Nina: [00:00:00] Welcome to Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. I am your host, Nina Badzin You are catching me on episode 205. Wow. I am fresh off the big in-person event I had in Minneapolis in the suburb of Excelsior, right on Lake Minnetonka.

It is a cute little town where I had 200 people at a sold-out event to celebrate five years of the podcast. I gotta tell you, it was so much fun. It really made me wanna do more things in person. They don’t always have to be that big. that was quite an undertaking, which thank goodness I had the help of fabulous event planner Haley Lerner in Minneapolis.

I could not have done that alone. I’m just not good at managing all those vendors and even having the vision for it. I can do the content, and I was thrilled to have the help of assistant producer Rebecca Jacobs, and she was up on stage with me.

We talked about the five biggest pieces of friendship advice that has really made the most difference [00:01:00] for me in my friendships, and I think has resonated the most with listeners. I’m not going to repeat those here because I promised people in the marketing as I was selling tickets that this was going to be an in-person experience.

This was not going to be something that you could just hear later on the podcast. You had to really be there, and I loved that. I… Sticking to it, so It’s probably something I will do again in a different city. Thinking about next summer and what I wanna do and where I wanna go. We did a live show last year in Chicago in Highland Park, and this year’s was in my hometown, my current hometown of Minneapolis.

next year we are toying with, uh, Rebecca’s hometown in the Maryland suburbs, like Bethesda area, but don’t know for sure. Just keep an ear out for that. But it did make me wanna do more in-person things, smaller also. that would be a big one again next summer.

I, I’m toying with different ideas. I really miss leading a book club, which is something I’ve done in person through the years. I tried to do an online version for the podcast, a Zoom, not an episode, but I tried to do a Zoom [00:02:00] one.

But that, that was when the podcast was smaller. I had fewer listeners. Maybe that’s something that I could try again. I don’t know. If you have thoughts about that, please tell me. I think it’d be kinda cool to do a quarterly book, having to do with friendship obviously. Could be a novel, could be nonfiction.

Please do not pitch me your book though. I I’m gonna be honest, I do not want emails pitching your book, ’cause I will always pick the book myself. I do not want any pressure from anybody. If I decide to do a book thing, it’s going to be a book that I am just burning to talk about organically and not as a favor to anybody, and not anything to do with even the podcast directly.

More just- In conversation with people who also love to talk about friendship, that would be fun for me, but if people aren’t gonna come, it’s not fun for me to plan something that isn’t going to happen. But I guess that wouldn’t be in person. That would be more on Zoom so more people could participate.

So back to what I was saying before, I really loved being in the room with listeners But that was me talking, of course, with Rebecca. I mean, that was the two of us talking, , we got a [00:03:00] chance to walk around and talk a lot to people at the beginning for the people who came for the VIP reception.

But that’s not hearing from listeners directly, so I’m really thinking more about what kind of discussion groups or what kind of thing could I do in person that would allow me to talk to listeners, talk to readers, and listen to them, more importantly. So, like, me doing less of the talking and more of the listening in person.

Open to your thoughts. And that gets me to just the rest of this quick message. This is a very short episode this week. It’s been a really busy week. I did the news on Monday, Twin Cities Live. I’ll put a link in the show notes. It was really fun. That was to promote the show, the live show. Of course, I did the live show.

Lots of hair and makeup this week. I had two times this week of hair and makeup. Like, what is this life? That is not my life. My life is as you see me now if you’re on YouTube. Just nothing special, no… barely any makeup. Hair is nothing special, I am not a fancy girl, and that was a very fun and fancy event.

But it took a lot out of me. I’m tired. [00:04:00] I’m really tired. So I said yes to a lot of other things this week that sometimes I don’t always say yes to because I’m busy editing and recording, and I have so much editing to do. I am behind on episodes. If you recorded with me, if you’re a guest that you’re waiting for your episode, it’s coming, I promise,

and I always treat every episode like the very special gem that it is. But I needed a break from my computer this week. So I said yes to other things since Wednesday. Wednesday was the big event. I’ve had lots of social media to manage for that too. I said yes to playing mahjong twice this week already.

Twice. it was so fun though, and it was really great to be with different friends, various friends, various ages, just actually being in person. I’m in a tennis tournament that I said yes to a couple weeks ago that is now coming up.

As I record this, tomorrow morning I’m playing one part of the tournament,

I have a second round in a few days. These are all things that are with friends, with community, and taking me away from my computer, which is hard for me because I really [00:05:00] like to work. I love the work I do, and any moment I’m not working, it’s just adding up. And I know people relate to that. The emails continue, the notifications on social media, the things I like to respond to.

I really like to respond to most things. I’m a responder. I’m somebody who does not like to ignore messages. But the more popular the podcast gets, this is, like, a good problem to have, the more messages there are. It does become hard to respond to everything, I still try to. My message for today is to get out and do stuff with friends in person.

I’ve had full episodes about that longer than this. I’m not gonna go through why that’s important. I think we all know why that’s important. It might have been January’s 2025 Friendship Challenge when I was doing monthly challenges for people.

I decided not to do that in 2026, but what I’m telling you today just sort of hearkens back to that January episode, which was about… Of last year, which was about do something with a friend in person. Take a break from the memes, take a break from the texts, take [00:06:00] a break from the emails, from the computer, and go do something, even a walk. I’m not talking about a big event. I’m not talking about throw an event for 200 people. I’m talking about meet someone for coffee, go for a walk, have lunch, have dinner, go to a museum, go hear an author speak, go check out a new bookstore.

Do something in person, and say yes. My gosh, if somebody invites you to do something, say yes. I was very lucky this week that I had two different people, two different friends from two different, totally different parts of life invite me to play mahj.

And it was tempting to say no, because I have a lot to do, and mahj is not a short thing. It’s, by the time you go and you’re together, it’s usually two hours. You can say, “We’re just gonna play for an hour.” Nobody just plays for an hour. I guess if you do, let me know. I don’t think I’ve ever just played for an hour.

By the time you talk, and each game takes a little bit, if you wanna play about four games and talk, it takes a few hours. So I did that twice since the event, and then I told you I have the tennis matches coming up, which take about an hour and a half each. And, uh, the other thing I’m doing, just to let you know, like personal life [00:07:00] stuff, getting my daughter ready for college.

So this is child number two going to be a freshman in college, we’re busy with that, too. Ordering things, it’s August, so you know that that is coming up soon. got a couple other kids coming home from camp, got another one leaving for his junior year of college. We’ve got a lot going on. August is a lot.

People are always like, “May is the most,” or, “December is the most.” I think, uh, every month has got its big things, and it’s so nice out this week in Minneapolis. It’s finally not humid. It’s like, I wanna walk, I wanna be outside. I hope as you are listening to this, you are thinking about, ” Who can I ask to do something in person?”

One of the main messages I left people with on Wednesday that I leave people with, I hope, all the time, which is never wait for an invitation. Don’t keep score. You issue the invitation. Do not wait for someone to ask you to play mahj, play tennis, go for a walk, play pickleball, go hear an author, any of the things.

I was lucky that it happened to be that [00:08:00] people asked me this week. Trust me, I do a lot of the asking a lot. And I’m not complaining. I’m just telling you that it was a coincidence this week that I didn’t. Often I’m asking, and that’s how I know that I can see friends when I want to, ’cause I’ll ask.

And I would love to give you that note today, to ask somebody to do something in person, make it happen, and let me know if you do it. I would love that. Let me know if you do it. You can always find me at dearninapodcast@gmail.com, on the newsletter on Substack, which is dearnina.substack.com And in Facebook, where we are often chatting about what’s going on in our friendships, and that’s at Dear Nina, the group on Facebook.

You just go into the search area of Facebook, search Dear Nina, the group, and you will find it, and there is always a few questions you have to answer for every person who wants to get into the group. that is to make sure that it’s a place that you really should be, that you really wanna be talking about friendship.

I wanna know how you heard about the [00:09:00] group. I wanna know that you weren’t just randomly googling friendship, but that you know what this group is, that you know what this podcast is, and what we are there in that group to do. That is all for today. Quick one this week. I will be back next week with a regular interview with a guest who has been patiently waiting for her episode to come out.

It will be worth the wait. I hope you have a great week. Come back next week when our friendships are going well. We are happier all around, and if I saw you in person this week, thank you for being there. It really, really meant a lot to see so many faces out in the audience, I hope to see you again.

Bye. [00:10:00]