Welcome back to OnPurpose. Today we're talking about something that affects every single one of us. Friendship.
As kids, making friends seemed effortless. But why does it feel so hard to make and maintain friendships as adults? I get it.
Life gets busy. We move. We change.
And suddenly finding people who truly get us feels like an almost impossible challenge. But the truth is, no matter how busy or how independent we are, we all need connection. We need people who challenge us, support us, and remind us The rules of friendship completely change when your 20's hit.
And I'm going to explain the rules when you're little and then we're going to talk about the rules of adult friendship. So when you're little, your entire life is organized around friendship and making it possible because you're with people your age all the time in class, in sports. So true.
You move in groups because you're on teams and you're in neighborhoods and you're always together. You also celebrate the same discovery, comfort, humor, love, whatever it may be. Just write down a list and then for each one write down the name of a different person ideally that fulfills that need in your life.
Because often I feel like we put a lot of pressure on our romantic partners or one person in our life to be all these things. And the truth is no matter how phenomenal anyone want to be in a position where we're only giving. We want to be able to grow.
So it's almost like we all we have two sets of groups in our life at any real given time. Would you agree with that or Well, I would just say trust trust your joy. I think joy is a great GPS.
And so, yeah, I'm not in any way suggesting be around people only who fuel you and who help you become you at your best. A great friend is someone who you can laugh with. Great friend is someone who you're going through your most difficult times and they'll listen to you for hours.
A great friend is um yeah, someone who who accepts you, someone who helps you be seen. A great friend is someone who when you're with them, you feel joyful versus depleted. So I think it's really important, you know, in this world where we are maximalists.
We want we want to be all things to all people. We want to have so of the things you talk about is do not be a doormat. And I find that that becomes that peopleleasing mentality, that ability to I can mold and I can be whatever you want me to be and I can be lots of things and we feel validated that way but in the end we're just becoming a doormat.
Everyone crosses over a doormat and a doormat welcomes everyone in the same way. So when I read that I was like how do we be kind but not be a doormat? How do we be serviceoriented but not be a doormat?
all organic new things which um I'm a sucker for. I'm terrible at making friends partially because I I don't trust people easily. I exist in a world where I can be friendly with many people but you know it takes me a while to accept that this person is actually a part of my life right and I think for a long time it was because and still is sometimes because a I have an idea of putting something on that person where I may need them means that they may disappoint me Yeah, my energy drainers are saying yes to too many things.
So saying no to me is what gives me energy. And I know that saying no might seem difficult at first, especially when you have opportunities that come to you and you want to say yes to everything. But saying yes to things I absolutely want to do has been so helpful.
I am in a place now where I can say no because I feel like I worked hard in my 20s to get to where I am today that I have the ability to say no to things. But those nos also are important because it's gotten me to the jobs I want to do, the brands I want to work with. I think if you say yes to too many things, you might dilute yourself doing I have a core like five people who have been with me for like over a decade.
So these are like that's impressive. These are constants in my life like Audrey we met in 2006 so that's like 16 years ago. So we've been friends for a very long time.
So it's like I have this core group of people who are very core to who I am. They know me in my personal life. this is who I want to spend my time with.
Like it's not about content or online or anything. It's just like who do I want to sit on my couch with like scroll on my phone or watch TV or just hang out with and those people are really important to me. I have a lot of we're accountable to somebody and every one of us our weight has gone down a little bit over the last decade or so.
And for the average American male in 10 years, you can expect to gain an extra 10 years. So even among my little focus group, we've been it's worked really quite well. Competition and collaboration together are really fascinating.
Really? Yeah. Yeah.
Powerful. Yeah. It's why pickle ball works for me.
It's it's also why I think I have so many people I know do 10,000 step challenges within were teaching it from this perspective as well that the method you spoke about was being eight out of 10 full when you're eating and when we were trained about that when we'd hear about it from a from an eastern or vadic perspective the idea of how breath is part of feeling full and so food is not the only thing that your stomach is full on was how I was introduced to that idea of being 7/10 full or 8/10 full and the rest would be covered by breath. Of course, there's water as well. Walk us through that idea of how we can all stop eating at 8/10 full because I think most of us wait till 10 10 or 12.
And that's how it started. It started in a place of being around people you love with. What was the biggest point of challenge in building something with people you love as you grow it?
And what is it that you experienced? And what was the biggest lesson that you took away that actually kept it going? Because I can imagine as you're describing highs and lows, all of this change for 16 years, but here you are still building it together.
this journey, I've been reflecting on what's changed over time as my external situations changed and what makes me feel protected. And you use that word protection. And I've realized that of course we have to have our internal protection of how we feel about ourselves, our confidence, our own practices.
But I found that the thing that makes me feel the most protected is knowing the people around me who really know me and how much closer we get through that process.
