Nina: [00:00:00] Welcome to Dear Nina, conversations about friendship. I’m your host, Nina Badzin. I’ve been writing about friendship for over a decade podcasting about it for well over four years now. It’s about four and a half,

I am joined today by Dr. Kimberly Horn, who is equally as into this topic. . She’s an internationally recognized research psychologist, professor and public health scientist. Her new book is Friends Matter for Life. The subtitle is Harnessing the Eight Tenets of Dynamic Friendship what we’re talking about here today is these specific issues that very high achieving ambitious women have with their friendships. How friendships often come last,

how friendship needs to be a health habit. It really is something you have to make time for, obviously. But we talk about the things that get in the way. Dr. Horn has practical ideas for how this specific population, the high achieving women who have worked hard to get into a certain place in their career, and then [00:01:00] socially there could be an issue.

She has an expression I really liked. ambitious. Women can often appear to be socially rich on the outside, but feel disconnected on the inside, and we get into how to fix that. without further ado, welcome to Dr. Kimberly Horn.

Kimberly: Thank you so much for having me, Nina. I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks now.

Nina: It’s a long time coming. We’ve been connected on social media. I love connecting with other as I told you before we started recording other friendship dorks like me who are very deep into this topic. People can’t believe that I’m still talking about this 10 years later, but I feel like you understand that.

Kimberly: I do. And I think, today in our topic, I come to you both with research and lived experience. As a public health scientist, , I’ve been looking and studying health behavior and health outcomes for almost three decades now.

Nina: and so one thing you’re seeing in your work, and I see it too, just anecdotally, that as you achieve more in your career, friendships seem to be the last thing on the priority [00:02:00] list.

I think there’s all kinds of reasons for it, and it’s, but it’s not just time, although time is an obvious one, and we’ll get to that when we talk about habits. But I want to start with, question I had is like, when did you first notice maybe in your work or in your life that as success goes up, your social life goes down.

Kimberly: at some point in my career, I realized that people were relating to me more as a title than as a person, as a human. , I rose through the ranks in the academy, from, a mere research assistant all the way to, dean roles.

I noticed that my social landscape, especially at work, started to shrink. And that people were either pulling away a little bit, maybe bebecause they didn’t want to bother me or they were leaning in more for accessibility and invisibility kinds of things. there’s a little bit of a slippery slope and how you can trust who to interact with and what’s real and authentic.

I wasn’t benign in that as well bebecause I became more aware of my own [00:03:00] energy and protecting my energy and time and maybe even myself pulling away a little bit. Bebecause you are the keeper of information. You sometimes, not sure who, and if you can share,

Nina: There is a concept I’ve talked about and it’s are you a real friend or a deal friend? And I think that this might enter into this part of the conversation, like you’re saying, people maybe lean in.

I I feel I heard you say ‘ because they want something. These are my words now. They maybe want something, they want a recommendation for something or they want you to add them to a committee or I, whatever it is in academic life.

Kimberly: Yeah, they want that inside scoop too.

Nina: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah. like you said, the keeper of information.

So those would be maybe more colleagues in your own field where it becomes a social murky area, but also the rest of your social life, as you get busier in your career. I think it can be I guess it’s just prioritizing friendship. I can understand why it’s the last thing people have prioritized.

It’s hard enough to have time to work out [00:04:00] and to get to the grocery store, all these things, oh, now you’re telling me to go meet a friend for a walk or coffee. Come on.

Kimberly: And I think that you’re right, it does get a little trickier outside of work, which is why I think it’s important for us to start to build those networks and connections within our workplace too. Bebecause you think about the number of hours that we spend every day in that setting. What’s been important to me is to recognize how to find those people and those friends and those peers that I can trust and relate to. And you in turn them me as well. and I’m not saying that by any means that having Leader or high achieving women is the only kind of friendship that we should have. But I think it’s very important to have those kind of peer connections, particularly if you’re a high achieving woman.

And I like to say and you’ll hear me say this a few times probably episode, look evenly. instead of looking up or down to try to find those peers that feel more like you and understand [00:05:00] where you’re coming from.

Nina: So you feel like within your field you’re saying.

Kimberly: I think that it can be in your field, but I also think that, that’s to say, okay I’m in academics, but I also have friends who are female leaders across a variety of corporate sectors even. But these are women who understand high stakes and high pressure demands. It doesn’t have to be the same profession.

Nina: You have an expression I like, that ambitious women appear socially rich on the outside, but might feel disconnected on the inside. what might that look like?

Kimberly: a lot of times people look to high achieving women as having it all put together, they’re well networked, they’ve got full calendar. what people don’t realize sometimes is that those are more contacts and they are connection. And I know you, you understand this, that sometimes competence becomes like a cloak, People think that we’re self-sufficient and we appear steady, and we are, but that doesn’t mean that [00:06:00] we don’t need help and support and comfort and all of those sorts of things too. The burden can become disproportionate, I think.

Nina: there’s an assumption that somebody who has a very busy career is too busy and so they don’t get invited to things or if you’ve said no a couple times bebecause you’re genuinely too busy, you stop getting the invite and it may take an act of saying to friends, I know I’ve said no a few times. Like sometimes just that self-awareness, I still really would want to be invited I appreciate the invitation. That the invitation isn’t annoying.

Kimberly: That’s a great point. Yeah. Bebecause they don’t want to bother you. or maybe they are a little put off that you said no, more times than they can count and I’ve been guilty of both, I will say.

Nina: Yeah, I can think of that too. I can think of some friends in my life who have definitely gotten extremely busy with their careers and I don’t think to reach out to them as much, possibly bebecause they complain about how busy they are. So I would say that’s a warning also, or a piece of advice I would like to give to people who. Very busy in their careers, but also [00:07:00] know that they have to attend to their friendships. I would be careful about complaining about how busy you are bebecause you’re going to make it hard for people to invite you to things.

Kimberly: let’s face it, everyone’s busy. I don’t know anyone that’s not super busy on some level right now, and it doesn’t matter what their career looks like or if they’re working from home or people are busy. And I think we can all find and make excuses not to spend time with our friends. And I think sometimes when with women by achieving women in particular, that we get into this identity drift that gap between who we are and who people think we are. And that’s particularly if you’ve started in a certain place, maybe with a group of friends and you’ve just, elevated to a different level of leadership than they have.

Or maybe you’ve chose different aspects or career trajectories than they have. maybe they see you as always the steady one you’re really emotionally spent and drained or, they see you as that person that they knew 10 years ago when you were huddled around the water cooler together. And you’re not that person [00:08:00] anymore, bebecause of your demand. So I think that there’s a lot that women have to negotiate too and how they see themselves and how other people see them.

Nina: This is another great example of things that get in the way of a friendship bebecause there’s a difference in your life. In this case, the difference being somebody is in a huge leadership role in their job.

They’re very successful, most likely if in this scenario we’re talking about, they’re spending a lot of time with colleagues. They’re spending a lot of time on work things. They may be the people that they started off with and as friends, like you’re saying, those people haven’t on purpose chosen that path or maybe they tried to and didn’t succeed as much.

Kimberly: I think about people, and this was an example for myself. Early in my career, I rose through the ranks in one institution. And I think that when you start at one place and then you rise to different levels from the peer group or your work colleagues or friends that you started with, that creates a whole different level Of tension in friendships bebecause the people you used to hang out and talk about [00:09:00] everything with, your work pals you can’t do that anymore. and I think that contributes to some loneliness for women too, bebecause they’ve had that built in group that they could confide in. it becomes very different

Nina: that’s where you need to find friends outside of work, That is to me, the solution. I want to talk about these different traps that I know that you have, up your sleeve,

Kimberly: I look at two or three different traps that I feel like that we get into, and one is that optimization trap. I think one of the questions have asked is why do friendships get rescheduled or not prioritized for women. And thought of a story of a woman that was chair with me. she had canceled a 20 minute walk with a friend at work. A work friend. Four times in the last six months,

Nina: yeah, like I’m like feeling icky

Kimberly: Yeah, and then she realized that she had never canceled a standing meeting that she had.

That just completely drained her. And then she [00:10:00] realized that she had stopped prioritizing her relationships over her appointments and decided that she needed to make some intentional shifts. So I think that we do that bebecause when you get into these leadership positions or corporate or whatever kind of high achieving position you’re in, I think we run on metrics.

Sometimes we think about, systems of efficiency and metrics and. friendship doesn’t have a lot of products that we can see, or measure. or people perceive that I can come up with a few that we can measure. But I think that’s one of the reasons that we optimize other things over our friendship is bebecause we don’t see the metrics for it.

Nina: that’s a really good point. If you’re a certain kind of high achieving person. there’s a lack of measurement for sure. And you’re always starting over in a way. Like especially if you’re really busy with work, you have a great lunch with a friend, a great walk or something, and then a month might go by and it’s okay, we’re once again, we’re like not caught up. you never really, unless you speak to someone every day, which most people don’t, unless you have that everyday [00:11:00] person, you’re always playing catch up a bit.

Kimberly: And I think if we find ourselves doing that and again, I have to catch myself sometimes too. ‘because I don’t never want to, put out points there that I don’t try to work on myself, but I think when we find ourselves, repeatedly canceling our activities with friends are we feel like that time with friends is expendable, and those are some of the signs that we’re really overp prioritizing our task or our measurable outcomes versus our relationships.

Nina: That’s well said. comparison trap.

Kimberly: Oof. That’s a hard one,

Nina: And I think that’s a big one in this topic about career.

Kimberly: Yeah, I think it’s in life and work, and I think we as women are more prone to that than perhaps men are. with comparison particularly how we compare ourselves professionally to other women. if you think about success, we’re constantly moving the goalpost, right?

we just, it’s that you wanting to get to the next thing, wanting to get to the next thing, and then sometimes when other women might reach those goalposts [00:12:00] before we do that’s when a lot of comparison can kick in and thinking, is this person surpassing me?

Or what am I not doing that she’s doing? Or, why didn’t I get picked for that? Or those sorts of things. And I, I’ve seen situations too where maybe someone was genuinely happy for a friend’s promotion but at the same time wondering why her own trajectory is not moving in that direction.

And, she’s slapping me now. We started in the same place and I hear these kinds of stories a lot. And I don’t want to feel jealous, but I feel jealous. At the same time I’m happy for her. And I think a lot of times people don’t realize jealousy’s a human emotion. and we’re going to experience it. one of the important things is how do we handle it? What do we do with that? are we jealous and do something vindictive or are we jealous and invite them to go out and celebrate and really, lift them up. two emotions can exist at the same time.

And I think you can name your feeling without shaming yourself for Yeah, I’m feeling a little, I feel a little jealous. And I’m [00:13:00] also very happy for her, and I, I really want to celebrate this. So I think co celebration in those sorts of situations is really important.

Nina: So true. I completely agree that it’s absolutely normal to feel jealous, and then it’s really our job to manually override the very human natural emotion. She’s gotta override it. And I like what you said about co celebrating. you have to push yourself. I think people sometimes show their jealousy very subtly and it comes through more as withholding. Withholding, congratulations. And this is going to sound really petty, but it comes up a lot from people who write to me just like a lack of even acknowledging on social media, which is the lowest hanging fruit or just a personal text like, Hey, I saw that you did such and such.

I think people don’t want others to know they’re online. That’s my theory. I have nothing to test that. We’re all kind of on there, but we’re like a little embarrassed that we’re on there.

It’s We should all be doing other things. We all know it. Like, why are we on Instagram? Why are we on TikTok? We should be doing other things. Yeah. Even LinkedIn, all of it. It’s oh God, [00:14:00] like we’re, oops, we should be doing our work or we should be doing other things. once you publicly like something or comment you’re letting the world know. You

are on your phone. Yeah. You’re just a loser. Like the rest of us, all of us scrolling on our phone. But it could be , you’re really good friend and still people will withhold. there might be some jealousy I’m just pushing people to push past it.

Kimberly: and I think, throwing in a little bit of science, but when we really lift our friends up and we can co celebrate, it does rewire our brain. it really creates those feel-good hormones that make us better humans.

It’s real. So if you can get yourself, as you said, the manual override, I’d love that. If you get yourself to a place to do that, you’re probably going to feel much better as a human being for co celebrating with someone.

Nina: Yeah, and then you build that relationship just gets more positive and they will hopefully do the same for you. Although, as things don’t never perfectly even. That’s just not how friendship or the world goes. But it starts with us. So you demonstrate [00:15:00] excitement over your friend’s success and hopefully it’ll come back your way.

Kimberly: and sometimes I use people’s success, who are in comparable, which I call some of my work twins, professional twins, I like to use that as motivation for myself. I wonder what they did to get there. how can I learn from what they did to achieve their success?

Nina: That’s a really nice way of thinking about it. And the pie grows, it’s like someone took a piece of the pie. Okay. There’s a lot of pies out there, or the pie can get bigger. It doesn’t, that wasn’t your piece.

Kimberly: Yeah, it’s. not zero sum..

Nina: Yes it really is true. And of course if it’s let’s like use the academic world, if there’s one person who could be the dean of their department, like yes, there’s one person who can be the dean of that department, but there’s other ways to be successful in

Kimberly: Yeah.

Nina: I’m sure

Kimberly: They might not want to be a dean.

Nina: it does sound like a lot of administration work, a lot of paperwork. Alright, let’s move on to the over functioning trap. The next one.

Kimberly: I think a lot of times women become the giver you are, [00:16:00] the over functioner in, in a lot of different arenas. and we do this at work too. and I think a lot of times high achieving women or, N notoriously, if I can use that word under receivers and, sometimes over givers. competence, when you’re a highly competent person, that sometimes leaks into caregiving. We do it bebecause we can, and we do it bebecause it feels good. until it depletes us

Nina: And you’re resentful. I.

Kimberly: And we get into, a vicious cycle. maybe you’re that person that people always call in a crisis you listen and, you give advice, and you do all the right things that a friend does when they’re trying to help someone through a difficult situation. But then, no one really calls and checks on you until you disappear for days and days or weeks on ends. And you realize you’ve really trained people to see you as a resource and not really as a person who has needs and, wants support.

Nina: I sort of feel like you’re speaking to me directly. Actually, no, [00:17:00] that really that I feel that sometimes I

Kimberly: Yeah, And I think that’s. normal when you’re that person who’s in that role of tending to things with women, and this, especially in, heterosexual dynamics of, relationships when children are involved and both spouses work and still, the research says. Around 70% of that emotional, invisible labor still falls to the woman. we get this at work and then we, get that second shift at home it can be very draining.

Nina: And then the overgiving concept, I’m telling you, it’s probably 80%. And again, not a math number, but a real one. It’s just a gut feel of the. Letters that come to me, whether it’s through the Facebook group which people can find at Dear Nina, the group, or whether it’s through my email, which you can find@ninabadzin.com. If you just go to my website, you can, there’s an anonymous form, that’s why it’s called Dear Nina. A lot of the things people write to me are about this concept of lopsidedness and I’ve done a whole episodes on it, but I want, I like to [00:18:00] address it with someone like you too, who’s like really deep into this work bebecause I don’t have a perfect answer to it.

I have my answers to it. I’m curious what your answer is on what an uneven friendship looks like. ‘because I think it’s coming from the same stuff that we’re talking about here, which is being the giver. I’ll just tell you, I don’t think there’s such thing as an equal friendship, and there’s always going to be somebody who gives more at any given time.

The goal to me would be over time, there’s more of a give and take, but it’s not going to be necessarily, I do this exact thing for you and then you do this exact thing for me in the exact same way I did it. I’m talking really micro things like texting, even.

Kimberly: I agree with you that Relationships aren’t perfectly balanced all the time. from my book, I talk a lot about reciprocity

Nina: topic here, reciprocity. reciprocity changes over time. And if it’s balanced, and I’m not saying it’s 50 50 all the time, but on par and some, I think that both people should be getting something

Kimberly: [00:19:00] Beneficial from the relationship, and that’s different for everybody. What I find beneficial in a friendship might be very different than what you find beneficial, but it’s up to me to define that and how we, you and I may interact together as friends, but if I’m consistently Leaving our interactions feeling depleted I’m feeling, responsible for attending to your emotions or your feelings. I’m really having trouble, explaining or setting my boundaries that to me indicates that something is askew, something is lopsided, and I need to pay attention to it and decide what I want to do about it.

Nina: Okay. That is so key I know it seems really obvious, but a lot of people are missing that part. I would always first give the other friend a chance to address the situation. You can’t change the dynamics of relationship without communicating what is a problem. I like the word askew. That’s a great word. Yeah, that’s good. Ask yourself, but then communicate it.

Kimberly: I try to really bring it down to three choices when, a friendship is [00:20:00] feeling, askew. If it’s not enough for us to want to leave that relationship or walk away from, and then maybe it’s just been a temporary thing. No, we can just just put it aside and not really talk about, just go on with the things that fulfill us and our history and our, the things we enjoy together and those sorts of things.

But then, if that continue, that moves on to the second part, which is we need to have a talk about it. And we need to do that in a way that feels fair and comfortable and has some, fence post around it to keep everybody emotionally safe in the discussion. and then if we decide to do that and it’s productive, wonderful. And if we’ve done it, we’ve done it again and we’ve done it again and it’s still lopsided if not toxic then it’s time to think about leaving the friendship. At least temporarily

Nina: Hard, right? This is the hard stuff. And I like that you said temporarily not everything. It doesn’t have to be forever, and it doesn’t have to be like a grand announcement either. By the way,

Kimberly: And sometimes, people think that when friendships fade and be it [00:21:00] in, a professional relationship or outside of work, sometimes there’s not a big grand explosion. there’s no big major conflict. Sometimes it just, things just fizzle out for various life reasons and that, I’ve had that happen in the workplace bebecause again, bebecause of maybe advancement in career, maybe relocation maybe taking on a new job, maybe going to a different building, even those of things can because friendships to just drift. And that doesn’t mean that you can’t leave the door open for something on the way. I’ve reconnected with the friends I haven’t hadn’t seen in 10 years professionally, there’s nothing wrong. It just happened.

Nina: And it’s not so personal. It really could be. I love that you used the example of moving buildings. It really couldn’t be that. It could just be the lack of proximity that you don’t run into each other anymore, so you don’t have that quick, easy five minute in the hallway. That makes a huge difference.

And. Our day-to-day lives, and then you’re back to a much more formal catch up. Now it’s a phone call. Now it’s [00:22:00] having to make a plan that’s much harder. So yeah you’re probably going to drift. And I would also add that it doesn’t mean that the relationship when it was strong wasn’t an important part of your life.

Like I wish people were more grateful for the time that they had with certain friends instead of bitter about the ending. We would just be happier.

Kimberly: Yeah, I agree. if we could go back and just claim those things as gifts that they were during a given point or season in life.

Nina: And leaving the door open. ‘because yeah, you do never know. ‘ Okay. Kimberly, we’ve talked about a lot of things here and I wanted to move us to practical what are some of the takeaways for that high achieving woman who Does know that friendship is important, but is caught in any number of traps of the reality of fitting that into your life, making it a habit and not letting all these issues of over-functioning of being the giver, of comparison, of worrying that other people are comparing to you. Maybe what do we do?

Kimberly: so I think there’s some simple things that we can try. we won’t always [00:23:00] succeed. But we can try and it’s important to at least put some effort into it bebecause I think when we struggle with friendship professionally, we have to put extra intention in. ‘because there’s no doubt, when you’re a high achieving woman, it it does shrink your circle. being intentional is very important. So one of the things I like to try is a weekly 2, 2, 1 ritual.

And it was during the week. I try to take a couple of friends to send text messages a couple of times a day and usually different people. and I try to do two voice calls a week. I love phone calls. sometimes we’re so overdone on Zoom. I’m still someone who loves to talk on the phone and even if it’s just 10 to 15 minute chat catch up to hear their voice and to have some, additional dimension to it. I find those to be very helpful. And the one is to try to have one in-person touchpoint at some point during the week with a friend. And that can be, meeting someone. for a quick coffee at work, or maybe you’d go for a walk [00:24:00] after a meeting just to, stretch your legs and connect a little bit. But the 2, 2 1, I think is something that’s manageable.

Nina: calls, one in person.

Kimberly: yeah. Two texts. Two calls, one in person. And it doesn’t have to be a long in person, especially at work or when you’re working to be able to integrate things into your day and not to think I have one more thing to do, and maybe you’re, finishing up a meeting and you meet for a quick walk or you grab a cup of coffee on the way to something so you at least have that chance to connect on a different level and maybe if it’s a peer you can actually vent about the same meeting that you’re in, that you can’t discuss with anybody else. the 2, 2 1, I think is doable. I’m not successful with it every week, but I try

and I think to recalibrate your circle when it makes sense, and to release the guilt.

Sometimes we don’t want to let go of friends that no longer serve us bebecause it’s nostalgic bebecause we feel guilty. But I think it’s important to reflect on the friendships that are really nourishing you and [00:25:00] serving you at this point in your life. If you have to reconfigure the amount of time that you spend with them that might allow some additional time to bring someone new in your life. When I talked about looking sideways, I think it’s important to find those people that you can bring into your life. If you don’t have them at least one or two, it’s very important. the third thing is to safeguard your energy. Not everybody earns full access to your time and your calendar, and sometimes it’s okay to say no and sometimes it’s okay to really pause and think about when you want to say yes to spending time with someone.

Nina: Really hard. I want you to know for me, that’s the hardest one and it’s a certain personality that struggles with that. I’m much more of a pleaser and I’m very concerned with being perceived as nice. I just know that about myself. I think I am nice, but I think I, yeah, I, and I work on that somebody, people will reach out to me.

And they want to get together. And I’ve had in the past where I’ve reached out to people and they’ve been uninterested and it just hurts your feelings so much. And I don’t want to be the because of that to [00:26:00] anyone else. And yet then as I’m driving to the thing, I’m like resentful, I’m annoyed, I’m interrupted, whatever I was doing to go meet someone else for coffee ‘because they wanted to.

And I’m like did I really want to? I’m sure I’ll have a nice enough time, but

Kimberly: And it’s not that you never have to spend time with this person, but you only have so much time in the day and it’s very important bebecause friendship and positive friendship, healthy friendship is a health intervention. It’s very important to make time for the quality interactions for yourself.

And that is a part of the last point, which I talk about in the book quite a bit is self friending and to make sure that we’re really building in time for self-compassion and self-care and those sorts of things. One of the things that I used to do, I don’t do it as much anymore, but I used to find it very helpful, is when I would get to my desk, I would Spend five minutes journaling in my, I have a professional journal that I keep to, so where I can set my intentions and those sorts of things. But before I would dig in to my emails and get [00:27:00] just, you know how the whirl, the whirlwind of emails, sets off a chain of events. I would just spend a little bit of time at my desk centering myself and writing a little bit before I dove into that.

And to me, that was a part of my self-care. it’s that paradox. you talk about that paradox of, that likability, leadership tension is real. bebecause you don’t want to be perceived as not likable or not nice, or, that we’re somehow going to be a burden we put ourselves last.

Nina: That’s so well said that this is great practical advice. I’m excited to have them, as bullet points. I’m picturing it in the newsletter. You know, I’m already like picturing like writing about you and writing about the newsletter and there’s a lot of practical advice in Kimberly’s book and if you’re working on your friendships Any part of your life. It’s, I am sure you agree with Kimberly, but I always say it’s an ageless, timeless topic. you can be 18, you can be 80 relationships and getting along with people and the way we get in our own heads. It’s applicable any time of life.

Kimberly: absolutely.

Nina: Thank you for coming and talking to me today and to the listen. And I’m glad to finally meet in person. Not in person, but it’s close [00:28:00] enough. It’s closer to in person than just email, which is what we’ve done before and social media. So we are now truly connected, which I am grateful for.

Kimberly: me too. Nina, thank you so much for everything that you do.

Nina: listeners, come back next week when our friendships are going well. We are happier all around. Bye