JC recounts Miss Shannon Paul's wood-chip story to illustrate the outward-facing clique concept, then offers simple, low-effort ways to say hello and begin conversations that can expand neighborhood connection.
JC begins with a playful song excerpt and a series of greetings, then introduces himself and the Cadre intention of sharing time, perspective, and support.
He references Lake Street Drive lyrics about layered city living and explains the outward-facing clique as a flipped approach to building inclusive communities.
JC recounts Miss Shannon Paul's story about shoveling wood chips and finally connecting with a passing neighbor, then asks viewers to consider knowing one more accessible person today.
He asks what people might gain from meeting someone new, lists practical and emotional benefits, and highlights empathy and compassion after learning the neighbor had lost a partner.
JC outlines three possible responses to a first hello, gives easy, low-effort ways to acknowledge neighbors, and describes how small actions can lead to conversation and friendship.
He signs off with a daily invitation to return, repeats the earlier song lines about neighbors living in layers, and wraps up the episode.
I can hear my neighbors making love upstairs Their love is rattling my tables and my chair Keeping me awake Love they make is keeping me awake While I'm just trying to get some sleep on the ground floor Good morning, Kadre. Laura, nice to see you, my friend. Tee North, nice to see ya. 'Cause I was a once lover Making all my neighbors scared you Thunder in my. Floor Ah, Maffie, nice to see ya. Jules. And my boss They're just trying to get some sleep on the ground. Hey, hey, Andy Mac. I can hear my neighbors making life upstairs They're loving.
I'll have the pause right there. Jules, nice to see you. It is Tuesday. Back half of September is officially upon us, 16th. My name's JC. If we've never shared time and space together before, thank you for the opportunity to spend some time with you right now, right here in the Cadre Sphere. I'm glad that I'm here. I'm glad that you're here. I know things. I know what I know, and I care about you. And y'all could say that right back to me. I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad you're here. I know what I know.
And I care about you. When we put all those pieces together, Speak Wonder, we know that we can do this cadre thing together, this special group of people with a special intention, sharing time, sharing perspective, sharing story, in order to help all of us feel better in lots of different ways. This morning I played you a little Lake Street Drive. Here's a little bit of the lyric. In this city, all the humans live in layers. I got people down the hall and down the stairs. We all move in and out and live our lives in stacks and rows and pairs and try to find someone with whom we can share it.
I can hear my neighbors making love upstairs. This wonderful idea of how we coexist within this world. On Tuesdays, you see people like my friend Betsy Hodges, my friend Dr. Leslie Davis jump on in and share things about forming relationships, forming communities with one another. As you're stuck with me every day, you get my perspective on forming communities and this idea of the outward facing clique. The outward facing clique is a flip of a popular paradigm in that is is click culture that we find people who we have things in common with and then we face inward and we consume the thing that brings us together together which makes it very hard for anybody else to be a part of it.
The outward facing click turns it around and says how do we invite people into these things? If you tuned in yesterday you heard me talk about the wonderful Laurie Dawkin musician and an experience I had with her on Sunday. But I also had an experience with the one and only contributor at CADRE, Miss Shannon Paul. Miss Shannon Paul told this lovely story about how she was shoveling wood chips in her front yard and her neighbor, who she's been neighbors with for a long time, finally stopped and had a conversation with her.
This neighbor walks by the house same time every day, power walking through the neighborhood, an older individual. And finally, the two of them breached the habit of not introducing one another into doing so. And within this introduction, a really beautiful awareness of one another was formed. How often do we share the responsibility of finally saying, hey, I see you. Hey, I know you. Hey, we live in a similar sphere. What would happen if we exercise that connection and say, I see you? We get a lot of things out of that.
And I invite you right now to consider What are the things you get out of knowing one more person in this world? Feel free to throw things in the chat. If you are going to know one more person in the world today, and someone that you have easy access to, not someone that you're going to swim across the ocean and climb the highest mountains and walk through the fire, no, but someone that you could literally go, Hey Matt, nice to see you, my friend. But someone that you can literally go, Gosh, I could...
walk down the hall, I could send the message and be like, I'm going to know you. I'm going to acknowledge your existence. What would you gain from knowing one more person in the world today? I think when we get to the mentality of going, huh, you know, what would I gain from knowing one more person? Maybe that causes us some hesitancy. T North says we would gain their unique perspective. We may gain one less scoop of loneliness. We may gain their knowledge. We may gain their friendship. We may gain their, we may gain their, we may gain their, we may gain their.
And it almost goes into what I often talk about in the relationship of selfish and selfless acts, where both of those things are so incredibly necessary. I see people who are deficient in selflessness and people who are deficient in selfishness. Both of those people are kind of living awful existences. But to the point, Hey, Emily, I didn't see you sneak on in. Nice to see you, my friend. But so often when you ask a question like, If you were going to know one more person today, what would you gain?
Maybe the things that come to mind first are the selfish things, right? The, I'm going to gain their knowledge, their love, their energy, their help. But think about the selfless things too. One of the things that Miss Shannon Paul shared about her encounter with her neighbor was that she learned that her neighbor had lost her partner in the recent years. So all of a sudden, Miss Shannon Paul was able to gain a perspective on how You know, some of those big words, the sympathy, compassion, empathy can play into the world.
It's amazing that we can gain countless things whenever we take the moment to either be the one to go, hey, we walk past each other every day and we've never said hello to one another. I haven't said hello to you, you have not said hello to me. There's three potential things that could happen there. You can jump at the same time and be like, one, two, three, hello. It's the one that's gonna happen the least often. Second thing that can happen is they can say, hey, I'm gonna say hi to you. That often feels good.
But the easiest access one is for you to be like, hey, we're neighbors. Hey, we get to the Starbucks at the same time every day. Hey, I think I've seen you in traffic before. I'm going to wave and smile to acknowledge that. The things we gain are countless, yet most often things that we can never imagine that we're going to gain. So my invitation for you today is consider those neighbors, the ones in the neighborhood, the ones on this planet that you share space with. What would happen If you did what Miss Shannon Paul's neighbor, Jan, did, and stop and while she's in her power walk and say, Hey, are you shoveling all these wood chips by yourself?
I'm seeing you do that. Is that what's happening? And all of a sudden the conversation, the friendship, the awareness is created, is manifested, is galvanized into nature. Y'all, I'm here every single day. , to spend some time with you once again. But in the meantime, in this city, all these humans live in layers. People down the hall, and people down the stairs. Oh, we move in and out. and live in stacks and rows and pairs, and try to find someone with whom that we can share it. I can hear my neighbors making love upstairs.
Wish I didn't have to be full up the bed. But if they have to be doing something, at least I have no fun. Sometimes I forget.
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