How To Make New Friends And Meet Interesting People In Your Late 30s
This morning I met Kai Elmer Sotto, the author of Get Together. We have many mutual friends, so when I heard he is in town, I got his number from one of them. I wanted to pick his brains on community building. We are building a teacher community over at Teachers As Humans, and who better to learn from than the author of the bible of community building.
Over text, Kai suggested we go for a walk around the Marina. We agreed to meet in front of Red Dot Museum. He showed up with his waveboard, and I showed up with my longboard. Completely unplanned. Kai told me he figured, given our mutual friends, it’s unlikely I’d show up in chinos and a button down shirt. Over the next couple of hours, he taught me how to surf skate and gave me a crash course on getting people together.
As you get older, making new friends gets harder and harder. Especially if you’re an introvert like me. Somehow I have a knack for meeting interesting people like Kai and making new friends. Here are some things that have worked for me.
1. I buy a lot of natural wine, and ended up making friends with the people I buy wine from.
I got deep into natural wine about 18 months ago. I went down a rabbit hole of terroirs, producers, minimal intervention methods etc. This deserves an essay on its own. What I want to say here is that because I am so curious about natural wine, I started inviting people over who knew more about natural wine than I do — the people I buy wine from. I started hanging out with them regularly. Often over a bottle of wine. Or three.
2. I joined online communities and cohort-based courses
Ship30for30, for instance. The reason I’ve been putting out an essay every day. I also did Audience Building 2.0 and the Transcend Fellowship. There is something magical about a group of people with similar goals (writing better, growing an online following, building an edtech startup) learning together and supporting one another. Alberto is one of the co-founders of Transcend. I’ve never met him in person, but he’s definitely a friend.
3. I spend time knowing the founders I invested in
I’ve made many angel investments over the years and got to know some of the founders really well. I’m not transactional. It’s just not my style. I’ve travelled all over with the Ninja Van founders, I speak to the CEO of Galileo every other Friday, I hang out with the Padlet founder whenever I’m in SF. With the founders I’ve invested in, I prefer they think of me as a friend first, investor second.
Swap natural wine for whatever you’re passionate about. Find your tribe online. Be less transactional and see the human being on the other side of the table. Three simple ideas to build relationships and meet interesting people.
