The Opener | Rediscover Great Friendship with Lifeboat
The Potentiality inspires and educates changemakers who are passionate about building community and enhancing well-being. We research and present stories, tools and ideas that help communities realize their potential.
One of the ways that we deliver on our goal is to share case analyses of organizations (businesses, social enterprises, schools, and non-profits) that are doing cool things to build community.
This month, we are focusing on Lifeboat, a movement of people rediscovering great friendship. They are not a social network or app. They help people confront loneliness and isolation — this is what Lifeboat calls the “friendship crisis” — by providing content on the art and science of friendship. On their site you can find inspiration, learning and practice to “be better, get deeper and live more fully with their friends.”
A few weeks ago I spoke with Lifeboat co-founder Tim Walker. And here’s the case analysis of how Lifeboat helps people realize their potential with friends.
Part 1 – The Context | Tell us about Lifeboat. What is your unique value proposition and how do you deliver on it?
Look, we believe in great friendship. Did you know less than 25% of people report being truly satisfied or confident with their friends? And that most Americans now report having only one real friend? It’s a paradox in our age of Facebook and constant connections, but a growing body of science is proving what we already feel deep in our gut: we’re actually lonelier and more isolated than ever before.
We don’t think the solution is to connect with more people online; we think it’s to step back and rethink what friendship means in adulthood.
Lifeboat began as a personal project for my co-founder and I. A few years ago we found ourselves mired in a mid-life friendship slump. And we began a journey into uncharted relationship territory— exploring academic research, philosophy, expert advice and our own heads and hearts—for a better path forward with friends.
Along the way, our personal journey just grew into something more. It resonated. So this February we brought Lifeboat online to share our learnings about the art and science of friendship — and to help transform this idea into a movement.
Part 2 – The Challenge | Tell us about the community-based challenge you are addressing. What pain-point are you fixing? What problem are you solving?
Muhammad Ali once said: “Friendship is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” We couldn’t agree more and think it’s kind of crazy nobody teaches us about friendship.
So, at the core of Lifeboat is a set of 10 simple, yet powerful practices we’ve surfaced from our research. It’s available in our Getting Started Guide for anyone to use, for free.
For example, practice one is: “go deep not wide.” It’s about choosing a handful of people — your lifeboat — to purposefully invest deeply with. Why is that important?
Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert says that the number one predictor of happiness is the strength of our bonds with our friends and family. It’s not about the number of people you associate with. It’s about the quality of those relationships. The hard truth is that we can’t enjoy quality relationships with lots of people. Why?
Nurturing relationships takes time, emotional energy and cognitive capacity—all of which are limited. Anthropologists suggest that due to the limits of human brain capacity, we can only maintain casual social relationships with less than 150 individuals—a principle known as Dunbar’s number. But 150 is still too many people for deep relationships. Strong bonds tend to occur in what psychologists refer to as sympathy groups—groups of 10-15 people. If we try to nurture deep relationships with any more, we simply begin to overload.
So that’s the Lifeboat metaphor. In order to be truly great friends, we have to make the hard choice of focusing more intensively on a smaller group of people. It doesn’t mean we ignore everyone else or neglect fruitful networks. But we do invest ourselves more openly, deeply and purposefully with a handful of friends, our Lifeboaters.
Again, that’s just the first of 10 practices and you can see them all in our Getting Started Guide here.
Part 3 – The Community Potential | Tell us how Lifeboat builds community. How does Lifeboat allow people to realize their potential in friendship?
First, Lifeboat is raising awareness about the friendship crisis. Nobody is alone in feeling lonely or isolated. The research shows most people feel insecure about their friendships. We want to remove the stigma about this — about popularity and being liked — so we can all get on a productive path to solving these problems and enjoying great friendship, together.
Second, Lifeboat provides practical insights that can help anyone in their journey to better friendship. We’ve spent the past few year exploring academic research, philosophy, expert advice and our own experience for guidance. We’re not about grand solutions or complex schemes, just simple things that work. By joining us (for free) you get our weekly Sunday email to help you make friendship a practice in your life, just like exercise. And you can get daily inspiration by joining us on Facebook and Twitter.
The Closer | How Lifeboat Builds Community
Lifeboat focuses on how people can be better, get deeper and live more fully with their friends. I can’t say enough about how authentic, genuine and inspiring it was to speak with Tim – Lifeboat is one of the most meaningful and interesting passion projects that I’ve ever come across. Thanks to Tim’s thoughtful insight, I’ve been inspired to connect deeply – and in-person – with several people in my lifeboat. Central to the conversations have been themes such as love, time-management-with-growing-families, career aspirations, and well-being. The simple fact that Lifeboat exists is a wonderful entry-point for a meaningful conversation about friendship.
Two competencies really stand out as being core to Lifeboat’s work. Communicating – in myriad ways – comes naturally to humans, as we are the most social of all beings; however, I strongly recommend that you stop reading this blog, turn off the Internets and call and/or meet-up in person with a friend of yours. Right now. Changing the way we communicate with each other, particularly when it comes to deep, face-to-face friendships is so important. It will be the authentic and genuine relationships that you will need in your sturdy lifeboat that rocks atop the stormy, anonymous and disconnected seas of online communities. Communication digitall is fine (thanks for reading this blog and visiting Lifeboat’s website), but it should not replace in-person connections.
Lifeboat is about the kind of friendship that is rare and is based on pleasure, fun and/or perfection. Speaking with Tim made me re-conceptualize how I collaborate with my friends in an effort to get the best out of each other – honestly, I love the simple notion of friendship being about the genuine value of having people who I consider special in the world and in my life. Such a thing is the realization of potential in itself.
As a resource, Lifeboat’s scientific and artistic exploration of friendship, happiness and well-being is fascinating. From philosophers to economists to psychologists, the Lifeboat experience provides research, stories and ideas that will help you realize the value of friendships as well as provide you with some strategies for building and sustaining the relationships that you already have.
Friendships are one of the great drivers of community well-being – explore Lifeboat today and be inspired by how you can help your relationships, and your community, realize their/its potential!