From the Green Velvet Couch | A Conversation with Sara Horak
What if building connection and fighting isolation could actually begin with something as simple as a deck of cards and a pizza around a kitchen table? What if one mom’s decision to solve a small problem for her own kids ended up helping students, teachers, and entire companies rediscover what it means to be seen by the people around them?
On her podcast, From the Green Velvet Couch, Shelly sat down with Sara Horak, the creator of the Know Your Neighbor Game. The two met at a conference in Chicago where Sara’s booth drew Shelly in immediately, and it is easy to see why. Sara’s energy, vision, and story are exactly the kind that remind you good ideas can come from the most ordinary moments of parenting and grow into something that changes lives.
Here are the moments worth holding onto.
A Kitchen Table, a House Full of Kids, and a Simple Rule
Sara and her husband are high school sweethearts who met on the first day of ninth grade. About 15 years ago, with four kids under four and a husband who traveled constantly, Sara was looking for ways to help her children build friendships. One of her daughters is neurodivergent and has struggled with anxiety, depression, diabetes, and the ongoing challenge of making friends. Sara wanted to create something that would make connection easier for her.
Her solution was a weekly Friday pizza night with one simple rule. Her kids could bring a friend over, but it had to be a different friend each week. She did not want cliques. She wanted her kids to know everybody in their classroom. What she did not anticipate was the chaos of eight kids running around her kitchen at once, which she described as herding cats.
To bring some order to the whirlwind, she started sitting the kids down at her kitchen table and asking them to guess the answers their neighbors would give to playful questions. Bears fan or Packers fan? Hot dog or hamburger? Ketchup or mustard? If you guessed right, you stayed in the game. If you guessed wrong, you were out. What she noticed was something far more important than who won. Kids kept finding small moments of connection with each other, tiny shared interests that were enough to send them off to the basement or the backyard to play together as new friends.
The Moment That Turned a Family Tradition Into a Mission
Sara’s kids kept telling her for years that she needed to turn her Friday night game into an actual game other families could buy. She focused on raising her children instead, until one of them left for college and COVID hit.
During that season, Sara was hearing alarming reports from universities about students struggling badly with their mental health. She began researching the issue and discovered that suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 34. That statistic stopped her cold. She wondered what one person could possibly do to make a difference, and then she remembered the Starfish poem she loved.
For anyone who has not heard it, the poem tells the story of a young girl walking along a beach covered with stranded starfish after the tide goes out. She is throwing them back into the ocean one at a time when an older man stops her and points out that there are miles of beach. He tells her she cannot possibly make a difference. She calmly picks up another starfish, tosses it into the water, and says, “I made a difference to that one.”
That was the moment Sara decided to take the leap. If her game could help one starfish a year, it would be worth it.
Validating the Idea With Focus Groups
Before producing the game, Sara and her team ran nearly 30 focus groups. One of the most meaningful was at her alma mater, the University of Illinois, where she brought the game to a group of resident advisors along with her signature touch of pizza to recreate her kitchen table atmosphere.
After the session, two students waited to talk with her. One was bubbly and told her she had played the game with another RA and they were already planning to get coffee together. The other looked sad. He told Sara he had been at the school for three years, had struggled with his own mental health, and that the previous week had been especially hard. Then he said something she will never forget. He told her this was the most fun he had experienced in three years, and asked if he could give her a hug.
Sara packed up her pizzas and her questionnaires, got in the car, called her husband, and burst into tears. She had found her first starfish.
This is exactly the kind of intentional, whole-person work that Shelly builds into her wellness consulting practice for organizations and leadership teams, where the goal is always to create environments where people feel seen rather than just productive.
Why the Game Works
Shelly pulled out a few cards from the prototype Sara had sent her and read them aloud. Hot dog or hamburger. Would you rather be too hot or too cold. Would you rather shop online or in a store. The questions are deliberately light, playful, and easy to answer, which is exactly what makes them powerful.
Sara explained that the game was not just designed by her. Every card was reviewed by a licensed clinical professional counselor to make sure it was safe from a social and emotional health perspective. The game includes action cards for kids with ADHD who need to move. There are detour cards, trade cards, ouch cards, and wipeout cards that keep the play dynamic. There are also validating and good listener cards drawn from principles Sara picked up during her years of being in therapy with her daughter.
The good listener card is one of her favorites. If you draw it, you get to repeat another player’s question and answer back to them. That small act of being heard, especially for introverted or quiet kids, can land in ways that change the rest of their day. Sara shared a story about a star football player who used his good listener card to repeat back the words of a quieter boy at a retreat. As the group was leaving the room, the quieter boy approached Sara and said he had not even known the football player knew his name.
That kind of small, unexpected moment of being noticed is what the game exists to create. As Sara put it, if the game can change the trajectory of someone’s day, it has done its job.
A Tool for Teachers, Students, and Workplaces
The Know Your Neighbor Game has been used in settings Sara never imagined when she started. She has taken it to Kairos retreats, high school professional development days, elementary schools, and even a global investment banking meeting where she walked into a room full of suited professionals who were not smiling. Within five minutes of playing the game, people were laughing, stealing cards from each other, and lining up to talk with her afterward.
One woman from the LA office of that firm pulled Sara aside with tears in her eyes. She said she had Asperger’s, had struggled to make friends at work for seven years, and had just been invited to lunch by several colleagues for the first time since joining the firm. That is the kind of quiet breakthrough that happens when people are given a low-stakes way to connect.
Sara’s favorite audience of all is teachers. Eighth grade teachers often do not know kindergarten teachers because they work in different buildings. The game bridges those gaps and helps entire school communities feel more connected. One of her teacher friends told her something that landed as the highest compliment of the month. She had spent 20 years teaching math and reading, but she had never been able to teach a child how to be friends with someone. Sara’s game, she said, teaches kids how to be friends.
This is exactly the kind of social and emotional skill building that matters just as much in the workplace as it does in a classroom. It ties directly into the work Shelly does through her performance mentoring with leaders and high performers, where communication and connection skills often separate good leaders from great ones.
A Team Effort Worth Naming
Sara was quick to give credit to the women who have made the game what it is today. Tricia handles all the beautiful artwork. Laura leads the strategy and digital marketing. Kate manages the finances. Molly helps with social media. Sara described the group as a collaboration that mirrors the spirit of the game itself. Connection, partnership, and people working together toward something that matters.
Sara’s Daily Wellness Practice
When Shelly asked Sara how she takes care of herself through the demands of parenting, entrepreneurship, marriage, and community life, her answer was refreshingly grounded. She walks every day. She is easing back into yoga after a couple of surgeries. She meditates for about ten minutes daily, which she says centers her.
Her favorite practice, and the one that feeds her most, is doing one kind thing for someone else every single day. A note. A phone call. A drop-off of flowers. She believes that pouring a little love back into the planet is part of her own wellness, because giving to others reinforces the kind of life she wants to live.
Shelly agreed, adding that wellness at its core is simply the practice of daily habits that keep a person healthy. It is not dramatic. It is not complicated. It is the small, repeatable things that compound over time and become the foundation of everything else. This truth is at the heart of Shelly’s wellness specialist practice for founders, executives, and high-profile clients, where sustainable daily rhythms matter far more than dramatic overhauls.
🎧 Join the Conversation
If this post sparked something in you, the full episode is waiting with even more warmth and thoughtful insight.
✨ Listen to the full conversation on the From the Green Velvet Couch podcast. Visit the Podcast page to discover more episodes focused on resilience, leadership wellbeing, and holistic wellness.
Let this be your invitation to slow down, breathe deeply, and step into a well-grounded life full of growth and intention.
