Making friends on the internet and the potential for change

- Jul 31, 2025

Have you ever made a new friend on the internet? If you’re reading this thinking, “Anne, what are you going on about?” let me tell you—it’s really quite joyful.

For me, this all started when I participated in my first ever online course, the altMBA, the brainchild of famed author and marketing guru Seth Godin in 2017 (#makearaucus #altMBA14).

That was right on the heels of my exit from my long-time role at Christian Louboutin, I found myself enrolled in this high-speed cohort, with a handful of us live on Zoom three times a week. At first, it felt genuinely odd to collaborate on a project with perfect strangers, but because we were there to make things happen, within minutes, the barriers broke down.

I’ve come to believe what psychologist Brian Little argues:

And isn’t that exactly what happened? Each of us students of the altMBA had landed online with our own wishes and dreams. We were challenged through prompts to figure out our “who/why/what/how” — aka we were tasked to unveil ourselves, dig deep, write and share the change we wanted to make and thread together a vision of how we were going to see that through.

As I think about it today, I realise just how intimate we became with each other, by revealing parts of ourselves that are sometimes hard to share with close friends and family.

But that wasn’t all: it was because we were given common projects, made to collaborate, that we bound together. And friendships blossomed.

I remember meeting Jack at our first Zoom meeting. I was perched on my mid-century inspired slate-coloured sofa, in my Parisian apartment. There was a technical glitch and Jack found himself without a Zoom group, we were exchanging on Slack; I pulled him into our meeting. There, in the squares up on my laptop screen, something about the mop of brown curls and his thick rimmed black glasses felt friendly and familiar, like a 'Ooh, I know you, or I want to know you.'

We became friends quickly, met in person in London a handful of times and we still talk over the phone every few months. Our lives have changed, so have our projects, but the bond remains.

In 2021, I graduated from the ​MMTCP​—the Mindfulness Meditation Training Certification Program (doesn’t quite roll off the tongue). I’d enrolled for the two-year course in 2019. A devout follower of author, psychologist and teacher ​Tara Brach​, I had high hopes to attend the in-person retreat marking the end of our training, basking in advance at the thought of being near my teachers (Tara and Jack Kornfield).

January 2021 didn’t afford me this luxury. Instead, I had to celebrate my new skills online. My memory vaguely recalls watching beaming faces of faculty floating in front of my eyes, my laptop propped open and balancing on the arm of my sofa – the same piece of furniture as before, but this time, adorning my Geneva living room.

That evening, the online closing event included a “virtual sangha connection” among other events we could choose to participate in. With the session pushing past 10.30pm, I could have chosen to tuck myself into bed, but instead, I bravely showed my face. That’s how I met April.

We’ve never met in person, she’s in LA, but we’ve had wonderful conversations. ​April Dávila​, as it happens, is an award-winning author, writing coach, and mindfulness instructor best known for her debut novel “142 Ostriches,” which won the 2021 WILLA Award for Women Writing the West. She runs various writing programs, and thanks to her, I discovered how mindfulness can help writers release creative blocks and develop their craft. We had several Zoom coffee chats. I regularly participated in her daily writing group called “A Very Important Meeting” with co-founder ​Paulette Perhach​ (the group still exists, though it’s now run by Paulette). ​I even interviewed her​ for my podcast, Out of the Clouds.

We stay in touch through newsletters, LinkedIn posts, and other social media messages. You see she knows about my projects, as I know about hers; we watch each other evolve from afar, but these projects connect us. It’s sweet to have this thread with another mindfulness teacher, an author, a kind soul who — despite being far away — echoes and relates to my work.

This past March, I met an alum of the now-defunct writing course Write of Passage. Just as I had felt with Jack, Amber, who was based in Mexico City at the time, presented like a long-lost friend - or cousin? After multiple Zooms and an interview (for my upcoming show The Metta Interview — yes, I love interviewing my brilliant friends), she’s visiting me in Geneva in just a few days.

Some topics or personal pursuits can feel easier to bring up online with strangers than with friends and family.

For me, because I was inching toward change with each new program (and there have been many) and each new project (also many), these new friends have supported me as I was edging toward a different or new version of myself. Perhaps that’s why I have loved taking part in online workshops and courses over the years. Each of these wonderful connections has accompanied me on my way to a new Anne. They have nourished my potential, my imagination, my heart.

I’d go one step further: it’s because I was exposed to all these other people’s worldviews, way of thinking, and learned about what was in their hearts, I was changed.

When I tell people that I’m launching a hybrid community project, the square-thinking folks around me have said: “focus on the in-person first, don’t try to do hybrid now”.

This vexed me for about a split second. Then I put myself in their shoes. I can see why they would think the way they do. They don’t know what I know. They haven’t felt what I’ve felt.

This is what brings me to create a space for many of my brilliant friends to share what they know, in the form of online masterclasses and workshops, starting … TBC (there’s a story there, for another time).

With each friendship, I feel like I’m falling in love a little. With Le Trente, I’m hoping to share the love.

It feels like a special gift to find people who resonate with your passion projects.

We can berate and vilify the internet for many things, and yet also recognise the good it brings. I feel deeply grateful for the friendships I’ve been able to cultivate thanks to this medium.

This August, April has a new project, so I’m sharing it below. Perhaps this will speak to you, and who knows — maybe you’ll meet a new friend who resonates with your work.

PS. To all my friends, old and new, IRL and online, I am so grateful for you.