Exceptional Admins | A Podcast for Assistants
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Exceptional Admins | A Podcast for Assistants
p.s. Cultivating Meaningful Friendships (E: 116)
SUMMARY:
An insightful episode that covers the psychology and action one can take to invite and foster healthy relationships.
INTENTION:
To offer the listener candor on an emotional and special topic.
EXCERPT:
"Category of connections: relationships, friendships, and besties." Hilani
NEWSLETTER:
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IN THIS EPISODE:
Indeed Article
Gallup Article
DISCOVER:
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Outreach: LinkedIn Community
Reading: Book Page
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DEVELOPMENT:
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The administrative profession holds both unique and unexpected demands each day, making each real unique, much like your thumbprint. Welcome to another PS episode. In each episode, we explore a single topic of interest that is on the minds of so many aspiring professionals my mission as a dedicated partner to busy executives and a career architect to administrative individuals. I bring in each episode unparalleled insights into the challenges, aspirations and strategies that gives permission to career focused individuals to achieve their next level of success. These permission slip episodes are unique moments for you to reflect and create a plan that helps you continue to learn and thrive on the job each day. Enjoy, hello everyone, and welcome to a PS episode.
Speaker 1:I am actually coming right off of the energy of the episode that just released two weeks ago with my guest Erica Shepard. I have had on my heart and my mind to talk about work friendships for quite a while and because it came up so much during that conversation and if this is your first time joining us here on the show, go listen to that one first before you take in this one. If you can't and this is better for you based on duration go ahead and listen to this one. Then go listen to that one I want to talk about friendships at work, and I want to talk about it because it can often be really beautiful and it can often be painful, and I want to cover a little bit of that muck and how we can address some of these things, both the good and not so good. My first declaration is we were absolutely built for connection and inside of that, one of the beautiful things that Erica mentioned was an acronym called LAPS, l-a-p-s Love, acceptance, purpose and Safety and when she was talking about it I was like all right, I've got to finally do this friendships episode because of that letter A and the acceptance piece. Inside acceptance and I'm coming to you vulnerable, which I've offered a ton of wisdom, which I do on the show with Erica episode with Erica is I spent a good period of my 30s not with strong connections, and I'll use that word connections, as many of my listeners know, I'm all about the vocabulary because I needed to work on me.
Speaker 1:I needed to work on the patterns that I had created from my childhood of having unhealthy friendships, and so I also have a few stories for you today which will be spilling a tiny bit of tea on what it was that really put it in the forefront that I've got to change how I connect with people so I have healthier relationships, because I was using a lot of coping skills to have unhealthy friendships. And what I mean by unhealthy what it was for me is shit talking. No positive encouragement I was always the positive encourager. I actually had a friend tell me once Halani, you're just too extra for me, and I thought what the hell am I having this friendship when someone thinks that about me and wants to tell me that in a way that's not positive, like, wow, I love your extra energy, I love the extra-ness that you want to challenge things, like we're good for each other. And it was also that and building out little micro moments like that through the years where I thought what the fuck am I doing? Why do I continue to have these friendships and these people that don't love me for me in my life?
Speaker 1:I have another story where I was going to an event here in Denver and it was when I was an executive assistant and there was another EA just around the corner. We carpooled to this particular event and I'd never met her before. We were on this email thread for all those that were going to this meeting and I said, hey, I'll pick you up and I'll bring you back, because this is my way home and you can get to your car. Looking to connect with people. Within 60 seconds of getting in my car, she starts bitching about her coworkers. I don't understand why they're ignoring me. And I thought, oh my gosh, what have I done? I have now allowed into my space a woman who is looking to use our time together to complain about other things, and I carried on. I drove and we got there. She did it again. She was judging the women at the table for the meeting that we went to. Did you see that one? And I thought this is definitely not going to be a connection that's going to serve both of us long term.
Speaker 1:So we never really talked after that, but it was having this awareness which came up in Erica's episode, that real awareness and wanting to accept that some of the relationships we have are not serving us, and so I want to give some new vocabulary here as we kind of get more into my vision about how I want to share this information. And I actually pulled up I'm going to go swap the screen. I pulled up two articles. One was from Gallup, in the title and this will be in the show notes the increasing importance of a best friend at work. I actually froze up. I thought best friend at work that's very strong language, best friend. I didn't even read the article, I skimmed it and then I pulled up another one which, believe it or not, made 15 rules to follow for friendships at work.
Speaker 1:So, going back, I want to say three things Tears or, I should say, categories. We have relationships at work, we have friendships at work and in our life we have besties, or I should say singular, a best friend, gosh, if you have a lot of besties that know all of your very private business and they're healthy for you. I think that that is rare these days and so celebrate that when we talk about having friendships at work, there's no criteria of how much we share of ourself. There's no criteria of how much we reserve to share. And I want to point out a quick story.
Speaker 1:I got shit on by a friend that I totally befriended and wanted to be besties with early in my career and she turned on me and she knew private stuff about me that I remember literally physically being scared. What is she going to tell people about me? That was like one of many stories leading into. Some day. It's going to have to shift Some day. The pattern of accepting these people in my life has got to stop. But I wasn't mature in my love for myself enough then to start that pivot until much later in my 30s. So that was one of the big things, and I've heard this story often from some of the admins that have chosen to be vulnerable with me on calls Like I can't make connections at work and I said well, what is the criteria for that connection?
Speaker 1:How much do you want to share yourself? And here's the biggest thing that so many of you are going to understand Well, if I don't talk about my problems or share things, I'm being inauthentic. So think about that that ultimately, subscribing to that psychology means you need to tell anyone. You meet a person in the grocery store, your things issues. Goodness, if you just met someone in an aisle at the grocery store, are you instantly going to be friends because you're telling them your life? No, you choose to probably not even talk to them. But there are these levels of intimacy. We choose to open up for the different types of people. And if we go back to the lapse LAPS that Erica wonderfully gave us. That last S is for safety, and so I have this evaluation period where I share parts of myself, but I am not so disclosing of a ton of information anymore in the beginning, because I need to know can I love you and can you accept and love me the way that I am today, which sometimes is funny, positively challenging, maybe quiet?
Speaker 1:I will say no to a request for a happy hour, which historically would be like I don't want to miss out because of the acceptance. I'm going to tell you a cute rule that I use with my kids. When my oldest almost 19, he'll be 19 when this episode goes live I would categorize friends. Did you make any friends today? Elementary school, right? So there's no reason to get into the definitions. There are tiny people and I'm like do you see that this could be a sleepover friend or a school friend? He's like I don't know yet, mom, but I'm gonna think about that. And the reason why sleepover is they come into our private home. Will they be respectful when they're here? What is that intimate in your bedroom and playing with our family, whereas a friend that you play with at recess? And that's where the relationship, that's as far as the relationship goes. And so I thought about that before coming on here as I sat and wrote a ton of notes, frantically being inspired by my wonderful chat with Erica, that tiered system of how intimate we get with people.
Speaker 1:And this goes to the next thing, what I was just mentioning about being inauthentic. You know, not everybody needs to know your business, and if you're talking also about someone else, or the woman that got in my car, I'm like, oh my god, she's totally gonna talk shit about me. I'm gonna safely protect myself and say very little in this person's presence Because I can't trust that anything I share is protected and safe. And especially, it was a brand new relationship. But I've heard from some people that they will just open Pandora's box because they quote, want to be their authentic self, and I'm like, shouldn't we earn some of that intimacy with one another, not sharing so much? And then the excuse me, the dark side of sharing too much, and I shared vulnerably that someone turned on me. There's a huge risk for that.
Speaker 1:And then here's the other thing if it's an unhealthy relationship, I continually find this my personal opinion that you say, gosh, I haven't heard from them in a while. Are they mad at me? We used psychology like that in 12th grade and under. If we're adults wondering that, are we in a healthy relationship? I have. Am excited to declare here that in my world of friendships we go weeks without connecting. We all have really great things that we're working on and I have not said in at least a decade and a half is that person mad at me. And that is very peaceful and refreshing.
Speaker 1:And because I would have those relationships where I would wonder it in the trigger or I should say the prompt of knowing that it wasn't healthy was because they're shit talkers and I would surround myself by those that had a lot of negative things to say and not a lot of positive, and so this meant a lot to me, even if it only touches the heart of one person. Listening as we get older and you know the statement goes less fucks to give. That's probably what this is. But I give and love so much that I ultimately believed that I had something unique to share for all of you to hear, because as you protect your body, you protect your heart, you protect your career success I mean they say it for entrepreneurs you'll be as successful as those you surround yourself with. So if I'm gonna have, as an entrepreneur one, the employees that I hire right, leah lifts me up all the time.
Speaker 1:We laugh really healthy connection with her. We're built for connection and there's different categories of connections relationships at work. How much do they need to know about you? Are they someone that's going to help you with innovation, give you support when you need it? And then I think we don't have enough the encouragement. Both you can do this and you need to be challenged. May I challenge? Do I have your permission to challenge you? And you know it comes from a really great place. So I wanna spotlight during this time that the healthy connections are great for your mind, absolutely great for your body and absolutely your health, which we covered with Erica, who's a nurse practitioner who spent time in a psych ward, and she just also talked about perfectionist, which is a loaded word right, which I've said on so many episodes.
Speaker 1:I'm a recovering perfectionist, which applies absolutely to this, very much to this with my guest Beth. I'm a recovering people pleaser. That was one of the ingredients that kept putting me in relationships. Going back to the beauty of Erica's work as a nurse practitioner, that acceptance wasn't accepted by my mother. My parents divorced when I was five and he's real piece of work. I needed to be accepted somewhere, so I gave up what was really comfortable and right for my body and my heart to just be accepted, even if it was a shitty relationship. That's not healthy.
Speaker 1:So I say here at the end think about what you and your heart need and if you want to, here's a tip start to put a gap between you and these unhealthy relationships. Make a declaration and say I'm doing a lot of me work right now and this is a huge prompt, that's your know. If they invite you somewhere, that's your. Hey, I've got to go. I've got some personal things I'm working on. When they start shit talking and negative, you're absorbing that negativity into your own world. If they don't honor that, that's a huge, great sign that that relationship may not be healthy for you.
Speaker 1:So thank you for listening. Thanks for hitting play. I hope you got something out of this and, if so, I would be grateful if you shared it with someone who could also benefit from this information. Thanks for hitting play and spending some time with me. If this episode inspired you or provided valuable insights, please share it with your network and consider leaving a review. Your career journey is elevated each time you absorb new information. Set aside three minutes this week to explore a library of resources which includes many articles, fun assessments and free guides. Be sure to subscribe to our Friday newsletters so you never miss details for a new webinar or resource. Remember you're the reason you get up every day and work as hard as you do. Do things for you, your executive and your organization, and remember it's all worth it.
