Have you ever wondered what it's like to live in a coliving community? Our guest, Claudie Bell, a transformational coach and community architect, is here to shed light on this fascinating lifestyle from a first-hand perspective both as a resident and as a community host. She takes us on her personal journey, from an emergency stay in Madrid, to becoming an ardent supporter of coliving spaces. Claudie's experiences not only highlight the unique aspects of coliving versus flat sharing, but also the enriching community events and trips that truly bring this concept to life.
Diving deeper into the intricacies of coliving, Claudie gives insights into the impact and potential limitations of these communities. She discusses how coliving played an instrumental role in clarifying her preferences for shared living and the creative potential of these spaces. Plus, she touches upon the balance that management must strike between financial pressures and community needs. But it's not all theory - Claudie emphasises the importance of feedback and collaboration in forming a supportive coliving space, giving value to one-on-one conversations and regular interactions. Join us for an in-depth look at coliving through the eyes of someone who's not just lived it, but thrived in it!
Have you ever wondered what it's like to live in a coliving community? Our guest, Claudie Bell, a transformational coach and community architect, is here to shed light on this fascinating lifestyle from a first-hand perspective both as a resident and as a community host. She takes us on her personal journey, from an emergency stay in Madrid, to becoming an ardent supporter of coliving spaces. Claudie's experiences not only highlight the unique aspects of coliving versus flat sharing, but also the enriching community events and trips that truly bring this concept to life.
Diving deeper into the intricacies of coliving, Claudie gives insights into the impact and potential limitations of these communities. She discusses how coliving played an instrumental role in clarifying her preferences for shared living and the creative potential of these spaces. Plus, she touches upon the balance that management must strike between financial pressures and community needs. But it's not all theory - Claudie emphasises the importance of feedback and collaboration in forming a supportive coliving space, giving value to one-on-one conversations and regular interactions. Join us for an in-depth look at coliving through the eyes of someone who's not just lived it, but thrived in it!
Welcome everyone to ColivingDAO Insights. This is your co-host, Daniel, and today I'm joined by my co-host, Gareth, as well as our special guest of the day, Claudie Bell. Claudie Bell is a transformational coach and community architect, working to serve, support and uplift entrepreneurs, teams and communities who have big dreams for a better world. As a lifelong learner, she has achieved certifications in transformational nutrition, mental wellness, breath work, mindfulness and meditation, yoga and stretching. Claudie's work infuses contemporary modalities as well as ancient practices, resulting in a uniquely holistic approach to her work. Above all, claudie strives to cultivate more joy, connection and purpose in the lives of those around her. Welcome, claudie.
Claudie:Thank you so much, daniel. Thank you, gareth, for having me today. How are you doing?
Gareth:Yeah, we're great. Welcome, claudie, Welcome. So you have a huge breadth of experience there, and you do have some experience of co-living as well. You worked in a co-living and so the first thing we'd like to focus on is just can you tell us a bit more about how you got involved in co-living?
Claudie:Yeah, so it actually started in 2016. At the time, I was living in Spain, in Seville, I was studying audiovisual translation, and then I landed an internship at a subtitling agency in Madrid. So I had to find a place to stay very quickly. So I googled and then I found this co-living space called Mikasaín. It looked really nice and I was just, you know, like the urgency just made me sign up immediately, and when I arrived there, I was already like feeling so welcome.
Claudie:Actually, the first person I met was the housekeeper. Her name is Maria and, yeah, I just felt like, ah, it was actually a home that I'm moving, that I was moving into. So I felt really comfortable and I met great people there. It was just so much fun. And when I left Madrid to move back to Germany, I decided that the next time I was going to move to a new city, it was going to be in co-living. So that was the impact that this place had on me. So when I landed my job in fashion in London, I googled. The first thing that I googled was co-living London and I found the collective and, yeah, that's how I started living in a co-living space in London and later on I became one of the team members there.
Gareth:Fantastic, yeah, and that first co-living that you lived in. Can you tell us a bit about the decision making process to move into the co-living, or find the co-living even? Because? Did you even know what co-living was at that point, before you moved into the first one? Why was it an option on your radar? What drew you to it? What intrigued you about it?
Claudie:I had no idea what co-living was before arriving in Madrid at Mi Casaín. I was living in a shared flat, like most students in my time and nowadays, and I don't really remember if it was. Yeah, there is some sort of luck in it, but at the same time, I was also very clear on how I wanted my shared home to be like. So I didn't really have high expectations. I knew I needed a flat really fast. I also thought about either having my own space as far as it was possible and, yeah, still having at least one other person that I shared the flat with. So I remember going through the usual property search sites and I believe I found it there. I found the room at Mi Casaín over there and like immediately. So what really was appealing to me was the design. So it was very simple, also modern and still homely in a certain manner. I saw a huge communal space. We had a kitchen and everyone had their own room. So that was really important for me to have that kind of privacy and also have a place where I could meet my flatmates and perhaps have dinner or lunch with them or even breakfast. So that was made possible at Mi Casaín and he felt so, yeah, I think he was at the time.
Claudie:I was also into partying, so everything was just buzzing. He was young people my age and they were not only students, so I had many friends who were also young professionals and it felt really attractive to me at the time. I did like the diversity of working and working situation. Also the diversity of people who were living in the house and how it was designed, as well the house itself. There were multiple locations, but I decided to go to that specific house. It was in Calle de Leganitos and, yeah, he was in the middle of, he was in the city centre and just buzzing day and night. Yeah, he was good fun.
Gareth:Fantastic, sounds like you had a lot of fun there, and I think when people first look at co-living, they think it's shared living, right, and they might get a bit apprehensive about oh, do I need to share with like 100 people or 50 people in? A co-living, but you made a great point that you actually have your own private space, quite often in a co-living, and so was it like a new experience. Did you feel like you were moving into something new?
Claudie:I did. I did especially because I was not familiar with the concept. There was a similarity to flat sharing because I had people who I shared a home with. However, it was so much bigger than that. So in that house we were approximately 100 co-living members and it was very different because the company itself had made sure that we would spend time together. So there were community events. For example, every Thursday we had this big night out with the CEO now CEO of the company and we had organised even amongst ourselves. We had organised events and things to do together. We were taking trips around Spain together. That's not something that I did while living in a normal flat share, so in that sense, it was very different to me. So the similarity was that I was living with somebody else, but then everything else was. Yeah, it was a different dimension of living together with other members, with other people.
Gareth:That's great. So it was kind of an adventure actually when moving. It's a place to live, but it's actually a bit of an adventure as well which is something myself and Dan talk about too, and you made a point about students.
Gareth:So students nowadays sometimes live in purpose-built student accommodation which is a bit like co-living. It has some of the same shared facilities, and then students come out in a big city like London, for example, and then they get a job, they have some income, they're like, yes, I've got money, and then they go into a flat share which is quite often inferior to the purpose-built student accommodation that they lived in as a student and then it feels like a backward step. But moving into co-living feels like an upward step and more of the same benefits continue the adventure in a sense. I don't know if you want to add to that, dan, or you've got a question along those lines.
Daniel:Yeah, I think it could be interesting to discuss the impact of this individualistic living escalator that we have in our society. I've met a lot of people that have left the co-living space, thinking, hey, now I have more money, I can buy my own flat or even just rent my own flat and live alone. I have more space and I have my own private space. Not that they didn't have private space some private space in the co-living. It's just the mindset that society is pushing, in a way Like the more money you're making, the higher your status is, the more individualistic your living conditions should be, and it's really been documented that this has a big impact on mental health and lifestyle and a number of other factors. So, koti, what can we say about this?
Claudie:Yes, I really support the idea of co-living in that sense, especially for people who value connection in a broader sense like who like to have lots of people around them, and I do also understand that some people want to have their privacy. In my case, for example, when I left co-living to Switzerland, where I'm now living with my partner, so the idea for us was okay, if we're moving into a flat the next flat that's going to be we will have our little community and we sort of created that here, so with our neighbours. So we're in a house, it's just four families and we spend as much time together as we can, because we also realise that we need that and it's very spontaneous. It's not co-living and somehow to me it feels like co-living because I'm sharing that space, that house, with other people and we do things together on a regular basis and I need that. I also think that, yes, it can have an advantage to have an individualistic lifestyle.
Claudie:There's this aspect of privacy, and I think privacy is probably the most prominent argument to it.
Claudie:However, when I think about, I also like to think about how we used to live as a species, with social beings, so at some point we will start seeking company of others, and I believe that isolation can actually lead to a decrease in wellbeing. So I do understand this argument of wanting to live alone, have a space to oneself, and I think, yes, there is some sense in it. There's a reason why we have doors and windows and such. However, I think when we speak of co-living, we can have both, and I think that having both is a huge factor for growth, for wellbeing, even for success in different areas of life, and to me, it has boosted not only the way I view myself personally and the way I grew professionally as well. Just having that space, knowing that there are people around me who are here to share their experience with me and to actually add to my own growth and wellbeing, I think that's powerful. We don't have the same effect in an individualistic lifestyle. I would dare to suggest.
Daniel:That's a great point. Here at Co-Living Now, we are big fans of non-jewelistic solutions, and knowing that co-living can create the best of both worlds is a great point. In fact, why should we sacrifice one thing to get the other? Why should we sacrifice privacy to get community, or the other way around as well? Can we go a little bit deeper on that? How can a co-living space really create the conditions for people to get all the privacy they need and all the community living they need at the same time? Maybe the way the space is designed, the way the community is managed and so on? How can a co-living space achieve this ideal solution?
Claudie:I believe it has to do with understanding people's needs and wants. I would say perhaps one of the perks and also the disadvantages of co-living is that we are in the people business, in the business of serving people and co-creating with people. So having an understanding of what a community needs as a whole as well as individual beings, it's very important because we can actually build on that and create or co-create something that we actually never thought imaginable in a different setting, in a non-community related shared living.
Gareth:You actually had practical experience of building community in the way you described, Claudie. When you moved to co-living in London, the UK, you took on a bit of a community manager role there. Can you tell us about your experience of how you went about building community? That was really beautifully put there.
Claudie:Yeah, oh, that was. It definitely was an adventure. I learned a lot about people and the role that I had to and the role that I played within that community, within the systems of the company. And, let's say, even though as a community manager I wasn't making big decisions, big decisions that would perhaps shift the company at a larger level, however, it was these small decisions that I could make, these little bits of impact that I had and that also community members had on myself, on me, it made a huge difference. So I noticed, for example, these there were somehow even clusters really invested in wanting to grow as community, in wanting to maybe help the company even shift in a certain direction that would actually add to their well-being, to their satisfaction as tenants, as members and however we view them.
Claudie:And I actually started as a regular community member and for me, being part of a community meant to be to create something. And I think at first I didn't really realize what it meant. Only when I started really creating or co-creating my own events, having conversations with other community members about how we were living, what it meant for us, and also the fact that I became part of the team members, part of the team I had, I realized how important it is to nurture a community, what also a community can bring to people. So for me it had a huge impact. It made me definitely know what I didn't want in terms of shared living, in terms of my own future. It also made me think about the things that I appreciated, the things that I wanted out of such a new structure of living with other people and the vision that I had for myself moving forward.
Claudie:So I think there is a huge potential in places like this. It's like an incubator. You're in your, it's like you're on a different planet and still you're connected to the outside world and you can bring it back to you and you can actually take whatever you've created inside your little sphere. You can bring it on the outside and create something beautiful. So there's a lot of my work that I pour. There's a lot of my co-living experience that I pour into my work nowadays and it's beautiful, it's intentional, it's valuable. So I cherish what I have been able to experience during my time in co-living.
Gareth:That's a lovely description of what you saw in your vision of community and how to bring it together, and it comes back to the basics, right? People connect, they hang out together. Myself and Dan lived in the same co-living as well, where we met you, Claudie, and you know. There's events that you can go to. There's different events that residents can go to. You meet people with similar interests and then you start to organize social events together.
Claudie:One of the things that really, or things that I noticed since I left co-living is that I had to be proactive in connecting with people and, honestly, to me, co-living is the easiest place to start, like if you want to make friends, if you want to feel less lonely or alone. And, oh my goodness, yeah, I do miss that because I had it's like you have, you have everything, and then you can choose what you want. So I could never get bored in co-living. So I could, although I do appreciate boredom as well, so it helps me get creative.
Claudie:The way I mean it, or the way I miss it, is that you could just text someone or put something in the Facebook group hey, who's doing something, I'm available in five minutes and guaranteed there was one person who would message back and say I'm available, I'm not doing anything, yeah, let's have some fun, let's go somewhere. And when I look at my situation now, it might take a little bit of time to actually get there, which is not negative in a way, it's just different. And there's a lot of things that there are a lot of things that I appreciated about co-living in that sense, just having these opportunities for connection almost instantly. Yeah, it was very powerful.
Daniel:That's beautiful, and I think we painted a wonderful picture of what it's like to live in a community. Especially for people that never had that experience, this is definitely a great way to understand what it could be like and see all the advantages. So now let's talk a little bit about the limitations of the existing model in co-living, which is precisely why, here at Co-livingorg, we're building a new way forward, and I've seen co-living spaces pretty much deteriorate for certain reasons or simply just not being able to provide things that are quite vital. So, lydie, how would you describe that?
Claudie:Yeah, I think that's also one of the risks and, in terms of community, I would say that one of the risks in co-living is that the community is not heard or perhaps involved in the growth of the co-living concept, and for me, I think that's really important. It just really would probably be important to mention. If it really is an intimidation, at least in my experience, one of the risks that I really lived was not seeing community members as people, as humans, and valuing or at least listening to their feedback. I think that's, I think it could make things very, very simple to just have that, to allow conversations with community members, because what I've learned is that people actually want to help and they want to help improve the space that they're in, the people that they live with or that they work with. In rare situations have I experienced this lack of altruism. It was always there. It was always there. It's just about how we help this grow, how we help people actually show their willingness to invest their time and energy in our business concept, in our co-living.
Gareth:That's a great point, claudie, that you're making there. Especially when co-living is going under challenges or they have challenges like financial pressures, for example, then the management and the company owners are responding to financial pressures, as companies do, but sometimes that harms the community. Even in a normal co-living where people are renting, they really care about the community and those social bonds that are created. And when they see management acting in ways that disregards the community, cutting costs and focusing on getting new residents into the building the churn, as they call it, resident churn it can be quite a big problem. It's amazing that the community spirit stays intact in some co-living even though the management are acting in the opposite interests.
Gareth:Here at ColivingDAO we want to turbocharge the community involvement. We say that residents have ownership in the company in the co-living where they live, and that enables them to own where they rent on day one and have a real voice to shape the community by being a stakeholder in the company we've designed in that residents can get the best of both worlds they can be an active community member and a stakeholder and a partial owner as well, to really affect decisions alongside the management of the co-living.
Claudie:I think the ColivingDAO model elevates community. It enables ownership yes, not only in terms of owning property, but also in terms of being, as individual, in the driver's seat. So making decisions for me as a person, but also for the people who co-share the space with me, who co-own the space with me, I think that's really powerful. It is already quite a challenge to seal gaps in society. I believe that the work that you both do will help disrupt and reshape the way things are done in the property sector and also how communities are viewed and included in regenerative spaces and beyond. You're onto something really powerful and great here.
Gareth:Thank you so much. We're not fishing for compliments, but that was beautifully put. Thank you so much.
Claudie:You're welcome.
Gareth:Dan, is there anything in the ColivingDAO model, any other elements you'd like to explore with Claudie there? I think that's a great scene to tap into.
Daniel:If we can go a little deeper on the actual way decisions are made collectively and also feedback is gathered in the first place. Claudie, maybe you can share some examples of how communities have collected feedback or failed to collect feedback from residents and then see where the intrinsic limitation of the model is. Because the model where there's literally no legal rights in terms of shaping the community for residents. We believe that, no matter how hard Ben Evelen Lendler tries to include the community in the decision-making, ultimately there's always going to be a disconnect between the incentives and the way forward that they'll want to see. Well, if the residents are also part-owners and they also have legally recognized voting rights, all of a sudden it's possible to create a system where decision-making is truly fair. This goes together with the system being entirely designed to foster collaboration and to foster alignment in incentives as well, which can be achieved, with certain network effects, in a federation of living spaces as well. What can you say about that, based on your experience as well?
Claudie:I heard the word collaboration here and I think that's a key word for me. I wanted to touch upon the ways in which feedback was collected. For me, as a community manager and as a former community member, I really value open communication and transparency. So what do I mean by that? For example, whenever decisions were considered to being made or were being made, sometimes we had no idea that there were even plans of these decisions being made around the community or the services that were provided in co-living. I think that's really important because somehow, when we enter a co-living space, oftentimes we come with expectations of the services that we are hoping to receive or the services that were promised to us. So if those services at some point are not being met, then this can come actually to conflict between co-living operator and the community. We even had cases where we had situations where community members as individuals felt also specifically at a disadvantage. So how do we address that? So sometimes it was not even being taken into consideration either. So I believe having some form of communication, even one-on-one I love to have one-on-one conversations with community members and I advocated it during my time in co-living because it's so powerful having just one person that you dedicate your full attention to and really try and understand what is it that the person needs and how can I actually implement something that might actually improve their experience in our space? I'm not talking about just implementing something because one person has asked it. Most of the times, community members are already communicating within themselves, so they will also somehow develop something that they have common interests. Sometimes Some they will come and make or voice these needs for those things that they wish to have, and I think it's really important. Even if we're not able to implement those things just now, I think just sharing that with the members is very important so that people see, oh, actually it's not doable, but at least they let us know. I think it's really, really viable.
Claudie:One of the things that somehow missed was also appreciation, not just from community to co-living operator, but also the other way around, because actually the community can help shape a new home, new community co-living space, saying, hey, we want it can be something really basic like, oh, we want this lamp on the other side of the wall, not here, and it can also be the type of events that they want to have. Or if they say we want to have a town hall, then it could be something like that and just showing appreciation for what the community is actually adding to the growth of the business. I call it business. It could be important as well. I'm still thinking about the risks and regarding feedback from the community. So I clearly see a connection between community engagement and well-being and commercial success in co-living.
Claudie:So it goes from the way co-living team members are actually responding to the community members needs. If they are even listening or showing at least interest in what members have to say. It can go to when will I get my, my deposit back? Or even something like yeah, when or have you been able to reply to my email? Or when can I expect a reply to my email. So things like that. It can be very little things that can have a huge impact on somebody's experience or for a community as a whole, even the type of events. Are those events actually adding to their well-being or is it just to know, to make it fancy? And, yeah, what is it that we're trying to create for the people that we actually invite into our space and that we try to nurture? So I think knowing at least the intention that we have within the space for creating a space is really important.
Gareth:Yeah, it's a great point that there's a really delicate balance that you're describing between the co-living operator or the management team or the community manager and the residents. In a co-living it can be quite, you know, it can be challenging at times, but there's a real opportunity to align goals and go to mutual goals together. And you mentioned the town of Rathbone and you mentioned the town hall. Format is interesting because one of the risks, I think, is when there's no communication mechanism for residents to have their voice heard on a regular basis when it comes to the town hall which might be held, you know, once a month or once a quarter all of these hidden issues and challenges come to the surface and then there can be quite a bit of conflict because there's no other way to communicate outside of the town hall mechanism.
Gareth:So in the coliving DAO model what we're looking to build is real-time feedback, real engagement, where residents can really communicate freely and openly as a partial owner and as a stakeholder and the management team recognize that keeping the resident community social spirit together and having that feedback mechanism paid attention to can really make a difference, make it a much more valuable place to live. But it really needs that delicate balance of communication back and forth for the good stuff and the challenges.
Claudie:Absolutely absolutely, and I believe regular feedback is very important. It's more important than any town hall that we can have, because things slip and usually with a town hall there's an agenda. We can't put every issue in a 30 minute, one hour town hall and somehow sometimes even the town hall is not the appropriate place to discuss certain things. So regular feedback. I also really value the one-on-one, person-to-person, face-to-face approach to feedback Because, as a person, having somebody who just sits with you, who gives you some of their time and energy I think it has this opportunity to express ourselves alone, you know, can make us have a better experience.
Claudie:So that's something that I'm always trying to do. I do it in my coaching practice outside as well. I've started doing community work again with a new collective called the Frolley Collective, and just having face-to-face interaction is really valuable. So, yes, we are co-living, yes, we have tech tools, and still we are people. Like it is about people and it is made for people by people. So how do we keep that connection going? How do we help these interactions and these connections actually grow and sustain themselves?
Daniel:Made for people, by people. That's a beautiful input there, and I think today we're really paying this beautiful picture of what the advantages of living in a co-living space could be for a lot of people, as well as the limitations of the existing model and what the best practices are, as well, to make sure that people have the best possible experience, as well as the best possible ways to tackle those limitations. And that's precisely what we're doing here at Co-living now, so I'm really glad we could have this conversation. Any final thoughts, claudie, on co-living and anything in particular that you feel the audience needs to hear?
Claudie:Yeah, well, I'm going to reiterate that. But yeah, I think that community, in a model such as co-living it, can be a great force for progress. Right, because when we lay the foundations for a community to thrive, the material and the non-material progress, or this return of investment, can be huge. So for me, that alone is a great argument to join co-living or co-living. Now, specifically, and other than the fact that the community will help generate revenue and I think it will also share ideas, you know, there's this constant creativity that the community brings with it, right, and not to mention all the aspects of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial well-being. I think I have not even begun to list all the benefits of such a model, because they are probably innumerable. So, yeah, to me this is, yeah, it will be part of the future. That's how we're going to live most of us and at any stage in life. I'm sure of that.
Daniel:Awesome. Thank you so much, Claudie, for being with us today and sharing your insights. Gareth, any final thoughts for today?
Gareth:Yeah, thank you so much, Claudie. I really like your last point about it's not just about the money. Right, we can generate revenue in a co-living A co-living is a business but one of the really big advantages is you can get this holistic, 360 degrees of benefit. You know what it means to be human, all of the elements of your life enhanced and taken care of, which is what we're aiming for. So, thank you, thanks again for describing that. That was amazing. Thank you so much for having me.
Claudie:Thank you so much for having me and I fully support your work and, yeah, I believe, yeah, this is the future. This is where I think it's a great step for us to begin towards something really valuable for everybody. Thank you so much.
Daniel:Thank you so much, claudie, and thank you, gareth, for being here as well. Thanks everyone for being here. We are going to be signing off right now. This is Daniel from ColivingDAO Insights. Please subscribe to this podcast and we'll be back with you next week.