Financial Feminist - 284. How to Be Less Lonely with Liz Moody

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

You might be the loneliest you've ever been — and have no idea why. One of my favorite guests and favorite humans, Liz Moody, is back on the show to talk about why loneliness isn't an exposure problem. It's not about being around more people. It's a discomfort problem. We're getting into why our frictionless, optimized lives are quietly killing our ability to connect, what it actually takes to build real friendships from scratch, why vulnerability is the shortcut nobody wants to take, and the one shift you can make this week that will move you toward deeper connection — no new plans required. Liz’s links: Website: https://www.lizmoody.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizmoody/  Podcast: https://www.lizmoody.com/the-liz-moody-podcast/  Book: A Hundred Ways to Change Your Life: http://Bookshopbookshop.org/a/90037/9780063333710  Not sure what to do with your money? Visit ⁠https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod⁠ and take our FREE Money Plan Quiz to get your personalized money plan, and find any resources mentioned on our show! 00:00 Intro 00:13 Why We've Never Been More Connected — Yet More Alone 02:34 The "Creation Era" of Friendship & Why Discomfort Is the Price of Connection 03:23 The Cozy Era vs. The Creation Era of Friendship 06:17 Loneliness Is a Discomfort Problem, Not an Exposure Problem 11:37 Misdiagnosing Loneliness — What You're Actually Missing 13:05 The Harvard Study of Adult Development & the #1 Predictor of a Long Life 14:59 Face-Down Phone Theory & What Your Phone Is Costing Your Relationships 11:27 Match Theory: Stop Impressing, Start Finding Your People 17:32 The 50-Hour Rule: How Long It Really Takes to Make a Friend 21:17 From Transaction to Connection — Getting Past Tit for Tat 21:13 Human Beings vs. Human Doings: Productivity Culture & Friendship 38:21 Shared Experiences, Novelty & Building Deeper Bonds 38:16 "Abouts" — The Secret Ingredient to Lasting Friendships 50:24 Healthy Solitude vs. Loneliness (and Why Most of Us Never Actually Rest) 58:20 The One Shift to Make This Week If You Feel Lonely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might be the loneliest you've ever been and I have no idea why. Because the truth is we've never been more connected, but we've never been more alone. And that's not a coincidence. Today we're talking about how loneliness is not an exposure problem. It's not about being around more people. It's really a discomfort problem. And in a world designed to make everything frictionless, we have lost the exact muscle we need to build real, deep, lasting connection and community.

And one of my favorite guests of all time is back. Liz Moody is a journalist, author, and host of one of my favorite podcast, the Liz Moody podcast, and she is back here on the show. Liz and I talk about how we can build better friendships, and that's even starting from scratch, the number one factor that's hindering our ability to connect and so much more. Let's get into it. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. When my partner was launching his business last year, I was like, great, you need a Squarespace website. That was the first thing we did was sign up for Squarespace. And we signed up on Friday using my code. And by Monday, he had a brand new website and was already making on it.

Yes, really. He used their cutting-edge design tools to design a perfectly navigable website. That's a word. And the ability to offer services right within Squarespace, so he was not using a third-party platform. And with the analytics tools in the back end, we could see exactly where people were coming from and where they might be getting stopped. Head on over to Squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch your brand new website, use offer code FF Pod to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. But first, a word from our sponsors. So, Liz, welcome back to the show. What does loneliness actually look like in today's world? It looks like feeling like you're surrounded by a lot of people, but you don't have anybody to really get vulnerable with. It looks like being in a crowded room, but feeling like nobody in here really sees me, gets me, knows me.

It looks like going through a hard time and wanting to curl up in a ball by yourself on a couch instead of calling somebody to rely on. And I think it's something that a lot of us increasingly struggle with. There's a lot of societal factors that are set up to increase this feeling of there's people everywhere, but I actually don't have real people who are there for me. Talk to me about that problem, because I think that is the core of it, is like we've never been better connected and yet the connection doesn't feel real. Yeah, 100%. This is something I've been thinking about a lot. And I think a lot of it comes down to friction, which might be counterintuitive. to stick with me for a second. But our lives are set up in these ways that are designed to minimize

friction in so many capacities. Like we're ordering from Uber Eads, you can get anything like the fact that Amazon Prime has normalized two-day shipping in a way that has killed small businesses because they cannot afford to take the loss to offer two-day shipping. Drives me crazy. But we expect that now. We're like, okay, we expect two-day shipping. We expect to get things exactly when we want to, even answers. Think about, I don't know, you might be too young for this. But like, do you remember when you had a question and you couldn't just Google an answer for you? Like, yeah. It's crazy how much we've normalized. Like, I can't just sit with that question anymore. I do that on purpose now as I'm with friends or family. And like, it's like, no, we cannot Google it. We have to think of it.

We have to think, at least have a conversation and make your guesses and then Google it because I think we lose something in that immediacy. So we've designed these incredibly frictionless lives. And the thing that I think people are not talking about enough is that creating deep relationships requires friction. It requires sitting in this uncomfortable. I call it the creation era. So I say you have your cozy era friendship. We're all trying to get there. But before the cozy area, you have the creation era. And that's when you're trying, you're like, I don't know what to ask this person. Like, oh, that's an awkward pause. I make this joke. Are they going to find it weird? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You feel like they're judging you. You might be secretly judging them a little

bit. And because we have not, we've, we've really not worked our muscle of sitting in discomfort, sitting in friction, even when people are like, you go to the bathroom, you take your phone, you brush your teeth, you have your phone, you never sit with your own thoughts, you never sit with discomfort. So when we're forced to do that to create friendships and to create deep, meaningful, beautiful friendships, we're like, I can't, this is so uncomfortable, I can't do this. And so then you retreat to the phone. I don't know if it's a quote I read, but I've been thinking about it a lot where, like, the price of convenience is, like, humanity. It's like, these beautiful connections with people. And I think all the time about like Starbucks is a perfect

example. If you do drink Starbucks going in and even just having that like, what's your drink? How's your day going? Oh, you're wearing a cool pin or like there's a moment of connection there. Or you can just mobile order. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You mobile order and it probably happens quicker. But like you have lost the magic. Well, you've lost the magic and you've also lost some real benefits. You know me. I'm going to give you like all the science. And please do. For what we're missing out here, and there's something called micro connections. And so those are those little interactions that you have at the grocery store or when you say hi to somebody on the street, you smile at somebody on the street. And those have been shown in studies to support our immune system.

They also help us feel more optimistic, more hopeful. I think a lot of us are feeling a dearth of hope in our daily lives. And that's because it's not completely because there's a lot going on out in the world. But that's in part because when you walk down the street and you try to smile at somebody, their heads in their phone. So you can't do it. Right. I mean, just in my personal experience, I feel so much better, just complimenting somebody or like having that in-person interaction with them. And it does make me feel more connected to people and it does give me a sense of like, oh, not everybody like votes for Trump. Not everybody's like a terrible person. Like people are genuinely like looking out for other people and people are

not as selfish as I think it's easy to believe. I will also say that having those real life interactions can get you to, oh, that person votes for Trump and they're not a terrible person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I think is a really important thing that we miss out on on the internet. I think that the internet algorithms, I'll talk about this to the Donna time. I'm a journalist. That's my background. Right. So I'm very much in the world of like, how are we getting people to click on things? And algorithms have taken what we've been doing in media forever and they've maximized it to just exponentially greater effects. And they are showing you either something that you agree with so strongly that that's going to elicit a strong reaction that you're like, yes,

this is my identity. Yes, girl, you said it. We love it. Or they're showing you the diametric opposite, something that is designed to get you riled up and make you really angry. And I think a really interesting place that you can see this is in the comments. If you open up a video, you're going to see the top three comments are going to be the ones that most disagree with the point that's being said in that video because it's showing people what's going to get them riled up, what's going to get them to interact and stay on the app. Yeah. And I think we have to be consciously at almost every single moment aware of the fact that all the apps, all the algorithms are trying to make us feel like we live in the worst possible version of the world. And we need to be consciously fighting

back against that. We need to be consciously looking for nuance. We need to be consciously questioning, is this really true? Is this really what I believe? And that takes a lot of energy. And of course, the way the world is right now has robbed us all of the energy we need to do that. You've said that loneliness isn't an exposure problem. It's a discomfort tolerance problem. Yeah. Is that what we're talking about here with things like convenience? Yeah, I think it's two parts. So I think there is the discomfort of initial friendship. And I really don't think we talk about this enough. People are like, I don't have friends. And people are like, well, go to a yoga class. There's something called the mere exposure effect. And I do think this is

important. This is research that shows that essentially the more you're exposed to people, the more they will like you and you will like them, even if you don't know anything about them and even if you actually don't recognize that you've been exposed to them. So if you go to a yoga class at the same time, same week, you go to the same coffee shop, the people there will like you more and you will like them more, even if you're not consciously recognizing them. So I think that's an important part of the friendship equation, but most friendship advice stops there. It's like just put yourself around the people and it'll be great. And the second part that I do think we need to talk about is it's going to be uncomfortable and you need to practice sitting in discomfort to get friendships

to the place that you want. And then the layer I'm going to add on top of that is that I think a lot of us, even in our closest, deepest friendships, stop short of talking about the stuff that really would push the friendship to the next level. Like we have almost our go-to list of, these are things I'm vulnerable about.

These are things that I talk about, like, oh, in therapy the other day. And then you give yourself like a little pat on the back and you're like, I talked about how I was in therapy. But that actually... I checked the vulnerability box. I check the vulnerability box. But that's not actually this deep-seated.

thing that you like have shame around and that you if you shared that thing with your friend, it would one, deepen the connection. Two, it would massively decrease that shame because then you would be accepted for this thing that you have shame around. And three, it would push that discomfort in a completely other way where you're just like, oh my gosh, I can deal with the discomfort of saying like the real thing that I'm scared about. But we all, the other thing that the world we live in has done, the world of social media, it's made us. much more afraid of being perceived moment to moment. Even if you don't have a big social media account, you're scrolling. You see somebody like wearing an outfit or putting themselves out there and everybody's

like, oh my God, that's cringe. That's embarrassing. Like I can't believe it. And even if you're like, I'm never going to do that, there's a part of your head that's like, well, that's not cool. We judge people like that. Or it feels unsafe. It feels deeply unsafe. And at a base level, we're all really looking for that safety. And so I think that that fear of being perceived, if you are struggling with your relationship, you're like, gosh, I haven't had sex with my partner in months. I don't know what to do about this. You might not bring that to your friends because you want to be like, oh, yeah, we're having sex like a few times a week. It's great. If you are worried about where you are in life in terms of the success that you're finding, you might not bring that to your

friends if you're worried about your money situation. Yeah. We all have this like the the dial of being perceived has been turned up so high that we're missing that vulnerability, which I think is the later layer of discomfort. Yeah. I'm going to ask you like the biggest question and you might not have the answer. How do we get over the fear of being perceived? Or how do we make peace with that? I think it's baby stabs. I think it's coming out there in microways. I remember there was this group trip that I was invited on and it was a bunch of hot girls. Like the girls in high school and college, you're like, oh my gosh, these are the hot girls. Yep. Which I've lived my life as like peripheral too. Like the funny friend in the hot girl group. I'm well-wear. Like, sounds familiar. And I was really nervous to go on this trip because it was going to be a lot of, like, bikini photos and stuff like this.

And I didn't want to say to my friend that I was nervous about it because I was worried she'd be like, oh, I'd never noticed you weren't hot, but now I know. And like, you unlocked it for me. The glass is broken. And I ended up having this conversation with my friend. And I felt like, as I was saying, I felt like I was going to die a little bit. It was so this is how you'll know. if you're being really vulnerable, it's not going to feel comfortable. You're going to, like,

your chest is going to tight and you're going to be like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm saying this out loud. Are you going to judge me? Yes, all of those things. Do you want to wrap more? I can't. I'm so heavy. This ramen on his photo already. Mom's spaghetti. He's nervous. Okay. And she was like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that you shared this. I've been feeling like this too. And I've been really nervous about how my body's going to look in all these pictures and stuff like that. What do they call it? It's, um, is it the Gatmans that call it? You've talked about it. your show. Is it biddy? Yes. Yes. It's a bid. It's a bid. That is a bid for connection. I think there's, yeah. A little less so, but it like it ends up being a connection point. Yeah. It's definitely

a connection point. And I think that that's, you will either, if you do this process of like really saying the stuff you're ashamed about, you will either get Me Too, which is just the best feeling in the world. Like every time I've opened up about this, there is usually a Me Too in the room and I'm like, oh my God, I'm not alone in this. Then you can talk about it, strategize about it. And so, nice. Or you can get, oh my gosh, I didn't know you were feeling that way. Like, let me know how I can be there for you. I've done this hundreds of times since I identified that it was something that I was not doing and it was negatively impacting my life. And I've never been met with judgment. And I also do think I have this thing called match theory, which is essentially just the idea that we're not looking to

impress our way through life. We're looking for our genuine matches. Yes. So like on a date, in friendship. Even at work, like, you really want to look for as much as possible your real matches. And the sooner you get to the information that maybe this person isn't a match, the better. So, like, I'm like, go on vacation with your friends, go on vacation with your partner. Like, that's, even if it goes terrible. You have information. You have information. And so I think that in this scenario, if you're vulnerable, if you say the thing you're ashamed about, and they're like, ew, like, I would so much rather have that information. Yeah. I think it's Sometimes that will even ring a bell and you'll be like, that's why this relationship

felt unsafe. And I couldn't consciously wrap my head around that feeling I got around this person. Yeah. When people say, I feel lonely, or maybe they think I feel lonely, what are they usually misdiagnosing? I think that they are misdiagnosing a number of things. So we can go macro and micro. I'd say in a macro way, I think when they say they feel lonely, they're probably missing connection, not people. And I think that's why you can feel a lot of people in long-term romantic partnerships feel lonely because their partner isn't showing up for them as a partner. And so I think that's what they're really saying. In the micro, I think there's a lot of reasons people give for why connection falls down and down and down on the list. There's time, there's energy, there's money.

thing I love to remind people about. If they haven't heard about it, there was this study called the Harvard study of adult development. It's the longest running study of humans that has ever existed. It's gone on for more than 80 years. And they studied how people ate, what exercise people did. They studied the supplements they took, the prescription meds they took, their income levels, all of these things. And they looked at everything. And the number one finding of this study was the single most important and think to our health and our happiness and the long term, like how long we are going to live our lives was the quality of our relationships. I remind myself of this study literally daily. I think, and I don't mean this in a derogatory way, complimentary and prefronties.

Like I think almost every episode I listen to of your show, you've brought it up. Because it's because it's so helpful. Well, and I think that I want people to internalize it. I know at this point of my show, I'm like, as we remember. Yeah, no, but it's study. But it is true. I want people to think about it, not in just this greater way. It's like, oh, cool, information to file away. But I want people to think about it when they're making their to-do list for the day. I want people to do when they are planning their calendar. I want people to do it when they're thinking

about, should I pick my friend up at the airport? I want people to do it when they're thinking about incorporating habits in their life. Like, I've just started going to the gym regularly with a girlfriend. It's my favorite thing I do. It brings us closer together. I can use the relationship to build the habit. and I can use the habit to build the relationship. It should color almost everything we do so that when we look back and we're like, oh, I don't have the time or the energy or whatever, I think flipping that to be like,

how do I make the time? Because this is going to be an energy giver. Totally. You know the feeling when you're doing spring cleaning and you like finally clean out your closet or maybe even just a drawer in your closet and it makes you just feel better about your life and you're like, cool, I can do anything now.

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Go to plod.a.ai and use code ff pod for 10% off. That's p-l-a-u-d.a-u-d.a-i slash f-fpodd. How can somebody be incredibly busy, incredibly social around a lot of people, but still feel lonely? I mean, first of all, we have to talk about the phones. Like when you have your phone out, you are not making connections with people, period. I have this thing called face-down phone theory, and this is based on research that when your phone is out on the table,

even if it is face-down, it is getting in the way of the connection that you have with the person that you're with. It's doing it in a few ways. So one, there's something called attention residue. Our attention takes over 10 minutes to switch from a previous task to the next task completely. So a little bit of your attention is on your phone, even if you checked your Instagram like nine minutes ago or whatever. Even if you're not conscious of it. Even if you're not conscious of it, a little bit of your attention is on that. That's important to think about when your task switching in life, by the way, is like if you're checking your email and you're like, I'll just scroll on Instagram really fast. That is going to take you time to switch your attention back.

It does. Thinking about the cost of that, I think is helpful in general. So you have this little bit of attention red to do. But also, you have this gravitational pull of your phone, again, because it's easy, because it's frictionless. So when you are sitting there in the friction of a real life conversation, your eye will go to your phone and you'll be like, oh, like, this is uncomfortable. I want to reach from my phone because the thing that I always do when I'm uncomfortable is I reach from my phone. And then that's easy some of the discomfort. Yeah. And so I think that is getting away. It's getting in. It's getting in. the way of our ability to really connect with people. If I could offer people one piece of advice

to make getting together feel more satisfied, being with other people feel more satisfying. It would be to take the phones out of your site, put it in a bag, put it like anywhere that you can't see it. One of the other things that I think that people can really benefit from doing is doing activities together. We get together far too often and we're like, let's go get a drink, let's go to dinner. These are the basic activities that we do. That's going to create a lot more of that friction because you have to just sit there and stare in each other's eyes and make conversation from scratch for an hour and a half. And you don't even host a podcast.

I'm like, that sounds like a nightmare to me. That feels like a lot of pressure. In the beginnings of a relationship, too. In the beginning. It's a lot. I mean, I've been with my husband for like 18 or 19 years and I'm like, that's a lot. That's just like it's a lot of pressure. And you feel like you have.

to sparkle a little bit. And when it's like quiet and you hear like the forks clicking, you're just like, is this my childhood again? It doesn't work. Yeah, it's awful. And I think that there's, doing activities together, it provides this buffer for those uncomfortable silences. And it's going to give you something that you have in common that you can build the hours that you need to create deep and meaningful friendship. So there's research on this too. Research shows that it takes about 50 hours to turn somebody into a friend. And then it's, It takes about 200 hours. Hold on, list.

50 hours? By zero hours. That's a lot. That's a lot of hours. To go from like an acquaintance or like a casual, even a friend. Even a friend, not even like a good friend. Yeah, not even a good friend. That's a lot of hours.

And then 200 hours to turn somebody into a best friend. That's a big jump. Two hundred hours. And that's so when you do activities together, when you have something in common, there's a woman that I had on my podcast called Anna Goldfarb. She writes the New York Times Friendship expert column. Yeah. And she's phenomenal.

And she calls these things about. So an about can be like real housewives. An about can be knitting. And about can be tennis. But when you have these abouts, you have these things in common. It's like, oh, we meet up and we play tennis. We can talk about tennis. We can say, oh, did you watch that tennis match?

You're building those hours without those hours being, we're sitting and staring into each other's eyes and making conversation from scratch. So that's my other thing that I think can really help if you feel like you're hanging out with people, but you're not getting anywhere from those hangouts, bring in and about. And it can be anything book clubs are phenomenal about. You talk about the book and then that veers into, well, how was your childhood? Right. Have you seen the life admin days everybody's doing? Yes. I love a life admin game. I think it's amazing. Yeah, I think it's an incredible, actually, I think it's one of the tips of my book is to do a life admin day. I love the idea of bringing other people into

or doing chores together with people. Or errands. Live your life with people. Don't have people be these accent pieces to your life. Live your life with people. That's going to build that intimacy, that familiarity, that depth of relationship. And I also appreciate hearing the 50 hours too. And I think the listener does as well because it's like if the friendship isn't like happening quickly enough, yeah, you're probably like four hours into this thing. Four hours. And I, well, I thought this. So I started. I was in a book club in New York and then I moved to the Bay Area. Yeah. And my book club in New York, we were all like so close. We like went to our friend's wedding together in Montana. It was amazing. And I came to the Bay Area and I started a book club. And the first few meetings, we were like, it was, it was fun, it was pleasant, it was nice. And I was like, this is never going to be like my New York book club. Right. The comparison kicks in. Yeah. You're just like these are, these are not the same level of relationships. And now we're two years in. And it feels exactly like as powerful, as meaningful as deep. And I just hadn't given it enough time.

I think that creating buffers while you're literally doing the hours, while you're putting in your time is one of the best friendship hacks that nobody talks about. Oh my God, I love talking to Liz. She's one of my favorite guests, good friend of mine. She has actually changed my life and has really changed the game for me specifically with that friendship advice she just dropped. And speaking of changing the game, of course, that's what I'm hoping you do with your finances. But there are so many of you who are messaging us every single day who feel completely lost about where to do. start. So I've got the perfect resource for you. If you go to Her First100K.com slash FFPod, you can take our free money personality quiz. It takes less than two minutes. It is six questions, and we can deliver you a

customized financial plan for wherever you're at in your financial journey. Over a million people have taken this quiz to get their plan, and it's radically changed their financial lives. So again, her first hundredk.com slash FFPod. Back to the show. Why do you think in the midst of talking about like how convenience is making us lonelier, productivity, culture optimization, like life efficiency? What is that doing to us? I mean, I think at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, do we want to be human beings or do we want to be human beings? And I think that sometimes it's lost. Sorry, I just like fully just like, I'm like trying not to hit this table. I mean, that's what I was, I paid for my price to be here. So like, like, could get the show. Perfect. Yeah. What is that? I'll give you a little, little peek. Oh my gosh. Only if I'm lucky. Dinner and a show. We, I think at the end of the day, and I see this a lot in wellness culture, which is the world that I spend a lot of time operating in. And we are always,

I'm always asking myself, like, to what end? Why are we trying to, why are we cold plunging? Why are we eating this food? Why are we taking these supplements? Why are we adding all these habits into our lives. And for me, that answer is to live as meaningful and fulfilling of a life as possible. And whenever habits or tools or anything like that gets in the way of that, I'm like, that's not to what end. And I think the internet and social media, especially, because it's a lot of people looking for things to get you to click, to watch, whatever they built businesses off our attention, it can make us, make it really easy to forget that. Like, we're trying to live a fulfilling, satisfying life. How can we get there? And so I do think that having friendship feel like something

that is another thing to check off on your to-do list. Or is like hackable. Or is hackable? I think there are things you can do that can help it along, which a lot of which we're talking about in this episode, and I think it's important to have that information. But certainly the second that you're sitting there and you're saying, I got to like hit all these boxes so I can get friendship, right? That's not what we're here for. We're here to have the cozy friends, the people that we feel really good around that we can call when times are hard, that we can curl up back next to to on a couch and not say anything. We're not here also to the perception point to like get a cute picture to put on Instagram. Yeah. And that's not the point of friendship. And I think it's

really easy to forget that. And it's easy to forget the people who are doing that on Instagram aren't necessarily in the deep satisfying, meaningful friendships that they want to have either. Yeah. You and I had a fun little friendship moment a couple months ago. I got some interesting news in my family, and I texted you about it and let you know I was, you know, going to be going through a rough time and ask for some advice because it's health-related. And I felt this way already, but you vocalized it so beautifully, because I asked you, after you were very kind and offered me some advice and some help, you said, you know, great, here's this link and here's this and here's that. And I said, thank you so much. Do you need anything from me? And I truly meant that in that

moment. It was not the feeling I had of like, oh, she gave something for me, so I have to do something for her. But you reminded me so beautifully in that moment, you're like, this is not tit for tap. Like, you were going through stuff. I'm sure I'm going to need something from you or like, you can support me some other time, but like this is not tit for tip. And I think that is one of the other things about making connections with people is that so many of our relationships feel like a transaction, even if we don't mean them to be that way, because I think it's part of the efficiency and part of like, I don't know, you never want somebody else to feel like I'm doing, asking too much or requesting too much. But what I love about in your work and also getting

to know you better as a person, is it like, it is like, this is not a keeping score thing. This is not a, oh, I've been, you know, inconvenienced six times from you, so I expect six times. Like, talk to me about the way that we often feel like these are transactional. Yeah. Relationships. How can we move from transaction to actual connection? Yeah. I have a lot to say about this.

I do think, first of all, and this is going to go to the point of what I'm going to say, I really appreciated you coming to me and asking, you know, for what my thoughts on something, for you opening up to me in that way. I admire you deeply. And I hope you know that. It's very reciprocated. Thank you. But I'm going to get teary if I keep telling. I'm like, I love women. I love women. I love women. It's just so lovely.

It really is. And I think it's a powerful thing. This is like a total aside, but I was talking to somebody at Spotify the other day. And he had been interviewing a bunch of different people because they're trying to build out their mental health program for creators. And he was like, do you guys ever crave like in person connection? And I said, yeah, I'm in this women and podcasting group and we're all like meeting up and getting dinner. And he's like, that's so interesting because all the male podcasters I've talked to are like, oh, I don't want to spill my secrets. And I'm like, that is not the most gendered bullshit. Isn't that so interesting? And I was like, no. we are spilling secrets. Like, that is the whole point. Well, because by the way, how else are we going to get ahead in a fucking patriarchal spruce space where, I mean. And also rising tides raise all shit about. Yes. I like remind myself that constantly. Like your success is my success. Yes. And I think that we are told there's outside forces that don't want us to believe that. So we do need to keep reminding ourselves that. But yeah, I was really. You and I have to talk more off mic about that because that's a crazy thing to hear. Yeah. It's wild. Is that so interesting.

So I was so honored that you even brought this thing to me. And so I think that's part of it is realizing that people actually prefer helping other people sometimes to reaching out for help themselves. It makes them feel good. I think especially in the realm of advice. Sometimes in today's world, I think it gets conflated. In networking, people will reach out to me often and ask for favors. I think that can rub people a little bit more the wrong way. But asking for advice for wisdom, especially if it's about a specific thing, I think can be a really powerful thing because it endears people to you. We're like side noting because I think your audience might be more interested in that. I'll say make it specific. You're reaching out to a stranger on the internet. Don't just say, hey, love any like wisdom. Make your brain. I want to pick your brain.

Whatever. Have a specific question and have listened to enough of my podcast and read enough of my book that you're like somewhat confident that it has not already been answered. And then I'll share it. It's my biggest pet peeve as well. How do I make more money? Liz, the amount of DMs, I could scroll with you through Instagram right now. You're like, I have some resources for you.

How do I do that? I have a few websites you could visit. A book you could read. There's no bigger puppy. Literally, I wrote you in an 80,000 word book. My picture is on the cover. My name and my photo and my podcast title. It's brand synergy.

Yeah, so that's a piece of micro advice. People love to share advice. they less like to like share general advice or share favors, I think is a little bit trickier. Yeah. But then I also think it's worth asking yourself, like, in general, am I kind of auditing your own energy? So I think that if you feel like you're the one who's always putting effort into relationships, I would say, one, are you creating the space for other people to put effort in?

Like when they, you know, are you giving them a chance to call you? Are you giving them a chance to make plans? or do you want things kind of just a certain way? So you're the one who's kind of dictating and controlling those things. And I think a lot of us have gone through phases like that and that's fine. So one, are you creating the space for it? Two, have you mentioned it to your friend? Like, have you said, hey, I feel like I'm putting a lot of energetic energy into this. I know that this goes back and forth over time and more fluid. But like I'm feeling this way recently. I'd love to talk about it with you. I think so much resentment could be often gotten rid of with one conversation with.

people. And then three, you know what feels good to you. Like I think sometimes people feel like things should be a certain way. I should reach out 50% of the time. They should reach out 50% of the time. I should make plans 50% of the time. They should make plans 50% of the time. Some people just like making plans. And that's okay. And don't let the shoulds of the world make you feel bad about that. I make like 90% of the plans in my relationship. And I spent years fighting with my partner because I was like, I feel like anytime we have a plan, I'm making the plan and you need to step up to the table in this capacity. And he was like, you're really good at making plans. You like making plans. I don't. Here's all of the other ways that I step up in the world. So I also think that saying,

hey, does this feel good to me or does this not feel good to me and not letting the shoulds around what friendship should be get in your head about that? And if it doesn't feel good to you, then that's when you go back and you have the conversation. Yeah. I really love what you said about the 50-50. it's the same in romantic relationships. Like there is no 50-50. Yeah. There's 80-20 or there's 70-30. And like that...

And it's all the different numbers. You're right. If they're like right now for me and my husband's like 80-20 for chores, he's 80 and I'm 20. But like for plans, I'm probably 90 and he's 10. And like for anxiety support. And who knows that might switch in six months. You're so right of all of that gets in the way of just like, does this feel good? And if it doesn't feel good, then you need to acknowledge it's either something going on with you or you need to talk

go to the other person about that. Well, and I'm going to circle back to what we're talking about at the beginning, which is the less time we spend alone with ourselves, the less in touch we are without what actually feels good to us. And the more susceptible we are to everybody in the world telling us what should feel good to us at any moment. So any two-minute period, you brush your teeth without your phone and you just think your own thoughts, anytime you go for a walk and you just think your own thoughts, anytime you drive around and you just think your own thoughts, anytime you read an article. And before you go and see what the comment section says, you just say, hey, what do I think about this? Anytime you watch a movie and you say, hey, what do I think about this? You're building

that muscle to know what feels good to you so that you are less susceptible to somebody else telling you. One of my questions was going to be, what is one uncomfortable thing we can do this week to increase connection? And I think that's it is just sitting with ourselves. Yeah, I think that's a great. I do think any time you can sit with yourself. And also, I really encourage, people, it's a step further than that, saying, what do I think about this? I think we are losing our ability to think critically. I think that chaty BT and other AI bots are really getting in the way of this. But anytime, I'm okay with like, go find the other reactions after, but for five minutes to say, what's my reaction? What do I think of this thing? I'm halfway through the video and I'm

already in the comments. Like, it's so interesting, isn't that? And it really changes the way you think about something. I think that opinions are a muscle and I think they're going to become increasingly a currency of the people that we want to be. I think they're going to become a rare and more elite currency and the more that we can strengthen our muscle of opinion, the more rare will be in upcoming society. There's been a lot of moments where I've watched a video or read an article and I go, how should I feel about this? And then I go to the comments. And I just, I do think it's a lost art. And you can practice it. I think practice it with any media you engage with. So like any videos you watch, any movies you watch, any songs that you watch. I thought there's a fascinating,

like when a Taylor Swift album comes out, I feel like you don't even get a second to be like, do I like this music before the whole internet tells you whether you should like it or not. Right. Right. Well, we've all turned into critics. It's not just like the Rolling Stone's going to review it. It's like everybody's going to review it. Yeah. Everybody's going to review it. And again, the internet is speeding you things that are designed to get you a reaction. Even when you're reading the comments, those comments are in order of what is designed to get you a reaction. Yeah, it's not by time. It's not no longer. Yeah, it's the algorithm. There are other things that you can do, too, if it feels too hard to sit in discomfort.

I think really one that I encourage anybody to do is to reach out to a friend and say something that, like, you feel a little iffy about or say to your partner or something that you feel a little bit ashamed about. I think that's just a really powerful exercise. And I'm so excited for anybody who's going to do it because they're going to get this little chunk of shame removed from them. And it's just going to feel so good. You can also, though, any hard thing is going to translate to your ability to do other things. So you pushing yourself a little bit harder in a workout is going to make it easier for you to sit in the discomfort of early stage friendships. You taking, ending your shower with cold water, you meditating, you're reading a hard book

that like you're like, oh, this is like a little bit tricky for me to understand or get through. Anything that feels a little bit difficult in the moment is going to change the dopamine levels in your brain in a way that's going to, at a real, real, like, physiologic basis, make it easier for you to sit in the discomfort of those early stage friendships. Yeah. No, that's so smart. And I mean, I've experienced it. I've done bar classes now for like 11 years. And that is like single-handedly taught me so much about life. Is it like, bar class? Have you ever done a bar class? My sister keeps threatening me with them. Threatening is a good word. I like bar three and I've had

the founder on she's great. Like I, because they're not like, we're going to get skinny and we're going to get fat asses. It's like, no, we're going to feel. strong, which is great. And it's like, there's so many times it's deeply uncomfortable, like on purpose. And you're going down an inch and up an inch and down an inch and up an inch. And you think it's done. And then they go down and then they go, hold. We're going to hold for 15 seconds. Oh, that's so good for you. And you don't think you can do it. And you fucking can every time. I love that. And like I've brought that into every aspect of my life. Yeah. And I think just making that connection of like this hard thing is going to change my brain in a way that's going to make the next hard thing feel easier.

makes it so much easier to do the hard thing. Totally. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I can almost guarantee that if you're listening, you need a website. Whether you run a small business, whether you're a freelancer, whether you're applying for jobs and need a portfolio site, Squarespace is your friend. I first signed up for Squarespace in 2016, so 10 years ago, and it was our first resource, our first investment in our business.

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are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash ff pod. The guide is free to you at net suite.com slash ff pod. in your life, like your life was full, but you didn't feel full. I think somewhat recently, if I'm being honest, having like a social media dominated, I make most of my income from my podcast, but social media is a huge part of my business. And I think that it's a really hard thing for my mental health to be on. I think there's much harder jobs. There's a lot of internet debate about like, is it hard as a job to do social media? I'm like, it is, I'm not, I, it's not coal mine.

And I recognize that. And I'm very aware of that. And I think different jobs have different things that are difficult about them. Different occupational hazards. And the mental health hazard of social media has been really difficult for me. I came off of a pretty tough year where my business, this was like starting a year and a half ago. My business did some of its worst performance that it's done in a while. My cat died.

I was just going to say your cat. My cat died, which is my cat of 15 years. And she really occupied the space of my brain that like a child that was waiting for child and it's a cat. And so that really messed me up for a long time. I froze embryos, which was also interesting because I think the hormonal impact of that impacted me more than I even realized at the time and certainly had pretty big impacts on my relationship.

And then I had a few deaths in my family and in my greater family. And it was really interesting to feel like when I'm, I mean, to the point of this friendship conversation, when I'm going through hard times, I retreat. I like curl up, my friends are texting me. I ignore them. And it was so interesting, the friends that pushed through that for me and they would show up or they would call enough that I would finally answer. And that like really meant the world to me.

It's interesting. My father-in-law died over the summer. And my mother-in-law had a few friends who just showed up the next day. And they, like, brought food. They brought flowers, whatever. But they showed up without asking. And that was the thing that she kept repeating. She kept being like, they showed up without asking. And I think that that feels, it can feel invasive if you're sitting on the outside. But I think sitting on the, yeah, you're like, I don't want to bug them. But like you, she remembers that so strongly. And it was a really powerful signifier for her. Yeah. I've kept privacy. around it, so I'm not going to talk about it too much. But yeah, my family's going through a hard time right now. And I will say it's like, yeah, break my fucking door down. Yeah. Yeah. And like, and like, I'm not even a retreater. I have learned now I will ask for help. Like I will very concretely ask for help. But also like, you're not imposing. Yeah. You're not imposing. And

sometimes also tell you if like, hey, no, I need to sleep or I need to go, like, I'm going to tell you. Yeah. Maybe you've overstayed your work. Yeah. So don't worry about that. Yeah. Like, let people kind of set their own boundaries. But. I also, I mean, the thing I wanted the most was just somebody to be with me and to the point of cozy friends versus creation friends. I didn't want to, the reason I retreat is because I often feel pressure to be like the sparkly conversational one. And I didn't feel like I had that energy. And so I think the people who said to me, we're going to come over, we're just going to watch a movie and you don't even need to say anything. Like that just felt like the biggest eye of relief for me.

And we can talk about it. We can not talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Totally. I totally agree. What happens psychologically when we build shared experiences instead of just sharing updates?

Oh, yeah. I mean, this is the foundation of friendship. So this goes back to the abouts that we're talking about. Also, I talk so often about the benefits of novelty. I have this thing called the novelty rule, which is essentially I asked people to, well, let me tell you how I started. It started by in this time period where I was feeling like life was just kind of like relentless and one thing after another. I also just felt like I was waking up. I was doing my work on the computer. And then I would make dinner, eat it in front of the TV and do the same thing again the next day. And life just felt sort of relentless. And I kept having this feeling of like, is this what I'm working hard for?

I had this sense of anadonia, which is not quite depression, but it's this low grade of like nothing feels like it hits. Like nothing was feeling like it hits. And around that time, I came across this research from Dr. David Eagleman at Stanford. And he talks about how when we have novel experiences, it literally changes the way that that experience encodes in our brain in a way that makes time feel longer. It makes time feel more memorable. So when you look back at time, you're like, oh, I did this, this, and this instead of

being like, has it been six months? Has it been a year? Has it been 10 years? And it makes life feel richer and more satisfying. And so I started doing what I call the novelty rule, which is once a week, I do one tiny novel thing. So that can be like, I was going to watch this TV show instead I'll watch documentary. That can be like, I'm going to try this different type of dish that I've never tried before. It can be listening to a podcast I've never listened to before taking it. I've just started a running journey. It's a journey. It's a journey to the worst type of person. But I love that for my anxiety. I asked my sister and my husband, what were my blind spots when it came to my anxiety?

And both of them said you're breathing. Oh. And they both said that I would benefit perhaps from some cardio and some from like heavy breathing. Okay. Which I think is a fun activity to do with your loved safe ones. Yeah. What are my blind spots around this? Yeah.

And so I've started a running journey. But one novel thing I'll do is I'll take like a different route running. Turns out you go faster when you run and then you walk. And so you can see. You heard it here first. The groundbreaking science. You're going to get it right here. On the Lismodey podcast slash Financial Feminist, this is where it's happening. But like you get to see so much more of the surroundings.

And it goes by faster so that you can be done working out sooner. And so now I've like explored all these different pockets of my neighborhood that I didn't know existed before because I'll do them on my running pass. So the novelty rule is one novel thing a week and then one larger novel thing a month. So that might be like doing a little vacation, visiting a friend, something like that concert. And doing just those two things is going to help your brain encode your life in a way that you're going to remember it more. And it's also going to help you fight that anadonia feeling that kind of like nothing really hits feeling because you're literally rewiring your brain. Anyway, to the point of your question, when you do novel things with other people, it is one of the best ways to make relationships feel richer and more satisfying. because you're going to get all of those brain benefits, but then you're also going to get all these

brain benefits of being with another person. And so when you get together and catch up, it doesn't read his novel in any way because you're just kind of like, you're rehashing. Rehashing. You're like, I already lived this life. This is kind of boring. And to the perception stuff we've been talking about, you feel much more like, I need to like delight you with impressive stories of my life. Right. But when you do something different with your friends, when you learn a new skill or you, even like my friend I work out with, we're doing a different workout every time. Yeah. We're pushing ourselves.

I'm like cheering for her as she's like bench pressing more than she's ever bench pressed. It doesn't need to be big novelty. It can be really little novelty, but that's going to encode in your brain in different ways. Yeah. And I also think like, have you ever had like an adventure with a friend where you're like doing a rope's course or like exploring a cave system or something? You, something especially with a little bit of struggle where you're like, I don't know if we're going to make it through this. Totally. Like, you remember that. Oh, yeah. You remember that. And that builds a relationship in a way that no amount of dinners is ever going to touch. Yeah. And I think especially in like long-term romantic relationships. Yes. It's like, I've realized this with my own partner. It is like, you know, okay, Friday date night can't just be dinner.

It's even at a different restaurant. Or if it's dinner, like pick something unique, interesting. Like, do you know. We went to, um, was it Cambodian food? Is that what? it was and we were both just like, oh my gosh, this is so good. And it's good we wouldn't have normally had and now it's like our favorite. Or bring like a different game to play over dinner or a question card box or something like that. Like I think that we don't need to think of novelty as like, oh my God, this is something else to add to my stressful time compressed life. Yeah. But how can we take the things that we're already doing and give them a little bit of a twist because that's going to make, you're going to get time back from that.

Yeah. And incorporate. I love what you said earlier of like incorporating friendships into the things you're already doing as opposed to like, oh my gosh, I got to plan something else. Yeah. Like, do your chores with your friends. That's way more fun. And also you're probably going to- Do your taxes. Tax season, baby.

Oh, I don't even do much. Compile your documents for your account. We remember that 80, 20 that we talked about. My husband's got the 100 there. Why is it so common for people to just say, I don't know how to make friends anymore? I think because everything in society is set up to make us bad at making friends. because there's a lot of people making a lot of money from us feeling like making friends is too hard. So we're going to sit at home and scroll on our phones instead.

No further questions? No, you're right. How can someone use their existing orbit of acquaintances to actually deepen those relationships as opposed to maybe starting from scratch? Yeah. So I think that a lot of the stuff we've been talking about, so do stuff with them, do novel things with them. I would also encourage people to set up, this is going to sound contrary to novelty, but set up a standing date. So then instead of like everything you get together,

you're like whipping out your calendar and you're like, well, in three months, I have a free Tuesday. Which is literally me with all my friends right now. But it also, it makes it feel like, one, you see your friends much less often. Two, it makes it feel like a chore. You're like, oh, like I have to go do this.

I have to put this on my calendar. It makes it feel really exhausting. Whereas if you have these standing dates, I go to the gym with my friend. I do a game night with my friend. Maybe sometimes you'll miss it. I think that plans loosely held can be much better than no plans at all. So I have standing dates with most of my friends. If I have a relationship I want to give priority to, I will put a standing date with that relationship. And it's been immensely helpful. Yeah. I've realized in my life even this year, one of my, I'm not going to say New Year's resolutions, but one of the things I'm more conscious about this year is like, speaking of my bar classes, it used to be like, oh, I'm going to do bar three times a week.

Now it's, I'm going to Katie's class on Tuesdays at 715. Did you see the difference? It's a much more concrete plan. And it's not only a concrete plan, but it's like, to your point of like, I'm going to see the same people. I'm seeing Katie who is a joy and a love, like I love seeing her. It is dependable. It's like, okay, I, you know. When you can look forward to it.

I look forward to it. And if you're staying out late, okay, well, too bad. You're showing up at 715 tomorrow. So just a morning. Yeah. Oh, wow. I'm very impressed. Oh, it's the earliest I get up.

I get up at 6.45 and I roll out of bed and then it takes me 15 minutes to get there. That's amazing. Thank you. But I love it. And it's great. No, it's amazing. And I think there's really powerful research at the shows we actually like enjoy looking forward to plans more than the plans themselves. And so by putting these things on the calendar, you get the joy of like looking forward to like, oh, game night Wednesday.

I just had a conversation with one of my good friends yesterday. We hung out the whole day. And one of the things I was telling him is it's like, it's so easy. to get depressed when you have nothing to look forward to. And like when I think about as a kid, you look forward to everything. Sleepover. Oh my God, sleepovers and Christmas and birthdays and like you're going to see a movie. Like everything felt like, oh, I'm so excited I can't sleep the night before. Yeah. And I think you as an adult have very little of that. Well, I think it's two parts. I think it's one, the plan part. But then I also do think there's this low grade andadonia that we're

all dealing with. Yeah. Which is in large part, caused by our dopamine imbalance that's caused by our constant scrolling on our brain. I think that when we look back in 10, 20 years and we're like, what was the smoking of our time? I think our phone consumption is going to be a... But the funny thing is, everybody knows that. There's nobody listening that doesn't know it's your fucking phone. I know, but we knew a cigarette's for a long time until we had easy ways to, not easy. I mean, it's very difficult to quit smoking.

But we had nicotine patches and things that enabled it. I think the problem right now is many of us have the sense that our phones are not helping our brands. you only have to like scroll for a little bit and you're like, wow, I feel worse than when I started scrolling. But we don't have a path forward from that. And there's no friction points. Yeah. There's, we, we like, so, well, and that's why I like talking about friction because I'm like, any moment you can sit in friction is going to help you put your phone down too. But also I think we need to make it easier for ourselves. So like I have a brick. Do you know what that is? Yeah, I have, is it clear space, which is very similar. Is it? I need something that's separate from my phone because if it's all my phone, I turn it off.

Oh, this one has strict mode. Oh, really? So when you put it on, it does not matter. It will go off. They're literally like, yeah, no. They're like, we're serious. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Because I had to put it on strict mode. I've only started using that the last week because it was the same thing. I'd turn it off.

Yeah. You're just like, I read, like, TikTok's like, you've reached your, and I'm like, I know, bye-bye. Like I, I, but you need, and so I think this is a huge mistake we make when it comes to our phones is we think I'm going to willpower it away. We do not have the willpower that is great enough to withstand the literal world best engineers and designers creating something that is meant to be addictive. So addictive. Like you would not go up against the world's greatest minds in chess and be like, oh, I'm going to win. So why are we going up against the world's greatest minds in our phones and thinking that our willpower is going to win?

So I encourage people in any way, shape, or form that you can take the decision making out of it, the better off you'll be. Get a brick. Get what did you call it clear space? Clear space. No sponsor. But yeah. Get clear space. Put your phone in another room.

Again, face down phone theory, that applies to work too. So when you're trying to work through a project and your phone is in your path of vision, You have a little bit of attention on your phone. You're going to be able to work through that project much slower. Get your time back. Put your phone out of your site. Yeah. Don't sleep with it by your bed.

Do you sleep with your phone by bed? Absolutely not. Really? I'm impressed. It's like hard not to. It's been in my bathroom for 10 years. It's really hard not to. Now, am I proud of this?

Not really. But I do, when I wake up, go grab it because I have my little red light and I sit in from my red light and I scroll. But the nice thing about that is that the red light is only 12 minutes. And also you're out of bed. I'm out of bed. You're out of bed. And I think that...

I'm my little naked morning routine. People have any, and also you're doing your like habit stacking. Like I can come up with lots of reasons to like reassure you. Thank you. But like I do think that if you do nothing else but like take your phone out of the bedroom and any excuse you think you have for it. Like I need it for alarm, getting alarm. I need it in case people emergency call.

Put it on loud. Put it in the bathroom somewhere you can hear it and put them on your emergency call. It's like whatever. There's no we, again, I'm old. But like we made it through years without having our phones next to our bed and we were okay. Like life was fine. Or it was a, like, I don't know, sound of soul.

It was a rotary phone. Yeah. I had a, like, see-through one when I was a kid where you could, like, see the wires and stuff. Ooh. It was really cool. Yeah, my parents were divorced. So my dad got me, I had a, I remember I had a phone in my room when I was growing up

and everybody's like, oh, my God, this is the coolest thing. That is really incredible. We would, like, do prank calls with sleepovers? Yeah. It was awesome. I feel like prank calls. Do people still do prank calls? I don't know.

Did cell phones take away print calls? I don't know. Is your furniture? Is your refrigerator running? We would call, like, pizza places and ask, for like insane toppings on pizza. Wow. Like, I want slime.

And they'd be like, what? It was really fun. Bring Frank calls back. Honestly, it's so good. You take nothing else from this podcast. Bring prank calls back, baby. How can you help people distinguish between loneliness and healthy solitude? I think this is interesting.

So I actually don't think we have healthy solitude anymore. I think to the point of a lot of the conversations we've been, having today, most of the time we're spending by ourselves, we're not really spending with ourselves. We're spending it in these sort of fake relationships with people online. We're spending it scrolling. We're spending it overwhelming our brain with information. Yeah. Second screen viewing, which I think is so interesting. Have you heard about this? Where they put now in movies, they'll put the plot points in like five times because they assume you're scrolling on your phone while you're watching the movie. Oh, and you've missed it. Yeah, Zach and I just watched The Utopia,

too, which is like a pretty good movie. We love a cartoon. Yeah. But they say the plot five times. They're like, and now we're getting in the car to rescue like blah, blah, blah. And like, because they assume you're on your phone while you're watching it. So if that's crazy. Yeah, it's so interesting. Marty Supreme did not do that. Okay. How do you see Marty Supreme? I actually, I haven't, but I do, I just saw Hamnet in the theaters. And I was thinking like, I think a great way again, instead of relying on willpower not be on your phone, go see a movie in a theater. And then if you could afford it, I think it's a really great way to just absente yourself or your bar classes. I was going to say literally, Liz, half the reason I go to the bar class is I can't touch my phone

for 45 minutes to an hour. Same thing with like a sauna. I go to like a spa with a song. I cannot bring my phone into the sauna or it will combust. So, that's what we do. Which people in the sauna frown upon, you know. Oh, I'm in my own little thing. But yes. Nice. Yeah. We, I go to the sauna at my gym and it's like, it's a real cultural experience. I think one of the best ways to remember what a real human body looks like that we don't talk about it. Go to a gym. Yeah. I just think case spa. I've been on, so good. I've been on this podcast repeatedly. Go to a fucking case law. And again, I think we forget how often we are exposed to like kind of not real naked bodies on the internet or mostly naked bodies. And you need to counteract that. So you need to be seeing the real naked body. No hair. Big bellies.

Mastectomies. Like I've seen it all. It's so great. It's tattoos. Head to toe tattoos. No tattoos. I think that's huge. It's great. Healthy solitude versus loneliness. So I think a lot of the time that we think that we are spending in healthy solitude and we're like, I'm doing my me time. I'm recharging. The reason that we don't actually ever feel recharge just because we're not really doing that, we're depleting ourselves but in a different way.

We're not actually finding rest or we're hyper stimulating parts of our brain. We're stewing in the world's worst news and all the reasons that everything's going to shit. We're just rotting. We think that we're connecting with people because we're like laughing at memes, maybe leaving some comments, but we're not really connecting. And that's not healthy solitude. I think that if we got some real healthy solitude in, it would not take as much time as we think we need for it. And we would have much more time for these real connective relationships. So if you're like, I'm canceling plans because I need some healthy solitude, I'd encourage you to take a 10-minute walk

without your phone and then see how you feel there. And then do you still need like X amount of time? I'm an introvert. I need a lot of time by myself to recharge. But I've had to make a very clear distinguishment in my own brain between am I actually recharging in this time? Or am I just rotting because I don't want to put in a little bit of energy, overcome that friction and get the much more satisfying real thing on the other end. Totally. Well, and I think there's going to be so much conversation with us as we get more data. But I think the pandemic has also just made things so hard because we're all so lonely. Yeah. Because we didn't have that. Well, I think that the pandemic is kind of, we were already, I think social media was already pushing.

us away from friction and all the convenience of the apps and all of that. But then the pandemic took it out of the workforce in huge ways. Right. That was going to be my second point is there's like very little reason we leave the house now because we couldn't leave the house. So everything adapted around that. Everything adapted around that. And I think that there's going to be a lot more research coming out about what we've lost to that. I think that work from home can have a place. I think we both run work from home companies. I think it's really important. And I miss on a weekly basis going to the office. When I, yeah, I like, when I worked for another company, I went into the office.

I was not like the boss. I was a paid employee. Yep. I loved it. I crushed water cooler conversation. It's like perhaps too much. Yep. And I also like you're forced to get along with personalities that you are not otherwise

exposed to. And I think that being forced to endure that friction is so good for us. So I do think there's going to be a lot more research coming out about what we lost there and how we can begin to write the scales and maybe some sort of high. I don't know. I think it's really hard because I do, I really feel from people for people when they're like, but I can get my laundry done. The commute, the cost of living. I think there's a lot of very real gains we get from work from home. And I think that we need to at the same time talk about what we're losing. Yeah, I'd agree. What does a connected life really look like, not just socially,

but emotionally? I think it's about a connection, a real connection to yourself. And I would measure that by can you enjoy your own company without any external stimuli? Can you, if you go for a walk for 10 minutes with no headphones, no phone, do you feel like you're going to crawl out of your skin? Do you feel bored? Or can you be like, I can be surprised and delighted by my own thoughts. I can be surprised and delighted by the way that I process the world. Yep.

I think that's a connected life for me internally. And then externally, I would say you need a few people. I don't think you need that many that you feel like you can be fully yourself with. And being fully yourself is really different than what a lot of us are putting out there, even with the people that are the closest to us in the world. Yeah. And that safety, I think, is so important, too. Yeah.

Truly feeling safe. Well, and I think you cannot feel safe if you're not exposing the parts of yourself that you're the most nervous about because then you still have this part of yourself that you're like, well, if they knew this, they wouldn't love me. or if somebody can't hold that for you. Yeah. That says a lot too. Yeah, I think so.

And I think that that goes back to match theory, which is like maybe that's a person you want in your life, but not in the capacity that we're talking about. Yeah. I'm also a big fan of like, I don't think it has to be like, this is my friend or this is not my friend. I think you can have different categories.

The roles that I wasn't even planning on asking you about that, but I think that is so crucial and important is like, there are some people that I know I can't go to for these things. Which is fine. Yeah. There are some people that I'm like, if I want to have a great night out, I'm going to call this person up. And it's going to be awesome.

I have friends also that I'll call sometimes when I'm like, I just want a pep talk. I don't actually like want to like dive deep into stuff. I don't want a real answer in any way, actually. I just want you to tell me I'm great. I want you to hype me up. Like I think being realistic with who people are while providing the opportunity and the communication for them to grow, evolve and change and show up for you in different ways. Because I think often that's a problem with friends.

We'll trap them how they were when we met them. Yep. You're my work friend. You're my work friend or you're my friend from college. And whenever we hang out, we hang out in this college way and you were so judging of me in college and you're judging of me now. And that doesn't, people grow. They change.

They evolve. We spend so much time in our own lives trying to grow and change and evolve. And then we don't allow the people that we love to do the same. So I think doing that, allowing for that evolution, while also saying like, it's cool that you don't, not everybody needs to be everything to everyone. Yeah. My last question for you, Liz. For the woman listening who feels lonely, even though her calendar is full, what is one shift she could make this week that would move her towards real connection as opposed to just more plans?

I would call up one person that is already in your life, one person that's a friend that you've been like, I wonder if there could be something deeper here or even your partner. If you feel like there's distance that you would love to eliminate between you and your partner, and I would tell them one thing that you feel shame about. it can be anything. It can be little shame. It can be big shame. Don't judge your shame. But it can just one thing that gives you a little bit of sweaty palms. It gives you a little bit of tight chest and say, hey, I've just like wanted to get this off my chest for a while. This is a little bit embarrassing. But like, I hate this or I've been worried about this or I've been afraid of this. And just create the space for that and see how they react. I think that's really wise advice. Liz, you know this. And I'm to tell all the listeners this every time as you come on the show is that you are one of my favorite

podcast to listen to. I think that in a space that has a lot of grifters and has a lot of toxic, masculine energy, I really always trust the information that you put out. I know it's well researched. I know it's well documented, but also that it's like very practical and in a way that is not just focused on like, yeah, how do you do one more thing? So please plug away, my friend. First of all, I just want to say that the New York City subway system has this advice if you see something and say something. And I think it's really great advice in general. And I love people who live into that advice and you really do that. Like I do think when you listen to a podcast episode that you love or when you're like talking about my podcast with your team or something, you always say it to me. And it makes me feel so good. And I think often we're going around the world thinking these incredible things about the incredible people all the time that we know in our.

lives. And we just think it. And I was like, well, just say it. If your friend did something that you're like, wow, that was really badass at work. Or like they're telling you a story about how they interacted with their partner. And you're like, I wouldn't have thought to do, like say something. If you see something and say something. You live into that. You inspire me with that all the time. And so I just wanted to say thank you for that. I host the Liz Moody podcast. That's the number one place to find me. You can search Liz Moody on any podcast platform. We have Spotify, YouTube, which is a new journey for us. But you can come and see us on YouTube. And, and Apple Podcasts, and then I'm Liz Moody on Instagram, and my book is called A Hundred

Ways to Change Your Life. That's so good. And if you don't take my word for it, take my partners. Financial Feminist is not his favorite show. The Liz Moody podcast is a favorite show. I thought you were like number one and I was like number two on his rap. I think you were two. Oh, well, there we go.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, produced by her first 100K. If you love this show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you're looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to herfirst00k.com slash sfod.