bask in friendship: Recent Episodes
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Breck and Sally both made friends at work! In this episode, they compare notes on the shared interests they had with women at work, and how that translated to friendships outside of work.
They are joined by guest Natalie Underdown, Ph.D., from The Nu Company. While in the corporate world, Natalie also made a great friend at work, with a woman that she collaborated with and connected with across time zones. Through their international travel and shared projects, they became close.
Natalie is:
“driven by the idea that we truly can change the world through business if we’re willing to #dotheworkatwork.”
This applies to work friendships too! Bringing your personal self to work means bringing your most authentic self, and provides the opportunity for more authentic friendships.
We talk about all things company culture and how organization culture has evolved over time. Millennials are pushing their companies to enable employees to bring their whole selves to work.
Natalie shares that when it comes to female friendships at work with a boss or direct report, it's best to keep a healthy distance. Boundaries can be helpful with the power dynamic of a boss/direct report. When you're peers or on the same team, however, building a friendship outside of work can only help the relationship.
We chat about all things culture, behaviors, and how companies can encourage camaraderie and connection amongst their employees. We also dig into what happens when you get promoted and your prior friends now report into you.
Does remote work help or hinder building friendships at work? You'll have to give the podcast a listen and hear Natalie's take!
At the end of the day, consider what role you'd like your work friends to play in your life. For any healthy relationship, it's important to be able to show up as your whole self, which might not be possible with certain work friendships, and it's important to understand that. But some work friendships can be an incredible thing because they know what you're dealing with Monday through Friday!
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Galllup's Q12 Employee Engagement Survey
How Remote Workers Make Work Friends
Natalie is an executive coach and organizational psychologist. She weaves psychology, wellness, and science-backed strategies together to offer modern, mindful support for the whole person at work. She lives in sunny San Diego with her husband Preston and Golden Retriever Bowie Girl and can often be found trying out new restaurants, walking with Bowie, or diving into anything creative (lately it's been painting!). Follow her at @the_nu_co.
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Halfway through the year! We're checking in on goal setting, resolutions, and living a healthier life. As we discuss that the vast majority of people don't fulfill their new years resolutions, we also dig into how to build and lead a healthier life, and what that means for friendships.
Mikaela Davis is our talented guest: she worked in international public health in the last 10 years, but recently became a health coach. She loves working with communities, but seeing how some of her bigger projects like water sanitation improvements impact the individual really drew her to working now 1:1. She's driven by helping her clients understand how to get to where they want to go!
If you're thinking about making resolutions and goal achievement, consistency is way more important than intensity. What you do daily matters more than what you do every now and then. Pick a goal that you'll stick with. This also means start small – don't try to overhaul your entire life at once!
Goals are all part of a bigger picture around living a healthier life. Mikaela breaks down her seven things you need to lead a happier and healthier life in great detail and with a ton of tips to help you get going! She covers purpose, play, sleep, nutrition, movement, mindfulness, and community. We love play and community, because they’re natural places to build and maintain friendships!
You'll have to give a listen to hear more about what play really means to her, and what fun activity Mikaela has started up recently!
At the end of the day, dive into designing the life you want to be living (rather than changing who you are) by getting connected to your WHY. From there, celebrate the small wins as you make progress on any of your goals related to the seven things.
Finally, we chat about how to show up with a friend that may not be showing up in a healthy way for themselves. Check in with them, see what they need, perhaps model a certain behavior to them. And then also spend time on YOU - go outside your comfort zone to play, to build community. These seven things are not silos, they all intersect and intermingle, so making adjustments in one can impact another.
We'd love to hear from you if you make any changes or feel as empowered as we do after listening to Mikaela! Send us a note!
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Mikaela Davis is a Health Coach and trauma informed yoga instructor with a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Yale University. She specializes in mindset and behavior change.
She spent 10+ years working in international public health from India to Haiti on HIV/AIDS projects , advocacy for factory workers and water & sanitation. Her work in international public health informs her coaching work today where she concentrates on helping people change their thought patterns, build better habits & create more joy
She absolutely loved that her international work allowed her to live in and experience new places. Travel and food are high on her list of favorite things. She's never met a sunset she didn't like. Loves a good book and is always up for an adventure, particularly if it involves the outdoors.
As a self proclaimed type A, perfectionist who has experienced burnout, breakdown and health issues as a result, she is a big believer that habits & mindset are paramount to happiness and living well. And, that we can all live well!
Follow her on Instagram.
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Socializing post COVID! It seems like we're all talking with equal parts excitement and nerves about the re-opening of the world. We discuss what happens next with the worst being behind us (knock on wood): we're traveling, we're socializing, we're networking, we're exploring.
So many questions on this topic! We chat about whether we can go back to normal. And what we're taking with us into the new normal. And whether the world is going to be more empathetic to introverts after the last 18 months.
Our discussion also (of course!) covers friendships during and now post COVID. Breck has become more mindful of friendships during COVID. Sally has done more audio and video texting. We're both excited to take these two new intentions into the post COVID world because they've felt the benefit of these new experiences.
We asked a sampling of our friends how they were feeling about the world opening back up! As we discussed and laughed about the comments that came back, we realized there is such a range of emotions about what is to come. From this:
Outrageously overjoyed to start chipping away at our hug deficit!
to this:
I've already taken two trips and have trips planned through November but when I'm in the airport I still am getting used to being around strangers it makes me a bit nervous.
At the end of the day, we encourage everyone to take their reemergence day by day, and slowly. Consider moving into the time with care and kindness towards yourself and others. We leave you with a few tips on how to manage this transition well – but we'll leave it to you to give it a listen to learn more! Enjoy!
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It's the Newfound Social Anxiety for Me
What Will Happen to Friendships When We Crawl Out of Our Pandemic Hidey Holes?
What Did COVID Do to Friendship?
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Today's topic is – yes! a friendship-adjacent topic: how to show up as an individual in your friendship. Every relationship is a two-way street! How you show up as yourself is critical to how you show up in a friendship.
Breck and Sally go deep with Leah Aguirre, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and practicing psychotherapist, on all things friendship. We hear a little from Lucy, her dog, too!
We talk about what it means to be authentic in a friendship: to Leah it means showing up exactly as who you are, not only your strengths but also with your flaws and quirks. Being confident that those pieces are your whole identity and being true to that. She gives us that friendly reminder that no one is perfect!
Leah shares her own incredible story about being in a sorority in college and losing herself. She sees now that her values were different from her sorority sisters, and she felt she wasn't always able to show up as herself. After college, she had to find herself again. And those friendships from college didn't last or sustain because they weren't based on her authentic self.
To get grounded and find her authentic self, she started to meet like-minded people and was able to sustain good conversation and experiences with them around shared interests.
This episode also covers group think, what to do if you feel judged in a friend, and the different kinds of friends you might have in your life (hint: not every friendship is the same!).
If you're anything like us, you'll be friends with Leah by the end of this conversation!
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The Happiness Trap - take inventory of your values!
Leah Aguirre is a California native and currently resides in San Diego, CA. Leah attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and shorty after attended San Diego State University graduating with a Masters of Social Work. Leah is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has been practicing as a psychotherapist for over 7 years, working primarily with individuals who have experienced complex trauma and struggle with mental health challenges. She is trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), an evidenced based practice that is used to address trauma, PTSD and other anxiety disorders. Leah currently works at a community based clinic clinic and has her own private practice where she offers individual therapy. Leah specializes in supporting women survivors of abusive or unhealthy relationships and women navigating and conquering the dating world. Leah is passionate about women’s mental health and wellness. Her goal and mission is to help women clear trauma and develop self-love and acceptance. Leah writes for PsychologyToday and has also been featured in GQ, Sanity & Self App, and San Diego Union Tribune. Follow her on Instagram.
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How do women show up in their friendships? Do you realize, as an individual, you are half of every relationship!
Breck and Sally are joined in this episode by Nila Conzen, a multi-passionate, curious Holistic Life Coach from Germany and creator of the @about.the.good.life. As she shares, she supports women in finding their own inner wisdom in large part because of her own history: she suffered an eating disorder, which has led her to studying psychology and yoga and ancient wisdom and nutrition. She's tried to including everything she's learned into her own holistic framework which lends itself beautifully to the conversation in this episode.
She suggests that showing up in a friendship starts with knowing oneself: knowing your own values and beliefs and what you might expect from others (needs, wants, and desires) makes it easier to find the individuals that connect to you.
We cover all things how friends showed up to her during her difficult time, what she's learned from friends, and how best to show up to your friends when they're going through tough times so you aren't a therapist to your friends and they're not a therapist to you!
The brute-iful truth she highlights is both brutal and beautiful: we are responsible for our own life, and our own boundaries, and we cannot change anyone else. But this doesn't mean we shouldn't allow ourselves to be seen. She celebrates: don't be afraid to show your weirdnesses and flaws and what makes you special and unique! Once you do that, others will find the space to feel welcome and share what makes them special.
She has a great tip to get started in being vulnerable with a friend. A simple question will get you deeper sooner – but you'll have to give the episode a listen to hear about the wonderful single question to get you started!
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Nila Conzen is a multi-passionate, curious Holistic Life Coach from Germany and creator of the Instagram Account @about.the.good.life who is passionate about helping women turn crises into opportunities for learning, personal growth, and transformation. She believes the “good life” is possible for everyone - no matter the challenges they have faced and that it is never too late to be who we came here to be. Her unique approach blends modern science with ancient wisdom to promote long-term holistic wellbeing. Her "superpower" is saying what you need to hear when you need to hear it.She provides holistic life coaching & group mentoring in German and English with the mission to help women harness their inner wisdom so that they can remember and embrace all of who they are. Her promise: to make you believe in yourself as much as she believes in you.
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Listen now | Love Languages in Friendships with guest writer, editor, and SEO strategist Mackenzie Dunn
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It’s business as usual before a big life change, but we know life transitions happen every 18 months for adults, and life is no longer the same as yesterday, so this is such an important space for friendships. This podcast is all about friendship after a big life change: the after a divorce edition.
Breck and Sally are joined by guest Sari Kimbell, a self-described introvert that just needs a few high-quality friends.
Divorce and Friendship
Sari went through a divorce after ten years of marriage. With her then-husband, one day they decided "the relationship has ended." She likes to say it was a good divorce with one bad day! It was also a year she took a shotgun to her life: turned 40, diagnosed with a gluten allergy, not a mother, not a dog-owner, also got laid off, living in her mom's basement. Despite the challenges, Sari's joy and zest for life comes through in this conversation. She asked herself: with a clean slate, what does she want to create in her life?
Before the divorce, she and her husband had a lot of couple friends, and Sari had one best friend that had moved away. And upon divorce, most of the couple friends went to her ex-husband as they were originally friends with him. The best advice she got? Take a year, don't date, don't make any major life changes, and just recalibrate. (hint: because of her own exploration... she hasn't been back to a zoo!)
Making Friends After the Divorce
What helped her through the friend attrition she had faced while still a couple and in her mid-thirties, and now she's 40 and divorced?
Getting involved in a non-profit around an interest she cared about, and then going out on a limb and asking a woman she met there to hang out!
Shared activities and hobbies you enjoy with someone is a good place to start when trying to get to know someone.
Sending someone an email, asking if they want to get a coffee.
Showing Up For Your Friends Going Through a Divorce
Other words of advice if you have a friend going through a divorce?
Reach out, tell them there's no judgement
Tell them you love them where they are
Tell them “I'm here for you, how can I help?”
Ultimately, making friends is about making it a priority. It isn't always about achievement, it's about fulfillment.
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Use Marco Polo to keep the threads of your relationships alive.
More about Sari:
Sari Kimbell has held just about every position in the CPG food industry from grocery buyer to selling local produce wholesale into stores, running a commissary kitchen to starting her own food business and helping food brands get off the shelves as the Marketing Director at Whole Foods Market.
In 2015, she decided to start her own business with a mission to help packaged food entrepreneurs start and scale profitable businesses called Food Business Success. Sari is also becoming a certified life coach and will be incorporating business coaching for food founders into her business in 2021.
In her non-work time, you can find Sari at farmers markets, in her home kitchen making something delicious, at brunch with friends and family, at pilates, riding her bike on the Denver trails and playing with her Covid cat, Calvin. Find her at SariKimbell.com.
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Listen now | Introducing our podcast on International Women's Day
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