“Old houses need maintenance. Old marriages need maintenance. Old friendships do too.” (2-3 minute read) Hey Reader, Every time someone tells me they have a "low-maintenance friendship," I get a little suspicious. Because most of the time, they're not describing a low-maintenance friendship. They're describing a no-maintenance friendship. In our Audible original, The Buddy System, I joke that men love bragging about this. "We can go ten years without talking and pick right back up where we...
11 days ago • 2 min read
"Looking back, my dad wasn't ordering coffee. He was buying time." (2-3 minute read) Hey Reader, Every Father's Day is bittersweet when your own father is gone. But having kids of my own has made me realize something I completely missed when he was alive. My dad always wanted to extend the evening. After dinner he'd suggest a walk, a cappuccino, or some errand that absolutely could have waited until tomorrow. At the time, I never thought much about it. My siblings and I were in our twenties....
18 days ago • 2 min read
"The Knicks won it all for the first time in 53 years. But the real miracle was getting middle-aged men to text each other 37 nights in a row." (2-3 minute read) Hey Reader, On a personal note, I just got off a plane after witnessing something I never thought I'd see: the Knicks winning an NBA title. After decades of heartbreak, false starts, and convincing ourselves that "next year" was finally the year, it actually happened. I've been a die-hard Knicks fan ever since my dad started taking...
25 days ago • 2 min read
“A great friend develops a mental rolodex of the people they care about.’” (2 minutes read) Hey Reader, Last week I was wandering through a bookstore and saw a book about building pizza ovens. Immediately thought of my friend who's been trying to build one in his backyard for the better part of a year. He's kind of made his personality, in a funny way. I snapped a photo and sent it to him. If you've done my 7-Day Friendship Challenge, this probably sounds familiar. Day 1 is literally a...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
“The conversations that change your life rarely happen sitting down.” (2-3 minute read) Hey Reader, A few months ago, I stopped thinking of walks as exercise and started thinking of them as friendship infrastructure. Looks like Sheryl Sandberg was on my wavelength this week with her IG post about Call Me Maybe walks. Lately I've noticed something: The best conversations in my life rarely happen sitting across from someone at a table. A few weeks ago, a buddy and I started doing a weekly...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
“We’re built for community, not emotional monopoly.”(2 minute read) Hey Reader, One of the most common things I see happen to people — especially guys — is that after marriage and kids, their entire emotional world slowly narrows down to one person. Their partner becomes the therapist, best friend, social planner, co-parent, sounding board, and the only person they regularly talk to about anything real. I love my wife deeply. She’s my favorite person. But one of the reasons our marriage works...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
“The world will try to untune this string through busyness, through slow accumulation of a full schedule, full inbox, a full life.” (2 minute read) Hey Reader, As a reminder, I'm sharing alot of bigger ideas in video form on my IG, if you're not following, you can check out my stuff here. 👥 The Friend Eric Church gave a commencement speech at UNC this weekend for the ages. He compared life to a guitar and laid out the six strings that all have to be in tune: Faith, Family, Partner, Community,...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
“The hardest friend to keep is the one who’s winning.” (2-3 minute read) Hey Reader, I’m going to admit something that I think a lot of people feel but almost nobody says out loud: Sometimes your friend wins big… and a tiny part of you hates it. A few months ago, a close friend of mine landed a massive deal. Career-changing stuff. And my first reaction was genuine excitement. My second reaction...maybe half a second later...was: “Damn. Why not me?” I didn’t like having that thought. But I...
2 months ago • 2 min read
“Friendship isn’t a noun. It’s a frequency.” (2-3 minute read) Hey Reader, I went to a concert last week and had a small epiphany standing between a guy in a vintage tour tee and a woman who’d clearly been to 50+ shows. The band opened with a song everyone knew. And for about four minutes, 18,000 strangers became a community. Same words. Same rhythm. Same moment. Then the song ended, and we were all strangers again. But not completely. Something had shifted. It made me realize: friendship...
2 months ago • 2 min read