#54 - Finding Community in a New Town with Pittsburgh Social Health [Haley Ingersoll]

Welcome to the very first virtual episode of the Talk to People Podcast.

It's funny, if this is your first time tuning in, all of our podcasts have been in person, but in 2024, we have made the decision to not only do in-person podcasts, but also to include virtual.

And I am so glad that I did because this episode features a conversation that I had with Haley Ingersoll, who is the founder of Pittsburgh Social Health.

Pittsburgh Social Health, which is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a group that builds community for new and returning residents of Pittsburgh.

The cool process of building this whole entire podcast has been answering the question for myself of, how do I create content that helps young adults grow in social connection?

And one of the best ways for me to do that is to go to young adults who are building platforms, programs, projects that are improving the lives of people around them, particularly in the aspect of social connection.

So they're either creating a third place for people to show up to, they're either creating content that helps people think about how to be socially connected.

And that's what Haley's doing.

So throughout this podcast, we talk about how she built it, why she built it, some of the things most people struggle with whenever they're a transplant moving from one city to another.

I talk about some of my experience because I moved from Oklahoma to North Carolina.

She moved from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania.

And we also talk about different stuff like mental health and its connection with how we work with those around us, what drove us to do the things we have.

And also whenever you're a young adult, how it's hard to feel like you can be taken seriously in your community, especially when you move because you can't say, I'm born and raised here.

But this was a super fun conversation.

Getting back to the swing of things with Convos.

I'll still have solo content coming out soon.

If it's your first time listening, like, rate, subscribe to the podcast.

I'm so grateful you're here.

Without further ado, Haley Ingersoll.

And we are officially live.

Welcome to the Talk to People Podcast in the virtual studio.

So, for all those listening, it's really evident if you're watching, we are not in the dining room studio, not in the living room studio, not in the library studio, none of that.

We are virtual.

I know I had mentioned for podcast number 52 that we're gonna be doing some virtual guests.

And to kick off the virtual guests, I have Ms.

Haley Ingersoll.

How are you?

I'm great, Chris.

I'm happy to be here with you virtually in the digital studio and excited to chat with you today about social health and connectedness and everything in between.

Yeah, because you are active in that world.

You've started Pittsburgh Social Health.

Go ahead and give a blurb about Pittsburgh Social Health.

Yeah, so I'm reporting to you from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I've lived since 2020.

I relocated here in July of that year, which, as many of us know, was a really tricky time socially, especially for cross-country moves.

And I struggled with that at first, but over time kind of relied on the resources that I had to befriend neighbors, things like that.

And it also drove me to create this organization called Pittsburgh Social Health, which started by propping up little meetups for fellow Pittsburgh transplants.

And so that's where I'm at.

I've kind of just been at this for about a year now, and I've met some really incredible people along the way.

And you were, for those watching this thing, I'm doing all the transitioning on my end.

So this is the first, Haley and I were joking about how today has been a funny day.

But the beauty is that we both get to show up and we both get to talk.

So there's a lot of people who are moving.

How old are you, Haley?

I'm 27.

Okay, I'm 28.

So I'm your senior, just by a bit.

But we're both in our 20s, and a lot of people who are older than us don't imagine 20s as being a lonely time of life.

Oftentimes, it's like the glory days with college and with opportunity, and you're the youngest and the most beautiful, and you have a ton of potential.

But really from a lot of stuff that I've seen, and I'm guessing a lot of stuff you've seen, that young adulthood is actually pretty lonely.

Yeah, absolutely.

No stranger to those challenges.

And I think one of the first times I really noticed that was after leaving my graduate program.

I think a cross-country move is obviously cause for feeling a little bit more socially isolated.

But beyond that, not being a student and having those sort of preordained social opportunities was a huge challenge for me at first.

And I've heard that with many other people who perhaps they weren't taking on, you know, they weren't in school or anything, but they took a remote job where they don't have, you know, the water cooler talk with their colleagues or, you know, things like that.

And that can be a big pain point for a lot of people.

Yeah.

So what drives you to actually build something to alleviate it?

Was there something that happened or were you just sitting on it and you're like, I'm going to be the one who does it?

Yeah, it was kind of organic, actually.

I mean, of course, loneliness drove me to it because I was like, wow, I need friends.

I'm in this new place where I really only know my partner or his friends, and they all have the camaraderie of being PhD students together.

But I didn't feel like I had my sense of belonging personally.

And then I found my way to this co-working space, again, driven out of that desire for a sense of community.

And from there, I learned and I met a lot of people who were also recently relocated or came to the co-working space because they wanted that sort of interaction with people.

They wanted their social fabric to have people from their neighborhood and to be exposed to new businesses.

And so the more I had interactions of that sort, I realized like, okay, I'm not alone in this.

Even if we all feel lonely, we're not alone, right?

So then you're like, I'm going to build something?

Yeah, yeah, sort of.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool.

I know it gets a bad rap sometimes, but it led me to this opportunity.

And additionally, I found out about social health labs.

So Cassie Killam is very involved in the social health scene.

And I think she had maybe posted something.

I couldn't tell you exactly how I stumbled across it, but I read a reading about this org called Social Health Labs, and they were doing these community microgrants, which gave individuals $1,000 to prop up programming that builds community, which of course, in the depth of the pandemic, was so necessary.

And people got very creative with it.

And I thought, wow, that's an amazing idea, but I don't really know how I could contribute, but I want to.

So just knowing that opportunity existed kind of planted a seed in my mind.

And then, as I mentioned, these conversations that came up with co-working space and in the few areas where I was like trying to find friends and build community, like writing workshops, I realized like, okay, there's something there.

So why don't I put together a little draft, a form, kind of talking about how the transplant experience is uniquely isolating and how I want to do just a meetup and see who comes.

And it turns out people want to come to that sort of thing.

So here I am like a year later.

What was the first meetup?

The first meetup was pretty informal.

Of course, I hosted it out of the co-working space that I work at, because why not?

So I had popcorn and snacks and propped it up through a different organization that I already knew of that had a really healthy newsletter following.

And that helped me kind of bring some people in.

Otherwise, I didn't really know how else I was going to get people.

Right.

It takes collaboration.

How did you get connected to the newsletter again?

So that writing workshop I mentioned was put on through this organization called The Salon.

From there, I got to know the founder of that and asked if I could prop it up through her newsletter.

So I had to get a little crafty with it, but from there, we had just like a...

It was kind of...

It started off like really stale.

We were in like a conference room and it felt really just like stuffy.

But then after we moved out and we got the snacks and the sparkling water going and just like talked, you know, how long have you been here?

What have you struggled with?

What do you like?

What do you still want to see in Pittsburgh?

And from there, we were able to kind of come up with a rap sheet and a list of things to do.

And, you know, what common struggles we have and how we can kind of get through them together.

How many people show up first time?

The first one was maybe like 10 to 14, I think.

So pretty solid.

And then from there, it went up to maybe like 20.

And then it's kind of ebbed and flowed since.

We've determined that things kind of run on like a bell curve when it comes to social opportunity, especially in places where it's cold in winter and then you get a warm summer, like people are more active with other things.

Okay, so for the bell curve, you're saying whenever, explain the bell curve to me.

Yeah, so right now we're in kind of this, I wouldn't say sedentary, but we're planning and figuring out how we can kind of ramp up into spring, because spring is when people get out of their house and the weather is nice and they're kind of itching to do things.

And then summer, it's just you're inundated with things to do.

There's holiday parties, there's days at the lake or you know, just so much going on.

It's such a like lively time of year.

And then fall kind of tapers off depending on weather and then holidays kind of roll in.

And then, yeah, we hibernate again.

So that's the way we're just kind of following like a trend line.

Yeah.

So you're, you are, I'm impressed by your craftiness here because you use LinkedIn, you learn about social health labs, you learn about the program, you learn about the microgrants, you go to a writing workshop, you meet someone there, you leverage a newsletter, like that's a lot of work and you did it and it's paying off now.

But what drove you throughout all of that to do all of that stuff?

Again, I think it selfishly was the sense of like, I want belonging and I want to be around people who have similar values to me.

So that writing workshop exposed me to such creative people.

Did you have to pay for it?

That one, yes.

It was relatively low cost and for me it felt worth the spend.

Especially, again, I was freshly like out of grad school and kind of just trying to figure out what my identity was not being a student anymore.

And I knew that creative writing and doing that sort of thing just felt good to me.

So it was something that I could return to.

But yeah, I don't know what necessarily my North Star was besides just being fascinated by other people who are passionate.

So any opportunity I get to be around people who just love doing things, it's a motivator for me.

Have you always been wired that way?

I think so.

I think some of this is just innate.

Like people fascinate me.

My degree was in sociology just because I loved seeing the way that we act as a collective and all of the subgroups and norms that we develop.

And then there's things that just come along and completely disrupt that, right?

Like we can help people and then make a cross-country move, and there's adjustment that's required there.

Yeah, I was just like I was talking to you earlier about a meeting I was coming from.

And one of the things that struck me was this person said, we often underestimate how quickly we can go from a healthy level of social connection to loneliness.

They have these things called friendship killers.

And the most common friendship killers are like having a baby is a common friendship killer.

And oftentimes we don't think about that.

Getting a job, a different job, friendship killer, moving out of state, getting married.

And then like illness, like being sick.

So it's crazy to me how often we underestimate how quickly we could be someone who's lonely and how quickly we could go from a place to where we feel great.

And then before we know it, like you, you moved from what?

Wisconsin to Pittsburgh?

Was that the what was the move again?

Yeah, that was the move, right?

Yeah.

And like I moved from Oklahoma to North Carolina, and I find myself being like, dang.

But before you moved, were you actively looking things up in Pittsburgh to like go to?

Like, were you doing research that way?

I had visited a few times, so I had a small frame of reference leading up to it, because my partner lived here for two years prior to my, like we did a long distance relationship.

So I had some exposure, but in terms of professional connections, absolutely not.

Like even though I would look things up on LinkedIn or whatever, again, I've always been kind of a LinkedIn nerd too.

But yeah, it just felt like there, I was far better plugged in in Madison, where I was attending grad school and had had internships where at that point, it would have been like a shoe in probably to find something.

But coming here felt like starting over from square one.

So why not stay in Madison because of the relationship?

Essentially, yeah.

You and me both, we chased the romantic interest.

It can be tough.

It's one of those things I would gladly do again any day, but there is some compromise and sacrifice there too.

Yeah, I kind of like the idea of becoming part of the adventure and knowing that I didn't have the pressure of, in that moment, I didn't have the pressure of leading the adventure.

My wife got the offer to do potentially similar PhD fellowship work at University of Kansas.

So it's like, all right, well, I guess I'm going.

And it was exciting to be a part of this adventure.

But here's the deal.

This is something that I think a lot of people don't recognize.

We don't realize with a move how much it affects us to not be around our people.

Like we completely undervalue.

They call that relational disposability.

We think these relationships, we can just toss out and find new ones.

So the move was very adventurous, but yeah, brutal once you get there because you recognize, oh, I actually can't replace.

Haley was actually super funny, and now I'm here and I can't find a person like Haley.

And then we try and clone the friends we had to try and replace the people we left.

And then that never works too.

I remember I would take an inventory of who are my best friends, and then they're all in Texas, Florida, Colorado.

And it's like, okay, so my best friends are a Zoom call or a really long flight away.

And that's tricky.

So I think that may have partially driven our desire to be close with our neighbors.

And I may have told you that story when we initially talked, but at this point, since I moved in July, we moved, sorry, moved in July, and then it came to the holidays, and we made a bunch of cookies, and we were like, let's just drop them off on steps, include a little part with our phone numbers.

Because at this point, we were hardly even talking to each other on the street if we would see each other.

Wow.

It was that point in the pandemic where it's like you would politely cross the street if you were kind of oncoming.

It was very precocious time.

And so we put these little cookies on steps with the cards, and eventually it helped us develop relationships with them.

And without that, I don't know how we would have felt or how long it would have gone before we really felt any kind of proximity to them, even though they're directly across the street or right next to us.

Yeah.

So was that your idea or his idea?

It might have been a collaboration.

I can't remember.

Are you all wired similarly in that way to where you're both are pretty like people centric?

Our friends would say so.

Yeah, our friends are always like your social lives are out of this world.

But I think it's because we've been fortunate to cultivate really good relationships.

And that hasn't been without work.

But I think luckily, our hobbies have been really expansive in that way.

I know I mentioned league volleyball has been our lives just kind of exploded after that in the best way.

So I feel really fortunate to have gone from where I was when I first got here and then to just extremely fulfilled in a short time.

So you joined league volleyball and that blew up your social circle?

Pretty much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We had like casual friends and then I did Bumble BFF to try and make friends with mixed success.

One really good friend has come from that.

But beyond that, yeah, it was mostly volleyball.

And how did you two meet?

We met on a dating app.

Yeah.

So like the Bumble and the dating app platform you've had luck with regarding like romantic but platonic, it's been a mixed bag?

Mixed bag because it feels like dating.

It's strange.

Like you'll just meet up with this stranger at a craft store and you walk around together and then you go get a coffee afterward.

And then you're like, do we want to do this again?

And yeah, sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Sometimes they just turn into like a social media acquaintance where it's like rooting for you, but I don't feel the need to hang out with you all the time.

So did you ever have to do like, it's not you, it's me friend breakup on BumbleBFF?

Unfortunately, I think I kind of ghosted if anything, you know, where like it petered out.

We would hang out like once and then we would try and get together again just to see if there was anything.

And yeah, then I think we just kind of drifted.

But yeah, yeah, that's it's funny because we put the I like the idea of BumbleBFF because it's leveraging technology to try and bring people together.

But that is funny because we think about it like the matchmaking process historically has always been romantic.

And now with that app, we're leveraging it for like a platonic.

But it's like the pressure of showing up and being like like when you're dating, it's like, do I find this person attractive?

Are they interested?

Are they interesting?

Are there red flags?

But it's like we have to come up with a new filter for the platonic meetups.

Yeah, I would have to dig up where I listen to this.

I think it was an NPR Life Kit episode, but it was talking about friendship and how there isn't really a moral social contract for friendship, right?

It can look like so many different things.

It can be the person you play tennis with twice a week, or it could be, I'm calling you every single day while I meal prep, right?

You just don't know.

Whereas in relationships, there is more of that stepwise progression for a lot of people of like, okay, we're dating, let's make this official.

Down the line where there's a little bit more of a common trajectory, but friendships really do look different in so many ways.

So like you're saying, with the dating app, it's like a lot more open-ended when it turns to platonic exploration with friends.

And yeah, and just seeing if you even have anything in common.

Yeah, that's why I love the volleyball league approach because you are the other approach.

Like you said, it may be easier because you filter some people out immediately.

And then you get to do like schedules and maybe you can go in-depth more.

But I'm with you.

Like we were in a volleyball league.

I do soccer three times a week.

And having the people show up because then you can be, I think the best thing is just getting time together in the same place.

But nobody gets that because they don't show up.

Right.

That's why the league is great because there's that built-in consistency.

You're kind of forced into a team with volleyball.

It's between four and six people or two if you're doing beach.

But you have this core group of people that you have to kind of work with.

Even if you don't like them or if you do, great.

But you learn to work across difference and you have a common goal.

If you're competitive like me, that's winning.

But also having fun is another really important part.

And yeah, there's that like the shared interest of we like to play volleyball.

So you know you kind of have that.

That's a shoe in.

No one's really like signing up for that because they hate volleyball.

So you kind of sort into that social group, which is, yeah, very helpful.

Yeah, it's a it's a uniting factor.

So you did social work in school.

Yes.

And the what's your long term vision for occupation for yourself?

That's a great question.

I've done a lot of soul searching since finishing my program.

For the longest time, I thought being a counseling psychologist was my end all be all.

And that's the main reason I pursued my masters in social work.

I think it was partially me search.

A lot of people get into psychology and sociology because they just want to learn more about themselves.

So that definitely did drive me along with family history with mental health and things like that.

But I don't know what the long term vision was counselor.

And then pandemic happened, I moved.

I was kind of just trying to figure things out.

And licensure is definitely a big aspect of that.

And I didn't really know if I was going to be in Pittsburgh for two years or not.

And that can have implications for pursuing licensure, which is obviously like not a sexy explanation.

But anyway, once I landed here, I did, I looked for remote work and I was doing field organizing politically.

And then I did web development, project management.

I've done freelance writing.

I've been all over the map.

And I do love that.

I've realized I like having my hands in multiple projects, especially if it's stuff I'm passionate about.

But I think as this has kind of come to fruition, and when I say this, I mean Pittsburgh Social Health, I do see myself eventually growing into an executive director of some kind or a coach.

And I think that would be cool.

Though being a 20-something, I feel like a sense of imposter syndrome at this point, of like, I'm not ready to coach other people, because I'm just learning things and making it up as I go.

But hopefully someday.

What would you want to coach people to do?

Oh, I don't know.

For a while, it was like, quit your job and do what you're passionate about.

But I think what I like about coaching beyond just like individual counseling is it's more comprehensive and it takes your whole well-being picture into consideration.

Whether that's your finances or movement in your body or spirituality, things like that.

I love that coaching can be a little bit more holistic, and it can also be very specific.

Well, I'll find my niche with transplants of some kind.

Okay, let's talk about transplants.

People who move from one place to another place, what's that look like for most people?

I think in the current day and age, a lot of people move on the basis of work.

They pursue a different state after they finish their degree program, or they know that there's work in this state.

Or they're like, California has palm trees, and I want to live somewhere warm because I grew up in the Midwest.

But that experience can look like a lot of things.

Transplants could also be immigrants or expats who once lived in a place, moved away for school or work, etc.

and then came back.

It's really a multitude of things.

And what do most people get wrong whenever they're about to move to a new place?

Do you think there's things that transplants have to face that they may not recognize?

Oh yeah, I think so.

Whether it's where do I shop for my groceries?

You know, if there's like a big regional change.

Or this city doesn't have the pharmacy I would always go to.

These sound like dumb things or like little menial, like it shouldn't matter.

But I think some of that can feel like a big hurdle when you're already somewhere that you're unfamiliar with.

Not to mention, again, lacking those people who were really integral in your social fabric.

Like I'm now 10 hours away from my family.

If something comes up, I'm going to have to get on a plane because it's that far.

I don't know.

There's a lot of little barriers that I don't think you can always anticipate until you're in that spot.

I love the potential here because you have an interest in social health.

You want people to be as socially fit as possible and you recognize well-being requires belonging, community, togetherness.

But then you also have a background, the social work background and the psychology acumen.

And I feel like combining those two things could be dangerous in a real good way.

I love that.

I want my tagline to be dangerous in a really good way.

I think that's the ultimate, yeah, to be a disruptor of sorts, because I think the status quo is not really doing it for many, as has been underscored by the Surgeon General.

And more and more articles are coming out about the issue of loneliness in our country.

So I think the more we can kind of identify that and get cozy with, like isolation isn't necessarily a bad thing, but like what else can we do about it, I think is essential.

And I love that you're having these conversations.

It's such an important thing.

Me too.

And I love that you're having the conversations.

You're the one who's actually putting the Pittsburgh Social Health on.

So a lot of the people who show up to what you're doing, without you, the thing wouldn't exist, which means they wouldn't be able to go to the thing.

And all the social fulfillment they get from showing up, gratefully, you put together the thing.

And I sometimes have to remind myself that of, like we talked about this a little bit, but entrepreneurship, especially you and I both, we did a lot of school and moved for, we've moved, we've done university work, we're at a new angle.

Like you said, I don't know about my occupation and oftentimes that's my answer.

I have a bit more clarity today compared to yesterday, but we'll see what tomorrow looks like.

But the entrepreneurship process, it's not limited to business, but it's also social communities.

So I'm glad you're doing what you're doing.

And you're definitely not too young to coach because I don't know anything about...

I guess I think the best person to coach is who you were like two years ago.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So it's like there's a lot of 25 year olds out there.

Yeah.

That's so insightful.

That's one of my, like, I will say one of my core aspirations would be to write a book for the 20 something, you know, like the song Landslide and how that's about, like you climb the mountain, you turned around and it's all different.

Apparently, Stevie Nicks wrote that when she was 27, because it's like just waking up, living your life, everything's normal, and you don't realize all the progressive changes that have happened.

So I would love to, like, this is so lofty, but part of me is like, I wish I could write a manuscript this year for that version of myself.

So they could have the book to, you know, just like a user's guide to, here's all the crap that might come your way as you're in your mid to late 20s.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, I want to write a book, too.

So yeah, what's your prompt?

What do you do?

Do you have like a, I think the prompt would be something along the lines of.

Hmm.

I don't know.

I don't know my prompt.

It's okay, but still in the ideas phase.

Yeah, it's still in the idea phase.

One, like something that I think is good for the both of us to know is that people who position themselves as experts and like loneliness or connection or friendship or belonging, that's whenever like you create, once you create the stuff and start teaching other others about things, then they call you an expert rather than you get called the expert.

Then you start creating stuff.

And this is particular to like a lot of the stuff we're doing with social health is it's not like medical doctor.

You get your degree, then you can, you know, residency, then you pass boards, and then you're certified.

And that makes you dangerous.

Like this whole thing, and this is something I've been having to tell myself a lot lately is once I start creating content that adds value to people's life, then other people be like, Oh, hey, Chris, can you do this thing, rather than like the other way?

So I feel like you just having under your name, founder of Pittsburgh Social Health, and then you write the book, go Amazon print to press, you can self publish the thing and you can get it out there.

Right.

And then you're published author.

It's so funny how if we really want to like any year, you could definitely be rocking on the stuff.

Have we talked about skip the small talk before?

Yeah, so skip the small talk.

A woman at in Boston, she had, I think she had been in a PhD program, and she was doing psychology, but she was moonlighting.

On the side, she was working at the Suicide Hotline.

And a lot of the people who would call in, she'd always ask, Do you have meaningful connection people to be able to talk to this about?

And predominantly, the answer was no.

So she's like, well, that's not good.

So she creates an event called skip the small talk.

And she has some of the questions that were already assessed as being good, like open ended questions to get people to start wandering, like socially and really sharing stuff.

Beyond small talk.

And so she labels it skip the small talk.

It starts at a park in Boston and then it blows up.

Right.

And now they have skip the small talk events around the country, the US, but they also have a few that are international.

So people can become hosts and then they have a deck of cards and the cards are prompts.

And then you pair different people.

And at the end of every five minutes, you get the chance to if you want to, you can exchange info.

And the rule is you can't ask somebody for their info.

They can give it to you if they want.

So they give you little cards and you can write it down and exchange info.

But like her name is Ashley Kersner, and she's been on Good Morning America, and she's been on these big things.

And she said the biggest thing that pushed what she was doing forward was just like that organic support and getting more.

Because Good Morning America, not many people who would go to her event were watching Good Morning America.

So it is really interesting and it's cool to see kind of what like parallels.

Yeah, that made me think of, for one, we did start with that.

There's this card game called We're Not Really Strangers.

And that was one thing that I had at events.

And it was nice to have those prompts that kind of opened people up.

And it's one of those things where I'm not, you know, like a focus group facilitator kind of forcing the conversation, but people could pick it up and kind of see if they wanted to talk about it or not.

And it was funny because after one card, it just flowed right into regular conversation.

It wasn't like I'm relying on these cards to facilitate the conversation.

I just want to talk to this person now.

And so I think coming into it with that sort of open disposition was really powerful.

And I told everybody that on like the first or second meeting, it's like I realized it's kind of vulnerable to show up in a space and be like, hey, I've felt lonely.

I've been lonely and that's why I'm here.

You know, like that's it can be a uniquely vulnerable situation.

Even though you're around people who feel the same way, it's just I think there can be a little bit of stigma in saying, hey, yeah, I want more people around me.

I feel like I'm lacking, you know, but that's incredible to hear about Ashley too and what she's been able to put together.

Yeah, I can't imagine being on Good Morning America, but I think that makes it all the more like validating, right?

That there's so many people nationwide going through that.

And admittedly, I've struggled with the sense of like, is some old Yinser, like one of those old Pittsburgh guys going to be like, why are you moving here into my neighborhood?

And why are you trying to like build community when you aren't even from here?

I've definitely kind of run myself through that ringer a few times, but I've found that everybody has been just tremendously supportive so far.

And I love that.

And I think that will probably be the case for many, because I think we're all just looking for community.

We all want buddies.

We never have too many.

So whenever you play that conversation in your head, what do you say to the guy?

You know, I don't know.

I think I just like, I'm just like, I have the stability and the support of knowing that the community exists, whether they want it to or not.

There are people who need it, want it, enjoy it.

That, I think, is what I would say back to them.

You know, it's just, I don't know.

You can join us if you want.

If we need mentors, we want people from Pittsburgh to show us the way.

So, if we're doing it wrong, teach us.

Tell us where we should be going and what we should do.

You know, I want to make sure that we're students of the city that we're in.

How are you judging success of Pittsburgh Social Health?

I think making sure that it incorporates Pittsburgh culture is important.

So, whether that's going to sporting events together or going to a local brewery that the city takes a lot of pride in, things of that nature have been important to me all along because I think that's a great way for people to feel not even a sense of belonging among their peers, but more in their community, right?

Where they're like, I have been to this museum now and I know a little bit more about Andrew Carnegie.

Like, just little things like that, I think it's important to infuse that and show people, like, it's worthwhile to explore where you're living.

And it's definitely something that the city itself has identified as an issue.

So there's a lot of people who have come in for jobs at Google or Duolingo, and they kind of just live on or near these big tech campuses.

And then they're miserable, right?

Because whatever, their job is what it is, and they might love that, but they just don't really get out and they don't feel that sense of like place making and kinship with where they live.

So trying to improve that is critical to me.

How do you get the new Googler who's just chilling outside?

How do you get him to show up to or her to show up to the event?

I don't know that I've bagged any of them yet, but what I do know, and I've had some interesting conversations about this with other Pittsburgh leaders of sorts, is there's a much bigger initiative beyond me.

I'm doing the grassroots stuff, but there are lots of community leaders who have identified, like, we have a brain drain issue in Pittsburgh.

People will come here for school or residency and then quickly leave, or, you know, whatever the case, people aren't staying at the rate that is needed.

So there's a much larger initiative beyond me that's in the works.

And I've had preliminary conversations with them, but my understanding is that's a huge point of interest for them, right, is to see how they can interact with the Googlers and the Microsoft folks and make sure that they see the value in staying here.

And there's other developers, too, who work with corporate entities to create more of a social platform.

So there's someone here in Pittsburgh.

Her app is called Belong for Me.

And I haven't done a deep dive on it because I'm not a corporation and I don't have a thousand employees that I'm worried about.

But that tool is available to bigger businesses as a way of showcasing, like, here, Google employee, here's this app with everything that you need to know that's going on in Pittsburgh so you can get out there.

So it's called Belong to Me, you said?

So, do you get, I, imposter syndrome may not be the correct concept here, but like you said, you haven't, you're not born, raised Pittsburgh, but that's where you live.

Do you sort of feel like I need to be around here more before I can change the community?

Yeah, for sure.

Especially Pittsburgh has unique little boroughs, so the region has its own little subsections where, you know, Oakland has the university and the hospitals, and then Bloomfield has its own kind of scene happening.

So it's like I very much feel connected to my specific borough, and I would say I'm decently well known here, but if it came to going down to the city hall, people would be like, yeah, you mean nothing.

I don't know who you are, right?

That's okay.

I kind of like anonymity at times.

But I do think to be a bigger name or to have more of an impact is going to come with time.

And it scares me a lot or a little.

I don't know, but yeah, it does.

This whole process has really only made me more interested in Pittsburgh and community here.

So while I may not be the expert in Pittsburgh or in community building, I think my interest in both has been very fulfilling.

Yeah, I feel similar about Lawrence because I moved here in 2020 and for the first what, like six months, it was still shut down with COVID.

And then after that, I get a job with a company where I'm basically traveling every week.

So the only time that I spend in Lawrence was weekends and then my weeks off.

But whenever you're traveling that much, whenever you get home, you want to stay home and catch up time.

Like I wanted to hang out with Annie because I was gone so long.

So I was like Annie and I would take the dog on a walk or we'd go to church together.

There'd be little things that we'd want to do as couples.

And because of that, I wasn't really involved with the community.

So it wasn't until 2023 whenever I leave the job and I find myself here where I'm like, I haven't even engaged with this place.

I need to figure it out.

And I felt a lot of that same feeling of like maybe, I don't know, but like at some point, like you already are changing the culture by building things, right?

So at some point, it's one of those deals that you want to build something so big that people come to you.

And they're like, hey, tell me more about this.

Now, that's not going to happen all the time.

But I do feel like just working on a few different things, it's helped out a lot.

But I think that process is overwhelming for people our age.

They don't recognize how long it can take.

But at the same time, they also underestimate their ability to add value to their community.

Yeah, exactly.

I think that's one thing I was hoping to stress in this interview is that sometimes it does take risk in putting yourself out there.

And it may not automatically mean that you found an organization or do this rah-rah thing.

Like, they're not going to put a statue of me up in Pittsburgh.

But I do feel like it was tremendously worth it already, just because the points of validation that I have had so far and the more that I continue to put myself out there, the more exciting conversations have come along.

And again, it has been tremendously validating.

I can't guarantee that's going to be the case for everybody.

But certainly in my case, I would encourage anybody listening to go for it.

Even if you get your two friends out of it, that's pretty awesome, you know?

There's a need for it.

That's super awesome.

And if it doesn't work out, then you get a lot more experience.

But if they were to do a statue of you, what would you want them to put up?

Would you be baking cookies and sat in one of people's doors?

Would you be playing volleyball?

Probably walking dogs.

I think I'm a fixture in my community for that.

Where people are like, I think I've seen you around with a dog before.

Do you have a dog?

And I'm like, that was someone else's dog, but I've been around with them.

Are you making money walking dogs?

Yeah, that was actually, I should say that was one of the first things I did when I was new here, job hunting, freelancing, wasn't really sure what the opportunities were looking like.

Because I would walk up and down our main drag here and be like, anybody hiring?

Kind of looking for signs in the window and jotting down names of places to look up and see.

But also getting onto Rover was kind of amazing in that way because people want to interact with the dog when you're out walking dogs.

There was just like, oh, can I pet your dog?

And it does sometimes lead to really neat conversations like photographers and other really cool creatives and community builders just by that alone.

So you graduated with the masters and then you moved, right?

A lot of people are going through the same thing.

Same thing, it's like you get the advanced degree and then you find yourself looking for jobs, and it's kind of a demoralizing experience.

I can show you the notes app of all the places I applied to know a bail.

There was definitely failure along the way, so I don't want to cast myself as some kind of golden success story, because there has absolutely been struggle and difficulty along the way.

For sure.

And I think that's common for the majority of us, unless you have just a shoe-in connection right away.

But yeah.

Because this compounds, because we were talking about when someone moves away, they go to a new city, they're away from their friends.

Maybe the pharmacy isn't there, the grocery store.

I miss, whenever I lived in the Carolinas, there's the Publix.

You know Publix?

Oh yeah.

I've seen it in Florida.

Yeah.

I like that grocery store a lot.

They don't have it here in Kansas, but you don't have your community, but then also you're getting rejected left and right.

So the amount of shame and lack of morale, and especially it gets even worse whenever you have financial pressure.

It's really tough.

Absolutely.

And I've seen close friends really struggle with that, like to the point of really like took a negative toll on their mental health.

Yeah, in like the worst degree.

And so I think to some extent, that has also driven me to create more of this as like a sign of like, there are people along the way and the more that you're able to network, they'll find ways to help you and put yourself out there for support.

And I don't know if there's like a cooler way to reframe like asking for help, because traditionally that's not something I do very well either.

But I'm hoping that kind of living by example and creating more of a culture shift around that can be a good conduit for people to find the resources they need.

Because it is, it's really hard.

As you were saying, it can have kind of a cumulative effect.

Right.

So I also struggle with the asking for help thing.

And I've been wanting to make a podcast about asking for help.

But one thing that I did recently, and it's like asking for help digitally is a bit different for me, because just like whenever you and I first came into contact, it was just a message on LinkedIn.

Right.

So now that I'm trying to build this newsletter, I messaged you and like, hey, check it out.

And I'm essentially asking you for help, like follow the newsletter and then you're like, hey, I shared it.

I'm like, sweet.

Like that's awesome.

But once I messaged one person, I was like, hey, could you check out this newsletter?

I copy and pasted that and I was like, boom, boom, boom, send it.

So it was like the idea.

I find this with difficult conversations too.

Once you have one of them, it kind of gives you the motivation to do more.

And it's like asking for help streaking.

You do it once and then you're running.

So that's a little tip to get better asking for help.

Just do it once and then use that energy and do it a whole bunch.

Yes.

Right before we hopped on, I saw just like an Instagram grid post where it was a person on a surfboard riding the waves.

And they're like, the waves are going to keep coming.

You just get better at riding them.

Right?

It's trying.

By trying, you learn.

So, yeah.

Could we do a speed round real quick?

Sure.

Let's do it.

Okay.

So I'm going to ask you a couple questions and you just, boom.

You produce a podcast.

That's kind of cool.

Could you tell me about it?

Yeah.

It's called Heirlooms.

And it's because I'm kind of a sentimental person.

I decided I wanted to interview people close to me about things that matter to them.

So perfect example was this doll that my dad had as a child that he called Captain Kangaroo.

And when he encountered it, he had this really powerful emotional reaction to it.

And I realized it contained so much more.

There were many stories behind that.

So the ethos of the podcast is just to ask people about that item and then obviously learn how much more it means to them and what it meant.

I love that idea.

You know, they say the best way to promote a podcast is to go where podcast listeners are, and that's other podcasts.

So I hope that I'll put that in the show notes, your podcast, because I really like that idea.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yes.

How can we be more proactive about our social health?

So if someone's listening, what's your little tidbit there?

Being more proactive.

I think just taking inventory with yourself, you know, like you know yourself best and just like really sitting with that.

Oftentimes it comes to me going for walks or for showers or whatever it is.

There's always that place that you find yourself.

Maybe it's while you're driving or reading, whatever it is, you talk to yourself, right?

And you'll identify like, yeah, I think I need more.

Just ask yourself like, do I have what I need right now?

And listen when you hear what it is.

That feels like a courting answer, but like truly, it took a lot of walking around with dogs to get answers.

That's where I figured out heirlooms.

That's where I figured out, you know what, maybe I want to fill out that Social Health Labs grant.

Like it really was just spending time with myself.

And I'm so glad you did that because I tell people, don't take the phone to the toilet.

Because I feel like it's always a joke.

Like whenever you take the phone to the toilet, you know you're going to be there for a while.

Like we'd always say that with friends when we're hanging out like, all right, well, he took his phone.

So he's going to be playing games.

But I'm like, if you were to just leave your phone and you're sitting there and you have to get in your own head and you have to be like, like with me, I have this one game on my phone and it's like Moto 3MX or something.

And I have this bike and I go up and down the ramps.

And if I fall on my head, I have to restart.

So I will sit there and just play that game and nothing.

You know, I'm just like, OK, cool.

But it takes me longer than it would have everything.

But if I don't take my phone, I find myself being like, Oh, like I'm stressed.

And I think that we were talking about social media a little bit.

It's a really good distraction.

It's a great tool when used correctly, which I'm not going to like pontificate about what correctly means here.

But I do think like giving yourself that time in solitude, right?

Like there's a difference between loneliness and solitude.

And solitude is often when you create that comfortable environment with yourself.

And a lot of times we don't want to wade into that because we think that means lonely.

But if you learn to like your own company, it can be a really powerful place to be.

So that's a great tip.

Yeah, no toilet time, phone free.

And then I also say the elevator.

Whenever you walk in an elevator, most people will take out their phones.

And it's a good social experiment.

If you ever walk into an elevator when there's other people there, see how many people take out their phones.

Because it's so uncomfortable for the, for our human brain that's constantly stimulated to be in an elevator with other people.

At my university, people would always whip out their phone first thing when they're stepping out of class.

And it was like we're a bunch of NPCs, right?

Like walking on flights of stairs, still staring at our phones.

And that was one thing I consciously tried to shift, was between classes, I'm just walking.

I'm walking to classes, I'm looking at people.

It was just, yeah, once I did it the one time, it was probably a similar experiment of like, or it was me just not wanting to fall down the stairs while I'm checking Twitter or whatever.

But once you start doing it, you realize like, oh, there are these other passive activities that I maybe don't need to fill with scroll.

And you don't remember what you looked at.

If I quizzed you like two hours later, hey, what did you look at while you were scrolling in the elevator?

You probably couldn't tell me.

So you realize all of that precious time, we kind of, I don't want to say we wasted, but we definitely could be filling it with other things and quality time with ourselves being one of them.

What is a final message?

Oh, this is a good one.

I would say don't struggle.

And I have a story behind that.

So it's something, those two words just really landed for me.

One day I was at the farmer's market and I ordered a loaf of bread and the person put it in the plastic for me and then they were going to put it in a paper bag.

The paper bag just rips.

I'm like, whatever, I'll take it.

Just hand me the bread.

It's cool.

And I'm trying to like wrangle that with all of the other things I have in my arms.

And the person just goes, don't struggle.

I'm going to get you another bag.

And I was like, they said it kind of like a command, but it was a good reminder for me.

Like there are a lot of areas in my life where I kind of create resistance, whether it's mentally with like my anxiety or I just like put things off.

There are just certain areas in your life where you don't have to struggle the way that you think you do, right?

Like there's a narrative we tell ourselves, and sometimes we really don't need to struggle, and sometimes that's asking for help.

So don't struggle can mean a lot of things, and it's definitely not like a patronizing, like pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of thing.

But just like take a look around and see how you can optimize your life and who's there for you.

And if there isn't someone, work on that.

Get some BumbleBFF going.

I'm here if you want to DM me, that's fine.

So don't struggle if you don't have to.

Join the volleyball league.

Join that volleyball league.

We're fun.

Yeah, the Pittsburgh volleyball league.

Well, I'm really excited for Pittsburgh Social Health.

And I would let me know, like you said, asking for help is hard.

But if there's ever any way that I can help, definitely let me know.

I am grateful for being able to get some of your time.

You have improved my day.

Oh, good.

Yeah, some of the dots we've connected already.

Really great.

So looking forward to continuing to disrupt in this social health space with you.

Thank you for the opportunity.

We're the young guns.

That's right.

Watch out.

But there always has to be young guns.

Well, folks, as we always say, we will see you next time.