city to be a great host? In this conversation, the NYC World Cup team (as in the actual city officials within the mayor’s office!!) shares how they thought beyond the stadium and built a playbook that empowered neighborhoods, businesses, cultural institutions, and community organizations to participate in authentic and far-reaching ways. From citywide branding and transit campaigns to free watch parties, affordable tickets, 24/7 soccer fields, and a very popular jersey, we’ll explore how they helped transform a global sporting event into a hometown celebration.

Add to your calendar here

To join, click the link above to add the event to your calendar. On Tuesday at 12 pm ET, when it begins, Substack will also send an email with a button to join. It will take you directly to the live video on Substack, either in the Substack app or in your web browser. If you can’t find the email, go to priyaparker.substack.com at 12 pm ET, and you’ll see the video streaming at the top of the page. If you miss it, we’ll email the replay to all Group Lifers after the conversation. You can become a GROUP LIFER here.

What a lineup! I’m so thrilled to get to do this with y’all.

As always,

Priya

P.S. And look out for a big announcement tomorrow, Monday, Aug 3rd at noon EST. 📣

The Art of Indexing

Priya Parker — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:01:09 GMT

When I was a teenager, I remember watching my mother pick up a book at a bookstore and, instead of opening to the first page, she turned to the index. I asked what she was doing, and my stepfather explained, “She’s looking to see what kind of book it is.”

I don’t think I fully understood what he meant until this past month, when I got to review the draft index for The Art of Fighting. My editor, Jake, told me that it would be arriving in a digital package, along with specific instructions. And that I’d have a week to review, make any changes, and send it back to them.

When the email came, before getting to the draft index, I was amazed to find a super thoughtful guide: “The most important thing to keep in mind is ‘a good index can do what a plain search cannot’ for the reader (Chicago Manual of Style 15.2).”

Then: “An index is a tool for readers to find key themes and terms from the book. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list.”

As I read these delightful instructions, it began to dawn on me that even indexing is an art.

And then I scrolled past the instructions and found something remarkable: my index.

The indexers had sat with my book and codified and alphabetized what they believed were the core ideas in my book, and how people might search for them. Before me, in an itemized list, were the concepts I’d spent the last six years conceiving of, putting into words, and distilling into the simplest and most precise form that I could to grab the reader by the lapel. All with page numbers neatly beside them. 🤯

Another entry:

I gasped. If this book were boiled down to a simple conceit, it would probably be this sentence: “acknowledgment, that we affect one another.” By choosing to engage in it, you are admitting that I affect you and you affect me. And that admission is a fundamentally vulnerable act. Conflict is an act of intimacy. It was amazing to see this idea just sitting there in a list.

An index is an honoring.

I kept scrolling, and as I did, I became a bit teary. (Some of you were with me when I did this during our virtual co-working hour. Thank you for joining me.) In this document were the names of the dozens of people I interviewed, the authors I read, the cases I studied, the pseudonyms I chose (which I had the indexer remove), the Disney Movies I analyzed, the reality TV shows I parsed, and the people whose lives and ideas have been living in my head for the past six years. It felt like a family reunion.

An index is political.

What should get its own category? What is a subsection? They had shelved “humor” under the category “play.” But they are so different!, I thought. I inserted a comment that “humor” should get its own category.

“Power,” too, I thought, should get its own category.

What do you advertise and what do you hide?

My book is about group fights. And I write about groups that other people assume are monolithic (a Super Bowl-winning football team, a 120-year-old swim club, a taiko drumming circle) to show that every group fights. To figure out who they are, what they’re about, where their boundaries are, and what makes them tick, groups have to fight. So, when it comes to the index, I had to decide: do I name those groups? Or is the whole point to surprise and disarm and let the pages reveal themselves?

What do people look for?

Throughout the book, I talk about fights between friends, but there wasn’t a category for “friend.” So I suggested we add one.

Here’s one of the insertions I made into the index. I wanted to add “friend groups” as a searchable category.

Above all, an index is an act of meaning-making. What matters here? What does the reader need to turn to quickly? And who decides?

I submitted my suggestions.

And it got me thinking: if you were to INDEX a year of your life, what would be on that list? :)

Warmest,

Priya

P.S. And if you want to see the full beautiful index in all her glory, you can pre-order The Art of Fighting here, and it will be on your doorstep on September 8th.

The tool I use to fight better (a sneak peek from THE ART OF FIGHTING)

Priya Parker — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 11:01:10 GMT

In the 1960s, sports talk radio hosts were struggling to fill their 24-hour-a-day programming. There was no way to stretch real reporting across that much airtime, so stations started inviting listeners to call in with “hot takes”: this coach should be fired, or that quarterback is horrible! Nobody needed to be right; they just needed to be loud enough to keep the phone lines lit.

You may have noticed the hot take is having a moment, whether that’s Kareem Rahma pulling strangers into debates on SubwayTakes, or you watched last week’s GROUP HELP Lab or joined this week’s GROUP HELP Do Lab on how to host a Hot Takes Party ;)

This week, we rolled up our sleeves and actually practiced building a group’s capacity for healthy heat by adding warmth and humor. It’s a sneak peek from my new book, THE ART OF FIGHTING. (And it’s one of my favorite parts of the book. If you want to pre-order it, go here. And if you want a signed copy, go here.)

As a reminder, a hot take is a controversial, low-stakes, personal opinion. For example, “burritos are better than tacos” is a low-stakes hot take. “Immigration policy needs to be reformed” is not a hot take. A hot take isn’t a values debate. It isn’t about identity or having the right answer.

Group Lifers can watch the full replay below (just click the play arrow on the video) to see where we landed on whether cats make better pets than dogs, and how silly conflicts can be a great way to deepen a group’s connection. (And if you’re not yet a Group Lifer, you can become one here for about the cost of a sandwich a month.)

As we practiced in the Do Lab, low-stakes arguing is good practice for high-stakes arguing, and the groups that are well-versed in holding healthy heat — whether that’s at a family dinner, in a Monday meeting, over a wedding guest list — are the ones that last.

Beverly Hills, What a Thrill. Beverly Hills, What a Thrill. 🎶

Priya Parker — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:20:22 GMT

Dear Group Lifers,

Every so often I go back and rewatch a movie I loved as a kid, and it doesn’t hold up. The jokes are cringe, the politics are dated, and I wince my way through it. But once in a blue moon, I find a gem. Last weekend, during a gloomy rainstorm, I rewatched a film with my eight-year-old daughter, and wow, did it hold up. More than that, I realized it’s actually a film about the power of starting a group, and what happens after you do.

Group Lifers can listen to this debrief above. (Click the triangle play button above.)

Here are five reasons Troop Beverly Hills belongs on the GROUP LIFE movie shelf.

Learn How to Host a Low-Stakes Hot Takes Party (Zoom Link Inside)

Priya Parker — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:02:03 GMT

The BLT is the best sandwich. Dating apps shouldn’t exist. Wired headphones are better than AirPods. QR codes are ruining the dining experience.

Last week, we had one of my favorite Group Help Labs yet: The Transformative Power of a Hot Take. A hot take is a strongly held, low-stakes opinion – the kind meant to get people talking, not to win an argument. Nobody’s identity is on the line, and nobody has to convince anyone else. But the muscle you build arguing about pineapple on pizza is the kind of capacity you’ll need later, when the stakes are higher.

Most groups avoid disagreement until they absolutely can’t, and then it explodes: the family political fight, the tense meeting after a launch fails, the wedding invite list nobody agrees on. By then, we’re asking people to disagree well for the very first time, under the highest possible stakes. Not a shock it doesn’t go well.

Here’s the good news: fighting well isn’t a personality trait. It’s a skill. Believe me, I know. 👀And like any skill, you get better by practicing.

That’s why I’m thrilled about our Group Help Do Lab this Wednesday, July 22, at 12 pm ET, where we’ll practice hosting our own Hot Takes Party. I’ll be joined by our very own Group Life Facilitator, Exa Kutler. We’ll warm up together as a group, then head into breakout rooms to practice live.

Come with a low-stakes hot take of your own. Something small, something silly, something you’d defend at a dinner table with total conviction and zero consequence.

Also, as with every tool we teach in GROUP LIFE, you do not need to host a Hot Takes Party to use this skill. Some groups need it, but some don’t. This is one more tool for your group life toolkit, not a requirement.

Can’t wait to practice with you.

As always,

Priya

WATCH: The transformative power of low-stakes hot takes

Priya Parker — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:01:20 GMT

(Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

Last year, we decided to try something different at our team holiday dinner. Inspired by Melissa, a woman I wrote about in the newsletter, I told my team to come with one hot take they were ready and willing to share with the group and defend to the death.

When we got to dinner, we didn’t jump right in. We ordered food, caught up, and settled into the evening. Then I told everyone why we were doing it. “We’ve been wanting to do this since we learned about Melissa’s Hot Takes Party, and I’m so excited to finally do it tonight,” I said. “As I’ve been writing this new book about conflict, one of the best ways to help a group get more comfortable disagreeing is to start with something that doesn’t really matter.”

Then we went around the table, one person at a time, and everyone shared their hot take.

The first person declared that winter is the best season. Immediately, someone else jumped in. “Absolutely not. Fall is the best season. Have you ever even been to New York in October?” Which made the whole thing even funnier, because the person defending winter was the only born-and-raised New Yorker at the table.

The thing I love about Hot Takes Parties is that they aren’t really about hot takes. They’re about helping a group practice disagreement together.

As I write in the forthcoming The Art of Fighting, “Low-stakes arguing is good practice for high-stakes arguing.” If you want a group to get better at handling high-stakes conflict, don’t start with the high-stakes conflict. Start with something wonderfully inconsequential. The healthiest groups aren’t the ones that never disagree. They’re the ones who have built enough trust and enough practice that disagreement doesn’t threaten the relationship.

This past Wednesday, we got into three lessons that have changed how I think about helping groups get there. Group Lifers can watch the full replay below. (And if you’re not yet a Group Lifer, you can join us here for the cost of a sandwich a month. 😉)

Three lessons from a Hot Takes Party.

What are you doing alone that you could be doing together?

Priya Parker — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 11:00:26 GMT

A few years ago, I got an email from two documentary filmmakers, Pete Davis and Rebecca Davis. They were making a film about why Americans have stopped joining things, built around the work of a social scientist named Robert Putnam. Would I be a part of it?

I’d read Putnam’s groundbreaking work, Bowling Alone, in college. My mother is also an anthropologist who spent her career studying social capital, so the term had been sitting at our dinner table my whole life. Someone was trying to make this nerdy, but crucial concept cool and relatable, and accessible? Deal me in.

That film became Join or Die, and it premiered at SXSW in 2023. And it turns out the film they’d been working on for ten years has become central to the moment we’re in as a country now.

Pete and Rebecca generously gave GROUP LIFERS access to the full film this week. If you haven’t watched yet, you have one more day! Group Lifers can scroll down to watch. (And if you want to become a Group Lifer, let me help you out.)

Earlier this week, I sat down with Pete and Rebecca for a Substack Live. We talked about what they learned making the film, what’s surprised them since it came out, and what it will actually take to reverse a decline they’ve now spent almost a decade studying.

1. Though we’ve largely stopped “joining” as a nation over the past half-century — like forests — we can invest in reforestation. Pete describes civic life as an ecosystem: “It’s like a rainforest… a major tree starts falling down, and then suddenly you wake up 50 years later, and there’s a desert.” But ecosystems don’t just collapse and end. They can be re-forested, one seed at a time. And starting — or joining — just one little group can lead to reforestation of civic life. Take Sheri, who moved to Minneapolis in her sixties, knowing no one, put up a single flyer for a journaling club in a coffee shop. Seven months later, it’s still meeting, and has become an unexpected civic boon during the ICE raids in that city. Pete shared the example of a CrossFit gym in South Brooklyn that started as a place to work out and, by paying attention to who showed up and what their needs actually are, has sprouted a parents’ group, a 12-step meeting, a stand-up comedy night, and even a dog fundraiser that’s raised half a million dollars. “Every organization is also the soil for future organizations,” he said. You don’t plant a forest. You plant one seed and watch what grows out of it.

2. Convening power is one of the most underrated forms of actual power. An organizer recently told me that if you can regularly convene 50 or more people once a month, you’re one of the most powerful groups in the city. In The Art of Gathering, I write, “In countries descending into authoritarianism, one of the first things to go is the right to assemble. Why? Because of what can happen when people come together, exchange information, inspire one another, test out new ways of being together.” Your power is your social capital, your relational power, your ability to pick up the phone and have people on the other end ready to jump with you. It’s not magic. It’s repetition. So, dear reader, use your power and gather, gather, gather. Join, join, join.

3. Gather your tinder now, long before you need a spark. Pete’s favorite example is the opening of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Stride Toward Freedom. In the first two chapters of the book, before King ever gets to the boycott, he lists every club already active in Montgomery: the church, the Bricklayers Union, the NAACP chapter. Rosa Parks had been secretary of that NAACP chapter for ten years before the boycott. She wasn’t chosen at random. She’d, as Pete put it, “been gathering tinder for years.” History remembers the spark. Pete wants us to remember something else: “Who I want to celebrate are the people 20 years before the spark happened who started.”

4. The smallest room can spark a movement. Pete and Rebecca shared the documentary How to Survive a Plague, which has footage of the earliest ACT UP meetings: a small group gathering every Monday night on the Lower East Side that grew and grew and grew. That room changed how the FDA studied and approved treatment for an entire disease. As Pete put it, “It started with people joining a meeting on Monday nights, that’s it. They knew where it was. They knew where to be.”

5. Ask yourself: What are you doing alone that you could be doing together? Instead of just adding one more thing to your already-busy calendar, Rebecca has a total reframe: what could you do in the company of others? Shopping! Clothes swaps. Errands. Laundry. Rotating child care. Cooking. Meal prep.

6. Coordination is not a small thing. It’s most of the thing. Pete’s sister’s D.C. neighborhood built a shared map and events board so neighbors could actually find each other’s gatherings. None of that sounds radical. But it is. Coordination and infrastructure ease our ability to come together. (And, we talked about the exciting experiment launched this week by Chicago Public Media, Chicago.com, to help do just that.)

7. A group doesn’t have to last forever to matter. One of the things that surprised me as I researched for my next book, The Art of Fighting, is that great groups do end. And just because something “only” lasts three years doesn’t mean it wasn’t a powerful vehicle for those in it for that period of time. And that it didn’t change the people in it through the formation in that moment. In fact, it did its work.

As Pete shared, Putnam noticed that with the rise of technology and television, “we started watching Friends, instead of having friends.”

At the beginning of the Live, I asked everyone, “If you could wave a magic wand and join one thing this week, what would it be, and what’s stopping you from just doing it?”

The chat flooded: a tired dad’s paddle club, all-women’s dance parties, a casual singing group, the Canadian Olympic hockey team, a sewing club.

I’m curious… What would you join? And what would it take for you to just do it? Consider this your dare to take one step this summer.

As always,

Priya

GROUP HELP Lab Tomorrow: The power of a hot take

Priya Parker — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:02:58 GMT

Photo by James Devaney/GC Images

I’ve been enjoying watching the meteoric rise of Kareem Rahma’s popular SubwayTakes series. By now you’ve probably seen him interviewing celebrities, politicians, and commuters on the New York City subway, asking them for their “hot take.” Think: Money does buy happiness, pigeons deserve to be treated better, adults should normalize napping, and summer is the worst season. (A hot take, for the uninitiated, is a strongly held, often deliberately provocative opinion that’s meant to get people talking.)

SubwayTakes is funny, and Rahma’s a great host. But the show is also doing something deeper. In a multiracial, polarized democracy, we’ve gotten remarkably bad at fighting well. When conflict arises, we tend to oscillate between avoiding it altogether and burning the house down.

Over the past five years, as I’ve been studying teams, groups, and families that fight well, there’s a dynamic often present in groups that can hold healthy heat: they can banter.

Disagreement doesn’t have to be threatening. It can be playful and warm and even be funny. And in popularizing and normalizing hot takes, Rahma is helping us remember how.

For the first time in Group Life, I’m teaching an idea from my upcoming book! In this week’s GROUP HELP Lab, we’ll explore why humor and banter are some of the most powerful tools we have for helping groups fight well. You’ll learn why hot takes are surprisingly pro-social, why Hot Takes Parties work, and how to use low-stakes disagreement to help your own friends, family, or team build the muscles for healthy conflict.

Join me tomorrow, Wednesday, July 15, at 12 pm ET on Zoom.

These labs are for GROUP LIFERS. If you’re a Group Lifer, you’ll find the Zoom link below. At 12 pm Eastern, click to join. You’ll enter the waiting room, and we’ll let you in as soon as we’re live. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, become a GROUP LIFER today. For the cost of a sandwich a month, you’ll get access to this session, every replay, and our full library of GROUP HELP Labs.

I can’t wait to see you there.

As always,

Priya

P.S. Join me this Thursday, July 16, at 12 pm ET for a Substack Live with Rebecca Davis and Pete Davis, the directors of Join or Die, an Emmy-nominated documentary that explores how our declining participation in groups has reshaped American life. We’ll talk about the making of the film, what surprised them most, and why its message feels especially urgent today. GROUP LIFERS: Watch the film ahead of time here, then join the conversation here.

Special screening for Group Lifers 🍿

Priya Parker — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:40:55 GMT

Why have we stopped joining things? Why are so many of us so lonely? And what does any of that have to do with democracy?

These are the questions at the heart of Join or Die, the Emmy-nominated documentary inspired by social scientist Robert Putnam’s groundbreaking research on America’s declining civic life, and why the groups we belong to matter more than we might think.

I’m thrilled to be in conversation with the film’s directors, Rebecca Davis and Pete Davis, this coming Thursday, July 16, at 12 pm ET on Substack Live. We’ll talk about the making of the film, why Putnam’s ideas feel more relevant than ever, and how we begin rebuilding our civic life together.

If you haven’t seen Join or Die, now’s your chance. The film was previously streaming on Netflix, but it’s no longer available there. Rebecca and Pete have generously given Group Lifers exclusive access to watch it for the next six days, so you can come to our conversation having watched the film yourself.

Watch the film this week, and then join us on Thursday, July 16, as we go behind the scenes with Pete and Rebecca.

The private screening link is below and is exclusively for Group Lifers. It will be available for the next six days. Not a Group Lifer yet? Now’s your chance. 😉 Sign up here.

As always,

Priya

50 ways to gather without breaking the bank

Priya Parker — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:06:01 GMT

One of the great modern myths in life is that gatherings have to be elaborate or expensive to be memorable.

We think we need a beautiful home, a perfectly planned meal, or enough money to make it feel special. We think hosting has to be impressive to matter. But most people aren’t actually looking for perfection. They’re looking for connection and meaning. They want to feel welcomed, included, and seen.

As we slide into summer, I recently asked the Group Life community to share their favorite no-spend ways to hang out with their people, and the responses came flooding in from all over the world. I want to share them with you all today!

Gathering need not be complicated. Sometimes, it’s as simple as bringing people together to try a new recipe.

Without further ado, here are 50 ways to gather without breaking the bank.

Play together

Host board game nights. — Rhiannon G.
Host trivia nights at home.
Throw a Hot Takes Party where everyone brings a low-stakes, high-controversy opinion to debate.
Have blindfolded drawing contests.
Host lip-sync battles.
Name dogs in the park and invent elaborate backstories.
Share your niche obsessions with each other.
Host a “guest of honor” night where everyone tells stories about one person in the room.
Start a book club. — Diane D.
Host tarot reading nights. — Heather Y.

You’re Invited! Our GROUP LIFE July lineup is here 😎🔥

Priya Parker — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 11:02:44 GMT

What people are saying about Group Life:

“Your work is so thoughtful and has such genuine intentions of connection behind it. And you’re pragmatic and helpful.” - Steph

“Glad to join this group. Your work is important to building my group leadership skills. Appreciate what you are doing for facilitators and group leaders.” - Susan

“I love your ideas for fostering connections in groups. I have read your book and have incorporated your ideas into presentations I have done and it has worked well.” - Jyotsna

I hope your summer is off to a beautiful start, filled with time with your people.

One of my favorite signs that it’s summer is that it’s time for Upstate Art Weekend in my neck of the woods. Every summer, hundreds of artists, museums, galleries, and cultural organizations across the Hudson Valley and Catskills open their doors to the public to come and hang. Instead of spending the day in one museum or neighborhood, you move from town to town and studio to studio, meeting artists and neighbors and discovering places you never knew existed.

My OG Group Lifers will remember this is also where my husband and I try to figure out how to include our kids without centering them.

The rest of July has me on the road quite a bit while also working behind the scenes to get The Art of Fighting ready to meet the world (that’s why our schedule is a little wonky this month). But first, I’m excited to gather with you in these ways.

Without further ado, here’s this month’s lineup.

GROUP HELP Labs:

These GROUP HELP Labs are for paid subscribers (aka GROUP LIFERS). If you want to join us (and please do!), become a GROUP LIFER here.

GROUP HELP Lab | The transformative power of a hot take (and why it’ll help your team)

When: Wednesday, July 15 at 12 pm ET

Where: Zoom

You may have seen these viral videos popping up online of Kareem Rahma riding the Subway and asking strangers for their hottest take. Take Brad Lander, who thinks all drinks should be fizzy. Or Jennifer Lopez, who controversially shared that she thinks you have to be born in New York to be a real New Yorker. Or Claire Valdez, who thinks all New York beaches are excellent beaches. One of the best ways to help a group become less conflict-averse is to first help them disagree about things that don’t really matter. In this month’s GROUP HELP Lab, we’ll explore why humor, banter, and playful disagreement create the warmth that makes meaningful conflict possible and dive into the tools to design and host a Hot Takes Party for your friends, family, or team.

A Live Do Lab | How to Actually Host a Hot Takes Party

When: Wednesday, July 22 at 12 pm ET

Where: Zoom

In our first GROUP HELP Lab of the month, we’ll explore why Hot Takes Parties work. This week, we’ll put those ideas into practice. Together with Group Help Facilitator Exa Kutler, we’ll walk through the elements of a great Hot Takes Party and what it takes to host one well. You’ll leave with practical ideas and tips and the confidence to host one of your own with your friends, family, colleagues, or team.

Substack Lives:

This live conversation will be available only to paid subscribers. Thank you for supporting this work. You can become a GROUP LIFER here.

A Substack Live Conversation with the Directors of Join or Die

When: Thursday, July 16 at 12 pm ET

Where: Substack

This month, I’m sitting down with the directors of the Emmy-nominated documentary Join or Die. Inspired by social scientist Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone research, the film explores America’s decades-long decline in joining groups and what that loss means for our democracy, our communities, and our everyday lives. (You may even spot a cameo from yours truly. 😉) Group Lifers will receive special access to watch the film before our conversation. Then I’ll sit down with the directors, Rebecca Davis and Pete Davis, to talk about what they learned making the documentary, what has stayed with them since its release, and what they’re working on now.

Join us here

I can’t wait to gather with you this month.

And I’m curious… What’s your summer tradition or ritual to kick off the season? I’d love to hear about it.

As always,

Priya

Why I’m paying attention to the Norwegians at the World Cup

Priya Parker — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 14:51:20 GMT

Photo credit: Steph Chambers - FIFA

Dear Group Lifers,

I’ve been watching the World Cup and the Knicks with so much joy. The vibes have been so good. Last night, the U.S. beat Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there have already been so many beautiful moments in the World Cup, including this wild win by Cape Verde over Spain.

And, as always, I can’t help but watch it all through a gathering lens.

The team I’m paying close attention to right now is Norway. And it’s not because of how they’re playing. If you want to know why, listen to this debrief. (Click on the triangle play button above.)

And for a visual of what I’m breaking down, see the “Viking Row” here:

As always,

Priya