Practical Tips for Friendship with Danielle Bayard Jackson

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I recently got three questions that share common thread: isn’t calendaring like we do in the Bright It is a true honor to have Danielle Bayard Jackson on today’s podcast to dig into friendship as a busy working woman – from how to make time for it, how to create new friendships, to normalizing struggles that feel lonely but are common, and so much more. Enjoy!

Links to Danielle’s amazing work:

website: www.betterfemalefriendships.com
book: https://www.betterfemalefriendships.com/fighting-for-our-friendships
IG: @daniellebayardjackson
tiktok: @thefriendshipexpert

Full transcript:

Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the bright method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally. Let’s get you falling asleep, proud of what you got done today, and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in.

Hey. Hey, and welcome back. Alright, today we are in for such a treat. I have Danielle Baird Jackson on the podcast. Now I do not know how I found Danielle, but I found her podcast. It’s called The Friend Forward Podcast, and it is all about female friendships and. She just blew my mind with how intentionally she thinks about friendships, her research behind what makes women happy, what friendships are like, what people think about friendships, [00:01:00] one-on-one, friendships versus group friendships.

There’s just so much nuance and intentionality that I think we don’t typically think about or explore with friendship, but is really there. So I wanted to have her on the podcast today because one, I think that for almost every client I work with, relationships, including friendships are often one of the most important parts of their life, and yet it is a part of life that we really struggle with from a time perspective and in other ways too that makes exploring it worth it.

In addition, I love how much Danielle normalizes certain challenges with friendships and things like that because lifetime management, I think friendship is something that we think we should naturally be good at and know how to do. And so when we struggle at it or we have to bring effort to it, it just feels weird and we feel like we’re doing something wrong and that we’re alone in that when in reality it’s super common as you’ll hear her talk about.

I have learned so much from [00:02:00] listening to her podcast, including things like it’s normal to have only three to five very close friends, which you know, can vary from when we were in our twenties to now, and it kind of normalizes what we should be striving for and aiming for. And anyway, I could go on and on.

Definitely listen to her podcast. I think it is contagious too. Prioritize friendships. Like she talks so much about prioritizing friendships, and it really helps it be contagious to help you prioritize your friendships too. So before we dig into it, let me introduce Danielle. Danielle Byard Jackson is a women’s relational health educator who speaks nationally about the science of women’s platonic connections.

She’s the director of the Women’s Relational Health Institute and is also the author of Fighting for Our Friendships, the Science and Art of Conflict and Connection in Women’s Relationships. As a former high school teacher and academic department chair, Danielle now leverages her background in education to study the latest research on women’s cooperation, communication, and [00:03:00] conflict.

Her expertise has been featured in the New York Times, NBC News, psychology Today, wall Street Journal, Oprah Magazine, good Morning America, and a host of other media outlets. As a member of the American Sociological Association, Danielle works with both individuals and organizations to share tangible evidence-based strategies to help women create more satisfaction in their platonic same-sex relationships.

Companies like TikTok, the N-B-A-N-F-L, and Etsy have all booked. Danielle as a speaker to address the topics of connection psychology. She even served as the resident friendship expert and spokesperson for the global app Bumble, and its new app Bumble for friends. Danielle shares her Insights Weekly on the Friend Forward podcast and has several viral videos on social media and has written for Insider and Harvard Business Review.

You can learn more about Danielle and her work. By visiting better female friendships.com. I’ll also include a lot of links in the show notes to her book, to her [00:04:00] podcast, to all the places. So check those out in the show notes. I am so excited for this. Let’s dig in. Well, Danielle, I am so, so. I cannot tell you how excited I am to have you here.

Before we dig into the content, do you mind sharing how you got into Women friendship coaching to begin with?

Danielle Bayard Jackson: I actually started as a high school English teacher, and it was the number one thing my students wanted to talk about between classes and after school. And then after a couple years, I worked my way up to being the chair of the department.

And teachers were saying during our meetings that we couldn’t even give quality instruction because of the issues of connection and belonging. And so I often joke that the classroom was kind of my first sociological lab to observe. How they were trying to navigate relationships with one another, the girls, because it really did impact everything else.

Their attendance, their confidence to raise their hand, [00:05:00] their mood, their performance. So everything went back to that. So after a couple years I left the classroom and I got into public relations and marketing, and I was very surprised to learn after working with these. Charismatic, high achieving women that they too were secretly also kind of trying to feel their way through relationships with other adult women.

And so long story short, for the past eight years, I’ve been leveraging my background in education to study what the research has to say about women’s cooperation, communication, and conflict.

Kelly Nolan: I love it. I love it so much. ’cause I think that it’s similar to how I view with time management. Time management and friendship feel like something that we should naturally know how to do.

Mm-hmm. It should come easily to us. And so when we have to, either when we feel like we’re not doing it well or we have to be so intentional and exert effort and thought in it, it just feels kind of weird. It’s like, am I doing this wrong? And so I love how you talk about and dig into this from [00:06:00] a research standpoint to make it so intentional in an area that often isn’t treated that way.

Friendship really is, I think for most of the women I work with friendship and relationships like one of the most important things in life. But it also feels, as I said, like harder than it seems like it should be to either create friendships, but also to make time and have energy for them, especially with a lot of the women I’m sure we both work with.

So I wanna address two challenges with friendship that I hear like rooted in the time management space today. I. First up, sometimes trying to make and maintain friendships is candidly tiring. Mm-hmm. When we are so tired in our like ’cause of the rest of our life. Do you have any thoughts about how to approach friendship in light of that?

If it’s kind of feels like something you want to do, but also feels a little tiring to embark on?

Danielle Bayard Jackson: Yes. Okay. Specifically with regard to forming new friendships.

Kelly Nolan: Either way. I mean, yeah, I think that you’re right. New friendships are obviously [00:07:00] more draining mm-hmm. Than new ones. But either way, I mean, sometimes I think in the scheme of life, even just creating time for friendships feels hard with all the things.

Danielle Bayard Jackson: Yeah, I actually love talking about friendship at the intersection of time because for adult women I hear that too. The same thing you’re hearing with your community. It’s like the number one thing, it’s Danielle. Yep, I hear you. But when am I having time for all that? And let me start with data that I think will help women breathe a collective sigh of relief.

There’s data from the American Time use survey of 2021, and they found that people who are 35 to 44. Have the least amount of leisure time than anybody else. So you are working with less time to hang out people in their twenties, people in their fifties. Yeah. And at this time, I mean, think about, we’re doing all the things.

You may have children, you may have older aging parents that you’re caring for. This feels like your moment to really [00:08:00] grow professionally. So you’ve gotta like put in the hours because one day it’s gonna pay off. There’s all the things that you’ve got going on, you really are working with less time. We also see that in 2013 we were spending on average six hours a week with our friends, but now it’s a little more than two.

So as a country, the time we’re spending with friends is just trending downward.

Kelly Nolan: Wow.

Danielle Bayard Jackson: So it is not just you. There are ways that we can reclaim some of that time though. The first thing is, I would say rethink what hanging out looks like. A lot of us have not updated our scripts, so if you’re still thinking of hanging out with friends and you close your eyes and your brain just conjured an image of hours long brunches on Saturday, then we’re gonna continue to say out of our mouth, I don’t have time for friends, but that’s what we’re thinking about.

It might have to look a little unsexy. Come with me to Costco. While you tell me about your date last night, come with me to the doctor’s office. I know I’m gonna have to wait for an hour while we talk about book club next week. [00:09:00] I mean, really, truly, that’s how we’re gonna clock those hours with friends.

The last thing I’ll say here too is you might have to release some of your personal hangups about what needs to be in order. Before you can hang out with friends. I recently did a little social experiment with myself and I said, you know, for the first three months of the year, I’m gonna try to get six hours a week with friends and let’s just see, okay.

Some of those weeks I failed, but the exercise brought up a lot of personal stuff I was not prepared for. It showed me my relationship with work needed to be changed. When it’s four o’clock, I’m done. Because I have other goals. I have relational goals in my life too. It showed me the importance of having a partner, which thank God I do, but who also believes it’s his responsibility to watch these kids and take them out and do all the things.

If you’re still the person doing that in your home with no support, that is going to be hard to have community. I brought up a lot of things around. I need to have my hair together and have the house clean before we invite them over. [00:10:00] Well then we’re not gonna get our time. Yeah, if I think I have to clean the whole house first.

And so I’ll just say examining what are some personal, emotional, mental financial barriers and how do you reduce the barriers as opposed to looking for additional hours? And that might be one way to help you identify spaces where you can reclaim your time. And that’s the podcast everybody.

Kelly Nolan: That’s so good.

There’s so much I wanna. That I loved in that one. I think it, the thing you said also about people in their fifties having more time for friends. I’m 40, I have a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old. This makes a ton of sense for me and it, it does give a little bit of, takes the pressure off to know that time will come again.

It’s okay, but. I can still work to find time of what it looks like. Now, I cannot tell you that light bulb moment of you’re like, you’re defining friendship of what it looked like in your twenties and you know, you don’t have time for that anymore, so you don’t think you have time for friendship. I talk a lot about that in the context of like working out, like I [00:11:00] used to work out five times a week at 5:00 AM before work.

Now I have kids. I one time a week at a class somewhere else is a totally new thing for me. And then 15 minute at home workouts are it. But it’s exactly that. And I had not connected the dot of, I’m holding myself to 20-year-old definitions of what friendship looked like in my forties. And if I can shift that, and I actually did this by accident last weekend, I mistimed my cooking.

’cause anyone who’s been here long knows I’m terrible at cooking, I’m learning that. And a friend came over while I was finishing up making food for the week. Then I had to flip some laundry and it was delightful. We still had, so, you know, we had so much fun hanging out kids were running around. I’ve heard you talk about friendship life integration, and I think that was my first accidental stumbling into that, where I was like, this is what truly what also feels like a closer friendship in my life feels like.

When I’ve heard you talk about that mm-hmm. That like clicked for me of like, I need to integrate friendship into [00:12:00] what my life looks like right now. So thank you for that clarification. ’cause I do think it’s very freeing to have that.

Danielle Bayard Jackson: Yeah. Oh, I’m so glad that that was helpful to you. And it really is. I mean, we hear people talk about.

You just need a mindset shift in mind all the time, but it is true. And to think like, well, let me look at my lifestyle. What have I set up as the rhythms of my life and my beliefs around how things ought to be? Wow. The way I’ve set my life up does make friendship feel like a separate thing that I’ve gotta figure out how to work in instead of having a life where it is baked into my life.

Yeah. And I’m doing things with people and it’s just a part of the fabric of what I do. And I often refer to this book, it’s called The Blue Zones of Happiness, and generally it’s just this idea that there are these spaces. Around the globe where people are living past a hundred on average. And these researchers went to figure out what in the world is different about these [00:13:00] spaces?

And they identified like nine different things, right? But one of them was that, that these people have social connection built into their lives. So even if you were a person who’s like, I don’t wanna talk to people today. You wouldn’t be able to, ’cause you’ve gotta go to the market to get your fresh food and you’ve gotta go to this place that’s got people baked in.

And there are certain things you do together, you don’t eat alone. In our culture, you eat with others. And so it’s baked in. And being in a culture where it does feel so separate and you have all of these quote unquote conveniences, like you can get. Food delivered to your house. And you know, I once was speaking with a woman who told me she lives in a high rise in New York City and she was buying these pee pads for her dog because she’s on the top floor.

And she’s like, what do I have to go down the elevator every time for the dog to pee? It’s just more convenient. And she realized, you know what? I’m not gonna do that anymore. I’m gonna take the dog down and immediately she’s like chatting people up and seeing people from her floor just by removing that convenience.

And so I [00:14:00] think, yeah, just looking at how can I bake it into my life makes it feel a little less daunting.

Kelly Nolan: I love that. I love that so much. So thank you for sharing that. Switching gears a little bit, many of the women I work with that I’m sure you work with as well, have been. In a similar way, just so flat out for so long that friendships that they once had feel more distant or they just feel like I really need more friends.

I don’t have any, I’ve been in grad school. I’ve been in a junior level at work. Now I’m mid-level now. I might have a little more time. Kids are older. But I don’t have the friends. Do you have any advice, and you can take it wherever you want, in terms of maybe reinvigorating old friendships or creating new friendships.

I’ve heard you talk so practically about this, like how can people seek that out?

Danielle Bayard Jackson: Yeah. The first thing I would say is start with who. You know, a lot of times we’re looking for like that fresh revolutionary tip, and I’m like, I hate to disappoint you, but a lot of it’s gonna be. What you already know you [00:15:00] need to do, you need to do.

But some of it can start with who you already know because so often when people say, I need to make new friends, they’re really saying, I need to meet new people. The two are not synonymous, and making friends is referring to the art of cultivating something meaningful with another person and who said you have to start from scratch.

Many of us have contacts on the phone of women who we know we enjoy. We enjoy their company. They’re funny, we have things in common. But because so much time has passed. We feel like it has expired and we’ve gotta start over. And there was research in 2021 that found that we grossly underestimate how much people enjoy hearing from us.

When we like reach back out to that person, we underestimate it and they found that the greater the surprise. The greater the impact and delight. So if it’s a person you haven’t spoken to in five years, they’re gonna really love hearing from you as opposed to the person who it’s been six months. And so that should embolden us.

You do [00:16:00] not have to start from scratch. Who’s a person you have shared history with. You can lead with the elephant in the room, send a message, Hey, I saw this and I thought of you today. Or, Hey, I know it’s been a while since we connected, but I thought of you because I really miss our old book club. Can we get that revived again?

I need it. It can be playful and most people are relieved that you went first, and it is such a refreshing surprise and so lean there. I would say if you’re realizing you’re kind of short when it comes to friendships and connection, the next is, especially if you’re in the workspace, you can start with where you kind of are rooted.

So maybe bringing in some of those conversations to the workplace. So if you’re working from home. You start by saying, no, I need to be a regular somewhere and I need to commit to working outside at a cafe or a co-working space every Wednesday and Friday morning for two hours, and that’s just what I’m gonna do, but I’m gonna be present when I’m there.

And I have a goal for myself that when I’m there, I [00:17:00] chat up to people. And that might be, I’m telling the hostess who’s there, you know. Oh, so do you guys have events here? I’m trying to get more plugged in, so I just thought I’d ask. Okay. These people are like, your concierge people are happy to give their 2 cents.

So again, low lift for you. Why do you feel you have to be limited to your personal intel or knowledge of how to get plugged in? Why are we not asking other people? And they’re happy to ’cause they feel flattered that you think that they can help. So are there events here? Tell me what’s going on. What am I missing?

Or the next time you’re talking to a, a coworker, like, okay, what are you doing on the weekends? Because I’m embarrassed to say that I have zero hobbies now. And just letting people give you their intel and. Best case scenario, you’re getting an invitation as a plus one because they’re saying, oh my gosh, yeah, I’m in this run club.

You should come. But how would they know to help meet a need if you’re too scared to make the desire known? It is not cringey to say, I think I need some new connections. [00:18:00] Now, I’ll end with this one caveat because there actually is research that came out. Very fresh and they found that we do stigmatize people who don’t have friends.

So in the same breath, I’m saying totally normal to be in a season of friendness, totally normal, but people do stigmatize friend. So you don’t deny a reality. But what you would do is you maybe wouldn’t lead with, I don’t have any friends. I need to make friends. I like phrases like I’m trying to get more plugged in.

Or I told myself I would. Join more clubs or I told myself I need to try some new things, shake some things up. Okay. The subtext is the same, but it now feels like a person who’s empowered, who is very intentional, and she is bringing you in to contribute your voice to the decision she’s ultimately gonna make for herself.

You know? Yeah. So there’s no shame around it. Start at the workplace if you need to, and leverage the history you have with old connections. [00:19:00] Those can be a couple ways

Kelly Nolan: of getting it done. Awesome. And final question, ’cause I wanna be mindful of your time too, is speaking of that, and I love the reframing of that with the confidence.

And so speaking of like the confidence element, if you’re reaching out to old friends, sometimes the feeling might be, what if they don’t wanna hear from me? Which I know you addressed, but also like the way we left it, I felt like I was doing more in the friendship. And I’ve heard you speak about that feeling of.

What if you feel, and I don’t even mean resentful towards the person, it’s more just insecurity of like, do they wanna hear from me? And like, how do you address when people feel like I did more in the friendship, they haven’t met me, and maybe they kind of managing that feeling that you might have.

Danielle Bayard Jackson: Yeah, I mean, and resentment might be an accurate word if you feel a little pinch when you think of them because it feels unfair.

It feels like they took advantage of how you were consistently showing up. And it can feel embarrassing that you [00:20:00] were putting an effort and this other person didn’t, and were they not as invested. And that makes me feel silly. So all those families can come up and that’s totally valid when it comes to reaching back out to revive connections.

It might be helpful to first evaluate why am I reviving this one? Because if there was a long history of this person not initiating calls, canceling last minute kind of demonstrating a take it or leave it attitude with hanging out, then perhaps it’s not the best one to revive unless you plan on introducing something different.

Are you reviving it, but you are gonna be showing up differently this time. You have like certain boundaries or you feel. More comfortable saying what you need. So whenever it comes to rekindling friendships, I think about, well, what would be different? Mm-hmm. Because it’s normal to miss them. So if this person was showing that this is their friendship style, I like to call it, is to be kind of low key and to send tiktoks every now and [00:21:00] then, there’s nothing wrong with that.

But if that’s their style and you’re like, oof, that’s not really my style. Do you think it would be the wisest one to revive? So that’s something to consider. If it is a friendship that we really value and we’re feeling like, ugh, it’s not reciprocal, but when it comes to time, I’m making time to see this person.

I’m getting the babysitter and cutting off work early. I’m making the time, and they’re not as intentional. You can say that. I always advise though, you know, you’re framing it as an invitation and not an accusation. So no one wants to hear like, well, I’m doing all the work. We feel kind of scolded and now my motivation to reach out to you so that I don’t get in trouble.

It’s not out of like my desire to pursue you of my own delight. And so it’s an invitation because at the heart of it, you’re not mad. Maybe you are, but you miss your friend. Yeah. You wanna feel desired. That’s really what’s at the heart of it. So to say like, man, I know the last couple times we hung out. I reached out to you and I was sending ideas for what we could do, but I’m sure [00:22:00] you have your own ideas.

So how about next week? And you let me know what we’re doing? Yeah. Okay. That’s, it’s playful. It’s, it’s, again, subtext is the same or you might say, Hey, I know the last couple times I reached out, you weren’t able to link up and let me know if you have a lot going on in this season and maybe we can just circle back later.

I get it. But I’m gonna facilitate an opportunity for you to tell me now so I know how to. Direct my time, energy, and attention, especially when time is something we value so much. We need to know the people who can give us an experience where it feels like it is worth it to take time away from my work and my family, but it, the investment is worth it here.

And so finding connections where it feels worth it is important.

Kelly Nolan: I love that and I listen to you so much. So one thing I’ve also heard you share that was very helpful for me to like bring the temperature down a bit in the resentful feelings is also you mentioned whenever you ask who puts in more of the friendship, most women raise their [00:23:00] hand.

Mm-hmm. And it’s telling of maybe we aren’t seeing effort always, that maybe they are reciprocating more than we realized, which is helpful. And also I love the. You’re so realistic too, where you’re like, some people are going through rougher seasons as long as they’re open and agree or like follow your lead if you are the leader.

But still demonstrate that they wanna be friends. But they’re never gonna maybe, at least in this season of life, open with the invitation. But they will accept any invitation or most of them to just take that for what it is right now. And maybe they’re just in that season And I, that really helped me. I think sometimes I get in my head and like.

From an insecure standpoint of like, well, if they don’t reach out to me, maybe they don’t wanna be friends, and like that’s just not in some people’s personality, but they still might wanna be, or they’re in a rougher season of life. So thank you for that too. Because I think sometimes we misinterpret, we can create whole narratives in our head that aren’t real.[00:24:00]

Danielle Bayard Jackson: Totally. And I’ve totally been there where I have to ask myself, okay, who told me this? Like, yeah. I told me this, and if this is a person who, whenever I’m giving a suggestion for hanging out, they’re like, yes. What time I’m picking you up? Am I able to find a way to be content with that? Does that mean I’m settling?

Does it mean they’re being phony and they don’t really wanna hang out with me? You know, if they’re saying, yeah, let’s do it, and we have a good time, and afterwards we’re like. Texting and stuff. Can I find a way to be okay? Because I think a lot of people would be surprised at how many people I’ve spoken to coached and they have these friendships where there is so much evidence that the person loves and likes them, and my client will still not initiate a hangout because it feels safer to let the other person do it, and they just feel like, well, I hear a lot, well, she’s busy.

I know she’s busy, so she’ll reach out when she can all the time. So some of it is [00:25:00] just either leaning into being an initiator or inviting them to participate too. And that could kind of close the gap. ’cause you’re right, we do tell ourselves those stories.

Kelly Nolan: Yeah. Okay. I could talk to you all day long, but I will not, assuming that everybody else is obsessed with you as I am, where would you like them to go if they wanna learn more about you, hang out with you on social, buy your book, work with you, whatever it might be?

Danielle Bayard Jackson: Yeah, so everything li***@*********************ps.com, and we just wanna be a space where it’s. Data-driven material to help you get language around what you’re experiencing because we want you to experience more satisfaction. And your friendships with other women and it’s possible. And so all those thoughts that we have, and you think it’s just you or outdated ideas of friendship, but you don’t know how to update them when you’ve got research saying it’s the number one thing that’s gonna determine how happy and healthy you are.

We’ve gotta pursuit with a [00:26:00] little urgency. It is not something to put in the margins that we’ll get to when we have time. And you know, I love that your platform focuses on time because we know intuitively friendships are important. We love our friends, but sometimes it comes down to the nitty gritty of.

Our real availability and logistics, and we don’t know how to make time for what matters most. And so I’m glad that you invited me to have this conversation because it’s so important and we need it. So I appreciate you facilitating a moment to talk this through and, and I feel honored that you invited me to lend my voice to the conversation.

Kelly Nolan: Well, thank you for coming and for those listening, I truly cannot encourage you also to listen to Danielle’s podcast. I think whatever we feed ourselves is so powerful and I just wanna say thank you. Since listening to your podcast, I have put together a little 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM Lame Persons New Year’s Eve party at my house with kids, because I’m like, yes, I love my neighbors, [00:27:00] but I never host.

And I’m like, I’m gonna do this. And it’s gonna work with my life. I don’t wanna stay up till midnight on New Year’s, but this is what we’ll do. People can come if they want. I am going to Mexico this weekend to see a friend from when I lived in Mexico from third through fifth grade. There are so many changes and actions I’ve taken just by listening to what you share and it’s contagious.

So thank you for everything you do, and I hope that the woman listening also starts listening to your podcast and takes that into, so thank you.

Danielle Bayard Jackson: Oh, I’m so glad. Thank you for listening to The Friend Forward podcast. I want to learn as much as possible, and then I wanna share it with other people, and I wanna be an encourager.

I really do. And so I thank you for telling me about how it’s had an impact on a. You and your goals and things that you’re trying that are new, and I mean, kudos to you for the New Year’s gathering that. I love it. I love it. It’s just saying yes to yourself. Yeah, I have this idea. I’m just gonna create a space and whoever [00:28:00] wants to come can come.

That kind of attitude can take us so far and we need more gatherers. So we need you and those who are gonna show up to your gathering are lucky to have someone like you in their life to bring people together. And so that’s awesome. So thank you for letting me be, be a part of your journey. That’s very cool.

And thank

Kelly Nolan: you for having me. Well, thank you. And for you listening at home, thanks for being here and I’ll catch you in the next episode.

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Practical Tips for Friendship with Danielle Bayard Jackson

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