Episode notes
In this episode, Anne Muhlethaler, host of the show, interviews consultant and experience design specialist Jenny Sauer-Klein.
Jenny is passionate about how we get together as groups and how we learn, and she regularly consults for organisations like Google, Airbnb, Dropbox and the Haas School of Business. She is a wonderful facilitator who has spent her life creating lasting experiences for a myriad of different audiences and is a frequent presenter at international conferences and has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, and Inc., as well as Tim Ferriss’ book “Tools of Titans”.
In this conversation, the native New Yorker shares with Anne her personal journey, how she went from theatre to yoga, which led her to therapeutic acrobatics and then on to launching AcroYoga with co-founder Jason Nemer.
Jenny talks about how she stepped away from this previous career despite having scaled AcroYoga to an international brand, community and organisation with millions of practitioners, and how she came later to understand that the values that AcroYoga was based on — trust, connection and playfulness — were still her core values that would guide her towards her next steps.
Jenny also explains her thoughts on how we gather and learn. The two go over some of the pillars of the experience design training program Jenny created (named Scaling Intimacy, which Anne took last year) and how you can help people make a crowd of 100 people feel like a gathering of 10. The three-day workshop caters to those wanting to develop interactive and engaging live events where collaborative learning and connection are privileged over content.
Finally, the new mom talks about her experience of pregnancy during COVID, and distils the essence of the TED talk she gave (while 8 months pregnant) in January 2021 on the 3 Keys to Virtual Connection.
If you are into leading engaging events or want to create meaningful experiences and inspire your communities with a sense of purpose and connection, this is the episode for you. Happy listening!
***
Selected Links from Episode
You can find Jenny at https://www.jennysauerklein.com/
And Scaling Intimacy School of Experience Design – https://scalingintimacy.com/
Play on Purpose – https://playonpurpose.com/
You can watch Jenny’s TED talk, the 3 keys of virtual connection https://www.ted.com/talks/jenny_sauer_klein_3_keys_to_virtual_connection
Ken Nateshvar Scott https://contactyoga.com/
Jason Nemer and Acro Yoga
Learning zones framework – https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/learning-zone-model.htm
Pryia Parker – The Art of Gathering book
The study by Arthur Aarons about interpersonal closeness https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167297234003
Business Insider article on Breema, Tim Ferriss and no hurry, no pause https://www.businessinsider.com/how-tim-ferriss-keeps-from-burning-out-2017-1?r=US&IR=T
Breema – https://www.breema.com/
The Red Tent – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4989.The_Red_Tent
Stinson Beach – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinson_Beach,_California
The song Ani Kuni by Polo & Pan
Full Episode Transcript
Anne Muhlethaler:
Hi, hello, bonjour, and namaste. This is Out of the Clouds, a podcast at the crossroads between business and mindfulness. And I’m your host, Anne Muhlethaler.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So today I am really thrilled to be bringing you an interview with a really amazing woman called Jenny Sauer-Klein. I came across Jenny when her name came up during a presentation. And I’m so glad that I wrote down her name and that I ran to my computer and looked up not just what she does, but this specific course that she runs several times a year called Scaling Intimacy. If by any chance you are already part of my mailing list, my business one with avm.consulting, you’ve probably already read me singing the praises of this amazing, amazing course.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So Jenny is passionate about designing transformational experiences. And what really is the core of what drives her is to prioritize connection over content. She regularly consults for many organizations like Google, AirBnB, Dropbox, and she is the founder and CEO of the Scaling Intimacy School of Experience Design and the creator of the video tutorial library called Play On Purpose.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I love all of my interviews. And I must say that one of the reasons why I’ve got this podcast is because, in the research, in the conversation, the questions, and the editing, I get to engage multiple times with the guests and what they share with me. And I want to tell you, selfishly, it’s a wonderful way for me to re-inspire myself to follow the beautiful work that I was introduced to by Jenny during her course with Scaling Intimacy.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So, anyway, I really hyped this up now. I hope you enjoy it. Please, take your time, perhaps grab pen and paper, make some notes, and enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Jenny, Sarah Klein.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Jenny, it’s such a pleasure to see you welcome to Out of the Clouds.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Thank you. I’m happy to be here.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So where am I finding you today?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
You are finding me at home in Oakland, California. I’m actually sitting in my 11 month old daughter’s nursery because it is the quietest room in the house right now.
Anne Muhlethaler:
There’s some pretty decorations behind you. I’m enjoying it.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Thank you. Yeah, this picture was painted by my husband’s aunt, actually. She’s a really beautiful artist.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, that’s gorgeous. So I love to start with asking my guests to tell our listeners the story of who they are, what they do, and where they from. And so you can pick up from wherever you want today.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
All right. That can be a long story.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And that’s okay. That’s the beauty of long form.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Nice. All right. It goes where it goes.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Exactly.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Okay. Well, I’m from New York City. So that’s where I was born and raised. And there’s not that many of us that are natives. So it definitely is in me. When people meet me in California, they are like, you don’t seem like a New Yorker at all. You don’t have the accent, blah, blah, blah. But there is a New Yorker that is very much alive and well in me. If you watch me cross the street or get bad customer service, you will absolutely see the New Yorker come out. So she’s in there.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So I was raised in New York City and I grew up watching theater and shows and plays on Broadway. And I fell in love with that medium. It was very moving to me. I was an only child. I had dogs and fish and birds. We had a one bedroom apartment that my dad had converted to a two bedroom essentially. And it was kind of like a little zoo in our house. We grew up loving animals, wanted to be veterinarian.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And then kind of turned into actress, Broadway actress dreams. So I just feel very lucky in a lot of ways growing up in New York. I got exposed to so much arts and culture and food and different people. New York is the ultimate mixing pot of everyone. And I didn’t know until much later on that it was like the center of the world in so many ways. I thought every city was like New York City until I went to college in Boston. And I was like, this is not a city. The public transportation closes at 1:00 AM. Like, what is that? It was very funny.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Anyway, I also didn’t realize how unique my upbringing was because when I got to college everyone else had like the school bus and the cul-de-sac where they rode their bikes until dusk and I had… Central Park was like our park. And we rode the train. It was a very different sense of growing up and having to be grown up before your time, because you have to be aware of danger and people and traffic and all of things.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So anyway, grew up there. Did a lot of theater. Ended up going to college for theater. I had an amazing high school where we got to do a lot of things ourselves. So I got to act, and direct, and be a playwrigh, and a costume designer and a choreographer. And it was very cool. I feel like it gave me a huge leg up on a lot of things. And one fun fact that I always like to mention is I went to high school with Lin-Manuel Miranda who wrote Hamilton.
Anne Muhlethaler:
No! So I’m such a big fun.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh my God.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I haven’t really been in touch with him since high school, but he’s a lovely person and I’m so happy for him. He deserves all the things. He was spirited and talented then, and it was fun to do theater with him in high school. And so it’s been very cool to watch his progression. I’m just so proud. I know we know each other. So anyway, that’s a little fun fact. And that was kind of like the caliber. We just had really awesome people in our high school and really creative spirits.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Can I ask you what how high school it was?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah, it’s called Hunter College High School, and it’s affiliated with a college in New York, but it’s a high school, and it’s a public high school, and that it’s free, but it’s private, and that you have to take a test to get into it. So it’s like a academically specialized high school.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Amazing.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
But because of that, for whatever reason, they pulled kids from all five boroughs, like all over the city. Some kids traveled two hours just to get to that school every day, because it was a really good school and it was free. But I think because it was so academically focused, so many of those kids end up at Ivy League schools. The theater program was kind of like, you guys figure it out. But that worked for us because we all were excited about it. And I think we all just got so much practice doing and not having things done to us. Yeah, it was just great real life experience of organizing and managing and projects and group dynamics and all of that.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So then I got to college and I went to a school in Boston for musical theater and was like, oh no, I don’t like this. Like I didn’t like the people. I didn’t like the culture. It was very funny. I think I had such a special experience in high school that I thought it would be like that in college. And it wasn’t. And so by the end of my college career, I was like, the I’m out of here. This is not the thing for me.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And after I graduated college, I ended up moving back to New York City for… I traveled for a bit. I was in Central America. Ended up moving back to New York City for a while. And I had been starting to take yoga in college and got really into it. And when I was in this lurch of like, I don’t want to do theater, but I don’t know what I want to do, I was like, I’ll just do a yoga teacher training, and oh, I’ll just do it on the side as a part-time thing while I figure things out.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And it’ll keep me honest in my practice. Like if I’m teaching, then I’ll be practicing. So it was the way that I was like blackmailing myself to keep up my practice it’ll force me-
Anne Muhlethaler:
Me too.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. It was a forcing function. I was like, it will force me to practice if I’m getting up in front of the room and teaching. So I did this teacher training and I started teaching in New York City and it was literally right as 9/11 happened. So I was in the city for that. And that was crazy wild, horrible, and beautiful, actually. And it made New York feel like a small town. It was quite extraordinary. I feel very lucky that I was there at that time. Actually it was… It felt, in a way, like what I imagine the sixties were like. This extreme tragedy, grieving, but this public camaraderie, it’s a community that just sprung up out of nowhere. That was really beautiful and heartwarming and touching.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So the 9/11 happened. It was just a crazy time. And I was teaching also at the same time circus arts and after school programs. So teaching juggling and acrobatics and clowning and improv. So little kids. Which kicked my butt because I had never done that before. I didn’t know what I was doing. They completely railroaded me until I got some experience under my belt. And then I ended up really liking it.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And then I moved to California maybe a year and a half, two years later. I was in my mid-twenties. And I moved to San Francisco. I was like, I’m going to teach yoga and study acrobatics. That was my big thing because the best train center in the country was in San Francisco and I was like-
Anne Muhlethaler:
Can ask you now before we go any further, where was the love of acrobatics? Where did that ignite for you?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. It started when I was in New York in that kind of early-twenties period. I took a… Someone turned me onto. The person and who was contracting me to teach circus arts classes and afterschool programs, he was teaching a form called contact yoga. And contact yoga was originated by this guy, Ken Nateshvar. He went by Nateshvar. Ken Scott.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And Nateshvar created this whole form of basically therapeutic acrobatics. So a lot of where one person is laying down on their back and has another person on their feet in the air, which is the basis of one on ground, the flyers, the person in the air. And he had developed this whole language, physical language of how to stretch someone and support someone in the air. And then he had on the floor element he called yoga massage.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so I ended up getting hooked on that. I remember the first class I did I was like, whoa, I don’t know what this is, but this is magic. And I feel so close to this person I just met that I just did this art form with. And I want to know more. I ended up doing a contact yoga teacher training. So that was kind of my entry point, was this therapeutic acrobatics. And then the very entry level acrobatics that you would teach two little kids.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So that was the foundation of it. And then I was like, well, I’m in my mid-twenties, if I’m going to go for this acrobatic thing now is the time while I have the capacity. So I went to train. And after a couple months I got introduced, by mutual friends, this guy, Jason, and we ended up co-founding Acro Yoga, very serendipitously, fell into our laps. While I had that kind of therapeutic and basic entry-level acrobatic background, he had the opposite. He had the very high level performance style, sports acrobatics. The kind of stuff you would see in cheerleading, like tossing and throwing and catching, but very precise.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And he had competed in China and did all this. We came from opposite ends of the spectrum, but that was awesome because we had a lot to teach each other and learn from each other. And my body of work made it easier for us to teach beginners. Right? Because I could get people in the practice. And then once they started to progress, then Jason had more of the kind of upper level knowledge, which we both traded as we went.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So it was kind of the beginning of that. And then Acro Yoga was a 10-year project for me. It still continues to this day and continues to thrive and has millions of practitioners around the world and a bunch of celebrity supporters and all of that. But it was a project that took me to very unexpected places. It was not for me. Something I initially was like, oh, we’re, we’re going to start a global movement. I think Jason was much more in that head space. And I was like, let’s just teach partner yoga it’ll be great. And, let’s have our little ongoing classes in Berkeley.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And that was not how things went. So after maybe two years I went full time into Acro Yoga. We started touring and traveling and leaving teacher trainings. And would go on six month tours where we were in a different city every weekend teaching workshops, after workshops, after workshops. And I think our first tour we were in China, Japan, Thailand, India, all over Europe, at festivals and conferences because we were the only ones doing the thing that we were doing. So we were in the right place at the right time.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
It was a time where also circus was the fastest growing sport. Yoga was off the charts. Everything just coalesced to… It was the rising tide lifts all boats. And our boat just got lifted very high, very quickly. And we were 150% all in. That was our lives. We ate, lived, and breathed Acro Yoga. And it was really beautiful. It was a beautiful time. It was hard in a lot of ways. You’re on the road constantly. I was igniting communities everywhere around the world. And then I would come home to California and feel really isolated.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And as soon as I got back, my friends were like, oh, when are you leaving again? And I was like, but I just got here. So that was sad and hard for me because it felt like I was doing this for all these other people but I didn’t have it for myself. And when your whole community is your students, it’s different than it being like your peers or just friends who have no other vested interest in their friendship with you.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So after 10 years, I think the lifestyle ward me down. I didn’t want to be traveling as much. I was in a bunch of chronic pain. I’d been pushing my body really hard for a long time. And my body was breaking down. I really wanted a partnership and a dog and a home, simple things.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Just a dog itself is just not a possibility when you’re turning that much. Right?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Right. Not at all. And I grew up with dogs and big animal lovers. There was just things that I wanted that I couldn’t seem to figure out in the configuration I was in. And I was starting to feel, while I had been, for a long time, believed that Acro Yoga was like my purpose one-and-done forever, I got to a point where I was less interested in the physical practices and more interested in the trust, the connection, the playfulness, the relationship, the collaboration, the teamwork, the essence and the values of the practice and not the physical form.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And I think that, unfortunately, most of the people that were in that practice were very interested in the physical form. And that was the sweet candy that was like the thing people wanted. So of my focus just shifted and Jason and I just started to really grow apart and have very different visions for where we wanted to take things and what was important to us and the pace and the speed at which we wanted to do that. And we just got to a place where we could not work together at all.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And that partnership was, for me, the foundation of everything. It was the Petri dish where at all the experimenting and the co-teaching and the developing. So when that fell apart, it left everything else feeling really hollow also.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So it took me a couple of years of feeling very torn and very afraid because it was my whole life. And so the idea of leaving was almost inconceivable. It was like I had no idea I was going to be on the other side of that. And I finally just got to a point where things were so unworkable that I had to walk away. And I was so unhappy. And I did, and it was a year and a half of just like really scary, really sad, a lot of grieving, a lot of confusion, of feeling disoriented, not knowing my place in the world, not knowing who I was, not knowing what I was supposed to be doing.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I had felt, in some ways, like a bird in a golden cage of my own making. It was a beautiful cage but I was caught in it and I was a cog in my own machine. And once I got out and I wanted this creativity and this freedom, it’s like I got it, but I got it in spades to the degree that it was really overwhelming as well.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And at the same time I met my now husband right at that time. And so he was amazing and really there for me during that transition. And it gave me a new anchor. So as soon as I was leaving here, I got this partner. A year and a half later we got a dog. All things started happening, but it took time. And it was a very hard process. And that was part of, I think, what kept me in Acro Yoga longer than I should have, so to speak. There was no way to avoid that crash and burn. I knew. It was like I was going to have to go through that period.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And it was just intimidating and it was as pain as I thought it would be. It was also necessary. And having gone through it, I feel like it’s made me so much more resilient and I’ve let go off a really beautiful thing and had to face a lot of fears. And on the other side of that, I feel like what I’ve come to understand is that the values that we based Acro Yoga on, which were trust, connection, and playfulness, are still the values that I care about today and still inform all of the work that I do.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And I’m still in events person. I’m about gathering. I’m still about connection. I’m still about community. And I recognize that my essence is more of an artist. I do love to codify and I love to streamline and I love to systematize, but I’m also a creator by nature. And so now I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m going to keep creating many forms throughout my life. And that form is going to change, but I think the essence is going to stay the same.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so that form was Acro Yoga. And then that form took the Culture Conference, which was like a 200-person, invite-only conference for organizational leaders about inner work and transformation. And now it’s Scaling Intimacy, and it’s experience design, and it’s Play on Purpose, and it’s all these brands and all these forms, but ultimately, they all come down to this core about connecting people in meaningful ways and live experiences.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And that’s my passion and I care about. And I know that to be true. So I’m fully in on scaling and teaching people about experience design and creating interactive and engaging live events that the community. And that may change. Five years from now I might be doing something totally different. And I’m okay with that. I’m in a place of just wanting, for the most part, to just be with what’s most alive and follow that.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And I think that whole process with Acro Yoga and having to let go of something that I put so much life force into for so many years and then walked away from just taught me really about fully committing and then being unattached to where it goes or how long it lasts. So just saying like, okay, what is most alive in this moment? And can I follow that and trust that it’s going to lead me to where I need to go and where the next part of my path is meant to unfold. And that’s my practice these days.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thank you so much for sharing that. I think it’s beautiful, but it’s also a very timely conversation to have. This is a topic that’s alive for me, first, because I read a very interesting article in the Harvard Business Review which I posted to my newsletter a couple weeks ago about the difficulty when we have a change in identity, particularly you around work, because work describes so much of who we are in the world, right? It is our calling card.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And yesterday I was on the phone to of mine who lives in London who recently left her job. And she’s got a career in communications. And she’s a very talented person. And she’s feeling very ungrounded. She’s feeling the quick sound effect. And I’m sure that a lot of other people are going through that, because the figures are speaking for themselves, at least for the U.S., right? There’s millions of people who’ve walked out on their jobs or careers.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I wonder, before we go on to talk about your work in Scaling Intimacy, is there any advice or takeaway that you could offer to anyone who’s going through this at the moment?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. I think that first of all, good on you if you’re there. It means you’ve made a brave choice because a lot of people, myself included, we often stay way longer than we “should” or want to because we’re. And there’s good reason to be afraid. It’s scary and it’s hard. So if you’re in that place, good for you for making that leap and taking the jump.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
What I found was really helpful for me, a couple things. One was seeing everything as an experiment. Giving myself a period of time, whether that’s for anyone out there. I would say six months at a minimum. But let’s say six months, a year, two years, whatever it is, giving yourself a period of time where you just try a bunch of things. And you stay in a open mindset as much as possible to see what wants to come through and what…
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Because I think if we, just like in a relationship, right? If we jump from one relationship into the next relationship, we haven’t necessarily had time to process and integrate what are the lessons and the learnings from that previous relationship? Who am I now? What’s the kind of person I want to be with? Do I even want to be in a relationship again? I think we need that. Integration time is so important.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And then to hold it light. Because, I know for myself post Acro Yoga, I was literally searching for my next global movement right away. I was like, okay, what’s my next global way? It’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, how about you just have a hobby or something. I put a lot of pressure on myself and it made things feel really heavy and really hard and really high stakes to a degree that it didn’t allow me to just be in a playful wondrous like what’s next mindset. So I’d say just take an approach, a playful approach, a period of discovery and experimentation, however long you can do that for.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And secondly, the other thing that really helped me was to just do it. You might have an idea of what you think you want to do, but the actual doing of that thing might be very different. And the only way to know is to actually do it. So how can you make a bunch of experiments where you actually do the thing you’re imagining and see what you learn from it? Because, in my experience, no energy is ever waste or goes lost, right?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
That’s one of the laws of physics in the universe that energy just transmits from one form to another, right? Like ice turns into water. Water turns into vapor. Vapor turns into rain. It just transmutes forms. So when you invest yourself in something and you actually do it, you experience it directly, even if it’s not the thing, you’re going to learn a lot in that period of time. And it’s going to lead you organically to the next thing. It’ll be like, ah, more of this, less of that. I actually need to be outdoors. I actually need a flexible schedule. I actually need to work with a team. I actually… Whatever it is, the only way to find out is by doing it and by fully committing to that thing for however long you’re doing it for. And let the experience itself lead you to the next evolution or the next insight about what’s true for you.
Anne Muhlethaler:
It’s very funny you should say that because this friend of mine was saying to me yesterday, my problem is when people say, what are you do right now? I don’t know what to say. And I said, but you say you’re in the discovery mode?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Exactly. A hundred percent.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So this is really right on the money. That’s funny.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. And we don’t like being in limbo. It’s very uncomfortable. All of us, like you said, we cling to our identities, especially via work. It’s so much of what defines us as adults. And so to be in that liminal space of, I don’t know yet what I am doing professionally does not mean you don’t know who you are or what’s important to you. It just means that the form hasn’t fully showed up yet. And that’s okay. But to be able to embrace the I-don’t-know yet is a huge first step.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And I think accepting the I-don’t-know. And then there’s space for something to show up. It’s something maybe unexpected, maybe something surprising, right? Because if you’ve left something, you know that there’s something you don’t want. And so to really give yourself time to find out what you do want is really important.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I could not agree more. And I have been in the quick sense in the don’t-know and the change of identity before. So I appreciate how hard it is. And I side with you. I know how difficult it is and how hard it is, especially to make to do the deed, to leave, to quit, to change. Now, I wonder, as you were in your own discovery mode and figuring things out in experimenting, how did you become, or were you aware of experience design as something that you wanted to pursue?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
It’s funny, I’m not even sure when I remember that term first entering my world.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That’s what I was wondering too.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
When did that even happen? I don’t think so. I don’t think it was in my purview probably until, probably 2016 or 2017, something like that. I think I started being in circles where some of the cool avant garde events, people were calling themselves experienced designers. And I think I was continually looking for the right label. Right? As an entrepreneur and as a creative, I’ve taken on a lot of different things like a consultant, so this or that. But you’re like, what is that phrase that fully encapsulates this thing that I’m doing.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And events production, people then think you’re like catering or doing a venue. It’s like, no, that’s not it either. I was like, I’m interested in live events and gatherings and bringing people together. What is that? And when I heard experience design, I just know that it felt like the most accurate phrase I had found. And so then I started being like, experienced design, consulting, and facilitation.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And that’s been kind of the umbrella, in a lot of ways, that I’ve been going under. There’s some confusion around that because experience design, historically, has been like UX UI, usually about humans interacting with technology. So people that do experience design are usually designing apps or programs. And what we do as experienced designers from our perspective is human to human. That’s how I think about it. It’s like instead of human to technology, it’s human to human. So we’re really doing live experiences in that regard.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So it’s a little bit confusing. I think there’s those of us who are trying to kind of redefine what experience design is or say, hey, there’s two different branches of this tree. And so there’s some debate about that in the community of like, should we find another phrase, another word to describe this? But it is working for now. And I think you’ll see more and more people even on LinkedIn calling themselves experienced designers. And I think that is becoming more of a known phrase and term that people are using to describe this kind of field.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thank you for explaining that. It’s true. I have friends who have worked online, but on personal relationships, customer-client relations, who then went on to work on experienced design and yet another area, yet another branch of that tree. It’s an interesting terminology.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I was introduced to you. I heard your name and I heard about Scaling Intimacy the first time when a very talented experience designer did a presentation for the course I was doing the On Deck course creator last spring, already almost a year ago. And I was blown away by his presentation. And right up front, he said, this is who I learned it from. You need to check this woman out if this interests you.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And I remember I was cooking and cleaning whilst listening to his presentation, because I like to do two things at once, especially when it’s at 9:00 PM on the weeknight. And I scrambled and sort of put down your details. And so I then later had the chance to take the three-day workshop of Scaling Intimacy. I’d love for you to tell us how did you create this program and what it does for people?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Well, I’ll say what it does first. My hope is that it helps people go from kind of creating events, trainings, programs, workshops, conferences, right? Whatever the form your event takes, taking it from a place of intuition and kind of just feeling your way through it, to really having a strategic form that you know is going to produce really profound results every time.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yes. There you go. Yes. It’s called the dramatic arc. That’s basically what we’re doing, is we’re taking the dramatic arc from theater and from storytelling and we’re applying it to an events context. And so within that template, there’s a number of probably 10 or so elements that we say, hey, these are standard elements that you want to be putting into your event, whether it’s one hour, one day or one year. So the template is expandable and collapsible, and it applies to any kind of learning experience, right?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So it’s not so well-suited for a casual cocktail party. It needs to be something that’s facilitated and there’s some kind of change or transformation that you’re hoping to have on your participants. So those are the circumstances where it works really well. So I think there’s a lot of people out there that are kind of just, yeah, they’re going by feeling, they’re going by what they’ve seen before and replicating forms that seem like they should work like your standard conference speaker, speaker, speaker, panel, fireside chat speaker kind of thing.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
But they don’t really know why they’re doing what they’re doing. And times things go well and sometimes they don’t and it’s hard to know why. And I think also we’re in just a paradigm where we’re still in this content as king worshiping information and data and talking ads instead of being with. And so really we’re looking at how do we change those paradigms?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so what are my philosophy is that how do we prioritize connection over content? Which doesn’t mean that you have to have more connection than you have content, but it means that we are saying that creating connection and community at live events, gatherings, and programs is a huge priority. And that when we do that, whatever content we’re trying to share, whatever change we’re trying to create is going to be that much more powerful and accessible for our participants.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So when we create this sense of connection, it actually catalyzes everything else. So that’s a huge part of the work. The first Scaling Intimacy was actually called Experience is Everything. And it was in the summer of 2017. And I launched it as a two-day in-person course as an excuse to make myself write a bunch of material for the book that I wanted to publish. So you’ll see I have this like black-
Anne Muhlethaler:
I love that.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
… feeling myself pattern.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Fantastic tactic. Yeah. So I was like, I will launch this two-day in-person course and I will promise them a robust manual to go along with it, therefore I will have to write this material by this time. Which I did. So I wrote like 60 pages. I gave them this big manual. I taught a two-day course about experience design, facilitation. The predecessor to that was like another practice I had a brand for a while called Rock the Room. That was more… It had some experience design. It was more about facilitation. The tagline was guiding groups to greatness.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So that was like another brand that I ended up sun setting, which became Experience is Everything. I did that one time. Then I did a mastermind. I led a six-month program where I basically took that two-day event and I spread it out over six months. And got deeper, and developed more content, more material, wrote a bunch more of the book. So I ended up with like 200-plus pages of the book, which I gave them as like a fat manual.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And then towards the end of that mastermind, I launched what we now know as Scaling Intimacy, which originally started as a four-day in-person program. It was two days experience design and then two days facilitation. So creating structures for your event. And then how do you bring those structures to life through the facilitation? And so I did out twice.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And then enter COVID. And when COVID hit, I was like, okay, I can sit on my hands and wait this thing out until in-person comes back, which we thought it would be sooner than later, but at that obviously. And I was like, okay, I have been really pushing away the virtual world for so long. People have continued to ask me about things and I’ve sloughed it off as like, I’m an in-person person. And at that point I was like, okay, well, this is the time I have to figure this out.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So I basically took myself on a huge crash course, learning about how to do things on Zoom and virtual. And I had some wonderful teachers and friends that I learned from at that time. And I had a weekend scheduled with my mastermind group that we had planned to do it in person. And maybe a week and a half before it was going to happen, we decided to run it virtual. So that was again, another deadline I gave myself where I was like, okay, all that content I was going to do in person, I now have to figure out how to do two full days online. And I’ve never done that before.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So, huge crash course. And then also really wonderful, safe environment with people that I knew and felt very close to and supported by and safe with. So that was great. So we did a ton of experimenting. And then after I ran that, I was like, okay, this is possible. I can do this. And I took… What I had done was skilling intimacy. The facilitation part felt too scary and hard. And I was like, I don’t know how to translate that, but I’m going to take the two-day of design and make that an online situation.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So a couple months later. Then I started running all these online courses and they went from 40 people to 80 people to 130 people. It was just this insane… It was just everybody needed it and wanted it at that time. Everybody was scrambling to be like, how do we create authentic, meaningful connection online through these virtual platforms? And so it was again another case of right place, right time, right topic.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And it’s not that I was light years ahead of my participants, but I was ahead enough. The main frameworks are very well developed, but the delivery of that through a virtual scenario was new-ish to me, but I just kept practicing and kept doing it enough to be able to believe that I could provide a really high quality, valuable experience for people. And so we just iterated like crazy. And so now we’ve done… The 11th round of Scaling Intimacy is happening right now.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That’s wonderful. What a story? Do you know what? It’s so funny because it never occurred to me that you’d done anything like this in person, because it felt so great on Zoom. But then I’ve done so much online because when I decided to leave France after living in the UK and the U.S., and come back to Switzerland, I moved to Zoom in 2017. So being so online, I just assumed that everyone else is good at it, has been doing it forever.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Anyways. Where to go next? I want to talk about the framework because I was very curious about experience design. And I think what I recognized in some of the vocabulary that was describing your course was talking about transformation elements. And I think that this is a word that I came across first talking to an amazing coach a few years ago when I was on a retreat in Thailand. And it’s a word that I had found in that On Deck course creation. And I saw that. I saw that what you were doing, even before I showed up in the room, was going to actually transform the audience. I would love to hear you talk about that transformational element and if that’s the arc or the trust that you’re building.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. So the dramatic arc template, the whole approach has three main pillars. And transformation is the first one. The second one is connection. And the third one is collaborative learning. So it’s the way in which we teach the material. It’s the way in which… Those elements are kind of imbued into the arc itself. It’s built into it. So if you follow the arc, more or less, you’re guaranteed that those three things will happen.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I think the collaborative learning is more of a style and approach that you have to choose, because you could still do the arc and somewhat still be like a sage on the stage lecture kind of based person. But anyway, those are the elements that we really feel like if you can focus on transformation, connection, and collaborative learning, you will create a really connected community that experiences profound change.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I think the word trade transformation, it can have a lot of baggage for people. Like some people are really drawn to it. Some people are really repelled by it. And I do a lot of work in corporate settings and companies. So sometimes transformation is like trigger woo, woo word. So I like to also say what we mean when we say transformation is basically creating change or impact. And that’s what everybody wants. Right?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
The way that I think about it is like if someone walks into an event training or program that you’re leading, and they walk out the same as they came in, we haven’t done our job. Something is wrong here. And if you just want to disseminate information, that’s not transformation, right? So we’re moving from information to transformation. So what that means to me, and it comes back to this like experience design, for designing experiences.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And that’s what’s really important here. And experience is different than information. Information is like a story. It’s data. It’s something that it’s an idea that comes into your head. It’s something that you think about. It’s theoretical. And there’s value to that. No doubt. There’s value to that.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
What I find and what a lot of research shows is even more powerful is having a direct experience for yourself. So if we’re taking a concept, let’s say it’s courageous leadership or authenticity or mindfulness, any of these concepts, right? The only way you get good at them is by doing them, is by practicing. You can talk to someone for hours about how to ride a bike and you can show them books and you can read about it and you can watch videos, but until you get on a bike, you’re not going to really get it. You could tell someone about the taste of an apple, and until they bite an apple, they’re not going to really get it.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So how do you give people a direct media experience of whatever the concept is that you’re speaking of? And so that’s how we create learning. That’s how we create change, is by putting people in the situation, in the moment, having a direct experience. And that’s how she change happens. And I think that’s second part of how change happens and transformation happens, as we talked about a little bit earlier, is integration.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So we have to have moments and ways that we pause, and we reflect, and we integrate and we say, wow, what just happened there? What did that mean? Or meaning do I want to make of it? How am I different? What am I going to do differently because of what I learned or experienced here? Who’s going to hold me accountable to that. What’s going to change tomorrow.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And that is one of the huge things that I think a lot of people miss. They can give people a very powerful, direct experience and then be like, bye. And then you see people, they leave events, they forget their shoes, they’re totally spun out, they’re like really high on whatever that was, but then nothing… It doesn’t last. The change isn’t lasting because they haven’t had the time and they haven’t been guided through a process of reflection and integration.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So that’s like a debrief, right? So it’s really just after are these big experiences. Giving people time to pause and reflect and articulate what was meaningful and what’s going to be different now because of that I think is huge. And so when we look at the dramatic arc template, if you can imagine in your mind, looks like a mountain. So it has a peak, right? Or just like a open-ended triangle. As opposed to a flat line, as opposed to a squiggly line, there is a pinnacle, there is a climax, there is a place that we are taking people to.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And we as the experience designers, it’s important for us to think about what is that ultimate thing, the promise that we want to deliver to our participants. And in that pinnacle, we’re giving them a direct experience of whatever that is. And on the down slope of that, we’re doing all the integration work of like what happened and what’s different.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And that front slope on your way up is that creating the connection, the collaborative learning, the psychological safety, the guidelines, the agreements, all of the things that create an environment for change to happen. Because when we take people into a state of change, there’s a framework that I use often, I didn’t create it, but it’s where you think of like a bullseye concentric circles. And the center is the comfort zone. The outer edge is the panic zone. And in between is a stretch zone. And the stretch zone is where all the learning and the growth happens.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So it’s an art and a science to be able to meet your audience in their comfort zone, create that trust and rapport, and then slowly, like if you imagine pulling a rubber band, you’re expanding them into that stretch zone and you’re stretching the stretch zone as far as you can without going into the panic zone where you would pop that rubber band it would break, right? Because it doesn’t have the elasticity to handle it.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So that’s part of the play here, is how do you get people into their stretch and keep them in that stretch zone long enough that it becomes a new comfort zone, that they’re like, ah, okay, this is my new baseline, this is my new way of being, I’ve been here now.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So one way that we help people articulate their transformation is we call it primary shift. So you decide what’s the one thing that you really want to be different for people before and after this experience and you articulate it from two statements. So if it be, I want the very simple level. I want my participants to go from being confused to having clarity. I want people to go from being scared to take the leap into the next phase of their life to feeling confident that they can handle the uncertainty of the unknown, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yes.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Whatever that is. And then that is your north star. It’s like the guiding light that helps you design the experience when you know the transformation that you’re trying to achieve.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I’m so glad that we went to that instead of going straight to my questions on the screen. Because when I think about all of the things that I’ve learned over the past five years since I left my corporate job and challenged myself to change my sense of identity, I feel like every time there was a strong shift, it’s because I had been pushed to do that work of self-reflection.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Anne Muhlethaler:
And it took me, I think, all of this time until I landed in your course to really understand that it’s the thoughtfulness of the process, not the complicated nature of it, of having those moments of quiet and sometimes just asking one question. And at the end asking people to share a takeaway so that we ourselves, the participant, get to reflect on this experience. So I’m very grateful.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And so I give guided meditation several times a week on Zoom. And they’re short. I don’t need to do a dramatic arc for every single one of them, but I do. And I really enjoy doing it. Because I felt like I really love the word intention and I feel like there’s such a… Without working on a primary shift, so to speak, because it’s much lighter practice, I feel like there’s much more intentionality about the way that I teach. And in the community, see that’s being formed through this seems to be reacting well. So again, thank you.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yay. That’s awesome. Well, I think that also people can feel when there’s that depth of caring, and not only caring, but careful planning. And that you’re very clear on what it is that you want to provide and there’s a laser focus in that. And what that does with your audience, your participants, is creates this sense of trust, because they’re like, oh, she knows where she’s going. And therefore I’m more willing to fully surrender my will and go with you because you have clarity and you have direction.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So ultimately, in some, ways we’re talking about leadership, right? If someone has clarity about where they’re going, you’re much more likely to be willing to go with them. And when people show up to any kind of live event or program or guided meditation, we’re asking for their most precious resource, which is their time and their attention. This is huge responsibility, actually. It’s not something to take lightly because it’s very precious and it’s limited.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so when someone gives you that, what are you going to do with that? And to be very respectful of it. And to acknowledge that when someone steps into that container, they’re literally surrendering their will. They’re like, okay, I’m here. I’m going to go with you wherever you go. And that’s sacred. It’s a very profound sacred contract that I think we don’t often really recognize, like spend the time to be like, wow, what a sacred thing this is? And can I step into that role as responsibly and as thoughtfully as possible?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. You’re right. And I think that… Just before I got certified as a teacher, I had never felt a calling to be a teacher of any kind. Although I really did enjoy leading teams in my previous career. And I took the job really seriously. And sometimes I think for a lot of people who step into the teacher or the facilitator role, when they haven’t felt that calling and feel that responsibility, a structure, it really does help. So I’d love to talk about the TED Talk, which you gave virtually, was it just a year ago now?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. Pretty much exactly a year ago.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Wow. And so you broke down three components to creating amazing virtual events online, away from the very boring PowerPoint presentations that we’ve all sat through online and offline. And I would love for you to talk us through these. Because I think that they’re so immediately applicable and for everyone, something that they can take away from our conversation.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Sure. Yeah. And I think that, as I talked about them on the TED Talk, they were three keys to creating connection online or virtually. But as you said, they work in person, they work online. I’d say it’s just important online, but it’s definitely universally applicable. So there are three principles. The first one is to connect early. The second one is to connect often. And the third one is to gradually increase vulnerability.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So if we start with connecting early, the really important thing to know here is that the beginning of your event or your program sets the tone for everything to come. So every program or event is like a mini-universe. So if you’re familiar with Priya Parker’s work and The Art of Gathering, she talks a lot about that too. So we’re creating a world, right? And the beauty of that is that world can really be anything you want, but you have to be intentional about it.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So when people log on to the Zoom or they jump of on the teams or whatever platform you’re using, their mind is awaken alive. And it’s gathering all this information about what is this universe like? What is the culture here? What are the expectations? What is it going to be like? Is it going to be a sit and listen lecture slides? Is it going to be super interactive and breakout rooms and chat? Is there music? So really thinking about what’s the impression. You never have a second chance to make a first impression. So what is that first impression? Boom. I jump on the line. What is happening? How are you engaging me or not?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
If you want connection to be a central component of your event, you want to start with connection right away. One of the big mistakes people make is they wait like 20, 30 minutes into their event before they ask a question or they do a breakout. And at that point it’s too late. You’ve already set the tone of observation and information instead of connection and engagement and interactivity.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So you want to set that tone right away, because if you don’t, it’s much harder later to pull people out of their mode of sit and listen. So do that right away. And that’s going to be like, oh, people are going to show up there and be like, I matter. Oh, we’re building community. Oh, I’m meeting awesome people. Oh, I need to turn my video on because I’m going into a breakout room with someone. Right?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Because there are a lot of people, like you were saying, who are doing their dishes and other things. And that’s fine, but how do you set the tone for, hey, you need to be present, hey, you need to have your video on because this is what here. So it’s just a matter of setting expectations. And so that’s how you can do that right from the beginning. It can be playing music, could be an opening prompt in the chat where you’re asking a personal question like what’s a high and low for you from this week? Or, when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grow up? Or what’s something on your bucket list, right? So many awesome questions you could ask.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And something that ideally is the relevant to your gathering is going to make it even more interesting for your participants. So I’d say that. And if you can do a facilitated icebreaker within the first 10 minutes of your event, and I’d say that 10-minute rule is true. Whether it’s an hour-long event or a two-day event, it doesn’t matter. Again, you want to get that in right in the beginning.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So an icebreaker could be a question, could be an activity, but just a way for participants to get to connect with each other directly is really helpful for creating that vibe of community and connection. So that’s principle one. So connect early.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
The second one is connect often. So I think we get into a mindset frequently where it’s like, oh, I’ve done my icebreaker in the beginning, check. Community done. And the reality is that we build relationships over time, right? The people that you’ve known since childhood, you feel differently with the people that you just met last year at work. That doesn’t mean you can’t form a really deep connection with someone really quickly, but what it means is, the more touch points you have with someone or with people in general, the more you develop this sense of trust and rapport and familiarity.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So the more that you can weave connection throughout your event and think of it like a thread, and you have multiple touch points, it doesn’t mean that has to be long. Like you don’t have to do a 20-minute exercise. You can do a five-minute exercise. But if you can do that frequently, throughout your event, you’re weaving a web of connection throughout your event. And it creates a really different feeling.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And one of the ways you can do that, we often get, again, into this false dichotomy of having to choose between content or connection. One of my favorite ways to have both is to do a debrief. So we talked a lot about integration and how you do that. So if you think about, you have a speaker, or you have a panel, or you have an important concept that you need to get across, whatever that content is, right afterwards, how can you have a debrief? Maybe that’s a question that you ask in a chat.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Maybe you do a couple spotlight shares and have people share verbally in front the group. Maybe you send everyone into a breakout for and say, hey, what was the most important thing for you from that? What are you going to do differently because of this? What’s another follow up question you have that now is in your brain based on what you heard? Right? Anything in which you get people to share a little bit about what they learned is going to deepen the learning for them and create connection between them and another participant as they share it.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So that’s one of my favorite ways to think about weaving connection throughout, as well as any time you have a break or a lull in energy, those are good moments to be like, oh, let’s have a moment of connection. Let’s come back to a state of presence.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And then the third principle is gradually increase vulnerability. I think we’ve probably all had the experience of someone who, with well intentioned person took us too far too fast down the vulnerability rabbit hole and asked us to reveal something that was too deep. And when you do that, if you get people on a line and you say, okay, we’re going to go into breakouts and tell someone about the most embarrassing moment of your whole life, what happens is people close instead of open.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And then once they’re closed, it’s going to again be really hard for you to get people to open back up again. So if you think about just going very step by step by step, you want to start with something that’s accessible. Especially in your audience, you’re going to perhaps have people that are more extroverted and ready to share and talk and very open. And you might have some introverted folks who are a little bit more private, a little bit more soft spoken, like need a little bit more time.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So thinking about you’re going to have a variety of people in your audience, how do you welcome them? How do you fight them into a state of vulnerability rather than like pushing them off the cliff and being like, all right, now, share about something really intense? So when you do that work gradually, it really creates a feeling, again, of trusting you, trusting the process, saying yes at every step. And then people, all of a sudden, really start to open up. And a principle is like go slow to go fast. If you go slow in the beginning then you’ll find all of a sudden things kind of hit this nice glide and you can pick up speed later on.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And there’s a study that I love to refer to in the late-1990s at a University in New York. They were trying to crack the code on how people develop platonic peer-to-peer close relationships. And what they found was that the keys to establishing this kind of relationships were, I’m trying to see if I can remember all of the words, personal, reciprocal, escalating, self-disclosure. There’s a bunch of words, but basically what it means is you have to do it continually, you have to do it reciprocally. So all parties are doing it. It’s escalating. So it is getting higher or deeper as you go. And it’s personal self-disclosure. So it’s not theoretical, it’s not necessarily professional, but it’s sharing something meaningful about you, about your life, about your personal experience.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so if you think about doing that of gradually with the group, then all of a sudden, boom, you hit this beautiful space where people are just coming forward and sharing willingly, right? You want to create that space where people just are opening for their own desires because they want to connect. And when you have one person who does that, it just can set the tone for the whole group. So as you think about doing this for your group, right? How is the facilitator? Can you model that?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So if you’re asking them a question, can you answer it first, yourself personally? Can you also give a range of answers? Some that are maybe lighter and more easily accessible, and some maybe that are a little bit deeper and farther under the surface so that you give people permission to answer at a place where they’re comfortable. And I think that that really helps as well.
Anne Muhlethaler:
It’s interesting you should say that because I was thinking about how you modeled this particular piece at the end of your TED Talk. And you revealed about your situation, about your pregnancy. And it was very touching. Obviously I have done some courses with you, but it was a strong connector. And I think it’s a beautiful way to illustrate and not one that anyone can sort of walk away without feeling moved in some way.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I was going to ask you if… I mean, it’s a leading question. But then again I admit it. I was going to ask, if you can imagine one particular quality that helps experience designers or people who want to facilitate and lead that kind of transformative, safe environment and integration, what would it be? What quality should people nurture?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I think, honestly, the main one or a foundational one is empathy. Because you have to be able to put yourself in the shoes of your participants and to imagine, when they come to this event, what might they be scared about? What resistance might they have? What might they be hesitant to share, to reveal? Right?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
When we sign up for something, oftentimes we’re coming in with some willingness and some resistance, right? The willingness is great, but where are those resistance points? And how, as a designer, can I think out how to address those and how to make people feel safe and comfortable and yet be willing to grow? Right? Like there’s a lot. If we want to create transformation change, then we have to create safe environments where people feel willing to risk. And that’s part of the psychological safety piece.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
But I think I’ve taken for granted empathy because with my background in theater, you spend so much time literally putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, embodying this character, imagining their world, their thoughts, their feelings, their needs, their wants, their desires. So that for me was like a very easy practice. Something I could very easily tap into. And I took for granted that I would just naturally do that.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so I think as I teach experience design and work with people as to really.. As you even create your design and you do your dramatic arc, part of the process that we do during Scaling Intimacy towards the end is be like, okay, let’s stop. Let’s take a few moments. Imagine yourself as a participant going through this experience. Where does it feel stressful? Where does it feel scary? Where might it feel too fast, too slow, boring, overwhelming? Right?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
We’re looking for those energetic dips and valleys as much as we can, right? There’s some of it you’re not going to know until you’re in the moment. But you can imagine yourself someone who’s coming in, feeling nervous, not sure if they belong, thinking everyone else is more advanced than they are. Right? These are things that almost everyone has coming into a course or a program, oftentimes imposter syndrome shows up. Right?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So how are you going to address that through the program itself and to think about how to really care for your participants and to be with them as opposed to apart from them. And I think that is… If we can really be in a state of empathy with our participants, then there’s so much more that’s possible. And I think you end up creating a much more thoughtful design when you come from that place.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. That’s what I assumed you would be going towards. And interestingly enough, I feel like I was… I used to be a singer. And similarly to you, I think that the stage and connection was something that I sought in another way. But I remember putting together a lot of in real-life events, whether it be parties, or retreats, trips to Italy with lots of fashion journalists and always trying to put myself in the shoes and walking within venues imagining what’s it going to feel like, what have I missed.
Anne Muhlethaler:
But I think that, to your point, taking into consideration the state of mind of the people when we do this virtually and we want to create transformation is massive. Now this really does link well with something else I wanted to talk about. Inclusivity was very thoughtfully weaved into your program from the get go. Could you talk to me about that?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. That’s been a very intentional gradual process. I’m certainly.. Oh gosh. I said it was two years ago now. In June of 2020 when George Floyd was murdered in the states that was like a huge wake up call for so many people. And as we were already doing some of that work through Scaling Intimacy, but it definitely put everything on a fast forward to be like, okay, how do we address this? And how do we integrate the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging into the work itself, into the programs, right? How do we… And that has been a very evolving process of not having it be this separate thing that we talk about and then it’s just a standalone, but something that’s really woven into all of the content and the approach.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So one of the foundational pieces that we bring up in Scaling Intimacy, we call the five Ps. It’s the foundation of your event, where you talk about the people, the process, the place, the date, the price, the promise. And so we started thinking about, oh, how do we integrate inclusion into the five Ps? And so part of it is when you think about place, and date, and prices, there’s so much to consider even with accessibility, right?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Like we have participants now who have some hearing challenges or visual challenges. So we’re doing transcription on Zoom, which is an awesome feature. Or do you need translation for different languages? We’ve started integrating some fun sign language elements. So it’s just been really cool. But also thinking about accessibility on price. And we have a 50% of scholarship fund. We call the Experience Design Diversity Initiative.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so that’s really to give… In terms of if you look at the events industry itself, it’s generally 80% white and 80% female. So how do we bring more men into the room? How do we bring more people of color into the room, more transgender people into the room? Really trying to get more people goal into the industry. And so that’s one way that we try to do that and also having representation in our facilitators.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And one of the main ways that we’ve also found has been really powerful is acknowledging the intersectionality of ourselves and our audience. So one of the big exercises that we do at the beginning of the core course, we internally think of as our intersectionality welcome where each one of the facilitators we share the mic during that time and we welcome our audience, we welcome all aspects of you.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So we’ll talk about welcoming people who identify as black, Asian, LatinX, indigenous, white, European, Asian, different ethnic backgrounds or different religious backgrounds, people who are religious, spiritual, have agnostic, or atheist, people who are adopted or have adopted children, or godparents and sisters and brothers, and really just trying to, welcome in all these aspects of us that create this holistic atmosphere where people feel like they can bring all of who they really are.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And then each one of the facilitators, we speak to part of our own intersectionality. So I often share that I’m an only child from New York City, that I’m eternally recovering perfectionist, that I’m the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, that I’m a new mom, right? So these are some aspects of me that you might not know just by looking at me that really define important parts of who I am.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so we try to share that with the group. And then we ask people in the group to also share that. So we ask people to change their screen names and add one aspect of their identity that they would like to share and that they would like other people to know about them. And I will say that doing that, we’ve done it many times now, it never ceases to bring me to a high state of emotion. And we get so much positive feedback on that piece, specifically of people feeling so moved and being like, wow, I didn’t know I could feel that moved on Zoom.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And I think it’s things like that really can translate across a screen. It doesn’t matter what format you’re in, but really taking the time. And that whole segment is maybe like 10 or 15 minutes. It’s not that long, but the impact that has on the rest of the program I think is quite significant because we’ve taken the time to set that tone of, you matter. All of the life experience that you’re bringing here is sacred, is important, is welcome. We want you to bring all of yourself to the table. And we believe that when we do that, our learning experience in our community will be that much richer and deeper because of it.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. It moves me when you tell the story again now. And it was certainly really special when I took it in the course. And the accessibility piece I think is one that is perhaps forgotten or not talked about so much. And I think it’s really important. So thank you for making this a reminder for me every time I consider it, because it’s been something that I’ve implemented in several ways.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I have a couple of more questions before we get to the quake fire round at the end. I think you spoke to this a little bit before, but I read an interesting short article in Business Insider from 2017 that says that you introduced Tim Ferriss, the podcaster and author, to a concept called no hurry, no pause, which she discovered form of body work called Breema. And is that right? And could you tell us about it? Because it sounds interesting.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yes, it is. Right. Tim Ferriss was really interested in Acro Yoga. I think he still practices, but there was a period of time I was doing some private lessons with him for a while and very avid students. And he’s just like a very curious guy and always learning. And there was a form of body work I studied for many years called Breema. It’s based here in Oakland.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And the philosophy of Breema is really around being fully present as the practitioner. So it’s not about changing or fixing or doing anything to the receiver. It’s really about how you get into a state of presence. You’re using the body work as like a moving meditation essentially, for yourself. And it’s very beautiful to both give and receive. It’s a lovely art form. And they have, I think it’s 10 principles that they work with. And one of those principles is no hurry, no pause.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
They say you can use it with the body work, but they also invite you to take one of the principles and work with it for a week in your daily life while you wash dishes, while you walk the dog, while you fold laundry, while you eat dinner, while you take a shower. And it’s very interesting what comes up when you actually work with something like no hurry, no pause, right? I’m not stopping, but I’m not rushing. It’s like somewhere in between. Is that state again of pure presence.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So one of their other principles is body comfortable, mutual support. They have a lot of these things that are very simple, but it’s often the very simple things that end up being the most profound and transformative. So working with each one of those principles, I found to be very powerful practice in my life. Not only in the body work, but in the bigger picture.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I’m very curious about Breema. I’m going to be all over that.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And they have practitioners in Europe too. And there’s intensives and things that happen all over the world. So it’s breema.com, B-R-E-E-M-A.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Amazing. Now, I want to talk briefly about your experience during the pandemic. Because you became a mom right in the middle of that. And actually, as you were saying to me offline, you were actually eight months pregnant when you gave that virtual TED Talk, something you mentioned you probably would not do again if that were to present in this-
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Nope.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Nope.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So I was wondering if there was anything that you wanted to share with us? And how old is your daughter now today, Elowin?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. She is almost 11 months. She’ll be 11 months this week. It’s so insane to even say that. We’re just planning her first birthday party and you’re like, what? It’s just insane. I mean, this is my first baby. And so yeah, it’s all quite wondrous, magical and terrifying, tragic and amazing all at once. Y.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. Being it during the pandemic for me was very hard because I’m a super community person and I derive a lot of meaning and fulfillment and joy from being connected to other people. And when you are pregnant, you’re technically like immune suppressed. You’re much more susceptible able to things, especially when I was pregnant, which was like June of 2020 to March of 2021. So like in the thick of it and during some of the waves.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
There was still a lot that we didn’t know. And we did IVF and I was one of the first people to be able to do an embryo transfer. It was literally right when the fertility clinics were opening back up to do anything. So we were just right in at that first opportunity. And it was just very scary because it was… Yeah, there was a lot that was unknown and it was very isolating.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so my husband and I were really in our kind of own bubble. We have neighbors that we were in a pod with and his parents basically. So those were the people that we really spent time with for many, many months. And the only people we went at indoors with or anything. And my husband went through a really challenging period of what I would say, at a certain point, got to deep paranoia, just so much fear built up and wanting to protect me, wanting to protect our unborn child, that it kind of took over our lives for a while.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And I had to be like, hey, yeah, this is scary, yeah, things could happen, but we also need to live our lives. And I can’t live in this state of fear. It’s not healthy. That in and of itself is not healthy for me and it’s not healthy for the baby. So we had to work through a lot of stuff and figure out for me to honor his desires and needs and concern, and also to feel safe and to be able to get the connection that I needed.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And I ended up doing a virtual blessing way or baby showers, some people might call it, although there were like no gifts involved, but a ceremony with a number of women in my life that I cared about to help cross the portal or the threshold into being a mom. And what I will say is I’m very grateful that I had had had so much experience doing things online because I knew that it was possible to have a really meaningful, powerful sense of connection, even virtually. And it allowed me to draw women in my life into that event from all over the country and even international that if I had just done something in person could not have been there. And so that was really, really beautiful.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So, upsides downsides, for sure. It was very hard. I don’t know what it’s like to be pregnant, not in a pandemic. So I have nothing to compare it to, but it brought a lot of challenges along with just the challenge of being pregnant and going through something really intense and being super emotional and all of that. But it happens when it happens. We are really grateful. To be pregnant at all was really a miracle. So I’m very grateful.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thank you so much for sharing that story. And I’m so happy that everything’s okay. And yay to planning the first birthday party.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So the podcast is at the crossroads between business and mindfulness. And so I’d love to hear from you, any tactics, rituals, or things that help you feel grounded. And that could be in general, or that could be pandemic-related. Though I just like the word. Anything that you can share with us that could inspire others to try.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I’m kind of simple person. I’m really into hot water. So any kind of hot water really works for me. Like I took a bath with my daughter, a bubble bath with my daughter last night before I put her in bed. And it was kind of for her because she was dirty, but it was also for me. There’s something about that’s very calming. And I do a lot of hot springs as much as I can. I live in a place where we have access hot springs within an hour or two. So that’s really powerful for me. So that’s definitely something that grounds me.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I think for me also, I’m a big nature and views person. There’s something for me about if I can get up somewhere high and see out wide, it literally, I feel like changes the way that my brain functions. I have so many of my best ideas and insights when I’m in those places. And I also like working in big open environments. So I just try as much as possible to get my brain in those places where I feel like I do my best work and my best kind of evolution of myself. So those are some things that are really helpful for me.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thank you so much. So what’s a favorite word that you could tattoo on yourself? And I’m not saying you have to tattoo yourself, but in theory.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
In theory, a word that I have been told recently that I use a lot… Sometimes you use the word a lot, but you’re not aware that you use it a lot. My former employee was like, I use the word tender a lot. Apparently it’s like a really strong part of my vocabulary. And there’s something that I love about like, tender. It’s like sweet, and it’s soft, and it’s vulnerable, and it’s like beautiful. And so I think I use that word a lot. And I think it’s evocative.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
We don’t use that word, I think generally very often, but when you do use it, I think it evokes a very specific quality that is very sweet. And I feel very tender with my daughter. These things like, ugh, you just heart hurts in a good way.
Anne Muhlethaler:
It’s such a beautiful word. And yeah, I use it quite a bit. What song best represents you?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
What I can say is, right now, I’m really into this song by a group called Polo & Pan. And they’re kind of like house-ish music. And I don’t know what this song means. Well, actually… Well, the main song which is in my head is a song called Ani Kuni, A-N-I, K-U-N-I. I think it’s Ani Kuni or Ani Kuna. And I don’t know what it means, but it is like a chorus of children singing with some really awesome beats behind it.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so it again feels like tender and sweet, but it’s super playful and really fun and high energy. And just makes me want to shake it. And so that’s… And my daughter is really into. She’s been really dancing to that song and that music. So for me, when I’m in a playful state is always when I’m in my best state. And so that song makes me feel really playful and mischievous in a good way.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Awesome. I can’t wait to listen to it. What is a secret superpower you have?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Mm. A secret superpower. A lot of my superpowers are very front-centered because they’re the things I’ve built my life off of. So I’m like, what’s a secret superpower I have that people might not know about or that might be less, is a secret? I’m sure I have them. I’m sure I have them. Well, I’m a big costumes person. And I’m really good at, I think, not only dressing myself, but I’m really good at dressing other people, like giving them costume pieces that will bring out something unusual or under the surface. I’m a really good instigator of that kind of thing. So yeah. I love costumes and I have lot of things. And so I’m always like curating-
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, that sounds like fan.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
… the right people in the right time.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Tell me about a favorite book you have or that you’ve read?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Hmm. A favorite book that I’ve read? I’m not a huge reader. I don’t read a ton. For whatever reason, the book that’s coming to my mind right now is The Red Tent. I just remember loving that book. I’m a huge learner. And if I watch a movie, it’s likely a documentary or based on a something real. So I love books and movies that have some kind of historical or real-life references. And so I just remember Red Tent. I just love that it was kind of this Biblical times, and real, and fictional at the same time, and women. Yeah, I just loved that. I loved that book.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Where is somewhere you visited that you felt really had an impact on who you are today?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Place I have visited. One of the places I love to visit the most is near where I live. It’s called Stinson Beach. It’s about an hour north of where I am. It’s a very long, very wide beach. It goes for miles. And my husband took me there very early on in our relationship. I had never been there before. And I just fell in love with it. Because I like big, wide, open vistas. This big, long, wide beach just captured my heart. And it’s dog-friendly.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
And so also again like dogs, beaches, views, it captures all the things. And it’s become probably our most visited place. And so it has a really special place in my heart of feeling like it’s a really special place for my husband and I for our family. And it just makes me feel like I’m living my best life when I’m there. I’m like, yes, this is what life is about.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds awesome. I’m looking forward to checking it out online. If you could imagine stepping into future version of yourself, what do you think is the most important advice that future you would give present you?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I think it has something to do with a couple things. One is like work and career is a lifelong marathon not a sprint. So you don’t need to rush anything right now. It has been my practice to try to slow down and be really present with my daughter. And yet I still find that old operating system wants to kick back in. So I think just being really present and really playful and being all in the moment with my family. Just really recognizing how precious this time is.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Mm. Thank you. And so my closing question, which is probably my favorite is what brings you happiness?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I definitely just… The easy thing is to say my daughter right now. She just started walking and just so cute to see her toddle around and fall and give back up again. We play a game of like chase. She’s on the couch. And I chase her and to tickle her and to have her giggle is like the best thing in the world. It is a simple, simple joy, but it is so sweet and it makes me so happy.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That’s wonderful. Jenny, thank you so much for all the time that you gave me today and telling us the wonderful projects that you work on. Where can people find you if they’d like to talk to you or discover more about Scaling Intimacy in your other projects?
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yeah. So many places. So many places on the web. They’re scalingintimacy.com is like the hub for the trainings. We do virtual connection labs every month, also where you can and just get like a quick bite size taste of this work and learn some new exercises that you might want to use with your groups under different themes.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
There’s playonpurpose.com, which we didn’t really talk about. But Plan On Purpose is is a video library of over 80 of my best team building games and icebreakers, both for virtual and for in-person. So if you want to learn some new activity to use with your team in a very curated context where you can search by all these filters and find the perfect game in minutes, that’s another cool resource.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
I have my personal website, jennysauer-klein.com. And I’m also fairly active on LinkedIn. So you can find me, Jenny Sauer-Klein, on LinkedIn. Or email is jenny@scalingintmacy.com as well.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thank you so much. Indeed there’s a lot of places.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
So many places. It’s a lot of web presence to maintain.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I Know. I can just but imagine. I will put all of the links with the show notes. Thank you so much, Jenny. I wish you to have a wonderful rest of the day and a lovely week ahead. And a happy planning your daughter’s birthday.
Jenny Sauer-Klein:
Yes. Thanks, Anne, for having me. Appreciate it.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thanks again to Jenny for being my guest on the show today. You can find her at jennysauerklein.com. And you can find more details about her amazing program, Scaling Intimacy, on scalingintimacy.com. And all of the links are in the show notes.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So thanks again, friends and listeners, for joining me today. And if you’d like to hear more, you can subscribe to the show. If you’d like to connect with me, you can do so on Twitter @annvi, on LinkedIn Anne Muhlethaler, or @_outoftheclouds on Instagram where I also share guided meditations and other daily musings about mindfulness.
Anne Muhlethaler:
You can find all episodes and more as well on annemuhlethaler.com. If you don’t know how that’s spelled, that’s also in the show notes. And you can subscribe if you’d like to receive the bimonthly newsletter where I talk podcast, mindfulness, and occasionally, business.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So that set for this episode. Thank you so much for listening to Out of the Clouds. And I hope that you will join me again next time. Until then, be well, be safe, and take care.