Episode Background
How do we make friends in adulthood - when we move cities or enter a new life stage (parenthood, empty nest etc) or feel stuck and need new energy and excitement?
How do these friends differ from childhood friends?
Six ways to make friends in adulthood
1. Intention
Setting an intention that we'd like to make new friends or build a community, puts us in the right frame of mind. It helps us become open and look out for friendships. Interestingly, being new to a community. An outsider. A foreigner can actually have a huge advantage to us. For example, as new parents, when we take our baby for a walk to the condo or the neighborhood, we often receive friendly, greetings, polite inquiries, encouragement, and are welcome to join the community of new parents.
2. Courage
It's not easy to put ourselves out there. Face rejection, let go of ego and go along with others' plans, others systems. This takes courage to build this courage. Some of us need to do the mental preparation for ourselves. It could be rituals, pauses or anything that gets us at our best to take this on.
3. Breadth before depth
Building new friends can be a two-pronged process. The first step is spreading our net wide by being curious and associating with anyone who makes us happy. Once we have some safety or a sense of community, we can get choosy and pick friends we'd like to build a deeper bond with. People more aligned to our values, stage in life, worldview. Who we can have deeper conversations with and build stronger connections.
4. Learning together
One of the most effective ways to make friends is by learning something together. Having a shared experience of growing is a great way to bond with people and can be done at any age. For example, my mother at the age of 67 started learning bridge online during COVID. Over the two years, she made very good friends who've now done trips together and have a deep bond.
5. Friends at work
Work is one of the most common ways to make adult friends for many of us. However, making friends at work can be tricky as we navigate the blurring lines of personal and professional lives. Being able to have the boundaries that both of us can respect and understand is the key way to making friendships at work.
6. Difficult conversations
When things go wrong, as they inevitably will, we need the skill of having difficult conversations. As kids. We can throw tantrums at our friends and get away with it, but not in adulthood. These difficult conversations give us the opportunity to maintain and even deepen the friendships in adulthood.
Episode Guest
Amanda Parker, an entrepreneur and global citizen, and I discuss 6 useful techniques for making friends in adulthood in this episode.
Amanda, born in New York, has traveled to over 65 countries, and lived around the world in places including Paraguay, Berlin, Singapore, and now London. She's accomplished much in her career as the founder of the Courage Factory, as a coach, and through designing landmark programs for WWF, World Bank, UNICEF and the World Economic Forum.
For more on Amanda, please visit
https://www.amandaparker.co/
Amanda Parker's Confident Leader Mastermind
https://www.amandaparker.co/leadership-mastermind
Episode Transcript
(There may be some typos as this episode has been transcribed electronically)
Sharad:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to how to live a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm your host Sharad Lal
This is episode eight. today, we talk about making friends in adulthood. This has been requested by many of you, those moving cities or countries, or entering a new life stage parenthood or empty nest, or some of us just stuck in life, looking for new energy, excitement.
How do we go about making friends aligned to who we are today? To discuss this? I caught up with Amanda. Amanda is an excellent person to discuss this topic. She's an entrepreneur global citizen and has made many meaningful long-term friendships around the globe.
Born in New York, she's travelled to over 65 countries,
And lived around the world in places, including.
Paraguay, Berlin, Singapore, and now London. She's also accomplished much in her career as the founder of the carriage factory as a coach and through designing landmark programs for WWF world bank UNICEF and the world economic forum, Amanda and I discussed six useful techniques for making friends in adulthood.
She shares some of her personal experiences in learning.
The first one is intention setting an intention that we'd like to make new friends or build a community, puts us in the right frame of mind. It helps us become open and look out for friendships.
Interestingly, being new to a community. An outsider. A foreigner can actually have a huge advantage to us. For example, as new parents, when we take our baby for a walk to the condo or the neighborhood, we often receive friendly, greetings, polite inquiries, encouragement, and are welcome to join the community of new parents.
Let's hear Amanda described this point.
Amanda: The first step always comes from setting an intention that I want to meet new people always. So I get to a point in my life where I feel maybe a bit stuck or maybe like things aren't really moving, or I want to change things up and it takes a little while.
And then a recognition comes home. I'd really like to meet some new people. Whoever those people are. And from there, I really decide, okay. I will make new friends and see what comes in, because I think from that place of having an intention that you want to meet new people, you want to make new friends, you're more open to the new people who come into your life and more willing to see, oh, who is this person?
Are they interesting? Or how can I meet more people that are interesting or speak to me, et cetera.
one of the things that I think it's always worked in my favour it helps to be the farm. It helps to be the person coming from outside because it's a lot easier to say, hi, I'm new here.
I don't know anyone, basically, will you be my friend or can you help me? Or what do I need to know about this place? So I think that people especially in a small country, like Paraguay, for example, where you don't have so many foreigners coming in, but not exclusively there, people are happy to share and to help.
So a lot of friendships that I've had, starting there, I think people were really excited to show me their country and because I was open to mind, open-minded enough to say, yeah, sure. Let's go. Okay. A five-hour drive through muddy roads to get to a Hilltop. Okay. Sounds interesting. Let's do it.
And I think from there, the bonds start to build really from this place of. Just saying yes. And being open-minded to whoever's in front of me without trying to judge who they are or say, Ooh, is this someone I want to be friends with or not? And just see what else is there.
Sharad: The second point is courage. It's not easy to put ourselves out there. Face rejection, let go of ego and go along with others, blends others systems. This takes courage to build this courage. Some of us need to do the mental preparation for ourselves. It could be rituals, pauses or anything that gets us at our best to take this on.
I encourage you to reflect on how a ritual to build your courage might work for you.
Every time that I've moved to a new city or travelled to a new place, Even though I do it a lot. And even though it seems like it's, oh, it's so easy for you. Actually, it takes a huge amount of courage every time. So when I land in a new city, I am terrified. And very often I won't even leave my whatever hotel or apartment I won't leave for two days.
And I'll spend the time on the phone with friends back home saying, oh my God, what did I do? What did I do? But there's a part of me that is driven to explore something new. And I know that that experience is really so much deeper when I can make a connection in the local community, whatever that community might be.
For example, when I got to Berlin where I moved there in 2011 and it was really, it was totally foreign to me. The language was difficult. I remember where I ended up getting my apartment. Every time I would view an apartment in that area, I would get lost every time. And I remember, at some point recognizing, okay, I'm here now. It's time to make friends and meet people. I'm often pushing myself into situations that are not always comfortable. And I have an expectation that because I've done it before I can do it again. And I think the reality is that those two days or so are my body, my energy, everything telling me, hold on, pause.
Just take a moment to be with yourself, to settle where you are rather than forcing myself into the world to. Try to meet people or do things when I don't really feel ready to. I think it really is my whole system's way of forcing me just to take a break, hit, pause, settle for a moment and then try to go out and see what might be out there for you.
The third point is breadth before depth building new friends can be a two-pronged process. The first step is spreading our net wide being. Curious and associating with anyone who makes us happy. Once we have some safety or a sense of community, we can get choosy and pick friends. We'd like to build a deeper bond with people, more aligned to our values stage in life worldview,
or we can have deeper conversations with and build stronger connections.
When I was in college, you have your first year friends. So the people who get you over the hurdle of the change, who maybe aren't the friends that are going to be.
In your life forever, but who are at least with you there in the beginning, they make it easier. You have people to go out with, or to have a conversation you don't feel so alone. And I think I've always tried to seek out that type of community at least to start
Amanda: When I really start to feel a connection to someone, that's when I want to take the conversations deeper definitely, having a coaching skillset has helped a lot with meeting people because as a coach, you're trained to get curious. And I think that is something really interesting and powerful that most people don't do.
You go into a conversation and you think, is this person interesting? Do I want to talk to them yesterday? But the reality is every one of us is interesting in different ways. And when you're in a conversation with someone new, it's just about figuring out what about this person is interesting.
So what can I learn? What can I understand from this person?
Does this person feel good to be around? And I think that is actually most of the friendships I have are really when I feel aligned somehow connected to this person, regardless of their status or anything like that.
Sharad: The fourth point is learning together. one of the most effective ways to make friends is by learning something together. Having a shared experience of growing is a great way to bond with people and can be done at any age. For example, my mother at the age of 67 started learning bridge online during COVID over the two years, she made very good friends.
Who've now done trips together and have a deep. As an action step, you could think of an area you want to grow in and look for courses of communities which provide this
Amanda: Sometimes or some of the most powerful relationships that I've built over the last few years have come from different courses or training programs that I've participated in. And I think that even more than going to a meetup for photography lovers or whatever it is signing up, paying money, investing time and energy in something you're really interested in automatically puts you in a space with other people who are interested in the same thing.
So when you sit through a training and hopefully you have some kind of emotional experience, well, that's what I love. I don't know if everyone loves that, but when you really have an emotional connection to what you're learning, what you're doing, and you're exposed to other people who are doing the same, it's hard not to feel a deeper connection with the others who are surrounding you.
It's almost like a common enemy.
Have this thing you want to learn and no one has mastered it yet. So you're all together against this thing you want to figure out. And in that way, you're all trying to understand better how to do this better, how to do it differently.
And I guess, as you say, it really puts everyone on equal footing. So you're all in this together, starting from the ground, figuring it out. And from that place, job titles don't matter. Your financial status doesn't matter. Your social standing, whatever that is, doesn't matter because you're all there as equals in that.
What I'm learning today will be different in five years time in 10 years time. Allowing ourselves to evolve in what our interests are, what we want to understand differently also helps us to meet new people along that journey whose interests are growing at that same time.
While I still have amazing friends that I grew up with from high school, from even younger, that I love dearly, we don't always have the same interests in our life. And the more new things that I expose myself to that really aligned with what lights me up, the more of those kinds of people that are coming into my life with a similar enthusiasm and excitement for whatever those new topics are.
Sharad: The fifth point is friends at work work is one of the most common ways to make adult friends for many of us. However, making friends at work can be tricky as we navigate the blurring lines of personal and professional lives. Being able to have the boundaries that both of us can respect and understand is the key way to making friendships at work.
Amanda: When you start your own business there's no separation because you're just that one human, or at least when you start a solo business, let me put it that way. You're one human. So whatever's going on in your life is going to impact everything.
And I believe this to be true, even when you're at work and other things. So it's not exclusive to being an entrepreneur, but it becomes really hard to make that separation. Even from really close friends or like romantic partners saying, oh, so-and-so is looking for a coach. It's always a little bit of a murky territory there.
And I'm still navigating this because I have a lot of friends who have become business, whatever partners or associates and the other way around, which I find to be easier. So when you're working with someone and then all of a sudden you realize, actually, I really like you, can we hang out? Can we spend time together?
That's a bit of an easy transition, as long as you both understand those boundaries, maybe that's the hard part. Just really knowing who are you in your professional roles? And what's that relationship look like? And then who are you as friends? So a really good example is I have a former client of mine who has become a really good friend and.
I remember feeling really uncomfortable about making this switch, because I didn't know what are the boundaries what's acceptable. I just knew she was really nice and cool, and I wanted to hang out, but didn't know how to really make that approach. And when I'm, when you're an entrepreneur, especially in the early years, everything looks like a business opportunity,
Sharad: No.
Amanda: so it can become a little hard to just recognize, oh, you just want me to be friends and everything seems like it has to be about business.
So in that particular friendship this client of mine. Actually, I give her the credit for being the one to reach over that barrier. And in that particular situation, it also made sense because she was the client. You have to make sure that you're not overstepping boundaries and that you're within the ethics of whatever your profession is.
But at some point you can just let down your guard and become friends with someone. And I've had other situations where it's a bit trickier where you're working in business with someone and there is sort of friendship, but then it's also business and it doesn't really feel that relaxed. So I think just being aware of your own boundaries in that space can really help knowing when you're happy to just blur that line.
And when it doesn't actually feel good in that moment and That's something that I think is really you're navigating all the time. I don't know that there is a clear cut way to handle that, but I do know that doing business with people that you really like makes it so much more fun.
Sharad: The sixth point is difficult conversations. When things go wrong, as they inevitably will, we need the skill of having difficult conversations. As kids. We can throw tantrums at our friends and get away with it would not in adulthood,
these difficult conversations, give us the opportunity to maintain and even deepen the friendships in adulthood.
Amanda: Oh boy. It gives me anxiety just to think about it. So it is something that I've been really practicing over the years because when you avoid these conversations, they build up and they become much harder and they become worse. And I know that when there's something that needs to be spoken into the room, maybe some discomfort in a friendship or something you're not happy with.
It will just build and fester and might lead to like really, as you said, avoiding people not trying to be in the same space. So I get a lot of anxiety or I'm feeling anxious now actually like really about having to have these kinds of conversations. But I always know that it's just better, to be honest, and to be really heartfelt and vulnerable when you're sharing whatever's going on.
I had a recent example of working with a friend who's also a colleague and it was a bit of a difficult balance because we are good friends. We were doing a difficult project together. We had never worked on a project in this capacity together. And after a couple of weeks, like the tension was really building and you could feel it to the point where I was lying in bed one day, thinking I don't even want to do this project anymore.
I can't handle it. I'm stepping out. I don't want to do this, ready to throw in the towel and had to just really muster all of the courage that I had to have that conversation and say, really approaching her with a lot of compassion because I'm not the only person in this relationship.
So if I'm feeling the tension, then she's feeling the tension as well. And trying to recognize before talking to her, what might she be experiencing? So I can't decide what this other person's experiences, but I can try to put myself in their shoes to understand, what might be happening for her.
That's causing her to act in this way and then create this dynamic. I have a role to play, so. And then when I could enter that conversation, I was coming from a place of, Hey, listen, I have no idea if this is true, but I can imagine that you might be feeling some of these things. And I would love to hear from you what your experiences and share with you what mine is.
And then I could share really heartfelt and openly what I was struggling with. And because I had gone a little bit onto her side as well to show that I'm not just coming in and saying, you're doing this, this, this, and blaming her. It was really like, I can imagine I'm doing things to make you crazy too.
Maybe this behaviour or that behaviour is not working so well. And it gave her the safety to open up as well. And in that 30 or 40 minute conversation, we literally cut the tension. It was just gone because we could both say what needed to be said, have that really hard conversation. Which gave me so much energy after, because I just felt so much lighter.
Sharad: So those are the six ways of making friends in adulthood. Here's a recap, one setting an intention to building courage, three breadth before depth for learning and growing together. Five friends at work and six having difficult conversations while we've talked about new friends today. It's important to recognize the value of old friends.
These have been with us in our formative years. They know parts of us that even we may have forgotten, they can continue to play a huge role in our lives.
Amanda: I'm always shocked when I have a conversation or I get together with friends who I've known for, 20 plus years and the things that they know about me as a person or my personality or how I show up. It's always shocking to me that someone could know me so well. And that's something that.
Doesn't, you can have really deep, beautiful bonds with people that you need as an adult and later in life. And they get to know who you are now, but they are not going to know that hardship you had when you were, I don't know, 15 years old, or that you struggled your way through. So when I have these friendships, some of my friends from college or that I grew up with and it's, a conversation, oh, I remember when your mother did X, Y, Z.
And I'm like, I don't remember when my mom did that. So I think that those long-term friends, aside from you have the shared experience of, this past life together, growing up together, whatever that looks like, they also keep you humble and rooted to who you are and where you came from.
And I think that adds a really different perspective because. People who might meet me today, we'll see who I am today. I make YouTube videos and I facilitate workshops and I talk about confidence and all these different things, who was I? When I was a kid, being told that I was bullying my teachers in high school because I was so opinionated and defending all of my classmates against their tyranny.
These are the kinds of things that are not seen later in life and that you yourself even forget about. But these older friends hold that picture of you and remind you of where you came from as well.
Sharad: Thank you, Amanda, for sharing experiences, ideas and ways for making friends and adulthood. I know it's not easy to do. And sometimes as we get older, it feels even harder, but hopefully some of these steps might give us ideas on creating new opportunities for friendship.
If you are looking to make new friends as an action step, you could consider setting the intention, finding rituals to access and harness the courage to take the next step and moving forward with any of the techniques that resonated with. You may be at the stage where you have many loose connections.
Maybe you could look at deepening. Some of those bonds sometimes being the one to reach out, to set a coffee, send a message, leave a thoughtful voicemail, or set up a group. Catch-up is the simple first step needed.
Before we go. I'd like to highlight that Amanda is launching a confident leaders mastermind on February 17th. This is a coaching program for impactful leadership and a safe forum for leaders to talk and share stories. For more detailed on this program on Amanda and on the show, please visit howtolive.life.
You can click on the episode for the show notes and all the details will be there. If you like our show, please do support us and subscribe.
Thank you and have a wonderful day ahead.
Episode Transcript
(There may be some typos as this episode has been transcribed electronically)
Sharad:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to how to live a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm a whole Sharad Lal
This is episode eight. today, we talk about making friends in adulthood. This has been requested by many of you, those moving cities or countries, or entering a new life stage parenthood or empty nest, or some of us just stuck in life, looking for new energy, excitement.
How do we go about making friends aligned to who we are today? To discuss this? I caught up with Amanda. Amanda is an excellent person to discuss this topic. She's an entrepreneur global citizen and has made many meaningful long-term friendships around the globe.
Born in New York, she's travelled to over 65 countries,
And lived around the world in places, including.
Paraguay, Berlin, Singapore, and now London. She's also accomplished much in her career as the founder of the carriage factory as a coach and through designing landmark programs for WWF world bank UNICEF and the world economic forum, Amanda and I discussed six useful techniques for making friends in adulthood.
She shares some of her personal experiences in learning.
The first one is intention setting an intention that we'd like to make new friends or build a community, puts us in the right frame of mind. It helps us become open and look out for friendships.
Interestingly, being new to a community. An outsider. A foreigner can actually have a huge advantage to us. For example, as new parents, when we take our baby for a walk to the condo or the neighborhood, we often receive friendly, greetings, polite inquiries, encouragement, and are welcome to join the community of new parents.
Let's hear Amanda described this point.
Amanda: The first step always comes from setting an intention that I want to meet new people always. So I get to a point in my life where I feel maybe a bit stuck or maybe like things aren't really moving, or I want to change things up and it takes a little while.
And then a recognition comes home. I'd really like to meet some new people. Whoever those people are. And from there, I really decide, okay. I will make new friends and see what comes in, because I think from that place of having an intention that you want to meet new people, you want to make new friends, you're more open to the new people who come into your life and more willing to see, oh, who is this person?
Are they interesting? Or how can I meet more people that are interesting or speak to me, et cetera.
one of the things that I think it's always worked in my favour it helps to be the farm. It helps to be the person coming from outside because it's a lot easier to say, hi, I'm new here.
I don't know anyone, basically, will you be my friend or can you help me? Or what do I need to know about this place? So I think that people especially in a small country, like Paraguay, for example, where you don't have so many foreigners coming in, but not exclusively there, people are happy to share and to help.
So a lot of friendships that I've had, starting there, I think people were really excited to show me their country and because I was open to mind, open-minded enough to say, yeah, sure. Let's go. Okay. A five-hour drive through muddy roads to get to a Hilltop. Okay. Sounds interesting. Let's do it.
And I think from there, the bonds start to build really from this place of. Just saying yes. And being open-minded to whoever's in front of me without trying to judge who they are or say, Ooh, is this someone I want to be friends with or not? And just see what else is there.
Sharad: The second point is courage. It's not easy to put ourselves out there. Face rejection, let go of ego and go along with others, blends others systems. This takes courage to build this courage. Some of us need to do the mental preparation for ourselves. It could be rituals, pauses or anything that gets us at our best to take this on.
I encourage you to reflect on how a ritual to build your courage might work for you.
Every time that I've moved to a new city or travelled to a new place, Even though I do it a lot. And even though it seems like it's, oh, it's so easy for you. Actually, it takes a huge amount of courage every time. So when I land in a new city, I am terrified. And very often I won't even leave my whatever hotel or apartment I won't leave for two days.
And I'll spend the time on the phone with friends back home saying, oh my God, what did I do? What did I do? But there's a part of me that is driven to explore something new. And I know that that experience is really so much deeper when I can make a connection in the local community, whatever that community might be.
For example, when I got to Berlin where I moved there in 2011 and it was really, it was totally foreign to me. The language was difficult. I remember where I ended up getting my apartment. Every time I would view an apartment in that area, I would get lost every time. And I remember, at some point recognizing, okay, I'm here now. It's time to make friends and meet people. I'm often pushing myself into situations that are not always comfortable. And I have an expectation that because I've done it before I can do it again. And I think the reality is that those two days or so are my body, my energy, everything telling me, hold on, pause.
Just take a moment to be with yourself, to settle where you are rather than forcing myself into the world to. Try to meet people or do things when I don't really feel ready to. I think it really is my whole system's way of forcing me just to take a break, hit, pause, settle for a moment and then try to go out and see what might be out there for you.
The third point is breadth before depth building new friends can be a two-pronged process. The first step is spreading our net wide being. Curious and associating with anyone who makes us happy. Once we have some safety or a sense of community, we can get choosy and pick friends. We'd like to build a deeper bond with people, more aligned to our values stage in life worldview,
or we can have deeper conversations with and build stronger connections.
When I was in college, you have your first year friends. So the people who get you over the hurdle of the change, who maybe aren't the friends that are going to be.
In your life forever, but who are at least with you there in the beginning, they make it easier. You have people to go out with, or to have a conversation you don't feel so alone. And I think I've always tried to seek out that type of community at least to start
Amanda: When I really start to feel a connection to someone, that's when I want to take the conversations deeper definitely, having a coaching skillset has helped a lot with meeting people because as a coach, you're trained to get curious. And I think that is something really interesting and powerful that most people don't do.
You go into a conversation and you think, is this person interesting? Do I want to talk to them yesterday? But the reality is every one of us is interesting in different ways. And when you're in a conversation with someone new, it's just about figuring out what about this person is interesting.
So what can I learn? What can I understand from this person?
Does this person feel good to be around? And I think that is actually most of the friendships I have are really when I feel aligned somehow connected to this person, regardless of their status or anything like that.
Sharad: The fourth point is learning together. one of the most effective ways to make friends is by learning something together. Having a shared experience of growing is a great way to bond with people and can be done at any age. For example, my mother at the age of 67 started learning bridge online during COVID over the two years, she made very good friends.
Who've now done trips together and have a deep. As an action step, you could think of an area you want to grow in and look for courses of communities which provide this
Amanda: Sometimes or some of the most powerful relationships that I've built over the last few years have come from different courses or training programs that I've participated in. And I think that even more than going to a meetup for photography lovers or whatever it is signing up, paying money, investing time and energy in something you're really interested in automatically puts you in a space with other people who are interested in the same thing.
So when you sit through a training and hopefully you have some kind of emotional experience, well, that's what I love. I don't know if everyone loves that, but when you really have an emotional connection to what you're learning, what you're doing, and you're exposed to other people who are doing the same, it's hard not to feel a deeper connection with the others who are surrounding you.
It's almost like a common enemy.
Have this thing you want to learn and no one has mastered it yet. So you're all together against this thing you want to figure out. And in that way, you're all trying to understand better how to do this better, how to do it differently.
And I guess, as you say, it really puts everyone on equal footing. So you're all in this together, starting from the ground, figuring it out. And from that place, job titles don't matter. Your financial status doesn't matter. Your social standing, whatever that is, doesn't matter because you're all there as equals in that.
What I'm learning today will be different in five years time in 10 years time. Allowing ourselves to evolve in what our interests are, what we want to understand differently also helps us to meet new people along that journey whose interests are growing at that same time.
While I still have amazing friends that I grew up with from high school, from even younger, that I love dearly, we don't always have the same interests in our life. And the more new things that I expose myself to that really aligned with what lights me up, the more of those kinds of people that are coming into my life with a similar enthusiasm and excitement for whatever those new topics are.
Sharad: The fifth point is friends at work work is one of the most common ways to make adult friends for many of us. However, making friends at work can be tricky as we navigate the blurring lines of personal and professional lives. Being able to have the boundaries that both of us can respect and understand is the key way to making friendships at work.
Amanda: When you start your own business there's no separation because you're just that one human, or at least when you start a solo business, let me put it that way. You're one human. So whatever's going on in your life is going to impact everything.
And I believe this to be true, even when you're at work and other things. So it's not exclusive to being an entrepreneur, but it becomes really hard to make that separation. Even from really close friends or like romantic partners saying, oh, so-and-so is looking for a coach. It's always a little bit of a murky territory there.
And I'm still navigating this because I have a lot of friends who have become business, whatever partners or associates and the other way around, which I find to be easier. So when you're working with someone and then all of a sudden you realize, actually, I really like you, can we hang out? Can we spend time together?
That's a bit of an easy transition, as long as you both understand those boundaries, maybe that's the hard part. Just really knowing who are you in your professional roles? And what's that relationship look like? And then who are you as friends? So a really good example is I have a former client of mine who has become a really good friend and.
I remember feeling really uncomfortable about making this switch, because I didn't know what are the boundaries what's acceptable. I just knew she was really nice and cool, and I wanted to hang out, but didn't know how to really make that approach. And when I'm, when you're an entrepreneur, especially in the early years, everything looks like a business opportunity,
Sharad: No.
Amanda: so it can become a little hard to just recognize, oh, you just want me to be friends and everything seems like it has to be about business.
So in that particular friendship this client of mine. Actually, I give her the credit for being the one to reach over that barrier. And in that particular situation, it also made sense because she was the client. You have to make sure that you're not overstepping boundaries and that you're within the ethics of whatever your profession is.
But at some point you can just let down your guard and become friends with someone. And I've had other situations where it's a bit trickier where you're working in business with someone and there is sort of friendship, but then it's also business and it doesn't really feel that relaxed. So I think just being aware of your own boundaries in that space can really help knowing when you're happy to just blur that line.
And when it doesn't actually feel good in that moment and That's something that I think is really you're navigating all the time. I don't know that there is a clear cut way to handle that, but I do know that doing business with people that you really like makes it so much more fun.
Sharad: The sixth point is difficult conversations. When things go wrong, as they inevitably will, we need the skill of having difficult conversations. As kids. We can throw tantrums at our friends and get away with it would not in adulthood,
these difficult conversations, give us the opportunity to maintain and even deepen the friendships in adulthood.
Amanda: Oh boy. It gives me anxiety just to think about it. So it is something that I've been really practicing over the years because when you avoid these conversations, they build up and they become much harder and they become worse. And I know that when there's something that needs to be spoken into the room, maybe some discomfort in a friendship or something you're not happy with.
It will just build and fester and might lead to like really, as you said, avoiding people not trying to be in the same space. So I get a lot of anxiety or I'm feeling anxious now actually like really about having to have these kinds of conversations. But I always know that it's just better, to be honest, and to be really heartfelt and vulnerable when you're sharing whatever's going on.
I had a recent example of working with a friend who's also a colleague and it was a bit of a difficult balance because we are good friends. We were doing a difficult project together. We had never worked on a project in this capacity together. And after a couple of weeks, like the tension was really building and you could feel it to the point where I was lying in bed one day, thinking I don't even want to do this project anymore.
I can't handle it. I'm stepping out. I don't want to do this, ready to throw in the towel and had to just really muster all of the courage that I had to have that conversation and say, really approaching her with a lot of compassion because I'm not the only person in this relationship.
So if I'm feeling the tension, then she's feeling the tension as well. And trying to recognize before talking to her, what might she be experiencing? So I can't decide what this other person's experiences, but I can try to put myself in their shoes to understand, what might be happening for her.
That's causing her to act in this way and then create this dynamic. I have a role to play, so. And then when I could enter that conversation, I was coming from a place of, Hey, listen, I have no idea if this is true, but I can imagine that you might be feeling some of these things. And I would love to hear from you what your experiences and share with you what mine is.
And then I could share really heartfelt and openly what I was struggling with. And because I had gone a little bit onto her side as well to show that I'm not just coming in and saying, you're doing this, this, this, and blaming her. It was really like, I can imagine I'm doing things to make you crazy too.
Maybe this behaviour or that behaviour is not working so well. And it gave her the safety to open up as well. And in that 30 or 40 minute conversation, we literally cut the tension. It was just gone because we could both say what needed to be said, have that really hard conversation. Which gave me so much energy after, because I just felt so much lighter.
Sharad: So those are the six ways of making friends in adulthood. Here's a recap, one setting an intention to building courage, three breadth before depth for learning and growing together. Five friends at work and six having difficult conversations while we've talked about new friends today. It's important to recognize the value of old friends.
These have been with us in our formative years. They know parts of us that even we may have forgotten, they can continue to play a huge role in our lives.
Amanda: I'm always shocked when I have a conversation or I get together with friends who I've known for, 20 plus years and the things that they know about me as a person or my personality or how I show up. It's always shocking to me that someone could know me so well. And that's something that.
Doesn't, you can have really deep, beautiful bonds with people that you need as an adult and later in life. And they get to know who you are now, but they are not going to know that hardship you had when you were, I don't know, 15 years old, or that you struggled your way through. So when I have these friendships, some of my friends from college or that I grew up with and it's, a conversation, oh, I remember when your mother did X, Y, Z.
And I'm like, I don't remember when my mom did that. So I think that those long-term friends, aside from you have the shared experience of, this past life together, growing up together, whatever that looks like, they also keep you humble and rooted to who you are and where you came from.
And I think that adds a really different perspective because. People who might meet me today, we'll see who I am today. I make YouTube videos and I facilitate workshops and I talk about confidence and all these different things, who was I? When I was a kid, being told that I was bullying my teachers in high school because I was so opinionated and defending all of my classmates against their tyranny.
These are the kinds of things that are not seen later in life and that you yourself even forget about. But these older friends hold that picture of you and remind you of where you came from as well.
Sharad: Thank you, Amanda, for sharing experiences, ideas and ways for making friends and adulthood. I know it's not easy to do. And sometimes as we get older, it feels even harder, but hopefully some of these steps might give us ideas on creating new opportunities for friendship.
If you are looking to make new friends as an action step, you could consider setting the intention, finding rituals to access and harness the courage to take the next step and moving forward with any of the techniques that resonated with. You may be at the stage where you have many loose connections.
Maybe you could look at deepening. Some of those bonds sometimes being the one to reach out, to set a coffee, send a message, leave a thoughtful voicemail, or set up a group. Catch-up is the simple first step needed.
Before we go. I'd like to highlight that Amanda is launching a confident leaders mastermind on February 17th. This is a coaching program for impactful leadership and a safe forum for leaders to talk and share stories. For more detailed on this program on Amanda and on the show, please visit how to live.life.
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Thank you and have a wonderful day ahead.