Welcoming, Structure, and the Party Within

On this week's How We Connected from the US Chamber of Connection, hosts Charlotte Massey and Aaron Hurst talk about a volunteer potluck party and brainstorming “National Welcome Week.” There's a recap on current work expanding partnerships and planning upcoming events. This week's feature interview is with Evan Cudworth, the world’s first “party coach,” who describes early connection through communal building, finding collective effervescence in raves, and defining a party as a temporary vibe shift with others. He outlines his “Party Within” process (detox, identity release, a 21-day wellness bender, tribe-building, hosting, and learning to receive) and offers tactics for inclusive events: roles, activity stations, clear structure, and guided dance instruction for a conference dance party.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

02:12 Volunteer Party Recap

17:50 Introducing Evan, the World's First Party Coach

18:13 Evan's Early Experiences with Connection

21:45 Defining Party: The Temporary Vibe Shift

32:03 Creating Structure at Parties

40:48 The Party Within: Evan's 7-Stage Framework

44:35 Designing a Dance Party at a Conference

51:43 Reflection

54:42 Takeaways and the Bat Signal App

---

How We Connected explores the conversations that power communities across the United States. Aaron Hurst and Charlotte Massey share what they’re building at the US Chamber of Connection and speak with leaders whose work strengthens local connection. Episodes offer human stories, practical insights, and ideas you can use in your own community.

Aaron Hurst, Co-Founder of the US Chamber of Connection, is a longtime entrepreneur focused on purpose and community. He founded Imperative and the Taproot Foundation and wrote The Purpose Economy.

Charlotte Massey, Co-Founder of the US Chamber of Connection, leads community programs nationally. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and former organizer and founder, she works at the intersection of civic life and entrepreneurship.

Connect with Us

www.chamberofconnection.org

Evan Cudworth, Party Coach

Evan Cudworth is the world's first Party Coach, a Chicago-raised, Los Angeles-based coach and community builder helping people rebuild their social lives without numbing out or chasing nostalgia. After 15 years in the music, festival, and nightlife scenes, he pivoted to full-time coaching in 2020 and built The Party Within, a 7-stage method blending intention-setting, dopamine resets, and tools for authentic connection. He draws on eight years coaching elite college and MBA applicants, plus thousands of hours leading workshops and retreats. Evan founded KNOWFUN, a digital community mixing party culture and wellness, and his work has been featured in GQ, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, where he makes the case that connection is a skill worth practicing.

Connect with Evan

partycoach.me

Heylo

www.heylo.com

Heylo is a community-management platform built for real-world groups of every kind, giving leaders a clean, branded home base to run events, manage members, communicate clearly, and handle payments without friction. It brings scheduling, RSVPs, waivers, announcements, topic-based chats, and membership tools into one place so clubs, teams, and interest groups can stay organized and connected without the noise of traditional social platforms.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More members isn’t always better

Charlotte Massey and Aaron Hurst open How We Connected by reflecting on building community with the right goals, the importance of fun and resonance over sheer scale, and recent experiments in connection. This week’s interview is with Brandon DesJarlais, a world-renowned longboarder, based in Los Angeles and co-founder of Vibe Ride. He shares how a middle-school incident led him to leave a destructive friend group and how longboarding helped him face his fears. During COVID, DesJarlais shifted from competitive riding to teaching online tutorials and hosting free clinics that grew into a community of 700 active members. He describes Vibe Ride’s mission, leadership model, rituals, intentions, icebreakers, and “surprise and delight” rolling dance-party rides. A key insight? He argues that more members isn’t always better. Enjoy!

00:00 Introduction

14:22 Brandon DesJarlais: Early Life and Masking Authenticity

16:12 The Turning Point: Friends, Family and Diverging Paths

19:21 Wrestling, Skating and Facing Fears

24:33 Viral Tutorials and the Birth of Vibe Ride

27:42 What a Vibe Ride Looks Like

37:43 Sustainability, Identity and Vision for the Future

47:49 Reflections

---

How We Connected explores the conversations that power communities across the United States. Aaron Hurst and Charlotte Massey share what they’re building at the US Chamber of Connection and speak with leaders whose work strengthens local connection. Episodes offer human stories, practical insights, and ideas you can use in your own community.

Aaron Hurst, Co-Founder of the US Chamber of Connection, is a longtime entrepreneur focused on purpose and community. He founded Imperative and the Taproot Foundation and wrote The Purpose Economy.

Charlotte Massey, Co-Founder of the US Chamber of Connection, leads community programs nationally. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and former organizer and founder, she works at the intersection of civic life and entrepreneurship.

Connect with Us

www.chamberofconnection.org

Brandon DesJarlais, Co-Founder, Vibe Ride

Brandon is a professional longboarder, coach, and community builder based in Venice Beach. He has competed across disciplines from downhill racing to longboard dancing, skated in 26 countries, and once stunt-doubled for Vin Diesel in xXx: Return of Xander Cage. In 2021 he founded Beyond the Board, a Los Angeles 501(c)(3) using skateboarding to build confidence and connection. Its flagship program, Vibe Ride, is the weekly sunset group ride he co-founded in Santa Monica and Venice Beach that now counts 700 active members and has been profiled by the LA Times. Brandon teaches community-building through his 4C's Framework.

Vibe Ride

www.heylo.com/blog/brandon-desjarlais-and-vibe-ride-la

Heylo

https://www.heylo.com

Heylo is a community-management platform built for real-world groups of every kind, giving leaders a clean, branded home base to run events, manage members, communicate clearly, and handle payments without friction. It brings scheduling, RSVPs, waivers, announcements, topic-based chats, and membership tools into one place so clubs, teams, and interest groups can stay organized and connected without the noise of traditional social platforms.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's How We Connected from the US Chamber of Connection, hosts Charlotte Massey and Aaron Hurst discuss some recent connection experiments: Aaron hosted mostly male friends to watch Michigan win a basketball championship, while Charlotte attended a Seattle Community Builders Dinner where participants did simple drawing and collage activities about ideal “third places.”

The interview this week is with Yao Huang, founder of Wonder Women, a largely invitation-based “whisper network” that began as casual women’s dinners and has grown over 20 years to about 20,000 women leaders across 30 cities. Yao emphasizes humor, curated guest lists, repeatable hosting scripts, and women-only spaces to create trust, friendship, and mutual support.

00:00 Intro and Check-In

01:54 What's Been on Our Minds

13:00 Meet Yao

13:30 Yao's Origin Story

14:10 Standup Comedy and Finding the Real Yao

14:55 Wonder Women: How It Started

21:26 The Formula: Curating Connection

25:49 Community Ripple Effects and The Vouch Network

34:00 Secret Sauce: Extroverts, Energy and Fun

40:27 Reflections

---

How We Connected explores the conversations that power communities across the United States. Aaron Hurst and Charlotte Massey share what they’re building at the US Chamber of Connection and speak with leaders whose work strengthens local connection. Episodes offer human stories, practical insights, and ideas you can use in your own community.

Aaron Hurst, Co-Founder of the US Chamber of Connection, is a longtime entrepreneur focused on purpose and community. He founded Imperative and the Taproot Foundation and wrote The Purpose Economy.

Charlotte Massey, Co-Founder of the US Chamber of Connection, leads community programs nationally. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and former organizer and founder, she works at the intersection of civic life and entrepreneurship.

Connect with Us

www.chamberofconnection.org

Yao Huang, Founder, Wonder Women

Yao is the founder of Wonder Women, an invitation-only global community that has grown over nearly two decades from a handful of friends gathering for dinner in New York into a whisper network spanning roughly 30 cities and 20,000 women across three continents. She is also the founder and managing partner of The Hatchery, one of the organizations most responsible for building New York's tech ecosystem, where she has helped hundreds of early-stage companies with product, revenue, and fundraising, and co-founded Division One Capital, a fund expanding access to capital for women and minority-owned small businesses. Her winding path through healthcare, tech, finance, and climate included a memorable detour into stand-up comedy at clubs like Carolines and B.B. King's, an experience she credits with pulling out the goofy, funny version of herself that her corporate days had been hiding. Recognized by Forbes as one of the women at the center of New York's digital scene and by TechWeek among the 100 most influential people in tech, Yao is above all a student of human behavior who has figured out how to make a room full of strangers feel like old friends by the end of the night.

Wonder Women

wonderwomen.hatchery.vc

Heylo

https://www.heylo.com

Heylo is a community-management platform built for real-world groups of every kind, giving leaders a clean, branded home base to run events, manage members, communicate clearly, and handle payments without friction. It brings scheduling, RSVPs, waivers, announcements, topic-based chats, and membership tools into one place so clubs, teams, and interest groups can stay organized and connected without the noise of traditional social platforms.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.