Welcome to In Conversation with… where Melaina, our wellness and travel editor, connects with thought leaders, vision seekers and changemakers in the wellness industry to lean into understanding our core wants and needs through practices that feel good. From learning about Human Design to the benefits of cold plunges, Melaina meets with folks who are changing the landscape for the better.
Today, we chatted with Jess Janz, founder of Dinner with Strangers, and author of The Table Where We Meet to learn about how she’s brought thousands of people together for dinner to connect, build friendships and learn about a person outside of the traditional ‘what do you do for work’ questions. Here’s her story.
Share a little bit about yourself, and Dinner with Strangers:
I’m a broody introverted artist-type-turned-accidental-entrepreneur – I moved to Toronto in 2009 to become a world-famous singer-songwriter, which clearly didn’t come to fruition, and I started hosting monthly dinners at my friend Ryan’s hair studio when my band broke up in 2017. Dinner With Strangers was born on a bit of a whim; we wanted to see what would happen if we brought people who didn’t know each other together over dinner and removed our usual first question, ‘What do you do for work?’ along with asking a few questions to the group that get people sharing their own stories. Turns out, by removing our usual starting place for introducing ourselves, we end up sharing about what we care about, where we came from, and what we’re learning, which means we get a much richer sense of a person. We get to hear some pretty great insights, realize how much we have in common: our desire to be known, our desire to belong, and the ways we can meet each other, even if we’re strangers, even for a moment.
Congratulations on your book, The Table Where We Meet, we love it! How did the writing process for you go?
Writing a book is a beautiful, horrible, confronting experience. The best writing happens when we’re completely honest with ourselves, and who really wants to do that?! This is also the largest writing project I’ve ever done, and it took a long time to find the voice that I wanted to write the book in, so I was writing what seemed like very stinky garbage for an eternity before I found any kind of groove.
I learned so much about myself as an artist through this experience, and really had to dig in deep to befriend myself while I weathered the highs and lows of the creative process. I also had this realization that everything I’ve ever written before this book belongs to me, and there are so many parts that are taken from journal entries, blog posts from ten years ago, even Instagram captions in some places, proving that the dedication to my creative practice for all these years, regardless of knowing where (if anywhere) any of this would lead, has been an incredibly worthwhile investment of time and exploration.
You write that connection requires us to risk being truly seen. What’s the thing most people are most afraid will happen if they actually let their guard down at the table?
I think we mostly haven’t graduated from middle school dynamics… we’re afraid of being left out, laughed at, and rejected, and we get really good at creating personas that present us as unphased. If someone rejects a masked version of ourselves, it’s easier to let it slide, since they ‘don’t really know the real us.’ But if we share something vulnerable, or dare to admit an audacious dream, even share something we’re an enthusiast about, and someone laughs at us or acts judgmental, it feels like a deeper, truer rejection.
But when we open ourselves up to be seen, we’re also opening ourselves up to be known, and what I’ve found over and over is that we will almost always be met with understanding and compassion, and by being willing to open up to the table, we make it easier for everyone else to show more of their truest selves too.
Photo credit: Gordon Waltho
“No work talk” sounds simple, but it’s actually asking people to introduce themselves without their most practiced answer. What do you notice as you sit at the dinner table with new ‘strangers’?
It IS tricky! I think these self-defining questions like ‘what do you do for work?’ or “tell me about yourself,’ are just generally not actually great starting points to get to know each other, even though we have good intentions of gathering some preliminary data on whoever we’re talking to; like if I’m talking to an accountant, it’s good to find out how that person spends their time, but it doesn’t really give me much else to go on by way of starting a conversation or learning about their lives. Likewise, ‘tell me about yourself,’ is so vague, so vast; where do I even start?
I’ve found instead that it’s actually better to zone into the specific and small; what’s been the best part of your week so far? (I’m going to find out a whole lot about how you like to spend your time!) What do you find yourself recommending a lot lately? (I’m going to find out preferences and interests!) If any everyday activity was an Olympic sport, what would you be in the running to win gold in? (A seemingly silly question evokes silly, creative answers, and we’re off to the races on bantering about the hierarchy of daily life tasks!)
Instead of asking someone to tell me who they are, I focus on getting them to tell me a story from their lives instead, and we naturally learn so much about their interests, priorities, and values organically from there.
Of all the questions you’ve asked across the dinner table, which one surprises you most with what it unlocks?
I love asking, “What’s something you used to believe but don’t anymore?” It’s unlocked everything from people sharing about the evolution of their religious and spiritual beliefs to funny misunderstandings as kids (like someone sharing that she grew up believing that tornados couldn’t strike down at nighttime because her parents told her that so she’d go to bed), to no longer believing that everything happens for a reason, to changing their minds on what it means to live a fulfilled life. We’ll also see the various expressions of personalities from this question – who is malleable and who pivots a lot, compared to people who are more regimented or unyielding in their lens of the world.
It shows us in so many different ways that we’re learning and evolving all the time, even when it might seem like there hasn’t been a lot of movement in our lives for a while.
One person, living or dead, at your table. Who, and what would you ask them?
After having dinner with over one thousand strangers at this point, I can tell you that every single person has a story to tell, it’s just about unlocking what lights them up and what moments from their lives have had the biggest impact on them. I’ll talk to anyone who wants to share about that.
Where can we find you? (share website, social links, etc)
I’m everywhere! Instagram: @jessjanz / @withstrangersco
TikTok: @withstrangersco
Website: jessjanz.com / with-strangers.co
Substack: jessjanz.substack.com
