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Combating the Loneliness Epidemic: with Julie Schechter · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
0:17
Speaker 1: This is pretty smart. Loneliness is hard to measure. It's subjective,
0:23
Speaker 1: but you know it when you feel it, and it's
0:27
Speaker 1: something we all feel at some point or another, maybe
0:31
Speaker 1: some of us more than others. But the impact that
0:34
Speaker 1: it's had on public health is quantifiable. In twenty seventeen,
0:40
Speaker 1: the former US Surgeon General called loneliness a public health epidemic.
0:45
Speaker 1: It's been compared to a crisis on the scale of
0:48
Speaker 1: opioids or obesity. Some studies equate the health effects of
0:52
Speaker 1: loneliness with that of smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. In
0:58
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found
1:03
Speaker 1: that one in five Americans said they always or often
1:06
Speaker 1: felt lonely or socially isolated. And this was years before
1:10
Speaker 1: COVID exacerbated the problem. So I wanted to figure out
1:15
Speaker 1: what causes loneliness, that feeling, and you know, especially around
1:20
Speaker 1: the holidays, if there was anything we could do for
1:22
Speaker 1: ourselves or others to make it feel.
1:25
Speaker 2: Or be a little bit better.
1:29
Speaker 1: Julie Scheckter is the founder and CEO of Small Packages.
1:33
Speaker 1: Julie has studied the negative impacts that loneliness and isolation
1:37
Speaker 1: has had on our society.
1:39
Speaker 2: She wants to end it for good.
1:41
Speaker 1: Her goal is to help guide us back to a
1:43
Speaker 1: place of prioritizing relationships, friendships, and genuine connections. So you
1:55
Speaker 1: are an entrepreneur, but I was very interested to learn
1:59
Speaker 1: that you're also a relationship wellness expert.
2:01
Speaker 2: So tell me a little bit about what you study.
2:04
Speaker 3: So that's kind of the genesis for why I got
2:07
Speaker 3: into this company in the first place. So what I
2:11
Speaker 3: study is basically just relationships and how they affect our
2:15
Speaker 3: mental and emotional and physical health. There's something called the
2:19
Speaker 3: loneliness epidemic at work in the United States today. I
2:23
Speaker 3: did not make that term up, but was coined by
2:26
Speaker 3: Surgeon General Vivic Murphy, and he started talking about this
2:30
Speaker 3: way way back in like twenty seventeen, So this really
2:34
Speaker 3: predates COVID, But basically just the idea that we are
2:39
Speaker 3: now lonelier, not just we millennials, but sort of American
2:44
Speaker 3: society at large is a lot lonelier than we've ever
2:48
Speaker 3: been at any point in our history to date, and
2:52
Speaker 3: that has a whole bunch of different reasons behind it.
2:55
Speaker 3: The organizations of our communities, how we leave our communities
2:59
Speaker 3: of origin as we grow in ways that we didn't before.
3:03
Speaker 1: One of my favorite books I read in college was
3:06
Speaker 1: Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, and basically the ethos of
3:12
Speaker 1: it and the title Bowling Alone means that in America
3:16
Speaker 1: in the fifties, we had bowling leagues and every Wednesday
3:19
Speaker 1: night or Thursday night, people would get together and they'd
3:21
Speaker 1: bring their balls, and they had team shirts and.
3:24
Speaker 2: They would bowl together.
3:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, and now society has changed and everything is so individualized.
3:31
Speaker 4: And in the book he talks about the breakdown of
3:34
Speaker 4: American community, American society. When you look at loneliness, what
3:39
Speaker 4: do you think has contributed to our isolation over the
3:43
Speaker 4: last fifty sixty years.
3:46
Speaker 3: I think it's so much. I think a big part
3:49
Speaker 3: of it is just like the larger societal patterns that
3:53
Speaker 3: individual people don't necessarily feel like they control. But when
3:58
Speaker 3: you look at them, we also sort of assume that
4:01
Speaker 3: that is the way that life is going to go.
4:03
Speaker 3: So what I mean by that is I'm a perfect example.
4:06
Speaker 3: I'm sort of patient zero right. I grew up in
4:09
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, and then throughout the rest of my adult life,
4:13
Speaker 3: I went to law school in Boston and came back,
4:16
Speaker 3: and I moved to New York. And I've done all
4:19
Speaker 3: sorts of different careers. I've moved for partners and for
4:22
Speaker 3: jobs and graduate school. And most of the people who
4:26
Speaker 3: are in my cohort have done the same thing. And
4:29
Speaker 3: so we find ourselves, you know, in our thirties and
4:32
Speaker 3: our forties, having children, starting families. But we're all just
4:37
Speaker 3: so scattered, like everybody that you love is just across
4:41
Speaker 3: the entire United States, if not the world. So I
4:44
Speaker 3: think it's it's a whole host of factors, but it
4:47
Speaker 3: kind of comes down to globalization. And movement is such
4:51
Speaker 3: a wonderful thing because it opens the doors for everybody,
4:55
Speaker 3: but it does tend to have that unfortunate underside, which
4:59
Speaker 3: is is lessening the structures that used to keep us
5:03
Speaker 3: together that we took for granted.
5:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, it feels counterintuitive because you think, like I can
5:10
Speaker 4: jump on an airplane and get to my friend in
5:12
Speaker 4: New York faster, But you're right, we're all in these
5:15
Speaker 4: silos now more so.
5:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean modern travel obviously is amazing for that.
5:21
Speaker 3: But relationships we're seeing tend to be more dictated by
5:28
Speaker 3: who you're actually around. They're dictated by proximity more often
5:32
Speaker 3: than they're dictated by depth of feeling. Like if you
5:35
Speaker 3: were to name the five people that you care most
5:39
Speaker 3: about in life and the five that you see most often,
5:43
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's some overlap on that list, but it
5:46
Speaker 3: wouldn't be a completely overshadowed Ben diagram.
5:49
Speaker 4: You're right, So I was interested to read that the
5:53
Speaker 4: idea of extreme social isolation was really close to your heart.
5:57
Speaker 4: You went to Harvard Law School, and I read that
5:59
Speaker 4: you experienced it while you were there, So what did
6:03
Speaker 4: it open your eyes to?
6:05
Speaker 3: It was honestly crazy. So I actually started out as
6:09
Speaker 3: a ballet dancer. I was a dancer for pretty much
6:12
Speaker 3: all of my life, and so I was moving and
6:14
Speaker 3: interacting with other people, Like, you can't be a dancer
6:17
Speaker 3: in isolation, right, So that was what I was going
6:20
Speaker 3: into life thinking was the norm. Then I got to
6:24
Speaker 3: Harvard Law School and I was, you know, studying it.
6:28
Speaker 3: Honestly was even after that when I was practicing at
6:32
Speaker 3: the international law firm that I went to afterwards were
6:35
Speaker 3: sort of like sold this dream of success, right, like,
6:38
Speaker 3: You're going to get this fantastic office with the mahogany
6:42
Speaker 3: desk in your name plate, and it's going to be amazing.
6:45
Speaker 3: And like day two, I knew that I had made
6:49
Speaker 3: a huge mistake because I was sitting behind that desk
6:53
Speaker 3: working incredibly long hours and talk to anyone, you know.
6:58
Speaker 3: I mean, you have your sort of group, your cohort,
7:00
Speaker 3: that you go through your law internship with. And of
7:04
Speaker 3: course I saw the other people at the firm that
7:06
Speaker 3: I worked with, not as much as you would think.
7:09
Speaker 3: And you're just realizing that like this golden dream of
7:13
Speaker 3: like the money in the prestigious career means that, like
7:17
Speaker 3: the bulk of your waking hours, you're about yourself. And
7:22
Speaker 3: so even though I think law is an incredibly noble
7:26
Speaker 3: career and I'm so glad to have had that experience,
7:29
Speaker 3: that was kind of my first like light bulb moment
7:32
Speaker 3: that success on paper often can lead, you know, successful
7:38
Speaker 3: professionals to be really really isolated in the day to day.
7:43
Speaker 1: I mean, this was so prominent on your heart that
7:45
Speaker 1: you started a company around it.
7:49
Speaker 2: So your company is called Small Packages.
7:51
Speaker 4: You started in twenty eighteen, and you let Customers craft
7:56
Speaker 4: custom gift boxes for different occasions, so some are for
8:00
Speaker 4: the happier times summer for more challenging times. What were
8:05
Speaker 4: you seeing that you that made you know there was
8:08
Speaker 4: such a need here?
8:09
Speaker 3: So the big thing was I couldn't go. I couldn't
8:14
Speaker 3: be there in person for all of these big events,
8:17
Speaker 3: not just the wedding, but you know, the baby shower,
8:21
Speaker 3: or that like random Thursday night when someone's broken up
8:24
Speaker 3: with their boyfriend and they just want to sit on
8:25
Speaker 3: the couch with you and drink wine and talk about life,
8:27
Speaker 3: like most of those things that I couldn't get to,
8:31
Speaker 3: and so I wanted to have a way to show
8:34
Speaker 3: up tangibly for those people in my life and let
8:38
Speaker 3: them know, like, I can't be there in person, but
8:40
Speaker 3: I'm really thinking about you. This relationship is so important
8:43
Speaker 3: to me. But I also didn't have the time to
8:47
Speaker 3: do the legwork of like putting something together. So I
8:51
Speaker 3: kind of just looked around online for other solutions that
8:55
Speaker 3: were sort of, you know, in keeping with the aesthetics
8:58
Speaker 3: and the values that you know, we want to stand behind.
9:02
Speaker 3: Just really couldn't find anything, so decided to start at myself.
9:07
Speaker 1: And so, how do you feel like these small packages
9:09
Speaker 1: combat loneliness.
9:11
Speaker 3: They're a way to let people who are incredibly busy
9:16
Speaker 3: but feeling isolated reach out and show up thoughtfully, authentically
9:23
Speaker 3: in the lives of the people that they care about.
9:25
Speaker 3: So are like bestsellers one that's just all about like
9:28
Speaker 3: self care, so very you know, you'd multipurpose, you know,
9:32
Speaker 3: if somebody's having a birthday, or they're having a baby,
9:35
Speaker 3: or whatever it happens to be, it's sort of this
9:37
Speaker 3: like all around way for them to take care of
9:40
Speaker 3: someone else.
9:41
Speaker 1: You know.
9:42
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting.
9:43
Speaker 4: I hear a lot of people talk about isolation with
9:46
Speaker 4: the elderly, and while I think we all assume that
9:51
Speaker 4: the elderly are likely to feel lonely or isolated, which
9:53
Speaker 4: they are, I was interested to learn that thirty percent
9:57
Speaker 4: of millennials have reported feelings of either extreme social isolation
10:01
Speaker 4: or loneliness. What does science say in terms of why
10:07
Speaker 4: millennials are feeling so lonely.
10:10
Speaker 3: My answer is going to be so obvious, but it's
10:12
Speaker 3: so true. It's technology. It's the fact that we now
10:18
Speaker 3: rely so heavily on social media and just the literal
10:23
Speaker 3: technology of our phones. We get tricked, like we get
10:27
Speaker 3: biologically tricked into thinking that we are connecting with someone
10:31
Speaker 3: when we like an Instagram story or we send them
10:35
Speaker 3: a text. But the biology of connection says the opposite, right, Like,
10:42
Speaker 3: you move a relationship forward with somebody when they can
10:46
Speaker 3: hear your voice or they can see your face. And
10:49
Speaker 3: so that's why in the tech that we're building now,
10:52
Speaker 3: we're really focused on intimacy, like biological intimacy, in order
11:00
Speaker 3: to move relationships forward.
11:02
Speaker 2: It's interesting to hear you say that. I thought of
11:04
Speaker 2: two things.
11:05
Speaker 4: One is I definitely feel more connected to people when
11:07
Speaker 4: I'm on FaceTime. Yeah, but smell is a big sense
11:12
Speaker 4: for me, and I can't smell them. And I heard
11:15
Speaker 4: Gloria steinem speak one time and she said that it's
11:18
Speaker 4: actually hard for humans to feel complete empathy without experiencing
11:22
Speaker 4: all five senses, which I found to be fascinating. So
11:26
Speaker 4: touch feels smell here, that's important. So I think that
11:33
Speaker 4: sending a package to somebody hits a lot of those senses.
11:37
Speaker 3: It's funny that you say that, because that's actually part
11:40
Speaker 3: of our sort of like secret sauce, you know, don't
11:42
Speaker 3: tell of how we curate these things. Is we make
11:45
Speaker 3: sure that all of those different things are covered.
11:48
Speaker 4: So I know you mentioned the Surgeon General in twenty
11:52
Speaker 4: eighteen he called this a public health epidemic. Epidemic's a
11:55
Speaker 4: big word to use for the surge in general.
11:58
Speaker 2: Where are we now? How do you think the pandemic
12:01
Speaker 2: shifted things?
12:02
Speaker 3: I hate to be a pessimist, but the obvious answer
12:06
Speaker 3: is it's gotten much worse. A lot of people have
12:09
Speaker 3: been barred for several years at this point from having
12:12
Speaker 3: that kind of immediate contact with the people that they
12:15
Speaker 3: love if they are far away. I didn't see my
12:18
Speaker 3: own family in t life for almost a year, which
12:20
Speaker 3: is like unheard of for how we normally do things.
12:24
Speaker 3: It's getting better. I think the one thing we can
12:26
Speaker 3: sort of like call a silver lining is I think
12:30
Speaker 3: we were all so obsessed with hustle culture or whatever
12:33
Speaker 3: we want to call it before the pandemic that this
12:36
Speaker 3: really was sort of a stop you in your tracks moment,
12:40
Speaker 3: and for people who had been building their lives purely
12:44
Speaker 3: for achievement or the next thing, like, we really sort
12:47
Speaker 3: of got reoriented. But I think we're going to be
12:51
Speaker 3: battling the side effects of this verb for quite some time.
12:55
Speaker 3: People definitely have suffered because they've been isolated unfortunately.
13:01
Speaker 1: What do you think the difference is between isolation and loneliness?
13:04
Speaker 3: That's really interesting, So scientifically they talk about sort of
13:09
Speaker 3: two different types of loneliness. One is situational and one
13:13
Speaker 3: is chronic. So situational would be a college freshman who
13:18
Speaker 3: is in a new place with people that she doesn't
13:21
Speaker 3: know for the first time. She hasn't made that core
13:23
Speaker 3: group of friends yet, so she's kind of like feeling
13:26
Speaker 3: outside the swing of things, but she has a whole
13:29
Speaker 3: network to call upon. She can call mom that she loves,
13:32
Speaker 3: her best friends or at other colleges, and she'll eventually
13:35
Speaker 3: move out of it. She's still reaching out. Chronic loneliness
13:40
Speaker 3: is the more sort of insidious, dangerous piece happens so
13:44
Speaker 3: much to the elderly, but in lots of other communities too,
13:48
Speaker 3: where it's sort of that learned helplessness behavior, where you've
13:53
Speaker 3: been so lonely for so long that you're no longer
13:58
Speaker 3: trying to fix it effectively. Sort of your literal brain
14:02
Speaker 3: chemistry has changed enough that you expect the world to
14:07
Speaker 3: be this way, you expect to move through it alone.
14:11
Speaker 1: On a biological level, how does loneliness impact our health.
14:15
Speaker 3: Way more than you would expect. There have been so
14:18
Speaker 3: many studies done on it. There was one interesting one
14:22
Speaker 3: that came out by Harvard Business Review. But it affects
14:26
Speaker 3: every single component of your health, right, so I think
14:30
Speaker 3: most people think it stays in the realm of the emotional, right,
14:35
Speaker 3: Like I feel lonely and therefore my emotional health is
14:39
Speaker 3: not great. The physical is actually the part of it
14:42
Speaker 3: that shocked me the most. There is one study done
14:45
Speaker 3: that said, if you lose that very close cohort of
14:50
Speaker 3: friends that we all sort of like come up with
14:52
Speaker 3: as we're growing up, if you lose that entirely, it
14:56
Speaker 3: has the same effect on your body as smoking fifteen
14:59
Speaker 3: cigarettes day, which is wild, right, Like we are all
15:05
Speaker 3: now at the point where we know that, you know,
15:07
Speaker 3: lighting up is absolutely terrible for you, but we sort
15:11
Speaker 3: of just go gentle into the good night of thinking
15:15
Speaker 3: that losing those lateral connections is just a normal part
15:20
Speaker 3: of adulthood. But it really doesn't have to be.
15:24
Speaker 2: And I've heard podcasts and read things with heart surgeons
15:28
Speaker 2: who talk about dying or being in pain from a
15:32
Speaker 2: broken heart, so to speak, and a broken heart really
15:34
Speaker 2: means loneliness, It really does.
15:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm forgetting off the top of my head exactly
15:40
Speaker 3: what the condition is called, but it really is sort
15:43
Speaker 3: of overstress on your heart because it's pumping so much
15:48
Speaker 3: faster to try to circulate blood to replicate the feeling
15:53
Speaker 3: of somebody else like being close to you, which is
15:56
Speaker 3: just so wild right to now be in the stage
15:59
Speaker 3: where we're finding out that their biological underpinnings to all
16:03
Speaker 3: of these things that we sort of thought were just
16:05
Speaker 3: on the lighter end of the spectrum.
16:07
Speaker 4: I don't know what the answer to this is, but
16:11
Speaker 4: I was wondering if loneliness is ever a good thing,
16:14
Speaker 4: because sometimes the experiences that are good for us are
16:17
Speaker 4: paired with a certain amount of isolation. Not always, but sometimes.
16:21
Speaker 4: I think moving to a new city is an example
16:24
Speaker 4: of that. Quitting a job that's not serving us is
16:27
Speaker 4: an example of that. Sometimes even breaking from a relationship
16:32
Speaker 4: or a friendship.
16:33
Speaker 2: Is it ever positive?
16:35
Speaker 3: I think it can be in certain doses. Being outside
16:41
Speaker 3: your comfort zone and having to be self reliant and
16:45
Speaker 3: sort of testing your metal can be really formative, fantastic experiences.
16:52
Speaker 3: I think the difference between a situation like that and
16:56
Speaker 3: one where we get really concerned about somebody's mental and
17:00
Speaker 3: physical health are Do you have a support network to
17:05
Speaker 3: lean on if you need to? So, yes, go bravely
17:09
Speaker 3: into the unknown, move to the new city, break up
17:12
Speaker 3: with the boyfriend that's not serving you, et cetera. But
17:16
Speaker 3: do you have that network of people around that you
17:19
Speaker 3: can call at midnight when your resolve starts to weaken
17:24
Speaker 3: a little bit and they can pump you back up
17:27
Speaker 3: and get you ready for whatever is coming next.
17:29
Speaker 2: That's a really good distinction.
17:31
Speaker 4: Your Twitter bio says you're working to help people delete
17:34
Speaker 4: Facebook and connect in real life. Technology Actually, you said
17:38
Speaker 4: in particular, is hurting us in terms of loneliness. Is
17:41
Speaker 4: there a way that we could be utilizing it that
17:45
Speaker 4: could actually be helpful or connective.
17:48
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, that's what we're working on now, actually the
17:51
Speaker 3: sort of next iteration of our business. And I think,
17:55
Speaker 3: you know, I'm no ledite, I'm very pro technology. I
17:59
Speaker 3: think the dangerous thing that's been happening with the rise
18:02
Speaker 3: of social media over the past like ten or twelve
18:04
Speaker 3: years is tech isn't the problem. It's relying on tech
18:09
Speaker 3: to be the connection rather than using tech to facilitate
18:14
Speaker 3: the kinds of connections that we know actually bring people
18:17
Speaker 3: closer together.
18:18
Speaker 2: Huh.
18:19
Speaker 4: I guess it's like using it versus letting it use
18:22
Speaker 4: us exactly right.
18:24
Speaker 3: I mean, there's nothing wrong with using technology to make
18:27
Speaker 3: your relationships stronger. It just can't be the stand in.
18:31
Speaker 4: I've been dying to find out what you think about
18:34
Speaker 4: remote work, And I asked this because when I first
18:38
Speaker 4: moved to LA, I didn't have a job, and part
18:42
Speaker 4: of I think a happiness came when I did get
18:46
Speaker 4: my first job and was working with people who then
18:49
Speaker 4: became my friends. I had like it was called Clever TV,
18:52
Speaker 4: and I worked at this little it was like a
18:54
Speaker 4: YouTube conglomerate basically, and so it was actually very fun.
18:58
Speaker 4: But I had really good friend that I met at work,
19:00
Speaker 4: and those were some of my first I would say
19:03
Speaker 4: strong or reliable connections in LA. I look at my
19:06
Speaker 4: cousin who just graduated from college, and because of the
19:09
Speaker 4: pandemic and the shifts we've made, he doesn't have that.
19:13
Speaker 4: He's working from home, and I think it's depressing. But
19:18
Speaker 4: now at the stage I'm at, I could not go
19:21
Speaker 4: to an office every single day, So it's weird. It's
19:24
Speaker 4: like help and I think that's a whole different thing
19:26
Speaker 4: with you know, parents and moms in particular not having
19:30
Speaker 4: flexible work schedules.
19:31
Speaker 2: But tell me your your whole take on remote work.
19:34
Speaker 3: So I am always going to be a proponent of
19:38
Speaker 3: it because I've seen it work so well in our
19:42
Speaker 3: own situation. So my co founder, Monica and I actually
19:45
Speaker 3: met virtually during the pandemic. We were introduced by a
19:49
Speaker 3: mutual friend, and so we know from experience it can
19:53
Speaker 3: be pulled off. And because we started that way, we've
19:57
Speaker 3: kept the company going that way and as we've grown.
19:59
Speaker 3: You know, our CTO lives in Indiana. We hired another
20:03
Speaker 3: wonderful woman who lives in Chicago, and so we've just
20:07
Speaker 3: kept building in that way and supplementing it when we can.
20:13
Speaker 3: So we do sort of roughly quarterly, you know, team
20:17
Speaker 3: get together so we can have that sort of like
20:19
Speaker 3: in person emotional and physical hit of bonding. So we
20:24
Speaker 3: know that it works, at least on a small scale.
20:28
Speaker 3: I think it's just tough, you know. I mean, you
20:31
Speaker 3: can build relationships virtually, of course you can.
20:35
Speaker 2: It's not the same, especially when you're right out of school.
20:38
Speaker 3: It's not the same. You're totally right, So I don't know.
20:42
Speaker 3: I think it's it's the trade off of what you
20:45
Speaker 3: want to prioritize. And I think a lot of people
20:48
Speaker 3: now are prioritizing the relationships with their family and their friends,
20:54
Speaker 3: and remote work lets them have that, right. If you
20:56
Speaker 3: can work from anywhere, you can be with you know,
21:01
Speaker 3: those five people that you care about most of the
21:04
Speaker 3: world more of the time. Right. At least how we're
21:08
Speaker 3: trying to approach it is just ultimately leaning on choice, right, Yeah,
21:14
Speaker 3: you know what works best for you in your in
21:18
Speaker 3: your life.
21:19
Speaker 4: You know.
21:19
Speaker 2: On your Twitter page this post caught my eye.
21:21
Speaker 4: You said, why does society tell us that we don't
21:23
Speaker 4: need our friends past a certain age? Why does having
21:26
Speaker 4: it all mean partner babies, splintering the glass ceiling, but
21:30
Speaker 4: no time for friendships that meant everything to us.
21:32
Speaker 2: When we were younger.
21:34
Speaker 4: So I'm curious as to why you think so many
21:36
Speaker 4: of us put friendship lower on our to do list
21:39
Speaker 4: of life after a certain age.
21:42
Speaker 3: I see it happening in my own crew, right, you know,
21:46
Speaker 3: people are starting to get married, have children. Time is finite, right,
21:53
Speaker 3: and so it really only makes sense that we're going
21:57
Speaker 3: after and spending our time on the things that we
22:01
Speaker 3: get rewarded for, right, you know, I mean we get
22:04
Speaker 3: accolades at work when we're sort of climbing the corporate
22:06
Speaker 3: ladder in a really impressive way. Of course, the benefits
22:10
Speaker 3: of having a partner and children are like these wonderful,
22:13
Speaker 3: beautiful things. So I'm not denigrating that part of it
22:16
Speaker 3: at all. It's just there's no societal infrastructure that rewards
22:23
Speaker 3: or encourages or supports lateral relationships.
22:28
Speaker 1: Right.
22:29
Speaker 3: So in college or just when you're kind of just
22:32
Speaker 3: starting out, you have a roommate, right, or you have
22:36
Speaker 3: the people that came up with you, and that's just
22:39
Speaker 3: sort of the norm. But as you move through life
22:43
Speaker 3: and you sort of take on these other roles, they
22:47
Speaker 3: fall away, right, Like a group of friends, like on
22:50
Speaker 3: friends that are like well into their thirties and hanging
22:53
Speaker 3: out in a coffee shop. Like it's made up for
22:55
Speaker 3: a reason, right, Nobody really has has that kind of
23:00
Speaker 3: time or that kind of space in their lives unless
23:03
Speaker 3: it's something that you aggressively prioritize. So I mean it's
23:06
Speaker 3: less that people don't think it's important, but that it's
23:10
Speaker 3: something that you have to consciously pour resources into.
23:15
Speaker 1: From a scientific perspective, what value do friendships bring to
23:20
Speaker 1: our life?
23:21
Speaker 3: So? So much. So a big part of it is
23:25
Speaker 3: just physiological ease, like literally lower stress, lower anxiety, lower inflammation,
23:34
Speaker 3: if you can believe it. And it makes sense because
23:38
Speaker 3: your friends are the people that don't need anything from
23:43
Speaker 3: you except for you. Right in a relationship with a
23:46
Speaker 3: romantic partner, there's a lot of give and take of
23:48
Speaker 3: a certain kind. With your children, you know, they need
23:51
Speaker 3: certain things from you, aging parents, et cetera. Friends just
23:56
Speaker 3: like want to sit next to you, you know, and
23:59
Speaker 3: so there's a very powerful physical ability to just relax
24:06
Speaker 3: when you're in the presence of somebody who only needs
24:10
Speaker 3: that from you.
24:12
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think about what you mean by that,
24:14
Speaker 4: because I actually feel as if my friendships require a
24:18
Speaker 4: lot from me, and not in a negative way. I
24:21
Speaker 4: think my really good friends, like I have to pour
24:25
Speaker 4: into them and they pour into.
24:26
Speaker 3: Me absolutely, And that's what I mean about it taking
24:30
Speaker 3: a lot of resources to prioritize them. Right, They definitely
24:35
Speaker 3: need your time. There's a real back and forth in
24:38
Speaker 3: terms of Okay, do you have the emotional capacity to
24:42
Speaker 3: be the person listening to my stuff and then you
24:45
Speaker 3: can give it back to me. So, like any relationship,
24:48
Speaker 3: absolutely there's a lot of give and take. I guess
24:52
Speaker 3: what I mean more specifically is that it's equal, or
24:58
Speaker 3: it should be most of the time. Right, You're literally
25:01
Speaker 3: on an equal footing with this other Personhi got. There's
25:05
Speaker 3: no power dynamic where you have to hold yourself back
25:09
Speaker 3: or you're really seeking or really supporting in the way
25:13
Speaker 3: that you do those sort of more like vertical relationships.
25:17
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people that listen to this
25:19
Speaker 1: podcast when I do advice episodes with people will say,
25:23
Speaker 1: how do I meet new friends as an adult?
25:26
Speaker 2: It's a big topic. What's your advice on that?
25:30
Speaker 3: So my very first piece of advice is don't forget
25:34
Speaker 3: the friends that you already have, even if you're not
25:37
Speaker 3: physically near them, because I think this is a big
25:40
Speaker 3: part of what happens with people. They move to a
25:42
Speaker 3: new city, or their friends have kids, but they don't yet,
25:46
Speaker 3: and there's this very natural inclination to just sort of
25:49
Speaker 3: like let friendships drift over time. Something you definitely want
25:54
Speaker 3: to cut out of your life. They're a friend for
25:55
Speaker 3: a season or a reason, and it's it's not a
25:58
Speaker 3: good fit anymore. But we find a lot of people
26:01
Speaker 3: actually just sort of naturally letting go of things that
26:05
Speaker 3: would still be really powerful, wonderful friendships if you just
26:09
Speaker 3: were able to invest in them more. So that would
26:12
Speaker 3: be my first piece is don't forget the wonderful ones
26:16
Speaker 3: you already have. But in terms of, you know, moving
26:19
Speaker 3: to a new city, tech has definitely tried to step
26:24
Speaker 3: into this field. There are a lot of apps out there,
26:27
Speaker 3: you know, bumble BFF really through its It's had in
26:31
Speaker 3: the Ring, and I think sometimes those things work wonderfully.
26:37
Speaker 3: They kind of fall victim to a lot of the
26:39
Speaker 3: same problems that regular dating apps do, which is just
26:42
Speaker 3: you know, they present a field of choice that then
26:47
Speaker 3: we sort of biologically want to turn away from. So oh,
26:50
Speaker 3: there's so much out there on flip and whatever. So
26:53
Speaker 3: I usually find that the best method is just what
26:57
Speaker 3: are you doing in your normal routine. Pretend you're the
27:01
Speaker 3: most extroverted person, you know, slash version of yourself. Yeah,
27:08
Speaker 3: make like one extra effort to say one extra thing
27:13
Speaker 3: to every single person. So it's the barista at the
27:15
Speaker 3: coffee shops, the girl next to you in bar class,
27:17
Speaker 3: it's you know, the person that you noticed at lunch
27:20
Speaker 3: at you know, the office cantina, but you know didn't
27:24
Speaker 3: follow up with or whatever. We're just so programmed to
27:29
Speaker 3: sort of like go in a rope way along our
27:32
Speaker 3: own path, and you sort of think of the people
27:34
Speaker 3: are too and they don't even want to talk to
27:36
Speaker 3: me whatever. People are dying for connection. Like you might
27:42
Speaker 3: not make your new best friend at bar class for
27:46
Speaker 3: sure going to make her day. You talk to her
27:48
Speaker 3: and start up like a normal conversation.
27:50
Speaker 1: Oh my god, how do you judge the chemistry with
27:54
Speaker 1: a new friend? This is always confusing to me because
27:58
Speaker 1: usually the first or second dinner or walk I take
28:01
Speaker 1: with somebody new is not actually that comfortable.
28:05
Speaker 2: And then those people.
28:07
Speaker 1: If I keep at it, have become really good friends
28:09
Speaker 1: of mine. But that's different for me, like, at least personally,
28:12
Speaker 1: that's different with dating. If I don't feel a connection
28:14
Speaker 1: on the first or second time I meet somebody, I'm out.
28:17
Speaker 2: So how does it work with friends?
28:20
Speaker 3: I think that makes a lot of sense, right, because
28:21
Speaker 3: with a romantic relationship, you know there's a physiological and
28:26
Speaker 3: sexual element to it that if you're.
28:28
Speaker 2: Not feel you're right. I didn't think about it at it.
28:31
Speaker 3: But with friends, it's sort of interesting. We see the
28:34
Speaker 3: people that are your friends, that have been close to
28:37
Speaker 3: you for a really long time. Like the people you've
28:40
Speaker 3: known since kindergarten, if you were to like look at
28:42
Speaker 3: them in the harsh light of day today, I don't
28:45
Speaker 3: have that much in common with them, right, But you
28:50
Speaker 3: are bonded to them through a history. They're a history exactly.
28:55
Speaker 3: So you can't expect to replicate that with the woman
29:00
Speaker 3: next to you in bar class, right, you don't know
29:03
Speaker 3: from Adam basically, So as you go through life, we
29:07
Speaker 3: find that the people you strike up friendships with you
29:11
Speaker 3: start to actually have more in common with them than
29:14
Speaker 3: you're older friends, because how else do you come across
29:17
Speaker 3: each other?
29:18
Speaker 2: Right, So, by.
29:20
Speaker 3: Definition, if you have a share, if you're meeting in
29:23
Speaker 3: a shared activity, I bumped into you at the farmer's market.
29:26
Speaker 3: You know, we go to the same peloton class, whatever.
29:29
Speaker 3: You have something to talk about, you know, there's some
29:32
Speaker 3: something to hang your hat on. And then I always
29:36
Speaker 3: say go for two and then pay two dates effective, right,
29:42
Speaker 3: and then pay attention to sort of like the energetic
29:45
Speaker 3: response after that, if the idea of texting that person
29:49
Speaker 3: to set up a third plan makes you pumped and
29:52
Speaker 3: you're like really into it, amazing, if you're feeling that
29:55
Speaker 3: sort of like heaviness, and like, oh I really should
30:00
Speaker 3: at that, you know, move on, move on to the next.
30:03
Speaker 1: So listen to your instincts. Yeah, for sure, but at
30:06
Speaker 1: least two.
30:07
Speaker 2: I like that.
30:08
Speaker 4: I think two's a good number. After two, you kind
30:10
Speaker 4: of feel it. So I'm actually I'm dying to do
30:12
Speaker 4: an episode on female friendship. I think we don't talk
30:15
Speaker 4: about it enough. What have you learned about female friendship
30:20
Speaker 4: since starting your company?
30:21
Speaker 3: How powerful they are? First of all, I remember at
30:25
Speaker 3: the very beginning, when I was in the founder moment
30:28
Speaker 3: of like I pack all the boxes in my apartment
30:31
Speaker 3: at midnight, like that sort of very cliche piece. I
30:34
Speaker 3: was obviously like writing all of the cards too, because
30:36
Speaker 3: all the boxes come with a handwritten card. I cried
30:41
Speaker 3: every day, like it was really absolute best part of
30:45
Speaker 3: this entire enterprise to see these notes that people would
30:49
Speaker 3: write to each other. And it was everything from you know,
30:52
Speaker 3: just the incredibly goofy sweet clearly in jokes of like
30:57
Speaker 3: you know you're turning whatever birthday to these like absolutely
31:02
Speaker 3: pivotal life moments. I still to this day remember one
31:06
Speaker 3: of the first ones I ever did, which was a
31:07
Speaker 3: woman who had lost her husband early in COVID and
31:11
Speaker 3: they had just gotten married, and it was like this
31:13
Speaker 3: whole group of friends who were like bonding together to
31:16
Speaker 3: send her something COVID so that I couldn't be there either.
31:20
Speaker 3: So it's just a testament to how deeply people care
31:25
Speaker 3: about each other. It's the most amazing thing. The other
31:29
Speaker 3: thing I've learned so far is how powerful the longitudinal
31:35
Speaker 3: relationship is, because if you think about it, you know,
31:38
Speaker 3: if we're lucky, we find our person and you know,
31:42
Speaker 3: we're with them for many, many years. But some of
31:46
Speaker 3: the older women that I've met through this, because they're
31:49
Speaker 3: big customers of ours too, say, you know, we've been
31:54
Speaker 3: each other's longest relationship in life. We span marriages and divorces,
32:01
Speaker 3: in children. We really are the witnesses to each other's lives.
32:06
Speaker 3: And again because we don't need anything from each other
32:10
Speaker 3: in the sense that like we're equals, we're really just
32:13
Speaker 3: like you know, stalwarts going through life together. And just
32:18
Speaker 3: WHOA How powerful is that to have people like that
32:22
Speaker 3: in your corner who are just witnessing your life.
32:26
Speaker 2: That is so beautiful. You gave me chills.
32:28
Speaker 4: You're right, it makes me think of that moment and
32:31
Speaker 4: sex and the city, which is so cliche, but they're
32:33
Speaker 4: all sitting at the table, and I think Charlotte says,
32:36
Speaker 4: what if you're my soulmate? Like what if these friendships?
32:41
Speaker 4: And I think in some ways they are, you know,
32:43
Speaker 4: like to span somebody's life is so special.
32:49
Speaker 3: It's amazing, honestly, and I think there's something a little
32:54
Speaker 3: bit more like primal to it also, you know, like
32:58
Speaker 3: when you don't know if you've experienced this, but like
33:02
Speaker 3: if you go to like a baby shower or something
33:04
Speaker 3: like that, and you eventually sort of devolve into that
33:07
Speaker 3: conversation of like, Okay, here's my experience and this is
33:10
Speaker 3: what I found and whatever, Like you realize like there
33:14
Speaker 3: are moments in life that we go through as women
33:17
Speaker 3: that like, no matter how wonderful are you know, if
33:20
Speaker 3: you're in a heterosexual relationship, no matter how wonderful our
33:24
Speaker 3: partners are, like they just don't get it, like they've
33:27
Speaker 3: never lived through it. And it doesn't even have to
33:29
Speaker 3: be something as monumental as childbirth. It can also be
33:33
Speaker 3: anything about what it's to walk through the world as
33:36
Speaker 3: a woman at work on the street. You know, all
33:39
Speaker 3: of these different life experiences they're so crucial to who
33:43
Speaker 3: we are. These other people understand and we can have
33:48
Speaker 3: a bond that's based on that. So that's really powerful too.
33:53
Speaker 4: So I do a little rapid fire at the end
33:55
Speaker 4: of every interview fill in the blink. The older I get,
33:59
Speaker 4: the less I.
34:01
Speaker 3: Worry about what other people think of me.
34:03
Speaker 2: Who trying to get there.
34:07
Speaker 4: Since your company is all about gifting, what's the best
34:11
Speaker 4: gift you've received?
34:12
Speaker 3: I think the best gift that I have received is
34:17
Speaker 3: always going to be plane tickets. Every so often my
34:22
Speaker 3: miarents just say, like, you know, we're not going to
34:24
Speaker 3: do like Christmas or whatever gifts this time, We're just
34:28
Speaker 3: going to make it easier for you to come home.
34:30
Speaker 3: And that always is going to be like the best thing.
34:33
Speaker 2: I really like that. What about the best gift you
34:36
Speaker 2: think you've given?
34:38
Speaker 3: So I'm like a real like experiences person to give
34:42
Speaker 3: in to receive. So I think when I was in
34:46
Speaker 3: my last year of law school, a good friend of
34:48
Speaker 3: mine was giving birth and so I was able to,
34:51
Speaker 3: at her request, of course, film that for her and
34:55
Speaker 3: put together, you know, a whole video around that experience.
34:58
Speaker 3: So not something you could replicate easily, but a really
35:03
Speaker 3: really good one.
35:04
Speaker 1: Okay, I do a pretty smart question. I have a
35:07
Speaker 1: card deck of fifty two questions at Randa.
35:10
Speaker 3: Oh boy, okay, I'm ready.
35:12
Speaker 2: Okay, tell me when to stop?
35:14
Speaker 3: All right, ready stop?
35:16
Speaker 2: Okay. What would younger you not believe about your life today?
35:21
Speaker 3: Oh, she would probably not believe that I. First of all,
35:27
Speaker 3: I'm not a professional dancer. That would be a real blow.
35:33
Speaker 2: Once a dnswer always a dancer.
35:35
Speaker 3: That's true, that's true. I think she probably wouldn't believe
35:37
Speaker 3: that I live in New York because I was a
35:39
Speaker 3: California girl my entire life, but more substantively, that I
35:45
Speaker 3: am an entrepreneur. I think I always thought that I
35:48
Speaker 3: would go into public service. I did a Mara Corps
35:52
Speaker 3: right after college, Like I was like really really focused
35:54
Speaker 3: on that. That's why I went to law school. So
35:57
Speaker 3: this is a big swing from what.
35:58
Speaker 2: I thought I would be doing.
36:00
Speaker 4: What is a book that has changed your life or
36:03
Speaker 4: something you think everybody should read.
36:04
Speaker 3: I'm just going to go with the Vic Murphy's book.
36:08
Speaker 3: I think that really is just such an incredibly deep
36:15
Speaker 3: look into the loneliness epidemic as a societal issue that
36:20
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people just like still don't
36:21
Speaker 3: give credence to. And he makes a case for it.
36:25
Speaker 3: That is much more powerful than anything I could say.
36:29
Speaker 2: I really like that as well.
36:30
Speaker 4: Okay, last question that I ask everybody is what is
36:33
Speaker 4: the smartest decision you've ever made?
36:35
Speaker 3: Leaving my law firm, having the ability to walk away
36:40
Speaker 3: from the sunk cost of like three years of law
36:43
Speaker 3: school and all of my student debt and you know,
36:46
Speaker 3: all of the investment that I had made because I
36:50
Speaker 3: knew that it wasn't the career I was meant to pursue. Yeah,
36:55
Speaker 3: best decision of my life. Still would have gone to
36:57
Speaker 3: law school. Loved that, But best decision.
36:59
Speaker 1: Of my life.
37:00
Speaker 2: You must use so many of your skills now as
37:02
Speaker 2: an entrepreneur.
37:04
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I wasn't the right kind of lawyer, Like I
37:07
Speaker 3: wasn't a corporate lawyer. I was a litigator. So if
37:09
Speaker 3: that would have been even more helpful, But even more
37:12
Speaker 3: than just like the body of law knowledge, having gone
37:16
Speaker 3: through law school and worked at a firm like that,
37:20
Speaker 3: there's a degree of grit and a degree of just like, Okay,
37:25
Speaker 3: well everything is figure outable, Like I will just sit
37:28
Speaker 3: down with the syllabus, or I'll google it, or I'll
37:31
Speaker 3: do whatever it is that I need to do. I'll
37:33
Speaker 3: figure it out.
37:39
Speaker 1: I want to thank the people that make the show possible.
37:42
Speaker 1: Colleen O'Neill, Jill Salama, Karrie O'Keefe and Phil speed Tech.
37:47
Speaker 2: Okay, you know what time it is.
37:49
Speaker 1: Today's a good day to have a good day.
37:52
Speaker 2: I'll see you
37:52
Speaker 3: Next week as the dog Fish Shop Shop