Simon Waller (00:06.878)
So Steph, welcome to the Future With Friends podcast. And when I say welcome to the podcast, I don’t even mean just welcome to the show. Like literally 10 seconds ago when I pressed record, this whole thing came into reality. It didn’t exist until this moment. And so you’re really getting in on the ground floor. You must be pretty happy with that.

Steph Clarke (00:15.006)
Mm-hmm.

Steph Clarke (00:21.874)
didn’t exist 11 seconds ago.

Steph Clarke (00:30.43)
That’s right. think, know, I’m essentially, I am the champagne bottle against the side of this ship. Just to carry on your kind of quoting metaphors that I do know that you like. Yeah.

Simon Waller (00:36.046)
You

Simon Waller (00:41.406)
Yeah, it’s not what I’ve used before, but you can definitely be the champagne bottle. That’s awesome. So yeah, so the Future with Friends podcast, the premise of this is I invite friends on like yourself to talk about the future of their choosing. Obviously, just for you know, the sake of the audience, we should probably legitimize that we are really friends.

Steph Clarke (00:45.01)
Yeah.

Steph Clarke (01:01.426)
Yeah, and I assume because I’m episode one, that means like it’s like in descending order. Yeah, thanks.

Simon Waller (01:06.1)
If that’s how you want to if that’s how you want to read into it. Yeah, yeah, definitely 100 % step. So kind of your memory though, the friendship, how do you see that? What’s your memory of this unfolding? Let’s just make sure that the audiences can be clear. The friendship is real.

Steph Clarke (01:21.278)
That’s right. Actually, it’s one of my… I if it’s my favourite, but it is up there as one of my favourite kind of…

friendship origin stories because it speaks to your kind of your generosity and curiosity. So we met, I’d actually been following you in a non weird way on LinkedIn for a couple of years. And I was like, this guy seems kind of somewhat clever and interesting. And then, but it was COVID and you know, couldn’t see anyone. I was like, I will never see this man because we can’t go and see anyone. And then we met our mutual friend, Mike Dixon’s inaugural kind of event of the three that he ran kind of 2022 to 2020.

three I guess it was and we were sort of mid very early in a conversation then someone else kind of came in and sort of took your attention they’re like Simon and you you and I just stood there awkwardly

waiting for us to kind of carry on the conversation and then I went probably just gonna go and have a conversation with someone else because this this is not happening again. Anyway, so then we didn’t really see each other for the rest of the the event and obviously I was really sad about that and then a few days later you messaged me on LinkedIn you’re like we didn’t get to finish that conversation I actually really wanted to hear what you said about that and I thought

The fact that that even like sort of stuck in your mind and that you had noticed that we had been interrupted and we didn’t get to finish that conversation. I thought, this guy seems actually like you might be quite nice as well as potentially quite interesting and clever. So there we go.

Simon Waller (02:46.323)
Wow, I wasn’t doing this part of the show for the accolades, but it’s working out really well for my ego. So thank you so much, Steph. I do remember that happened after that where we spent about half a day hanging out and walking through the art gallery and just talking about stuff. And we both have a shared interest in that kind of making time for those hangs and just kind of letting the conversation go where it will. And yeah, I think over the last few years, we’ve obviously had the chance to collaborate together.

Steph Clarke (02:49.15)
Yeah, yeah, so far anyway.

Steph Clarke (02:58.418)
We did. We did. Yeah.

Simon Waller (03:14.033)
for little bit of context for our listeners. Steph is a fellow futurist. And to be honest, I probably Yeah, so the ones who who are listening to this and not watching this, Steph does have a very fancy t shirt that says future future future on it, which coincidentally, I do own the same t shirt and another futurist friend of ours had it as well because they were flogging them at ACME when they were doing the was it the the

Steph Clarke (03:19.144)
Mm-hmm. Have you even got the efficient one? I’ve got the efficient teacher.

Steph Clarke (03:41.456)
and other fictions.

Simon Waller (03:42.535)
The Futures Another Fictions event in the beginning of this year. Now, when I was scouring my Rolodex for first guests, your name was actually at the top of the list for a couple of reasons. One, that the friendship is legit. The second of all is that you are a futurist. And obviously having a futurist on a show called The Future with Friends seems very appropriate. But there was also another third thing.

which was although I, you know, the premise of this is the guest, that is you gets to choose the topic that you want to speak about the future that you’d like to explore. I kind of had an inkling of which one you might choose. Can you share what your you know, what is the topic that we’ll be exploring today?

Steph Clarke (04:26.76)
Yeah, we’re doing friendship.

Simon Waller (04:28.432)
Yeah, and I know that you’re going to choose that, which was, again, that had the meta of us to have, you know, a futurist on a show called the Future with Friends, who happens to be a friend talking about friendships. Because you are at the moment writing a book about friendships. Is this not true? Yeah. And we may kind of tap into that a bit along the way. But for now, we may jump into

Steph Clarke (04:39.4)
We can probably just finish. We can probably just end this here. That’s it, we’re done. Yep. This is very true, yes.

Simon Waller (04:55.642)
the meaty part of the show, which is the bit where you have been tasked with writing a scenario about the future of friendship. So scenarios kind of like a short story, so to speak, which helps us explore different kind of possibilities and uncertainties in the future. What was the timeframe you decided to work with for this scenario, Steph?

Steph Clarke (05:18.846)
question probably within that kind of five to 10 year kind of sort of nearer future, I would say. Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Waller (05:24.912)
Yeah, the nearer future. And was there any particular reason for choosing that timeframe?

Steph Clarke (05:33.166)
because when I was thinking about the scenario is probably did a bit of kind of backwards rationalization of like this is the kind of idea I had in this future that may play out and then had a thought about okay what kind of timeline feels reasonable for this to feel like it’s a little bit of a stretch but also not so much that’s ridiculous type of type of thing.

Simon Waller (05:52.369)
Look, I think we have enough people in suspense now. mean, let’s assume in obviously acknowledging that this is episode one, and we actually have zero listeners, but I’m in suspense. know, Sarah, who’s going to edit this, she’ll be in suspense by this point 100%. So maybe we’re going to break into your scenario. So you’re going to read this from start to finish. And then after you’ve kind of read it, we’re going to kind of pull it apart a bit and have a bit of a chat about, you know, what happens in this future and

Steph Clarke (06:00.806)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (06:20.337)
those different possibilities. So over to you, Steph. Tell us about the future of friendships.

Steph Clarke (06:27.518)
It’s Wednesday morning. I wake up and smoosh my phone alarm with my thumb until I finally hit the correct bit of the screen. Lifting the eye mask off my face, I squint one eye at the notification that it is big and loud on my screen. It’s from my aura ring and that my social score is low. A measly 53 in fact.

This is the latest feature of the Aura Ring. Alongside your readiness score, your sleep score, and your activity scores, now sits your social score. Made up with your connectedness, sorry, made up from your connectedness cadence, social battery, and friend health, the social score tells you how well you’re doing in your social life.

Setting it up a few months ago was interesting. I had to answer a bunch of questions from a psych bot, which analyzed my preferences, my needs, and the lifestyle factors that might impact my social life, and determine what levels and type of social interaction is good and healthy for me. Unsurprisingly, my needs and appetite for connection were on the higher end of the scale. It was quite funny comparing my baseline with some of my friends who physically recoiled at how much interaction I could handle.

Now out of curiosity, I’ve actually paid the extra to have it connect to my social media and my messaging apps so that can actually track who I’m in contact with the most and who I’ve been neglecting. Now if there’s a friend who I’ve tagged as someone that’s important to me, someone like Simon maybe, and they’ve done the same for me, we both get a notification if we haven’t been in touch enough recently. And also if I’ve not spent enough time physically with people, I’ll get a different warning, alerting me to go out and actually see some people in real life.

But not all things are kind of good about this. Yesterday I was actually reading an article about a company that’s been using Aura Rings for quite a long time to monitor their employees’ health. And they’re now giving their team members five social health days rather than sick days per year to top up their social score when it starts to drop below a certain level. And at first I thought that sounded quite cool. But I did wonder if people will start to deprive themselves of social time just so they can drop their number to a low enough level and hack their way to some additional leave.

Steph Clarke (08:24.712)
I was also listening to a podcast yesterday while I was out for a walk about some interesting social trends that are emerging because of this. One of the features of this aura ring and the monitoring is that it knows who you’ve spent time with because it’s integrated to your calendar and it uses NFC technology to know who you’re with. And it will actually give you a health warning if the people you’ve spent time with have had a negative impact on your wellbeing. This has led to a new spate of friend dumping, just sending a friend a screenshot with your miserable metrics after spending time with them.

which is pretty awkward if your friend had a positive health experience after being with you. People are actually worried about this happening to them and they’ve started wearing specially designed perfumes that can contain hormones and calming fragrances. It’d be like those plug-in adapters you buy when you’ve got an anxious pet and you need to calm them down to try and hack their friend’s biology to not get dumped.

It’s a pretty weird new layer of friendship and I can’t help but wonder if it’s actually driving us more apart and making friendships more stressful rather than a delightful part of our lives.

Simon Waller (09:26.413)
This is is this is gold. This is fantastic. I love I mean, so we’re gonna break it down in a bit more detail soon. But the original I love the light and shade the slightly it sounds very utopian initially. And then you kind of have a couple of little cracks in it like it was kind of explore some of the I suppose the emotions that you want people to experience reading this.

And I like the little kind of almost like the knife in the back of the end where we start to go like, really, is this what we’re looking for? Which is a great example of this is I think when you kind of talk about, you know, futurism and scenarios, this is what it really does. It kind of almost leads you down a path of something that we think we would really want, but then has that ability to make us question it at the end and go like, hang on, is this the utopian outcome that we imagine we’re going to get? Before we get into that, though, can you tell me a little bit about what it was like writing the scenario? Can you tell me how you went about it?

Steph Clarke (09:59.89)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (10:24.335)
What were some of the critical uncertainties or the key things that were really felt important to you when you were kind of trying to craft your story?

Steph Clarke (10:32.83)
I

This was easier for me than other scenarios I’ve had to write for kind of clients and things, because this is a topic I’ve been thinking about quite a lot in the book writing I’ve been doing and just thinking about the conversations I’ve had with people around their social health and their, you know, they don’t always use that language, but the quality of their friendships, how much time they’re spending with them. And it made me then think about other elements of our health. And I was thinking about friendship in this context of, it kind of sits in that box of important, but not urgent. So therefore it’s often one of those things that we delay or defer

or just don’t kind of pay enough attention to until suddenly we either need something because something bad has happened to us and we need some support or we just feel really lonely all of a sudden and we realize we maybe don’t have the people around us that we that we do which then made me think about health you know other kind of factors of maybe physical health and how that probably is also

important but not always urgent until there’s something kind of goes wrong and how people are trying to kind of, I suppose hack that or remind themselves to drink water with an app or a bottle that kind of flashes at you or whatever it is that reminds you to do those important physical health things. So then it made me just sort of merge those things together. So for this one, it was probably more the some of the

the apps and the application of the apps that that idea came first and then backwards, reverse engineered that into, okay, what would the social conditions be for that to be the case? How might people be trying to get around those things? So that was, it probably started with more of the idea rather than the future, if that makes sense. Whereas sometimes I would start from a future or a timeframe or something and think about, you know, from there rather than the other way around.

Simon Waller (12:14.572)
Yeah, I gonna ask you, so obviously, in your day job, you do some of this type of work with your clients. Often in those examples, we don’t necessarily get to choose the topic. And I think that was kind of one of the nice things about this premise is that you get to choose the topic of whatever you want to talk about. But yeah, is there a difference in the approach that you’ve taken to this because it was something that you have like such a personal connection with versus how you might approach it if you were doing it with a client?

Steph Clarke (12:41.534)
I think probably with the client, I stick a little bit more to the frameworks and things of doing scenarios. So whether that’s a two by two or whether that’s the data or kind of the four types of future, sorry, of scenarios, we might have the decline and the collapse and the kind of the new status quo kind of coming in and things like that. Whereas this one, it was a little bit freer. could just.

think of it as a vignette of something that might happen rather than a structured sort of scenario that has to sit across other, sorry, against other scenarios as well and make sense and have that kind of internal consistency across the suite of them. So there was less, there was fewer angles and levers I had to play with this one. could just sort of, it could just be as it was, which was, it’s nice. I think it’s good to do that. And I think actually just doing those on their own as a little, tiny little vignette or a tiny little thing from a future

Simon Waller (13:06.561)
Yes.

Steph Clarke (13:33.786)
really healthy to kind of build that muscle so that therefore when you start to then think about the bigger suites of scenarios you might have to build or something you that that muscle is just a bit more honed and toned ready to to go.

Simon Waller (13:47.501)
Yeah, I think that’s a really interesting insight. And even in the development of the podcast, I’ve been playing around with writing some scenarios just for myself. And again, like you, I do a lot of that work with clients. And I noticed that, yeah, having that freedom allowed me to explore different styles that I wouldn’t normally choose to explore. If I was doing with a client, I find the ones with clients, it’s, it’s, you almost have to kind of set the tone of the scenario to be something that

have to strike a call with them and hit certain points for them. Whereas this, as you said, becomes more like a, describe something can explore a space. So yeah, I definitely get that difference.

Steph Clarke (14:24.434)
Yeah. And for that reason, this probably took me 15, 20 minutes to write, because it all just kind of came out at once. there’s a bit of tweaking and things I did, but pretty much it kind of came out almost fully formed, which I think is generally not my experience with the sort of the client ones I do where you’ve got to make sure the elements of the strategy are covered and yeah, these other types of pieces as well.

Simon Waller (14:43.116)
Yeah, a couple of things I really particularly like or what really struck me and I think this is, you know, when you talk about really good scenarios is that we can see the evidence in the present for this future that’s about to happen. And a couple of things that came up for me really quickly was, you know, we see these kind of news articles around that, like loneliness is like worse than smoking in terms of early death. And then I think about that from the context of a health system.

Steph Clarke (14:56.126)
Hmm.

Simon Waller (15:11.66)
and a good friend of ours, Dr. Adrian Medhurst, who just happens to be the second guest on this show next week. But he once said to me this whole premise of we don’t really have our health system, we have a not sick system. So we go to the doctors when we’re sick, and they make us not sick. But we don’t really have a genuine focus on health as such. And kind of I felt like this as well as like, you know, those kind of comments you’re making is like this alerts you when your friendship is at an unhealthy level, and its job is to bring you back to health.

It’s not necessarily about what does it mean to have really rich and meaningful friendships. What it’s really about is kind of treating loneliness through the lens of, you know, like you said, you’re measuring like, like you’d measure your heartbeat or your blood glucose levels or whatever it might be. And when it gets to a low point, we’re going to tell you so that you can fix it.

Steph Clarke (16:03.048)
Yeah, yeah. And I think the kind of good side of that to an extent is for people to get an earlier warning than when something’s really gone wrong. there’s obviously, as with all of these things, there’s the good and the bad element of it.

and at the same time for them to have that prompt to think about well what are the conditions that are making this the case for me at the moment? Is it because I’ve just had a baby and therefore of course I’m not seeing my friends because I have to keep this thing alive. I obviously don’t have children that’s just how I assume people have to think. Or I’m working really hard and actually that’s coming at a cost or I’m traveling a lot for work or for fun and therefore it’s coming at a cost of my connections to my friends or whoever it is that’s around me.

Yeah, there’s that that piece of a little bit of this is good and helpful. However, as with most things, if that’s what you’re rewarding, if that’s what people are over analyzing, over emphasizing with the the scores and the the little things that are kind of being gamified, then where does that end up being hacked? Or you just kind of do the minute bare minimum reminds me bit of the have you seen the super flux video from about 10 years old now of the this older, older guy who lives on his own?

probably in his 70s, maybe 80s. And his kids, adult children don’t come to visit him, but they’ve kitted out his home with all these smart devices. It’s the walking, you know, this sort of walking stick that makes sure he gets his how many steps a day and this smart plate or smart, sorry, smart fork, I think it is. like, well done, you’ve had some broccoli and he eats fish and chips. It’s like, oh no, don’t, you know, flash his red and don’t do that. All these different things. Anyway, so at first, you know, in the absence of them coming to see him, which actually is really what obviously he wants and would be

much better experience. So yeah, first he’s sort of putting this broccoli on the fork and forcing it in his throat and then eventually he just starts to hack these things.

Steph Clarke (17:55.6)
he sort of puts the broccoli on the fork and then in other hand eats a slice of pizza or whatever because the fork’s just going the same bit of broccoli over and over and he’s paying one of the young lad, know, neighbour to then take the walking stick out so it looks like he’s gone for a run basically and then his kids sort of sending these messages like well done dad you like got all your steps in today or like great choice on dinner kind of thing but it’s all a farce and I think that’s the risk with this type of thing is maybe to an appointed it’s useful

for but is it really what we’re trying to get to or is that really a good outcome?

Simon Waller (18:31.315)
Yeah, there’s a there’s a line that I use in one of my keynotes. And we talk about what gets measured gets done. But ultimately, what gets measured gets gamed. You know, like, as soon as we’ve come up with the measure, somebody is trying to work out how to game the measure. And, you know, I kind of see a bit of that, like, you’re almost like the starting of that in this. And that’s interesting is that, like, as the wearer of the ring, there’s not necessarily a vested interest in you to game the system. But at the same time,

Steph Clarke (18:40.306)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (19:01.425)
by kind of only pointing to certain indicators of what this thing called friendship is, you find yourself suddenly skewing your behaviors and in a way that actually may not necessarily be healthy. And I think that example of like you literally the friend dumping piece, it’s like, rather than thinking about that through the lens of the long term value of that kind of connection with another human being, even if it means within the short term,

Steph Clarke (19:18.035)
Mmhmm.

Simon Waller (19:29.855)
you’re giving more to that relationship, then perhaps you’re receiving back again. It’s like it takes this very narrow set of metrics around, well, what does a good healthy friendship look like? And then gives you the advice is like, I think you should break up with them.

Steph Clarke (19:43.614)
Yeah, and especially if it’s still in the context which, you know, think maybe in that five to 10 year period will probably still be the case of a fairly individualistic approach to life in the world and culture, particularly in a sort of more Western civilization and world.

you know, the all these kind of social media posts, Instagram influencers, and these kind of, you know, fake therapists who are like, you know, don’t be around energy vampires and stuff. And of course, like, again, like to a point, like they’ve got a point, like you don’t want to be around people who are just constantly taking, yeah, whatever. But if your friend’s having a bad time, and that’s why it was a bit of an energy suck to spend time with them, because they are struggling or something, you know, not going well for them. If then you are taking this kind of literal approach to, well, I shouldn’t spend time with these people, because that’s what that pink square on Instagram told me to do.

this you know whoever then then that’s why we end up yeah again it’s not we’re not thinking about the more holistic connection and the value of a friendship or whatever it is and also that the to and fro and the up and down of friendships I think that’s that’s important that is part of life and connection and relationships

Simon Waller (20:44.766)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (20:49.437)
Yeah, I,

Steph Clarke (21:13.608)
Okay, that’s good.

Steph Clarke (21:21.458)
Mine says it is uploading.

Steph Clarke (21:31.116)
Welcome back.

Steph Clarke (21:37.704)
Can you still hear me?

Simon Waller (22:24.009)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, hi. Well, I just, collapsed.

Steph Clarke (22:27.902)
Riverside man, it’s not my, definitely not my favorite. it can just be, like I just find it more buggy than other things. And again, it’s gonna go on through phases of being like good and then terrible and then kind of okay again. And yeah, I mean, I haven’t used it for a long time, like as a host, but yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Simon Waller (22:45.216)
Yeah, well, let’s just jump straight back in. So you get the flow back and then I’ll look at it afterwards. See how it goes. But okay. Yeah, so obviously, Steph, like you’re writing a book about friendship, and I accept that your depth of understanding space is like well above mine. But I’ve always had a really deep interest in the concept of belonging and what it means to belong. And I kind of have this like one of my theories is this kind of the asymmetry of friendships, which is that if you think about when great friendships are formed, it’s often when we’re younger.

where there’s an asymmetry between what we need and what we can give. So often we have a deep need like I need to move house and literally I have no way of doing it without enlisting my friend’s help. And so our friends though have bucket loads of free time because they’re kind of basically delinquent university students. So for them to give that time was cost them very little and what we received felt so big.

Steph Clarke (23:33.736)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (23:39.904)
And these kind of we have a number of these transaction with our friends over time, and we feel this kind of mutual indebtedness to each other as a result of it, because when we gave giving was easy. And when we got something, it was really significant to us. And as part of that, though, where that kind of sense of kind of conviction in that belonging or friendship exists, was never actually in the giving. It was in the receiving. It was in the need that I had a new you were there, Steph, when I really needed you.

Steph Clarke (24:07.646)
Mm-mm.

Simon Waller (24:08.214)
And I kind of think again, with this scenario again, and even that that the examples you’re giving around kind of, you know, the, the social advice on, you know, emotion sucking vampires and things like that. And, and all of that’s based on the premise of, you know, people are taking more than they’re giving. And it’s like, yes, because that’s where belonging comes from, we it comes from when when we need to take, and it’s not taking, it’s receiving in a sense, like it’s, it’s something deeper than how we kind of frame it.

in the simplest terms.

Steph Clarke (24:39.454)
Yeah, yeah, all of those things and I think there’s been…

in the writing of the book. So the book is more of a, I suppose it’s more of a handbook in some ways around and showcasing ways that other people friend. So the ways that people spend time together more meaningfully, creatively, interestingly than just going for dinner or going for brunch or just getting together once a year for someone’s birthday kind of thing. And what’s been really good and interesting and quite cool in the conversations I’ve had, because people now just talk to me about this stuff all the time it seems and.

And so much of the conversations around that actually the hard time stuff as well and the things that people did not just to to give help, support, whatever was needed, be it emotional, practical, physical, whatever the situation was, but actually the conditions that someone created to allow for that to happen in a useful, meaningful way and not

And I think that’s that’s really interesting as well because there’s a couple of examples in the book of people who needed some help during a particular time because they were quite injured or they were unwell or whatever was going on and they were actually quite explicit about like hey this is this is what I need who’s in.

and people love to help, like people love to help but often people don’t know how to and we don’t always make it easy for them to help because we’re like, I don’t know what I need and that is obviously completely legitimate for a lot of people as well. They just don’t know what support they need. And so yeah, it’s just really made me think about this, this, yeah, the give and take as well and had a conversation with someone quite close to me relatively recently around.

Steph Clarke (26:17.662)
them feeling like they couldn’t kind of give enough in this sort of relationship friendship that we have. And I was like, well, that’s fine because like this thing is going on for you at the moment. And of course, and that will go the other way at some point. And you still do.

give in many ways that is still really meaningful and all the rest to me and to this relationship. It’s not that I feel like you’re completely taking advantage or anything like that. Yeah, so I think there’s a lot of more interesting conversations we can have about give take and the kind of the balance sheet, if for one of the word of relationships. Yeah.

Simon Waller (26:51.391)
Yeah. So interesting with this scenario is that you’ve put yourself in it. And tell me about the decision to do that. And you know, how much of this is, you know, potentially what’s I don’t know what the like autobiographical means when it hasn’t happened yet. But what what like tell me about why you’d put yourself in it. Tell me about what are the lessons that you’re trying to perhaps learn from your own future in this scenario.

Steph Clarke (27:09.982)
Yeah.

Steph Clarke (27:20.862)
So please psychoanalyse yourself is always what I’m hearing. What is wrong with you, Steph, that has made you do this? Yeah, I think this one just felt really easy to put myself into. And my preference generally is to write more first person, or at least maybe second person, I guess, but preferably first person futures, because I…

Simon Waller (27:23.712)
Pretty much.

Steph Clarke (27:44.658)
Those have been always been the scenarios or the stories or whatever that have made the most impact to me. So this is purely a selfish, what’s the word kind of projectioning on what I prefer. therefore I find easier to write as well is that first person narrative because if you can put yourself in it and the I can be you. Like if you were reading this and it says I like you will read it as yourself as well. So again, it was, it is me, but it’s sort of not me. It’s anyway, but the…

Simon Waller (28:13.117)
you do own an aura ring, correct?

Steph Clarke (28:14.878)
Yeah, so again, like this was it was it the this is a true story but not a true story type of thing they put of the Fargo episode. So this is was it this is a true story, but all the facts have been changed kind of thing. But this one is not because I have an aura ring and I have friends. the I know I’m currently developing a perfume so that more people like me. So don’t look in the bath.

Simon Waller (28:21.064)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (28:32.284)
Your name is deaf. So there’s three things we can pin down for certainty. Yeah.

Steph Clarke (28:43.57)
So anyway, so that is my preference to write stories or write futures and scenarios like that because I want people to feel it and be like,

yeah, I might think that in that situation or no, I wouldn’t do that in situation in that situation, or I would make a different decision like great. That’s that that’s the reaction I want people to have, especially if you’re doing something slightly two dimensional for want of a better word that as a as a story as something that is black and white and written on paper or the screen or whatever. So that to me is important because those are the ones that have had the most impact to me, particularly the the stories and examples that come out of Jane McGonigal’s work around in the Institute.

the future and her book imaginable it was reading some of those that made me think wow like this is so powerful when you write it from that that perspective and I guess because that was also the first I suppose more of like formal futures education that I did was through through that through the Institute for the future that is their general advice as well as to write things from that that that first person kind of narrative.

Simon Waller (29:46.047)
So one of the things I went when I tell people about futurism and the value of scenarios, I talk about this idea that the future is a safe space to have difficult conversations. Like we can talk about things which are a little bit confronting. But because they said in the future, they’re like, hypothetical and the impact for us is doesn’t feel as immediate. So we can be bit more open to it. So with this scenario, what is it that you think that we’re exploring or some of the things that we’re exploring that

Steph Clarke (29:51.262)
Mm.

Simon Waller (30:15.423)
you know, the let one of the lessons we would take away from it, or perhaps you would take away from it, given it’s about you. What are the what are the things that we’re exploring that are a bit hard, like a bit hard for us to hear that if we put them in the present?

Steph Clarke (30:29.758)
that we would get to that stage where we have to outsource our thinking about the people we love and like the most to a ring, a necklace, whatever the tech is, like the tech is sort of irrelevant really, but that we would have to kind of outsource that care to something else to remind us like.

you know your friends, you should probably like chat to them or talk to them or see them or whatever it is. Like that to me is kind of tragic, but feels completely likely because of the reality that we live in and actually the system that we live in where…

those are the things that, like I said, people are quite happy to, not happy to, but comfortable to in the sense that that’s what most of us do do, put on the back burner or put to the side because the urgent things of work in particular is, you know, takes over so much.

And there’s a much more and for most people, the work bit is much more urgent, not just because of the need to earn money, but because the implications of letting that slide or whatever are generally much quicker to materialize than the risks of putting your health or your friendships to the side for a while.

Simon Waller (31:27.826)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (31:46.674)
Yeah, so one of the things we talk about within futures around the concept of backcasting. So what would happen before this that led to this future being in existence? And one thing I can imagine, and it kind of goes back to that comment before about, you know, what get measures gets done, is we kind of have apps that remind us to exercise. And if it wasn’t for those apps, we probably wouldn’t get up and off the couch and go for a run. And we have apps that tell us, you know, what we should eat. And if it wasn’t for that, we’d probably be binging on chocolate.

Steph Clarke (32:04.637)
Mm.

Simon Waller (32:15.452)
And we have apps that tell us when we’re meant to check our email because otherwise we’d probably check it all the time. And so it’s almost like, you know, friendships, like the stuff that is more intrinsically valuable to us could easily be taking a backseat, not intentionally, just because there’s apps to remind us of everything else. And there wasn’t an app to remind us of that. And so suddenly, it’s like, well, shit, if I want there to be an even playing field, and I want this to

this was always more important to me. And we could easily see that rather than get rid of all the other apps, the reminders of everything else, let’s just add one more app that reminds us about friendships, could easily see how we could have slid into this quite unintentionally. And then find ourselves as you said, like, and it starts with something quite innocuous, like, I just have you called your mom recently. And then suddenly, it’s this next thing, which is no, look, I think you should, you should break up with that friend of yours, because they’re an energy sucking vampire.

Steph Clarke (33:09.31)
Yeah. And I think as well, I was talking to a psychologist friend a couple of months ago over lunch and he, were talking about friendship and all these things. He was like, yeah, I mean, friendship is almost the last part of wellbeing in a kind of more holistic sense, I guess, that has not yet really been productized and commercialized. Like, yeah, mean, yeah, true. I mean, in some ways, Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Waller (33:31.676)
Except for Facebook, obviously, where they 100 % productized all our friendships for us. No, I know what you’re saying. Yeah.

Steph Clarke (33:39.078)
in a different way though. I think that’s that you’re right. You’re absolutely right. Social media has kind of done that, but in quite a different way. Whereas for, you know, for dating, like, yeah, I mean, there’s a manner of things we can sign up for and pay for and sign our lives away for around dating, health, know, physical health, of course, mental health more recently, yes.

But friendship and that kind of social connection piece, it’s a huge part of our wellbeing and it’s all sorts of links to our longevity and things around our quality of friendships and our lack of loneliness that has an impact to our how long we live and all of those types of things. But it’s the one that is still kind of untouched in terms of the kind of commercialization, productization of that, which in some ways is good because these things probably shouldn’t be commercialized and productized because that’s some kind of

of weird post, you know, like stage capitalism kind of thing. And at the same time means that probably, yeah, there are elements of that that are not being paid enough attention to by people as well. So again, there’s the light and the dark on that. I’m cashing in on that, I’m writing a book.

Simon Waller (34:42.79)
Yeah, there’s also another interesting aspect of this. There’s another aspect of this about like, I wrote a post not long ago about, you know, I need to be comfortable with uncertainty. And one of the things that apps do a really good job of is giving us a sense of certainty in uncertainty. So we get in our car, we put on Google Maps, and it tells us exactly how long it’s going to take to get to our destination, even though it’s not correct.

Steph Clarke (35:01.438)
Mm.

Simon Waller (35:11.49)
And we get a weather app that tells us what the weather is going to be all week, even though it’s kind of a bit of a guesstimate. And the further we go out, the variability goes up quite dramatically. But none of that’s actually shown to us in the app, right. And I think there’s a bit around that kind of that social sense of social security. Whereas like, are we friends? You know, because like what each even defines friendship, and I can imagine an app that basically, even if it’s not as binary as not friend or friend,

there might be a scale where there’s seven points were along the scale and like best friend forever. Very good friend friend, like you know, and like, and how people might find a false sense of security and just been able to put a label on something and go like, yeah, so wow, that’s really great that Stefan I now in the very good friend category. This is amazing. What can I do to increase our friendship score? You know? Yeah.

Steph Clarke (36:04.36)
Yeah. I literally had a call with someone two weeks ago, I think two weeks ago today about someone who’s building basically that app. A different slightly, there’s slightly different mechanics to it, but essentially, yeah, that.

Simon Waller (36:11.78)
Ha ha.

Simon Waller (36:18.032)
Yeah, one other thing I want to be really in like a version of this scenario or in this world would be you kind of like, you know, I’ve not done the online dating thing. Like my, my, my relationship with my wife started before that was a thing. But my experience of talking about it with people is you know, like there’s the swipe left swipe right thing, but almost how it’s so commodified the concept of how to have a relationship with someone

that almost every time you enter into a relationship on the back of it, there’s an emptiness to it. Because almost like you can’t unknow what happened right before you kind of connected. And I came like there’s a version of that in this is like, need a new friend, I’m going to start doing some swiping to get to the friend that I need. But ultimately, those things will come really hollow because the premise by which it was created had no sense of kind of meaningfulness to it. Like it didn’t have our origin story.

where we kind of bumped into each other at an event after you obviously had been stalking me for a while. And then, you know, I spent half a day at an art gallery like, this is a cool person to hang out with.

Steph Clarke (37:18.238)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. and also, my friend Beck, this is probably my favourite, French of origin stories, we met on the 109 tram coming back from the city, going back to Port Melbourne at the end of a day. And she was carrying a flip chart and I thought, I like people with flip charts. So I like squished my way through the tram to her.

Simon Waller (37:42.82)
Slashed some Post-It notes at her like.

Steph Clarke (37:44.382)
Yeah, showed her my nolens and I was like, that’s only facilitation nerds will get that joke. But yeah, I was like, so what have you been facilitating today? Like some kind of creep. And she was just like, god, like who is this woman? Stop talking to me. anyway, so then I realized.

the company that she owns and is her business, Robo. And I was, oh, actually, I’ve seen some of your work at this other place, at One Roof, when they had a physical space, this kind of community group. And then she was, okay, maybe she’s not completely off the wall. Anyway, we had this whole conversation. Then I made her be friends with me. then every May, every 14th of May, we have our tram-aversary. And that’s the…

Simon Waller (38:28.325)
Do you ride a tram together? Has that happened?

Steph Clarke (38:31.58)
really want to do that. I really want to do the whole 109 route together on the 14th of May. That’s, that’s my goal. But then COVID and then she moved to the UK for a year very inconveniently. So anyway, she’s back now. So maybe this may we’ll actually get to six years it’ll be this May. So maybe we then got to do the 109, the full 109. Whereas you know, the guy I’ve been seeing, we met on on an app and that was that was actually the joke is he was like, you’re the only one who sent me a message. You’ll do.

Simon Waller (38:34.938)
Simon Waller (38:46.063)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (39:02.776)
And you’re like, no, no, no, I’m just like, I’m very selective. Yeah, don’t do these other stories about my friendships and stuff. I’m not just a stalker. Okay.

Steph Clarke (39:05.439)
Yeah, exactly.

Steph Clarke (39:12.124)
I will find you wherever.

Simon Waller (39:15.546)
Hey, so again, like another kind of core concept when you go about like you mentioned before, like the two by two matrix, and we talked about the concept of critical uncertainties. What are the big things, the big drivers of change that we see in the environment that we don’t really know how they’ll go. And when we had that level of uncertainty around, and we kind of explore like, well, what happens when all the way in one direction or all the way in the other?

I know you said you didn’t use that as a kind of as a basis of creating this scenario. But I imagine there are some critical uncertainties in it. Which which are the ones what’s one or two the kind of go? Yeah, this is the one where I don’t know which way this one’s going to fall yet. And and if it was to fall the other way, what is the big shift that we might see?

Steph Clarke (40:07.25)
Big one is probably this mega trend, I guess for want of a better word, of the loneliness epidemic. actually, and within that maybe, or maybe even separately, is…

the social constructs and things we have that friendship is very much secondary to a romantic relationship or our kind of, you know, marriage or a partnership in that, in that way. So I think there’s a, there’s probably a couple of things there that actually probably assumes this one assumes that those things have kind of stayed the same. And I think there are some really other interesting futures that could have played out if I’d done like a whole series of these where actually some of those social constructs have started to

to break down or to change and to shift because…

like you literally could not own a home, for example, as a single person in that five to 10 year period, or it is an either that’s because that’s illegal because of housing shortages and stuff in maybe in certain countries, maybe that’s not everywhere. So actually, you can’t own a live on a live on your own. That’s not that’s not allowed anymore. So therefore, you have to, if you’re not in a relationship with that’s the case, and actually then that you’re co habiting, you have to live with friends. So actually, you then have this more forced

Simon Waller (40:59.193)
Mmm.

Simon Waller (41:18.905)
Mmm

Steph Clarke (41:21.756)
dynamic where you’re always spending time with your friends, your house sharing. And there’s those types of things that have happened and maybe then policies around even workplace policies around leave. So actually at the moment, you know, for most places, bereavement leave or that kind of carers leave type thing is only really if you lose someone very, know, an immediate family member. Yeah.

Simon Waller (41:41.955)
Yes, as we nuclear family member for it to be valid. But yeah, the idea of what that was for friends.

Steph Clarke (41:47.292)
Yeah, what if your best friend or even just a close friend doesn’t have to be your best friend or whatever, is going through cancer treatment and they need some support or what if someone, again, a close friend dies and you want to take some time off, you know.

to acknowledge or to go through that process. But actually, at the moment, that’s probably it. I’m sure some employers would still be open to that conversation and would be fairly relaxed about that. But there’s probably a lot who like, no, the policy is for a nuclear immediate family member or a parent that isn’t necessarily living with you. So yeah, so I think those types of things would be really interesting that actually this becomes this scenario almost becomes irrelevant in a world where friendship

is much more ingrained into our daily lives in terms of who we’re living with, in terms of our kind of social connection and kind of in somewhat like legal connections as well.

Simon Waller (42:43.06)
Hmm. Yeah, it’s interesting that like a potential wild card in this scenario is housing policy. And I know you’ve done some stuff with your own kind of the single social club that you run. I think I came to the one that you did around kind of the housing thing. And there was a couple of people there who are really big on that, know, really deeply invested in the kind of co housing concept.

Steph Clarke (42:50.302)
Mm, yep.

Steph Clarke (42:58.022)
it.

Simon Waller (43:08.984)
And yeah, you can see how like, yeah, if we have a housing shortage, and the premise is, is that you just can’t have empty bedrooms, we can’t afford as a society, but he’d have multiple empty bedrooms. So, you know, that would maybe force people into co housing, even if it wasn’t from a purely financial perspective, though, I think that would be another very legitimate driver for it. But as you said, something you create these

Steph Clarke (43:29.682)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (43:33.995)
friendships that are in some ways indistinguishable from what we would have normally considered relationship, you know, so yeah, I think that’s a really interesting kind of critical uncertainty in this space. Any other ones that kind of come up for you in this?

Steph Clarke (43:48.126)
Yeah, there’s probably then another sub point to one of those it’s around, I suppose, parenting and sort of the idea of the nuclear family and yeah, mom and a dad and 2.4 children and a dog or whatever. Although obviously it should be a cat, whatever, doesn’t matter. We’re not talking about that. So the point around, yeah, parenting and co-parenting as well and around people deciding that and particularly in

countries which is many countries in again particularly the West but also in a lot of Asia and Southeast Asia as well where fertility rates and birth rates are plummeting and therefore there’s all these things in place to try and help people have more children. Does that mean that then people it will become more acceptable which I know is in some places isn’t in others of course to for two friends or three friends to

have a baby either adopt, you through multiple different methods, through adoption, through, you know, doing that themselves, through kind of a, you know, IREF and surrogacy kind of situation, whatever it is, to enhance the birth rate. And actually would that be?

Sometimes would you get something a tax rebate and actually could that would be available to not just couples in a romantic sense and not certainly not just heterosexual couples but actually open to friendship groups as well. And what kind of again legal policies and stuff like that would need to support those types of arrangements and those types of family makeups.

Simon Waller (45:08.82)
Hmm. Yeah, I think this is what I love about this is I think even just in these conversations, you’re highlighting, like, you know, this whole premise, obviously, this is not, you know, this is not the truth. It’s not a prediction, but it contains elements of the truth, there’s things in it that we will see play out in some way or another, we’re likely to see some, as you said, your friends working on the app, which is about how do we quantify our friendship in a more

Steph Clarke (45:22.044)
No, it’s not prediction, no.

Simon Waller (45:37.291)
more so than we obviously do at the moment. But there’s obviously there’s multiple different scenarios and futures that we could be exploring in this space. So as much as I think we’ve got this one scenario is really just a great starting point for much bigger conversation around friendships more broadly.

Steph Clarke (45:52.392)
And I think that’s what good scenarios and good futures work does is actually the…

the scenario or the artifact or just the thing that we create is kind of irrelevant. It’s really a catalyst. It’s a vehicle to a better, broader, bigger, more interesting conversation that is this. Like all the conversation we’ve just had there is completely irrelevant to an aura, the aura ring or an app or something. It’s about the social constructs of friendship. And I think where we can have those conversations and there’s a client I was doing some work with a year ago who are a homewares retailer. And so they, you the initial conversation we had was all we need something

on the future of retail. I was like, I think you need a conversation about the future of home. That’s a way more interesting conversation than will there be shops or not. And we can involve, yeah, see, we can think about some of that stuff as well. But really how people live, like that’s your real business is home, not retail.

Simon Waller (46:34.262)
Mmm

Simon Waller (46:41.556)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (46:45.622)
So with this, kind of, you know, I talk about the difference between fast futures and slow futures and fast futures is kind of like the fast food of futurism where we kind of wow people with selfie drones and Wi Fi connected suitcases, but ultimately don’t give them anything of real substance or value. It’s almost like we’re going to just, it’s based purely on the novelty that we can generate.

Steph Clarke (47:08.03)
Mm.

Simon Waller (47:10.454)
And it really does feed that part of our brain, which is almost like it’s like the equivalent of having a sugar hit to the brain. For me, those slow futures is how do we contemplate the future so that we can make better choices in the present? I’m curious as to as I know you spend a lot of time have you spent a lot of time thinking in this space around friendships and stuff curious as to like, is there anything having written this or had this conversation that you’ve kind of gone like, you know, one thing I might do a little bit differently now, what is this something you’ve taken away from?

the process.

Steph Clarke (47:42.11)
From a selfish perspective, it was probably validated.

And of course it did because I came from my brain and I’m doing, I’m writing the book. Like it validated the need for the book because it made me think actually this is not a feature I want. And so if I can have a little impact on however many people end up reading the book or use the work around the book or whatever to enhance their friendships to a point where this kind of functionality of an app or whatever it is becomes somewhat irrelevant, then that’s a good outcome. So for me, was probably, there was that part from a selfish perspective.

And then I suppose my own kind of view of, again, that’s not what I want to get to a point where I’d be interested in that data just as a bit of, you know, from a nerdy perspective, but not in a way that I would want to be necessarily changing my relationships or my friendships on the basis of it, I don’t think. But maybe that’s where I’m wrong. Like maybe actually getting that data, maybe go, I was wrong about all my friends. Simon’s a terrible influence on me. definitely, my stress score is through the roof when I’ve spent time with you.

Simon Waller (48:31.829)
Hmm

Simon Waller (48:39.542)
you

Simon Waller (48:43.285)
Well, look, I hope that doesn’t I hope that doesn’t come to pass. But I’ve always Yeah, I’ve always struggled a little bit with you know, that whole quantified self movement. It’s really it’s funny, because I know as a term as a term, I remember hearing about it a lot, maybe four or five years ago. And there was a lot of and maybe it was at the time where a lot of these kind of apps and kind of devices were in the infancy. And so there was a lot more people perhaps talking about it. Maybe there’s a whole bunch of people who are using it.

Steph Clarke (48:47.39)
You

Simon Waller (49:13.403)
we just kind of have lost the terminology around it. But for me, it’s like I’ve always been challenged by the concept. And, and if kind of like, I almost want the dumbest smartwatch that I can possibly have. Like, I don’t want to buy into all of that quantification piece. So as I’m trying to just wish I just went just managed to go back to a duck literally a dumb watch that just tells them the time. But

Steph Clarke (49:38.226)
No, you can buy them. That shouldn’t be hard for you to resolve.

Simon Waller (49:41.734)
No, I know. Again, it’s without kind of

Thank you. To be honest, I tell you that the number one feature of my smartwatch is that my alarm in the morning is a vibration on my wrist.

Steph Clarke (49:56.482)
yeah, that to me is actually, again, the one thing I want from a smartwatch.

Simon Waller (50:02.162)
Yeah, like the idea of not being woken up with noise, not some screechy screechy alarm. But literally just a very gentle tap on the wrist is like Simon, it’s come it’s time. It’s time now. Anyway, the last thing though, yes, so that with that aura thing, though, like, has like, what do you has, like, has that made you question your relationship with the data at all? Or you already had a questionable relationship with it?

Steph Clarke (50:27.742)
Hehehehe

I definitely and it’s always funny whenever I talk to I literally last week had a conversation. I sat next to this guy at a co-working space. I hadn’t really met him before we had a conversation because he was charging his and had a chat and everyone always has the same conversation when you talk to someone else who’s got one of these sorts of devices like how many times do you think yeah that was a great sleep so for refresh you look at your data no it was a terrible sleep I’m not gonna get through the day how will I survive like I do immediately go back to bed and cancel everything in my diary whereas actually your natural inclination or whatever it is is that it was

Simon Waller (50:52.125)
Yeah.

Steph Clarke (51:00.448)
was, was, you were fine. You feel, you feel good. And I think.

Simon Waller (51:02.504)
Yeah, but you guys only go like, well, clearly I was wrong.

Steph Clarke (51:05.662)
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I feel like I have a generally pretty healthy relationship with that data. I generally will be like, Oh, okay, I, I’ll go with how I feel. And actually, even if it was bad, but I feel fine, like, that’s okay, like, I can get through the day, I can do what I need to do. Like, that’s a good thing. However, being able to kind of question like, Oh, what could have happened? Did I do anything particularly unhelpful last night that made that that was

be the case to whatever it is. So I think there’s, feel like I have a generally a pretty healthy relationship with the data and the data I find most useful and most that I use the most is the data that is hard to necessarily have.

I suppose naturally is probably, I don’t know that’s the right kind of word, which is around like my cycle and things like that as well. Like you can’t always, you know, that’s my body temperature, for example, on this, I find super helpful at kind of working out like where I am and what that, what that means compared to maybe the sleep stuff, which is useful and interesting to a point, but I probably hold definitely kind of more lightly than maybe some of the other data.

Simon Waller (52:08.455)
Hmm. But you’re obviously deeply invested in the friendship data that it will give you. Yeah.

Steph Clarke (52:13.022)
Absolutely, yeah, that very much. currently, yeah, that’s right. I’m gonna go round into the seed round for that new feature.

Simon Waller (52:21.078)
Hey, so we talked a little bit, we talked around the book a little bit, like not necessarily to it directly. Now, obviously, you haven’t finished writing it, it hasn’t been edited or printed and no one can buy it yet. But with those caveats in place, do want to share a little bit about I mean, because he did allude to before in some ways, you know, this scenario kind of validates the premise of the book and why you’re writing it. Do you want to share a little bit about what

Steph Clarke (52:33.15)
Yeah, that’s correct.

Simon Waller (52:50.097)
the premises and why you write it.

Steph Clarke (52:52.926)
The book is called How to Friend, as Simon says, like this is a terrible sales pitch because you cannot buy it. It’s not, it doesn’t, it’s yet to exist.

However, it’s in process, it’s in the progress of being coming into existence. And yet it’s all about the things that people do with their friends to enhance their friendships and spend more quality, meaningful, interesting time together that goes beyond brunch or beyond like just once a year getting together for someone’s birthday. There are some birthday examples in there too. So I’ve got all these different submissions from people and it’s really a showcase of those, but plus some kind of prompts for people to kind of do that in their own lives and friendships as well.

And my, the thing I would love, the way I would love the book to be used, so it’s not a dense prose kind of book, it’s gonna be really beautifully designed so that each of the ideas kind of stands out and is a lovely sort of image or lovely page sort of layout and things as well, so that people could snap a photo, send it to their friend and be like, should we try this? To get over that initiation gap, like that’s really the kind of, I suppose, the insight I’m working on is that people want to do more with their friends, people want to spend more quality time with their friends and that’s amazing.

same time, time poor and kind of creativity poor I think is probably true as well around kind of thinking about something different to do that isn’t just going for a drink or going for dinner or maybe going to the cinema or going you know something like that.

and that initiation gap of feeling like, well, will it be weird if I suggest something that’s a bit different or a bit kind of more involved or whatever it is than just the default? And so yeah, so if that if that helps people get over that and sort of snap that photo in a because it looks nice, and it’s kind of fun and interesting, sort of flick it to the front and be like, Hey, should do this.

Simon Waller (54:35.281)
Yeah.

Steph Clarke (54:35.42)
And we see that all the time on social media, like you see these kind of things or a new restaurant all open or a new spa or something and everyone’s tagging their friends like, should we go, should we go, should we go? You hey, how about this type of thing? Like, great, like let’s, you know, let’s do that in other things as well.

Simon Waller (54:49.074)
And I know obviously over the course of developing that you’ve been kind of reaching out to people and asking them for examples of great friending. there any like one that you’d like to share that you kind of like, this one was like really struck me as being something that like, that’s cool.

Steph Clarke (55:07.038)
Are you hoping that I’m going to bring up one of yours? this what this is kind of? Several of your examples are in there. So this is great.

Simon Waller (55:09.412)
Now my next question was going to be am I in the bookstaff? But for now, it was actually just a more general question.

You

Steph Clarke (55:19.134)
There’s probably one and this one I share quite often with people because I just think it’s such a cool, simple idea, but it’s so impactful. And one of the questions people ask me a lot is, but have any men actually submitted anything? Because know, the men, don’t, they don’t hang out together and they’re a real problem around friendship. And one of my favorite male friendship, I’ve got number one, I’ve got a bunch of male examples in there of submissions from, from guys, which is great. One of my friends, John, submitted one or he told me about this and I’ve put it in the book. So is the

that with three of his groups of male friends, all have separately in the three groups, joint bank account.

So the joint account, everyone puts the same amount in every month. That same amount is based on kind of the highest lowest amount that someone can put in in the group. So it kind of offsets any kind of difference in earning or whatever is important. And they put the money in the account every month, every month, every month, and it adds up. And when it gets to a certain amount, they go for a weekend away or they go for a big ridiculous meal and they order the extra bottle of wine without worrying, it’s got to come out of this month’s paycheck. And how am going to explain this or whatever, whatever, because the money is just

there like they can spend it on having a good time and with some of those groups like think one in one of the groups in particular he says that you know they don’t put in loads every month but

So it might take 18 months for them to actually get to a kitty that is good enough to for all of them to go and do something really cool. But that’s 18 months they get to kind of catch up plans, think about what it could be and have these ideas and things and the and and they know that that will happen. But the kind of they they are they’re kind of guaranteeing fun in some ways, which I really like. Yeah.

Simon Waller (56:55.957)
Yeah, I like that. It reminds me a little bit of there’s a group of friends I go away with for a boys weekend. But one of the things that’s probably really unique about it is the planning process. Because there’s always at least three planning dinners before the weekend. And the first one we kind of all get together and we’ll have dinner and then we’re like, Okay, cool. So where should we go? And then invariably the answer is we just go away last year. So like, Okay, yeah, cool. Let’s do that. And then the next one will be like, when should we go is like,

Steph Clarke (57:06.131)
Mm.

Mm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Simon Waller (57:24.075)
August last year was August, we do August. Yeah, perfect. And then the third one will be, you know, there’s a spreadsheet of what everyone did last year. And that’s the only one there’s any real negotiation is like, should we change what we’re having for dinner on Friday night? Is golf in or out this year? But like, literally, you know, it is the process of getting there, not just not just the weekend that matters. So I love that idea. Also, the joint bank account piece, because it feels like the thing that you would do with your partner. And it’s kind of like, yeah, like this is at the same level as my, you know, my, my

Steph Clarke (57:35.997)
Yeah, yeah.

Steph Clarke (57:49.714)
Yeah.

Simon Waller (57:54.191)
wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever it is, it’s like, I’m gonna treat this with the same level of integrity as that. Yeah.

Steph Clarke (57:59.656)
Yeah, yeah. And the fact that it takes away that massive excuse that I mean, excuse in the kind of most valid, valid way of, you know, that is often the thing that gets in the way is like the time or money. And therefore, if you remove one of those, and, and you are scheduling it that far in advance or whatever, you can kind of avoid both of those big problems, those big kind of friction points, and then just get on with having a good time and planning this really cool activity or day out or weekend away or whatever it is.

Simon Waller (58:26.057)
And I know obviously the book hasn’t gone to the final edit yet, but I am in it. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic.

Steph Clarke (58:30.298)
You’re correct, yeah, that’s right. Just the acknowledgments page is just thanks Simon, that’s it.

Simon Waller (58:37.329)
Do you have any timeframes for it at the moment? I know these things always take a little bit longer than we imagine that they will.

Steph Clarke (58:40.222)
Yes, TVC based on a couple of ongoing conversations. I’m just going to leave it with that kind of very. That’s correct. Yeah.

Simon Waller (58:48.622)
Yeah, entirely non commit allowance. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah. Thank you so much for being the very first guest ever on the Future with Friends podcast. You were the absolutely a delight to have you’re the perfect guest. I will definitely get you back again sometime when we do have an audience as well that will be even

Steph Clarke (58:56.19)
Thanks very much.

Steph Clarke (59:06.654)
was gonna say, you’re like, you’ve given it a big like, you know, this is great that your number will be the first, the first guest and things, but you have also said that we won’t have any listeners for this one. So it’s almost like you kind of, like, yeah.

Simon Waller (59:14.832)
I did say that to you though, when I first spoke to you about I was like, like, so it’s like, on one hand, it’s kind of an honor. And on the other hand, literally, I’ve like this zero exposure for your anything like you literally just donating your time while we record it.

Steph Clarke (59:20.262)
Mm.

Steph Clarke (59:24.508)
Yeah. That’s correct. Yeah. But basically this is like a very elaborate tech check.

Simon Waller (59:32.594)
Yeah, they will be published somewhere though. So and even outside of that, I know we’ll catch up and chat and again soon but it was beautiful to have you my friend on the podcast. Thank you so much for being part of it. All right. Bye.

Steph Clarke (59:35.782)
Maybe.

Steph Clarke (59:46.302)
Thanks, friend.