Why Making REAL Friends As an Adult is So Hard (8 Powerful Ways To Make it Easier!)

Jay Shetty 0:00 Welcome back to On Purpose. Today, we're talking about something that affects every single one of us, friendship. As kids, making friends seemed effortless, but why does it feel so hard to make and maintain friendships as adults? I get it. Life gets busy, we move, we change, and suddenly, finding people who truly get us feels like an almost impossible challenge. But the truth is, no matter how busy or how independent we are, we all need connection. We need people who challenge us, support us, and remind us that we're not alone. So in this special episode, I've gathered insights from some of the best minds out there to help you build meaningful friendships, strengthen your connections, and create a support system that truly lasts. Because the right relationships can change your life, and I believe everyone deserves to have those. Let's start with a challenge so many of us face but rarely talk about. Why is it so hard to make friends as an adult? When we're younger, we see the same people every day. We share experiences, and we grow together. But as we get older, life pulls us in different directions, and suddenly, finding and keeping close friends feels like an uphill battle. To help us break it down, we have Mel Robbins, bestselling author, speaker, and expert on human behavior. She's here to help us understand why adult friendships feel so different, why connection matters more than ever, and how we can take control of building meaningful relationships. Let's dive in. Mel, why is it so hard to make friends as we get older?

Mel Robbins 1:46 There is a massive shift that happens

Mel Robbins 1:50 in adult friendship when you hit 20 that nobody sees coming. The rules of friendship completely change when your 20s hit, and I'm gonna explain the rules when you're little, and then we're gonna talk about the rules of adult friendship. So when you're little, your entire life is organized around friendship and making it possible, 'cause you're with people your age all the time in class and sports.

Jay Shetty 2:13 So true.

Mel Robbins 2:13 You move in groups, 'cause you're on teams, and you're in neighborhoods, and you're always together. You also celebrate the same milestones. You're hitting the same birthdays, you're all talking about the next level of school or the this thing this summer, you're watching the same movies, 'cause you're all the same age, and so there's so much synergy and relevance, and the conditions to spend a ton of time together are there. Then you get to university, and you spend even more time together. And what happens when you hit your 20s, right, is that it moves from this big group sport where you just kind of expect to be around your friends all the time. You expect the group to get invited, because that's what's always happened. You expect to see them all the time, 'cause you do always see them all the time. But then your 20s hit, the rules change, and what I call the great scattering happens. Everybody moves in different directions, and friendship goes from group sport to individual sport. You can no longer expect friendship. You are no longer part of a group that is expected to be invited everywhere, because everybody scatters, and suddenly, everybody's on different timelines, you're in different cities, you're moving in different directions, so there's no way to locate yourself inside your friend group. And the only thing that's keeping you together from your friends from when you were little is a text chain that starts to go quieter and quieter and quieter as people start to focus on the people in front of them.

Jay Shetty 3:31 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 3:32 And that brings me to two major shifts that I want you to embrace using the let them theory. Number one, you can no longer expect friendship. You have to take a way more flexible approach and a more proactive approach. You gotta let people come and go.

Jay Shetty 3:47 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 3:48 Super important. And then you gotta let me take the actions to create the friendships. I gotta go first. I gotta be the one planning. I gotta seek out new people. But there are three pillars of adult friendship based on research that are also gonna help you understand that when people come and go in your life, 99% of the time, it's not personal, and you actually haven't lost them as a friend.

Jay Shetty 4:12 Mm.

Mel Robbins 4:13 One of the three pillars is missing. So the three things that need to be required to have a friendship happen are the same three things that were around all the time when you were a kid. Number one, proximity. Proximity matters tremendously. Proximity means who are you actually physically next to. In fact, they've done research, Jay. If you and I were in a dorm, and we lived across the hall, I don't, I don't remember the percentages exactly, but it's, like, 90% chance we're gonna be friends.

Jay Shetty 4:40 Interesting.

Mel Robbins 4:40 The poor person at the end of the hallway, 10% chance that we're gonna be friends with them because of proximity. Even a matter of 50 feet makes a difference. And so when you were little, you were in proximity to people your age all the time.

Jay Shetty 4:53 All day.

Mel Robbins 4:54 Exactly. The research also shows that to have, as an adult, a kind of casual friend, you need to spend approximately 70 hours with somebody.

Jay Shetty 5:02 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 5:03 To have a close friend, 200 hours.

Jay Shetty 5:05 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 5:06 So when you're an adult, that creates a big problem, because who are you spending all your time with once you're 20? The American Time Study shows that it's with people you work with. So why aren't we best friends with people at work? Because you have proximity, and you're spending a lot of time together, but here's the thing, timing.

Jay Shetty 5:23 Mm.

Mel Robbins 5:23 When you were little, you were in the same timing of life with everybody.

Jay Shetty 5:26 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 5:27 When you hit your 20s and it's now individual, everybody's on different timelines. Some of your friends are getting married, some are going to graduate school, some are now pursuing jobs, other people are moving out of the city, into the city. Everybody's timing is now different. And this also explains why you're almost never best friends with people at work, because the timing is off. You're sitting next to people that are in very different times of their life. You may like them a lot, and you may be friends, but you never spend time outside of work because they're at home with their family, and you're going out with your buddies your age on the weekendsAnd then that brings me to the third thing that needs to be present for a friendship to truly click, and that's energy

Jay Shetty 6:12 Mm.

Mel Robbins 6:13 And the thing about energy is it changes, and you can have fantastic energy with somebody, and then if you decide you're not drinking anymore, the energy's off

Jay Shetty 6:22 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 6:22 If you decide to get really focused on fitness, the energy's off. If you have very different political beliefs, the energy's off. It's not personal

Jay Shetty 6:31 Mm.

Mel Robbins 6:31 It's one of these three pillars, and it has helped me so profoundly, Jay, to realize that people come and go, and it's a beautiful thing, and you should let them

Jay Shetty 6:40 Mm.

Mel Robbins 6:41 And you should really... If you have a friendship that starts to dissipate, right, ask yourself, before you blame them or you blame you, are any one of these three pillars missing? Are we not near each other anymore? Is the timing of our lives off? Is there just something about the energy that hasn't clicked? Because you can't force those things. But what I've found is that when you recognize that those are really important factors to your connection to someone else, that if a friendship starts to fade, for me it's so easy to say, "Let them," and I don't wish anybody bad. I literally wish people well. Because the other thing that I've learned, and, you know, being 56, I've had a lot of friends come and go in different phases of my life, that you would be startled by how many people from your past that you no longer, quote, "consider friends" 'cause you haven't seen them in a very long time or things just got weird, if you actually called them, they'd pick up the phone

Jay Shetty 7:47 They would.

Mel Robbins 7:47 If you texted them... The research shows that when you get a surprise text from somebody that you haven't heard from in a long time, the amount of joy that you feel. And so I want you to consider if you're very lonely right now, that there's actually probably hundreds of people from your past that still consider you a friend

Jay Shetty 8:03 Mm-hmm

Mel Robbins 8:04 And if you take the approach that I'm talking about, which is friendship is your responsibility, you need to go first. Let me create the friendship and the connection that I want. And you can start by literally taking a look through your past and thinking about people that you remember fondly and just sending them a text

Jay Shetty 8:24 Mm

Mel Robbins 8:25 And you will be startled by what comes back because they're there. They haven't actually gone anywhere. The connection is still there. And oftentimes, even if you've had somebody where something's been off, again, let them-

Jay Shetty 8:38 Yeah

Mel Robbins 8:39 ... and wish them well. And there will be a time, I promise you, where the timing or proximity or energy comes back around again

Jay Shetty 8:47 Yeah. And often you're so right. When, when I'm... As I'm listening to you talk, I'm just thinking of how conscious we have to be with all of our relationships, the ones that matter to us-

Mel Robbins 8:58 Yeah

Jay Shetty 8:58 ... the ones that we want to invest in. And it's what you said. There was... We were actually dealt such a tough card in the fact that basically from the moment you joined school at 4 till the moment you were 21, if you went to college, you basically didn't have to make really any major decisions or think about the next step-

Mel Robbins 9:22 Yeah

Jay Shetty 9:22 ... because you went from seventh grade to eighth grade to ninth grade to te- whatever it is

Mel Robbins 9:26 Right

Jay Shetty 9:27 And so then all of a sudden you're in the world at 21-

Mel Robbins 9:30 Yeah

Jay Shetty 9:31 ... or 18 if you didn't go to college, and you all of a sudden now have to figure out what to do for the next 50, 60 years

Mel Robbins 9:37 Yeah. All structure of your life just evaporates

Jay Shetty 9:40 Just disappears because there-

Mel Robbins 9:41 It's the hardest decade of your life

Jay Shetty 9:41 ... because there is no structure-

Mel Robbins 9:42 Yeah

Jay Shetty 9:42 ... and it makes no sense. And as I'm hearing you talk, it sounds like to me that it would've been harder to watch your daughter have to practice the let them theory than it is for you to practice the let them theory-

Mel Robbins 9:55 Yes

Jay Shetty 9:56 ... when she was going through her breakup.

Mel Robbins 9:57 Yes.

Jay Shetty 9:58 When it comes to building meaningful relationships, we often put too much pressure on one person to fulfill all of our emotional needs. But the reality is, different relationships fulfill different needs. Some friendships may bring adventure, others offer comfort, and some are simply there to listen. When we start seeing our relationships this way, we open ourselves up to a deeper, more fulfilling sense of connection, one where we can appreciate each friendship for the unique role it plays in our lives. To help us explore this idea further, we have Andrew Huberman, neuroscientist and professor at Stanford University. He's dedicated his career to understanding human behavior, brain function, and the science behind connection. Let's hear his insights on how small intentional habits can help us build stronger, more fulfilling friendships. The second thing you, that I was reminded by as you were speaking was I feel like writing down... I always encourage a lot of my clients to do this, to write down a list

Jay Shetty 11:04 of emotions they'd like to experience with people. So it could be things like adventure, discovery, comfort, humor, love. Whatever it may be, just write down a list. And then for each one, write down the name of a different person ideally that fulfills that need in your life. Because often I feel like we put a lot of pressure on our romantic partners or one person in our life to be all these things, and the truth is, no matter how phenomenal anyone is or how much they love us, they just can't be that. And so if you have, "Hey, I've reached out to this friend when I want some adventure because they love it too. If I want to see a sports game, this is the person I reach out to." And then do the same in the opposite way. Which one of those do you fulfill for your friends? What emotions do you help other people create? And I feel like if you look at friendship as a spectrum, as this broad set of connection points rather than like, "This is my best friend," as you were saying, or, "This is my number one friend," and we get away from hierarchy and we move more into a spectrum, I feel like-That mixed in with the text a day starts creating a much more healthier network of what connection means as well. It's also not just the same person doing the same thing every week.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 12:24 Yeah, I love the, uh, the idea that by staying in contact regularly, we don't have to get caught up.

Jay Shetty 12:31 Mm.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 12:31 And that then we can just drop into what's most meaningful on that particular day, and maybe even have more available to us to have a new experience.

Jay Shetty 12:40 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 12:40 Right? As opposed to just catching up. And then of course, there are those friends that we catch up with, and it feels like it was just yesterday.

Jay Shetty 12:47 Definitely.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 12:47 But I'd be willing to bet that those were people that you spent a lot of day-to-day time activity with. You knew them-

Jay Shetty 12:53 At some point

Dr. Andrew Huberman 12:53 ... from university, or you, you spent a lot of time just in the kind of everyday shared experience for a while. And then when you see each other again, it's like being right back there. The neuroscience of this hasn't been explored nearly enough, but given that our very own surgeon general highlighted the loneliness crisis as one of the major crises in the world today, I think that in terms of simple solutions to big-

Jay Shetty 13:18 Mm-hmm

Dr. Andrew Huberman 13:18 ... important problems, developing more connectivity with people through simple practices, and again, and we're talking about a text here. I mean, I will be the first to say that if you can hop on a phone call or you can get on a f- you know, a video chat with somebody, that would certainly be better, but many people just don't have time for that.

Jay Shetty 13:35 For sure.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 13:36 So in terms of spending time with people in, in a deeper and richer way, you know, get- getting the, the drop-in time, as it were. I love that you mentioned adventure. I'm almost 49. I turn 49 in just over a month, and, um, I would say that the first 49 years of my life have been marked by a real thirst for adventure, a ton of curiosity. Now I really-

Jay Shetty 14:00 [laughs]

Dr. Andrew Huberman 14:00 ... feel myself entering a completely different season of my life. [laughs] I'm sort of hoping this would eventually happen, um, in part because, um, you know, I took some, some kinda dangerous turns. You know, I took risks with my, with my life at points where I didn't really intend to do that, but, you know, you seek enough adventure, you're gonna-

Jay Shetty 14:16 [laughs]

Dr. Andrew Huberman 14:17 ... you're gonna find adventure.

Jay Shetty 14:18 [laughs]

Dr. Andrew Huberman 14:18 And you have to be quite careful. I have friends with whom I had tons of adventure, and then now the adventures are, are far more, uh, docile-

Jay Shetty 14:26 Mm

Dr. Andrew Huberman 14:26 ... and, and quiet.

Jay Shetty 14:27 Mm.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 14:27 Um, and of course, um, the internal adventure is real as well. I think that friends with whom we can just be one version of ourselves are wonderful. Friends with whom we can be all versions of ourself is, uh, especially wonderful. That's the acceptance piece. Uh, typically I think we look more for that in romantic relationship, this notion of just, like, safety and acceptance being hallmarks of, of healthy romantic relationship. I think those are also the hallmarks of healthy friendship. It's just that with friendship, we can be a bit more segmented in terms of the number of different aspects of self that we need, um, safety and acceptance with.

Jay Shetty 15:05 Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 15:05 Um, I think with friendship also, you know, I, I've found it to be the case that really knowing what's going on with people has become a li- little bit more difficult. There's this, there's this kind of odd thing, right? We're, we're, we're more interconnected in terms of availability of communication, but we're less aware of what's really going on for people. In fact, on the way here, I had a call with a, with a friend, and their headset was making a lot of noise. And so, um, we agreed, uh, they said, "Hey, how about I just turn mute mine?" And for the next two minutes, I'm not kidding, this is how they, this is what they said. Um, they said, "Just tell me, like, what's, what's on your heart or what's in your heart." Hopefully it wasn't on your heart.

Jay Shetty 15:46 [laughs]

Dr. Andrew Huberman 15:46 What's in your heart? And I, I was like, "Oh wow, that's tough. You know, that's tough." I mean, I, I... Okay. And I, and I know that they're listening, and then but it's very silent on the other end, and I'm kinda speaking into a vacuum there, um, because they're not hearing anything. And then had maybe just two minutes before we curled up the hill because of the reception in, uh, the area that we're in, as you know, is always complicated, um, to just get feedback. It was very interesting. Like, I, I realized that I felt close to them before, but just the notion that they would ask me that. How do I feel? Not what's going on lately, not, you know, am I feeling good or bad, like evaluation of, of feelings, but just, like, what's going on. And I stumbled a bit at first, but I can realize in, in, in saying it now, like, I'm quite moved by the fact that they would ask that-

Jay Shetty 16:33 Mm

Dr. Andrew Huberman 16:33 ... of all things, as opposed to, like, what's going on? What's your next podcast about?

Jay Shetty 16:37 [laughs]

Dr. Andrew Huberman 16:37 Are you coming to visit? That sort of thing.

Jay Shetty 16:39 Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 16:39 And so, like, I'm taking a lot of cues these days from people that, um, make me feel very seen and accepted. You're one of them, I must say. Like, I don't just say that 'cause we're in front of these microphones and sitting here. Like, you and I have been in touch a lot lately through good times and hard times and, and, and a lot of different things. It's, it's not, um, a coincidence though that, that I think that we're here because I... and talking about this because I think that ultimately the questions that we ask of the people we care about are just as important as reminding them that we're there. Because when we ask a question like, you know, "What's in your heart?" What we're really saying is, you know, like, "What's really going on for you?"

Jay Shetty 17:18 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 17:18 As opposed to, like, what's the next podcast about?

Jay Shetty 17:22 Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 17:22 Which is an interesting question to me, but, you know, so I... You know, this is more your territory than mine.

Jay Shetty 17:27 [laughs]

Dr. Andrew Huberman 17:27 But I think in the end, I think it comes back to the safety and acceptance.

Jay Shetty 17:31 Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 17:31 Simple behaviors like a good morning check-in, and then asking questions that might feel a little bit challenging-

Jay Shetty 17:38 Mm-hmm

Dr. Andrew Huberman 17:38 ... for the other person to answer at first, but that really show a depth of care and interest that, um, go beyond just kind of like narrative and, and storytelling.

Jay Shetty 17:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 17:47 And I think one thing that I'm also very eager about these days is breaking down some of the, um, traditional stereotypes like, you know, for anyone that's listening to this and goes, "Oh, you know, I didn't... You know, men don't talk that way," or something. It's like, actually they do. Um, they do, and if given the chance, they will open up about things that perhaps they hadn't even thought about. And I confess I'm one of those people. Maybe it was my Y chromosome got in the way of me thinking like, "Wait, what do you want me to talk about what's in my heart? Hey, actually, that's a reallyGreat question. Thank you. And so I think this brings us back to these early circuits that are all about safety and acceptance, that are all about being able to predict things and basically to say, "Okay, I don't have to be vigilant." That's really what safety is about, is about turning off the neural circuits for vigilance.

Jay Shetty 18:35 Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 18:36 When we turn off the neural circuits for vigilance, we can start to direct our neural circuits, vision, auditory, whatever thoughts, towards an awareness of things that are both inside us and around us that keep us in that calm state. I mean, vigilance is associated with stress. Stress is associated with a narrowing of the visual field, a narrowing of the auditory fields. I'll just use this analogy because my sister and I last, um, last summer, we always go to New York for our birthdays together. We went and saw, uh, what, the Harry Potter play.

Jay Shetty 19:05 Oh, it's so good.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 19:06 Okay. Right. And that-

Jay Shetty 19:06 And that's where New York, too, is so good.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 19:07 Yeah, it's, it was wild. I mean, the effects are so unbelievable.

Jay Shetty 19:11 Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 19:11 She's a big Harry Potter fan. I'm not. But-

Jay Shetty 19:13 I am, so [laughs] me and Harry, yeah

Dr. Andrew Huberman 19:14 ... but, okay. But, but just, just spectacular effects. It was just so wild. I, I couldn't believe it. But there's this library in, in the, in the play where it's, it's a magic library where when one of the books is taken out about a particular subject, the books around it actually morph and change to reflect the same subject material. And when I saw that, I immediately said, "That's how the brain works." The way the brain works is a kind of pseudo hypnosis. Hypnosis is about context, and context setting, and narrowing of context. All of us have such a wealth of historical, present, and future thinking cognition in our brains, but when we get anchored to a particular emotional state or topic, what ends up happening is that the, the available topics around it change in reference to how stressed we are. When we are stressed, all the topics, all the books on the shelf around that stress are about that thing and how to solve it, and actually this is why stress enhances our memory for solving that, the things that can help us solve that particular issue.

Jay Shetty 20:13 Mm.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 20:13 But guess what is given up? All the other distantly or not so distantly related topics that lend themselves to creativity, to thinking about novel combinations of things. This is why our friend Rick Rubin, I think, is such a, a spectacularly creative individual because he spends a lot of time putting his brain and body into a state in which he can remain in contact with these other related or seemingly unrelated topics, whereas when we're in a stressed mode, when we have to problem solve, when we are in vigil- vigilance, excuse me, we absolutely narrow our cognitive fields, our visual fields, our auditory fields. We limit what we think is possible. And so I think great friendships, to bring it back to it, great relationships of all kinds have enough safety and acceptance in them that we can make our way through the practical constraints of the relationship in the day, the week, and the year. But that there's also a sense of creativity, that there are new elements allowed to be brought in because there's enough safety and acceptance that we can turn down those vigilance circuits.

Jay Shetty 21:20 Mm. Absolutely. As adults, building meaningful friendships isn't just about finding people who uplift us. It's also about how we show up for others. The strongest friendships are built on trust, joy, and a sense of community, and when we find that balance, our relationships become more meaningful and can be life-changing. Robin Sharma, leadership expert and bestselling author, shares his perspective on how the right friendships can shape not just our personal lives, but our growth and success as well. Let's hear what he has to say. And develop the idea that we can have a group of people that we grow around, and then you have a group of people that you have to give to often, right? Like, I think that's what

Jay Shetty 22:04 our life is made up of. Like, life isn't just... We're not just surrounded by people that help us grow, because we're obviously taking from them as well, and we don't want to be in a position where we're only giving. We want to be able to grow. So it's almost like we all have, we have two sets of groups in our life at any real given time. Would you agree with that or?

Dr. Andrew Huberman 22:20 Well, I would just say trust, trust your joy.

Jay Shetty 22:22 Mm.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 22:23 I think joy is a great GPS. And so, yeah, I'm not in any way suggesting be around people only who fuel you and who help you become you at your best.

Jay Shetty 22:35 Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 22:35 I'm simply saying it's, it's about what's healthy. It's about your joy. It's about being around people who you vibe with, who understand you, who have similar values, who support you, and, and who encourage you.

Jay Shetty 22:46 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 22:47 So I think your community is definitely a, a key, an absolutely key form of wealth.

Jay Shetty 22:52 And you mentioned this earlier, I want to come back to it, was this three great friends rule, and I love that you talk about having three great friends. I heard recently somewhere, I can't remember. I was, I was browsing on social media and someone said, "You need 3:00 AM friends as well," like friends you can call at 3:00 AM and they'll pick up the phone. How do you know? What is the quality of a great long-term friend? What, what is a great friend? I'm not sure we even know anymore.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 23:17 A great friend is someone you can be yourself with and they still love you. A great friend is... I, I had a line in the book, you know, you're in a foreign country and 3:00 AM,

Dr. Andrew Huberman 23:30 they hop on a plane and they come get you. A great friend is someone who you can laugh with. Great friend is someone who you're going through your most difficult times and they'll listen to you for hours. A great friend is, um, yeah, someone who, who accepts you, someone who helps you be seen. A, a great friend is someone who when you're with them, you feel joyful versus depleted. So I think it's really important, you know, in this world where we are maximalists. We want, we want to be all things to all people. We want to have so many different friends. Focus on three great friends.

Jay Shetty 24:11 Mm.

Dr. Andrew Huberman 24:12 We want to read 100 books. Master three books. Maybe it's Jobs's, uh, Isaacson's autobiography on Jobs, like you mentioned. Maybe it's The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Maybe it's

Speaker 24:26 The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. Maybe it's Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, one of my favorite books of all time, you know. But I think just being a min-minimalist is, is so powerful. Build your life around a few things. Even in work, I mentioned it. Rather than pushing out a thousand pieces of mediocrity, do one thing incredibly well, you know, even if it takes five years, 10 years. There's a chapter called Make Your Project X in The Wealth Money Can't Buy, and the example is the Duomo in Milan. You know how long they spent on it? In this world where we wanna do something in an hour, and then get the rewards, or maybe a week, maybe a month, it took 600 years to create the Duomo. Th-these are values of a unspoken age. 600 years of calibrating, refining, optimizing to create the Duomo, and so that's what a Project X is. Rather than doing lots of things, you do one thing. Maybe it's one work of art. Michelangelo took four years of working on the chapel of the Sistine Ceiling, but he got the job done. So minimalism i-is, is very, very powerful.

Jay Shetty 25:49 Mm. And one of the things you said there, this idea of we're almost trying to be so many things to so many people that it's hard to find

Jay Shetty 25:58 the right friends. One of the things you talk about is do not be a doormat, and I find that that becomes that people-pleasing mentality, that ability to, "I can mold, and I can be whatever you want me to be, and I can be lots of things." And we feel validated that way, but in the end, we're just becoming a doormat. Everyone crosses over a doormat, and a doormat welcomes everyone in the same way. So when I read that, I was like, how do we be kind but not be a doormat? How do we be service-oriented but not be a doormat? How do we balance that art of being welcoming but not being a doormat?

Speaker 26:32 Well, I, you know, for, for many years, like you, Jay, I've talked about the power of just being... Of being kind.

Jay Shetty 26:39 Mm.

Speaker 26:40 You know, and it sounds so simple, but being kind. Staying in a hotel, remembering there's someone cl- going to clean my room after I leave the room, so put the bath, uh, the towels in the bathtub, straighten out the bed, leave the room service tray clean. Little acts of kindness not only are a gift you give to someone else, it's a gift you give to yourself. You respect yourself more. So then people come up... S-sometimes say to me, "Well, if I'm kind, people will take advantage of me." And I would say, "People will only take advantage of you if you allow people to take advantage of you." Let's not confuse kindness with weakness.

Jay Shetty 27:20 Mm.

Speaker 27:21 There is a time to always be kind, but that doesn't mean you let people walk over you.

Jay Shetty 27:25 Mm.

Speaker 27:26 And that makes me think of another idea that I write about, which is the importance of, you know, in this world right now, it's so easy to live the same year 80 times and call it a life.

Jay Shetty 27:40 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 27:41 And there's one chapter called Be a Perfect Moment Creator, and the story I tell in there is of Eugene Kelly. Uh, O'Kelly, excuse me. And Eugene O'Kelly used to be the former CEO of KPMG, the accounting behemoth, and one day he walked into his doctor's office to get the results of a routine medical, and the doctor came out with an expression you never wanna see on the face of your doctor when you go to get your results. And he was told he had 90 days left to live. He had an inoperable brain tumor. So confronted with his mortality, he realized for the first time he had never, in all his years as a corporate titan, he'd never taken his wife to lunch. He had missed so many Christmas concerts of his daughter. He had never spent time with his friends walking through Central Park and having conversations, and so he decided to re-engineer his last 90 days, and he said, "I wanted to become a perfect moment creator." And he spent those last 90 days... He actually died roughly 90 days after, um, the report from his doctor. But I think that's so powerful. You know, when you're with your family, when you're with your work, when you're with yourself, e-each and every day, find some way to create a perfect moment. Maybe it's giving a gift to someone through a compliment. Maybe it's taking some time to do something that fills you with joy. But being a perfect moment creator, I think, is a form of wealth money can't buy.

Jay Shetty 29:10 Mm. Have you ever thought about what makes a truly good friend? Not just someone you can grab lunch with, but the kind of friend who truly sees you, the version of yourself you might even forget sometimes. Trevor Noah has spent years navigating relationships in a world full of unpredictability, and his take on friendship is powerful. He shares how his closest friends act as his anchor, helping him reconnect with himself, especially in the loneliness of stand-up comedy and touring. Let's take a look. How... A, who are the friends? What, what are you talking to them about? Like, how... What's your consistency? I'm, I'm fascinated by that because-

Speaker 29:49 So who are the friends? Predominantly, my friends are

Speaker 29:52 from South Africa. Um, friends I met doing different things. All, all organic meetings, which, um, I'm a sucker for. I'm terrible at making friends, partially because I, I don't trust people easily. I exist in a world where I can be friendly with many people, but-

Jay Shetty 30:10 Mm

Speaker 30:11 ... you know, it, it takes me a while to accept that this person is actually a part of my life.

Jay Shetty 30:16 Right.

Speaker 30:17 And I think for a long time it, it was because, and still is sometimes, because, A, I have an idea of putting something on that person-

Trevor Noah 30:26 Way I may need them means that they may disappoint me.

Jay Shetty 30:29 Mm.

Trevor Noah 30:29 And then on the other side of it, them needing me means I could be in the position to disappoint them.

Jay Shetty 30:35 Mm.

Trevor Noah 30:35 You know?

Jay Shetty 30:35 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 30:35 And, and, and so as we learn people, I find we learn what they can and cannot do. We learn who they are or are not, and it's always situational for me. You know, that's, that's when I'll call you, like, a friend, is that I know how you are in most situations.

Jay Shetty 30:54 Yeah, that's a good definition.

Trevor Noah 30:55 You know, that, that, that for me is the definition of a friend. So, you know, I can be... We use it loosely, obviously, but, you know, I can be friends with you, and we always meet for lunch, and we always meet for-

Jay Shetty 31:04 Yeah

Trevor Noah 31:04 ... but, but then I only know you in, in one way. My friends, I start to be able to... I almost, almost store in a vault in my mind. I can say for a fact, if we're friends, if Jay was here, this would bother him. He would like that.

Jay Shetty 31:23 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 31:23 He would probably say this.

Jay Shetty 31:25 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 31:25 And that's why he would act this way.

Jay Shetty 31:28 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 31:29 And that's, you know?

Jay Shetty 31:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 31:31 That's, that's how I think of my friends.

Jay Shetty 31:32 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 31:33 So they've been a, a major part of making me feel at home.

Jay Shetty 31:37 Mm.

Trevor Noah 31:37 You know, my, my, my job, stand-up comedy, is a really lonely career.

Jay Shetty 31:41 Mm.

Trevor Noah 31:41 You know, and I, I remember talking to a comedian, it was a few weeks ago, talking about how there was, like, a period where a lot of stand-up comedians were committing suicide, y- you know? And would be... You'd hear this devastating story of a comedian that everyone loved. They were in a hotel room, and then they committed suicide.

Jay Shetty 31:58 Mm.

Trevor Noah 31:58 And I was petrified because I, I always think it can happen to me.

Jay Shetty 32:04 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 32:04 You know? I, I, I go that if that happened to them, why did it happen? How did... If I don't understand, then what is it? Another comedian, another comedian, another comedian, another comedian. I think being a stand-up comedian is a, is a really lonely job in that we're traveling, oftentimes alone. We don't have a band.

Jay Shetty 32:20 Mm.

Trevor Noah 32:20 We don't have backup dancers. We don't, we don't, we don't travel with a crew. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 32:24 [laughs] Can you imagine you with a bunch of backup dancers?

Trevor Noah 32:26 Yeah, you know? And yet every night you're going out there-

Jay Shetty 32:28 Mm

Trevor Noah 32:28 ... and you're making people laugh. You're having fun with them.

Jay Shetty 32:31 Mm.

Trevor Noah 32:31 They come with their families. They come with their friends. They come with their loved ones. You leave alone.

Jay Shetty 32:37 Mm.

Trevor Noah 32:38 And, and it's this constant exchange of energy, and what I learned was my, my friends became that hub. My friends became my recharge. My friends became the couch I could lie on and say nothing or everything.

Jay Shetty 32:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 32:53 And thanks partly to technology, I've been able to keep in touch with them. There's no, there's no catching up for us. It's literally a running... We've got a WhatsApp thread that is now, I'm gonna say, 15 years old.

Jay Shetty 33:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 33:10 Like, literally I can go back-

Jay Shetty 33:11 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 33:11 ... and search something from maybe 10 years ago sometimes.

Jay Shetty 33:14 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 33:14 I can go back on the WhatsApp thread and go, "What happened?" And I can search, and I can find it. That's how long we've had the same-

Jay Shetty 33:19 Yeah

Trevor Noah 33:20 ... group, and the same friends, and the same everything. And obviously it's grown over time, but that core has kept me.

Jay Shetty 33:26 Mm.

Trevor Noah 33:26 You know? I always think... Did you end up reading Harry Potter?

Jay Shetty 33:28 I didn't ever read it.

Trevor Noah 33:29 Oh.

Jay Shetty 33:29 I've watched all the movies. Yeah, I never read it.

Trevor Noah 33:31 Oh, you watched it, okay.

Jay Shetty 33:31 Yeah, I watched all the movies, so I know all the... I'm a big fan, actually, of the movies.

Trevor Noah 33:34 Okay. Okay.

Jay Shetty 33:34 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 33:34 So I feel like your friends in life are your Horcruxes.

Jay Shetty 33:41 [laughs] Oh, interesting. Okay.

Trevor Noah 33:42 You know?

Jay Shetty 33:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Trevor Noah 33:43 I think, I think as people what we do is we break ourselves into parts, and whenever we meet people, we give them a part of ourselves.

Jay Shetty 33:52 Mm.

Trevor Noah 33:53 And some people we give more than we give others, but we give everyone a different part of ourselves. No one in your life has the same part that another person has. They may seem similar, but they're not.

Jay Shetty 34:03 Mm.

Trevor Noah 34:03 Your mother and father hold different parts of you. Your uncles, your cousins, your brothers, sisters, your friends, whoever it is-

Jay Shetty 34:10 Yeah

Trevor Noah 34:10 ... they all hold a different parts of you. And the same way Voldemort could use that to come back to life, I feel like we can use that-

Jay Shetty 34:17 Wow

Trevor Noah 34:18 ... to come back to life.

Jay Shetty 34:19 Wow.

Trevor Noah 34:19 Do you know what I mean?

Jay Shetty 34:20 Yeah, you watched a different movie. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 34:21 [laughs] I read the book.

Jay Shetty 34:22 Yeah, you read the... [laughs]

Trevor Noah 34:23 I read the book, my friend.

Jay Shetty 34:24 That's what it is.

Trevor Noah 34:25 That's what you missed in the movie.

Jay Shetty 34:25 That's... Yeah.

Trevor Noah 34:26 I read the book.

Jay Shetty 34:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 34:27 Yeah, and so I always think that as I, I, man, sometimes I can be at my worst. I can be... Sometimes I can be lost.

Jay Shetty 34:34 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 34:34 Really, Jay. There'll be times when I'll be like, "Man, what am I doing? Or where am I... I'm stressed. I'm tired. I'm burnt out. I, I feel lost." And I can call a friend-

Jay Shetty 34:41 Mm

Trevor Noah 34:42 ... and no joke, they can say to me, "Well, the Trevor I know..." You know, and, and I love that they say that. They don't say, "This is who you are or not."

Jay Shetty 34:50 Mm.

Trevor Noah 34:50 They go, "The Trevor I know found his joy here."

Jay Shetty 34:53 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 34:54 "Hey, you know, I've noticed that you're always happiest when you do it this way."

Jay Shetty 34:58 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 34:58 "Hey, I've noticed that, you know, you stress more when you're in this posi- Hey." And I go, "Man, I, I didn't know that about myself or I didn't hold myself that way," 'cause I'm always experiencing all of me still through my lens. "But thank you. You freed me. You encouraged me. You held me. Um, you loved me."

Jay Shetty 35:19 Mm.

Trevor Noah 35:20 And what, what then happens is I start to find what I need to get back to my purpose, to my passion, to whatever drives me. And, and that's why my friends are a big part of that. That is, that is the core of my world.

Jay Shetty 35:35 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 35:36 You know? And, and it's funny, my mom even used to say that to me when I was growing up. You know, at, at a certain age she said to me, she'd say to me, "My friend." You know? And I'd be like, "I'm not your friend."

Jay Shetty 35:47 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 35:48 Be like, "I'm... You're my mom." And my mom would say, "Just because I'm your mom doesn't mean I'm your friend." She said, "There are many mothers out there that aren't friends with their child."

Jay Shetty 35:54 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 35:54 And she said, "I'm your mother, and I will always love you as your mother. But you are becoming my friend."

Jay Shetty 36:01 Wow.

Trevor Noah 36:02 And that stuck with me. I realized that friendship is a choice.

Jay Shetty 36:06 Mm.

Trevor Noah 36:07 Every other relation we have isn't. And so even your, your relatives can become your friends or may not be your friends.

Jay Shetty 36:14 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 36:15 And I think understanding that illuminates a lot of how you interact with people in the world.

Jay Shetty 36:19 Yeah. I, I, I really resonate with what, I mean, everything you said, but one of the things that stood out was that kind of performer's loneliness.

Trevor Noah 36:27 Mm.

Jay Shetty 36:28 And the bit, my, my work mainly started with coaching and working with people.

Trevor Noah 36:32 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 36:32 And I, and I work with a lot of musicians and people who tour and travel, not comedians, but, but artists and, you know, they're performing to, like, 100,000 people-

Trevor Noah 36:39 Yeah

Jay Shetty 36:40 ... like, 80,000 people, and then they would always talk to me about this. And I didn't, I didn't really have a empathetic experience of it. I, I could understand it theoretically.

Trevor Noah 36:50 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 36:51 And then, because most of the events I used to speak at were, like, corporate events or, like, a business event or things like that, and then a few years ago when I did my first ever event with my audience, and it was in LA, people who-

Trevor Noah 37:02 Mm. Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 37:02 ... came because they followed my work, not because of anything else, there was only about 2,000 people in the audience, and I finished the event, and I got into the car, and it hit me. And I was like, "Oh," like, this is chemical. This is definitely chemical-

Trevor Noah 37:17 Yeah

Jay Shetty 37:17 ... 'cause you've just had-

Trevor Noah 37:18 Yeah

Jay Shetty 37:18 ... thousands of people shouting your name-

Trevor Noah 37:20 Mm

Jay Shetty 37:20 ... and, like, loving everything you say-

Trevor Noah 37:21 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 37:22 ... and all this validation and everything else. As what you were saying, when you were coming, like, the dopamine, the everything.

Trevor Noah 37:26 Yes.

Jay Shetty 37:27 And then all of a sudden I was like, "Well, wait a minute, this feels weird." Like, why do I feel like, you know, a, a sense of loneliness? And it was really interesting because I felt like that pretty much the whole... And I felt like calling someone.

Trevor Noah 37:38 Yes.

Jay Shetty 37:38 And I couldn't because in London it was too early. [laughs] None of my friends would be awake.

Trevor Noah 37:43 That is insane.

Jay Shetty 37:43 And so they're eight hours ahead, 'cause I'm in LA, and I'm going, "I gotta wait another hour for my friend-

Trevor Noah 37:48 Yeah

Jay Shetty 37:48 ... to wake up, two hours. I'm not gonna wake him up in the middle of the night." So I'm waiting there, and then all my friends in LA were just at the event, so I just saw them, and so they're probably, like, going home, and it was a week night, and so maybe the... And I'm like, "I don't wanna..." And then I get home, and my wife had organized this surprise party for me with all my best friends-

Trevor Noah 38:06 Oh, wow

Jay Shetty 38:06 ... my closest friends in LA.

Trevor Noah 38:07 Wow.

Jay Shetty 38:08 And it was, like, a relief. It wasn't even a celebration. [laughs] I was like, there was a sense of relief. I was like, "Oh, thank God-

Trevor Noah 38:15 [laughs]

Jay Shetty 38:15 ... 'cause I don't know what I would, I don't know what I would've done tonight, man." Like, you know, I understand why people turn to drugs. I understand why-

Trevor Noah 38:21 Yeah. Yeah

Jay Shetty 38:21 ... people turn to... I, I understand.

Trevor Noah 38:23 Right.

Jay Shetty 38:23 Like, it was the first time I was like, "Oh, I-"

Trevor Noah 38:25 Because you, yeah.

Jay Shetty 38:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 38:26 You need to numb it.

Jay Shetty 38:26 Yeah. You need to numb it.

Trevor Noah 38:27 You need to numb it.

Jay Shetty 38:27 Because you just don't know what to do with that feeling.

Trevor Noah 38:30 Mm-hmm.

Jay Shetty 38:30 And that was the first time I'd felt that way, and I can't imagine, as you were saying, for someone who's on tour and traveling-

Trevor Noah 38:35 Right

Jay Shetty 38:35 ... every night-

Trevor Noah 38:36 Right

Jay Shetty 38:36 ... in a random-

Trevor Noah 38:36 My drug, as I said to you, my drug was chocolates.

Jay Shetty 38:38 Oh, I love chocolate too. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 38:39 That was like my... I, I couldn't... It's, like, my team knew, my people knew. It's like I'll do the show, and immediately... And you probably relate to this more because, you know, coming from the UK.

Jay Shetty 38:48 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 38:48 In America, they don't really do it. In South Africa, our, uh, petrol stations, our gas stations-

Jay Shetty 38:54 Yeah, petrol stations. Yeah

Trevor Noah 38:54 ... right? They have amazing stores attached to them.

Jay Shetty 38:57 Yes. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 38:57 Like, here every gas station looks like it's already been robbed.

Jay Shetty 39:00 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 39:00 You don't wanna pour gas. I don't-

Jay Shetty 39:01 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 39:01 Like, it, it looks terrible. You, they all look abandoned.

Jay Shetty 39:04 Yes.

Trevor Noah 39:04 You know what I mean?

Jay Shetty 39:05 Yeah. Yeah, they all look like a ghost town.

Trevor Noah 39:06 They really do.

Jay Shetty 39:06 They do. Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:07 Whereas where we're from, it's like, oh, you go and you buy a pie, you buy some- you do- buy a few drinks.

Jay Shetty 39:11 Yeah, there's, like, cooked snacks and everything.

Trevor Noah 39:13 Exactly. It's like, oh, this is life.

Jay Shetty 39:14 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:14 You can get some groceries on the... It's a very normal concept.

Jay Shetty 39:17 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:18 And that would be me after every show.

Jay Shetty 39:19 Mm.

Trevor Noah 39:20 I would drive. There would be the silence. I couldn't listen to music. I couldn't... My mind would just be-

Jay Shetty 39:24 Yeah, the silence

Trevor Noah 39:25 ... it's like I could hear everybody, but they were gone. And then I would go in, and then I would buy... Chocolate would be my thing.

Jay Shetty 39:31 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 39:31 I, it, it, it immediate... And then I, I, I, you know, over the years I would read, and I'd started learning that the, you know, chocolate, the dopamine, the sugar-

Jay Shetty 39:38 Yeah

Trevor Noah 39:38 ... all of these things, I was, I was correcting a chemical thing without realizing it.

Jay Shetty 39:41 Correct.

Trevor Noah 39:42 Because it is a, it is a shock on your body.

Jay Shetty 39:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:45 Everyone, nothing.

Jay Shetty 39:46 Yeah. It's, it's so fascinating-

Trevor Noah 39:48 Yeah

Jay Shetty 39:48 ... that, that, that experience. And, and I'm sure people have that in different ways in their life. Like, you don't have to be a performer-

Trevor Noah 39:54 Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure

Jay Shetty 39:55 ... to thousands of people to experience that. I think people experience that in lots of different ways. It's beautiful that you've been able to continue this 10-year WhatsApp chat. Like, that's, you know, that's, like, a brilliant achievement. One of the biggest shifts we experience as we get older is realizing that not everyone needs to be in our inner circle, and that's okay. As we grow, we start to see that when it comes to friendships, quality matters more than quantity. Marianna Hewitt, content creator, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Summer Fridays, knows this firsthand. She's built a successful brand while also redefining what meaningful connections look like in both her personal and professional life. Let's hear her take on it. We've talked about energy drainers, uh, and energy-

Marianna Hewitt 40:44 Yeah

Jay Shetty 40:44 ... givers before. Walk us through that because I think everyone feels that, whether it's people, places, projects, we all feel

Jay Shetty 40:52 that certain people drain us, certain projects give us energy. Walk us through your version of that.

Marianna Hewitt 40:56 Yeah. My energy drainers are saying yes to too many things, so saying no to me is what gives me energy. And I know that saying no might seem difficult at first, especially when you have opportunities that come to you and you wanna say yes to everything. But saying yes to things I absolutely wanna do has been so helpful. I am in a place now where I can say no, because I feel like I worked hard in my 20s to get to where I am today, that I have the ability to say no to things. But those nos also are important because it's gotten me to the jobs I wanna do, the brands I wanna work with. I think if you say yes to too many things, you might dilute yourself doing too many things. So saying yes to the things that are in alignment with the content you wanna create, the brands you wanna work with, the long-term goals you have for yourself personally and professionally. Um, other energy drainers that I have are not doing my morning routine and my evening routine, so really setting myself up for the day sets me up for success. Um, I get up in the morning, I usually meditate, I gratitude journal, I do, like, a little stretch, I drink my water. And even, like, just a few things in the morning set me up, because if I wake up and I just, uh, instantly start doing things, there's no time for me just, like, in myself to turn off, um, and then I'm kind of just thinking all day long. Um, other energy drainers, um, sometimes it's work and people.

Jay Shetty 42:11 Mm-hmm.

Marianna Hewitt 42:11 Um, and I know that that one's a really difficult one to have boundaries around, because you maybe cannot control who you have to be around with work, um, or people that you have to spend your time with. So it's creating boundaries around those people and things to make you feel your best. So maybe it's at work, you don't sit next to that person, or you, you know, focus on working on yourself when you're at work so you don't have to be near them too much. Because I know that we can't always, like, eliminate energy drainers in our life. And if it's someone in our life personally-It's difficult, but as I've gotten older, I realize, okay, this person and this friend is draining my energy. When I'm around them, I don't feel great. I don't feel better after I left them. I almost feel more drained just being around them. And so I can love you from a distance. I still love you, I still like you, but I don't have to spend a lot of time with you, and that's okay. I can support you from afar, but I know that if I'm around you, I don't feel my best, and I want more of those energy givers in my life. Like, who do I hang out with and I feel better after I leave them? Like, who makes me feel happier and whole, motivated, energized? And I always love being around you 'cause whenever I see you, you make us feel so great. You're such a great friend. Our friend Audrey is another one of those. It's like-

Jay Shetty 43:13 I was gonna say Audrey

Marianna Hewitt 43:14 ... yeah, you-

Jay Shetty 43:14 The person that came to my mind was Audrey

Marianna Hewitt 43:16 Yeah. But it's like-

Jay Shetty 43:16 I was like, "Audrey. She's amazing"

Marianna Hewitt 43:17 And-

Jay Shetty 43:17 We love you, Audrey

Marianna Hewitt 43:18 We love you, Audrey

Jay Shetty 43:18 Yeah.

Marianna Hewitt 43:18 And she really is one of those people where you wanna-

Jay Shetty 43:21 Yeah

Marianna Hewitt 43:21 ... be around people who are good like that. You want people who make you feel your best. And so as I've gotten older, it's less about quantity of friends, it's quality of friends.

Jay Shetty 43:29 Mm-hmm.

Marianna Hewitt 43:29 And I choose to spend time with the people in my life who give me energy and make me feel my best. Because if you notice that after you leave a friend and maybe you're a little bit tired or drained or you're just like, "Whoa" when you left them, like, it's okay to start, like, phasing out people and love them from afar.

Jay Shetty 43:43 Yeah. I couldn't agree more with that. I saw this tweet that said, "My circle has shrunk in size, but increased in value." And, and I think that that's the mindset that you're sharing. Then I think that's something people struggle with. I think we feel guilty because we feel like we're leaving friends behind, or we feel bad because we feel people are gonna think we're better than them. Like, when you move on from a group, you're often worried about the perception that those group of people are gonna think, "Oh, Jay or Marianna think that they're better." And it's like, well, you're not leaving 'cause you think you're better. You're leaving 'cause you want to be better, and you want to grow. I- how d- how have you kind of outgrown groups, or do you feel you've generally had a group that's grown with you, but ... or have you had to let go

Jay Shetty 44:28 of-

Marianna Hewitt 44:28 Yeah

Jay Shetty 44:28 ... friendships, relationships, and things like that?

Marianna Hewitt 44:30 I have a core, like, five people who have been with me for, like, over a decade.

Jay Shetty 44:34 That's, that's impressive.

Marianna Hewitt 44:35 So these are like [laughs] these are constants in my life.

Jay Shetty 44:36 Yeah.

Marianna Hewitt 44:36 Like Audrey, we met in 2006, so that's, like, 16 years ago.

Jay Shetty 44:40 Wow.

Marianna Hewitt 44:41 So we've been friends for a very long time. So it's like I have this core group of people who are very core to who I am. They know me in my personal life. This is who I wanna spend my time with. Like, it's not about content or online or anything, it's just like, who do I wanna sit on my couch with, like, scroll on my phone or watch TV or just hang out with? And those people are really important to me. I have a lot of acquaintances and people that we know just from work and being around people, and I just know, like, I don't have to be overly close with a lot of people, and that's okay. And I think a lesson that I learned now in my 30s was that a smaller circle is fine. In my 20s, I think you move to Los Angeles, you wanna make all these friends, you wanna be around all these people, and then I'm like, "Wait, I don't feel great when I'm around them. I don't feel like myself. I feel like I'm trying to have to be someone I'm not or prove to them that I'm something", and I don't wanna do those things. Like, I wanna be truly who I am authentically, and as I got into my 30s, I realized it's okay that my circle is smaller. Like, it's okay to have these people who I know love me and are there for me no matter what, and then everyone else is a bonus.

Jay Shetty 45:39 Yeah. Absolutely. And I love that you did that. Like, I think if we started seeing our relationships as degrees of connection as opposed to, like, friends and not friends-

Marianna Hewitt 45:47 Yeah

Jay Shetty 45:47 ... it becomes a lot easier to know how much time and how much energy to give someone. We all know that staying active and eating well are key to a long, healthy life, but what if the real secret isn't just personal discipline, but the people we surround ourselves with? Research shows our social circles shape our habits more than we think. Dan Buettner, National Geographic fellow, bestselling author, and founder of the Blue Zones, has spent years studying the world's longest living communities. He's here to share how connection, competition, and collaboration can shape our wellbeing. Let's listen in.

Speaker 46:28 I actually have one of my little social groups from Los Angeles here. Well, I used to live here. Um, I still have four people, and I hardly know... I, I've seen

Speaker 46:36 them once in my life, but every day we email each other our weight, and it kind of keeps us, uh, doing it. We, we- we're accountable to somebody, and every one of us, our weight has gone down a little bit over the last decade or so. And for the average American male, in 10 years, you're- you can expect to gain an extra 10 years.

Jay Shetty 46:53 Mm.

Speaker 46:54 So even among my little focus group, we've been... it's worked really quite well.

Jay Shetty 46:57 Competition and collaboration together are really fascinating.

Speaker 47:00 Really, yeah.

Jay Shetty 47:01 Yeah.

Speaker 47:01 Powerful.

Jay Shetty 47:02 Yeah. It's why pickleball works for me. It's, it's also why I think I have so many people I know do 10,000 step challenges within their family, and most of those people are walking way over 10,000 steps simply because they're trying to beat someone in their family, and then everyone's average is growing up. And so I think that making something competitive and collaborative is, is the genius of the social network, the fitness, the fun in life. Like, so much of it comes from that, and I think we've lost that.

Speaker 47:30 One of the strategies we deploy in our cities, it, it's an idea we took from Okinawa, uh, the notion of a moai, a committed social circle. And we'll get 4 or 500 people to show up to a gym. Uh, we'll have them circle up according to what neighborhood they live in. We ask them a bunch of questions about, um, you know, are they religious, what their favorite food is, what they listen for music, and have them look at each other as these questions are being answered. And then we have them self-select in groups of five people, and a lot of these people are completely lonely. And once they self-select in these clusters, we call them moais, we have them give themselves a name, and then we organize them around walking together. This... Everybody can walk together. And then we offer a little prize at the end of 10 weeks. What happens during that 10 weeks is not only are these people walking a lot more than they normally would, they're creating a social network or a social circle-

Jay Shetty 48:24 Mm-hmm

Speaker 48:24 ... around walking that, that, uh, in many cases, we know about 60% are still around four years later.

Jay Shetty 48:31 Mm.

Speaker 48:31 So as you were starting to, to latch onto, it's the power of, uh, collaboration, but creating a social circle around a healthy behavior, that's what's gonna last, and that's what's gonna matter over time.

Jay Shetty 48:44 Absolutely. I wanted to quickly jump back to diet and food, because there's this great technique that you have, and you meth- mentioned, and this was popular in

Jay Shetty 48:54 parts of India that were teaching it from this perspective as well, that the method you spoke about was being eight-Out of ten full when you're eating. And when we were trained about that, when we'd hear about it from a, from an Eastern or Vedic perspective, the idea of how breath is part of feeling full, and so food is not the only thing that your stomach is full on, was how I was introduced to that idea of being seven-tenths full or eight-tenths full, and the rest would be covered by breath. Of course, there's water as well. Walk us through that idea of how we can all stop eating at eight-tenths full, because I think most of us wait till ten-

Speaker 49:28 Yeah

Jay Shetty 49:28 ... ten or twelve tenths.

Speaker 49:30 Ten eighths. Yeah. [laughs]

Jay Shetty 49:30 Yeah, ten eighths. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 49:32 Yeah. So, so it, it has its roots in, uh, Confucius. The Okinawans have this saying, "Hara hachi bu," which is a reminder to stop eating when their stomachs are eighty percent full, and they'll say that like a prayer be-before a meal. So instead of saying a grace or whatever, that it's a reminder. I believe, though, much of it is, is actually done, uh, at the table. They, they tend to pre-plate their foods and put the leftovers away at the, uh, beginning of the meal instead of the end when you-

Jay Shetty 50:01 Mm

Speaker 50:01 ... you might be mindlessly eating. They don't have a TV, so they're not mindlessly eating to their favorite television show. They're, they're sitting around with friends, slowing the meal down. It takes about twenty minutes from the full feeling to travel from your belly to your brain, and if you're wolfing your food down, if you're not breathing, like you say, not drinking water, uh, there's a pretty good chance you're gonna overeat before you know it.

Jay Shetty 50:24 Building a business with your friends sounds like a dream, right? But as success grows, so do the challenges. How do you protect those relationships while navigating the pressures of making tough decisions, leading with clarity, and scaling a company? To shed light on this, we have Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. He's built one of the most recognizable brands in the world while staying grounded in the relationships that started it all. Let's hear his insights. I'm intrigued. You said something there that really stood out to me. You said that the happiest thing and the best thing about being successful is that you get to choose the people you worked

Jay Shetty 51:03 with. You obviously built this with friends.

Speaker 51:06 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 51:06 And that's how it started. It started in a place of being around people you love with. What was the biggest point of challenge in building something with people you love as you grow it, and what is it that you experienced, and what was the biggest lesson that you took away that actually kept it going? Because I can imagine, as you're describing highs and lows, all of this change for sixteen years, but here you are still building it together.

Speaker 51:32 Think about how many stories you heard of founders. It's like a band. They come together, and then eventually the band breaks up, and people don't stay together. They resent each other. Maybe things end very ugly. It's like a band except, like, it becomes so much bigger than the band because it's not just the three of you. Imagine a band that starts three people and ends as three thousand people, and that amount of pressure, the amount of spotlight, the money, the changes in, like, people's status and positioning, it can do a lot to break people up. But also, unlike a band where maybe-- not to say you just have to agree on, like, where you perform and what you sing, with a company, you have to agree on, like, who we're gonna hire, what we're gonna call, what markets we're gonna go into, what's the prioritization, like, who we're gonna raise money for. I can go down the list of, like, the thousands of things you have to agree to. And with Joe, Nate, and I, I often say it's really good to start a company with friends. Not everyone has friends to start a company with, but you want that reservoir of goodwill. And we made a decision. The decision was that no one decision is gonna supersede our friendship and our relationship, that we're never gonna have-- we'll debate, we'll argue, but we'll never allow a situation where winning an argument is the most important thing. Because you think about a company as a hundred thousand decisions, it could also be a hundred thousand arguments. And if you get stuck on the first debate or you, like, somebody won the debate, okay, great. You have ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine more things to discuss. And so the lesson I learned is... I mean, first of all, Jay, I was lucky. And a lot of people, when I say I was lucky, they think, "Oh, you were at the right place at the right time with the right idea." And I say, "Well, maybe," but there's something I was much luckier about. And what I was most lucky about, w-what, what made me most fortunate was I met Joe and Nate, that we had this unbelievable chemistry. One time, we had to do, like, some personality test. It was like one of those core wheels, and we took this, like, personality test to see about our chemistry, and they plotted our, like, personalities, and they formed a perfect equilateral triangle. Not always you're gonna find people that are perfect complements to you. I'd say a couple things. Number one, you wanna have a team with people that you are friends with or could see yourself becoming friends with, that you have a deep love and respect for, that you're gonna probably spend more time with your co-founders than your spouse or your family if it goes well. If it doesn't go well, then maybe not, but that's the best-case scenario. That people that have shared values because you can debate anything so long as you're trying to climb the same mountain in the same belief system. If you have different values, eventually those are gonna become irreconcilable conflicts. But you probably also want complementary skills. The worst case is people with different values and same skills, right? We do the same job, we step in each other's toes, and we're trying to go in a different direction. And so I think-- and then I think the final thing is just this mutual love and respect and never losing sight. You know, one of the things I tried to make sure of is, like, even as CEO, I wanted to try to make sure that, like, Joe and Nate, you know, were included in things, and f- we-- I wanted to always make sure that people referred to us together. We thought of us as a, uh, as a, as a unit. When we-- when I, like, went public, you write a founder's letter, and a lot of people write the letter, and they just sign the name of the CEO. I made sure that it was from all of us and was representing all of us. I feel like they are the heart and the soul of the company. And it's like, you know, parents. Like, you know, not every child has the fortune to have multiple parents. Not every company has the fortune to have multiple founders. But if they're together, they're not fighting, they have a mutual love and respect for one another, that's gonna permeate the company, just like it permeates the health of a child. And Joe and I and I [chuckles] kind of thought of ourselves as parents and the company as a child. I'd never have had kids, but, you know, there's something about that. And I think who you are in that relationship

Speaker 55:19 permeates every single thing. If the founders fight, the employees fight. If they have o- respect from one another, that is gonna be a role m- a model that other people throughout the organization are gonna copy, and that's what I've learned from that.

Jay Shetty 55:31 We all crave a sense of security, not just physically, but emotionally. One of the greatest forms of protection comes from knowing that the people around us truly see us, understand us, and have our backs. But as life gets busier, careers grow, and challenges arise, friendships often take a backseat. How do we make sure we don't lose those connections along the way? Actress and entrepreneur Lala Anthony has built an incredible career while staying deeply connected to her inner circle. She shares her perspective on maintaining meaningful friendships through every season of life. Let's hear her perspective. Last time you came, we were tracking your whole career journey. Like, you've done ... You've hustled, you've worked hard, you've done so much to get to where you are today, and I wanna get to that. But for me,

Jay Shetty 56:21 as I've been on this journey, I've been reflecting on what's changed over time-

Speaker 56:25 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 56:26 ... as my external situation's changed, and what makes me feel protected, and you used that word protection. And I've realized that, of course, we have to have our internal protection of-

Speaker 56:35 Right

Jay Shetty 56:35 ... how we feel about ourselves, our confidence, our own practices, but I've found that the thing that makes me feel the most protected is knowing the people around me who really know me-

Speaker 56:46 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 56:46 ... and how much closer we get through that process.

Speaker 56:50 Right.

Jay Shetty 56:50 Like, I have to take so much strength in the fact that the people around me, not only do they have my back, but they actually know me and understand me at a core.

Speaker 56:59 I feel that way, too.

Jay Shetty 56:59 And I kind of take a lot of energy from that.

Speaker 57:00 Yeah.

Jay Shetty 57:00 Do you do the same?

Speaker 57:01 I, I take so much energy from that. I'm like, the people who know, they know. The people that I need to depend on, they're always there. I'm blessed to have an amazing family, amazing group of friends that are like ride or die that I know are there no matter what, and it's something that I don't take lightly. So it's not about proving to the world anything. Like, if my core group gets it, knows me inside and out, knows my ups, knows my downs, and are there for me, that's the energy I pull from as well.

Jay Shetty 57:28 I want to talk to you about friendship. I think a lot of people feel quite, even when you're close friends-

Speaker 57:33 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 57:34 ... and I'm sure you've felt this, it's hard to open up about-

Speaker 57:37 Mm-hmm

Jay Shetty 57:37 ... things that are going wrong in your life. And I think a lot of people who are listening or watching, that's something that they can relate to, where it's like I have my friends, but I don't know how to tell them-

Speaker 57:44 Right

Jay Shetty 57:45 ... that I'm going through this, or I know they'd care about me, but I don't want them to feel sorry for me.

Speaker 57:49 Yeah, that's it, too.

Jay Shetty 57:50 Or, or maybe they're going through so much stuff that-

Speaker 57:52 Yeah

Jay Shetty 57:52 ... I don't want to put my stuff on them.

Speaker 57:54 Right.

Jay Shetty 57:54 How have you managed to keep strong relationships as you've grown in life, as you've built your career? How have you managed to keep that core instead of losing it as you get more busy?

Speaker 58:06 Yeah. I think that my friendships have gotten even stronger because of those moments. I don't base my friendships off of, you know, this person has only been around when everything's been great, or we only talk about sunshine and flowers and cupcakes. Like, friends have to be there through everything, and you have to be able to be okay with being raw and real with people that you consider your friend, and don't throw that word around lightly. If you're saying, "This is my friend. This is my go-to," you should be able to share whatever's happening in your life, whether it's good or bad, and those are the things that bond you. You know, through those... I remember the friends that were there for me when I was going through my divorce, when I was publicly, you know, going through what I was going through as a result of what happened in my marriage. Like, I remember my friends that were there. I remember when my son was really young and had to have surgery, and who was there in that moment. Like, I remember all of that, and those were the strengthening moments of our friendship. Now, the fun stuff is great, too.

Jay Shetty 59:00 [laughs]

Speaker 59:00 I remember my friends who've been on vacation with me and got drunk and had a great time, but it's a balance. You know, the real friendships had a mix of all of that stuff, because that's what life is. Life is not always just fun and games. Life is up and down and up and down. That, that's, that's what life is.

Jay Shetty 59:18 Adult friendships aren't just about who's been around the longest. They're about trust and the people who truly show up, who understand you and grow with you. If there's one thing these conversations make clear, it's that strong friendships don't just happen. They take honesty, effort, and the courage to be vulnerable. And in a world that often pulls us in so many different directions, prioritizing connection isn't just important, it's essential. I hope this episode gave you a fresh perspective on what it takes to build and maintain meaningful connections. If something resonated with you, share it with a friend who needs to hear it. I'll see you next time on On Purpose. Remember, I'm forever in your corner and always rooting for you. Hey, everyone. If you loved that conversation, go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist, Lori Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space right now, you won't want to miss this conversation.

Speaker 1:00:26 If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely