Unsurprisingly he was one of the first people I asked to be on this audio series. John has a unique set up with four groups of his friends. Knowing that they are likely to fall into the trap of letting life get in the way of seeing each other, they make fun inevitable by each of the groups having a joint bank account and each week everyone in the group pays in the same amount to this shared bank account. When the kitty hits a certain balance, the group go wild with a weekend away, an extravagant meal, or a day out.

Whilst everyone pays the same amount each week, the amount is agreed to be something that everyone can afford. It also means that these activities aren’t having to be justified out of one payday when they do happen, so it removes any money-related awkwardness that could crop up. Sometimes it takes a year to save up enough for their chosen activity, but the fact that they’re always building up to something gives the groups something to keep connected about as they start plotting their next adventure.

In this conversation I quiz John on how this started, why it works, what problems it solves, and the fact they’re still doing it years later.

Here’s some things we talked about…

• The importance of hype and building up to something with friends

• The ‘mechanical Falkor camp’ that started the direct debits

• Why pre-planning is not the antithesis of fun

• Intentional event design with friends to help remove friction (and flaking)

• A dabble into some neuroscience

• Starting small with new approaches

I hope you have at least half as much fun listening to this conversation as I did recording it. And of course, I’d love to know if there’s anything you’ll be experimenting with from this conversation.

I ask each guest to share a photo of the ‘remnants of friendship’, something that shows that ‘friendship happened here’. JA’s is a bunch of flowers left on a friend’s doorstep.

Who’s John?

John Anthony prances through the world as a shape shifter. Dad, Musician, Speaker, Brother, Educator, Entertainer and Friend.

Safer in front of an audience than alone, John has spent the good part of his adult years learning to enjoy his own company as he travels for his learning consultancy Transcend.

Recent obsessions include esotericism, philosophy, lego, gardening and whisky.

Current alive projects are johnsong (music) and Kindred Spirits (podcast with friend Jason Fox). You can find John in these places…

johnsong on Band Camp or the Johnsong website

Transcend

Kindred Spirits 🥃✨ with John Anthony and Jason Fox

Kindred Spirits 🥃✨Wit, whimsy, whisky & wiles—a podcast within which a bard and wizard talk shop (sans AI slop). All kindred spirits welcome.By John Anthony

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the last couple of years I’ve been playing with the topic of friendship. Lots of talking about it, reading about it, lamenting the apparent decline of it (I’m actually recording this a few days after Derek Thompson’s viral piece about the death of the dinner party… or really anyone doing anything at each other’s houses), and I’ve also been trying new things with my own friends, and going the extra mile to initiate interesting things. This started as an idea for a book and a series of articles (those are on Substack, the link is in the shownotes), but after months of writing, and then months of not writing, I just felt like this topic would come to life more if it was a conversation… between friends. So invited some of my friends along for the ride.

This podcast is about friendship. It’s less of a dense look into psychology or scientific studies (although those come up), and more of a burst of joy, showcasing a host of fun, interesting, creative, quirky, and meaningful examples of the ways that people spend time with, and celebrate their friends.

It is not just a podcast of ideas like ‘hiking with friends is good’ (although obviously that’s also true) or ‘I like my friends because they’re always there for me’ (which is nice). This is a smorgasbord. I’m thinking of it as a recipe book (in audio form) of the regular rituals, creative celebrations, and more interesting examples of time spent together that people have with their friends. The hope is that it inspires and encourages other people to do the same in their friendships.

Of course, not every ‘hang’ has to result in 15 years of camping trips, or email chains that last two and a half decades (you’ll hear more about these examples in coming episodes), but we can all add a bit more interest and creativity to the things we do, and do better than defaulting to just going for brunch (…again).

(Side note: I promise I don’t hate brunch, but you might hear me bagging it a few times during these episodes.)

At this point, which is late 2026, it’s become a cliché to talk about the strange times we live in, but I firmly believe that if we’re all going to come out the other side of this, we have to do it together. There are so many forces telling us to pull further apart right now, so pulling together, even if it’s just with a few friends, is a powerful and maybe even rebellious thing to do, and something well within our control. And frankly, life can be weird and hard enough, we might as well have fun with some cool people along the way.

In closing, if I was going to create a manifesto for modern friendship it would be something along these lines…

Friendship is the constant. It survives romantic relationships, life stages, and for some it fills the gaps that family never could. It’s critical. But it also falls down the priority list, both in terms of spending regular quality time together, and the thought that goes into that time together.

Time with friends, and friendship in general, is not the antithesis to time with family, or working on our health, or resting and recovering. It’s part of those goals, and makes those possible.

1. Host tiny, uneventful evenings at your house. Especially if the house is a mess.
2. Embrace imperfect catch ups; do your chores together, catch up on the phone, get take away and eat it in your PJs at each other’s houses whilst watching trashy TV or listening to music. And no, I don’t care if you’re 45 years old and a CEO.
3. Initiate more. Initiate a coffee with a colleague you think is cool and you’d like to be friends with, or the nice person at the gym who you often say hi to. Or the parent at the school gate.
4. Do not cancel (and do not secretly hope the other person cancels first). Turn up as you are, even if you’re a bit tired, or hungover, or stressed. I promise whatever you’re doing with your friends will offset that.
5. See friendship as a joyful, creative act. Friend is a verb, it is active, not passive, so push a little more. There’s always room for more fun, more surprise, more delight.

I need to channel my inner Baz Luhrmann a bit more on that, it’s not quite ‘Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’, but I’ll likely add to it as I record these episodes… more to come.

I hope you enjoy listening to these episodes as much as I enjoyed recording them. The ideas in them are not prescriptions to be copied exactly, but absolutely should serve as inspiration. If you take anything away to tweak and customise and try it yourself, I’d love to hear about it. You can join me on Substack to join in the conversation: https://howtofriend.substack.com/ 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.