284. The Science-Backed Method to Building Better Relationships with Liz Moody

18:44Financial Feminist Host: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.

19:21So 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 you're 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, like 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 residue, but also you have this gravitational pull of your phone again, because it's easy because it's frictionless.

19:51So 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 I, this is uncomfortable. I want to reach for my phone because the thing that I always do when I'm uncomfortable is I reach for my phone and then that eases some of the discomfort. Yeah. And so I think that is getting away. 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 satisfying, being with other people feel more satisfying, it would be to take the phones out of your sight, put it in a bag, put it like anywhere that you can't see it.

20:27One 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. That sounds like a nightmare to me. That's a lot of pressure in the beginnings of a relationship, too.

20:58Financial Feminist Host:That's a lot. 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 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 you 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 friendships.

21:31So there's research on this too. Research shows that it takes about 50 hours to turn somebody into a friend, and then it takes about 200 hours. Hold on, Liz. 50 hours? Five zero hours. That's a lot. That's a lot of hours. To go from like an acquaintance or like a casual, to 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.

21:53Financial Feminist Host:that's a big jump. 200 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. An 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.

22:30So 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 gig. I think it's amazing. Yeah, I think it's an incredible, actually, I think it's one of the tips in my book is to do a life admin day. I love the idea of bringing other people into or doing chores together with people.

23:02Or 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.

23:13Financial Feminist Host: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 we 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 gonna be like my New York book club right the comparison kicks in yeah like you're just like these are these are not the same level of relationships.

23:52And 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.

24:10Financial Feminist Host: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 start. So I've got the perfect resource for you. If you go to herfirst100k.com slash FFpod, you can take our free money personality quiz. It takes less than two minutes. It is six questions.

24:42Financial Feminist Host: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, herfirsthenderk.com slash FFpod. Back to the show. Why do you think, in the midst of talking about how convenience is making us lonelier, productivity, culture, optimization, 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 doings? And I think that sometimes it's lost.

25:21Sorry, I just like fully just like, I'm like, try not to hit this table. I mean, that's what I was. I paid for my price to be here so that I could get the show. Perfect. Yeah.

25:31Financial Feminist Host:What is it? I'll give you a little peek. Oh my gosh. Only if I'm lucky. Dinner and a show. So 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.

26:11And 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 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.

26:42But 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 next 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. Like 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.

27:17Financial Feminist Host: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 the flank 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.

27:56Financial Feminist Host:But you reminded me so beautifully in that moment. You're like, this is not tit for tat. Like, you're 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 tit. 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.

28:31Financial Feminist Host:But what I love about in your work and also getting to know you better as a person is it like, it is like, if 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 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.

29:11I admire you deeply. And I hope you know that. It's very reciprocated. Thank you. I'm going to get teary if I keep telling. I'm like, I love women. I love women and women connection. 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 like 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 in podcasting group and we're all like meeting up and getting dinner.

29:40And 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. That is the most gendered bullshit I've ever heard. That's so interesting. And I was like, no, we are spilling secrets. Like, that is the whole point of what we're doing. Well, because by the way,

29:55Financial Feminist Host:how else are we going to get ahead in a fucking patriarchal masculine space where, I mean... And also rising tides raise all ships. 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. Isn't that so interesting? It makes me mad. 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 for reaching out for help themselves.

30:33It makes them feel good. I think especially in the realm of advice, sometimes in today's world, I think it gets conflated. Like 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 will say, make it specific. You're reaching out to a stranger on the internet. Don't just say, hey, I'd love any like wisdom you could share about your career.

31:05I want to pick your brain, whatever. Have a specific question and have listened to enough of my podcasts and read enough of my book that you're like somewhat confident. that it has not already been answered. Yep. And then I'll share with you. It's my biggest pet peeve as well.

31:18Financial Feminist Host: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 pet peeve. Literally, I wrote you 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 it's 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?

32:03So 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 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.

32:36I 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.

33:09I 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 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.

33:41Financial Feminist Host: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. There's like, right now for me and my husband, it's like 80-20 for chores. He's 80 and I'm 20. But like for plans, I'm probably 90 and he is 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 to the other person about that.

34:14Well, 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 with 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?

34:46Anytime 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.

34:56Financial Feminist Host: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 anytime 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 ChatGPT 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, just say, what's my reaction?

35:29What do I think of this thing? I'm halfway through the video and I'm already in the comments. 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 we'll be in upcoming society. There's been a lot of moments

35:56Financial Feminist Host: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 was 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 is going to review it.

36:28Financial Feminist Host:It's like everybody's going to review it. Yeah. Everybody's going to review it. And again, the internet is feeding 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 something that you feel a little bit ashamed about.

36:59I 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 friendship. you taking, ending your shower with cold water, you meditating, you reading a hard book that like you're like, ooh, this is like a little bit tricky for me to understand or get through.

37:29Anything 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 like physiologic basis, make it easier for you to sit in the discomfort of those early stage friendships. Yeah, no, that's so smart.

37:44Financial Feminist Host: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's 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, it's, 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.

38:15Financial Feminist Host:And you think it's done and then they go down and then they go, hold, 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.

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41:14Financial Feminist Host:When did you feel 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. 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.

41:55Different 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.

42:14Financial Feminist Host: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 a 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.

42:54I 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.

43:36But like you, she remembers that so strongly and it was a really powerful signifier for her.

43:42Financial Feminist Host: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, 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. I'm going to tell you. Yeah, maybe you've overstayed your walk. Yeah. So don't worry about that. Yeah, like let people kind of set their own boundaries.

44:13But 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 sigh of relief for me.

44:37Financial Feminist Host:And we can talk about it. We can not talk about it. Yeah. It's going to be here. Yeah. Yeah. 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 ask people to... Well, let me tell you how it started. It started in this time period where I was feeling like life was just kind of like relentless in one thing after another.

45:10I 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 anhedonia, 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.

45:50It 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 gonna watch this TV show instead of watch documentary. That can be like, I'm gonna 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. I've just started a running journey.

46:23It's a journey. You've turned into the worst type of person, but I love that for you. It's 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. It's like, 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 than you walk.

46:53And so you can see how this is. You heard it here first. The groundbreaking science. You're going to get it right here. On the Liz Moody 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 path. 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.

47:30And 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 anedonia 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 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 as novel in any way because you're just kind of like...

48:05You'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. 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.

48:36And I also think like, have you ever had like an adventure with a friend where you're like doing a ropes course or like exploring a cave system or something? You, something, especially the 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.

48:59Financial Feminist Host:Yeah. And I think especially in like long-term romantic relationships, 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. Even at a different restaurant. Or if it's dinner, like pick something unique, interesting. Yeah. Do you know... We went to, was it Cambodian food? Is that what it was? And we were both just like, oh my gosh, this is so good. Amazing. And it's food 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.

49:40But 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.

49:47Financial Feminist Host:Yeah, and incorporate. I love what you said earlier of 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. I don't even do much. Compile your documents for your account. 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.

50:20Because 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.

50:32Financial Feminist Host:No further questions? No, you're right. how can someone use their like existing orbit of acquaintances to actually deepen those relationships as opposed to maybe starting from scratch yeah and so so i think that a lot of the stuff we've been talking about so do stuff with them yeah 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 every time 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.

51:05But it also, it makes it feel, 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. Like it just, 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.

51:34And it's been immensely helpful.

51:35Financial Feminist Host: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 7.15. Do 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, OK, I, you know. When you can look forward to it.

52:08Financial Feminist Host:I look forward to it. And if you're staying out late. OK, well, too bad. You're showing up at 715 tomorrow. So just in the morning. Yeah. Oh, wow. I'm very impressed. Oh, it's early as I get up. I get up at 645 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 that shows we actually enjoy looking forward to plans more than the plans themselves. And so by putting these things on the calendar, you get the joy of looking forward to like, oh, Game Night Wednesday.

52:38Yay.

52:38Financial Feminist Host: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 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 anhedonia that we're all dealing with.

53:13Yeah. 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. 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 it was cigarettes for a long time until we had easy ways to not easy. I mean, it's very difficult to quit smoking. So, 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 brains.

53:45You only have to like scroll for a little bit and you're like, wow, I feel worse than when I started scrolling. We don't have a path forward from that. And there's no friction. points. Yeah. 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 ClearSpace? Which is very similar. I need something that's separate from my phone because if it's on my phone, I turn it off.

54:11Financial Feminist Host:Do you know what I mean? Oh, this one has strict mode. Oh, really? So when you put it on E, it does not matter. They're literally like, yeah, no. They're like, we're serious. Yep. Okay. 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. I'd toggle it back and forth. TikTok's like, you've reached your... And I'm like, I know. Bye-bye. Literally. 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's best engineers and designers creating something that is meant to be addictive.

54:43So addictive. 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 yeah not sponsored 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 and you're going to be able to work through that project much slower.

55:18Get your time back. Put your phone out of your sight.

55:21Financial Feminist Host:Yeah. Don't sleep with it by your bed. Do you sleep with your phone by your 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 front of 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 have my little naked morning routine. People have any, and also you're doing your like habit stacking.

55:47Like I can come up with lots of reasons to like reassure 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, get an 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 list. 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 like a, I don't know what the sound of soul.

56:15It was a rotary phone. Yeah. I had a like a see-through one when I was a kid where you could like see the wires and stuff. It was really cool. Yeah, my parents were divorced so my dad got me, 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 prank calls? I don't know. Is your furniture, We would call like pizza places and ask for like insane toppings on pizza.

56:44Wow. 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 Frank calls back. Bring Frank calls back, baby.

56:57Financial Feminist Host: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 ourself, we're not really spending with ourself. 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. Yes, 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.

57:37Financial Feminist Host:Oh, and you've missed it? Yeah, Zach and I just watched Utopia 2, 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. That's crazy. Yeah, it's so interesting. Marty Supreme did not do that. Okay, no. Have you seen 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 to not be on your phone, go see a movie in a theater.

58:08And then if you could afford it, I think it's a really great way to just absent yourself or your bar classes.

58:14Financial Feminist Host: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 sauna. 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. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. 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 go to a gym. Yeah. I just think. Case bar. I've been on this podcast repeatedly.

58:46Go to a fucking case bar. And again, I think we forget how often we are exposed to like kind of not real naked bodies on the internet or most naked bodies. And you need to counteract that. So you need to be seeing the real naked body. Hair, no hair, big bellies, mastectomies.

59:03Financial Feminist Host: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 recharged is 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.

59:33We'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.

1:00:03I'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.

1:00:20Financial Feminist Host:Well, 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. connection? 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. 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.

1:00:52Everything 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 as a paid employee. I loved it. I crushed water cooler conversation. It's like perhaps too much. And I also like you're forced to get along with personalities that you are not otherwise exposed to.

1:01:25And 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 hype. I don't know. I think it's really hard because I do, I really feel 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.

1:01:53Financial Feminist Host:Yeah, I 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.

1:02:36I don't think you need that many.

1:02:38Financial Feminist Host:Yeah. 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. Of 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.

1:03:09And 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.

1:03:15Financial Feminist Host: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. There are some people that I know I can't go to for these things. Which is fine. Yeah. There's 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.

1:03:43I 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. 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 me in college and you're judging me now. And that doesn't, people grow.

1:04:13They 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.

1:04:30Financial Feminist Host: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 It'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.

1:05:02It can be big shame. Don't judge your shame. But it's 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.

1:05:25Financial Feminist Host:I think that's really wise advice. Liz, you know this, and I'm going to tell all the listeners this every time as you come on the show, is that you are one of my favorite podcasts 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.

1:05:59If you see something, 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 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 it.

1:06:33Like say something. If you see something, 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 Apple Podcasts. And then I'm Liz Moody on Instagram. And my book is called 100 Ways to Change Your Life.

1:06:59Financial Feminist Host:That's so good. And if you don't take my word for it, take my partner's. Financial Feminist is not his favorite show. The Liz Moody podcast is his 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 the 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.

1:07:32Financial Feminist Host:If you're looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to herfirst100k.com slash sspod.

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