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