The Sage Sorority

Send in your friendship questions! - https://tellonym.me/thesagesorority

Remember when making friends took zero effort? Same class, same halls, same party every weekend, and suddenly you had a best friend. So why does it feel so hard in your 30s?

I read all the lists so you don't have to, and most of them bored me. Going through something with a friend right now? Send me your question anonymously using the Q&A link below. No names, no judgement.

Mentioned in this episode:

- Rebecca G. Adams on the 3 conditions for friendship, The New York Times (2012)

- Robin Dunbar's research on friendship layers

- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (trans. Thomas Common)

- Toni Morrison, Beloved

- Erica Boothby et al., "The Liking Gap in Conversations," Psychological Science (2018)

- Peggy Liu et al., "The Surprise of Reaching Out," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2022)

- Mark Granovetter, "The Strength of Weak Ties" (1973)

- "A Casual Test of the Strength of Weak Ties," Science (2022)

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What do you do when you love your friend but disagree with her decisions? This week, we’re getting into the uncomfortable side of adult female friendships: when to speak up, when to leave her to it, and how to set boundaries when she asks you to get involved.

From relationships and lending money to gossip, loyalty and difficult conversations, we explore how to be honest without being cruel, check your own judgment and handle a friendship when your advice goes untaken.

Have you ever told a friend something difficult? DM @thesagesorority and tell me whether you’re still friends.

‘by association’ sign up form - https://tally.so/r/ODp4Z7, the new dinner series from The Sage Sorority 🥂

References

• Levine & Cohen: You Can Handle the Truth (2018)
• Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII
• Kim Scott: Radical Candor

Follow the show, leave a review and share this episode with someone you’d love to discuss it with.

interested in being a guest on The Sage Sorority? Tell me here - https://tally.so/r/J199BX

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want to book a girl chat session? all the info is here - https://squ.re/45jq3ue

want to partner w/The Sage Sorority Podcast? let’s chat - [email protected]

have a question? send in an (anonymous) one for Q&A - https://tellonym.me/thesagesorority

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SUBSTACK// https://open.substack.com/pub/thesagesorority

NSTAGRAM// https://www.instagram.com/thesagesorority/

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subscribe to The Sage Sorority Podcast + leave a (cheeky) 5* rating 💘

apple: https://bit.ly/41ZNwO2

spotify: https://spoti.fi/4iVPAhn

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catch up with, our founder + host, Shantel

instagram// https://www.instagram.com/shantelrousseau/

tiktok// https://www.tiktok.com/@shantelrousseau

Snapchat// https://snapchat.com/t/y4JGTR2O

youtube// https://www.youtube.com/@shantelrousseauonline

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WE ARE SO BACK!

You found the outfit, did your hair and booked somewhere lovely. Then you spent half the night tugging at your dress, checking your angles and wondering how you were coming across. Sound familiar?

I'm back from summer break with a question I really want you to sit with: when was the last time you actually felt sexy, with nobody watching? We get into the little camera crew so many of us carry around, what a math test in a swimsuit has to do with it, and why tuning into what you want is vital to actually enjoying the life you've worked so hard to build.

When was the last time you felt sexy with nobody watching? Send it to me anonymously!

want to book a girl chat session? all the info is here - https://squ.re/45jq3ue

want to partner w/The Sage Sorority Podcast? let’s chat - [email protected]

have a question? send in an (anonymous) one for Q&A - https://tellonym.me/thesagesorority

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SUBSTACK// https://open.substack.com/pub/thesagesorority

INSTAGRAM// https://www.instagram.com/thesagesorority/

TIKTOK// https://www.tiktok.com/@thesagesorority

YOUTUBE// https://www.youtube.com/@TheSageSorority

subscribe to The Sage Sorority Podcast + leave a (cheeky) 5* rating 💘

apple: https://bit.ly/41ZNwO2

spotify: https://spoti.fi/4iVPAhn

youtube: http://bit.ly/45ei8wO

💘

catch up with, our founder + host, Shantel

instagram// https://www.instagram.com/shantelrousseau/

tiktok// https://www.tiktok.com/@shantelrousseau

Snapchat// https://snapchat.com/t/y4JGTR2O

youtube// https://www.youtube.com/@shantelrousseauonline

OUTFITS - ShopMy// https://shopmy.us/shantelrousseau

OUTFITS - LTK// https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shantelrousseau

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If you've gotten really good at being wanted and can't remember the last thing you wanted for yourself, that's what one-on-one coaching is for. One session gets you a decision. Three gets you a full reset and a plan.

Mentioned in this episode: Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny by R.S. Benedict (Blood Knife, 2021), Does Sex Still Sell? by Tariro Makoni (Vogue), @unpunishablewoman on TikTok

book reference: More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament by Lexie Kite and Lindsay Kite

book reference: Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski

Barbara Fredrickson's 1998 swimsuit study, Masters and Johnson on spectatoring

mentioned episodes: Episode 005 - 30 lessons I've learned in my 30s (so far), Episode 032 - how to be more interesting, pt.1, Episode 063 - misbehave with integrity

You can be wildly attracted to someone, genuinely love them and still find that they cannot build the kind of relationship you need.

In this week’s revisit, we’re returning to Episode 041 and the relationship trifecta: attraction, compatibility and capacity. I’m breaking down why chemistry can only take you so far, what lifestyle compatibility actually looks like and how to tell whether someone has the emotional and practical capacity to be the partner, husband or father they say they want to be.

We also get into the risks of dating potential, why a good boyfriend may not make a good husband and the questions you need to ask before waiting for someone to grow into a version of themselves that currently exists only in your head.

New episodes of The Sage Sorority return on October 1st. In the meantime, send this to the friend who might need to hear it and tell me: which of the three do women overlook most?

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want to book a girl chat session? all the info is here - https://squ.re/45jq3ue

want to partner w/The Sage Sorority Podcast? let’s chat - [email protected]

have a question? send in an (anonymous) one for Q&A - https://tellonym.me/thesagesorority

💘

SUBSTACK// https://open.substack.com/pub/thesagesorority

INSTAGRAM// https://www.instagram.com/thesagesorority/

TIKTOK// https://www.tiktok.com/@thesagesorority

YOUTUBE// https://www.youtube.com/@TheSageSorority

subscribe to The Sage Sorority Podcast + leave a (cheeky) 5* rating 💘

apple: https://bit.ly/41ZNwO2

spotify: https://spoti.fi/4iVPAhn

youtube: http://bit.ly/45ei8wO

💘

catch up with, our founder + host, Shantel

instagram// https://www.instagram.com/shantelrousseau/

tiktok// https://www.tiktok.com/@shantelrousseau

Snapchat// https://snapchat.com/t/y4JGTR2O

youtube// https://www.youtube.com/@shantelrousseauonline

OUTFITS - ShopMy// https://shopmy.us/shantelrousseau

OUTFITS - LTK// https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shantelrousseau

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Hiiii guys! The Sage Sorority is on summer break for one final week. I’ll be back next Thursday with a brand-new episode. Until then, we’re revisiting one of my favourite Sisterhood Chronicles.

Making new friends as an adult can feel strangely awkward, especially once school, work and shared routines stop doing the introductions for us.

In this episode, I share practical ways to expand your circle: getting clear about the kind of connection you want, meeting women through your existing network, finding communities online and in real life, and actually following up when you meet someone you like.

Adult friendship has room for brunch friends, gym friends, travel friends, creative collaborators and the women who eventually become family. Closeness takes time, repetition and somebody being willing to make the first move.

Your challenge: have a 20-second conversation with someone new this week (!!!)

If this episode hits home, send it to a woman you’d like to know better. Subscribe and leave The Sage Sorority a cheeky 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Summer is good for rotting. Social rotting, digital rotting, internal rotting, the works. And then September arrives and you're carrying four months of accumulated clutter into the busiest stretch of the year.

This one is a reset you can come back to any time you need it. Not a productivity system, not a 5am overhaul, just four categories and a set of small changes that actually hold. Digital rot and why your phone is not neutral. Social rot and the difference between doing life with your friends and just talking about it. Internal rot and what happens in the first thirty minutes after you wake up. Home rot and the ruthless declutter I was in the middle of when I recorded this.

Pick one shift from each category. That's it. Chips make chunks.

If your calendar is already full of catch ups you agreed to out of guilt and you're heading into Q4 resenting most of them, that's the thing to fix now rather than in January, because a full Q4 diary with nothing on it you chose is how you arrive at Christmas exhausted with nothing to show. One coaching session gets you a decision on what gets cut. Details in the links below.

Tell me which of the four you're worst at. DM me ROT on Instagram with your category and I'll send you the one change I'd start with.

Listen + subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts + YouTube.

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want to book a girl chat session? all the info is here - https://squ.re/45jq3ue

want to partner w/The Sage Sorority Podcast? let’s chat - [email protected]

have a question? send in an (anonymous) one for Q&A - https://tellonym.me/thesagesorority

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SUBSTACK// https://open.substack.com/pub/thesagesorority

INSTAGRAM// https://www.instagram.com/thesagesorority/

TIKTOK// https://www.tiktok.com/@thesagesorority

YOUTUBE// https://www.youtube.com/@TheSageSorority

Optimism has a PR problem. Half of us are allergic to it and the other half are using it to avoid our lives, so nobody's really doing it properly.

A while back I went to a lecture at Conway Hall by Sumit Paul-Choudhury on his book The Bright Side, and I left with pages of notes and one question I still can't shake: when something goes badly for you, how do you explain it to yourself? Your answer to that is running more of your life than you'd like.

So we get into where optimism turns into something unhealthy, why waiting for the perfect outcome was never the assignment, and a thing that happened in London in 1858 that I genuinely had no idea about.

Your homework: take the last thing that went wrong for you and finish this sentence honestly. This happened because ___. If what you wrote is about you as a person rather than about the situation, DM me the word OPTIMIST on Instagram and tell me what you put. I read all of them.

And if that landed a little too well: when your default read on rejection is that it's information about your worth, you stop applying, stop asking, stop putting your name forward, and you call it being realistic. That's years of your life. One coaching session gets you a decision on the thing you've been circling for months; three gets you a full reset and a plan you'll actually stick to. Link below.

Book mentioned: The Bright Side by Sumit Paul-Choudhury. Published in the US as The Bright Side: How Optimists Change the World, and How You Can Be One.

Listen + subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts + YouTube.

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want to book a girl chat session? all the info is here - https://squ.re/45jq3ue

want to partner w/The Sage Sorority Podcast? let’s chat - [email protected]

have a question? send in an (anonymous) one for Q&A - https://tellonym.me/thesagesorority

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SUBSTACK// https://open.substack.com/pub/thesagesorority

INSTAGRAM// https://www.instagram.com/thesagesorority/

TIKTOK// https://www.tiktok.com/@thesagesorority

YOUTUBE// https://www.youtube.com/@TheSageSorority

Confidence gets talked about like a trait you either have or you don't. It's closer to a set of habits, and all of them are trainable.

Five tools in this one, that are actually helpful!

Mentioned: Demi Moore "Inside Out," Jessica Simpson "Open Book," Diane von Furstenberg "The Woman I Wanted to Be," Glynnis MacNicol "I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself," and Rihanna's walk at the 2012 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

If you over-explain after a compliment and talk faster the more senior the room gets, affirmations won't touch it, and left alone it shapes what you get offered. Coaching is where we fix the specific habit. One session gets you a decision. Three gets you a reset and a plan. Link below.

Pick the one situation where your confidence reliably disappears and DM me the word EMBODY on Instagram with it. I'll tell you which of the five to run first.

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want to book a girl chat session? all the info is here - https://squ.re/45jq3ue

want to partner w/The Sage Sorority Podcast? let’s chat - [email protected]

have a question? send in an (anonymous) one for Q&A - https://tellonym.me/thesagesorority

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SUBSTACK// https://open.substack.com/pub/thesagesorority

INSTAGRAM// https://www.instagram.com/thesagesorority/

TIKTOK// https://www.tiktok.com/@thesagesorority

YOUTUBE// https://www.youtube.com/@TheSageSorority

Dating in your 30s is a different marketplace to dating in your 20s, and most of us are still using the questions we asked at 24. In this episode I'm giving you the 16 questions I used across 50 first dates in 12 months, what each one is really testing for, and what it tells you when a grown man can't answer at all. Plus the six-week framework so you're not still guessing by date six, how to weave them in without it turning into a job interview, and the follow-up question for any man who spent four years with someone and never proposed.

FYI: the heartbreak line about how the light gets in is Leonard Cohen, from "Anthem" on his 1992 album The Future. It gets credited to Rumi constantly and it isn't his.

If you're six dates deep and still couldn't tell a friend one concrete thing about how he handles conflict, money or accountability, that's what coaching is for. One session gets you a decision on the man you're seeing now. Three gets you a full reset of how you date. Details below.

DM me the word QUESTIONS on Instagram @thesagesorority and tell me which of the 16 you'd be most nervous to answer yourself, lol!

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want to book a girl chat session? all the info is here - https://squ.re/45jq3ue

want to partner w/The Sage Sorority Podcast? let’s chat - [email protected]

have a question? send in an (anonymous) one for Q&A - https://tellonym.me/thesagesorority

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SUBSTACK// https://open.substack.com/pub/thesagesorority

INSTAGRAM// https://www.instagram.com/thesagesorority/

TIKTOK// https://www.tiktok.com/@thesagesorority

YOUTUBE// https://www.youtube.com/@TheSageSorority

This episode started with a question I threw out on TikTok. I asked women in their thirties and forties to tell me the one belief they let go of that changed everything, and I wasn't after the surface stuff about not caring what people think. I wanted the deeper, darker beliefs, the ones that quietly ran the show. The answers were good enough that I sorted them into three threads and unpacked each one.

The first is reclaiming the self, which is where the conversation about decentering men lives, including the eggs scene from Runaway Bride that explains it better than any theory could. The second is redefining power and boundaries, where I sit with why being called "graceful" can be code for making yourself small, and why "nice" and "kind" are not the same word doing the same job. The third goes spiritual and a little woo, into the idea that you get to author your own reality, plus the book that shifted how I think about money and abundance, Marianne Williamson's The Law of Divine Compensation: On Work, Money, and Miracles (2012), linked below. If you've felt yourself outgrowing the version of you that was built to be palatable, this one is for you.

Book mentioned: The Law of Divine Compensation: On Work, Money, and Miracles by Marianne Williamson (HarperOne, 2012)

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want to book a girl chat session? all the info is here - https://squ.re/45jq3ue

want to partner w/The Sage Sorority Podcast? let’s chat - [email protected]

have a question? send in an (anonymous) one for Q&A - https://tellonym.me/thesagesorority

💘

SUBSTACK// https://open.substack.com/pub/thesagesorority

INSTAGRAM// https://www.instagram.com/thesagesorority/

TIKTOK// https://www.tiktok.com/@thesagesorority

YOUTUBE// https://www.youtube.com/@TheSageSorority

subscribe to The Sage Sorority Podcast + leave a (cheeky) 5* rating 💘

apple: https://bit.ly/41ZNwO2

spotify: https://spoti.fi/4iVPAhn

youtube: http://bit.ly/45ei8wO

💘

catch up with, our founder + host, Shantel

instagram// https://www.instagram.com/shantelrousseau/

tiktok// https://www.tiktok.com/@shantelrousseau

Snapchat// https://snapchat.com/t/y4JGTR2O

youtube// https://www.youtube.com/@shantelrousseauonline

OUTFITS - ShopMy// https://shopmy.us/shantelrousseau

OUTFITS - LTK// https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shantelrousseau

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