Focus on self-care. Release your D.O.S.E.! Exercise, dance in front of the mirror, take a hot bath, call someone, go get a juice, meditate, meet up with other friends. This is YOUR time now—create your own beautiful moment.
Release all expectations. When you have expectations, you’re going to feel resentful and will experience FOBLO. Expectations are resentments waiting to happen. Also, think about what level in the Four Stages of Community you’re in with this friend. If someone in your Inner Core Community makes you feel FOBLO regularly, it’s time to think about whether this person should be in your Inner Core. You should feel comfortable enough to call them and honestly ask, “Hey, was there a reason I wasn’t invited?” If it’s anyone from your Exploratory, Participatory, or Outer Core Community who hasn’t invited you, you shouldn’t have any expectations to be invited.
Throw your own dinner party or event! A fellow Community Architect, Alison, and I always joke around about this: We create community for two reasons—to connect the world and so we’re not left out! Hosts don’t feel FOBLO by definition. So create your own experience and be courageously inclusive of even those who didn’t include you. Your world will open up.
Use FOBLO as a lesson. Maybe you didn’t realize how much this friend meant to you, and this feeling is a clue that you want to get closer. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t feel FOBLO in the first place! Use this experience to inspire you to reach out in the future and connect more meaningfully.
When you overcome FOBLO, you will experience JOMO—Joy of Missing Out. You’re happy and content to be exactly where you are.
Also, sometimes the best way to get over feeling FOBLO is to make others feel welcomed and included. Go out of your way to make an experience better. Don’t just show up, show up with an FYF attitude. Go back to Chapter 7 and refresh yourself on the things you can do to enhance any experience! Bring food and playful gifts!
The Friendship Cycle
As someone who is naturally nostalgic, I’ve had to learn the beauty of the fact that all friendships evolve. My nostalgia has led me to some heartache about the way friendships have changed, but as I studied it in society and in my life and my friends’ lives, I observed five phases that most friendships cycle through—what I call the Friendship Cycle. The goal is for you to know that you’re not alone in feeling all these things and that friendships naturally go through life cycles. Not every friendship goes through every stage, and that’s fine too.
Gestation
To even get to the Gestation phase, you want to feel an Equal Energy Exchange. It exists in a brand-new relationship that you’re excited about and actively want to invest in. These friendships are rare, so gut-check here. Don’t go through this Friendship Cycle with just anyone. It takes a lot of emotional energy (and life is busy with family, school, work, kids, etc.), so choose wisely! This stage is when you’ve met a new friend who aligns with your values and interests, really sees you for who you are, and fills up your tank. You’re shiny-eyed and everything is rosy and fun and exciting and new! You have a new friend!
The Friendship Cycle
Frustration
This is the phase where we get past our “best behavior” and begin forming real opinions about our new friend and start establishing our authentic voice in the relationship. Maybe you get into an argument about political beliefs. You see something about your new friend that rubs you the wrong way. Know that this is natural!! We lose a little excitement at this phase and are ready to challenge each other to establish the boundaries of our relationship. Unless we take the time and explore each other’s Life Languages, it can sometimes end the friendship. Our Red Egos, which are fearful and competitive, can take over and we start hanging out with the Mean Girls, judging and comparing ourselves to our new friend. It takes patience, curiosity, communication, vulnerability, courage, and intention to get through this phase and recognize the beauty and rarity of this magical friendship. Don’t run away. Get curious, Go IN, and do the work to gently go through your own stuff. If this person filled up your Energy Tank and you felt an authentic connection, trust your animal instinct and don’t throw in the towel too easily.
The best antidote for frustration and conflict is acknowledgment. Let your Red Ego go and acknowledge your friend’s feelings by first empathizing with what they’re experiencing and then share your feelings vulnerably. We’re all learning and growing! Challenge each other to look at the present and the future. Don’t reread text messages from the past—in fact, don’t use texting for a sensitive subject. Not only is tone lost in texting, but then you have a written record of how you are feeling just in that moment, which may change right after you hit send. Talk to your friend human to human!
Note: In rare cases, we can skip the Frustration phase and go straight to Cooperation!
Cooperation
This sounds good, right? It is! It’s when we take real time to get to know each other and understand, respect, and embrace our differences. We’ve successfully moved through the Frustration phase and can start trusting each other. We are energized by the friendship and our joy is greater than in the Gestation period because we’ve been through conflict and come out on the other side. We start spending more time together and feel an Equal Energy Exchange again. This is the stage of bonding, adventures, and deeper satisfaction.
Creation
This phase is magic!
It’s our highest-energy phase. We feel creative energy in our trust and respect for one another. We’re hanging out with our Green Egos and Soul Sisters and are ready to take on the world. This phase moves beyond the fun of hanging out. When you create something with a deep, true friend with whom you’ve overcome conflict successfully, the rewards fill your life. Whatever you’ve heard about not creating or being in business with friends is silly and a thing of the past. No matter what, we’re going to evolve anyway, so why not create stuff together? Life is far more interesting and exciting when you do! That said, the Creation phase is always trial and error. Sometimes you will work seamlessly together, and other times the Frustration phase recurs more often than what you’re comfortable with. Communication and acknowledgment will always help you through this.
Evolution
As with everything in life, nothing stays the same. All communities and relationships evolve and change. When you sense it happening, rather than thinking, “This isn’t what it used to be,” consider this: It’s never supposed to be what “it used to be”! Everything evolves, including communities and relationships, and it’s a beautiful thing! Let’s learn to embrace that!
Our summer intern, Jenny, asked me, “How do I know when it’s time to move on from a friendship?” We talked for a while, and I told her what has worked for me. I check in with my Personal Core Values and ask if the friendship is continuing to align with them, and I apply the 80/20 rule. If 80 percent of the time you spend together feels like an Equal Energy Exchange and your tank is filled up, then keep investing in this relationship.
When I went deeper with Jenny, I learned that she also compared herself to her friend and felt neglected and not prioritized by her. She was still in the Frustration phase of her Friendship Cycle. Recognize what phase of your relationship you’re in! It’s on you to get curious as to why you’re feeling negatively in the first place and have the courage to talk about it with your friend in person.
Some friendships will evolve together beautifully and bring you closer together and some will naturally drift apart. I used to get really sad when friends evolved in different directions, and mourning is a natural thing for us sensitive humans. But now I focus on gratitude for the time we had together and am excited for our respective journeys, whatever direction they take! They may even take you back to the Gestation phase with the same friend, later on. But there will also be someone new you can do this with. Ideally, we go around and around the Friendship Cycle all our lives.
Ultimately, when
you go through the Friendship Cycle, you will feel a deeper sense of belonging with your friend and community.
Poor Soil for Growth: Communicating Through Screens
If you’ve noticed a theme I return to, it’s that screens are not always the best communication tool. When we communicate this way, we don’t have the full picture. We don’t know the person’s emotional state, where they are, and how they’re receiving our texts. What if someone you’re texting from a taxi is caught in a hurricane in Florida? When we communicate in person, or at least by voice, we can feel immediate energetic reactions. Communicating through screens where we can’t see each other limits understanding and empathy. If you are dealing with a conflict by text and email, acknowledge that you’re bringing a whole new set of challenges to the issue.
If you must proceed through texting, take these things into account:
• When and where your friend is when sending you a message.
• Whether your words are properly translating your authentic energy and how you actually feel. Take your time, reread, and breathe before you press send on a text message!
• Whether your energy is organized or disorganized based on your physical state. (Are you hungry? Tired? Stressed? Overcommitted? Lost?)
• If someone is from another city/state/country and may be receiving your words through their own unique filter and not fully understanding you.
Eradicating Gossip
When we gossip, it feels crappy on all sides. So why do we do it? And better question yet, why do we love it?
According to anthropologists, gossip has been a way for us to bond with others throughout human history and is sometimes used as a tool to isolate those who aren’t contributing to the greater whole.According to a study by social psychologist Laurent Bègue, about 60 percent of conversations between adults are about someone who isn’t present, most often passing judgment.
There are moments when sharing frustrations about a friend or colleague with one or two confidantes can offer a perspective on how to deal with someone you care about. It can get your thoughts out of your own head and resolve the issue. When we’re trying to find a solution or gain perspective on how to handle another friend’s frustrating or bad behavior, I call it Positive Gossip.
When we feel competitive, threatened, envious, sad, hurt, or frustrated by another human or community, Negative Gossip is often what we turn to. Our Red Egos and Mean Girls take over. I’ve been the victim of Negative Gossip, as well as the aggressor when I was fearful, competitive, and wanting to feel better about myself. In each case, it impacted my health, productivity, and happiness. Negative Gossip can lead to mistrust, which can lead to isolation, which can lead to physical and emotional unhappiness. It’s the gateway to bullying.
The ripple effect from Negative Gossip is real. It causes emotional and physical pain, sometimes for life.
Try a week with NO GOSSIP and see how it makes you feel. When your friends start talking negatively about someone, either walk away, or just say, “I’m trying not to gossip anymore. Can we talk about something else?”
When you participate in it, you join a group of people who don’t feel true belonging elsewhere. People who gossip want to prove they are worthy by denigrating others. It doesn’t work.
My brother-in-law Andrew has a policy in his employee manual that says, “NO GOSSIPING. We are calling you to your higher self and have zero tolerance for gossiping. If you have a problem with someone, take a moment, think about what you want to say, and go and speak directly with them. If it’s serious, document it and speak with me.”
Reality check: Sometimes we can’t help ourselves and want to get stuff off our chest! So if you do find yourself gossiping, here’s what to do: Turn judgment into curiosity. Start with a positive statement about the person and follow it with a question that starts with “I wonder why . . .”
For example, instead of saying, “She’s the worst. I can’t stand working with her because she takes all the credit,” try, “She’s so smart and hardworking. I wonder why being a team player is hard for her?” The next step is to ask yourself, “I wonder why I’m so triggered by her?”
Let’s get into each other’s backpacks!
If we can turn a Judgment (Mean Girl Moment) into Curiosity (Soul Sister Moment), we will undoubtedly be more empathetic and kind. It may be less juicy than dramatically telling a story, but it physically and emotionally feels better for you afterward and creates an environment of kindness, trust, and possibility instead of fear and judgment. And don’t forget, the more you gossip, the more likely that you’ll be a target of gossip too! If we can’t avoid it, let’s at least start shifting the way we gossip. And once you start putting kindness first and leave the fear behind, the energy you invested in Negative Gossip can be focused on self-development instead. You won’t need to put others down in order to feel good. And ultimately, getting along is way more fun!
Conflict is unavoidable. If we can learn to look at conflict as an opportunity to grow and deepen our connection to others, we will learn to respect these moments of discomfort and stare them down courageously and with an open ear. No one wants to be the victim of gossip, and it never feels good when we put down our friends. Fear, Conflict, and Empathy are closely tied.
Being gently aware of our triggers, fears, and sensitivities will help us move through any moments of frustration and misunderstanding into a space of belonging and connection.
Keep courageously participating in life. It’s way more fun.
Chapter 9
Belonging and Aging
Live It Up as a Master Citizen
The feeling of looking at ourselves in the mirror and not recognizing the young person we know is still in there can be disorienting, no matter how hard we prepare for this chapter in our lives. For a host of reasons, including the media glorification of youth and what feels like the limitations of our changing bodies, we are often traumatized by the experience, begin to lose our FYF attitude, and start imposing boundaries on ourselves. While there are many books on aging gracefully and aging as a spiritual practice, it’s still hard! Let’s just say I’ve been dyeing my hair since I started going gray at twenty-two.
We go from having a rich social life with school friends, work friends, and parent friends, to the kids moving away, friends moving away or dying, and often the decision to retire away from where we once lived.
We tell ourselves how hard it is to start over and rationalize our way out of socialization. Our self-imposed boundaries eventually lead to social isolation—the deadliest part of aging. Also, millions of Baby Boomers have not saved enough for retirement, and by 2030, one in four Americans will be above the age of 65. Many will hide from the shame of going from a leadership role to unemployment and food stamps and isolate themselves. As you age, it’s more important than ever to find and keep your people around you!
My dear friend John, who founded Whole Foods Market and has a team of 90,000 employees and has had a loyal group of friends for more than thirty years, recently said to me: “We are ALL going to go through this process of aging—heck, it’s happening to me too! The more we use this knowledge and the inevitability of death to our advantage, the less inclined we will be to take the safe and selfish route, and the more we will want to create together, deepen our relationships, share our resources, and spread love.”
“Life is a grand adventure, and you can’t go at it alone. Your community will give you wings to create fearlessly.”
My friend Dr. Deb is a physician in her early sixties and is happily married with three amazing kids. She went from having a blond bob her entire medical career to one day deciding, in her fifties, to dye her hair hot pink and wear it in multiple braids. She also started wearing sparkly jumpsuits with platform boots. Most of her friends and family initially thought she was having a midlife crisis. But she told them she was tired and bored with living the life s
he was “supposed” to live. “When you’re old, you’re expected to cut your hair short, wear conservative clothes, go to museums and movies, play cards and golf, read about politics, and watch the news. You’re expected to be a spectator of life, not a participant. If this makes you happy, great! But if you long for more and want to continue participating in this wild world and in this human form, have the courage to say the heck with what you’re supposed to do!”
Explore courageously at every phase!
With courage, vulnerability, and an intention to live with maniacal authenticity, Dr. Deb threw herself into the work of finding people who matched her energy and creating a community that shared her values. She found incredible new friends of all ages—and luckily, that included me! Dr. Deb’s community is now rich with interesting people and she has never been happier—and freer.
Again, it’s all about being Vulnerable, Intentional, and Courageous (VIC) at every phase of life.
I want to live in a world where intergenerational communities are the norm too. I may not want to dye my hair hot pink, but when I’m seventy, I certainly don’t want to be pushed into an elderly community and spend my time only with people who are my age! I want to be able to choose the people I hang out with at every phase of life! Why can’t a seventy-five-year-old go dancing and have regular, deep conversations with a thirty-year-old? And why can’t a sixty-five-year-old work at a start-up? Age discrimination is real in most industries, especially in technology and at start-ups. It takes courageous leadership to hire employees of all ages to provide a wealth of perspectives in an organization.
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