You might be the loneliest you’ve ever been — and have no idea why.
One of my favorite guests and favorite humans, Liz Moody, is back on the show to talk about why loneliness isn’t an exposure problem. It’s not about being around more people. It’s a discomfort problem. We’re getting into why our frictionless, optimized lives are quietly killing our ability to connect, what it actually takes to build real friendships from scratch, why vulnerability is the shortcut nobody wants to take, and the one shift you can make this week that will move you toward deeper connection — no new plans required.
Key takeaways:
Loneliness isn’t fixed by being around more people
The most common advice for loneliness is to put yourself out there more. Go to a class. Join a club. Meet people. And while proximity matters –– that’s only half the equation. The part nobody talks about is that building deep friendships requires sitting in discomfort. The awkward pauses, the not knowing what to say, the fear of being judged, that’s the creation era of friendship, and most of us bail before we get through it. We’ve built such frictionless lives that we’ve lost the muscle for sitting with discomfort, which means we’re also losing the ability to build the real, lasting connections we’re craving.
The price of convenience is connection
Uber Eats, two-day shipping, mobile ordering, instant answers — our lives are optimized to eliminate friction at every turn. And that frictionlessness has a cost that most people aren’t counting. Those small, in-person interactions support our immune system, boost optimism, and make us feel more hopeful about the world. Liz calls these micro-connections, and we’re losing them one skipped interaction at a time. The price of convenience is humanity. And it’s a steep one.
Vulnerability is the actual shortcut to deeper friendship
Most of us have a curated list of things we share when we want to seem vulnerable. Therapy. Hard seasons. Things we’ve already processed enough to talk about comfortably. But real vulnerability — the kind that actually deepens a friendship — is the stuff that still makes your chest tight when you say it out loud. The things you carry shame about. Liz’s rule is simple: if you share something real, you either get a “me too” that dissolves the shame entirely, or you get useful information about whether this person is actually your match. Either outcome moves you forward. The discomfort of saying the real thing is the point, not a reason to stop.
Your phone is getting in the way even when it’s face down
If you’ve ever wondered why you can spend a whole evening with people and still come home feeling empty, Liz has the answer — and it’s probably your phone. Research shows that even having your phone face down on a table creates what’s called attention residue, meaning a portion of your attention is still on the device even when you’re not using it. Add in the gravitational pull of something frictionless sitting right there while you’re doing the harder work of real conversation, and connection doesn’t stand a chance. Liz’s advice: put the phone completely out of sight. Not face down. Out of sight. That single change will make your time with people feel more satisfying almost immediately.
Shared experiences build friendships faster than shared updates
Getting together to catch up is the default, but it’s also one of the least effective ways to deepen a friendship. When you sit across from someone and recap your lives, there’s pressure to be interesting, to perform, to sparkle a little. But when you do something together — work out, take a class, run errands, tackle a life admin day — you’re building shared hours without the pressure. Liz references research showing it takes 50 hours to turn someone into a friend and 200 hours to build a best friendship. Shared activities are how you stack those hours without even noticing. Find your “about” — a thing you do together — and let the friendship build around it.
Real solitude and rotting on your phone are not the same thing
A lot of us think we’re recharging when we’re actually just depleting ourselves differently. Scrolling, second-screen TV watching, passively consuming content, that’s not rest and it’s not solitude. It’s overstimulation wearing the costume of a break. True healthy solitude means sitting with your own thoughts, forming your own opinions, and actually getting to know yourself without the noise. And here’s the connection: the better you know yourself, the better you know what you actually need from relationships, and the less susceptible you are to everyone else telling you how your friendships should look and feel.
Notable quotes
“Loneliness isn’t an exposure problem — it’s a discomfort tolerance problem.”
“Creating deep relationships requires friction. And we have designed incredibly frictionless lives.”
“Live your life with people. Don’t have people be these accent pieces to your life — live your life with people.”
Episode at-a-glance
00:00 Intro
00:13 Why We’ve Never Been More Connected — Yet More Alone
02:34 The “Creation Era” of Friendship & Why Discomfort Is the Price of Connection
03:23 The Cozy Era vs. The Creation Era of Friendship
06:17 Loneliness Is a Discomfort Problem, Not an Exposure Problem
11:37 Misdiagnosing Loneliness — What You’re Actually Missing
13:05 The Harvard Study of Adult Development & the #1 Predictor of a Long Life
14:59 Face-Down Phone Theory & What Your Phone Is Costing Your Relationships
11:27 Match Theory: Stop Impressing, Start Finding Your People
17:32 The 50-Hour Rule: How Long It Really Takes to Make a Friend
21:17 From Transaction to Connection — Getting Past Tit for Tat
21:13 Human Beings vs. Human Doings: Productivity Culture & Friendship
38:21 Shared Experiences, Novelty & Building Deeper Bonds
38:16 “Abouts” — The Secret Ingredient to Lasting Friendships
50:24 Healthy Solitude vs. Loneliness (and Why Most of Us Never Actually Rest)
58:20 The One Shift to Make This Week If You Feel Lonely
Thanks to Rocket Money for sponsoring this episode!
Liz’s Links:
Website
Instagram
Podcast
A Hundred Ways to Change Your Life
Also mentioned in this episode:
Harvard Study of Adult Development
Clear Space App
Anna Goldfarb / NYT Friendship column
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Meet Liz
Liz Moody is the host of the top-rated ‘The Liz Moody Podcast’ and author of bestselling books ‘100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success,’ ‘Healthier Together: Recipes for Two—Nourish Your Body, Nourish Your Relationships,’ and ‘Glow Pops.’ She is a veteran journalist for publications including Vogue, Marie Claire, and goop, an online creator with a social media following of more than 1+ Million who has helped millions of people transform their lives, and the founder of Healthy Convo Co, a conversation game company designed to facilitate fun and life-changing conversations. Liz previously served as food director for mindbodygreen, a leading wellness website where she led content strategy for the food section. A regular speaker, panelist, and podcast guest, Liz shares her own deeply personal anxiety journey that led her to where she is now as well as actionable, fun, and science-based ways for everyone to live their best lives.
Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
You might be the loneliest you’ve ever been and have no idea why, because the truth is we’ve never been more connected, but we’ve never been more alone. And that’s not a coincidence. Today we’re talking about how loneliness is not an exposure problem. It’s not about being around more people. It’s really a discomfort problem. And in a world designed to make everything frictionless, we have lost the exact muscle we need to build real, deep, lasting connection, and community.
And one of my favorite guests of all time is back. Liz Moody is a journalist, author, and host of one of my favorite podcasts, the Liz Moody Podcast, and she is back here on the show. Liz and I talk about how we can build better friendships, and that’s even starting from scratch. The number one factor that’s hindering our ability to connect and so much more. Let’s get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors.
So Liz, welcome back to the show. What does loneliness actually look like in today’s world?
Liz Moody:
It looks like feeling like you’re surrounded by a lot of people, but you don’t have anybody to really get vulnerable with. It looks like being in a crowded room, but feeling like nobody in here really sees me, gets me, knows me. It looks like going through a hard time and wanting to curl up in a ball by yourself on a couch instead of calling somebody to rely on. And I think it’s something that a lot of us increasingly struggle with. There’s a lot of societal factors that are set up to increase this feeling of there’s people everywhere, but I actually don’t have real people who are there for me.
Tori Dunlap:
Talk to me about that problem. Because I think that is the core of it, is we’ve never been better connected, and yet the connection doesn’t feel real.
Liz Moody:
Yeah, 100%. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot, and I think a lot of it comes down to friction, which might be counterintuitive, so stick with me for a second. But our lives are set up in these ways that are designed to minimize friction in so many capacities. We’re ordering from Uber Eats. You can get anything, like the fact that Amazon Prime has normalized two-day shipping in a way that has killed small businesses because they cannot afford to take the loss to offer two-day shipping drives me crazy. But we expect that now. We’re like, okay, we expect two-day shipping. We expect to get things exactly when we want to. Even answers. Think about, I don’t know, you might be too young for this, but do you remember when you had a question and you couldn’t just Google an answer for it?
Tori Dunlap:
Oh yeah.
Liz Moody:
It’s crazy how much we’ve normalized I can’t just sit with that question anymore.
Tori Dunlap:
I do that on purpose now if I’m with friends or family. And it’s like, no, we cannot Google it. We have to think of it.
Liz Moody:
We have to think, at least have a conversation and make your guesses and then Google it. Because I think we lose something in that immediacy. So we’ve designed these incredibly frictionless lives. And the thing that I think people are not talking about enough is that creating deep relationships requires friction. It requires sitting in this uncomfortable, I call it the creation era. So I say you have your cozy era of friendship. We’re all trying to get there. But before the cozy area, you have the creation era. And that’s when you’re trying, you’re like, I don’t know what to ask this person. Oh, that’s an awkward pause. I’m so-
Tori Dunlap:
If I make this joke, are they going to find it weird? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Liz Moody:
You feel like they’re judging you. You might be secretly judging them a little bit. And because we’ve really not worked our muscle of sitting in discomfort, sitting in friction. Even when people are like, you go to the bathroom, you take your phone. You brush your teeth, you have your phone. You never sit with your own thoughts, you never sit with discomfort. So when we’re forced to do that to create friendships, and to create deep, meaningful, beautiful friendships, we’re like, this is so uncomfortable. I can’t do this. And so then you retreat to the phone.
Tori Dunlap:
I don’t know if it’s a quote I read, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot where the price of convenience is humanity. It’s like these beautiful connections with people. And I think all the time about Starbucks is a perfect example. If you do drink Starbucks, going in and even just having that, what’s your drink, how’s your day going? Oh, you’re wearing a cool pin, or there’s a moment of connection there. Or you can just mobile order. Yeah, you mobile order, and it probably happens quicker, but you have lost the magic.
Liz Moody:
Well, you’ve lost the magic and you’ve also lost some real benefits. You know me, I’m going to give you all the science-
Tori Dunlap:
And please do.
Liz Moody:
… for what we’re missing out here, and there’s something called micro connections. And so those are those little interactions that you have at the grocery store, or when you say hi to somebody on the street, you smile at somebody on the street. And those have been shown in studies to support our immune system. They also help us feel more optimistic, more hopeful. I think a lot of us are feeling a dearth of hope in our daily lives. And that’s because, it’s not completely because, there’s a lot going on out in the world, but that’s in part because when you walk down the street and you try to smile at somebody, their head’s in their phone, so you can’t do it.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. I mean, just in my personal experience, I feel so much better just complimenting somebody or having that in person interaction with them. And it does make me feel more connected to people, and it does give me a sense of like, oh, not everybody votes for Trump. Not everybody’s like a terrible person. People are genuinely looking out for other people and people are not as selfish as I think it’s easy to believe.
Liz Moody:
I will also say that having those real life interactions can get you to, oh, that person votes for Trump and they’re not a terrible person. Which I think is a really important thing that we miss out on on the internet. I think that the internet algorithms, I’ll talk about this till the dawn of time, I’m a journalist, that’s my background. And so I’m very much in the world of like, how are we getting people to click on things?
And algorithms have taken what we’ve been doing in media forever and they’ve maximized it to just exponentially greater effects. And they are showing you either something that you agree with so strongly that that’s going to elicit a strong reaction, that you’re like, yes, this is my identity. Yes, girl, you said it. We love it. Or they’re showing you the diametric opposite, something that is designed to get you riled up and make you really angry.
And I think a really interesting place that you can see this is in the comments. If you open up a video, you’re going to see the top three comments are going to be the ones that most disagree with the point that’s being said in that video. Because it’s showing people what’s going to get them riled up, what’s going to get them to interact, and then-
Tori Dunlap:
Sort of emotional trigger.
Liz Moody:
… stay on the app. Yeah. And I think we have to be consciously at almost every single moment aware of the fact that all the apps, all the algorithms, are trying to make us feel like we live in the worst possible version of the world, and we need to be consciously fighting back against that. We need to be consciously looking for nuance. We need to be consciously questioning, is this really true? Is this really what I believe? And that takes a lot of energy. And of course the way the world is right now has robbed us all of the energy we need to do that.
Tori Dunlap:
You’ve said that loneliness isn’t an exposure problem. It’s a discomfort tolerance problem.
Liz Moody:
Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
Is that what we’re talking about here with things like convenience?
Liz Moody:
Yeah, I think it’s two parts. So I think there is the discomfort of initial friendship. And I really don’t think we talk about this enough. People are like, “I don’t have friends.” And people are like, “Well, go to a yoga class.” There’s something called the mere exposure effect. And I do think this is important. This is research that shows that essentially the more you’re exposed to people, the more they will like you and you will like them, even if you don’t know anything about them. And even if you actually don’t recognize that you’ve been exposed to them.
So if you go to a yoga class at the same time, same week, you go to the same coffee shop, the people there will like you more and you will like them more, even if you’re not consciously recognizing them. So I think that’s an important part of the friendship equation, but most friendship advice stops there. It’s like, just put yourself around the people and it’ll be great.
And the second part that I do think we need to talk about is it’s going to be uncomfortable and you need to practice sitting in discomfort to get friendships to the place that you want. And then the layer I’m going to add on top of that is that I think a lot of us, even in our closest, deepest friendships, stop short of talking about the stuff that really would push the friendship to the next level. We could have almost our go to list of these are things I’m vulnerable about. These are things that I talk about. Like, oh, in therapy the other day, and then you give yourself like a little pat on the back and you’re like, “I talked about how I was in therapy,” but that’s actually-
Tori Dunlap:
I was vulnerable. I checked the vulnerability box.
Liz Moody:
I checked the vulnerability box. But that’s not actually this deep seeded thing that you have shame around and if you shared that thing with your friend, it would one, deepen the connection, two, it would massively decrease that shame because then you would be accepted for this thing that you have shame around. And three, it would push that discomfort in a completely other way where you’re just like, oh my gosh, I can deal with the discomfort of saying the real thing that I’m scared about.
The other thing that the world we live in has done, the world of social media, it’s made us so much more afraid of being perceived moment to moment. Even if you don’t have a big social media account, you’re scrolling, you see somebody wearing an outfit or putting themselves out there, and everybody’s like, “Oh my God, that’s cringe. That’s embarrassing. I can’t believe it.” And even if you’re like, I’m never going to do that, there’s a part of your head that’s like, Well, that’s not cool. We judge people like that.
Tori Dunlap:
Or it feels unsafe.
Liz Moody:
It feels deeply unsafe. And at a base level, we’re all really looking for that safety. And so I think that that fear of being perceived, if you are struggling with your relationship, you’re like, gosh, I haven’t had sex with my partner in months. I don’t know what to do about this. You might not bring that to your friends because you want to be like, “Oh yeah, we’re having sex a few times a week. It’s great.” If you are worried about where you are in life in terms of the success that you’re finding, you might not bring that to your friends, if you’re worried about your money situation. We all have this, the dial of being perceived has been turned up so high that we’re missing that vulnerability, which I think is the later layer of discomfort.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. I’m going to ask you the biggest question and you might not have the answer. How do we get over the fear of being perceived, or how do we make peace with that?
Liz Moody:
I think it’s baby steps. I think it’s coming out there in micro ways. I remember there was this group trip that I was invited on, and it was a bunch of hot girls, like the girls in high school and college, you’re like, “Oh my gosh, these are the hot girls.” Which I’ve lived my life as peripheral to, like the funny friend in the hot girl group.
Tori Dunlap:
Yep. I’m well aware.
Liz Moody:
Sounds familiar. And I was really nervous to go on this trip because there was going to be a lot of bikini photos and stuff like this. And I didn’t want to say to my friend that I was nervous about it because I was worried she’d be like, “Oh, I’d never noticed you weren’t hot, but now I know. And now you unlocked it for me. The glass is broken.”
And I ended up having this conversation with my friend, and I felt like, as I was saying, I felt like I was going to die a little bit. This is how you’ll know if you’re being really vulnerable, it’s not going to feel comfortable. Your chest is going to tighten, and you’re going to be like, oh my God, I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud. Are you going to judge me?
Tori Dunlap:
Knees weak, palms heavy.
Liz Moody:
Yes, all of those things. Do you want to rap more?
Tori Dunlap:
I can. Arms are heavy, there’s vomit on his sweater already. Mom’s spaghetti, he’s nervous. Okay.
Liz Moody:
And she was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so glad that you shared this. I’ve been feeling like this too. And I’ve been really nervous about how my body’s going to look in all of these pictures and stuff like that.”
Tori Dunlap:
What do they call it? Is it the Gottman’s that call it… You’ve talked about it on your show.
Liz Moody:
Is it bidding?
Tori Dunlap:
Yes. Yes. It’s a bid. It’s a bid for connection.
Liz Moody:
So that is a bid for connection. I think there’s…
Tori Dunlap:
A little less so, but it ends up being a connection point. Yeah.
Liz Moody:
Yeah, it’s definitely a connection point. And I think that’s, you will either, if you do this process of really saying the stuff you’re ashamed about, you will either get me too, which is just the best feeling in the world. Every time I’ve opened up about this, there’s usually a me too in the room, and I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m not alone in this.” Then you can talk about it, strategize about it. It’s so nice.
Or you can get, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know you were feeling that way. Let me know how I can be there for you.” I’ve done this hundreds of times since I identified that it was something that I was not doing and it was negatively impacting my life, and I’ve never been met with judgment. And I also do think I have this thing called match theory, which is essentially just the idea that we’re not looking to impress our way through life. We’re looking for our genuine matches.
Tori Dunlap:
Yes.
Liz Moody:
So on a date, in friendship, even at work, you really want to look for, as much as possible, your real matches. And the sooner you get to the information that maybe this person isn’t a match, the better. So I’m like, “Go on vacation with your friends, go on vacation with your partner.” Even if it goes terrible, great.
Tori Dunlap:
You have information.
Liz Moody:
You have information. And so I think that in this scenario, if you’re vulnerable, if you say the thing you’re ashamed about, and they’re like, “Ew,” I would-
Tori Dunlap:
Those aren’t your people.
Liz Moody:
… so much rather have that information. Yeah. I think sometimes that will even ring a bell and you’ll be like, that’s why this relationship felt unsafe and I couldn’t consciously wrap my head around that feeling I got around this person.
Tori Dunlap:
When people say, “I feel lonely,” or maybe they think I feel lonely, what are they usually misdiagnosing?
Liz Moody:
I think that they are misdiagnosing a number of things. So we can go macro and micro. I’d say in a macro way, I think when they say they feel lonely, they’re probably missing connection, not people. And I think that’s why you can feel a lot of people in long-term romantic partnerships feel lonely because their partner isn’t showing up for them as a partner. And so I think that’s what they’re really saying.
In the micro, I think there’s a lot of reasons people give for why connection falls down and down and down on the list. There’s time, there’s energy, there’s money. A thing I love to remind people about, if they haven’t heard about it, there was this study called the Harvard Study of Adult Development. It’s the longest running study of humans that has ever existed. It’s gone on for more than 80 years. And they studied how people ate, what exercise people did, they studied the supplements they took, the prescription meds they took, their income levels, all of these things.
And they looked at everything. And the number one finding of this study was the single most important thing to our health and our happiness, and the long term, like how long we are going to live our lives, was the quality of our relationships. I remind myself of this study literally daily.
Tori Dunlap:
I think, and I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, complimentary in parenthesis, I think almost every episode I listen to of your show, you’ve brought it up because it’s so helpful.
Liz Moody:
Well, and I think that I want people to internalize it. I know at this point in my show, I’m like, as we remember, on the Harvard Study. But it is true. I want people to think about it, not in just this greater way of like, oh, cool information to file away. But I want people to think about it when they’re making their to do list for the day. I want people to-
Tori Dunlap:
What am I going to do about it?
Liz Moody:
… do it when they are planning their calendar. I want people to do it when they’re thinking about, should I pick my friend up at the airport? I want people to do it when they’re thinking about incorporating habits in their life. I’ve just started going to the gym regularly with a girlfriend. It’s my favorite thing I do. It brings us closer together. I can use the relationship to build the habit and I can use the habit to build the relationship.
It should color almost everything we do so that when we look back and we’re like, oh, I don’t have the time or the energy or whatever. I think flipping that to be like, how do I make the time because this is going to be an energy giver?
Tori Dunlap:
Totally. How can somebody be incredibly busy, incredibly social around a lot of people, but still feel lonely?
Liz Moody:
I mean, first of all, we have to talk about the phones. When you have your phone out, you are not making connections with people, period. I have this thing called face down phone theory, and this is based on research that when your phone is out on the table, even if it is face down, it is getting in the way of the connection that you have with the person that you’re with.
It’s doing it in a few ways. So one, there’s something called attention residue. Our attention takes over 10 minutes to switch from a previous task to the next task completely. So a little bit of your attention is on your phone, even if you checked your Instagram nine minutes ago or whatever.
Tori Dunlap:
Even if you’re conscious of it, it’s happening.
Liz Moody:
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,” that is going to take you time to switch your attention back.
Tori Dunlap:
It does.
Liz Moody:
So 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. So when you are sitting there in the friction of a real life conversation, your eye will go to your phone, and you’ll be like, ugh, 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-
Tori Dunlap:
It’s the safety net blanket.
Liz Moody:
… that eases some of the discomfort. Yeah. And so I think that, 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 anywhere that you can’t see it.
One of the other things that I think that people can really benefit from doing is doing activities together. We get together far too often, and we’re like, “Let’s go get a drink. Let’s go to dinner.” These are the basic activities that we do. That’s going to create a lot more of that friction because you have to just sit there and stare in each other’s eyes and make conversation from scratch for an hour and a half.
Tori Dunlap:
And you don’t even host a podcast.
Liz Moody:
That sounds like a nightmare to me.
Tori Dunlap:
It is a lot. Especially-
Liz Moody:
That feels like a lot of pressure.
Tori Dunlap:
… in the beginnings of a relationship too, that’s a lot.
Liz Moody:
It’s a lot. I mean, I’ve been with my husband for 18 or 19 years and I’m like, “That’s a lot.” It’s a lot of pressure, and you feel like you have to sparkle a little bit. And when it’s quiet and you hear the forks clinking, you’re just like, is this my childhood again?
Tori Dunlap:
If I’m not crying laughing, it doesn’t work.
Liz Moody:
It’s awful. And I think that there’s doing activities together, it provides this buffer for those uncomfortable silences, and it’s going to give you something that you have in common that you can build the hours that you need to create deep and meaningful friendships. So 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-
Tori Dunlap:
Hold on, Liz. 50 hours.
Liz Moody:
Five, zero hours.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s a lot.
Liz Moody:
That’s a lot of hours.
Tori Dunlap:
To go from an acquaintance or a casual-
Liz Moody:
To a friend.
Tori Dunlap:
To even a friend.
Liz Moody:
To a friend.
Tori Dunlap:
Not even a good friend.
Liz Moody:
Yeah, not even a good friend.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s a lot of hours.
Liz Moody:
And then 200 hours to turn somebody into a best friend.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s a big jump.
Liz Moody:
200-
Tori Dunlap:
No wonder we feel lonely.
Liz Moody:
… hours. And 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. 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-
Tori Dunlap:
[inaudible 00:18:52].
Liz Moody:
… into each other’s eyes and making conversation from scratch. So that’s my other thing that I think can really help. If you feel like you’re hanging out with people, but you’re not getting anywhere from those hangouts, bring in an about. And it can be anything. Book clubs are phenomenal abouts. So you talk about the book and then that veers into, well, how was your childhood?
Tori Dunlap:
Right. Have you seen the life admin days everybody’s doing?
Liz Moody:
Yes. I love a life admin day.
Tori Dunlap:
I think that’s so smart.
Liz Moody:
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.
Tori Dunlap:
Or errands or-
Liz Moody:
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.
Tori Dunlap:
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 happening quickly enough, yeah, you’re probably like four hours into this thing.
Liz Moody:
Four hours in. Well, I thought this. So I started, I was in a book club in New York, and then I moved to the Bay Area. And my book club in New York, we were all so close. We went to our friend’s wedding together in Montana.
Tori Dunlap:
Love it.
Liz Moody:
It was amazing. And I came to the Bay Area and I started a book club, and the first few meetings we were like, it was fun. It was pleasant. It was nice. And I was like, “This is never going to be like my New York book club.” Nobody-
Tori Dunlap:
Right. The comparison kicks in.
Liz Moody:
Yeah. You’re just like these are not the same level of relationships. And now we’re two years in and it feels exactly 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.
Tori Dunlap:
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/ffpod, you can take our free money personality quiz. It takes less than two minutes. It is six questions. And we can deliver you a customized financial plan for wherever you’re at in your financial journey. Over a million people have taken this quiz to get their plan, and it’s radically changed their financial lives. So again, herfirst100K.com/ffpod. Back to the show.
Why do you think, in the midst of talking about how convenience is making us lonelier, productivity, culture, optimization, like life efficiency, what is that doing to us?
Liz Moody:
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-
Tori Dunlap:
Sorry, I just fully just like… I’m like try not to hit this table.
Liz Moody:
I mean, I paid for my price to be here so that I could get the show.
Tori Dunlap:
Perfect. Yeah. What is it? Sharon… I’ll give you a little peek. Oh my gosh.
Liz Moody:
Only if I’m lucky.
Tori Dunlap:
Dinner and a show.
Liz Moody:
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 I’m always asking myself, to what end? 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, to what end? And I think the internet, and social media especially, because it’s a lot of people looking for things to get you to click to watch whatever they’ve built businesses off our attention, it can make it really easy to forget that. 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.
Tori Dunlap:
Or is like hackable.
Liz Moody:
Or is hackable. I think there are things you can do that can help it along, which a lot of which we’re talking about in this episode. And I think it’s important to have that information. But certainly the second that you’re sitting there and you’re saying, I got to 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 get a cute picture to put on Instagram.
Tori Dunlap:
A performed friendship.
Liz Moody:
That’s 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.
Tori Dunlap:
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 going to be going through a rough time and asked 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, “Great, here’s this link and here’s this and here’s that.”
And I said, “Thank you so much. Do you need anything from me?” And I truly meant that in that moment. It was not the feeling I had of like, oh, she gave something for me, so I have to do something for her. But you reminded me so beautifully in that moment, you’re like, “This is not tit for tat. You are going through stuff. I’m sure I’m going to need something from you or you can support me some other time, but this is not tit for tat.”
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, I don’t know, you never want somebody else to feel like I’m asking too much or requesting too much. But what I love about in your work and also getting to know you better as a person, this is not a keeping score thing. This is not a, oh, I’ve been inconvenienced six times from you, so I expect six times. Talk to me about the way that we often feel like these are transactional relationships. How can we move from transaction to actual connection?
Liz Moody:
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 for my thoughts on something, for you opening up to me in that way.
Tori Dunlap:
I admire you deeply and I hope you know that.
Liz Moody:
It’s very reciprocated.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you. I’m going to get teary if I keep talking. I’m like, I love women. I love women and the women connection. It’s just so lovely.
Liz Moody:
It really is. And I think it’s a powerful thing. This is a total aside, but I was talking to somebody at Spotify the other day, and he had been interviewing a bunch of different people because they’re trying to build out their mental health program for creators. And he was like, “Do you guys ever crave in person connection?” And I said, “Yeah, I’m in this women and podcasting group, and we’re all meeting up and getting dinner.” And he’s like, “That’s interesting. Because all the male podcasters I’ve talked to are like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to spill my secrets.'” And I’m like, “That is not the-“
Tori Dunlap:
That is the most gendered bullshit I’ve ever heard.
Liz Moody:
Isn’t that’s so interesting? And I was like, “No, we are spilling secrets. Like that is the whole point of what we’re doing.”
Tori Dunlap:
Well, because by the way, how else are we going to get ahead in a fucking patriarchal masculine-
Liz Moody:
100%.
Tori Dunlap:
… space where I mean-
Liz Moody:
And also rising tides raise all ships. I remind myself that constantly. Your success is my success. 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-
Tori Dunlap:
You and I have to talk more off mic about that because that’s a crazy thing to hear. That’s wild.
Liz Moody:
Isn’t that so interesting?
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, that makes me mad.
Liz Moody:
So I was so honored that you even brought this thing to me. And so I think that’s part of it, is realizing that people actually prefer helping other people sometimes to reaching out for help themselves. It makes them feel good. I think especially in the realm of advice, sometimes in today’s world, I think it gets conflated, in networking, people will reach out to me often and ask for favors. I think that can rub people a little bit more the wrong way.
But asking for advice, for wisdom, especially if it’s about a specific thing, I think can be a really powerful thing because it endears people to you. If we’re side noting because I think your audience might be more interested in that. I will say, make it specific. If you’re reaching out to a stranger on the internet, don’t just say, “Hey, I’d love any wisdom-
Tori Dunlap:
Hey, can [inaudible 00:27:29].
Liz Moody:
… you can share about your career. I want to pick your brain.” Whatever.
Tori Dunlap:
They don’t say pick your brain.
Liz Moody:
Have a specific question and have listened to enough of my podcasts and read enough of my book that you are somewhat confident that it has not already been answered, and then I’ll share with you.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s my biggest pet peeve as well. How do I make more money? Liz, the amount of DMs, I could scroll with you through Instagram right now.
Liz Moody:
You’re like, “I have some resources for you.
Tori Dunlap:
How do we pay off debt?
Liz Moody:
I have a few websites you could visit, a book you can read.
Tori Dunlap:
There’s no bigger pet peeve.
Liz Moody:
A wrote you a book”
Tori Dunlap:
Literally, I wrote you an 80,000 word book.
Liz Moody:
My picture’s on the cover.
Tori Dunlap:
My name and my photo and my podcast title. It’s brand synergy.
Liz Moody:
Yeah. So that’s a piece of micro advice. People love to share advice. They less like to share general advice or share favors, I think is a little bit trickier. But then I also think it’s worth asking yourself, in general, am I kind of auditing your own energy? So I think that if you feel like you’re the one who’s always putting effort into relationships, I would say, one, are you creating the space for other people to put effort in? Are you giving them a chance to call you? Are you giving them a chance to make plans, or do you want things kind of just a certain way? So you’re the one who’s kind of dictating-
Tori Dunlap:
Me in my early [inaudible 00:28:46].
Liz Moody:
… and controlling those things. And I think a lot of us have gone through phases like that, and that’s fine. So one, are you creating the space for it? Two, have you mentioned it to your friend? Like have you said, “Hey, I feel like I’m putting a lot of energetic energy into this. I know that this goes back and forth over time and more fluid, but 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. I think sometimes people feel like things should be a certain way. I should reach out 50% of the time. They should reach out 50% of the time. I should make plans 50% of the time. They should make plans 50% of the time. Some people just like making plans and that’s okay, and don’t let the shoulds of the world make you feel bad about that. I make like 90% of the plans in my relationship, and I spent years fighting with my partner.
Because I was like, “I feel like anytime we have a plan, I’m making the plan and you need to step up to the table in this capacity.” And he was like, “You’re really good at making plans. You like making plans. I don’t. Here’s all of the other ways that I step up in the world.” So I also think that saying, hey, does this feel good to me or does this not feel good to me? And not letting the shoulds around what friendships 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.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. I really love what you said about the 50/50. It’s the same in romantic relationships. There is no 50/50. There’s 80/20 or there’s 70/30.
Liz Moody:
And it’s all the different numbers. Right now for me and my husband it’s like 80/20 for chores, he’s 80 and I’m 20. But for plans, I’m probably 90 and he’s 10. And for anxiety support.
Tori Dunlap:
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.
Liz Moody:
Well, and I’m going to circle back to what we’re talking about at the beginning, which is the less time we spend alone with ourselves, the less in touch we are 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? Anytime you watch a movie and you say, hey, what do I think about this, you’re building that muscle to know what feels good to you so that you are less susceptible to somebody else telling you.
Tori Dunlap:
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 a little bit more.
Liz Moody:
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-
Tori Dunlap:
I’ve gotten so-
Liz Moody:
… our ability to think critically. I think that ChatGPT and other AI bots are really getting in the way of this. I’m okay with go find the other reactions after, but for five minutes, just say, what’s my reaction? What do I think-
Tori Dunlap:
I’ve been so guilty of that.
Liz Moody:
… about this thing?
Tori Dunlap:
I’m halfway through the video and I’m already in the comments.
Liz Moody:
It’s so interesting, isn’t that?
Tori Dunlap:
It is crazy.
Liz Moody:
And it really changes the way you think about something. And 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.
Tori Dunlap:
There’s been a lot of moments where I’ve watched a video or read an article and I go, how should I feel about this? And then I go to the comments.
Liz Moody:
And I do think it’s a lost art, and you can practice it. I think practice it with any media you engage with. So any videos you watch, any movies you watch, any songs that you watch. I thought that 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?
Tori Dunlap:
Right. Right, Well, we’ve all turned into critics. It’s not just like the Rolling Stone’s going to review it. It’s like everybody’s going to review it.
Liz Moody:
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.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. It’s not by time. It’s not no longer… Yeah, it’s the algorithm.
Liz Moody:
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 you feel a little iffy about or say to your partner something that you feel a little bit ashamed about. I think that’s just a really powerful exercise. And I’m so excited for anybody who’s going to do it because they’re going to get this little chunk of shame removed from them. And that’s just going to feel so good.
You can also though, any hard thing is going to translate to your ability to do other things. So you pushing yourself a little bit harder in a workout is going to make it easier for you to sit in the discomfort of early stage friendships. You ending your shower with cold water, you meditating, you reading a hard book that you’re like, ooh, this is a little bit tricky for me to understand or get through. Anything that feels a little bit difficult in the moment is going to change the dopamine levels in your brain in a way that’s going to, at a real physiologic basis, make it easier for you to sit in the discomfort of those early stage friendships.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. No, that’s so smart. And I mean, I’ve experienced it. I’ve done barre classes now for like 11 years. And that has single-handedly taught me so much about life is it’s like barre classes… Have you ever done a barre class?
Liz Moody:
My sister keeps threatening me with them.
Tori Dunlap:
Threatening is a good word. I like barre three. And I’ve had the founder on. She’s great 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 there’s so many times it’s deeply uncomfortable, like on purpose. And you’re going down an inch and up an inch and down an inch and up an inch. And you think it’s done, and then they go down and then they go, “Hold. Hold. We’re going to hold for 15 seconds.”
Liz Moody:
Oh, that’s so good for you.
Tori Dunlap:
And you don’t think you can do it, and you fucking can every time.
Liz Moody:
I love that.
Tori Dunlap:
And I’ve brought that into every aspect of my life.
Liz Moody:
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.
Tori Dunlap:
Totally. When did you feel in your life like your life was full, but you didn’t feel full?
Liz Moody:
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 a job to do social media?” I’m like I’m not-
Tori Dunlap:
It’s not coal mine.
Liz Moody:
And I recognize that and I’m very aware of that. And I think different jobs have different things that are difficult about them.
Tori Dunlap:
Different occupational hazards. Absolutely.
Liz Moody:
And the mental health hazard of social media has been really difficult for me. I came off of a pretty tough year where, 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.
Tori Dunlap:
I was just going to say your cat.
Liz Moody:
My cat died, which was my cat of 15 years, and she really occupied the space in my brain 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, I mean, to the point of this friendship conversation, when I’m going through hard times, I retreat. I curl up, my friends are texting me, I ignore them. And it was so interesting the friends that pushed through that for me and-
Tori Dunlap:
Broke your door down.
Liz Moody:
… they would show up, or they would call enough that I would finally answer. And that really meant the world to me. It was 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 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-
Tori Dunlap:
You’re like I don’t want to bug them. I don’t want to-
Liz Moody:
Yeah, you’re like, I don’t want to bug them. But she remembers that so strongly, and it was a really powerful signifier for her.
Tori Dunlap:
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.
Liz Moody:
Yeah. Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
And I’m not even a retreater. I have learned now I will ask for help. I will very concretely ask for help, but also you’re not imposing.
Liz Moody:
Yeah, you’re not imposing. And sometimes also-
Tori Dunlap:
And also they’ll tell you of like, “Hey, no, I need to sleep or I need to go…” I’m going to tell you, maybe you’ve overstayed your welcome, so don’t worry about that.
Liz Moody:
Yeah, let people kind of set their own boundaries. But I also, I mean, the thing I wanted the most was just somebody to be with me and to the point of cozy friends versus creation friends. The reason I retreat is because I often feel pressure to be 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.” That just felt like the biggest sigh of relief for me.
Tori Dunlap:
And we can talk about it or we cannot talk about it We’re just going to be here.
Liz Moody:
Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
Yep, totally. I totally agree. What happens psychologically when we build shared experiences instead of just sharing updates?
Liz Moody:
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 relentless in one thing after another. I also just felt like I was waking up. I was doing my work on the computer. And then I would make dinner, eat it in front of the TV, and do the same thing again the next day. And life just felt sort of relentless. And I kept having this feeling of like, is this what I’m working hard for? I had this sense of 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. It makes time feel more memorable. So when you look back at time, you’re like, “Oh, I did this, this, and this.” Instead of being like, “Has it been six months? Has it been a year? Has it been 10 years?” And it makes life feel richer and more satisfying.
And so I started doing what I call the novelty rule, which is once a week I do one tiny novel thing. So that can be like, I was going to watch this TV show, instead I’ll watch a documentary. That can be like, I’m going to try this different type of dish that I’ve never tried before. It can be listening to a podcast I’ve never listened to before. I’ve just started a running journey. It’s a journey.
Tori Dunlap:
You’re turning into the worst type of person, but I love that for you.
Liz Moody:
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 your breathing. And they both said that I would benefit perhaps from some cardio and some from heavy breathing, which I think is a fun activity to do with your loved, safe ones is like, what are my blind spots around this?
Tori Dunlap:
What am I missing? Yeah.
Liz Moody:
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. And so you can see how-
Tori Dunlap:
You heard it here first.
Liz Moody:
The groundbreaking science, you’re going to get it right here.
Tori Dunlap:
On The Liz Moody Podcast/Financial Feminist, this is where it’s happening.
Liz Moody:
But like you get to see-
Tori Dunlap:
That’s so funny, Liz.
Liz Moody:
… so much more of-
Tori Dunlap:
Crazy.
Liz Moody:
… the surroundings.
Tori Dunlap:
And it goes by faster so that you can be done working out sooner.
Liz Moody:
And so now I’ve like explored all these different pockets-
Tori Dunlap:
That’s so funny.
Liz Moody:
… 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-
Tori Dunlap:
A trip.
Liz Moody:
… doing a little daycation, visiting a friend, something like that, concert. And doing just those two things is going to help your brain encode your life in a way that you’re going to remember it more. And it’s also going to help you fight that anhedonia feeling, that kind of like nothing really hits feeling because you’re literally rewiring your brain.
Anyway, to the point of your question, when you do novel things with other people, it is one of the best ways to make relationships feel richer and more satisfying. Because you’re going to get all of those brain benefits, but then you’re also going to get all these brain benefits of being with another person. And so when you get together and catch up, it doesn’t read as novel in any way because you’re just kind of like-
Tori Dunlap:
You’re rehashing.
Liz Moody:
… 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.
Tori Dunlap:
They’ll razzle dazzle you.
Liz Moody:
When you do something different with your friends, when you learn a new skill, 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.
Tori Dunlap:
Sick.
Liz Moody:
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. And I also think like, have you ever had like an adventure with a friend where you’re like doing a ropes course or exploring a cave system or something, something especially with a little bit of struggle where you’re like, I don’t know if we’re going to make it through this.
Tori Dunlap:
Totally.
Liz Moody:
Like you remember that. You remember that, and that builds a relationship in a way that no amount of dinners is ever going to touch.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. And I think especially in long-term romantic relationships, it’s like, I’ve realized this with my own partner, it is like, okay, Friday date night can’t just be dinner. Even at a different restaurant-
Liz Moody:
Or if it is dinner-
Tori Dunlap:
… it’s just like-
Liz Moody:
… or for dinner, pick something unique, interesting. Do you know-
Tori Dunlap:
[inaudible 00:43:14] 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.”
Liz Moody:
Amazing.
Tori Dunlap:
And it’s food we wouldn’t have normally had and now it’s like our favorite.
Liz Moody:
Or bring a different game to play over dinner, or a question card box or something like that. 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-
Tori Dunlap:
Right. Your checklist.
Liz Moody:
… time compressed life. But how can we take the things that we’re already doing, and give them a little bit of a twist because you’re going to get time back from that.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. And I love what you said earlier of like incorporating friendships into the things you’re already doing as opposed to like, oh my gosh, I got to plan something else.
Liz Moody:
Yeah. Do your chores with your friends. That’s way more fun. And also you’re probably not-
Tori Dunlap:
Do your taxes. Tax season, baby.
Liz Moody:
I don’t even do my taxes.
Tori Dunlap:
Compile your documents for your accountant.
Liz Moody:
Remember that 80/20 that we talked about, my husband’s got the 100 there.
Tori Dunlap:
Why is it so common for people to just say, “I don’t know how to make friends anymore.”
Liz Moody:
I think because everything in society is set up to make us bad at making friends. Because there is 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.
Tori Dunlap:
No further questions. No, you’re right. How can someone use their existing orbit of acquaintances to actually deepen those relationships as opposed to maybe starting from scratch?
Liz Moody:
Yeah. So I think that a lot of the stuff we’ve been talking about, so do stuff with them, do novel things with them. I would also encourage people to set up, this is going to sound contrary to novelty, but set up a standing date so that instead of like every time-
Tori Dunlap:
It’s game night every Wednesday.
Liz Moody:
… you get together, you’re whipping out your calendar and you’re like, “Well, in three months I have a free Tuesday.”
Tori Dunlap:
Which is literally me with all my friends right now.
Liz Moody:
One, you see your friends much less often. Two, it makes it feel like a chore. You’re like, oh, I have to go do this. I have to put this on my calendar. It makes it feel really exhausting. Whereas if you have these standing dates, I go to the gym with my friend, I do a game night with my friend, maybe sometimes you’ll miss it. I think that plans loosely held can be much better than no plans at all. So I have standing dates with most of my friends. If I have a relationship I want to give priority to, I will put a standing date with that relationship and it’s been immensely helpful.
Tori Dunlap:
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 barre classes, it used to be like, oh, I’m going to do barre three times a week. Now it’s, I’m going to Katie’s class on Tuesdays at 7:15. Do you see the difference?
Liz Moody:
It’s a much more concrete plan.
Tori Dunlap:
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 I love seeing her. It is dependable. It’s like, okay.
Liz Moody:
When you can look forward to it.
Tori Dunlap:
I look forward to it. And if you’re staying out late, okay, well, too bad. You’re showing up at 7:15 tomorrow, so adjust accordingly.
Liz Moody:
In the morning?
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah.
Liz Moody:
Oh, wow. I’m very impressed.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, it’s the earliest I get up. I get up at 6:45, and I roll out of bed, and then it takes me 15 minutes to get there.
Liz Moody:
That’s amazing.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you. But I love it. And it’s great.
Liz Moody:
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. Yay.
Tori Dunlap:
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.
Liz Moody:
You look forward to everything.
Tori Dunlap:
Sleepover. Oh my God, sleepovers. And Christmas and birthdays, and you’re going to see a movie. Everything felt like, oh, I’m so excited I can’t sleep the night before. And I think you as an adult have very little of that. That’s what I’m-
Liz Moody:
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, 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-
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, it’s this absolutely.
Liz Moody:
… our phone consumption is going to be it.
Tori Dunlap:
But the funny thing is everybody knows that. There’s nobody listening that doesn’t know it’s your fucking phone.
Liz Moody:
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 still, 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. You only have to scroll for a little bit, and you’re like, wow, I feel worse than when I started scrolling. But we don’t have a path forward from that.
Tori Dunlap:
And there’s no friction points.
Liz Moody:
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 I have a Brick. Do you know what that is?
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. I have, is it Clearspace, which is very similar.
Liz Moody:
I need something that’s separate from my phone because if it’s on my phone, I turn it off. Do you know what I mean?
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, this one has strict mode.
Liz Moody:
Oh really?
Tori Dunlap:
So when you put it on, it does not matter.
Liz Moody:
It won’t go off?
Tori Dunlap:
They’re literally like… No.
Liz Moody:
They’re like, we’re serious.
Tori Dunlap:
Yep, yep, yep.
Liz Moody:
Because you need-
Tori Dunlap:
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. I’d toggle it back and forth.
Liz Moody:
TikTok’s like, you’ve reached your [inaudible 00:48:22]. And I’m like, I know, bye-bye. 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.
Tori Dunlap:
So addictive.
Liz Moody:
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? Clearspace?
Tori Dunlap:
Clearspace. No sponsor, but yeah, it’s great.
Liz Moody:
Get Clearspace, 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-
Tori Dunlap:
And you hear…
Liz Moody:
… you have a little bit of attention on your phone. You’re going to be able to work through that project much slower. Get your time back. Put your phone out of your sight.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah.
Liz Moody:
Don’t sleep with it by your bed. Do you sleep with your phone by your bed?
Tori Dunlap:
Absolutely not.
Liz Moody:
Really?
Tori Dunlap:
No.
Liz Moody:
I’m impressed. It’s like hard not to.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s in my bathroom. It’s been in my bathroom for 10 years.
Liz Moody:
It’s really hard not to.
Tori Dunlap:
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.
Liz Moody:
And also you’re out of bed.
Tori Dunlap:
I’m out of bed.
Liz Moody:
You’re out of bed. And I think that-
Tori Dunlap:
I have my little naked morning routine.
Liz Moody:
And also you’re doing your habit stacking. I can come up with-
Tori Dunlap:
I got my water.
Liz Moody:
… lots of reasons to reassure you that-
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you.
Liz Moody:
But I do think that if you do nothing else but 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. Whatever. Again, I’m old, but we made it through years without having our phones next to our bed, and we were okay. Life was fine.
Tori Dunlap:
Or it was a, I don’t know, [inaudible 00:50:11]. It was a rotary phone.
Liz Moody:
Rotary phone. Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
It was a landline.
Liz Moody:
I had a see through one when I was a kid-
Tori Dunlap:
Sick.
Liz Moody:
… where you could 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.”
Tori Dunlap:
That is really incredible.
Liz Moody:
We would do print calls at sleepovers. It was awesome. I feel like prank calls, do people still do prank calls?
Tori Dunlap:
I don’t know.
Liz Moody:
Did cell phones take away prank calls?
Tori Dunlap:
I don’t know. Is your furniture… Furniture? Is your refrigerator running?
Liz Moody:
Is your refrigerator running? And we would call pizza places and ask for insane toppings on pizza.
Tori Dunlap:
Wow.
Liz Moody:
I want slime. And they’d be like, “What?” It was really fun.
Tori Dunlap:
I love it so much.
Liz Moody:
Bring prank calls back.
Tori Dunlap:
Honestly, it’s so good.
Liz Moody:
If you take nothing else from this podcast, bring prank calls back.
Tori Dunlap:
Bring prank calls back, baby. How can you help people distinguish between loneliness and healthy solitude?
Liz Moody:
I think this is interesting. So I actually don’t think we have healthy solitude anymore.
Tori Dunlap:
Tell me more.
Liz Moody:
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.
Tori Dunlap:
[inaudible 00:51:19].
Liz Moody:
We’re spending it scrolling. We’re spending it overwhelming-
Tori Dunlap:
We’re watching a movie-
Liz Moody:
… our brain with-
Tori Dunlap:
… while we’re on the phone at the same time-
Liz Moody:
… this information. Yeah, second screen viewing, which I think is so interesting. Have you heard about this where they put, now in movies, they’ll put the plot points in like five times because they assume you’re scrolling on your phone while you’re watching the movie.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, when you’ve missed it.
Liz Moody:
Yeah. Zach and I just watched Zootopia 2, which is like a pretty good movie. We love a cartoon. But they say the plot point five times. They’re like, “And now we’re getting in the car to rescue blah, blah, blah.” And because they assume you’re on your phone while you’re watching it. So if-
Tori Dunlap:
That’s crazy.
Liz Moody:
Yeah. It’s so interesting.
Tori Dunlap:
Marty Supreme did not do that. Have you seen Marty Supreme?
Liz Moody:
I actually, I haven’t, but I just saw Hamnet in the theaters and I was thinking-
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, I really want to watch that.
Liz Moody:
… I think a great way, again, instead of relying on willpower to not be on your phone, go see a movie in a theater. And then if you could afford it, I think it’s a really great way to just absent to yourself, or your barre classes.
Tori Dunlap:
I was going to say literally, Liz, half the reason I go to the barre class is I can’t touch my phone for 45 minutes to an hour. Same thing with a sauna. I go to a spa with a sauna. I cannot bring my phone into the sauna or it will combust.
Liz Moody:
It will explode.
Tori Dunlap:
[inaudible 00:52:23].
Liz Moody:
Which people in the sauna frown upon.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, I’m in my own little thing, but yes.
Liz Moody:
Oh, that’s nice. I go to the sauna at my gym and 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-
Tori Dunlap:
Go naked with strangers.
Liz Moody:
… talk about, go to a gym. Yeah.
Tori Dunlap:
K Spa.
Liz Moody:
K Spa’s so good.
Tori Dunlap:
I’ve been on this podcast repeatedly. Go to a fucking K Spa.
Liz Moody:
Well, and again, I think we forget how often we are exposed to 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 bodies.
Tori Dunlap:
Hair, no hair. Big bellies, mastectomies. I’ve seen it all. It’s so great.
Liz Moody:
It’s so nice.
Tori Dunlap:
Tattoos, head to toe tattoos, no tattoos.
Liz Moody:
I think that’s huge.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s great. Healthy solitude versus loneliness.
Liz Moody:
So I think a lot of the time-
Tori Dunlap:
Get naked.
Liz Moody:
…. 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 just because we’re not really doing that. We’re depleting ourselves, but in a different way. We’re not actually finding rest, or we’re hyper stimulating parts of our brain. We’re stewing in the world’s worst news and all of the reasons that everything’s going to shit.
Tori Dunlap:
We’re just rotting. Yeah.
Liz Moody:
We think that we’re connecting with people because we’re 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 X amount of time? I’m an introvert. I need a lot of time by myself to recharge. But I’ve had to make a very clear distinguishment in my own brain between am I actually recharging in this time, or am I just rotting because I don’t want to put in a little bit of energy, overcome that friction, and get the much more satisfying, real thing on the other end.
Tori Dunlap:
Totally. Well, and I think there’s going to be so much conversation with this as we get more data, but I think the pandemic has also just made things so hard because we’re all so lonely because we didn’t have that connection.
Liz Moody:
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.
Tori Dunlap:
Right. That was going to be my second point is there’s very little reason to leave the house now because we couldn’t leave the house, so everything adapted around that.
Liz Moody:
Everything adapted around that. And I think that there’s going to be a lot more research coming out about what we’ve lost to that. I think that work from home can have a place. I think we both run work from home companies. I think it’s really important. And I miss on a weekly basis going to the office.
Tori Dunlap:
You and I have talked about that.
Liz Moody:
Yeah. When I worked for another company, I went into the office. I was not like the boss. I was a paid employee. I loved it. I crush 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. And I think that being forced to endure that friction is so good for us. So I do think there’s going to be a lot more research coming out about what we lost there and how we can begin to right the skills and maybe some sort of high… I don’t know. I think it’s really hard. Because 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.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, I’d agree. What does a connected life really look like, not just socially, but emotionally?
Liz Moody:
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? 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. I think that’s a connected life for me internally. And then externally, I would say you need a few people, I don’t think you need that many, that you feel like you can be fully yourself with. And being fully yourself is really different than what a lot of us are putting out there, even with the people that are the closest to us in the world.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. And that safety I think is so important too, of like truly feeling safe.
Liz Moody:
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.
Tori Dunlap:
Or if somebody can’t hold that for you, that says a lot too.
Liz Moody:
Yeah, I think so. And I think that that goes back to match theory, which is like, maybe that’s a person you want in your life, but not in the capacity that we’re talking about. 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-
Tori Dunlap:
I was just going to ask you-
Liz Moody:
… different categories for that.
Tori Dunlap:
The roles, I wasn’t even planning on asking you about that, but I think that is so crucial and important is there are some people that I know I can’t go to for these things.
Liz Moody:
Which is fine. 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 want to dive deep into stuff. I don’t want a real answer in any way actually.
Tori Dunlap:
No, I just want hype.
Liz Moody:
I just want you to tell me I’m great. I want you to hype me up.” 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.
Tori Dunlap:
Yep. You’re my work friend.
Liz Moody:
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 judgy of me in college and you’re judgy of me now. And people grow, they change, they evolve. We spend so much time in our own lives trying to grow and change and evolve, and then we don’t allow the people that we love to do the same. So I think doing that, allowing for that evolution, while also saying like, it’s cool that not everybody needs to be everything to everyone.
Tori Dunlap:
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?
Liz Moody:
I would call up one person that is already in your life, one person that’s a friend that you’ve been like, I wonder if there could be something deeper here. Or even your partner. If you feel like there’s distance that you would love to eliminate between you and your partner. And I would tell them one thing that you feel shame about. It can be anything. It can be little shame. It can be big shame. Don’t judge your shame. But 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 wanted to get this off my chest for a while. This is a little bit embarrassing, but 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.
Tori Dunlap:
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 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.
Liz Moody:
First of all, I just want to say that the New York City subway system has this advice, if you see something, say something. And I think it’s really great advice in just general. And I love people who live into that advice, and you really do that.
Tori Dunlap:
Thanks.
Liz Moody:
I do think when you listen to a podcast episode that you love, or when you’re 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-
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, I will tell you-
Liz Moody:
… the incredible people-
Tori Dunlap:
… all the time.
Liz Moody:
… that we know in our lives, and we just think it. And it’s like, well, just say it. If your friend did something that you’re like, wow, that was really badass at work. Or they’re telling you a story about how they interacted with their partner, and you’re like, “I wouldn’t have thought to do… ” Say something. If you see something, say something. You live into that, you inspire me with that all the time.
Tori Dunlap:
Thanks.
Liz Moody:
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 lizmoody on Instagram. And my book is called 100 Ways to Change Your Life.
Tori Dunlap:
And it’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.
Liz Moody:
I thought you were like number one and I was like number two on his wrapped.
Tori Dunlap:
I think you were two. I was three.
Liz Moody:
Oh, well. There we go.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you so much.
Liz Moody:
Thank you.
Tori Dunlap:
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminists, 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. If you’re looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to http://herfirst100k.com/ffpod.
Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant. Research by Sarah Sciortino. Audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf. Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First 100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Sasha Bonar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclos, Meghan Walker, and Jess Hawks. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community for supporting our show.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
