Somewhere along the way, we went from gathering with the same people, at the same times for the same reasons… to not.

Aka, we finished our education and graduated college.

The great scattering happened and most of us found ourselves in some form of newness: new city, new husband, new babies.

At first, making new friends took effort but wasn’t impossible.

There were coworkers at our new jobs. When the babies came, there were mom groups. Suddenly we found ourselves bound by our children’ s ages rather than our shared interests.

But alas, we were making friends.

Then the kids got a bit older.

Careers got a bit bigger.

Schedules got a heck of a lot crazier.

The gap between those of us that mom hard and those of us that career hard seemed to get big, and bigger, and bigger.

Enter FOMO. For those of us that identify as wildly ambitious, over-achieving, career-loving women, we find ourselves in a frequent state of friendship fear of missing out.

Turns out, no one gave us the map on how to mom hard, career hard AND build lasting friendships.

Subscribe now

So, why is making girlfriends so damn hard?

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately.

If I’m being totally transparent, I’m in a lonely season.

Why?

It could be because we moved to a new neighborhood.

Or perhaps because my kids are playing different sports.

And maybe it’s because work has been in a very hard and demanding season.

Whatever the reason, my friendships don’t seem to be getting any deeper as of late.

And I’ve been a little salty.

And maybe a little left out.

Dare I say, I’ve felt jealous at times.

Yuck. That’s so cringe. Even as I type, I get the ick at myself. I don’t want to care that I didn’t get an invite.

But I do.

I know you know the feeling too.

The doomscroll where you see a friend’s story and realize you didn’t get invited to something funny. You weren’t on that group text.

The only thing that’s worse is when I realize that I’ve been the organizer of that exact dinner more times than I’d like to admit.

I would never leave someone out intentionally.

But how many times has there been a woman sitting at home seeing my social media wondering:

Why didn’t I get an invite?

Are we actually in a friendship crisis?

My thesis is yes.

But probably not for the reason you think.

I don’t think friendship is dead.

I think the infrastructure that used to make friendship easy has disappeared.

The childhood definition of friendship doesn’t fit into our adult lives. But none of us have stopped to name what friendship actually is and should be.

Some are lucky to have the same best friend since they were five.

Some are lucky to have held a variety of best friends at different stages of their life.

Some never wanted a best friend, they are just friends with everyone.

And others have never known the joy of having close girlfriends.

We come in all shapes and sizes of friendship needs.

But we rarely say aloud what we actually expect from one another.

The Mahjong Mom and the Mogul Mom

There are these two personas that live rent free in my head: the Mahjong Mom and the Mogul Mom. I desperately want to be both.

The Mahjong Mom

Standing Wednesday game. Homemade birthday cupcakes for the entire class. Room mom. She always says yes to the last minute dinner invite. She’s basically the CEO of the group chat that’s been running 7 years strong, including those 3 epic girls trips to Cabo.

The Mogul Mom

She’s always building something. She’s on a plane. She’s at a conference. We rarely see her at school pick-up. She is always talking about the interesting people she’s meeting or the exotic places her travel takes her. I kind of want to be her. But FOR SURE it will be at least two or three business days before I get a response from her. And there’s a pretty decent chance her response is: “I’m so sorry. Can we reschedule?”

The Mogul Mom sounds like a pretty sucky friend. She’s busy and everyone knows it.

But she’s also lonely. But hardly anyone knows that.

It’s me.

I’m her.

I’m the one in the corner of the ladies lounge tap, tap, tapping on my keyboard while the lounge ladies play Mahjong at their fancy corner table.

They’re cheersing over “bird bam”.

I’m firing off another email.

And as badly as I want to join them, I also know I’ve been called to something different in this season.

Neither is right or wrong.

Nor better or worse.

But they are for sure different.

If you’re reading this feeling like “I want to be both.”

Ya, I feel you, girl.

I will not choose

You probably expected me to offer some words of encouragement that it’s okay in this season to skip out on the Mahjong table.

But I’m not going to tell you that.

Because I know we need each other more than we realize.

I refuse to accept loneliness as the price women have to pay for ambition.

I want to be a Mogul Mom AND a Mahjong Mom.

Definitely not every Wednesday. But sometimes.

I still want the invite.

I still want the girls to think of me.

I still want the ridiculous group text, even if I never respond.

I still have a deep desire to be in community with other women.

But the deal is, we don’t get to have our cake and eat it too. We can’t be too busy for the types of friendships our Mahjong Mom friends need. We have to show up for them.

Those of us whose lives are in constant career motion have to work harder at friendship.

So much of friendship is simply doing life together.

Same neighborhood.

Same school.

Same sports.

Same office.

Same Wednesday Mahjong game.

And in the absence of consistently doing life alongside someone, friendship requires immense intention.

You have to start the conversation.

You have to plan the dinner (even if it’s 3 months out!).

You have to say, outloud, “Please keep inviting me even when I say no. Please send the text when I don’t respond.”

You have to stop expecting and start participating in whatever capacity you have.

Maybe Friendship Isn’t Dead

Maybe we just need to better align our expectations.

If she thinking friendship is yapping on the phone everyday and you are a texter with a 2-3 day response window, she is always going to feel let down.

If you need the invite to feel secure in your friendship, but you decline 50% of the time, she needs to know: keep inviting me!

This millennial friendship crisis seems simple to solve. We simply need to name what we need out of our friendships.

What does friendship have to do with getting ricHER?

Everything.

Making money doesn’t happen in a silo. It happens when the whole you is living and working within your purpose.

And friendship is central to who you are and who you are becoming.

Last week I found myself with an extra ticket to a conference. I had four options:

1. I could go alone and let my other ticket go to waste.

2. I could not go all together and not use either of my tickets.

3. I could invite one of my close girlfriends so we could have a mini in-town getaway.

4. I could invite someone I didn’t know well but I thought would really benefit from the ticket.

I chose option 4. I invited a woman I barely knew from out-of-state to attend this conference last minute. It turns out, she ended up introducing me to more people than I did for her! For 3 days, we poured into each other’s networks and made genuine, meaningful connections.

And I think I made a new friend!

Then it clicked for me:

Friendship and wealth creation are intimately connected.

Having the right women in your circle doesn’t just make you feel less lonely (although it’s a huge bonus!).

It’s the key to new introductions.

New ways of thinking.

Brilliant ideas.

The gold standard? They say your name out loud in the rooms you don’t yet have a seat at the table.

Your Monday Money Move

Your network is your financial strategy and this week your goal is to start building a ricHER circle.

We’ve all heard “your network is your networth.”

Between now and Friday, I challenge you to make 2 new connections. A reach “up” and a reach “back” connection.

Reach Up

Think about the future you. Who do you need to talk to today to help get you to that future identity?

Reach Back

Think about the you of 3 years ago. Who are you a couple steps ahead of that you can pour into?

In both cases, you’re not going to take up their time or “pick their brain.” Simply reach out and say, “I really admire what you’re doing and what you’re working on. Is there a connection or a roadblock that you have that I could help make a connection in? I’d love to help you in any way I can.”

You aren’t going to ask her for anything.

Lead with value.

There’s a chance she might be lonely and looking for a new friend.

Either way, you’ve taken one of the most fundamental steps in wealth creation and becoming ricHER. Simply adding some new girlfriends.

Yep, I said it. Me…Jess.

Despite being an early adopter of all things AI in my business, I am making a conscious effort to give this a go with just me, and me alone. We are going to try for original thoughts only here. Maybe I will change my mind, but I want you to feel like we’re three glasses of wine in and I’m ready to spill the tea on everything.

Why Should You Keep Reading?

Before I tell you a little about me, I want to tell you who this Substack is for:

You. It’s for you. This isn’t for me. It isn’t a journal or a diary. It’s for the ambitious woman who feels like she is running on the hamster wheel of life. No matter how fast she goes or how much she does the noise just doesn’t seem to stop.

This is for the women who wants to get RICHER. Yes, richer in wealth. But also, richer in friendship, richer in motherhood, richer in faith, richer in business.

This isn’t for the ladies that settle. It’s for those of us who have been told we are too much. We talk too much. We’re too loud. We’re too bossy. We have RBF. Well around here, RBF means something a little different.

Here, RBF is ricHER by Friday. Here we don’t gatekeep. We have an abundance mindset. Because when you win, we win.

Back to AI. I love AI. I truly believe that for the first time in history, we all have access to the most powerful tool in existence: information. So yes, I am going to show you how I am using AI in my business. But, you aren’t reading this newsletter for information. You are searching for an opinion, an original voice. And so I am going to try this out with no AI writing, just good old imperfect Jess mode.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for being here. Chances are maybe we’re meant to be new friends 🙂. I hope so!

Subscribe now

Time for the formal introduction:

Like I said, I’m Jess. Or Jessica to strangers. The Barrel Girl to some. Jessi to my mom. And my personal favorite, Momica, to my two favorite boys.

I’m a founder. An innovator. A dreamer. A doer.

While I answer by those names and I identify as those things, I’m also just regular. Your regular career confused millennial girlie.

Regular mom. Regular wife. Regular businesswoman.

I’ve spent the last decade doing some pretty extraordinary things. Things 10 year old Jessi would have never dreamed possible. Yet, here I am, still feeling frustrated by the noise, the overwhelm, the anxiety, the “its never enough” feeling while trying to balance extreme ambition and motherhood.

Before we go any further, I think it’s important we level set a few things:

1. I really like to work. If you’re sleuthing the interwebs for get rich quick inspo or how to do things the lazy way…I’m probably not your girlie. Let’s just say I like to work smart AND hard.

2. I’m not a psychologist or sociologist. While I did spend 5 years studying human potential, leadership and talent, I unfortunately cannot claim any sort of expert status. Meaning, what gets published here is merely my opinion and not backed by research. I’ll point you to the real experts whenever possible but take what I say for what it is - opinion only.

3. I’m not writing from the mountain top. For the last 12 months, I’ve been in the messy middle of life. If you’re looking for career advice from someone who has conquered the summit, it aint me. Nope. I’m in the trenches doing the damn thang right now.

Why Hit Subscribe?

Honestly, I’m not sure if you should. The one variable I cannot help you solve is more time. Time is finite. And if you’re going to choose to consume anything that I put out into the public, please, please make sure it’s worth your time.

But, if you’re like me and you like you’ve done all the things right and you’re still not where you want to be, welcome. You belong here.

I have no shortage of opinions, let’s just get a few of them out of the way:

• I believe that knowing, understanding and being in a constant state of learning about yourself is the only true way to achieve growth. “Know Thyself.” There are traits/talents/themes of yourself that make you uniquely you. YOUR identity. But there are also so many things that impact identity - the age of your kids, education, the people you surround yourself with, the health of you or your family, death of loved ones. To reach our full potential we need to build for our identities of the FUTURE you, not today you.

• I believe that many women struggle to truly build wealth because of their own money story. I know because my relationship with money has been messy and complicated. If that’s you, girl, you’re home. We are going to figure this out together.

• I believe it’s really hard to make girlfriends as a grownup. I want to fix that. What could our little community become?

• I believe we are on the precipice of the biggest career evolution of the last century. While the unknown might seem scary, the opportunities are abundant. I want to help you achieve your goals. Are you a corporate girlie secretly wanting to go out on your own? I got you. Are you a Gen Z gal that has refused to play by our millennial rules? Girl….I need to know you and learn from you.

Housekeeping:

This article is free but to get all the behind the scenes access and the tools and resources, you will need to be a paid subscriber.

What’s Behind the Paywall?

My hot takes are free but the IP of how I build my business isn’t. Free is button-up Jessica. Paid is the unfiltered yap sessions, playbooks, prompts and tools from Jess, your coach aka bestie aka big sis, all in one. It’s the unhinged way to steal my 10,000 hours of expertise.

Please subscribe and share with anyone in your life that needs to be ricHER by Friday. 🙂

Cheers!

Jess