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Daybreaker is a global phenomenon. A community of some 800,000 people all waiting to hear when the next morning sober rave dance party is going to be. It has been going for over 10 years—they're coming up to a thousand events. How they've created and sustained this movement for so long is because they take a holistic approach to community event design.
Radha Agrawal is a co-creator of Daybreaker and the inventor of the D.O.S.E method. If you're looking to make your events more engaging, stickier, more successful, you're going to want to hear what Radha has to say.
Let's get into it 💃
Radha:
Daybreaker is a morning dance community. We started 12 years ago, really as a social experiment, as an art project, wondering would people be willing to wake up in the morning to dance without substances?
I think so much of dance culture has been overrun by drugs and alcohol. So we just really wanted to break the codependence between having fun and being fucked up and really remembering the dancer inside of us and the importance of self-expression in a way that's authentic to us.
We're going to hit a thousand events this year and 60 cities all around the world, all seven continents, including the pyramids.
We were the first dance party at the pyramids. We did the Arctic Circle this summer, this past summer. We did Antarctica, the Serengeti. We've thrown dance parties in the most unorthodox places. And I think that's that sense of belonging inside of the dance space that you feel when we come together with the technology, the internal, external experience of it. I think that's really what has made Daybreaker the phenomenon that it's become. I never thought it would explode and be the thing that it became.
Gareth:
The secret ingredient of Daybreaker's success is the D.O.S.E. method. Radha reverse-engineered the neurochemistry of joy and connection, and created a method you can apply to your own events.
Radha:
So D.O.S.E. is an acronym that stands for dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins, the four neurochemicals that drive happiness and connection. So when designing experiences, whether in person or virtual, understanding how to intentionally activate these chemicals is key to fostering a deep sense of belonging.
Dopamine
So dopamine is like the anticipation, like the reward chemical that creates kind of excitement and motivation in your body. We trigger this by setting intentions, by gamifying experiences, when offering surprise and delight moments, that's the dopamine.
Oxytocin
The oxytocin is the trusting and bonding chemical, right? It's like what you get from getting a hug, you get that, that neurochemical is released through human connection and trust building. This is why with eye contact, physical touch, like a group cheer, a group dancing, group hug or high five, when shared storytelling, that's why kind of that's so powerful because of that oxytocin release that you get from that.
Serotonin
And then serotonin, which is the S in D.O.S.E., is like the confidence and wellbeing chemical, which elevates mood and sense of purpose. We boost this by recognizing contribution and celebrating people within a group.
Endorphins
And then endorphins, which is the joy and euphoria chemical, that's the body's natural high, it's activated through movement, music and laughter.
These are elements that we infuse into community driven experiences like Daybreaker. We really took time to reverse engineer the release of these four neurochemicals inside of the experience.
I never looked at it through the lens of our brain, only when I started seeing the incredible effects that it wasn't just culture making and place making in New York or in America, but all of a sudden as we crossed borders, as we went across the ocean to London, to Paris, to South America, to Asia, and all over the world, that it was having the same kind of effects on joy with every human that we interacted with.
So that's when I started looking at the brain and really understanding the neurochemistry of how humans receive experiences, how we interact with each other, how we interact with sense and sounds and scapes, and what that does to our neurochemistry. And that's where it began making sense to me.
Gareth:
Okay, so you know the theory behind it, but how does it work in practice?
Radha:
So the dopamine at Daybreaker, you get from music listening, right? So that's a classic known piece that when you listen to music, your body fills with the newness, like the excitement of listening to new kind of licks of soundscapes and vocal tones. And so that's the dopamine rush.
You also get the dopamine rush of, while it's still dark outside, to get your glitter on your face, to go to a dance party. There's the rush of setting your alarm the night before, setting out your whole kind of outfit for what you're gonna wear the next morning. And yeah, that wake up and getting out of the house and going to get something done for yourself. The dopamine rush of that is just, you can't match it. And of course, like so many of our community members are like, "Oh, I just wanna roll over. "And I just feel as, I just wanna go back to sleep. "I don't wanna wake up. "I just, it's too hard."
20% of our ticket buyers never make it to a Daybreaker because they slept through their alarm.
We purposely don't offer refunds for that reason because we wanna make sure that you show up and that you come and that you set your alarm and you do this for yourself. It's a prayer, it's a practice for yourself to get out there and do this work for yourself. And so it does take that extra layer of that dopamine.
The oxytocin you get when you walk into a Daybreaker, we have a hugging committee. If you don't wanna hug, no problem. We'll give you a compliment. But the oxytocin that you get from just getting someone to touch you.
I love being the hugging committee at the door. So me and three other huggers. Actually, I host a hugging workshop as well for non-creepy hugs. 'Cause it's so important to like, when you walk into a door to not, to get a hug that's not too tight, that's not gonna suffocate you or a hug that's too long that makes you feel uncomfortable. Or you just want the right level of that mom hug, that nourishing hug from your mom or a best friend or someone that you haven't seen in forever. And so that's how we designed this hugging committee.
I've gotten probably tens of thousands of hugs at this point over 12 years. The number of letters or tears, like spontaneous tears on my, this shoulder.
I always say this is like my left shoulder has all these stories to tell. Because when I hug people, they cry. They tell me they just broke up with someone or they were suicidal or this changed their life or they needed this hug. Or like they pushed through a discomfort of hugging someone they haven't hugged in so long or they're living alone or whatever it is. That's the O in the D.O.S.E.
The S in D.O.S.E is serotonin. So serotonin is actually made 90% in your gut. They talk about that gut brain axis, right? Serotonin, it's built in your gut. So how do you get that? You get that through food. You get that through the sun, through vitamin D. You get that through that gut feeling of, oh, I feel so good, like versus the butterflies of not knowing someone. It's like you get the opposite, that exhale of, oh, my gut feels safe. My gut feels good. You're talking about, right? So the serotonin you actually feel in your belly, which then transmits and translates into your brain. But you get that through healthy food.
So at Daybreaker, we curate incredible food and beverages. We do it in the sun, in the morning light. So you get that vitamin D, you get that serotonin rush. And of course, serotonin is this feeling of, this is greater than me. This is bigger than me.
So we have our MCs that we train at Daybreaker that really help you get out of your own head and into your body, into the centrifuge of community, the sangha, so that you can rest.
There's this part of your brain called the parietal lobe that feels this exhale of, okay, I can relax now because the community's got me. The community's got this. Like, I can just rest in that sense of this feeling of spiritual that you get when you're in this community space when you're in spiritual space. And that serotonin is released. So you get that from the gut, from food. You get that from the sun. You get that from feeling like I'm part of something bigger than myself. So that can be from spiritual, that can be from communal space. That's the serotonin.
Then the endorphins you get from moving. So it's like the runner's high. You get it from sex, you get it from sweating, you get it from just running really fast. So we have a shake and dance. We move your body at Daybreaker and that release of the endorphins, which makes you feel, again, that euphoria, that euphoric awe-inspiring high.
So many events, so many listening parties, you go to a Broadway show, you're sitting in a chair the whole time. Yes, you're experiencing all this magic and awe, but if you're not moving your body, it's hard to actually feel belonging in that space. You often, you're taking from that space, but you're not participating in that space.
Belonging comes from participation, not just taking, right? So that's also that endorphin experience of when you participate by moving your body, by actively listening to the music, by actively showing up in the dopamine of that moment, by actively hugging and being hugged in the oxytocin of that space, right? By eating, right? You're allowing your taste buds to experience the moment. You're participating in the taste and the sensorial part of that experience. That's when you feel the most belonging.
So if you come into my event and you're like, "I'm not gonna eat that, I'm not gonna dance, "I'm not gonna hug, I'm not gonna," you're not gonna feel any of the effects of the event. So you have to fully trust fall into the experience to feel that full dose, that dose release.
Gareth:
Daybreaker events are typically three hours long. There's a one-hour yoga session, and then a two-hour dance party. So how do you sustain the engagement and connection of the course of such a long event?
Radha:
We call them wow moments because we want people to be wowed. And I think we say that because when you're in a substance-filled event and experience, it's almost like the wow is the substance taking you to these kind of psychedelic spaces, which has its own benefits. It's its own experience.
If you're experiencing sober, how do you take people to these spaces of awe? So you do that through breath. You do that through the dose. You do that through moving and allowing yourselves to be in frenetic space. And you do that through wow moments, through this beautiful, awe-inspiring moment.
Because you're sober, we also wanna make sure that the community member who's coming is re-infused because then the insecurity can take over.
Do I look funny? What am I doing after 10 minutes of dancing? Can I keep going? Should I walk away? Should I fidget on my phone?
So we introduce these 15-minute state changes so that our community member is not only awe-inspired, but they're also, they're staying into that moment, staying in presence, so they're not going into that insecure mindset and mind space because they're sober and are retraining their brain to release their dose naturally without the need for substances.
So every 15 minutes, we have an aerialist, a fire spinner, a horn section. Every Daybreaker has a horn section 'cause I think it's so important to have real, live, human instrumentation there, not just the speakers, but that we have real-life horns infusing that human sound into the space.
We'll have all kinds of really fun wow moments. We've pulled beach volleyball nets in the middle of the dance floor and through beach volleyball, people have played beach volleyball in between for a beach-themed Daybreaker. We've done a blindfolded event series where we have you blindfolded on the dance floor so you can actually get into the music and your body and touch the community around you with less insecurity that the eyes offer sometimes from wanting to feel safe.
So every event, we infuse something different to give the community member a new lens to meet themselves, and that's what the wow moments are for every 15 minutes.
Gareth:
So if you're like me, you're thinking, "Okay, that all sounds great, but you're injecting joy into a fun dance event, but how do I apply that to something more buttoned up, like a product community meetup or an online Zoom call?" Radha has done those too, and so has some great tips.
Radha:
There's so many ways to bring and infuse this type of energy into an office environment, a corporate environment.
So even before a meeting happens, you can create a dopamine rush by offering a meeting session into an interactive quest, for example. So it's like you can turn this next corporate event or meeting into a secret theme that's a quest for the whole team to uncover together to get that dopamine rush. Or you can invite fun challenges to keep people engaged into that event. So you can do that, let's say at a meeting, you walk into a meeting and you can put, whether on Zoom, it could be just a question that you have on the screen, or if it's in a chair, you can put an intention card with a question around the meeting table so people can walk in and have that dopamine of a question that they can answer.
There's so many ways in which you can invite the dopamine into any event and experience, right? Also musical playlist that they can listen to in advance of the meeting. So it's, hey, listen to this to get you in the right headspace for the thematic of this. We're gonna talk about community engagement around this product or service. This is what our community is like. This is what the average, this is our avatar, a community member who purchases this type of product. This is what they listen to. So let's get into the headspace of our customer by all of us listening to this playlist. By the time we get to the meeting, we're all in that same kind of headspace together and we can enter the space in a creative way.
So I think that often people think of meetings when the meetings are happening, but I often like to think about the meetings pre, during, and post. How are people experiencing, how are we beginning that D.O.S.E release in advance, during, and after.
Oxytocin you can invite during by grounding everybody. So whether on Zoom with a breathwork moment, with a meditation, with a moment to just arrive and be there together and just allow the to-do lists to go away and just arrive as a community. So I'll often lead this when I do corporate events. Start by grounding everybody so they can arrive and just be here now, put your phones away. Let's just allow this hour of time together to be in full presence. And that creates that oxytocin, that bonding, because you get that level of that permission to arrive.
Then you can also get that by facilitated small breakout groups, which I also do a lot of. So whether it's a Zoom room, you can do one-on-one Zoom rooms where you can ask each other pointed questions that go deeper, that allow you to go deeper. Or facilitated where I can popcorn around, or you can popcorn around the room and invite anyone to share something that's an answer to a question that you invite everyone to think about. That allows for an oxytocin release because you really feel that deeper interaction with one another.
The serotonin you can get through acknowledging and highlighting each attendee arriving. For example, I held a women's circle recently, and every single woman that arrived, I wrote a little kind of letter welcoming them that they were so moved and tearful about that I'd written something so personal for each one of them that they asked to read them out loud to each other. So we did a circle up where they read their little letter that I wrote to them, to everybody else, and everyone in each of them felt so seen by me. And so it was a really beautiful moment for everybody. That's the serotonin. So you can do that by acknowledging each person, highlighting them, giving them shout outs.
Then you can end with a collective gratitude practice, which is of course a serotonin release. So you can do a gratitude, so everyone can share what you're grateful for. One word of gratitude for what happened here in this meeting today. I felt inspired, I felt more creative, I felt supported, I felt engaged, I felt nurtured, I felt, yeah, and I felt exponential in what I can do. So there's so much that can happen when you invite that level of intention to a meeting.
Last thing is endorphins. Even through a screen, you get people moving. So I always usually end with a one song dance party to get everyone up and integrating what they learned in their mind into their bodies. So that actually, when you give them that action, of just, hey, let's integrate what we learned today from our minds into our bodies, into moving in this way, that gives them kind of a goal and a reason to move their bodies, which makes it less awkward in a virtual space.
There's a million different kind of tips and tricks and tools and actions that we can do for each neurochemical.
I love playing and creating that for different organizations based on what their values and their community members and employees, team members are like, so it's really fun.
Gareth:
The impact of the D.O.S.E method and how they built community at Daybreaker really comes through when you hear about their COVID experience.
When the pandemic hit, Daybreaker was at the peak of its popularity. They'd run 150 events in the previous year, they were on tour with Oprah as the opening act, selling out 15,000 to 20,000 seats in stadiums. Then COVID strikes, all their sponsors pull out and they suddenly have to take this thing online.
Radha:
I was always very anti the digital sphere. I'm a very IRL person. I wanna smell you. I wanna taste you. I wanna touch you. I wanna hold you. I wanna not just see you and hear you, which is what the Zoom environment offers. So I had a lot of negative feelings around throwing a Zoom party initially. We never would have done it unless the pandemic kind of forced us to, which is there's no other way to gather. Okay, we need to meet people where they are and people are dying and suicidal and struggling and lonely and okay, it's go time.
So what can we do to make this 2D environment feel 3D? So the first thing we did was learn the Zoom environment. Eli and Tim, my two co-founders spent hundreds of hours on Zoom to understand how I can virtually cut myself out using a green screen. So I can then now transport myself and be next to you using the green screen technology. All that was really interesting. We would have 30,000 people jumping onto one Zoom party. So it would crash all the time until we learned how to grow it and build it and get the technology working.
The second was actually having our community members become participants in making their homes more decorative and more on theme. So let's say we did a beach party theme for an online live party. Every single person who came on that we featured, they would decorate their entire apartments in the theme of the event. We had people who carted in sand and made sand boxes in their living rooms. We would all turn up our temperature in our apartments to 95-100 degrees and we'd be sweating in bikinis in the dead of winter with sand. And we'd have blow up doll, blow up palm trees and all kinds of, and people just went to town on the decor of their apartment. So we did this every Saturday for 50 weeks.
It's like Saturday morning cartoons, but instead of Saturday morning cartoons, it was like everyone spending their whole week decorating their house, getting all their friends to come on, family members.
Then on Saturday we would tune in and we'd be like, "Oh my God, look at Jenny from London "and Jeffrey from Poland with her five generations "of like babies to great grandmothers coming on to dress up and be part of this moment together.
Oh, and the other thing that got really cool was all these major acts. Like we had Indigo Girls, we had the Wailers team come on, we had Gloria Estefan and Gloria Gaynor. And we had some of the Village People just all come on. We had Boyz II Men perform End of the Road at Daybreaker Live. And it was just an incredible moment for all these artists, people, humans, cities, communities to come together. And we would have these dose moments too throughout the parties in these digital ways that we created that made people feel really connected too.
Gareth:
Thankfully, Radha is now sharing all she has learned about community building, the D.O.S.E method, and building sustainable community businesses. She has a book and a cohort course. Here's how it came about.
Radha:
I would get emails and phone calls, hundreds of them every month from community members asking me to meet with them for coffee, to email them what we did at Daybreaker, how we grew the community. So I would meet them for hour long coffees. I would do these small things. And one hour, of course, is never enough to teach everything you know.
So then I wrote a book and I spent two years writing this book to open source everything I did in my own personal life at Daybreaker so that I could open source all of that. But then the book, people would buy, I mean, we sold hundreds of thousands of copies of the book all over the world, but people also wanna be handheld. I think that the people will only get so far. I have 25 exercises in my book that you can go into. It's both tells you exactly what to do, and also it's a workbook, so you can actually go and do the work. But then people also wanna be handheld, and they want that extra layer of support to get them going.
So last year, we just said, why don't we just start teaching the next generation of community builders, and give them and empower them and hold their hand through the delicate process of community building? It's very easy to start something and very easy to burn out.
A lot of people start communities, but because it takes so much time, money, energy, and the return on community is so difficult to turn into a community business, it's so hard to make a business out of community. People would give up after one or two events. They love doing it, but it's so exhausting, it's so thankless that they would quit after a few events.
So that's why I wanted to start this community masterclass, an eight-week masterclass on teaching and holding the hands of 75 community builders, 100 community builders from around the world. We've done two cohorts already with 75 amazing community builders in each cohort. So we have a couple hundred, now 150 community builders in our community of community builders.
It's been this beautiful experience of just taking all that I've learned and actually crystallizing it into teachable, supportive strategies, tools, tips, tricks, blueprints, specific, just a blueprint for anybody who could start from zero or continue growing their existing communities and really make it more intentional, more sticky, more vibrant, more financially interesting, more abundant in all the ways.
It can be a very lonely experience, community building. So to build a community of community builders, now we have 150 community leaders who can support each other. So let's say one person is launching a thing, 149 of them can send for them. So it becomes everyone supporting each other, so you're not alone in this journey.
So you can go to belonginstitute.com and I offer two tracks. I have a eight week online Zoom live masterclass with me and where you're gonna be building from the ground up your community business plan blueprint. And then you're gonna do a sort of a presentation at the end for all the other students where you actually present your community business plan to everyone at the end and we help you launch it. So whether it's a first business or you're like trying to revitalize an existing large-scale community.
Then we have a four day, I host a four day intensive at my farm, my personal farm in Rhinebeck, upstate New York for a four day intensive. And I teach to 35, 40 community leaders is my cap in person upstate. So I get to have some real hands-on quality time with them and we become a family by the end of those four days.
So there you have it. That's how Radha and team apply the D.O.S.E method to Daybreaker events and how you can too. I hope that helps.
