She is also (now) a dear colleague and friend; she’s had me on her show more times than either of us can count, and she’s exactly the kind of person I love doing this work with: warm enough to make it fun, skeptical enough to keep me sharp. (Her husband, John, heard the thesis of this whole series — that your social health might matter more than your physical health — and said, flatly, “There’s no way.” John, my guy: Read the data, bro. Then let’s chat. (ILY)

So we finally did the thing we’d been scheming about for months: we’re spending the next month making the case for social health. Or —with my new book on the horizon (Relationally Rich, Penguin 2028) — I’ve been calling relational wealth: the depth, quality, and quantity of your relationships.

Listen, I’ve keynoted about social health in front of a thousand construction workers, two thousand systems engineers, and tens of thousands of financial wealth professionals. I know how it sounds to the analytical type, especially. Soft. Fluffy. Relationships are everything! Better together! It takes a village! The platitudes are endless. But let me tell you what this series actually is: a data-driven appeal to design a life that indexes on the importance of relationships. Fluff aside, I want you to live like the science is real. Because it is!

⏱ 7:20 — The single greatest predictor of a long, happy life is not what you might think

There’s a study out of Harvard — the Study of Adult Development — that has been running for more than 80 years. It started with about 700 people and has since grown to include tens of thousands across two dozen countries. They tracked everything a person could conceivably track: diet, exercise, smoking, drinking, income, career, education, and the part of the country you lived in. And when they went looking for the one factor that best predicts how long you’ll live and how happy and healthy you’ll be at the end of it, the winner wasn’t cholesterol or a fatty retirement account. It was the quality of your relationships. Full stop. Not “might be.” Is.

This is the whole ballgame for me. Once you actually believe it, friendship stops being the nice-to-have you’ll get to when everything else is handled and becomes a first-order health metric — something you’d monitor like your blood pressure or your savings account. I don’t track my relational wealth because I’m sentimental. I track it because I’m a data-driven lady, k?

⏱ 9:20 — Loneliness is smoking 15 cigarettes a day

Chronic disconnection is roughly as bad for your body as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The definition of loneliness isn’t extreme. It’s simply feeling like there is a gap between the relationships you currently have and the ones you need to thrive. If you had a friend who wanted to be healthy but was smoking 15 cigarettes a day — or, Paula’s example, putting away half a bottle of vodka every afternoon — you would stage an intervention. You’d show up at her door with a casserole and a pamphlet. And maybe even some backup. And yet chronic loneliness, which the research parks in the same neighborhood, gets a shrug and a “we should really get lunch sometime!” which we all know has a 90% chance of landing in the text graveyard of random, half-started plans.

This is exactly why I get prickly about the “soft and fluffy” label. I am not living a soft life. I am living an aggressively logical one. I think about my social health the way other people think about their 401(k) or their cardio: if I don’t fund it first, nothing else compounds.

⏱ 13:12 — The rocks, the pebbles, and the sand nobody plans for

You know the old parable — professor, glass jar, big rocks, pebbles, sand. Put the big rocks in first (the stuff that matters most) and everything else settles into the gaps. Lovely. I went hunting for the original to quote it correctly, and I found a guy walking through it on video who names the big rocks out loud: career, family, marriage, spirituality. And then — I am not kidding — he says friendship is the sand. “If you’re doing everything else right, you’ll always find time for coffee with a friend.”

Sir. You said the quiet part into the microphone. That is precisely how our culture files relationships: the sand that trickles into whatever cracks are left over. The cherry. The bonus. The nice-to-have when you have a little more time. And it is diagnosably backward. If the data says relationships are the thing keeping you alive, why on earth are we treating them like the thing we’ll get to if there’s time? There is never going to be time. You don’t find time for the big rocks — you place them first, on purpose, and let everything else lose the fight for the space that’s left.

⏱ 16:47 — America is the outlier, and I am a basic betch.

Roughly 70% of the world runs on a collectivist worldview: What’s best for the “we” is the default setting. (This is not a political take or a morality contest — collectivist and individualist cultures both have real gifts and genuinely dark shadow sides. I’m describing the water, not blanketing it with a blessing.) Only about 30% of the world has an individualist worldview — we ask “What is good for me?” first—and by every available measure, the United States is parked at the very far end of that spectrum. We are the most hyper-individualistic culture on planet Earth.

So when people watch how I prioritize community — especially in regard to how I’ve created and live in a “modern-day village” — they say, “Wow, Liz, that’s kind of radical.” I have to laugh because, zoom the camera out across human history, I am the most basic, unremarkable person. Basssssic. I’m doing what humans have done for thousands of years. You want radical? Radical is deciding that right as you are becoming a parent — entering into one of the more challenging, exhausting, and isolating seasons of your life — is also a great time to move far away from all your people to a random suburb where you know no one because you believe that a baby needs a large, aesthetic nursery more than that baby —and their parents —needs social support. Radical is then having every single person in your life nod along approvingly because you’re “being a good provider.” We decided that (and a million other variations of the things we prioritize far above social support and human connection over other comforts) it is the responsible, obvious choice, and that making sacrifices to live near the people you love is the eccentric one.

⏱ 21:31 — It is not a you problem. It is a design problem.

If you are lonely, I hope you hear this loud and clear, because I think it’s the most freeing part in the whole episode: your loneliness is not evidence that your personality is defective or that you failed to get lucky with the right friends. Your jar was designed a certain way, and you filled it — responsibly, reasonably — with the rocks and pebbles the culture handed you, not one of which was community. So when somebody breezes in and says “just prioritize friendship!”, you look down at a jar that is visibly, completely full and think, there is absolutely no way. That is not a character flaw. That is a system performing exactly as it was built to.

This means the real question isn’t “what’s wrong with me”; it’s “how willing am I to redesign the jar?” And here I’ll be blunt, because Paula and I got blunt with each other: a lot of us say “I can’t, I’m too busy,” when the honest sentence is “I won’t. I don’t value that enough to sacrifice in other areas. I won’t be inconvenienced. I won’t give up the thing I’d rather be doing. (You could absolutely level the same accusation against me when it comes to exercising!) But the payoff from a relationally rich life is proportional to how much you’re willing to bend, accommodate, and be mildly to majorly inconvenienced for it.

But also, we just need to lower the damn bar for a minute and get back to (beautiful reality). Take the Instagram fantasy —the girl gang on a boat off the coast of Greece, the candlelit dinner party where everyone’s linen coordinates — that’s a photoshoot, not friendship. Real relational wealth looks more like grocery shopping together while you both knock out your errands and sitting in a living room with a pile of dirty laundry, sharing the boring, heartbreaking, and beautiful details of your life.

⏱ 28:03 — You have exactly two options

If you’re struggling to build proximate friendship — the do-daily-life-with-you kind — there are only two moves on the board. Go where your people are, or turn the people already around you into your people. That’s the entire menu. Both require you to initiate (sorry), and both run on proximity, which is the quiet workhorse variable beneath this whole conversation, the one we most consistently pretend doesn’t matter. Paula told the story of her own family moving off a gorgeous lake they loved to land 20 minutes closer to their church, their kids’ schools, and their friends. They chalked it up to convenience. What they actually bought was community — almost by accident — because they were finally close enough for it to happen on a random Tuesday. You’ll drive across town for a scheduled dinner. You will not drive across town on the off chance someone’s out in the backyard. Proximity matters.

Before we wrapped

This is episode one of a month-long run. We asked what you’re actually wrestling with, and the messages poured in — overwhelmingly one theme: reciprocity. Why am I always the one reaching out? That’s where we’re headed next week, and I think it’s the single most important mindset shift in the series, so don’t miss it. I’ll also be hopping on with Paula for a couple of Substack Lives along the way, which will, per usual, go gloriously off the rails.

A few things to pocket from round one. You need about four or five close friends — not forty. This is quality, not quantity, and no one person, not even your favorite person, can carry all of it (load the whole thing onto one human and you’ll crush em). You don’t have to become some community-building triathlete; you have to do small things with dumb consistency. (And all this is the ground my next book, Relationally Rich, is built on: the radical, boring, thoroughly data-backed idea that we were designed to live this close and go into WAY more detail about HOW we do just that.)

The full episode is right here 👆🏼on Substack, and it’s worth your time — go have a listen, then drop the relational wealth question you actually want answered in the comments or reply directly to this email. We’re reading every single one.

Get Rich n’ Stay Rich,

Liz

There is now a brand new way to make a real, direct impact with us: The Noonday Collection Giving Club. 🎉

For eighteen years, there was basically one way to join us in our mission to support women in Uganda — by buying or sharing our fair-trade fashion. Those two paths we created took us on the adventure of a lifetime and helped us build a wildly rich community of some of the coolest women we know. And while you absolutely can still buy and share about our products, we built an entirely new door into our club: A direct giving club where (aside from standard processing fees) ALL of your giving goes straight to Uganda to fund scholarships from kindergarten through university.

But this isn’t an ask for a donation, this is an invitation into …

• 👯‍♀️ A community of like-minded women — girls’ girls who love the world and want to show up for other women across the globe with their resources, their encouragement, and their whole hearts.

• 🧭 Purpose that lasts — not a cause you care about for a month, but people you get to know and love.

• 🦒 The chance to travel with us — Giving Club members will have first access to our first-ever Noonday Collective trip to Uganda: Safari, scholars, jewelry-making, the whole embodied experience, alongside other amazing women.

• 💛 Community — Give $25 or give thousands; you are equally a part of this community.

This is not an ask, a burden, or a guilt trip. It’s an invitation into one of the most joyful, energizing parts of our life.

For years, Jess and I have both had women come up to us saying some version of, “I want what you have. I want that passion, purpose, and community.” This is us handing you the keys and inviting you to pull up your seat.

Of all the causes…why this one? 🇺🇬

I won’t argue that supporting scholars in Uganda is the most important cause in the world. But I’ll tell you it’s important to us. And can be to you, too.

Here is our story in a nutshell of why we care so deeply about Ugandan scholars. (We want YOU to be a part of the next chapter of OUR story!)

• ✈️ Jess met an artisan in Uganda and started a fair trade accessories brand. That’s where Noonday began.

• 🎒 Completely separately — no shared friends, no crossed paths — I bought a one-way ticket to Uganda to understand how extreme poverty and conflict were affecting women and girls. And I started a fair trade fashion company called Sseko.

• 🤝 We built our fashion brands side by side for years without knowing the other existed. Eventually, we found each other and decided to go together.

Same country. Same heart. Both of us will tell you we are who we are today because we were formed by that journey and by the Ugandan community that took us in. Some of our closest friends on earth came from it.

That’s why this isn’t a cause of the day for us. It’s our lifelong commitment to real people we love — come what may, no matter the economy, no matter what our businesses are doing.

• 💫 For me, that’s the young women of the Cornerstone Leadership Academy — top 5% female scholars in the country, coming from extreme poverty, out-testing the ritziest private schools in Uganda.

• 💛 For Jess, it’s the vulnerable mamas she’s worked alongside for sixteen years through Noonday — which she calls “a micro bank disguised as a fashion brand,” anti-trafficking by design.

When we came together, it brought the whole thing full circle 😭:

• 🌱 Sunrise Scholars — scholarships from kindergarten through 12th grade

• ☀️ Sunshine Scholars — university scholarships for the smartest girls in the country.

Together, we get to walk with kids from the very beginning all the way through. Two years ago, we stood at a graduation for two women who went from high school to university, and we heard from our university grads who are building companies, families, and legacies.

Two things I can’t stop thinking about 🧠❤️

• 📉 Last week, I heard Arthur Brooks speak at the Global Leadership Summit about asking college students for 30 years what they’d sacrifice for. The majority used to have an answer—until about 15 years ago, when that number started to fall. He ties so much of our loneliness, isolation, and mental health crisis to a lost sense of meaning and purpose that is bigger than ourselves.

• 🔗 Researching my book, I found that the friendships most tied to fulfillment and well-being are close friendships formed inside a shared-belief community. Believe something. Find people who believe it too. Go together. That’s how you supercharge a life of connection.

Our belief is simple: Every one of these women deserves the chance to learn and to lead — and our world is better when they do. If that lands in you too, this club is where we’ll find one another.

The details: how to join 🎁

Three levels — pick what fits your season:

• 🌸 Flourisher — $25/month: sticker, merch, and an invitation to join our Facebook community

• 🧢 Builder — $100/month: a (very cute) All of the above plus a super cute hat

• 🦒 $200/month: all of the above, plus first in line to travel to Uganda with us next summer

(And if a one-time donation is what suits you best? You can do that, too, in any amount. Just click any of the giving levels, and there will be an option to give a one-time donation in any amount.)

And that Uganda trip? Let me paint a picture: 🌅

• Meet the scholars and entrepreneurs you’re supporting. They changed my life for the better, and I have a feeling you’ll feel the same way.

• Make jewelry, get creative, connect with a group of adventurous, like-minded women.

• Go on a genuine bougie safari — Jess and I have traveled the world, and this spot in Uganda is one of our very favorite.

• Wake up to a view from the safari lodge you won’t believe, fresh coffee in hand ☕

• Meet a group of like-minded women who I have a sneaking suspicion will become very special to you.

These trips will sell out. (Stay tuned for the official launch!) We’ve been taking people to Uganda for years, and there is nothing that binds women together like an adventure in service of something bigger than themselves.

Ready? Here’s your on-ramp 🙌

• 🔎 Head to the Noonday Giving Club and give!

• 💬 DM Jess or me to tell us you joined, so we can personally welcome you as a founding member.

• 📣 Come find us in the Noonday Collective Facebook group and introduce yourself! In addition to meeting other members of the club, scholars will share their lives there, we’ll post updates, and yes, we’ll talk fashion and community too.

We launched a few weeks ago, and we’ve funded 13 scholarships so far (!!!!), and we’re going for 32 more. When each of us gives what we can, the impact is enormous.

Come sit at the table with us. Once you’re in, you’re in. 🌍💛

— Liz

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When someone moves for these reasons, we typically don’t bat an eye. But moving for community or friends? That seems a little… much?

But that is exactly what Jill and Andrew are contemplating.

Jill is a colleague and friend who has been helping me with research and data compilation for Relationally Rich, and it’s really gone to her head. LOL. In all seriousness, she’s someone who has walked her talk when it comes to relational wealth for a while now — she desires it, she buys into its importance, and she's currently experiencing the very real ache of not having enough of it.

Here’s the context: Jill, Andrew, and their two young sons have moved quite a bit in the last decade. Oregon, Texas, and two years of world travel. They recently bought a home in Austin (for all the “right” reasons), but they’ve had a hard time creating community.

We talked through their options and the strategy for approaching a relocation through a Relationally Rich lens. Leaving Texas wouldn’t be a good financial move for them, but they are seriously considering taking a (not insignificant!) financial hit to gain more relational wealth.

She was asking for my perspective on her situation, and instead of hopping on FaceTime, we just had the conversation here so you could join in. (Occupational hazard of being friends with me!)

⏱ 7:30 — The relational wealth portfolio

Before we could even get into the big decision, I needed to do a portfolio check with Jill. Because here’s the thing: going “I just feel lonely and disconnected” is overwhelming. You don’t know where to start. But if you can look at your relational wealth across a few key areas — marriage, nuclear family, vocational community, proximate friendships — all of a sudden, the problem of “loneliness” feels like something specific you can actually tackle and make progress on.

For Jill, the picture became much clearer. Nuclear family? Strong. Vocational connections? Thriving. Proximate, do-life-with-you friends? That’s the gap. They are not universally lonely. The have one under-resourced — but key — area of their portfolio. That reframe alone changes the whole conversation.

⏱ 10:00 — The proximate friend test

You’re running late from a board meeting, and you can’t make kids’ pickup. You’ve got a sick kid at 10pm, and your husband is out of town, and you’re out of baby Tylenol. You want to start a book club, and you’re wondering: Is anyone going to show up? It’s 5pm on a Tuesday, and you would love another adult to chat with while you supervise toddlers in the sprinkler in the backyard.

Who do you call?

Proximate friends are the people you are doing daily life with. And here’s what I told Jill: to build proximate community, you either need a shared institution you’re both genuinely committed to — a church, a school, a soccer club — that you are all frequenting multiple times a week, or you need to actually live within about a mile of each other.

You can move and turn your existing friends into proximate friends. Or you can turn your existing neighbors into proximate friends. Those are your options. (Both require work, just different kinds of work.)

⏱ 23:15 — The “relational wealth anchor”

Jill used a phrase about their potential move to Portland, and I stopped her immediately: relational wealth anchor.

They’re not considering moving somewhere they don't know anyone, hoping that more community will magically appear. They’re moving toward family—strengthening and investing in an existing part of their relational wealth portfolio. But they realize they will need and want more than just familial relationships, and want to pick the neighborhood that will enable them to create more proximate friendships.

(One cautionary note: if family is in town, you will likely default to family. For everything. The airport runs, the sick kid, the borrowed tools. And your friends — the community you’re trying to build — will need to be even more intentional about relying on one another, when the easy default is family. Friends who don’t have family won’t feel comfortable making “family asks” to their friends if those same friends exclusively rely on family. Interdependence is the core factor of deep and proximate friendship. Protect it and encourage it, even when family is close!)

Another thought: You’ll likely drive 20 minutes to grandparents and them to us. We typically don’t drive 20 minutes on the off chance our friends are home and hanging out in the backyard.

⏱ 33:05 — “Safe” might be the riskiest neighborhood choice you make

Jill described her two options for where to live in Portland. One area she described as “safe.” What she meant by that: A safe, pretty, high-income suburb with good schools. Very “desirable” according to most standards. And closest to their family. The other option would be a neighborhood that is a little more urban, a little more socioeconomically mixed, and not quite as pretty or “safe.” But it is where five or six families that Jill and Andrew already know live. (They originally connected through a church when they lived in Portland in an earlier season of life). And this group of friends is already doing life together in some compelling ways. (The husbands meet together weekly. Gold stars for them!)

Here’s what I shared: The physical design of a wealthier suburb — big lots, big yards, big fences, garages that you drive into, shut, and disappear behind — is literally designed against connection. It’s not impossible by any means. It just takes more intentional effort to create because the physical design is less hospitable to organic connections. In my neighborhood, most of us don’t have garages, and we park on the street. On one hand, that is a bummer. I’d love a garage for my cars and STUFF. But what I want even more than a place for my cars and stuff is for my kids to grow up in a connected community. We see our neighbors all the time because our cars are parked right out front, and that organic connection compounds enormously over time. There is also the psychographics at play: On average, high-income earners spend less time socializing, are less open about their struggles, and are less reliant on non-paid social support. All important factors to building Relational Wealth. These can absolutely be overcome in a high-income suburban environment — but it does require more intention.

⏱ 41:50 — Accepting the help is the gift

I had to share this one because it happened to me just recently, and it rocked my week a little.

A fellow mom — a new, burgeoning friendship for me — offered to pick up my kids from basketball camp and drop them off at home. I had time in my calendar. It was an 18-minute round trip. I did not need her help.

I was about to text back “oh thanks, we’re good!” and I stopped myself. Because what I was about to do was make myself unavailable to be helped and, in the process, take away the opportunity for her to connect with my kid and feel the fulfillment that comes from being helpful. And you can’t build interdependence with someone who never needs you for anything.

Asking for help and accepting help — before you’re in dire straits — isn’t weakness. It’s an investment. It’s how you tell someone: I trust you, I appreciate you, and I want you in my life.

⏱ 52:15 — Ethos: the deeper the intimacy, the higher the alignment bar

Jill asked the question I think comes up for a lot of us when contemplating living in closer community: Does everyone have to agree on everything? Screen time? Religion? Parenting philosophy? Politics?

No. Absolutely not. But the closer and more intertwined your lives become, the more your ethos needs to align. For my best friends — the ones I share a property with, do daily life with, and are raising my kids alongside — it matters a lot to me that we’re aligned on most of our values. (Not personalities, but core values ;)

For your neighbor down the block with whom you co-host the monthly neighborhood potluck and carpool with? You need very little agreement beyond your shared desire to be supportive, connected neighbors.

The higher the intimacy, the higher the need for alignment and agreement.

Gold nugget": Towards the end of our live conversation, a client and friend of mine named Traci left a comment for Jill: "I want to be their tour guide when they get here." I’ll help them find the parks and the fountains and the secret ways around town.

That’s relational wealth in real time. A stranger welcoming a newbie to town. Taking initiative. Being specific. Being of service.

If you’re in the middle of your own version of this decision — where to live, how to build, what to prioritize — go listen to the full conversation.

Want your own live relational wealth advisory call on Substack? Email us at media@lizboho.com, and we’ll see what we can do ;)

Get Rich & Stay Rich,
Liz

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Not exactly a warm and fuzzy topic you’re like to bring up as an ice breaker at the company BBQ.

Death creates an obvious divide between us and our loved one who has died. But it can also be something that creates connection — to ourselves, to our loved one who is passing, and to those we’re left to grieve with and alongside. But we have to actually talk about it. And ideally, before it arrives on our doorstep. And I can think of no one better to talk about talking about death than Caroline.

is a death doula and therapist who has spent years doing the work many of us keep putting off. Not because we don’t care. Because we don’t know where to start. Because talking about death feels morbid and sad and scary. Because life is full and urgent, and death typically feels far away … until it isn’t.

This conversation wasn’t just another chat. It actually moved me to action.

I’m thrilled to report that between having this conversation with Caroline and posting this recap, I asked my mom about her end-of-life plans, hopes, and desires. And it turned out to be a surprisingly sweet, specific, and tender conversation. I recorded our chat (per Caroline’s advice to have a record you can reference back to), and both my mom and I said afterward how grateful we were for the talk. My kids were part of it, too, and I was so delighted and surprised by how connecting it was for all of us. A family affair!

Here are some of my favorite moments, along with a few resources Caroline mentioned that I’ll link to at the bottom.

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⏱ 7:05 — “Death is not a medical event.”

Our bodies already know how to die. They’re going to do it with or without a doctor present. And yet we’ve relegated the experience to an industry that is, by design, built to keep us alive — not to help us die well. The result? Most of us will face the death of someone we love with very little preparation, agency, or knowledge of our options. We’ve outsourced one of the most profoundly human experiences there is.

⏱ 18:00 — The sibling advance directive night

Caroline is the oldest of six. Years ago, she gathered her siblings, made Old Fashioneds, walked everyone through their advance directives, and watched Mr. Rogers after. The questions weren’t just logistical. They were things like: What smells do you want in the room? What music do you want playing? Who do you want present? Caroline shared that hearing is the last sense we have when we are dying, which honestly I love 🥹 Someone who loves you could put on the exact playlist you wanted or read you a specific piece of poetry that would bring deep comfort or whisper loving words or silly stories — but likely only if you’d told them in advance. By sharing our wishes with our loved ones, we're showing love to those who will be living with our loss by helping them help us die well.

⏱ 24:00 — Death and birth are portals. We treat one with plans. The other, not so much.

How many people do you know who have a birth plan? Lots. How many have a death plan? You already know the answer. Birth and death are the two great human portals — the places we come from and go back to, and we’ve become deeply intentional about one of them while outsourcing or altogether ignoring the other. Obviously, birth is an imminent event. Except for the women in that WILD reality show that didn’t know they were pregnant, we usually know a birth is coming months in advance. It’s also generally a very happy event. A cause for celebration. And making plans for something imminent and happy is much easier than preparing for something unknown and sad. But I’m very motivated by the idea of my people feeling loved by me for having done some of the thinking and planning for them.

One thing I did not know before this conversation: it is completely legal to take your loved one’s body home from the hospital. You can have an at-home funeral. You can wash their body. You can cover them in roses. Most people have no idea this is an option, and if you don’t know it’s an option before the moment arrives, you lose it entirely, because there’s no time to explore agency when you’re already in the fog of grief and shock.

(I was super into this idea of having my body and a small ceremony at home. I despise the idea of my people gathering in an ugly funeral home, and I love our home and everything it means to me. And I LOVE MY BED. When I was pregnant with William, instead of a baby shower, my girlfriends came over in their PJ’s, and we all just hung out IN MY BED and chatted about motherhood and prayed and read poetry while someone played with my hair, and I was in heaven. I am interested in running a similar play for my death. But Ben was like, um, hard pass, I don’t think I want your dead body in our bed 🤣🤷🏼‍♀️. And honestly, I am like, listen, man, you get veto power in all this. After all, I’ll be DEAD! It’s ultimately your call. I mean, I will haunt you if I end up under bad lighting, but it's really your call! Love you!)

⏱ 25:00 — Advance Directives: The gift you give the people left behind

An advance directive (Caroline made one for you that you can download here!) isn’t just an investment in your own death. It’s an investment in the relationships that will surround you when you’re dying and in the people who have to keep living after you’re gone. Caroline has watched families fall completely apart over deaths where no one knew what the person would have wanted. And she’s watched the opposite too —family members who barely spoke suddenly calling each other every single day, bonded by the experience of having honored someone they loved well and together.

⏱ 41:00 — The Jesus Sidebar

As a Christian myself, this conversation was a reminder of just how central death is to the Christian faith tradition and how much Jesus actually modeled through his own death. Over the last few years, I’ve been particularly struck by the scriptures that say the night before his death, Jesus pulled a few of his disciples aside and said, "My heart is so heavy with grief, I feel as if I am dying. Stay here and keep watch with me." (Matthew 26:38, MSG)

Jesus didn’t “handle” death alone. And for me — as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about community and connection and what it means to actually need other people — that’s not a small thing. Plan A wasn’t stoic solitude. Plan A was: Will you carry this heavy burden with me? Will you be near to me?

We have this deeply embedded cultural story that needing people is a weakness. That we should be able to handle more than we can. That asking someone to bear something with us is a burden. And yet, by the standards of my own faith tradition, that story doesn’t hold up. Needing people in our darkest moments isn’t the backup plan. It’s how we’re designed —to live (and die) together.

Before we wrapped, Caroline mentioned two practical things very worth knowing about:

Death Curious — This is a program she’s building for the person in your community who wants to know how to show up when death is in the room. Not full death doula training. More like: how to be a human who doesn’t completely freeze when the hardest thing happens. Think of it like having a friend who’s a birth doula. You want that person in your corner. Maybe you want to be that person. Follow Caroline on Substack to stay in the loop when it launches

A free advance directive — she posted one on her Substack, in a format you can actually use with your people. Not the clinical checkbox version. The real one. Grab it here.

Go listen to the full episode. And then maybe make some Old Fashioneds, call your people, and talk about death.

Till death do we…together?

xo,

Liz

If you’ve ever wrestled with feeling like your ambition is taking you out of the present or contributing to your discontent, but aren’t satisfied with the general “Just slow down!” advice because you also know deep in your bones you were created to create, run hard (at times), and take risks, this conversation is for you.

Here are some of my favorite moments from our conversation — and she also wrote an entire book about the subject, which launches tomorrow! You can snag a copy of Making It Without Losing: How to Stay Motivated in a World Where We Are Never Done here.

⏱ 18:45 — “You’re not eliminating problems. You’re trading them.”

Jess shares about the post-achievement letdown she felt after selling her first company, Headbands of Hope — this thing she’d worked toward for years — and how, instead of feeling the relief she expected, she felt worse. She realized that she’d been subtly believing this exit would solve all her problems. But what she realized is that achieving the goal didn’t eliminate her problems. She just traded them for a new set. And the trade turned out to be a good one — but she couldn’t enjoy it until she had this mindset shift: Instead of trying to reach a problem-free life, get clear on which problems you actually want to solve. The problems she has now — increasing access to information, community-building, equal pay — are problems she’s more excited to try and solve in this new season. And that matters.

The reframe is powerful and applies to pretty much every area of our lives where we have agency. Career pivots. School decisions for your kids. Marriage. All of it.

⏱ 7:05 — Be wary of taking advice about your future from someone else’s “present” (without taking into account what got them there.)

We got into a conversation about (especially, it seems) women who hustled hard for a decade, built real things, and are now preaching the slow-life gospel — without acknowledging that the foundation of that slow life, where they are still building and creating but now on their own terms and at their own pace, was funded by the hustle. Jess named it perfectly: it’s like rich people saying money doesn’t matter. You’re saying that from a place of having already achieved it. Which brings us brilliantly to another one of my favorite moments….

⏱ 35:43 — Being clear-eyed on what you’re willing and unwilling to do to achieve success.

Jess shared that a friend walked her through everything it would take to hit the New York Times bestseller list — and Jess looked at that list and chose, clearly and peacefully, not to do those things. She’s not going for the Times. And she has complete peace about it.

I called it out immediately because that moment is so powerful. It’s the curtain-pull. Jess has big ambitions for this book, but once she got clear-eyed about exactly what it would take to achieve this particular goal, she shifted it. She didn’t become less ambitious. She became more precise and aligned with her ambition.

Once you can see exactly what something costs, you get to make a real, informed decision — instead of living in the mystery of why you don’t have what someone else has. You stop telling yourself you’re not good enough and start telling yourself the truth: I know what it takes, and I’m choosing to do (or not to do) that because the trade-off makes sense for my definition of success.

⏱ 24:12 — Pickle jar problems

Jess introduced the idea of “pickle jar problems”—problems with binary outcomes. You opened it, or you didn’t. You got the pickle, or you didn’t.

Most of the biggest things in our lives are not pickle jar problems. Do I have enough money? Are my kids happy? Is my marriage strong? Am I healthy? None of those has a clear yes or no. And so much of our anxiety comes from trying to treat them like they do — waiting for the moment we’ve definitively “solved” them so we can stop worrying.

The invitation is to make peace with the fact that the most important things in life are living, breathing, ongoing — not problems to be solved and filed away.

⏱ 28:15 — Anxious ambition vs. inspired ambition

I’ve spent so much time thinking about ambition and contentment and the relationships between the two, and the way Jess named it and frames it is so helpful.

I shared a belief I’ve been carrying: that my contentment is actually holding me back from a certain version of “success.” That the people who go furthest are the ones who are fearful of irrelevancy or not enoughness— and because I’m not running from that fear, I’ll never reach that level of “success.” Jess acknowledged she’s wondered the same thing about herself.

But here’s where we landed: Output can look identical from the outside. Two people running at the same pace. You can’t tell who’s running toward chocolate cake and who’s running from a lion. Same action. But one comes from anxiety — I’m falling behind, I’m going to be irrelevant, I’m not enough — and one comes from inspiration and enjoyment. Both produce output. We get to choose our motivation. (And I want to choose inspired ambition all day long!)

We also acknowledged that while inspired ambition often produces the best results, there will be times when your output might be “less” than someone driven by anxious ambition. And this is when knowing what “success” really looks like for you matters most. Pursuing a life with multiple ambitions (a meaningful career, being present in your family, and being a great friend) isn’t “less ambitious” than someone who goes all out on their career. It’s a fundamentally different matrix.

It’s not about contentment halting your output. It’s about contentment fueling your output.

Before we wrapped, Jess also shared the Purpose Test from her book: when you’re chasing something, imagine you got it — but the catch is you have to remain anonymous. You can’t post it, share it, or tell anyone. Would you still do it? If yes, go full speed. If no, either change the goal or change your relationship to it.

Brilliant.

If you enjoyed this conversation, you’re in luck because Making It Without Losing It launches tomorrow. You can also head to jessekstrom.com/makingit to grab it.

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Leslie’s husband, Ryan, tragically and unexpectedly dropped dead on a family vacation. Five and a half years of marriage. Two little boys, ages three and one. Gone. “Poof” as Leslie puts it.

She wrote a book about it that just launched. It’s called You’re So Strong, and before you click away thinking it’s 300 pages of dense, heavy grief content, it is so funny. Unexpected, gut-punch funny, true, and good. Read it.

In this conversation, we didn’t just talk about an individual experience of loss, grief, and trauma. We talked about what it actually means to love someone through it.

⚡ THE RESEARCH THAT FLOORED ME (AND LESLIE)

[~4:45 in the episode]

There was a social psychologist named James Pennebaker who had a hypothesis: that trauma with more social stigma, such as suicide or sexual assault, would lead to harder recovery for the person experiencing it.

He went out. He did the research. He found zero correlation between the type of trauma and the potential for recovery.

Zero. 🙅‍♀️

The number one factor in recovery? Whether or not a person had a family member, a friend, or some kind of emotional support group with whom they could actually talk and process their trauma.

“I think this is a big reason why I’m okay because I had people showing up and I had people that I could process this loss with.”

We spend so much energy worrying about whether we have the right words, the right training, the right spiritual gift to support someone in pain when the research literally says: Just be there. 👇

⚡ THE SPIDER STORY

[~11:00 in the episode]

At the time Ryan died. Leslie’s sister lived five houses down from them.

Her brother-in-law killed spiders for her. He took out the trash. He became a step-in dad for her boys. Her sister fed her dinner almost every single night of the first year.

I used this as a jumping-off point to talk about something I call low lift, high impact, the idea that when you design your life with proximity to your people, support becomes exponentially easier to give and receive.

Think about it this way: If your brother-in-law lives five houses away, going to kill a spider is an eight-minute investment. Walk down. Kill the spider. Laugh. Walk back. Eight minutes.

The impact on someone who just lost the person who would have done that for her? Immeasurable.

But if he lives 25 minutes away? She never even makes the call. Because you often don’t ask for the small things when they come with a high cost. You suffer through killing the spiders yourself. You shrink your needs to match what feels askable.

Leslie didn’t design her life around proximity because she knew the worst was coming. She just lived that way. And when the unthinkable happened, she already had a foundation in place. An insurance policy she never planned on needing. 🏠💛

⚡ THE ROOMMATE CHAPTER

[~20:00 in the episode]

About a month after Ryan died, Leslie’s family suggested she get a roommate. Her response was immediate and firm: Absolutely not. 🚫

She’s managing grief. Two babies. Single motherhood. A business. The last thing she needs is a note left on the kitchen counter about whose turn it is to clean the sink.

And then Lindsay shows up.

A high school friend. Freshly back in town. Staying in her sister’s condo. Funny like, actually funny. Leslie’s sister Natalie sees the two of them together: Ask her.

And Leslie did. In the moment. Impulsively. Before she could think it all the way through.

Here’s what I love about that moment: Leslie says the timing was everything. In the earliest stages of acute, sudden grief, there’s an impulsivity that exists, a sort of beautiful recklessness. She says if Lindsay had shown up six months later, a year later, she would have said no. Because by then she knew where she went in her grief. She was more embarrassed. More guarded.

But in that moment? She said yes. And Leslie would say that the impact that decision had was profound.

⚡ THE SMOOTHIES. THE DUMB SHOWS. THE SACRED ORDINARY.

[~27:00 in the episode]

Lindsay made smoothies in the morning for Leslie’s boys. And after a while, the kids stopped waking Leslie up. They’d run downstairs to wake Lindsay instead.

Leslie would come out, mortified. Lindsay would say: Are you kidding me? I love this.

And at night? They’d watch dumb TV shows together. They’d laugh. There was no processing required. No homework. No right thing to say.

Just presence.

“Lindsay watching dumb shows with me at night was the most sacred part of my whole grieving experience.”

You do not need a PhD in psychology or a gift for poetry or prose to be somebody’s lifeline. You need Netflix and a willingness to make smoothies. You need to be able to sit in the mess without needing it to be tidy. You need to show up and stay.

The practical is the profound. Full stop. 🙌

⚡ PERFORMING GRIEF

[~33:00 in the episode]

One of the most honest things Leslie said in this whole conversation — and there were a lot of honest things — was about the exhaustion of managing everyone else’s grief when you’re the one who lost someone.

Her close friends showed up beautifully. They watched the kids, dropped off food, and helped her go through Ryan’s things. But they were also hurting too. And so she was constantly aware of:

• Am I going to make their pain worse by having a sad moment in front of them?

• Am I going to make them uncomfortable if today I’m actually fine and laughing?

• Am I widowing right?

That last one. Am I widowing right? 💔

I shared my own experience with this when I had a miscarriage. While all my close friends knew what I was going through, I consciously chose not to tell my colleagues because I wanted the freedom to go to work and hide in my office and be sad if I needed to be, but also to laugh and solve problems and not feel like I had to perform sadness in a specific way for people who knew what I was going through.

Be explicit with your grieving friends and remind them that there is no one right or expected way to grieve. They get to change their mood every day, hour, even minute. Remind them that you’ll ride the wild waves with them.

⚡THEN COMES YEAR TWO.

[~44:00 in the episode]

The meals stop. The flowers stop. The check-ins slow down.

And for Leslie, her one-year mark was spring of 2020. So right when she needed her community to step in more, right when widows (she says) actually need more check-ins, not fewer, the whole world fell apart, and everyone had their own crisis.

“I was not prepared for everyone else struggling and drowning around me complaining about having their kids all the time. And I’m like I’m still here. I’m still drowning.”

This is so important. The first wave of support is almost automatic. What we can forget is that grief doesn’t operate on a timeline that makes sense to people who aren’t living it.

Seven years later, Leslie still has hard seasons. Ryan’s birthday is in March. She describes this time of year as her “crappy season” with more anxiety, more snappiness, and less capacity.

And she tells her people now. She’s learned to say: Hey, this season is going to be hard for me. She’s learned to let them in and ask for more support when she knows she is going to need it.

SO. WHAT DO WE DO WITH ALL OF THIS?

Here’s what I’m taking away from this conversation and what I hope you take away, too:

⚡ Proximity can be a powerful choice you can make before you need it. (Leslie’s sister.) But proximity can also be chosen when you need it most. (Roommate Lindsay.)

⚡ You don’t need a special gift to show up. You need a willingness to be present. Make the smoothies. Watch the dumb show. Kill the spider. Be there.

⚡ Give people agency over their own grief. Remind them that you’re there for all the weird, unexpected waves and manifestations of grief. No expectations, no judgments. Hold space for the full range.

⚡ Year two is when people really need you. Mark the calendar. Show up anyway. Send the text that says I was thinking about you today, even when it feels like a long time has passed.

⚡ You are probably more equipped to help than you think. The research literally says: just be there. James Pennebaker did the work. The answer is presence.

Leslie’s book You’re So Strong is out! BUY IT NOW, PEOPLE!

And if you want to hear the full conversation, including the part where Leslie shares the NUMBER ONE phrase you need to NIX FROM YOUR VOCAB, go listen to the full episode, also on Apple or Spotify. 🎙️

If you want to hear the full conversation, this episode of Plucking Up Podcast is live now, and it’s one I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

Because that’s exactly where 28-year-old Christie was at. A high-performing attorney with a future that looked glossy from the outside. But behind closed doors, she was deeply lonely and socially unwell. She didn’t have close relationships. She didn’t know how to build or maintain them. And she believed, deeply (and erroneously!) that this meant something was very, very wrong with her.

Spoiler: Nothing was inherently wrong with her. She just needed to learn new skills and get in some reps.

The psychologist she met with (when she was in a state of desperation) told her that if what she needed to learn was how to be in a relationship, she didn’t actually need a clinical relationship with a therapist; she needed to learn relationships in the context of peer relationships.

Enter: Group Therapy. Or “Group” as Christie calls it.

This conversation blew my mind, and I think it will do the same to you. Let’s get into it. 👇

⚡ The Moment That Changed Everything

Christie didn’t choose group therapy because she was brave or evolved. She chose it 1.) Because she was broke. Traditional therapy wasn’t in the law student's budget. And 2.) Because a therapist told her this was actually a better container for her than traditional one-on-one therapy.

So she went. Expecting hell. Prepared to be horrified but willing to give it a shot because desperation can do that to you….

⚡ Why She Was Terrified of Group Therapy. (And how what she found surprised her.)

If you’ve ever had a quiet resistance to the idea of group therapy (or group anything that goes below the surface), Christie basically narrated your inner monologue when she described her three big objections going in:

⚡ The “sick people” myth. The only cultural reference she had was Girl, Interrupted. “Group” was for people who were really in trouble. Not for high-functioning, high-powered performers like her.

⚡ The inefficiency problem. She was going to have to share her therapy hour with people whose problems had nothing to do with hers? Bananas. What a waste of time. No, thank you.

⚡ The confidentiality fear. How do you protect your privacy when you’re saying your most shameful things to eight strangers who don’t owe you legal confidentiality?

Her therapist, Dr. Rosen (not his real name 😂), shattered the third objection in their very first session with a thought about confidentiality that stopped her cold:

“When you are protecting other people, you’re often holding their shame.”

— Dr. Rosen, via Christie ⏱ ~10:30

She said it rang like a bell inside her. What if the longer, even deeper than the desire for complete confidentiality, is actually the desire to be completely free? Woah. I felt that one. 🔔

⚡ The Humility That Unlocked Everything

By week three, Christie made an observation that completely broke down her remaining resistance: everyone else in her group was in a happy, functional, committed relationship. And she wasn’t.

Here’s the mindset shift: Instead of feeling humiliated, she got curious. These people had figured something out she hadn’t yet. And if they had, maybe she could too. That’s not weakness. That’s one of the most sophisticated, productive things a human can do. It requires a wild amount of both humility and courage. I don’t have that, yet. But maybe I can learn it, too.

⚡ 24 Years and counting…

Christie has been in Group since 2001. She’s a “normal” person. An attorney, wife, author, and mother. And also someone who has done an extraordinary amount of the messy, uncomfortable, worth-it work of learning how to be known. I asked her what she carries into her real life…her non-Group friendships, her everyday relationships.

Here’s what she said:

⚡ Feeling her feelings first. “It has helped me learn how to get in touch with my own feelings, and that doesn’t require anybody else to do anything.” She doesn’t outsource her emotional awareness. She tunes in first, every time. When she is worked up, this emotional awareness keeps her from “spewing on the innocent.”

⚡ Asking for consent before going deep. She asks: “Are you available to talk through what I think is happening?” This is such a simple way to signal to your conversation partner that you want to go deeper, while giving them the agency to join you (or not) in that deeper dive.

⚡ The “story in my head” opener. 🤯 Instead of launching into accusations or feelings as facts, she says: “I have a story in my head about what’s happening. Could we talk about it?” This is consent + humility + truth-telling all in one sentence. Popularized by Brené Brown but a staple in many therapeutic traditions, this is a powerful way to open a conversation if the hope is empathy, understanding, clarity, and connection.

⚡ The “Secrets Keep You Sick” Argument

Okay, we had one of my favorite moments of productive tension in this episode. I run my own version of Group (I call them Connection Cohorts), and I require a full confidentiality agreement from all participants. I really believe in it as a way to create a sense of safety for leaders who need protected spaces. Christie’s group? No confidentiality structure or expectations 🤯.

She made the case against it so compellingly that I need to quote her directly:

“The secrecy and privacy feeds a sense of shame and I needed to be free of shame more than I needed to be protected.”

— Christie ⏱ ~15:50

She’s not saying confidentiality agreements are wrong. She’s saying that for her, and arguably for a lot of us, the need to be protected is itself part of the wound. The armor is keeping us from the medicine.

In 24 years, she’s felt hurt by a group leak three times. Three times in 24 years! And she can, with hindsight, contextualize all three. That’s not naivety. That’s evidence. 📊 Perhaps the risk is worth the reward?

⚡ Best Sound Bites

🎤 “Everyone in my group knows where all the bodies are buried in my psyche…and they love me anyway.” ⏱ ~22:00

🎤 “It’s not family. It’s not friendship. It’s its own third category. Incredible intimacy. Almost beyond language.” ⏱ ~22:40

🎤 “There’s such a thing as enough. With relational health, there’s actually a bucket that can be filled. It isn’t a never-ending chase.” ⏱ ~38:00

⚡ What I’m Still Thinking About

What gets me about Christie’s story is the conviction that the relationships she longed for were actually possible, and that the gap between where she was and where she wanted to be was a skill deficit, not a character flaw. That matters so much.

We write people off…including ourselves…as “just not great with relationships” or “kind of closed off” or “not a feelings person.” But what Christie is saying is: most of us were just never taught. We never got reps. We never had a safe enough space to practice. 🧠

Her book, Group: How One Therapist and A Circle of Strangers Saved My Life, is the whole story. Go get it. And if you’re not already in something that gives you that kind of container…a place to be known, challenged, witnessed, and loved anyway, this episode might be your nudge. 🌿

🎧 Listen to the Full Episode

Find this conversation with Christie wherever you listen to podcasts. It’s one of those episodes you’ll want a second listen, promise. Drop your biggest takeaway in the comments. I read every single one. 💛

Joy and Matt have spent the last decade running an annual strategic retreat for their marriage.

Not therapy.
Not crisis management.
Not a vibes-only sexy getaway. (I mean, let’s please do those, too!)

But a structured, intentional review + planning process they call The Reed Retreat.

Here’s what stood out.

⏱ :06 — The origin story: why they started doing retreats

They didn’t invent this out of thin air.

Even while dating, Joy and Matt were already having deep conversations about life direction. When they got married (in their 30s), they brought that same intentionality into their relationship.

Their first retreat happened shortly after their first child was born — literally with a newborn in tow, sitting in a London hotel bar, filling out worksheets.

They asked mentors and trusted friends:

“What are good questions to ask if you actually want to reflect on where you are and where you’re going?”

That became the foundation.

⏱ :09 — The core principle: create distance to gain clarity

The magic isn’t luxury travel.

It’s separation from routine.

Sometimes they’ve gone abroad. Other years, they’ve stayed nearby while grandparents watched the kids.

The point is simple:

Get out of your normal environment so your nervous system can shift.

No serious company skips annual planning. Why do we expect relationships to thrive without it?

⏱ :12 — Why this saves time instead of costing it

Most couples avoid carving out intentional space because it feels inconvenient.

Joy and Matt argue the opposite.

They’ve found that investing a few days upfront saves months of fragmented conversations later.

Instead of revisiting the same unresolved topics over and over, they say:

“We already dug into this at the retreat.”

Decisions become faster. Alignment gets clearer. Emotional energy gets conserved.

They also point out something critical:

You make better decisions before the opportunity (or crisis) hits.

⏱ :19 — The exercise that changes everything: writing your obituary. (It’s not as morbid as it sounds :)

Every year, they each write their own obituary.

Then they read it aloud to each other.

They describe it as the emotional center of the entire retreat.

It forces the question:

Who am I becoming?
What will actually matter at the end?

From there, everything else gets filtered.

Career choices. Friendships. Parenting priorities. Creative goals.

Joy explains that once you see your long-term values clearly, it becomes obvious how misaligned your current life might be. And what needs to change.

⏱ :28 — When your partner reflects your own values back to you

Matt shared that he wrote in his obituary that he wanted hundreds of people at his funeral. To him, this was evidence of a relationally rich life.

Joy gently challenged him:

“You’re not living that way right now.”

That insight didn’t come from nagging or pressure.

It came from his own stated vision.

This is the brilliance of the process.

Instead of partners pushing each other, the retreat creates space for each person to articulate who they want to be and invite support from their partner.

Agency first. Support second.

⏱ :31 — Reverse engineering the future into the calendar

After reflecting on the past and zooming out to the end of life, they bring everything back down to earth:

What does this mean for this year?

They walk through categories like:

• relationships

• creativity

• work

• health

• family rhythms

Then they literally map commitments onto a calendar.

Joy says this is where ideas become real.

If you don’t date it, you won’t create it.

Recurring calendar events are what turn values into behavior.

⏱ :33 — Why everything stays analog

Their entire retreat is paper-based.

No phones. No laptops.

Being physically disconnected from devices changes how you think.

It slows the process down enough for real insight to surface.

Only after everything is clarified do they re-enter digital life and transfer commitments to their calendars.

⏱ 00:35 — The long game

They keep every year’s retreat packet.

A growing stack of documents marking how their values, dreams, and priorities that have evolved over time.

They joked that someday their kids won’t even need to write their parents’ obituaries.

They’ll have forty-plus drafts to choose from. LOL.

My takeaway

Joy and Matt have built a simple system that creates:

• intentional reflection

• shared language

• proactive decision-making

• emotional safety

• long-term alignment

They don’t wait for problems to force conversations.

They schedule them.

Over ten years, that rhythm has helped keep them on track, creating a life (and marriage) that aligns with their highest values and most vivid dreams.

Pluck, yeah! 💛🤘🏼

P.S. If you want to snag your own copy of The Reed Retreat Playbook, you can do that here!

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⚡What if the reason your friendships feel harder isn’t that you’re bad at friendship…

But because modern friendship requires us to play by a new set of rules, and we haven’t quite caught up?

In this episode of The Plucking Up Podcast, I sat down with one of the sharpest thinkers on modern relationships, Anna Goldfarb, author of Modern Friendship.

And let me just say…

If you’ve ever felt confused, disappointed, ghosted, too much, not enough, left out, or unsure how to “do” adult friendship…

This conversation is for you.

Community vs. Friendship

Right out of the gate, we frame something that I think many of us miss:

Community is the broader umbrella that encompasses various categories of relationships. Friendship is one of the categories in your “social portfolio.”

And it’s an incredibly important one.

But, if all of your relational eggs are in one basket? That’s fragile.

⚡ The goal isn’t one perfect bestie.
⚡ The goal is a diversified ecosystem of connections across different forms of connections and relationships, close friends included.

Why Modern Friendship Feels So Confusing

We have scripts and support for romantic relationships and familial relationships. There are millions of books, conferences, and courses you can take to have a stronger marriage and become a better parent.

But friendship?

We’re kind of winging it over here!

We lack: Clear expectations. Shared vocabulary. Support when the road gets bumpy. Cultural rituals for repair. And when there are no scripts and support, misunderstandings and frustrations multiply.

⚡THIS IS A PROBLEM, because the data shows us that our friendships matter A LOT when it comes to living long, healthy, and HAPPY lives.

The Hard Truth About Adult Friendship

Anna and I would both call ourselves friendship GEEKS. But we don’t idealize it.

We love it.
We champion it.
We believe it is essential to social health.

But we also name this: Friendship requires maintenance.

And most of us were never taught how to start, cultivate, and sustain them.

No one sat us down and said:

• Here’s how you repair a friendship rupture.

• Here’s how you ask for what you need.

• Here’s how you define the relationship.

• Here’s how you gracefully downgrade when seasons shift.

⚡ We’re trying to run a complex relational system without a manual. If you’re struggling, it’s not you. It’s us!

So What Do We Do?

If you’re feeling meh in friendship, here are a few takeaways from this conversation:

1. Audit Your Social Portfolio

Who fills which role?
Who do you call for fun?
Who do you call for depth?
Who do you call for advice?

No one person should be everything.

2. Normalize Explicitness

If romance can have “the talk”… why can’t friendship?

As Brené Brown reminds us, “Clear is kind.” (And if the person on the other end isn’t willing or able to talk about the relationship, well, that is a very helpful data point that should inform how to move forward ;)

3. Initiate Anyway

If you’re waiting for someone to reach out first, try flipping it.

Modern friendship rewards the brave. Full stop.

4. Stop Pathologizing Normal Friction

Not every friendship shift is betrayal.
Not every missed text is abandonment.
Not every season of distance is rejection.

Sometimes it’s just… adulthood. Modern friendships is equal parts high standards and high grace. Making generous assumptions is critical to a flourishing friendship. (Having standards is, too.)

Final Thought

If this conversation sparked something in you, grab Anna’s book Modern Friendship and subscribe to her newsletter .

And maybe, just maybe, text the friend you’ve been thinking about while reading this.

Modern friendship isn’t broken! It just needs intention, strategy, and a little bit of PLUCK.

And honestly?

I think we’re up for it.⚡

If you want to hear the full conversation, this episode of Plucking Up Podcast is live now, and it’s one I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

⚡ What if the thing we’re calling “emotional maturity” is actually emotional outsourcing?

We’ve never talked about mental health more.
We’ve never normalized therapy more.
And yet…loneliness keeps rising.

In this episode of Plucking Up, I sat down with Jacqueline Olds, one of the original researchers studying loneliness long before it became a headline or a Surgeon General’s warning.

She asked an unpopular question for a Harvard-trained psychiatrist:

“Why don’t you take this to a friend?” (Which is also the name of her paper published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry.)

🔌 Buckle up. This conversation is asking what feels like an off-limits question and might just influence how you think about therapy, friendship, and what actually heals us.

The Big Idea: Therapy Is a Tool. Friends Are the Point.

Dr. Olds is very clear: therapy is good. She is a psychiatrist. Her husband is a psychiatrist. (And I’ve been in — and enormously benefitted from — therapy at various points throughout my life!)

This is not an anti-therapy rant!

But what she’s seeing…decades into her work, is concerning.

⚡ Therapy as the destination, not the training ground.
⚡ Practicing vulnerability primarily in rooms that require no reciprocity.
⚡ Forgetting how to carry hard things together.

“It’s an incredibly artificial relationship…and we were not meant to have one-sided relationships.”
—Dr. Jacqueline Olds

🕒 Timestamp: 18:42

Why Therapy Feels Safer Than Friendship

Dr. Olds names three reasons therapy feels easier than bringing hard things to our people:

🔌 Confidentiality: No risk of gossip or exposure.
🔌 No emotional labor or reciprocity required: You don’t have to “check on them later.”
🔌 No lived consequences: Your therapist doesn’t experience you as a friend, partner, or neighbor. The only version of you they know is the version you show them.

And here’s the kicker:

“You shouldn’t hold therapy up as the ideal model for relationships.”
🕒 Timestamp: 21:10

Because the very things that make therapy safe and useful…are also the things that make it incomplete.

A Surprisingly Simple Rule of Thumb

Here’s Dr. Olds’ practical guidance…no jargon, no hedging:

⚡ If the thought terrifies you, if you’re afraid you might hurt yourself, go to a professional.
⚡ If it’s about purpose, confusion, grief, or meaning…take it to a friend.

“They probably do want to hear it.”
🕒 Timestamp: 30:18

This isn’t about minimizing pain.
It’s about restoring confidence in our capacity to care for one another.

Why We’re Afraid to Tell Our Friends

Two big reasons surfaced:

1. Fear of social rejection
   (Which lights up the same part of the brain as physical assault…yes, really.)

2. Fear of saying the wrong thing
   We don’t trust ourselves to help.

But Dr. Olds gently dismantles that fear:

“We learned to talk in order to help each other survive.”
🕒 Timestamp: 36:40

You don’t need the perfect words.
You need presence, honesty, and willingness.

Why Groups Might Be the Missing Link

One of my favorite moments in the conversation was realizing how small groups change everything.

I shared about a standing weekly group of women I meet with…same time, same people, no flaking.

What happens there?

⚡ No pressure on one person to say the “right” thing
⚡ Multiple perspectives reveal blind spots
⚡ Shared humanity replaces shame

Dr. Olds immediately nodded, because she has her own version of this, too.

“Everybody has the same worries, even the people you think don’t.”
🕒 Timestamp: 44:12

What We’re Really Chasing

Here’s the quiet truth that landed hardest for me:

Most of what we chase…success, money, status…is actually a stand-in for:

💛 Belonging
💛 Admiration
💛 Being known

And those things are often already available if we’re willing to take the risk and put in the work.

Final Thought

Therapy can be powerful and an incredibly useful, life-changing tool. But friends are not a downgrade.

They are the place where healing becomes mutual, lived, and sustaining.

So, might we invite you to consider: “Taking this to a friend?”

If you want to hear the full conversation, this episode of Plucking Up Podcast is live now, and it’s one I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

When I share that, here is the most typical reaction. (Although I realize there are probably people who think I am a nut job, and so instead of responding, they just politely smile and nod and move on. That’s fine, too!)

But from those who DO respond, this is absolutely the most common response:

“What!? I’ve always wanted that! It sounds like a dream! My friends and I always talk about that! (Or here is one I heard just last week: “Okay, that would literally solve 99% of my life’s problems!)”

BUT

The surprise and enthusiasm are typically shortly followed by:

BUT HOW?!? (Relationally speaking.)

And HOW?!? (Practically speaking.)

Two very valid and important questions, especially considering we’ve never lived in a cultural climate that makes (healthy, sustainable, life-giving!) shared life more challenging — both socially and practically.

So, friends, we are diving into both the practical need-to-know and the social norms, scripts, and relational principles that will set you up for success.

In this two-part series, I connected with Phil Levin, who has lived in a variety of co-living situations for over a decade. Phil is also the co-founder of a real estate platform, LiveNearFriends.com. In this two-part episode, we covered practical and relational HOW aspects of… you guessed it, living near friends!

Unsurprisingly, we share many similar ideas on what is most critical to making living near your friends the life-changing arrangement it can be.

Also, unsurprisingly, we have some differences, too! Which makes sense because, while we both agree that there are some tried-and-true concepts that are very helpful to understand, there are also many ways to design a life that prioritizes proximate friendship and community.

I’m releasing both parts together, because honestly… separating them felt rude. It’s just too good!

⚡️ PART 1: Why Community Feels Hard (and It’s Not Because You’re an Introvert)

In Part 1, we name the thing most of us feel but don’t have language for:

👉 We don’t lack desire for community.
👉 We lack social scripts for how to build it.

My favorite soundbites from the first half of our convo:

🕒 12:40

“We have social scripts for dating strangers… but not for asking friends to live near us.”

🕒 18:55

“You’re optimizing your housing for square footage instead of people—and Zillow taught you to do that.”

🕒 26:10

“Seeing your friends three times a week increases life satisfaction like a $150,000 raise.”

🕒 34:30

“Introverts actually thrive more in real community because the social contract changes.”

⚡️ Big takeaway: Community isn’t exhausting. Performative connection is exhausting.

When proximity increases, pressure decreases.
You don’t have to be “on.”
You just… exist near people who know and love you.

(Glorious. Revolutionary. Cue anti-obligatory-non-stop-small-talk power ballad! 🎶🎸)

⚡️ PART 2: How to Build the Kind of Community That Actually Works

Part 2 is where things get deliciously practical.

This is where Phil drops absolute community cheat codes, the kind you want to text your group chat immediately but won’t, because… irony.

Best soundbites from Part 2:

🕒 09:15

“Being a silent hero is terrible for community. Don’t be the invisible fairy. Be a loud fairy. Say: ‘I cleaned the pizza box.’ Let people see contribution.”

🕒 21:30

“Community isn’t consumed. It’s co-created.”

🕒 28:05

“The ask is the gift. You become a 3 a.m. friend by asking first.”

🕒 41:10

“Duplexes can be a 30% discount—and a 15% pay raise—if you buy with friends.”

🕒 52:40

“No one wants to be part of their landlord’s ‘community.’ Friendship has to be built.”

⚡️ The Thread That Ties Both Parts Together

Here’s the quiet truth humming underneath both episodes:

⚡️ Community doesn’t fail because it is too intrinsically hard or complicated.
⚡️ It fails because we skip the awkward, structured, named beginning.

We want organic fruit without planting anything.
We want intimacy without inconvenience.
We want belonging without risk.

And yet…
Every meaningful relationship you have was built because someone went first.

✨ Asked for help
✨ Made a big ask
✨ Stayed
✨ Showed up
✨ Named the rules instead of hoping vibes would do the job

⚡️ Listen If You’re Feeling…

⚡️ Lonely even though your calendar is full
⚡️ Tired of “low-stakes” friendships
⚡️ Curious if there’s a way to live that doesn’t require starting over every season
⚡️ Like maybe… just maybe… adulting was never meant to be this hard

This one’s for you.

Go listen to Part 1, then roll straight into Part 2.

Until next time….stayyyyyyy Plucky! 💛⚡️

The Five Mistakes You Might Be Making In Adult Friendships with Nina Badzin

If you care about adult friendship, you need to know Nina Badzin!

Nina is the longtime host of the Dear Nina podcast and an insightful, grounded writer on friendship and social connection. She has spent over a decade listening to people’s real friendship dilemmas, writing about them, talking about them, and gently dismantling the myths that keep so many of us lonely and confused.

Our conversation was rich, honest, and very helpful!

✨ Big Themes We Covered

1. Why “being a good listener” requires more than being quiet.

(04:00)
We think we’re good listeners—turns out, most of us are just…quiet. Which is not the same thing.

“Studies show people ask way fewer questions than they think.” —Nina
“Listening isn’t just being quiet. It’s asking follow-up questions that show you care.” —Nina

We also talked about the power of question decks, card prompts, and why curiosity is basically love in action.

2. The myth of equality in friendship:

(09:00)
Friendships don’t stay 50/50, and expecting them to is a recipe for resentment.

“A friendship being equal is one of the most damaging myths. They’re almost never equal.” —Nina

There’s a freedom that comes from releasing the fantasy of perfect reciprocity.

3. The “low-maintenance friendship” has gone too far.

(15:00)

This bit was SO GOOD.

We’ve glorified low-maintenance friendships to the point where it’s now code for:
“I cancel a lot, and you’re not allowed to mind.”

“It’s okay to have expectations. Showing up matters.” —Nina
“Low-maintenance should not mean no accountability.” —Liz

YES, Nina. You can love people for who they are and still name the behaviors that affect trust.

One of my favorite moments was when we talked about how to articulate boundaries or needs without moralizing them—changing “you’re a bad friend” into “this is what I personally need to feel connected.”

4. Shocker. You should actually like your friends.

(22:00)
This one made us both laugh because it’s so obvious…yet so often avoided.

“You should be friends with people you like. So many letters I get are from people trying to change someone they don’t like.” —Nina

Just because someone has been in your life for a long time doesn’t mean they are still a match for who you are becoming.

Friendship ≠ charity work
Friendship ≠ endless self-abandonment
Friendship ≠ DIY personality overhaul projects

Sometimes the healthiest move is to bless and release.

HOWEVER. These same rules don’t apply fully to community, and ….

5. There is a difference between friendship and community…

(24:00)

This was one of my favorite stretches of the conversation.

Community is bigger than “my besties.” It’s more diverse, more inconvenient, more stretching, and transformative in a way that is different than friendship. You don’t have to really like everyone at the table. You just have to stay at the table.

“In community, you don’t have to be best friends. You belong because you’re here, not because you were chosen.” —Liz
“Neighbors are their own category. You have to work to get along whether you’re friends or not.” —Nina

This is where resilience comes from—not designer friendships curated to be perfectly aligned with our preferences, but the gritty, imperfect ecosystem of real people living real life together.

6. Parents are WAY too involved in their kids’ friendships

(32:00)

If you’re a parent, buckle up.

Nina walked through how our over-management of kids’ social lives — especially as they hit the tween and teen years —actually stunts their social development.

“Your kid’s feelings are not something to be protected from. Feeling bad is not a crisis—it’s part of being human.” —Nina

She talked about seventh-grade Halloween plans, high-school homecoming squads, and why coaching your kids to invite others (instead of waiting to be invited) is one of the most powerful social skills we can teach.

💬 Favorite Quotes

Here are the lines I highlighted immediately because THEY ARE TRUTHS:

• “Equality is not the goal. Connection is.” —Nina

• “Low-maintenance friendships have become an excuse for flakiness.” —Nina

• “Your friends shouldn’t have to fundamentally change for you.” —Liz

• “You get to choose more than one friend. Stop trying to make one person your everything.” —Nina

• “We’re creating designer friendships the way we’re creating designer babies.” —Liz

• “Feeling bad is not the same as being unsafe.” —Nina

If You Loved This Conversation…

Watch here or listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts, and make sure to follow Nina Badzin’s work at Dear Nina — especially if you’re hungry for real, nuanced conversations about what it means to maintain friendships in adulthood.

And, as always, hit “reply” and tell me which friendship myth you’ve had to unlearn.

We’re all building this thing as we go. I’m grateful to be doing it with you.

—Liz 💛

This is a long one, but I had a feeling that when I invited Charles Vogl to the show, we were going to deep-dive into community architecture and strategy. And even with over an hour of conversation, we barely scratched the surface. Even still, this is more of a Community 2.0 conversation, and I am so excited to see who joins and geeks along with us on this one!

Charles has helped organizations like Google, Yale, and LinkedIn think smarter about community and connection. He wrote a book called “The Art of Community,” but I think what Charles is really good at is taking a topic so many of us leave to chance/alchemy/chemistry/luck, and breaking it down into more of a matter-of-fact science. (He does not use flowery, fluffy language or mince his words, as you will see…🤣.)

I mean, people are complicated, so community and relationships can never truly be built or maintained with rules or formulas alone, but there are time-tested (even ancient!) principles of belonging that are knowable. And Charles is a voice who puts language and structure to these principles so we can understand and implement them in our lives and organizations.

If you’ve ever wanted deeper friendships, a stronger team, more effective events, or a life marked by more belonging and connection, this is an episode you’ll want to listen to twice. Maybe three times. It’s a lot. 🤣 In all the best ways!

✨ A Few Things We Get Into

• Why belonging is a basic human need, not a nice-to-have

• Why “inclusivity” isn’t always the “kind” way to build community

• What organizations keep getting wrong about “community initiatives.”

• The surprisingly simple practices that separate groups that thrive from groups that fizzle

• How to build a table people actually want to gather around

• Why self-introspection, personal responsibility, and accountability are key elements to cultivate within if you want to live a rich, connected life

⚡️ Episode Highlights

⚡️ 06:22 — Charles breaks down the difference between gathering and belonging, and why we confuse the two.
⚡️ 12:40 — The moment he calls out the #1 reason communities fall apart (and ooof, he’s right).
⚡️ 19:03 — The heartbeat of every meaningful group that often gets missed.
⚡️ 27:55 — Rituals, meaning-making, and why humans crave structure more than we like to admit.
⚡️ 34:18 — The leadership mistake that unintentionally erodes trust.
⚡️ 42:07 — The real cost of belonging that creates the real rewards.
⚡️ 51:10 — A practical, doable, start-today tip for building deeper connection.
⚡️ 58:49 — The future of community in a fragmented culture.
⚡️ 1:03:15 — A moment that made me rethink something I’ve believed for years.

Come for the wisdom. Stay for the velvet hammer.

If you care about building a team, a neighborhood, a family culture, a faith community, a brand, or want a life that feels more connected and less scattered, Charles Vogl will give you the language, framework, and imagination to change how you show up in the world.

I am so excited for you to hear this one!

xo,
Liz

When I sat down with author and comedian Melissa Radke, I had a plan for our conversation. (And despite the photo my producer chose for me 👆🏼, I was neither half-asleep nor under the influence during this episode 🤣🤣🤣.)

But the plan quickly went out the window, and what unfolded was a tender, honest, and redemptive conversation about the longing to belong. (And what to do with those big feelings.)

From vocational loneliness to worthiness and the gift of jealousy, we left no stone unturned.

If you’ve got a nagging sense that you’re not exactly where you’d hope you’d be as it relates to friendship, connection, and belonging, this episode is for you!

Tissue was procured. Laughter was had. It was the full spectrum of emotions, folks!

Thanks for being here.

xo,

Liz

💬 Conversation Highlights

⚡ : 03 — The nuance of loneliness
We explored how getting more nuanced with our “negative” emotions can be instructive. Loneliness has varieties, and naming them is the first act of agency.

⚡ : 07 — Jealousy as a teacher
I shared why jealousy can be one of our most helpful emotions. Instead of rushing to gratitude, we asked: What unmet longing is my jealousy pointing to?

⚡ : 10 — The viral moment
Melissa told the story of a Facebook video that exploded overnight to 150 million views, launching her career, but also birthing a quiet shame: “What if no one thinks I’m legit?”

⚡ : 18 — The lunch-table lie
We unpacked how chasing a seat at a particular table often isn’t about connection. It’s about craving validation. Two different longings that are important to distinguish.

⚡ : 24 — But who am I?
We talked about a helpful metaphor and mindset shift when the “but who am I to…lead/write/create/build?” insecurity emerges.

⚡ : 29 — Turning anxiety into creativity
We reframed anxiety as misplaced imagination. The energy it takes to worry “what if they don’t like me?” is the same energy it takes to dream “what if I built something beautiful?”

⚡ : 33 — Build the table
Our conversation crescendoed to this truth: You may never get invited to that table, but you can build the one you wish existed.

✨ Favorite Quote-ables

“Anxiety and creativity require the same energy. The only difference is the tone of the question: What if?”

“If I walk with a limp, it means I’ve been out there. I’ve been in the dangerous places, doing the work.”

“Your calling will always emerge from the place you’ve known the most pain.”

“Maybe I’m meant to be the one who builds the table—and invites others to sit at it.”

Melissa’s vulnerability was a masterclass in how we can transform the often-vague and overwhelming pain of loneliness into an invitation. She left me (and hopefully you) believing that maybe the point was never to score the invite or find our seat, but to build the table where others can belong too.

🎧 Listen Now

👉 Full conversation with Melissa Radke on Plucking Up Podcast

💌 Let’s Keep the Conversation Going

What kind of loneliness have you felt lately? Click Reply and tell me, or head over to The Boho Beat and drop a comment. I read every single one! 💛

We’re exploring what it means to live well together and build lives and communities rooted not in achievement or image, but in authenticity, courage, and care.

And in this episode, I have the honor of connecting with one of my mentors-from-afar, Jerry Colonna. Jerry co-founded Flatiron Partners, an iconic early-stage venture capital firm. He went on to become a partner at JPMorgan before a…big pivot.

Jerry is now the co-founder of the coaching organization Reboot, the author of Reboot and Reunion, and a beloved “CEO whisperer” helping leaders build inner and outer worlds in integrity.

In this conversation, Jerry doesn’t just teach wisdom; he models it.

We talk about shame, shadow, projection, and the “third way.”

This episode was tender and true as we both opened up about regret, shame, marriage, leadership, community, and lemon drops. 🍋

It’s about what happens after you’ve built something good, and the quiet inner work of staying in alignment when your outer world changes.

What a gift!

💭 Favorite Moments

“So often we think our only choices are to stay and betray ourselves,
or to leave and burn it all down.
But there’s almost always a third way —
one that’s honest, brave, and still kind.”

—

“I didn’t need to hand over the seat.
I just needed to change the seat —
to make it fit who I was becoming.”

—

“Our real work as leaders is learning how to give back other people’s projections
without freezing, fighting, or fleeing.”

—

“We spend our lives afraid that if people really knew us, we’d lose belonging.
But the truth is — belonging begins the moment we stop hiding.”

—

“Maybe alongside our gratitude journals,
we should keep grief journals too —
because every ending makes space for something new.”

🎙️ Conversation Highlights

⚡️ 02:00 — When your mentor becomes your mirror
Jerry recalls how Parker Palmer unknowingly mentored him for a decade before they met — and how relationships can unfold across time and imagination.

⚡️ 05:00 — The CEO’s Shadow
Jerry opens up about his recent reckoning as Reboot’s CEO — learning to face discomfort rather than avoid it, and the difference between conflict avoidance and “annoyance avoidance.”

⚡️ 11:00 — Finding the Third Way
We both talk about the false binary of “stay and suffer” or “leave and burn it down,” and the healing that comes from designing a new seat rather than abandoning it.

⚡️ 15:00 — Trauma, nuance, and the middle path
Jerry reframes binary thinking as a trauma response and invites us to move from survival to creativity.

⚡️ 20:00 — Taking your rightful seat
A beautiful story about what it means to “sit in your seat” as a leader without ego or avoidance and the humility that true confidence requires.

⚡️ 27:00 — Projection, leadership, and the art of growing up
Jerry describes the lifelong work of separating who we are from what others project onto us.

⚡️ 33:00 — Confession, Quaker circles, and collective healing
I share a story about bringing a marriage fight to my neighbors’ living room (yes, really) and what it taught me about confession, community, and belonging.

⚡️ 44:00 — The longing to be known and belong
Our deepest desire is to be “at long last where we fully belong.”

⚡️ 47:00 — Attachment to good things
We explore the shadow side of our attachments to what’s good: family, purpose, community, and embracing impermanence.

⚡️ 54:00 — Gratitude and grief
Jerry suggests that alongside our gratitude journals, we keep grief journals, because oftentimes, allowing ourselves to mourn what’s ending is what makes space for what’s next.

🎧 Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. And if this conversation resonates, drop it like it’s hot below👇🏼 and let’s keep the convo going, Pluckies.

Hey Pluckies!! 💛

This episode confirmed everything I had hoped and dreamed for this season, as we deep dive into the topics of adult friendship, social health, and connection.

It was SO FUN to totally NERD OUT on this topic with someone who has thought SO MUCH about the mechanics, strategy, and tactics involved in building connection and community.

I was SO ENERGIZED by this conversation, feeling challenged and stretched by Gretchen’s expertise and lived experience, and very inspired by some of her super practical ideas.

(Also, listen in to hear me get a weeeee bit triggered and react rather strongly 🤣🫣 to a … spicy nugget 🌶️ of the conversation.)

Some highlights below!

If you listen, please circle back here and let me know so we can keep the conversation going!

⚡️ 00 — Why Social Health Matters

⚡️ 06 — The Secret Sauce to Making Adult Friendships

⚡️ 09 — The Math of Intimacy

⚡️ 12 — Making Friends as Adults

⚡️ 17 — Why Accommodation is Overrated

⚡️ 19 — Forming Groups That Last

⚡️ 23 — Turning Friends into Acquaintances

⚡️ 36 — Designing for Connection

⚡️ 42 — The Problem with “Chosen Family”

⚡️ 48 — The Habit of Friendship

✨ This conversation is full of quotable wisdom, laughter, and honest stories about the messy, magnificent work of building lives that are rich in relationships.

If you’ve ever wondered how to make friends as an adult, how to sustain them when life gets full, or how to build your own “village,” this one’s for you.

🎧 Listen to Episode 134 — The Habit of Friendship with Gretchen Rubin wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaking of seasons… this one is a little different.

While we’ll still be diving into the twisty, messy, beautiful stories of people’s vocational journeys (and, of course, their pluck-ups along the way), we’re also zooming in on (get ready for the least surprising thing you’ve heard today): Community, connection, and social health.

Think: Friendships, relationships, communication, loneliness, and living in an intentional community. We’re talking about connection to ourselves, in marriages, our families, workplaces, and neighborhoods.

I’ve already laughed, cried, and evolved my own thinking based on the stories and expertise shared by our guests in the conversations we’ve recorded so far. We have professors, founders, psychologists, authors, and creators sharing their wisdom, mistakes, and messy middle.

(And, because no one puts Baby in a corner…yes, you’ll still hear the occasional curveball episode that doesn’t fit neatly in the “community” box but was too good not to share!)

And while the show will still be available on Apple, Spotify, etc., if you want to connect more deeply and join the conversation, here at The Boho Beat ⚡️🖋️ (on Substack) is where we’d love to hear from you!

Thank you for being here, for listening, contributing, and learning right alongside me.

Now,

Let’s GET PLUCKED!

xo,
Liz

Here are the highlights you don’t want to miss:

⚡️ [00:01:51] Joy’s big reveal: after a five-hour assessment, she got the official word — dyslexia. Her whole life started making sense like a Netflix true-crime documentary where all the puzzle pieces suddenly snap together.

⚡️ [00:03:07] The irony that she’s a literary agent who doesn’t like to read. Honestly, it might be the best Instagram handle never claimed: @TheDyslexicLitAgent

⚡️ [00:06:00] Our side rant about labels — why we crave them, why people are literally throwing “diagnosis parties,” and whether they’re more helpful or harmful

⚡️ [00:08:45] Joy opened up about the shame she feels every time someone in France asks, “How long have you lived here? And you don’t speak French?” (Cue me wanting to throat-punch that hypothetical stranger on her behalf. Aggression on behalf of those I love is a spiritual gift, and liability.)

⚡️ [00:12:59] Her fear spiral: If it’s not hormones, and it’s not dyslexia… does that just make me a dumb person with a bad attitude? (Don’t worry, we vetoed that label immediately.)

⚡️ [00:22:00] I shared how ADHD dynamics show up in my marriage — especially when your non-ADHD spouse thinks you’re just choosing not to remember something. Spoiler: it’s not great for date night.

⚡️ [00:26:55] Joy reframed slow reading as her superpower. Turns out it makes her a hawk-eyed contract reader, which is why you want her negotiating your book deal.

⚡️ [00:30:14] The wildest twist: Joy is in the bottom 1% in something called blending (no, not smoothies). Basically, her brain struggles to combine sounds into words. This explains French being her personal kryptonite.

⚡️ [00:37:15] The mic-drop moment: when someone asked if she speaks French, instead of spiraling with shame, Joy just shrugged. Diagnosis unlocked: freedom from over-explaining

Why This Conversation Matters

Because it reminded me that labels can feel like chains or like keys — sometimes both at once. They can free us from shame and/or box us in. And sometimes, they just give us a great story (and maybe an excuse for merch).

Now It’s Your Turn

• Do you find labels more freeing or limiting in your own life?

• Have you ever had a diagnosis (official or self-imposed) that suddenly made your whole life click?

• What’s one “quirk” you could reframe as your superpower?

Drop your answers in the comments — you know I’ll be there, nodding along and laughing at your stories.

Get more from Liz Bohannon in the Substack app

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THANKS to all of you who joined live (especially to those of you who shared! Looking at you , , and more!) This was a fun one and didn’t involve toooo many “Maybe this shouldn’t be on the Internet moments” so, IT LIVES TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY!

Before I give you the summary, what became very clear to us on this call is that we need more spaces to share about friendship drama! The ghostings, the painful breakups, the wrestling through next steps when things feel tricky and sticky. And we want to hear from YOU! Whether you want to get something off your chest and just feel a little less alone in your friendship woes, or you’re looking for some thought partnership about how to handle a rocky friendship situation, we want to hear from you. Comment here, message me on Substack or Insta or shoot me an email at hello@lizboho.com. (And if you prefer to stay anonymous, let me know, please!) THANK YOU for being here! We’re having SO MUCH FUN and hope you are, too!

xo!

⚡00:00 – The Coldplay Jumbotron Incident: The drama of it all and what it brought up for both Joy and me on a personal level. (I had some big feelings!)

⚡17:20 – Which scares you most? Betrayal, Abandonment, or Humiliation?
The conversation shifts to the core emotional fears of betrayal, abandonment, and humiliation, inspired by a framework a friend recently shared with me.

⚡ 21:30 – Navigating Conflict in Relationships
I share why I am passionate about healthy, open, and honest communication in all relationships, and we begin discussing this, specifically in the context of friendship. We both share some personal experiences with friend situationships and discuss ideas for addressing a rocky friendship moment.

⚡ 30:10 – Friendship Fade, Ghost or Breakup?
We discuss some personal experiences (and our club members share theirs, too!) and we talk about how ending a friendship often feels more complicated and confusing than ending a romantic relationship, and how much less we talk and process this in our culture (compared to romantic relationships).

⚡ 47:40 – Radical Acceptance in Relationships
When do you keep trying to seek repair, and when do you engage “radical acceptance” of the way things are?

JUICY, JUICY! Thanks again for joining us. Hope to see you next time, Pluckers!

xo,

Liz (and Joy!)