Photo: FIFA World Cup 2026 | SoFi Stadium | Los Angeles, California | Team USA vs Paraguay | ©Keli Lee

I used to think I needed to find my tribe.

One tribe. The tribe. The place where all of it came together.

I spent most of my life looking for it. Moving almost every year growing up, and living in five countries across three continents, will do that to you. And when I finally landed in LA at 23, it took me five years to feel like I had found my people. Even then, the tribe kept changing.

What I discovered, after all of that, is that I was looking for the wrong thing.

I don’t have one tribe. I have many. My New York friends. My LA friends. My London friends. My Spain friends. My Italy friends. My France friends. My Korea friends. The Henry Crown Fellowship. The Hoffman Institute. The Aspen Institute. My new Tech.Emotion summit friends. Friends scattered across every time zone, every chapter of my life.

And that is more than okay. That is everything.

The most important thing I’ve learned in my career is that the work matters deeply, but what endures is the people. The ones who build it with you, challenge you, and remain long after the titles and projects are gone.

Some members of my LA tribe I met through work, through years at Disney and the entertainment world, and those friendships have lasted decades beyond the roles that brought us together. Others I met with no connection to work at all, even though we might have been in the same industry, and with those people we never talk about work. And there are people from entirely different sectors whom I met during my years in LA and through my travels around the world. All kinds of relationships. Essential and real.

I used to try to bring them all together, merge the worlds, make one big table. What I’ve learned is that each tribe has its own culture, its own rhythm, its own magic. Some people cross over, and when they do, it’s a gift. But mostly, I’ve stopped trying to force it.

Now I divide my time among several cities, and I’m in LA far less than I ever expected to be. But here’s what I’ve noticed. Whichever city I’m calling home, that’s where I seem to see my friends least. When you live in the same city as someone, it’s easy to reschedule. Life gets in the way. Traffic, the other side of town, there’s always a reason and there’s always next week. But when you’re somewhere for three days, everyone makes it count.

Maybe that’s why my tribes feel most alive when I’m passing through.

Which brings me to last week. And a hair appointment.

I was going to LA for two days. In and out. I had been in 7 countries and 16 cities in the previous three and a half weeks, and home was calling. Ray, my incredible colorist who has known my hair for years, was going to squeeze me in at 5:15 PM on Friday before he left for Europe. A very specific window, held open just for me. I was grateful, and I was ready to go home the following morning. Four weeks of travel. It was time.

Then a good friend messaged me. Team USA versus Paraguay. Team USA’s opening match of the World Cup at SoFi Stadium, which I had never been to. She is the kind of friend who invites you into extraordinary moments in the world, and I always say yes.

And then I remembered the hair appointment.

I asked Ray if there was another time. There wasn’t. So I made what I fully acknowledge is a very vain game-time decision. World Cup over color. I knew I’d have to go back to New York and try to secure an appointment with Corinne, my phenomenal and also perpetually booked colorist there. Between Ray in LA, Corinne in New York, Guy Riggio in LA who has cut my hair for decades, someone wonderful in Milan, someone great in Paris, a few fabulous ones in London: I have a running list. When I find good, talented people, I hold on to them.

I have always been this way. Wherever I go, I remember and save names of exceptional people and their contacts, save room numbers and table numbers at my favorite hotels and restaurants. The names of the front desk staff, the maître d’, the managers, the valet. People who made a moment feel like something special. I think it matters to remember great service and to recognize the people behind it. And I know the feeling on the other side, walking back into a place and having someone remember your name. There is nothing quite like it. It is one of the reasons I travel the way I do, and one of the reasons I started Kurioscity.

But this last-minute trip to LA had its own ideas about how long I was staying.

I had told no one I was coming except Ray and Leslie, my close and longtime friend I was staying with. On the flight out Wednesday, a message came in from my friend Jieho, whom I hadn’t seen in years. He was hosting a Henry Crown Fellowship reception for the incoming class of 2026. And of course I went.

Photo: Henry Crown Fellows | Los Angeles, California

At that reception I saw many people I admire and respect, and met new ones. The incoming Henry Crown Fellows were everything you’d hope they’d be. I was also able to invite a friend, who reminded me that she had an art opening on Saturday. And someone else I had been trying to see was only free Saturday morning. And then Christy, one of my closest friends, was kind enough to invite me to one of Shakira’s weekend concerts. Every single encounter was pointing in the same direction. I changed my flight to stay until Sunday, and then to Monday.

What followed was five days I will not forget.

The Dataland Preview Opening. Thao Nguyen invited me. She is someone who operates equally across the creative, the artistic, and the business worlds, and does all three with brilliance. Co-Founder and CEO of Constellation Immersive and Art & Design Thinking Agent at CAA, she represents some of the world’s leading cultural innovators, and I feel genuinely proud to call her a friend. I went with Carl, the very first friend I made in LA who would later become my housemate for six years.

What Refik Anadol, Efsun Erkılıç, and their team have built at Dataland, the world’s first Museum of AI Arts, stopped me in my tracks. It sits across the street from Frank Gehry’s beautiful Walt Disney Concert Hall, but stepping inside felt like entering another world. I did not want to leave.

Photo 1: Carl Rumbaugh, Keli Lee, Thao Nguyen | Preview Opening of Dataland | Downtown Los Angeles, California | © Keli Lee

Photo 2: Refik Anadol, Efsun Erkılıç | Preview Opening of Dataland | Downtown Los Angeles, California| © Keli Lee

Photos 3 - 5: Preview Opening of Dataland | Downtown Los Angeles, California | © Keli Lee

I almost forgot that Game 5 of the NBA Finals was on. When I stepped outside, someone shouted that the Knicks had won the championship. Their first in 53 years. I grew up in New York. Standing in the queue outside the Conrad Hotel in downtown LA, waiting for my Uber, I felt pure joy.

And I thought of my good friend Gary Winick, who first brought me to the Knicks and introduced me to what it meant to love that team. Gary passed away in 2011. I know he would have been ecstatic.

Photo 1: TIME cover | July 6, 2026 edition | “Champions: What This Knicks Team Means to New York” | Written by Sean Gregory

Photo 2: Gary Winick | March 31, 1961 - February 27, 2011

It was that kind of week. The World Cup has felt personal at every turn. It began at SoFi Stadium, with Team USA winning its opening match against Paraguay, 4–1.

And then Scotland, back at a World Cup for the first time in nearly 30 years, won its opening match against Haiti. My close friend and HCF classmate Niall is from Scotland, and I felt every moment of that.

Brazil drew with Morocco, and I watched thinking of my Hoffman Process friend from Brazil, who was at the match, one week after her 40th birthday. My HCF classmate and dear friend Dolf is from the Netherlands, and I thought of him as they drew with Japan.

Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) made history in its World Cup debut, holding the reigning European champions, Spain, to a 0–0 draw. I lived in Spain, I have so many Spanish friends, and I love Spain deeply. But it is hard for me not to root for the underdog. This one was personal too. A special Portuguese friend first told me about the beauty of Cape Verde, and we talked about taking a trip there together.

Cape Verde’s 40-year-old goalkeeper, Vozinha, born Josimar Dias, made seven saves, became an instant legend, and went from roughly 45,000 Instagram followers before the match to 3.9 million by the time I followed him, and 10.3 million just hours later. All of this in less than 24 hours. And still counting.

Photo: @Vozinha1 on Instagram, Josimar Dias | Cape Verde

I am also rooting for Portugal for the same friend. Though I cannot claim the underdog excuse there. Not with Ronaldo.

I am watching France closely too because of my dear friends Mathieu and Mélina, a French couple I first met at Ricard and Marta’s wedding in Barcelona. They are fervent France World Cup fans. At least Mathieu is. He is flying in for the tournament.

Mathieu and I actually ran into each other in Doha at the World Cup Final, France versus Argentina, in 2022. I was rooting for France for him. And then Messi happened. I could not root against him. Some players transcend the team you came to support. France won its opener against Senegal 3-1, with Mbappé scoring twice. I was thrilled for Mathieu.

I lived in London for four years, so England also has my heart. And my new friend Nezahat, who brought me to speak at the Tech.Emotion Summit in Milan just weeks ago, is Turkish. Türkiye has my full attention too.

And then there is this Thursday, June 18, 2026. Mexico versus Korea. My heart is split in the best possible way. Rooting for Korea, my country, and rooting for Mexico, my friends’ country. Both at once. That is also what it means to have multiple tribes.

The World Cup had me watching every match with someone in mind. And that Sunday night in LA, Christy made sure I had one more reason to stay until Monday.

Shakira.

Christy is one of the most generous people I know, and a leader who has spent her career working with some of the most incredible artists in the world. She was kind enough to invite me, along with my friends Ricard and Marta, to see Shakira, and we were part of the Camina con la Loba experience, which opened the concert. Christy also had a surprise for me: two people I hadn’t seen in a while from an earlier world of mine. What a wonderful reunion.

What moved me most was watching Ricard and Marta that night. They are both originally from Barcelona. I met them in London when we were all living there, and we have stayed close through every move since, theirs to LA, mine across the world. They played Shakira’s songs at their wedding in Barcelona, which I was lucky enough to be at. They are, in the truest sense, superfans. To be able to bring them into that experience, because of Christy’s generosity, felt like one of those gifts you don’t take lightly. Christy didn’t just give me a night. She gave my friends a memory they will never forget. That is who she is.

Photo 1: Shakira Concert | Intuit Dome | Inglewood, California | © Keli Lee

Photos 2 - 3: Keli Lee, Marta Moix, Ricard Blanch | Shakira Concert | Intuit Dome | Inglewood, California | © Keli Lee

Photo 4: Keli Lee, Luis Balaguer | Shakira Concert | Intuit Dome | Inglewood, California | © Keli Lee

Photo 5: Keli Lee, Sofia Vergara | Shakira Concert | Intuit Dome | Inglewood, California | © Keli Lee

Between the Henry Crown Fellowship reception, the World Cup match, Dataland, the Shakira concert, and everything in between, I lost count of how many people I ran into and was able to catch up with. All unplanned. All last minute. I wasn’t even supposed to be there that long. The trip kept giving, and so did the people in it.

I have been thinking lately about gratitude and appreciation. I have been feeling it more acutely since going through the Hoffman Process at the end of March. But what I know is this. The last five days were a burst of pure happiness. The kind you don’t engineer. The kind that arrives when you stay open to what the moment is offering.

I am so grateful for the friends who made those calls and sent those messages. I am grateful for every yes I said. And I am grateful that the trip kept telling me to stay, and that I listened.

LA, always. And more importantly, my tribes. All of them. Everywhere.

Photo: Lake Como, Italy | ©Keli Lee

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