I met Jacey at an event hosted by David Nebinski, as he recorded a live episode for his Portfolio Career Podcast.

After I learned of her own show, Recalibrate, and some of her personal stories of finding community and belonging, I knew I had to record a conversation with her.

Watch the full interview on YouTube here.

THE PANDEMIC IS STILL AFFECTING US

This is a sentiment I continue to see coming up for folks:

"I know that period of quarantine and isolation was a couple of years ago now, but it still feels like it created this imprint in people's lives that hasn't fully shifted out. Like I think it created this fundamental change for people."

"I think being in a remote work environment for the last three years and also seeing social media, it creates this environment where you feel like you are always connected but you're also never really connected."

We developed some bad habits during quarantine. Some of us haven't un-done them yet!

WORKING FROM HOME IS GREAT UNTIL IT'S NOT

I started working from home in 2006, so Jacey's story was painfully familiar: 

"I've been working remotely since October 2020. Initially, I loved it. I could work in my pajamas and accomplish so much during the day. But over the past few months, I've developed a sense of isolation, spending too much time alone with my thoughts. Sometimes, I don't talk to a real person all day. This isolation has taken a toll on my mental health, leading to increased anxiety and symptoms of depression.

When you're alone so often, you can develop an inflated sense of self, becoming ungrounded from the everyday world. Without those micro-interactions with people, you can forget that the outside world exists. This can lead to a loss of a sense of community."

Getting out of the house to be around other people is critical to maintaining your connection to humanity and reality. 

But where to go? 

FINDING THE ELUSIVE THIRD PLACE

By coincidence, Jacey and I grew up in the same town—so I was curious to know how our experiences overlapped and how they differed. 

It turns out, she was missing that community space much like I was. Fast forward to pandemic time, when she found a beautiful (but sadly short-lived) space:

"There's this place in Brooklyn that I used to go to all the time called Kava Social... it turned into this community spot where people would just cowork there all day.

They had art supplies, they had board games, they had you know these people that are working on their businesses or their passion projects—the people that it attracted were amazing, and we would joke like people lived there because they were always there.

There was always the same people there, everyone knew each other and that type of space was amazing. If I felt like I didn't know where to go when I was done with work, and I didn't have plans, I would just go there and I knew I would see a friendly face. I knew someone would be there to talk to."

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