Janet Lee is a creative producer and strategist based in Los Angeles who builds worlds where stories shape culture and people connect in meaningful ways. For over 15 years, she has helped ideas take form across media, tech, and culture, producing for organizations including Netflix, TED, VICE, WIRED, and Patreon. She emphasizes creating meaningful, joyful, and human memories on every project, caring as much about the process as the final product. She is also deeply interested in food—how it grows, how to nourish people, and how it can bring people together.

What inspired you to host The Feast?

I’ve always been a really big lover of using food as a medium for building a community, as a creative medium to express myself. It’s also delicious. In the last few years, my personal life had been feeling rather unstable, and as a way of putting a stake in the ground and really understanding myself more deeply—ironically—I felt like I needed to do that through talking to other people and understanding their stories, and creating a space where we can connect as human beings who are messy and imperfect and have big hopes and dreams. When The Feast came to me, it just felt like a no-brainer. It was all the things that I was seeking in my world at the time that I wanted to do.

What was the most meaningful moment for the dinner that you hosted?

I think it was the dinner I hosted on the Virgin cruise. It was an interesting environment, and sitting at a table with ten strangers who didn’t have a ton of context for the experience felt nerve-racking, but also really exciting. It was a table of really intergenerational people from all different ages. Once we all started speaking, it got quiet, even though we were sharing a room with three other facilitators. I could hear the clanking of the silverware and people really leaning in to listen to what others were sharing, being really open to the experience. The dinner ended up being close to three and a half hours, and by the end of it, we had the young twenty-something being praised by the older boomer at the table, exchanging warm words. It was really lovely, and people wanted to exchange Instagrams and keep in touch.

Did anything surprise you about your guests or about yourself when you hosted that?

With my guests, I was surprised by how open they were to the experience. With myself, I realized that I can adapt my energies with a lot of different personalities—I can be a chameleon in that way and find tune my energy when dealing with a different kind of person. I felt I had the skills and tools to hold down a conversation with ten different strangers. However, I also realized how difficult it is to listen without wanting to impart my own commentary. So much of this has been a practice of deep listening, which is one of the beauties of The Feast—how to silence your mind, be grounded and present in someone else’s moment, and just be able to sit there with it, acknowledging what they’ve shared. That’s enough.

Why do you feel spaces like The Feast are important now?

Everyone is noticing this deep desire for community. When the world feels so destabilizing, the idea of the individual or the nuclear family feels less stable, and we’re seeking to connect with others as a way of feeling stronger together and weathering whatever we’re trying to weather. There is also a deep hunger for a level of spirituality or a connection to something bigger than ourselves. The Feast fulfills that need in some ways. Countering social media’s talking heads and a distrustful media, I think all of us just want to meet people who are honest and real, and not be in a space where you feel like you have to be on or performing. The Feast is a space that welcomes your rawness, and I think that’s only going to grow more and more.

Complete this sentence: “When I host The Feast, I am practicing…”

When I host The Feast, I’m practicing presence, being present in the moment versus thinking about the next five steps to control the conversation at the table. And also practicing deep listening.

Is there anything else you want others to know about why the experience matters?

I would love for the facilitator community to grow. Even connecting on a facilitator level has been really lovely and magical to kind of meet all the different walks of life with people who want to host. I hope The Feast grows, blossoms, and becomes abundant.

To close: “At the Feast, I felt ___.”

Present.