Hi there, friends. Welcome back. I am so glad you're here. Well, something happened over coffee last week that inspired this whole episode. One of my closest friends has been going through a really hard time, one of the hardest chapters of her life.And we were having coffee, and after talking for a little while, she said to me, "I don't know how I would get through this year without you." And it honestly made me a little emotional because I remember a decade ago feeling like I did not have anybody I could say that to. And I know I'm not the only woman out there who feels like this, which is exactly why I wanted to talk about this today with you. So, let me tell you a little bit about how I got to where I am because I think a lot of you may be going through something or in the middle of figuring all this out. I used to be the girl who had a lot of friends. And I say that carefully because that does not mean I was wildly popular.
That really honestly speak far from the truth. It means I was pulled in a hundred different directions. I had a couple of friends, I had work friends, acquaintance friends, and then women I saw at every event, and then women I texted with every day. And from the outside, I think it probably looked like I had this huge, rich social life. And then I got divorced.
And I found out really fast that a lot of what I had been calling friendship was actually just shared logistics. Shared calendars, couples dinners, events in the city, circumstances. But when those circumstances changed, so did a lot of those so-called friendships. Some of them stayed with him, and that part sucked. Some of them just quietly faded because they were uncomfortable that I was single.
And I remember standing there thinking like, "Wow, my life is so full, and I feel really alone right now." That was probably one of the loneliest chapters of my life, and I remember it. It It's It was awful. And I know some of you've been there, too. Maybe it's from a divorce. Maybe you've moved to a new city.
Maybe you've just been burned by one too many people. Maybe your children have grown up, and you're not hanging out with the same people like you used to. Or maybe you just decided it was safer to keep everybody at arm's length. And now you're looking up, and you're like, "I don't know where to start. It's exactly why I want to tell you about a study that completely changed everything in terms of how I look at friendship.
There is an ongoing study at Harvard called the Study of Adult Development. It's been running since 1938. It makes it one of the longest studies of adult happiness ever. Almost 90 years of data and this thing is still going on. The current director is a psychiatrist named Dr.
Robert Waldinger and he spent his whole career trying to figure out what actually makes people happy and healthy over a lifetime. You know what they found out? The single biggest predictor of your long-term health and your happiness and even how long you're going to live is not your money. It's not your career, it's not your genetics, it's the quality of your close relationships. And I really when I read this I had to really think about that for a minute because your friendships aren't just nice to have, which I think for a long time that's how I was going around the world.
They are literally keeping you alive. You know that saying I would rather have four quarters than 100 pennies? It's a little corny, but it's true. And it's exactly where I have landed in this chapter of my life. I have a small handful of women who really know me and every one of them is worth more than any big group of friends I've ever had.
Like those are my girls. They're on my text chains with me. I know what we're doing every single day. I can call them anytime of day. But I want to tell you how I got here because that didn't happen by accident.
This is a reframe and I'm hoping I can give you because it really did change everything for me. If you're looking around saying, "Oh my gosh, it's so hard to have friends right now and make friends right now." I I understand. The friends who are going to walk with you though into your next chapter may not be the ones that you've been chasing. Some of them are already in your life just waiting for you to make a little more time for them. Some of them you haven't met yet.
Either way, you have to be the one to open the door. So, let's talk about how to do it. I don't want to just sit here and tell you, "Oh, hey, friendship matters. Make sure here's a couple of tools." I want to leave you with real tools that I have used that you can use, no matter what age you are or where you're starting from. So, before we jump in, one quick favor for me.
If you could leave a review, it would mean so much. I would really, really appreciate it. Wherever you listen to your podcast, just leave that review for us. Tool number one is what I like to call the friendship audit. We just talked about cleaning out your closet a few episodes ago cuz you know I've been doing that over and over and over again.
And now I want you to do the same thing with the people in your life, which it's going to sound like, "Oh, Tamsen, you're being harsh." I'm not being harsh. I'm not saying just be mean to people. I'm saying who you surround yourself with is one of the most important decisions you're making every single day, whether you realize it or not. There's a lot of research on this, a ton of it. We've talked about it a little bit on this show.
Social scientists have studied it for decades and the consensus is pretty wild. The people closest to you, they shape your habits, your mindset, your health, and your outlook on life more than almost anything else. There's a well-known idea in psychology that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And while it's not perfect science, the underlying truth of it holds up. Your inner circle is quietly setting the emotional temperature of your entire life.
So, think about who those five people are. Really think about it. Have you ever had that friend who's like negative about everything? And no matter what you bring up, she like shoots it down. She's going to find a way to complain about it or turn it into something else.
You might be immune to it right now, but it chips away at your mindset very quickly. And you leave a conversation or a dinner or a lunch feeling heavier and you don't know why. Or you got the friend that's always bailing on the plans. Like you know she's not showing up. She doesn't show up when you need her.
She's not there for the important moments. And every time it happens, something inside of you just feels so disappointed. You start expecting less. You stop reaching out to that person first. And then you actually stop trusting that anyone's going to show up for you at all.
And then you have the friend who competes with you instead of celebrating you, and we've talked about her before. The one that makes you feel kind of small when you share good news or only calls when she needs something or sharing good news. Look at the last five women who took up your energy this month, and be honest with yourself about how you feel after you spend time with each one of them. And I hope you feel great. I hope you feel lighter, not heavier.
I hope you feel seen and not drained. But if you feel like a smaller version of yourself, you really need to look around. This isn't about cutting people off and not responding to text messages or saying something nasty. That's not what I'm talking about. It's about noticing where your energy actually goes so you can start pointing it toward the friendships that are feeding you instead of draining you, cuz it could make all the difference in the world.
Your time and attention are finite, and every hour you spend on a friendship that is not feeding you is an hour you cannot spend on a one that could. Tool number two, is to become the friend that you want to have. This is not a one-way street. There's been this whole conversation happening online about how everybody wants a village, but nobody wants to be a villager. So, let me explain.
I keep coming back to it because it's so true. We all want a community. We talk about it. We want the group that shows up. We want the friends who drop everything, the people who remember our birthdays without a Facebook reminder.
But when it's our turn to be that person, something in us kind of hesitates or makes an excuse. We're tired. We're busy. We don't have time for it right now. And then we put it off, and then it just feels too late to reach out.
There's something my mom told me when I was young. And it still resonates today. It still applies. She said, "If somebody invites you to the birthday party, you better go because imagine nobody coming to yours." I think about that all the time. That is one line that has shown up in so many decisions I made about friendship.
It's a big part of why I try to show up whenever I can the way that I do. Cuz the truth is, community is inconvenient. And it's supposed to be. Real friendship costs you something. It costs you the Saturday morning you wanted to spend alone.
It cost you the phone call that you weren't in the mood to make, or the drive across town to a birthday party when you're so exhausted after a long week of work. And it's exactly what makes it real. So many of us are quietly waiting to be invited into a village that already exists, when the truth is that gets built by the women who show up for other women first. So, don't ask where Where is everybody in my life? I want you to ask yourself a hard question.
Am I actually being the kind of friend that I want to have? You cannot expect deep friendship if you're not willing to offer it first. It means remembering birthdays, following up when your friend mentioned something hard's going on that week, sending flowers when she gets a promotion, and I don't know, sending a juice when she's not feeling well. Showing up to a thing even when it's not convenient, because a lot of times it's not going to be convenient. You need to also be that safe place for somebody else, so somebody can be that for you.
If you're constantly being that friend though for somebody, and then she's not being that back to you, and you think if you try my harder, she will? That's not a friendship. That is a one-sided emotional job. And if you find yourself lonely, the fastest way out is almost always to stop waiting and start finding other people that you can count on. Cuz at the end of the day, the friends that you want in your next chapter are the ones that are showing up for small moments when nobody else is doing that.
Tool number three is saying yes to the thing that scares you just a little bit. You know, the class you keep thinking about signing up for, or the vocal lessons that I want to take that I haven't signed up for, or the coffee invite from the woman at work that you've been meaning to say yes to for 6 months. I want you to start small. Friendship rarely happens in your comfort zone, and adult friendship almost never happens by accident. I'm telling you that now.
I'm 55 and I know it. You have to put yourself out in those rooms where it happens. You have to go somewhere. You have to start conversation. And the older that we get, the harder it is, and you kind of feel exposed doing it.
It's why so many people stop trying, so many women. And it's exactly why so many women end up feeling isolated in their own lives, and I don't want that for you. I want to remind you of this. Every single close friendship that you have right now started with that first awkward hangout. Somebody made the first move, or said yes, or showed up, or you sat to that weird first coffee together, and then it became a real thing.
Like my best friend, we met at a singles event where both of us didn't really want to be there, but we met each other, and it was great. None of it happens because of people waiting to feel comfortable. And honestly, this is literally the same advice that I give to women who want to get back out there and start dating again. You've got to just do it. You want to make new friends?
You're going to have to be vulnerable. You're going to have to be a little awkward, but it's going to be worth it. And I challenge you to do this. Say yes to one thing this month that you would normally talk yourself out of and say no to. Because that can make all the difference in the world.
So maybe it's like the Pilates class that you keep seeing on Instagram, even though you don't know anybody that's going to be there, or maybe it's saying yes when your neighbor invites you to go walk around on a Saturday morning. Your best friend is not going to come knocking on your door. She's in a room you have not walked into yet, and the only way to find her is to keep walking into those rooms. Tool number four is actually to put it on your calendar. I know this sounds simple, but it's huge.
And you know who inspired this tool for me? It's my husband Ira. Almost every week Ira is literally putting times on his calendar to call friends, grab a quick coffee, or meet up for a walk or to get together. And when we first started dating, I was like, "That's weird. You book your friends like on a to-do list for a work meeting?" It just felt too formal.
Like, I don't know, it just felt weird. And then I sort of paid attention and noticed something. Ira has the same close friends. He's had them for decades. And it's not cuz he got lucky, it's not because they all live down the street, it's because he actually sets time.
He treats those relationships with the same intention that he treats everything else that matters to him. I I love it now. I love that about him. It completely changed the way I think about friendship and showing up. Because here's the truth.
If you don't put it in your calendar, it's not happening. You're going to wake up on a Tuesday and think, "Oh, I really need to call Sarah." And then the day gets away from you, and then the week is going, and then it's Friday, and then it's another week, and then it's 3 months. Not because you don't love Sarah, but because life gets busy for all of us. And if things don't get scheduled, they get lost. So, book the time.
I don't care if it's 15 minutes for a phone call, or maybe you vow to do one dinner a month with the same friend, or you go the same weekend every month on a hot girl menopause walk. I don't know. Whatever it is, have a standing thing or a plan. Put it in a calendar the way you would a work meeting or doctor's appointment, because these friendships are just as important to your life as either of those things. I said earlier, nurturing friendship is not something you just get around to doing.
It's something you have to protect and make time for. It's actually going to be how you go from having friends that you used to be close to to having friends who are actually in your life. So, here's what I want to challenge you to do this week. Pick one of the tools that I just went through. Just one.
Don't do all of them because it's too much. I'm not giving you another to-do list to do. Do one of them. Start with your friendship audit and get really honest about who's been feeding you or draining you, or take the villager approach and send a birthday text, the thinking of you note, the flowers, whatever it is. Just start with one thing because I want you to think back to the beginning of this episode, to that Harvard study I mentioned.
Your friendship is not just about being nice to have. Friendships are the single biggest predictor of how healthy you are and how long you're actually going to live. And whatever your next chapter looks like, you're not going to want to walk into that thing alone. Women you surround yourself with in these years are going to shape everything about you. Mine do.
Mine shape my health, my outlook, how resilient I am, how brave I was when I walked away from my job. Those women helped me do that. So, the community you build now is not luxury. It's a foundation for the rest of your life, and you get to build it at any age. I'm here for you.
I always am. And together we're going to make this next chapter our most confident ones yet. I love you all. I love hearing from you all week long, and I'll talk in the next episode.
