Episode #108: How to Make Adult Female Friendships with Danielle Bayard Jackson

Why is it so difficult for some women to find and maintain healthy female friendships? Joining me today is Danielle Bayard Jackson, The Friendship Expert, to share more about this topic and to help provide actionable advice to get your friendships back on track, even if they’ve fallen off due to the pandemic.

Danielle is a publicist by day and a certified friendship coach by night. She started her career as a high school English teacher for many years and was relied upon by her students to help navigate friendship issues.

What she didn’t realize is that those “high school dramas” weren’t limited to high school. So often the way we approach friendship and relationships in general at a young age, follows us throughout our lives and experiences.

Friendship like any other relationship requires work and nurturing but after more than a year of limited in-person interaction, it may seem daunting to reconnect.

Listen as Danielle shares her tips for re-emerging as we reach the end of this pandemic and what you can be doing right now to start working on building new friendships. Remember that there could be people in your existing circle that you’d click with, you just need to give it a chance.

Also, just because someone doesn’t have the capacity to spend time with you right now does not mean that they aren’t interested in friendship. Don’t let the stories you tell yourself obscure what could be an amazing relationship.

If you’ve struggled in any way with finding strong female friendships, then you won’t want to miss out on everything Danielle has to share.

In this episode:

[01:01] Welcome friendship coach and expert Danielle Bayard Jackson to chat all about making and maintaining adult female friendships.
[04:22] Listen as Danielle shares more about her background and business.
[05:24] How did she become a friendship coach?
[07:10] Why is it so difficult for us to keep and maintain female friendships in adulthood.
[09:14] Danielle shares how she defines and describes a healthy friendship.
[13:31] Ways to deal with the waiting period between finding new acquaintances and making new friends.
[15:43] There is a study that has attempted to quantify how long it takes to build a friendship.
[18:03] What to do when you realize that you don’t feel like you have the energy for friendships.
[23:42] Is there a right and wrong to determine how many coins we have available to give?
[27:03] The special thing about woman-to-woman friendships.
[30:47] Learn the single greatest determining factor of our overall well-being.
[32:37] What is your next step after you self-assess and you’re ready to cultivate new friendships?
[39:52] The things you shouldn’t do when you slide into someone’s DMs to make a connection.
[42:04] When people tell you they aren’t available is not a sign that someone doesn’t like you.
[44:49] If you’re willing to be a friend and put in the time, then it’s never too late.
[45:19] Connect with Danielle.