Liberty Road

written by Stacey Lindsay

Self-expressive dance takes me to the most meditative state," says Radha Agrawal. "And the most restorative state." As the founder and CEO of Daybreaker, a global dance party movement focusing on connection and joy at the start of the day, Radha has been practicing what she loves worldwide. Daybreaker, which turns 10 this year, has amassed more than 500,000 people who are seeking friendship, expression, and joy without having to surmount any of the stigmas or boundaries of age, safety, or substances. (Daybreaker is a sober morning dance party that welcomes everyone.) The morning parties, as Radha says, merge "wellness and nightlife and festival culture together with the sober crowd and yoga and wellness and dance with connection, community and all the juicy."

If her words are any indication, Radha, who is 44 and a mother, is invested in what she does. Friendship and community are paramount to a happy life and healthy world, she says. But she didn't always have these things, so she set out to create them—for herself and others. Now, a decade later, she's become a passionate advocate for finding your people, regardless of age.

"I feel even more conviction being in service of collective joy and connection," she says about the need for community amidst today's global issues. “This has all made me even more passionate about the work that we do."

Chatting with Radha Agrawal

You believe solving community is the key to solving major social issues. How so?

I believe that the story of our time is loneliness. When I was thinking about what I could do to be in service, I looked at all the different social issues that humans face, from gun violence to polarization to depression to environmental degradation, and underneath all these issues is a sense of loneliness. When we are lonely, we are more violent, more susceptible to being recruited into harmful organizations, and more susceptible to eating food and focusing on material goods over our social needs and those of the planet. I saw all these polarizing things happening in our world all at once and thought, Let's focus on the root cause; let's go back to the foundational issue.

There's a myriad of ways you're focusing on loneliness, including your new nonprofit Belong Center. But let's look back 10 years to when you founded Daybreaker. What were you hoping for when you launched it?

The ethos of Daybreaker, over the last 10 years, is not just to end loneliness but also to invite celebration. So much celebratory space is often done with drugs and alcohol. Breaking the codependence between celebration and joy and alcohol and drugs was a big, exciting design challenge for us. Could we create an event and experience where people can get high on their own supply: their oxytocin, endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin? So, we designed this thoughtful experience for people to dose themselves on their own natural high by using their own brain chemistry.

Your creation of an accessible place to be in community underscores how much of a need there is for places that encourage friendship. Community and friendship can seem like something we should have nailed by the time we're adults, but that's not necessarily the case. It can be hard to make or keep friends, even harder as we grow older.

My research on our sense of belonging shows the older we get, the harder we think it is to make friends, even if we feel more confident or that our groups are made. Until we fully belong to our own aging process and sense of courage and confidence, it is harder for us to make friends as we get older. The loneliest population is actually [middle-aged] men. There are other wild stats: Research has shown one in four [Americans] have no friends to confide in, one in three above the age of 65 is socially isolated, and one in two above the age of 85 is socially isolated.

One of the big things about Daybreaker is that it's an intergenerational community. The whole idea is about everyone together, all denominations. It's a reminder that we can make friends and be confident in making friends at every phase of life. I'm 44, and I'm making new friends all the time because I feel confident and courageous in wanting to find these connections.

At a Daybreaker event, a 22-year-old can be partying next to a 55-year-old and a 78-year-old?

And dancing! Yes. One of the reasons I'm so proud of Daybreakers is that I feel like I'm part of the soup of humanity on the dance floor. Whereas if you go to a nightclub, you can feel aged out.

In your book, Belong, you wrote about building community with oneself and others. In that light, let's talk about how we can start to belong. For the woman in her middle third who's going through significant change, maybe she's a recent empty nester, going through a divorce, or she wants to know herself better, how can she start to build that connection with herself and then others? What would you encourage her to do?

I call this your VIA—your values, interests, and abilities.

So, the first thing is to write down—literally write down—your values today. What do you value today? For me, as a woman in her forties and a mom, what do I value today more than I did three or five years ago? I care about education, adventure, dance, healing arts, and family. So, write down your values.

Then, jot down your interests. What are you interested in exploring today? What do you care about seeing?

Then, write down your abilities. What are you good at? What are your duties? And look through the lens of community. Are you good at cooking? Are you good at gathering people? Lean into your superpowers so it doesn't feel like work but a pleasure. When you do this audit, you can invite a community into those three areas of your life.

There's another piece I do: A three-column exercise that I include in my book, which I do with my sister every year. In column one, write down the qualities you're looking for in a friend today. Column two, write down the qualities you don't want in a friend. In column three, write down the qualities that you need to embody to attract the friends of your dreams. For me, I used to triple-book myself. I was so busy. I would say yes to everything, but I would cancel at the last minute. That made it hard for me to go deep with friends. Writing down these things can teach us how we want to show up differently.

How can we look deeper at the friendships we have now?

I love to write down all the humans I'm spending the most time with and how I feel with them. Do I feel joyful? Depleted? Are they grandfathered in because I've known them for so long? Then, I'll write down the new friends I've made that I want to keep doubling down with or the friendships I want to rekindle. I'll jot down their names and make a point to reach out to them, invite them to things, and connect more deeply. This can be a beautiful thing to do during the holidays or a birthday—or any times in our lives.

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Learn more about Radha and Daybreaker at radhaagrawal.com. Interview by Stacey Lindsay, conducted exclusively for Liberty Road.