[00:00:00] Shari: when I say my friendship bar is low, what I’m meaning is that my definition of friendship comes without requirements and a checklist. It doesn’t say, you need to do this and this and that for me to prove you’re a friend.

[00:00:17] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina. Conversations about friendship today I’m asking you to consider a possibility.

Is your bar for friendship too high? What if one issue in your friendship life if you’re looking to have more friends or just have a more robust social?

Is that your bar is too high, and I was inspired to ask this question after reading an article in the Huffington Post by author Sherry Le. The title of the article was, I interviewed 144 of my girlfriends about our friendships and what I found changed my life. Of course, the natural next question is 144 friends.

That is a lot. And Sherry is here to explain what inspired her to embark on this friendship adventure, what she learned. And she’s going to tell us a little bit about the next project she has launched to have a meal with someone in all 50 states, mostly people who are new to her.

That project’s a little different than the 144 conversations, which were really with friends of all levels of friends and all different ages, all different backgrounds. I think the common thread through a lot of Sherry’s work is relaxing the definition of friend, which is an idea I wanna explore more in this episode.

Let me tell you a little bit more about Sherry. Sherry is a former litigator. She currently operates an imperfectly perfect life, L L C, which is a professional mindset coaching business. She is a national speaker and the author of the Friendship series, including three books about friendship and I will have all those titles and all her social media links in the show notes.

If you are someone who loves a topic of friendship, you may already know about Sherry . we absolutely share that passion. I love when all the friendship people get together. We, , geek out about friendship . So, welcome Sherry. I’m so happy to have you

[00:01:58] Shari: Thank you, Nina. This is great. You’re right, I love geeking out about friendships, , I’m so looking forward to this conversation.

[00:02:05] Nina: So I’m gonna jump right into the very thing that. Put you on my radar, what inspired you to go on this mission to speak to 144 friends?

[00:02:16] Shari: it started between my 49th and 50th birthday, you know, those big milestone birthdays that you feel like you need to do something significant. And I decided, , during that year, I was going to meet with 50 of my girlfriends and sit down with them for the purpose of letting them.

What they mean to me, what I’ve learned from them with the belief that everyone we meet is our teacher and our student. And this idea came to me after actually attending a girlfriend’s memorial service where people were talking about how much she affected their lives. And it actually made me sad because they were saying these things about her, but they didn’t say these things to her.

And so that was an impetus for me to do this, , between that milestone birthday that was coming.

[00:02:59] Nina: You’re right. We often don’t think to say something directly to our friends, maybe. . Even family too, we take for granted. But I’d say friends, even more so because sometimes it feels uncomfortable, like you’re being like too mushy. Maybe we would say things to our children, , our partner in life, or our parents and siblings.

It actually took me a long time to be able to say, I love you to my friends. And even now when I say it, sometimes I feel . very vulnerable, but I do have a lot of affection for a lot of my friends, but it’s not always natural to say it or to express my gratitude.

That’s incredible that you did that.

[00:03:33] Shari: . And it wasn’t just, you know, me saying, I like your, I admire you. It was things like, what you taught me when I first met you? You greeted me so warmly that I realized that’s how I wanna greet other people. And that greeting and the way I do it now has established the basis for so many great friendships.

I wanna thank you for doing that. , something as simple as that to maybe something more grand. that, , I felt that this person taught me, but it really made me reflect on the women in my life. And actually I had 150 dates over a three year period. , but these were with 144 different women.

[00:04:07] Nina: , so it was three years, 150 dates and was it all in person?

[00:04:11] Shari: So the 50 dates, the first one, they were all in person over a shared meal or coffee, , even happy hour . And that was not gonna become a book, that wasn’t my purpose. It sort of organically became a book because people started asking me about this project and how I came about it, and if they could do something similar then , the pandemic hit and I’m in Washington state and we were in pretty strict, , stay at home orders in the beginning of the pandemic.

And I thought, wow, I learned so much I could do this with friends that don’t live close to me. And so I set out for another 50 dates over Zoom during that, period of time. , and that time I asked the question, is the mess that became your message? And then by that time, that was the second book.

I knew that was gonna be a book. Then Publisher said You have a series. I thought, well that’s ridiculous. You can’t have a series with two books, . So I went on another adventure and the third time with the next 50 women, , was a hybrid of in-person and over Zoom.

[00:05:07] Nina: . , I love how you said a very specific example about somebody, the way they greeted you. Sometimes we don’t even know what we have learned from our friends until we really sit down and think about it.

[00:05:19] Shari: That was my process for the first 50 women. I just quickly wrote down a list of 50 women who. I was friends with at some level. You know, some were more recent acquaintances, some were lifelong friends. But for some reason these names just jumped out at me and I didn’t know specifically at the time I wrote the list, what I’ve learned from them.

But I knew there was something. And so the, the week that I was meeting them, cause I basically did it once a week, , to get the 50 in a year’s period of time. But the week I was meeting with them, I would really sit down and think about our friendship because I wanted to be. Correct with what I was saying.

I want to say it and deliver my message in the, in the way that, , felt meaningful and also made sense to them. So I was very deliberate , in what I was saying and what I learned from that specific person that stood out to me.

[00:06:08] Nina: I wanna read a quote from your own article . You wrote. When I share this journey, the first question I’m often asked is, how do you have 144 friends followed by, I can only come up with maybe 10 or so friends that I’d even consider sitting down with to have these types of conversations. My response is simply, my friendship bar is low.

I wanna tell you something first. I don’t know that I would have 144, but I would have a lot more than 10 because I share with you. that not everybody has to be the best, best, best friend.

The person you’re gonna call at two in the morning to be considered a friend. I just think. Wow. It would be very limiting to put everybody up to that standard. Maybe my friendship bar is also a little lower. And maybe it’s like I just love people and I think you do too.

I really like to get to know people. I have to work really hard to make sure I’m not conducting an interview when I meet somebody. I can hear myself asking question after a question, not. Think I have to, I want to know, I’m curious like, where’d you grow up?

, all these things, I wanna know stuff about people, sometimes when you’re not getting those questions back, you kind of have to be like, okay, does this person uncomfortable? Am I over asking? But anyway, I just got us into a lot of topics. Let’s go back to your quote. When people respond to you, and I knew that would happen even before I read that quote in your piece, when I saw the title, I’m like, oh, I bet people say to her, how is that possible?

So let’s hear a little bit about.

[00:07:33] Shari: Sure. , I believe the next sentence says something like, I don’t mean that the quality of my friends. are low. , what I was referring to is that I don’t put a lot of pressure and requirements on friendship. I believe the Webster’s dictionary of friendship, it depends which definition you look for, but they’re all very simple and it’s something to the effect of a mutual admiration for someone.

Mutually liking somebody. That’s it. , it’s not. A friend is somebody that drops everything for you. A friend is something by, on your deathbed a friend is somebody that will take care of your children, a friend with somebody that will not be friends with your enemies. A friend is somebody that will leave a friend because you broke up with a friend.

, it’s doesn’t have those qualifications. So when I say my friendship bar is low, what I’m meaning is that my definition of friendship comes without requirements and a checklist. It doesn’t say, you need to do this and this and that for me to prove you’re a friend.

All it means is I admire you. You clearly admire me. We have this bond together based on liking each other and respecting one.

[00:08:41] Nina: Yes. I don’t know if you realize how profound that is . And I say that because I receive a lot of anonymous letters and I’ve been writing about friendships.

Since 2014 and until the past year and a half, it was not a podcast, it was just in the written form. And mostly, , people writing me letters and me answering letters. And not because I’m an expert, but just cuz I’m an extreme enthusiast is what I call myself and, and a practical person. I have a practicality about me that I think people appreciate and the advice is kind of, Action based meant to free people up from stress.

And , you touched on something that I really talk about a lot and I call it loyalty tests. , you called it a checklist. I think it’s the same idea, which is that we have these sometimes subconscious expectations that people are gonna show up for us , I don’t mean just show up . When you’re sick or someone in your family has a crisis and they’re there to help. But I mean, you, you said something like, they’re not an app. Be friends with somebody you are not friends with. , we have these kind of unreasonable expectations, I think unreasonable for adults to have. We take these expectations from teenage life and expect our adult friends to operate like we’re in a teenage clique at all times or something.

And, The enemy thing you said. , that spoke to me. and I, I hear what you’re saying cuz I agree with you. When I say the friendship bar is low, , I agree. I don’t mean someone should mistreat you and, and you should give people 8,000 chances. Although I do believe people should give people a little more chance than the letters would suggest.

, I think that goes into this too, in terms of the friendship bar.

[00:10:08] Shari: that title and 144 friends did not phase me at all until I saw the reaction to it. , there were a lot of people that reacted to the title without reading the article itself, because it really had nothing to do with the number, the article, but, It’s saddened me because I thought, wow, no wonder people feel lonely.

No wonder people think friendships are hard. No wonder friendships end, and no matter there’s so much stress around friendships and anxiety and how I look, how I show up, you know, judgment because. , , , if we say every friendship has to be at this level, granted, we do need those people that are the ones that we can call up, right?

, when we’re stuck, we know that they’re gonna be there for us. We could share our most intimate secrets with, yes, we do need those relationships in our life, but we also need the casual friendships. In fact, it’s been shown in studies, especially when you look at older adults, casual friendships add to the quality of.

If we define friendships as being something so great and so deep and so profound, then we lose out on the casual relationships that , really enhance our daily life. and we learn so much from one another. As you mentioned, when you meet somebody, you wanna ask all these questions because we are better collectively together.

[00:11:23] Nina: Yes, I am a huge champion of the casual friendship. I really am. always advocating for that and it’s a place to start. I know that there are people out there who are lonely Absolutely. And people who actually don’t have that inner inner circle and are craving it. But nobody becomes an inner circle immediately.

It just does not work like that. Even when we’re kids. it’s easier when we’re kids cuz we’re around our peers, so, Much every single day we’re around peers and , up through college you’re with people your age all the time, but it still takes time. Nobody becomes your number one person overnight, and it has to start with a casual friendship.

It takes time.

All right. Sherry, another thing I wanted to ask you. I was really struck by the range of friends you had in age and background.

I think this again speaks to this idea. How much it rounds out our lives to have these casual friendships, . I’m often, , pushing that on. People start casual, but I think you’ve added an extra layer here , it’s probably part of how you got to that number of not everybody being exactly like you and exactly your.

[00:12:28] Shari: Yes, I feel very fortunate. , I live in an area where that’s available to me. I, , grew up in the Seattle area. I’ve gone to college. I went to law school. I’ve worked in various jobs, so I’ve had the opportunity to meet women of all ages, all races, all religious, all political backgrounds, different economic levels, and.

I’ve kept those women in my life , as I’ve grown to some level. , I still call them my friends, right? My college friends, my high school friends. If we run into each other , at the store, I’d say, Hey, you know, this is my friend from high school, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:13:03] Nina: Well, I have another theory about that for you in reading your piece. Something that really struck me was, I don’t remember the exact words. , but I was left with the feeling that you don’t let. One difference in background, a difference of opinion. Cause a wedge, which sadly is getting rare.

it’s really a problem. Like we feel like everybody has to match us. Back to the checklist. It’s different kind of checklist. Different than the loyalty test checklist. This is more like the, do we have all the same beliefs about everything under the sun checklist and yeah, your friendships are gonna be limited.

If everybody has to agree with you on everyth,

[00:13:39] Shari: And how boring that would be. And honestly, over the past several years I’ve seen that become even more of a problem. Right. We had to, during the pandemic, we had to figure out who we were safe with physically. We, our physical bubbles got small at least for a while, and we. Start to figure out who we felt safe with emotionally and mentally as well.

, you briefly touched on the project, part of that is to be able to expand those bubbles again, like I don’t care with the woman I’m seeing down with, with my girlfriend, what her religious beliefs are, are what her political beliefs are.

I am interested if she believes the same as her family members, if she believes the same as her community members, because a lot of times people’s beliefs come from a place of wanting to belong and believing what their family is, the way they’ve grown up, ,

so it comes from a place of belonging. and love typically, as opposed to a place of where you wanna divide people. Now I’m not saying that that doesn’t, isn’t the end result, but, because of that belief, I really don’t care provided that, you know, it’s not hateful , if Scalia and Justice Ginsburg could be the best of friends and be so politically opposed, why can’t I and a girlfriend be good friends?

[00:14:56] Nina: , I’d love that how are you deciding who to meet with?

[00:14:58] Shari: , this 50 state project I’m going to each state and meeting one woman in each state is either a woman. I absolutely don’t , no at all, or somebody I’ve never met in person, or someone that I met sometime in my life. I’ve had very little or to no contact. Over the past 35 years. So when I decide to do this project last year, I decided in March I’m gonna do this.

I’ve never traveled the us. . this was gonna be meaningful. If I did it this way, well then it’s daunting. How do I get to these women as she just asked? the first 27 I actually got on my own. A lot were women that I worked with, like my web designers in Indiana. I’ve never met her in person.

Worked with her for three years. . In California, a woman who’s done my audio books, a voice actress, , I’ve never met her in person. , some podcasters that have interviewed me never met them in person. , so I was able to get my first list going through kind of those types of contacts.

Then I went to people that I’ve met sometime in my life. Maybe it was a conference, maybe it was somebody in high school that I was in school with for a year. , something like that for the rest to get to that 27. Then I went to my friends and said, Hey, I’m doing this project. Do you know anyone in West Virginia

And I, , received maybe, oh, let’s say another, 15, and then my third round was basically going to the internet, looking up LinkedIn. My first kickoff you mentioned was Albuquerque. That was a woman that I found on the internet. As scary as that sounds, I looked for a a woman that was a small business owner that had a.

Up to date website that updated her social media. So I felt okay, and I’m meeting her in public I reached out to her. I gave her all my background information, told her who she could contact, so she knew I was, you know, I was okay as well. it turned out to be the best meeting in the world. And I absolutely knew nothing about her except for her picture.

I knew she was younger than. But I, and I knew her business, what she did for work, but I knew nothing else about her. and it, it turned out fabulous.

[00:16:58] Nina: I think I would love that kind of project. I mean, that totally speaks to me, except that I don’t love traveling too much. . It really is a microcosm of how to expand your network. Again, I get these letters from people who. , maybe they’ve moved, or for whatever reason they’re ready for a shake up in their social life.

I think that happens for several reasons. you get to a place in life where maybe you’re retired and you find that you have more time on your hands, but you don’t have that many people to do things with, even though you’ve lived in the same city for 60 years, you know, whatever.

I hear from all kinds of people, all ages, and oftentimes they wanna know how to. Spread out the social life a bit, and I think this is like a version of that. Yours involves travel. If you could do something like this involving travel, imagine what you could do in your own town. It doesn’t have to be 50 people, just , being really vulnerable and saying to the people you’re already connected with. I am looking to meet more people. Is there someone you think I would get along with? I mean, it’d be hard. I’m not saying it’s easy to do, I mean, but that’s basically what you.

[00:17:53] Shari: Yes. And you know, what surprised me about this is how willing people are to meet with me. I mean, most of them didn’t know me.

I’m a woman from Seattle. It’s also testing my own beliefs. I grew up not traveling we aren’t on video. but for your viewers, I’m Asian American and , my parents were interned during World War II for being Japanese American. , and so my dad had , an idea that wasn’t safe for us to really travel.

So I grew up not traveling and just like kids do, I think I took on some of his beliefs. And so this is also question my own beliefs. you know, reaching out to these women, women that are very different than me in many ways, and many who may never have shared a meal with an Asian person before.

I have been so open and willing to meet with me because I asked,

if you make the first move one, what’s the worst that can happen?

two, something. Miraculous could happen and it, it doesn’t hurt and it takes practice because it’s not easy. It, it gets easier after time, you know, more practice. , it doesn’t seem so unnatural. But making that first move, it’s surprising how willing people are even strangers , to meet with you.

[00:19:03] Nina: I do think more often than that people do want to connect at least that one time, and it may not turn into anything , I know in your case, in this particular project, you’re not looking for it to turn into something. But for people who are, who seek new friends, , it does get easier with practice.

You gotta be willing to try though. It’s very hard. I think the average person does not like to push themselves cuz it’s rejection is scary. But I love what you said. Look, what’s the worst thing that can happen? no one’s gonna say I’m not interested. They’re going to be busy. They’re going, I’m using air quotes.

. They’re gonna push it off, push it off, push up. Okay. Next, , move on, on the list. , I think your books and your work in general is such a good example for people to just keep trying, keep trying. I wanna go back to the 144 conversations.

You wrote a little bit about how. There were some more casual friendships in there. Like we’ve been talking about casual friendships, but there were also some conversations you had with closer friends and yet you still in those conversations, learned some new things and this really inspired , a big project of yours or a theme of yours in your work, which was, what is the message in your mess.

But I don’t know if I said that correctly. So why don’t you tell me exactly and I wanna hear more about that.

[00:20:12] Shari: Sure. And I have to say , each friendship, despite what level of friendship it was, for lack of bare words, after meeting with. For these dates, each one of these women, I guarantee, will remember us sitting down or over zoom for the date. Sometimes it was emotional and each date deepened our friendships.

Even with these 50 states, I’ve only done four so far. I’ve been in constant contact with these women since I’ve left. We’ve been texting back and forth as if we’re girlfriends, including that first one that I knew absolutely nothing about. , you would think we were longtime friends. there is something really special about these intentional meetings that, that, you know, if you talk about how do I deepen friendships, there’s something intentional.

That really makes a difference. , that can deepen even a casual relationship. And so with long-term friends, for instance, , the second book was Make Your Mess Your Message. I had a girlfriend who I thought was a little, maybe, should I use the word flaky in the sense that I couldn’t count on her to.

Maybe she’ll show up for a party. Maybe she won’t, I’m not sure. And sometimes it’d grind on me, especially being such a schedule oriented person. I thought, well, she’s not organized or, you know, whatever it is. , then I sat down and talked to her, and this is a woman that, she, she actually volunteers as a cheerleader.

She teaches Jan, she cheer, led all her early, you know, her early years. I mean, this is a woman that I thought is out there . I found out that since talking to her, since her teenage years, she has suffered from depression and anxiety and literally talks herself out of bed every day, I’ve known her for a long time, but,

, people might say, well, why don’t you know this about her? Because this , isn’t something she typically shared with friends. She’s learned how to deal with it, , it’s her personal journey and for her to talk and share it makes it worse that people are looking for that anxiety or depressed.

So she usually doesn’t talk about it, but we, we sat there and we talked about it. She helped me understand anxiety and depression. from her experience what it’s like, and all of a sudden this woman that I thought, , was not reliable, all of a sudden I’m like, wow, that’s one of the strongest friends I have.

Because man, I had started thinking about all the time she showed up and how she showed up and how she just brought that energy and, and made people laugh. . I just look at her so differently with so much more appreciation. Not that I wasn’t appreciative of her before.

It’s just a different level now. It’s because we had that conversation.

[00:22:39] Nina: That is a beautiful. No, to end end. I think actually, because this is exactly brings us back to something I said earlier too, which is, you know, maybe sometimes people struggle with their friendships more than necessary because we don’t give each other a lot of breaks. And I mean, it sounds like you had given her a break.

It’s like, it’s not like you broke up their friendship, but you had this really honest conversation with her and were able to, , appreciate her on a different level. And I just love that . We’ve covered a lot of things that I want my listeners to take away. So many things people write to me about, were covered , which is initiating and going out there and trying and networking and asking people who, who do you know

and also it’s , about having a wider definition of what rounds out our lives. And sometimes it’s close friends and even getting to know our close friends better, but it’s also casual friends and appreciating those friendships for what they are.

Is there any other, , last thing I’m missing

[00:23:33] Shari: Let friendships be easy, take away. the requirements. I think those requirements are something that we developed as teenagers to protect ourselves, because we decided, oh, we’re gonna get hurt if a friend doesn’t do this and that we can’t trust them, well, we don’t need those beliefs anymore.

As adults, we could change our beliefs and we could let it be easy, , and take out the requirements that. We put it on ourselves to be a good friend and the requirements that maybe we have on others and, just enjoy this mutual admiration for one another as the definition of friend

[00:24:05] Nina: I really, appreciate your wisdom and that you giving. Me the time and the time for my listeners to learn from you. Would you tell my listeners who aren’t gonna necessarily look at their show notes, the best places to find you, and then we’ll say goodbye.

[00:24:19] Shari: my website is an imperfectly perfect life. I didn’t consult a brander when I came up with this huge title, but that’s on social media as well. And Imperfectly Perfect Life, or my name, Sherry Lee. .

[00:24:33] Nina: Well, I wish you luck on this 50 state project. You’re four states down. By the time this airs, you’ll be even more states down. I’ll be following

[00:24:39] Shari: thank you so much, and hopefully someday we could meet in person.

[00:24:42] Nina: , if you come to Minnesota, I would love to see you,

.

All right, listeners, thank you for being here too. I hope you guys have a great couple of weeks when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. I’ll see you soon,