Say It Anyway

James Ferrigno (00:02)
Welcome to Say It Anyway. This is James Farino and our guest today is Romy Elan. He's a lifelong explorer of life and business. Welcome, Romy.

Romi Elan (00:14)
Thanks for having me, James.

James Ferrigno (00:17)
my pleasure, my pleasure. we'll just launch into some questions here. You grew up in Israel, can you tell me maybe a couple of your really fond memories from that time?

Romi Elan (00:30)
Well, first, it might be prudent to mention I was born in the US in Los Angeles. And my family, when I reached the age of 10, decided to move to Israel. And so that was a formative experience of moving cultures. I did not know the language and had to enter into kind of a new way of being, learn a new language, new

James Ferrigno (00:36)
you were?

Yeah.

Romi Elan (01:00)
learn how to be with people. I think that was a very formative initial experience. Ended up moving from a big city, L.A., to a very small mountain town in the north of Israel called Kfar Vredim. So it was really a big shift in how things were. I went from my parents needing to drive me around to being able to walk to school and be out all day with no supervision.

James Ferrigno (01:04)
Yeah.

Wow, so that sounds like a really big transition. So how was that for you? Challenging?

Romi Elan (01:34)
Interestingly, I remember it as easeful. ⁓ I think I was well accepted by a few people in my class then that knew English and kind of took me in and were excited to have the new American kid as their friend.

I remember I came stocked with duffel bags of baseball mitts and hockey equipment and got to introduce all these people. These were sports that nobody played or nobody knew about really other than TV maybe. And got to teach other kids kind of the American sports and.

Yeah, it wasn't without challenges. coming and learning a new language took a little while, but I think I got pretty well integrated within a year or so.

James Ferrigno (02:28)
Okay, that really interesting.

You now work a lot with connection and community. Did any of that start during that time in your formative years or is that something that came later?

Romi Elan (02:44)
It definitely started during my formative years. I, from a very young age, probably, probably I speaking about from about the age of 10, I was in fourth grade and onwards, I developed a keen interest in relationships and in connection. I think I was from a, I started kind of.

being curious about, you know, intersex relations, kind of crushes and falling in love a little bit earlier than my peers. And so I constantly kind of drove and I was very just curious about it. I felt the attraction to connection, whether it be romantic or just as friendships. And I used to, I used to think a lot and speak a lot to people about how

we do relationships and what matters and what doesn't. And I was a very sensitive kid. used to get very sad and sometimes offended when other kids would not understand what I'm talking about or think that I'm just.

making stuff up. Even though I now know I was just ahead of the curve, I wasn't making anything up, but I kind of brought topics up a little bit earlier than people were ready for.

James Ferrigno (04:07)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (04:15)
And yeah, throughout my, throughout my, my teen years and then afterwards in my college years, bringing people together and exploring different ways of connecting was a core part of who I was and a core part of what I did as hobbies, as passions. At the age of 14, I started, ⁓ I was a DJ and I started kind of a party facilitation business where people, you know, parents would pay me.

James Ferrigno (04:42)
Wow.

Romi Elan (04:45)
to come and host a three hour birthday party for their kids. They were maybe in the fifth grade or sixth grade or seventh grade. As I got older, my market expanded. And I did that all throughout middle school and high school.

And that also, I mean, that track went well, well into my college years as well. I basically financed my, all my college years by being a party promoter ⁓ for a local nightclub. And I also would host kind of specialty events at my house that always had some kind of costume theme and different activities that encourage connection in different ways. And I always just.

James Ferrigno (05:03)
that sounds like fun.

Huh.

Romi Elan (05:33)
I always was fascinated by how people all want, seem to want, or most people seem to want a certain level of connection and want a certain level of intimacy and kind of lowering their guards. But then how bad people are on average at doing it without kind of some kind of structured ⁓ activity to pull them into it. Kind of if people on average left to their own devices,

James Ferrigno (05:42)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (06:02)
kind of synced to the lowest common denominator of small talk and chit chat, unprompted. And so I, and I didn't like that.

James Ferrigno (06:09)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So you're starting to answer this question, but your work is very diverse. It spans serious business strategy, like being head of operations at Rising Team currently, and deeper transformational stuff like festivals and culture.

How do you balance these and how do they integrate together? How do they function together?

Romi Elan (06:46)
⁓ so I think during my twenties, my life kind of took a dual track. was doing things in parallel while I was, while I was, ⁓ promoting connection and bringing people together for, ⁓ experiences. I was also pursuing a career. I was more in formal business. studied economics and business and my first.

James Ferrigno (06:55)
Okay.

Romi Elan (07:13)
jobs out of college were kind of very high level global management consulting.

And so I kind of ran these parallel lives where, least at that time, where my business persona or my professional persona was solving kind of big business problems for the world's leaders. And in my private time, I was really interested in the micro connection of people and bringing people together.

And my worlds didn't really collide until after I came to the US in 2012 for business school. And I went to business school at UC Berkeley. And at business school, all of my friends were running from consulting interview to investment banking interview to product manager at tech companies interviews.

And I really realized that that wasn't where my heart was at. I kind of didn't want to lead the parallel lives anymore. I wanted to have my kind of personal passions and my professional life integrate.

And that's when I made a decision after business school to embark on an endeavor where I started an organization called SoulPlay, which is the shirt that you see. And SoulPlay from the beginning was an endeavor to create events and experiences and invite people into a world where they could be their kind of most

Aligned self or their truest self. And maybe it's a self that they don't, doesn't get to come out at work and doesn't get to come out even sometimes with friends. And so I basically wanted to create a world where people are invited to both discover and then hang out in that more authentic self. And soul play was born and it was born in the beginning as an idea for a three day festival.

up in Pinecrest, which is near Yosemite in the Stanislaus National Forest.

James Ferrigno (09:25)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (09:35)
And what I, at the beginning, what I thought would start would just be an event, you know, one event, very quickly grew to a kind of full blown community that included multiple multi-day events per year, and then multiple single day events per year and a thriving online community where people connected. And it's a community that still thrives till this day.

James Ferrigno (10:04)
Certainly a big part of the culture in California for sure. So it seems like it was just a natural outgrowth of who you are and what you've been doing. But was there some thing that sparked you to actually do it? Like now I'm going to start building this?

Romi Elan (10:28)
I think the idea and the desire had been brewing for a few years. From before going to business school, I found myself in India, right before we going to business school, found myself in India backpacking through India. And I found myself at the Osho Meditation Resort or Osho Ashram in Pune. And my wife at the time,

James Ferrigno (10:40)
Okay.

Romi Elan (10:57)
She had read an article that said that the most successful people write down their goals, their big goals, their vision for themselves, for their life. And she basically made us do this exercise where we, you know, we were meditating a lot at the time and we meditated and just kind of tried to really think through and then write down what our goals might be. And I remember that my, what came to me at the time was, you know, there wasn't, there wasn't a concrete how.

But I knew that I wanted to be a significant, I wanted to deliver a significant impact on people's personal development and or spiritual development as a goal. And so that idea was brewing of kind of playing part of this, how can I help impact people on their personal journey? It was less important to me to impact them on their professional journey, but more the connection to their self, to their heart, to their emotions, to their community.

and kind of the feeling of fulfillment from all of those.

And so it was brewing, but it kind of went in and out and, you know, normal life fears, you know, finances, where are they going to come from and how will I support myself? And one day I'm going to want a family and how am I going to support that? And so there was always a tension between, you know, doing something that I really felt called to from my heart and the very clear path that I had been walking this kind of, you know,

consulting, high finance type path, which had a pretty clear path towards financial success and prestige. And so it was a real big battle internally. There was a lot of tension between those two and it wasn't so obvious. ⁓

James Ferrigno (12:42)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (12:50)
to give one up for the other.

James Ferrigno (12:53)
Yeah, that doesn't seem like an easy choice to make.

Romi Elan (12:56)
But ultimately what made the change for me was sometime in early 2015, I was post business school and I still hadn't made up my mind. But what really ⁓ clicked for me, was kind of, I was like losing sleep over this. I had the idea already for SoulPlay, but I also didn't know. I had all the fears of trying something new. I'd never done anything like it. I didn't know what I was doing.

or whether I could succeed or how it was gonna work. And I was losing sleep over that. And ultimately, the thing that swayed me was kind of an internal exercise that I did where I imagined meeting my future self. I only picked five years the older.

And I said, okay, let's just say I'm meeting my future self. I was, you know, 33 at the time. So was meeting my 38 year old self and I imagined meeting me and kind of I played the scenarios and I said, well, if I decide not to go through with it and I kind of continue on my career, my business career and make money and

have a house and have cars and whatever it is, you know, what would this person, but never tried the soul play idea. What would this future self say? And I, you know, played both scenarios, kind of, let's say I do it. And I took the worst scenario where I said, let's say I do it and I fail miserably. It's just doesn't work. I do it for one year and it doesn't work. Or I do it for two years and it doesn't work. And I still meet this future self. And in all of the scenarios that I ran,

James Ferrigno (14:39)
⁓

Romi Elan (14:47)
this conversation, my future self was really proud of my 33 year old self for trying to do the soul play thing, whether or not it succeeded and was pretty disappointed that I didn't try in the, in the scenario where I didn't try. My future self was kind of like, huh, why didn't we do that? There was regret.

James Ferrigno (15:15)
Wow.

Romi Elan (15:15)
And so

that was what swayed me, ultimately.

James Ferrigno (15:18)
That's a fantastic exercise. To tell you the truth, I've done a lot of exercises. I've talked to my future self, but I've never heard of someone running the different scenarios. That's fascinating. Yeah.

Romi Elan (15:32)
I ran a scenario and I was like, okay, what

would my future self say to that?

if this happens and what if it's the worst case scenario, happens? So that's really what swayed me.

James Ferrigno (15:38)
Wow.

that's fascinating. That's a really great tool, sounds like. I'm gonna use that for sure. So thank you for that.

then you went and created soul play. Can you tell us something about what happened when you first created it? Like how did it go?

Romi Elan (16:04)
So in the beginning it was exciting and terrifying and...

beautiful ultimately, it was very stressful, ⁓ especially getting towards the event itself and we were far from break even. And also just to understand starting something new is hard. And like nobody knew who I was or what I was doing or whether it was worth anything. And, you know, I had to reach out to people, presenters, musicians and sell them on this idea.

James Ferrigno (16:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Romi Elan (16:44)
and kind of hope that they'll say yes to my idea and show up. And so it was very nerve wracking and fun as all hell. It was building, it was kind of being in the seed of creation. And I can't describe it. Like I sometimes think about it back then and it reminded me of it was, it was my art. I was making a new painting or an art piece.

James Ferrigno (16:55)
Alright.

Romi Elan (17:13)
making something that had never existed before. every decision I made was a breaststroke. And sometimes I made a breaststroke and I didn't know where it was going even, or if it was gonna work for the whole composition. But I just had to keep going.

And there was definitely points in there where, you know, sales were where they were because it's hard to get people to believe in a new, new big experience that has no testimonials, has no backing. You know, there's no history. There's nobody to ask. Is this for real? Is it legit?

And so I remember, I remember there was even one point where I, remember I had to, I had to just be okay with the fact that it doesn't fully work. And I kind of, but I said to myself, what is the worst case scenario that's actually going to happen? And maybe there was some monetary loss, but it wasn't huge. It wasn't never going to be huge because there are going to be some sales. And so I kind of came to the conclusion where I was like, even if this ends up costing me.

James Ferrigno (18:16)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (18:22)
some money. I kept my expenses low enough so it wasn't super risky. And I said, worst case, I am creating an epic party for my friends. I said, if the end, if I don't have enough ticket sales, I'll give away tickets to people I know and hopefully get a bunch of people that will come. Luckily, didn't have to do that in the end, but that was what calmed me down. So I think for me, one of the mechanisms that helps calm me down when I'm in the unknown is

James Ferrigno (18:41)
Fantastic.

Romi Elan (18:52)
kind of similar to what I did when I needed to make the decision is it really helps me to run kind of the worst case scenario or like, you know, some, some kind of doomsday scenarios and then remind myself that even if those happen.

James Ferrigno (19:06)
You

Romi Elan (19:10)
It's gonna be okay. know, life will continue. I'm not gonna die.

James Ferrigno (19:18)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (19:18)
And

I think, you know, it, it does help to make calculated bets. You know, if you bet the farm and bet everything you have, it can feel a lot riskier. ⁓ but if, but if you are somewhat conservative and do things carefully and limit the amount of loss, then the worst case scenario is that you hit the lowest of your predictions. And I think it's important to know that you can live with that.

James Ferrigno (19:28)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (19:46)
I think it's kind of like when people recommend stocks or when people recommend to invest in crypto. And then I think in all the crypto sites, there's some line saying, don't invest in this unless you can afford to lose it.

And so do think that there's something to be said of as much as possible taking bets that you can live with the loss if it happens. think taking bets where you can't live with the loss is not very smart.

James Ferrigno (20:14)
Absolutely.

No, I've done a fair bit of gambling in my life, casinos and cards and boy, I see people just lose their entire life, you know, and my philosophy has always been, if you're willing to spend this for the experience, and you'll still be happy with it, that's fine. If not, don't do it.

Romi Elan (20:44)
Exactly.

James Ferrigno (20:45)
Why risk that? You don't have to.

Romi Elan (20:48)
And so I think it's the same with art, with creating art, and it's the same with creating business, which I would put in the same category. You have to be okay with however it turns out. If it turns out not in the best case scenario and that breaks you, then I think ahead of time, the bet was maybe a little bit miscalculated.

James Ferrigno (21:07)
Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

shifting gears a little bit, you said somewhere that you're helping people to rise above the ordinary. What does that look like?

Romi Elan (21:24)
I

Yeah, something that I would say, I don't remember those words exactly rise above the ordinary, but I have said many times when I spoke about soul play and when I speak in general about a lot of the events, I also host a lot of private events and both formally and informally lead different circles of different kinds, different events. I.

really like to show people, introduce people that the world of that, that what's possible is bigger than what they imagined. And so I used to call it, what we're doing is expanding the realm of possibility for people. It's not that there is a particular way that I believe that you or anybody else should be. I believe that you should be you, but I think you should be privy to the

vast possibilities that you can be and not be confined to what your upbringing and environment and kind of formal education has, you know, decided that you can be kind of the box that's been decided for you based on so many factors, you know, socioeconomic, geography, race, gender. And I guess I, I see

how much is possible and how open ⁓ the world can be for people, but I think people are not always aware that they can make those choices. And so I think I've always believed, my events or SoulPlay or other events have always have that aim of expanding the realm of possible for people.

James Ferrigno (23:09)
you're providing a space where people are given the opportunity to be able to expand themselves. At least a better opportunity than normal.

Romi Elan (23:23)
Yeah, exactly. I think it's, it's important to try things out. love creating spaces that operate somewhat like a laboratory for, for people so that they can try on, ⁓ different ways of being, try on being a recluse. If you're kind of hyper social or trying being on being hyper social, if you're usually an introvert or,

James Ferrigno (23:24)
Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.

you

Romi Elan (23:52)
Try something else that's different from your kind of automatic programming. You know, some people walk into a party, let's say a party where there is dancing and will never ever set foot on the dance floor. I like there's a lot of people like that. Now, are they doing that because they for sure do not like to dance? Unclear. There's so many factors and forces that are happening, some of which are, you know, maybe they...

James Ferrigno (24:15)
unclear

Romi Elan (24:21)
don't feel comfortable dancing in front of people because they think that they don't dance well, because they feel like they'll be judged. And that starts maybe because they judge people who dance or don't dance well in their opinion. And there's so many things, and it has nothing to do with whether or not they would enjoy it. It has to do with all these kind of meta layers of perception that I seek to identify and break.

James Ferrigno (24:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Yeah.

So people are kind of triggering themselves from their habits and ⁓ not able.

Romi Elan (24:57)
I do feel people get

stuck.

James Ferrigno (25:00)
unable to do things.

Romi Elan (25:00)
And

like, you, well, people develop a certain way of being and you're right, habits and kind of, we all have automatic behaviors that we feel safe in. And especially the older we get, those get stronger and more ingrained.

James Ferrigno (25:18)
And we have to have some.

Romi Elan (25:21)
Yeah, I mean, they're very useful. They're very, very useful. They keep us safe. And there are shortcuts in a way, you know, where as kids, we constantly are experiencing new and the world as new. And then we end up forming these habits and strategies to keep ourselves safe in social environments.

James Ferrigno (25:22)
Other way. Yeah.

Romi Elan (25:43)
But I think a lot of times, you know, a few formative events when we are younger, create a certain habit groove that never gets challenged ever again, because it works a few times when you're younger. Okay. The way to stay safe is to stand over here in the corner and look cool. And that's just, it worked. I worked in high school, then it worked in college. And then, you know, when people later on in life don't understand why.

the social events aren't very satisfying and they don't even know why.

James Ferrigno (26:18)
Yeah, yeah, that's what I see too, is that it can be very limiting for people, especially when they're not aware that habits are habits. When a habit is misidentified as the way the world is. It's really the way you are. One is.

Romi Elan (26:39)
And I think that it really is unsafe to try new things sometimes. It can feel unsafe to try new things in a regular environment where everyone is indoctrinated in similar habits and in similar ways of being. absolutely. Because the same way you judge the person on the dance floor, probably...

James Ferrigno (26:53)
Yeah, it could be mostly emotionally unsafe.

Romi Elan (27:03)
So does a lot of people. And then if you go and do that thing, you're now taking the risk of being the person being judged by a lot of people and for real. it's, and it's a real, it's a real risk, which is why I do believe in creating environments that are specifically tailored for experimentation, which reduce the risk of trying something out. That is not your, your go-to.

James Ferrigno (27:09)
Mm-hmm.

to an emotional risk.

That makes me think from using your earlier strategy, thinking about, well it's an emotional risk, really what's the worst thing that can happen is you'll have an emotion.

you will experience an emotion that you don't like.

Romi Elan (27:50)
Yeah, maybe you'll be embarrassed.

James Ferrigno (27:52)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (27:55)
But then maybe there's real risk too. just, don't wanna say that sometimes there's also real risk. Maybe now your colleagues think you're weird and you don't want that.

James Ferrigno (28:07)
Yeah, if you're taking these risks in a work situation, might not be the best venue.

Romi Elan (28:14)
Yeah. So I think that's something that I've always, I've always tried to explore of how kind of, can you walk the line of authenticity also in spaces that are not necessarily conducive to that or like, or designed to encourage authenticity. And it's, it's, it's a real, it's a real question and it's not clear. And I think it takes a lot of.

James Ferrigno (28:42)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (28:44)
a lot of courage, and sometimes it has negative implications as well.

James Ferrigno (28:52)
Yeah, yeah, those are choices of a fairly high order.

Romi Elan (28:59)
However, I do believe, and this is why I promote this so much, I do believe that the more authentically you show up, and in some ways even, the more you show up, and some of the hints for authenticity is that it does a little bit ⁓ differ from what everyone is doing. There's something, if you're just kind of playing the game and doing what everyone is doing, it's hard to know.

whether this is really the authentic you or are you just playing the game that everyone is playing and being the way that everyone's being, have no, it's very hard to know. And immediately for me, that signals that I don't know much about you. Like, I don't know if this, is this really who you are or is there a whole you that is hidden under the surface? I have no idea.

James Ferrigno (29:30)
most likely.

Romi Elan (29:50)
And I find that one of the best ways for finding out who people are is by modeling authentic behavior, which is a little outside, might be outside of the norm.

James Ferrigno (30:05)
Mm-hmm.

Romi Elan (30:06)
And that's an interesting thing where this is where kind of it does cross over where I feel that in my professional life, and now I am not any more leading soul play. I kind of transitioned out of that role exactly one year ago, last November, and have doubled down on another role in ⁓ a startup where we build software, which also encourages and ⁓ connection in the workplace.

James Ferrigno (30:17)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (30:34)
So we basically have a software that's a team development software where people run sessions together, managers run with their teams and the software prompts a little bit more, sometimes intimate questions in order to create a bond on the team and some other things that it does as well. But.

In the workplace, I have found that I made a decision that I don't want to lead those parallel lives that I spoke of kind of in the beginning from, from my twenties. That I feel at my best when I'm able to be myself the whole day, not, not compartmentalize some part and the other side. And so I'm, I take the kind of brave step and I do that. And I am myself, even when it doesn't fit.

the corporate narrative or the business culture. And what I've found is that by doing so, it actually promotes trust because other people know who I am. They don't have to guess whether or not I'm just trying to fit in because I'm not. And it encourages other people to do the same. Basically that's what mean by modeling authentic behavior, you can

James Ferrigno (31:47)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Romi Elan (31:56)
actually invite other people into authentic behavior. And it catches like wildfire and it's amazing when it does.

James Ferrigno (32:00)
Yeah.

Absolutely fantastic. from my perspective, bringing authentic behavior into a traditional ⁓ corporate workspace is a truly revolutionary act, by definition. So I think that really could have a lot of implications that are very positive.

what have the challenges been? Have there been obstacles to that? Or is it, have you gotten good enough at it now that you can kind of just walk in and eventually some people will really feel free to be themselves?

Romi Elan (32:53)
Well, yes, I've, I think I've gotten, I've gotten so good at it that I don't think I can do it any other way. And it's just become part of who I am. It's almost like I've, I feel like I've lost the ability to do the other thing where I can part of mentalize. And I do think that there are negative implications for that. Sometimes I do think that there are drawbacks where.

James Ferrigno (32:54)
Mm-hmm.

⁓

⁓ huh.

Yeah.

Romi Elan (33:23)
my style or my proposals are off putting to people that are not ready.

James Ferrigno (33:31)
Mm-hmm.

Romi Elan (33:32)
to be challenged in that way.

and that are not willing to step into that level of vulnerability in the workplace. And so I don't think that it's all positive and all roses, but it's the only way that I can be.

James Ferrigno (33:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Romi Elan (33:50)
I do think that it's probably limiting. Like it would be very hard for me to probably become kind of a senior executive at a formal large corporation because I'm, it's harder, I'm not really interested in playing the game.

James Ferrigno (34:02)
Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Romi Elan (34:09)
And, you know, people who are different can also be risky for people. And it's not everyone's cup of tea.

James Ferrigno (34:16)
Yeah, that's it.

That's it.

Good point.

Romi Elan (34:25)
So in the workplace, I think it's problematic. But one place where I think it absolutely shines, and I can't speak the praises of being your authentic self enough, is when dating, for example. When dating or when forming community, Like there is nothing worse that you can do in dating, whether it's online or when you're actually dating people. There's nothing worse that you can do than to portray a non-authentic picture of who you are.

It is the absolute worst thing that anybody can do for finding partnership or for ongoing partnership.

James Ferrigno (35:01)
Mm-hmm.

I agree. the authenticity seems to be, I've worked with a lot of people and I've worked as a dating coach and...

The problem I see with authenticity, the biggest one, is that people confuse it with just the way that they're behaving now.

Romi Elan (35:29)
Hmm, say more.

James Ferrigno (35:29)
So, I don't know if you've seen

that. and I think the first step to being, there's that old advice that people get too of just be yourself. Well, what if myself is very confused and, you know, and I the first step is getting to know yourself so that you can become authentic. So that you can share that authenticity with other people, but you can't share it if you don't know who you are.

I've got nothing to share, ⁓

Romi Elan (36:00)
Absolutely. That is correct.

is. Yeah. It's hard to be authentic if you're not you or you're absolutely, which is why teenagers and also people in their twenties, a lot of times make bad partnership decisions.

James Ferrigno (36:20)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (36:22)
Because we don't, you don't know who you are. and therefore it's really hard to put your best authentic foot forward. have, you, you, you put the best foot forward that you have at the time. But since we're all just still forming and have no real idea at a deep level who we are yet. ⁓ it's always a little bit of a crap shoot. I think later on in life, it becomes for most people more and more apparent.

James Ferrigno (36:33)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Romi Elan (36:50)
And most people get a better sense of who they are. But I find that even later on in life, people fall back on the terrible, terrible strategy of trying to become something closer to what the other person wants versus trying to lean into who they are, who they know themselves to be. And that's, and yes, of course you have to, you only do the best of what you have. If you're still confused in some aspects that that's, that's fine.

You are who you are.

James Ferrigno (37:23)
Yeah, I tell, yeah.

Romi Elan (37:23)
But I think people,

I think more often than not, try to become something that they're not. And that's true in the work environment, and that's true in relating. And they try to be what the company wants them to be and be what the person wants them to be. And I think it's an okay strategy for a short term, maybe even short to midterm, but it always, it tends to fail in the longterm.

James Ferrigno (37:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, I think with relationships certainly being, there's this idea of compromise, which is not... Sometimes things need to be compromised, but the way I see it, most daily things really, it's not ideal to be compromising them because...

When people compromise and give up things that they truly are them, truly appropriate for them, or things they love, whether they know it or not, they start to build up these little resentments. And then those resentments pile up over the years, and more and more and more, until one day, they come out. And that can have a lot of repercussions.

and isn't that really the definition of being inauthentic?

what other people want you to be. It's certainly a good example of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Romi Elan (38:46)
Yeah, I think that, mean, from, from the way that I'm speaking of it, I'm sure there's other ways to define it, but

from, from the perspective of how I'm speaking about it, that is correct. I'm saying that, yeah, if you are behaving in ways that are not really coming from you internally, but are coming from a projected, you know, idea of what we think the environment wants me to be. That's what I mean by inauthentic.

James Ferrigno (38:56)
Yeah.

I know that for myself personally, I've made huge progress in these areas by attending workshops. ⁓ so, as far as soul play goes, maybe you can tell me about, are there some of the aspects of soul play where there are workshops that can provide this for people, the opportunity to learn who they are and become more out

Romi Elan (39:44)
Yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, that was the whole premise of this event and this community. The whole premise is, you know, come learn something new about yourself and then develop in some way, develop a deeper relationship with yourself so that then that becomes now available to you outside. For the most part, know, Soul Play itself, you know, the main event is built up of

James Ferrigno (39:56)
Mmm, okay.

Romi Elan (40:12)
many, many workshops of lots of different modalities through like dance, better communication or meditation or different, you know, massage or touch yoga. There's lots of different access points. It's not that every, everything is not right for everyone at every moment.

James Ferrigno (40:25)
Huh?

Yeah.

Romi Elan (40:32)
But ultimately the way, the way, you know, soul play was designed is to, you know, provide lots of different access points so that you can actually, hopefully feel into what resonates with you in the moment. What's kind of the most resonant in that moment for your path. But every single one is supposed to do the same thing. It's not that one is better than the other. That's better than the other.

the, it's the entire container of being for several days, specifically SoulPlay, being for several days in an environment where you're consistently asking yourself questions, consistently in inquiry, consistently pushing yourself, you know, just outside of your comfort zone, trying things that you wouldn't normally do. And it's kind of that constant pushing and pushing and pushing that really invites the.

the self-learning and it doesn't really matter which workshop you do. What matters is just being in that environment of self-inquiry and actually stepping into it, like participating. It really doesn't matter. It's not one exercise or another. I've come to think, I think it's more.

James Ferrigno (41:40)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (41:50)
Any evaluation, any moment where you take a break from your life, and this is true for any workshop or even a party, but any moment you take break from your life and allow yourself to enter into experience where you're a little bit uncomfortable, either because the topic is a little bit something you haven't done before or the group that's there, the, you know, is not your typical people.

or the rules of engagement are a little bit different. For example, in soul play, we have a strict sobriety rule. So there's no drugs, no alcohol. And that is by design, that is on purpose, not because we are big believers in sobriety as a way of life. That's not the point of soul play. But the point is that, you know, nine times out of 10, people go to a big social gathering and feel the butterflies in their tummy for about

you know, there's a lot of people and there's a lot of interaction and I have to interact with all these people. Nine times out of 10, people's go-to is to grab a drink or to smoke some weed or do something that takes the edge off to curb, deal with that social anxiety if they're going to meet all these people or if they're going to dance in public. And that decision was by design made to actually

invite people to do something that's beyond their automatic behavior and make it a little bit uncomfortable on purpose.

And so I'm a big believer, know, a little bit of discomfort, but controlled discomfort is the, you know, it's the fuel for growth.

James Ferrigno (43:34)
Yeah, absolutely, I'm 100 % on board with that. Because growth occurs outside the comfort zone. That's the only place it occurs.

Romi Elan (43:43)
I think, I do think that it's important to be in an experience that pushes you outside of your norm and pushes you to, to interact with people or with your environment or with yourself in ways that you typically don't choose to all the time.

James Ferrigno (43:44)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

So, when you look ahead, what do you hope the world looks like in five or ten years?

Romi Elan (44:11)
⁓ it's a very interesting time to be asking that question. I feel like the world has shifted so much in the last few years. And we are constantly bombarded. I mean, it's actually happening too. We're constantly bombarded with just terrifying news around the globe. You know, whether it's...

James Ferrigno (44:39)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (44:40)
Whether it's wars, it's ⁓ racism, it's patriarchy making a comeback. Lots of ways here in the US, our political system is just a mess. The economy is just unclear what's happening. Capitalism is going through a reckoning day and it's unclear what is happening.

And so it's interesting because a few years ago you would have asked me that question. I would have had a vision, you know, that relates to the things that we're talking about that relates to human connection and hearts and sexuality and options and the realm of possible and people choosing their destiny. And I noticed that it's harder, harder for me these days to think about those concepts. Cause I feel like there's something.

of a higher order or of a lower order on the Maslow hierarchy, if you will, kind of that is at stake right now. And it feels like the very fabric of our society is, is being questioned and people's freedom and people's security. And so it's, it's a hard one. ⁓ I think more recently, my, my vision has been more around, you know, mending the trauma that

James Ferrigno (45:43)
Mm-mm.

Hmm?

Romi Elan (46:08)
has been created and then nurtured for so long ⁓ with kind of major conflicts. Like that's something that I've been interested in lately. Like my vision is that...

we find ways to bring people together. I'm suddenly less interested only in kind of bringing people together to experience sexual liberation, which was a big part of what I believed 10 years ago. And now it's just, how do we bring people together to stop cycles of hatred and violent cycles of hatred with different religions? And in the US, it's even within political parties. ⁓

And I feel like when I look out, feel like we are, as humans, humanity has become pretty violent and hate-filled.

James Ferrigno (47:04)
Huh?

Romi Elan (47:06)
And I think that's kind of the, my, so my vision is that we find a way through that and that there's, you know, whether it's through micro events, gatherings, communities, and movements or through macro movements of, you know, politics and macro economic events that push us in the, into the realm of reconciliation and, and repair, you know, like

want America to stop fighting with China and Russia and for the Democrats stop fighting with the Republicans and vice versa and for Israel and the Palestinians to find some way to coexist and not hate each other so much. And so, yeah, that's my hope is that we find,

a way to move beyond this tribalism.

James Ferrigno (48:09)
Yeah, it seems to me that the incredible turmoil and violence that's going on, know, the things you mentioned and all around the world...

Primarily the root cause of that is leaders and people in power being inauthentic, not knowing how to connect with people and ⁓ not being able to maybe experience compassion or see things from another person's perspective, which is precisely what people learn to do with soul play.

Romi Elan (48:51)
Absolutely. We care about the other person's experience. I mean, I think, I think that's the tribalism aspect. think we, leaders and people in the different camps have to, everybody, it all has to work together. Everybody has to see that we're all humans, even the people that are on the other side of the aisle, whatever aisle you want to draw and that they matter too.

James Ferrigno (48:52)
Yep.

Romi Elan (49:19)
their experience of life matters too. And I don't know how we get there. Cause it's true that we see that from the leaders, but then it trickles down. You see that at all levels of society. It's not just, the leaders are maniacs, but the rest of us, we're, we're okay. It's the same. It plays out the same also at all the levels. There's, there's camps.

James Ferrigno (49:43)
Yeah, that's what you're in.

Romi Elan (49:45)
And if you're not in my camp, you're evil or you're dumb.

Like there's only what matters is the righteousness of my camp. And I'm sick and tired of that. I'm sick and tired of this, the rivalry of the camps and everyone needing to be correct. ⁓

I don't have an answer for it, but that is what I hope for.

James Ferrigno (50:13)
I can see myself that I think those skills and ⁓ the people learn and things like soul play

those things that are learned there, what really is going to need to come forward. And not just for leaders who may never learn, or not in our lifetimes, but the general population, more and more people, one person at a time, is the only way it's ever going to happen.

Romi Elan (50:37)
Yep. We need to do one person at a time, but a lot at the same time.

James Ferrigno (50:43)
Hopefully one person per,

you know, room. That would be good. So, yeah. Very interesting stuff. Yeah.

Romi Elan (50:47)
⁓ No, but I appreciate that question. It's a hard question and I, it is

interesting how my own vision and kind of what I want to do in the world has shifted.

Because I think that we're really...

at a weird place. Humanity is at a weird place. I don't like, a lot of it is great. And then a lot of it is kind of pretty dark.

James Ferrigno (51:10)
Yeah, and it's...

Yeah, it feels like we're at a kind of fork in the road or a place where some pretty bad things are happening, but at the same time, some pretty really good things are happening, of within it. So, kind of as a reaction to the negative things. So, there seems to be a lot of positive reactions to the negative thing. I think maybe that's just part of the difficulty of the growth process for the...

Romi Elan (51:33)
Yeah, that's also true.

James Ferrigno (51:48)
species. ⁓

who knows what's gonna happen. Five years is a long time now.

Romi Elan (51:56)
Yeah, it's

a long time, but then also if we want to speak a little bit philosophically, it's also our whole lifetime is not that long. And in the grand scheme of things and the grand scheme of history, it's a moment in time. And it just, it feels really important and crucial because we're in it. So did every other period in time from the history of time felt like it was a crucial moment.

James Ferrigno (52:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Romi Elan (52:24)
And it's true, I don't know how it's going to shake up and it might, in the certain ways that I care about, it might get worse and worse and worse until it gets better. But I actually do believe that ultimately, you know, similar to evolution, you know, things that are terrible and are unuseful, they don't survive. But they're not always ousted within, you know, when we want based on our timeline.

James Ferrigno (52:47)
No, though they tend to not last for real long time, at least not the same form. And I think things now are happening at a much quicker pace than they used to. The world is moving very fast.

Hopefully that means that some of the darker things, some of the shadow will move more quickly out than it has in the past. With that knock on wood. So, boy. So we'll shift back to,

Romi Elan (53:18)
You

James Ferrigno (53:26)
So for people that are listening, are maybe looking for connection and community, or feel stuck or lost, what's one thing you could say to them? Either a suggestion of something to do or just something to think about.

Romi Elan (53:47)
Okay, so one thing that I would say.

is that for those of you, if you're stuck or you move to a new place and you're new...

you're looking for something, I think it's really important to remember what creates community. And ultimately, a community or, you know, friends, bonds, and ultimately, the way I see it, you know, community or bonds with people get created by consistently having interactions that are meaningful over time.

You don't make community in a day. You can have an experience with people, but they don't become your friends or become your community until you've shared meaningful experiences over time, over and over and over again.

And that is just kind of the bedrock of having community. It's about, there's two things to it. It's consistency, repetitive consistency, and it's meaningfulness of the interactions. And so I think my suggestion for anyone who's stuck looking for community or looking for connection is to either find something, you know, find a group.

And usually it is really helpful if you've, it's around a hobby of some kind. You like to dance, find a dance group. You like to knit, find a knitting group. You like to read, find a reading group. like to cycle, find a cycling group. It is really helpful to have a hobby that kind of coalesce around and then pick something and consistently go.

once a week, once every two weeks, or once a month, whenever this group meets or whatever this event happens, go. And knowing that the first three times are gonna feel uncomfortable, they always do. That there's something magical that happens when you just consistently show up, being yourself, and show up again, and show up again, and show up again, community is formed.

James Ferrigno (55:56)
Yeah.

Romi Elan (56:07)
And that's kind of the, it's really important. And it's not on the first time. You're like, I don't know. It's not really my people. If you, if you don't come again, you're never going to, you know, you're never going to build community with these people, but it's really important to stick it out and make it pass three times. And on the fourth time, you don't feel so new and you actually know people in whatever this group is. And by the 10th time.

You are a part of the group. know, you may be the central part, you may be a non-central part, but you are part of the group. And that is kind of my best suggestion. And if you're moving to a new place or you can't find a group that coalesces around your hobby or your interests, then start one. And start a monthly potluck. You know, where what you do is talk about the thing that you're interested in. And you know what? The people that are interested in that may show up.

And after three, four, or five times, you'll have a community of some level. And so that would be my suggestion. It's really about finding a thing that there is a group around or starting one, and then making sure not to bow out before you've participated over and over and over again. Don't decide that it's not for you until you've been there four or five times.

James Ferrigno (57:11)
Yeah.

I love that, that's great advice.

Romi Elan (57:35)
Yeah, but that it's just built over time. Relationships are built over time and you can't shortcut ⁓ it.

James Ferrigno (57:42)
Yeah, no shortcuts in this life. Well, Romy, thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate it. Yeah, it was fun. I had a good time.

Romi Elan (57:52)
Yeah, thanks for having me. This was fun.

Sorry for taking us on a dark turn. Yep.

James Ferrigno (57:59)
Yeah, we did look a little dark there, but yeah, that's the world. We're good at it.

thanks a lot, again.

Romi Elan (58:09)
Alright, thank you so much.